Quote from: Shasarak on November 24, 2020, 03:50:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 24, 2020, 03:48:20 PM
Do you need help moving those goalposts? I have a wheelbarrow.

You do have a wheel barrow.

And it is very nice one that you can use to move all of that 2e bloat.

Well, except for the bloat that you never brought, of course we can not move that.

OK Darrin.

Quote from: rytrasmi on November 24, 2020, 09:36:12 AM
That list Shasarak posted makes me think: Perhaps there's some critical mass of books that cause a system to explode into popularity? Below that mass, people can easily leave your system because they haven't "invested" the money in the books and the time studying them. Think of all the single-book OSR games. Wanna switch systems? No big deal. Once you reach critical mass, you lock people in because they have a shelf full of literature they've spent months or years studying. They are heavily invested in the system and are customers for life. And if you have enough of those core people, their gravity creates a scene that attracts new players, in fact, new players have to expend effort to avoid being pulled in. And then it all explodes and pretty soon you can't print new books fast enough to fuel the orgy.

And if you're really clever, you don't worry about incomplete books, in fact you encourage them, because you can patch over the holes in a new book and sell two books where one would have sufficed. Each incomplete book leaves a hook for the next one. Keep doing that and you are now selling a library of inter-meshed gears and cogs and your customers feel the need to buy each one lest they get detached from the machine. And finally, you know when you've won because Wall Street financial analysts are opining on your pretend elf game and your customer base (you don't call them players or GMs anymore) willingly gobbles up every shiny bobble of rehashed content that you shit out.

Except most of the companies that followed that business model are now gone.

Never thought I would see the "I only got the PHB" defense.

Sad

Quote from: TJS on November 24, 2020, 04:36:53 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on November 24, 2020, 09:36:12 AM
That list Shasarak posted makes me think: Perhaps there's some critical mass of books that cause a system to explode into popularity? Below that mass, people can easily leave your system because they haven't "invested" the money in the books and the time studying them. Think of all the single-book OSR games. Wanna switch systems? No big deal. Once you reach critical mass, you lock people in because they have a shelf full of literature they've spent months or years studying. They are heavily invested in the system and are customers for life. And if you have enough of those core people, their gravity creates a scene that attracts new players, in fact, new players have to expend effort to avoid being pulled in. And then it all explodes and pretty soon you can't print new books fast enough to fuel the orgy.

And if you're really clever, you don't worry about incomplete books, in fact you encourage them, because you can patch over the holes in a new book and sell two books where one would have sufficed. Each incomplete book leaves a hook for the next one. Keep doing that and you are now selling a library of inter-meshed gears and cogs and your customers feel the need to buy each one lest they get detached from the machine. And finally, you know when you've won because Wall Street financial analysts are opining on your pretend elf game and your customer base (you don't call them players or GMs anymore) willingly gobbles up every shiny bobble of rehashed content that you shit out.

Except most of the companies that followed that business model are now gone.

I do wonder if that model was more advantageous when nearly all sales were via FLGSs due to how the store itself would purchase product. I could see many FLGSs being less likely to reorder splats after they initially sold, and I do know that the existence of the splats on the shelf next to the core books can help sell the core books. So, to keep there being secondary books on the shelf they needed to have a consistent stream of new splats for FLGSs to order and fill their shelves with.

On the other hand, for online marketplaces, even a few splat books will always be showing up next to the core book, while having scores and scores showing may even be a negative to selling the core books to new plays due to the intimidation factor, whereas the FLGS would likely never had more than a dozen or so different splats at any one time.

(Note: Other than the note about splats' existence on the shelf helping to sell the core books - the rest of the above is pure speculation on my part.)

Quote from: HappyDaze on November 24, 2020, 09:03:43 AMIf we're going to include physical properties of the books under bad design, then let's add in:
Shitty bindings.
Really small and/or narrow print.
Light print on dark backgrounds.
Huge margins that waste space.
Narrow margins where the text is lost in the spine.
Overuse of text wrapped around oddly shaped art.
Single-column walls of text.

I agree with all of those as negatives but suggest they should probably be called "poor production values" rather than "poor design". Bad game design should be limited to games that would be difficult to play for intended result regardless of how good they looked.

One thing that, while not technically "bad" per se, has come to aggravate me to no end is when game scores aren't designed around the "WYSIWIG" principle, i.e. What You See Is What You Get -- the numbers you see on a character or other game entity should be the ones you actually use in play, with as little translation, recalculation or table reference as possible. This is one of the reasons I prefer GURPS to HERO in the final analysis: in GURPS, you roll 3d6 against your attribute number right as it reads, while in HERO you have to roll vs. (9 + STAT/5) and a roll against 15 STR actually fails on 13 or higher.  I freely admit the apparent pettiness of this but it really does bug me.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 24, 2020, 05:11:21 PM

Quote from: TJS on November 24, 2020, 04:36:53 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on November 24, 2020, 09:36:12 AM
That list Shasarak posted makes me think: Perhaps there's some critical mass of books that cause a system to explode into popularity? Below that mass, people can easily leave your system because they haven't "invested" the money in the books and the time studying them. Think of all the single-book OSR games. Wanna switch systems? No big deal. Once you reach critical mass, you lock people in because they have a shelf full of literature they've spent months or years studying. They are heavily invested in the system and are customers for life. And if you have enough of those core people, their gravity creates a scene that attracts new players, in fact, new players have to expend effort to avoid being pulled in. And then it all explodes and pretty soon you can't print new books fast enough to fuel the orgy.

