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Author Topic: How important are elements of RPG systems?  (Read 1130 times)

Pat
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Re: How important are elements of RPG systems?
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2021, 11:50:01 AM »

For example, I really do appreciate the way Palladium’s Robotech lists out all the trivial equipment of the mecha; the precise sensors, air speed at differing altitudes, weapon calibers, parts manufacturers.

None of these have ANY mechanical effect in the system at all, but knowing you’ve got an IR camera or external audio pickup... or that your fighter has better relative airspeed than your opponent at a certain altitude (and not at others)... or that your laser has variable wattage (I work with a laser engraver, different intensities and focal distances can be the difference between vaporizing organic compounds for a clean cut or setting it on fire or barely warming the surface) can all come into play as part of roleplaying and unconventional problem solving.
I'm not familiar with Palladium, but I 100% agree on the basic principle. There's a tendency in many RPGs to oversystematize, and to try to define everything in terms of game stats like powers or abilities, when it's often much simpler, clearer, and more precise to just say something like "a short wave radio with a 500 km range".

I'd say the key is to keep them obviously separate from the crunch. Having that stuff as fluff is cool - but it shouldn't clutter up the books when you're looking for a specific mechanic.
Knowing the precise range and nature of a sensor suite is crunch, and should have a direct effect on the game. Not only does is provide a specific limit, but since it references something that exists in real life (in this case, short wave radio), there are innumerable sources that can be used by the GM to come up with complications, by the players to come up with creative solutions, or otherwise to adjudicate in-game situations, like attempts at interference or how it's affected during a magnetic storm. The point is some kinds of crunch are more effectively presented using simple, real world descriptions instead of as game mechanics.

Eirikrautha

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Re: How important are elements of RPG systems?
« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2021, 02:56:54 PM »

For example, I really do appreciate the way Palladium’s Robotech lists out all the trivial equipment of the mecha; the precise sensors, air speed at differing altitudes, weapon calibers, parts manufacturers.

None of these have ANY mechanical effect in the system at all, but knowing you’ve got an IR camera or external audio pickup... or that your fighter has better relative airspeed than your opponent at a certain altitude (and not at others)... or that your laser has variable wattage (I work with a laser engraver, different intensities and focal distances can be the difference between vaporizing organic compounds for a clean cut or setting it on fire or barely warming the surface) can all come into play as part of roleplaying and unconventional problem solving.
I'm not familiar with Palladium, but I 100% agree on the basic principle. There's a tendency in many RPGs to oversystematize, and to try to define everything in terms of game stats like powers or abilities, when it's often much simpler, clearer, and more precise to just say something like "a short wave radio with a 500 km range".

I'd say the key is to keep them obviously separate from the crunch. Having that stuff as fluff is cool - but it shouldn't clutter up the books when you're looking for a specific mechanic.
Knowing the precise range and nature of a sensor suite is crunch, and should have a direct effect on the game. Not only does is provide a specific limit, but since it references something that exists in real life (in this case, short wave radio), there are innumerable sources that can be used by the GM to come up with complications, by the players to come up with creative solutions, or otherwise to adjudicate in-game situations, like attempts at interference or how it's affected during a magnetic storm. The point is some kinds of crunch are more effectively presented using simple, real world descriptions instead of as game mechanics.
THIS!!!!!

The desire to reduce every interaction in an RPG to a "mechanic" is incomprehensible to me.  At that point, you are playing a boardgame or computer game, just with an enslaved human to create new content for you.  The whole point of "mechanics" should be to either to simplify interactions that are both needlessly complex and do not need to be dealt with in detail (or might be less fun to do so) or to codify a consistent method of adjudicating an simple relationship that will come up over and over during play.  Man, the expectations of what an RPG actually does has changed dramatically in the last 50 years...