And if you're really clever, you don't worry about incomplete books, in fact you encourage them, because you can patch over the holes in a new book and sell two books where one would have sufficed. Each incomplete book leaves a hook for the next one. Keep doing that and you are now selling a library of inter-meshed gears and cogs and your customers feel the need to buy each one lest they get detached from the machine. And finally, you know when you've won because Wall Street financial analysts are opining on your pretend elf game and your customer base (you don't call them players or GMs anymore) willingly gobbles up every shiny bobble of rehashed content that you shit out.

Except most of the companies that followed that business model are now gone.

I do wonder if that model was more advantageous when nearly all sales were via FLGSs due to how the store itself would purchase product. I could see many FLGSs being less likely to reorder splats after they initially sold, and I do know that the existence of the splats on the shelf next to the core books can help sell the core books. So, to keep there being secondary books on the shelf they needed to have a consistent stream of new splats for FLGSs to order and fill their shelves with.

On the other hand, for online marketplaces, even a few splat books will always be showing up next to the core book, while having scores and scores showing may even be a negative to selling the core books to new plays due to the intimidation factor, whereas the FLGS would likely never had more than a dozen or so different splats at any one time.

(Note: Other than the note about splats' existence on the shelf helping to sell the core books - the rest of the above is pure speculation on my part.)

Could be.  But I think what's become clear is that over the long term having things like adventure paths to sell keeps a game system looking supported and works better.  You may possibly sell less over the short term, as you're not selling to players, but over the longer term it creates attention and creates a shared experience.

Paizo seemed to have discovered this first (or rediscovered it) but WOTC have capitalised on it.  It may not be the most exciting to those of us who don't use adventure paths but it seems to work.

I think it has become clear now that for a long time one of the biggest barriers to growing the hobby was lack of confidence on the part of GMs.  Having product on the shelf that can be used to actually solve that problem seems to be key.  It's hard to know what percentage of historical products were sold on a purely aspirational basis but it has to have been a lot (and that market has to be limited - everyone's probably selling to the same small group of customers).

My guess is that the vast majority of people who have come into the hobby through 5E have come in through playing through those WOTC campaigns.  Just take a look at Roll20 for example and you see that most of the 5E games are using one of the adventures paths.

I get frustrated at dice pools when the system isn't rules heavy. Because normally said system has me care about the number of successes the pool rolls, but some offer no rules for it. Don't tell me to "wing-it" if more successes do more.

Of course The Burning Wheel is a storygame that also loves its simulationst bits. But it at least gives sample obstacle ratings for its hundreds of skills, that's more than even GURPS does.

Players like dice pools because its fun to roll lots of dice.
But I do understand the issues regarding probabilities and simulation.
To which, I must say that its really fun to roll lots of dice!

...as long as everyone has a dice tray.

Quote from: David Johansen on November 22, 2020, 06:50:36 PMTreating things that exist in the setting as game objects.

Please explain this.

Quote from: Itachi on November 22, 2020, 10:48:03 PMI have only two criteria for design:

1. Does the game do what the author intends/what it says on the tin? If yes, it's good design.

2. Does it do it with as much economy of rules/ittle complexity as possible for that goal? If so, it's excellent design.

Agreed.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 23, 2020, 12:13:16 AMBut I think that the target of every RPG system should be the newbie at the default. Those are the people in most need of being able to understand these books.

I'm unsure about that. In the age of niche RPG markets (like DriveThru or Kickstarter), I don't think those niche publishers have the same concern as the mass market publishers. It seems that games for "advanced" players could skip the "how to roleplay" section, or at least, deeply minimize that section.

Quote from: RandyB on November 24, 2020, 10:24:31 AMSans-serif fonts (e.g. Arial) are easier to read on a screen. Serif fonts (e.g. Times New Roman) are easier to read in print.

Is there any data about this? I've always found Arial very easy to read in print.

Quote from: Itachi on November 23, 2020, 08:04:00 PM

Quote from: Innocent Smith on November 23, 2020, 02:58:29 PM
I think the biggest red flag outside of game mechanics is when your pitch for your game is all the things you hate about D&D.

What game did this?

I suspect Runequest 1st edition authors would have at least thought about that, if not written.

Riddle of Steel.

Other than personal opinion, what is the objective differences between Bloat vs. Complexity vs. Options in game design?

For me, the Thief class is an unnecessary addition to OD&D that alters gameplay in negative ways. This was a revelation to me when I played Swords & Wizardry: White Box and its stuck with me and my players.

Quote from: TJS on November 24, 2020, 07:07:51 PM
Could be.  But I think what's become clear is that over the long term having things like adventure paths to sell keeps a game system looking supported and works better.  You may possibly sell less over the short term, as you're not selling to players, but over the longer term it creates attention and creates a shared experience.

Paizo seemed to have discovered this first (or rediscovered it) but WOTC have capitalised on it.  It may not be the most exciting to those of us who don't use adventure paths but it seems to work.

I think it has become clear now that for a long time one of the biggest barriers to growing the hobby was lack of confidence on the part of GMs.  Having product on the shelf that can be used to actually solve that problem seems to be key.  It's hard to know what percentage of historical products were sold on a purely aspirational basis but it has to have been a lot (and that market has to be limited - everyone's probably selling to the same small group of customers).

My guess is that the vast majority of people who have come into the hobby through 5E have come in through playing through those WOTC campaigns.  Just take a look at Roll20 for example and you see that most of the 5E games are using one of the adventures paths.

Oh definitely! I know that I simply don't have time to prep like I did back in college, and a good module makes my actually running a session much more viable.

I think one issue is that the majority of modules (especially for indie TTRPGs) do not themselves sell especially well. However, if they even break even, a publisher should consider them a success, as having (good) modules for an indie TTRPG acts something like a marketing budget, as if someone is able to run a session or three for their gaming group successfully, the rest of their table is far more likely to buy into the core rules.

That, and it's nearly always a good thing to run the first session in a new system using a module. Not only does it act as training wheels, but it (should) also help to show you how the designer(s) really intended it to be run, such as the pacing and the % of combat vs social etc.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on November 24, 2020, 07:42:31 PM

Quote from: Itachi on November 23, 2020, 08:04:00 PM

Quote from: Innocent Smith on November 23, 2020, 02:58:29 PM
I think the biggest red flag outside of game mechanics is when your pitch for your game is all the things you hate about D&D.

What game did this?

Riddle of Steel.

Biased response here from a terminal TROS fanboy, but I'll point out that from a marketing standpoint there is value in differentiating yourself from competitors. It can be done deftly or clumsily -- and enough people have found TROS's promo material annoying this way that it's probably on the clumsy side -- but it's not a bad idea to point out what one brings to the table that the other guys don't.  (Even the Palladium System pointed out its differences from D&D when Siembieda thought them relevant, e.g. in his alignment system.)

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 24, 2020, 07:45:46 PM
Other than personal opinion, what is the objective differences between Bloat vs. Complexity vs. Options in game design?

I think Torque2100 above hit on the best explanation for this: It depends on how non-modular and interrelated the elements are, or become, such that using one requires using a dozen others for best effect and so on. Something that's truly "optional" should be as easily plugged in, or unplugged, as possible, and as independent as possible.

Bloat is when the supposed "options" become indispensable due to working themselves into official products, or offering unbalanced advantages that can't be forgone; complexity is when these options relate to each other as well as the main product in ways that require increased time investment to optimize.

(That in itself may not be a bad thing; the whole point of one approach to gaming is to reward increased time spent on optimizing multiple element relationships. What is bad design is when a game tries too hard to serve both the high-time and low-time investor audience base and fails, or when it favours one over the other without being clear about it.)

Checking my books, what I can see is that in 2E most of the base setting material (i.e. Campaign Settings/Main books) were pretty rules heavy (depending on how much the setting deviated from the standard assumed Greyhawk), but the vast majority of books expanding the setting didn't focus that much on rules. You will occasionally get a couple pages here and there.

In 3E, I can see books where fully half of the "setting" book is composed of Prestige Classes and Feats.

There's a huge difference between book bloat (which 2E certainly suffered from) and rules bloat.

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 24, 2020, 07:45:46 PM
Other than personal opinion, what is the objective differences between Bloat vs. Complexity vs. Options in game design?

For me, the Thief class is an unnecessary addition to OD&D that alters gameplay in negative ways. This was a revelation to me when I played Swords & Wizardry: White Box and its stuck with me and my players.

For bloat, I don't think there can be an objective difference, other than descriptive:  That is, bloat is complexity and/or options that are notably "unnecessary" and also carries with it a connotation of reduced quality due to the sheer spewing of material.  By my criteria, the thief isn't bloat, because even those that consider it unnecessary or poorly constructed or even counter-productive can see how plenty of others find a use for it.   It's difficult for a 4th option to ever be "bloat".  It might be bad for other reasons, but bloat isn't one of them.

Whereas, the 2E cleric specialties and the 3E prestige classes and 3E feats and 4E powers will indicate bloat for most observers.  It's not that they are all bad--quite the contrary.  It's more that there is no way the game designers can write that many of any something and not have some of it be bad. 

I've said before that one of WotC's biggest editorial problem is that they don't cull sufficiently.  All of their games would be better (even 5E) if they simply cut out their weakest or most irrelevant material.  It's not even a case of having particular options or not.  I like having a ranger class, for example, in my D&D, but 5E would be a better game if it didn't have the original ranger in it.