I don't have TFM to read. I was just reading Frank's critique of IH, thought it was interesting, would have happily read cogent counterarguments, but Benoist stumbled in and started arguing about balance for some reason.

You don't understand that if are you told to pick two things from a list, and no more than two things, than TWO is your budget?

Suppose the list of Traits is (1) Mustache (2) Major NPC Enemy (3) "Big" physique +2 HP/level and +2 damage when you hit. You get to pick one (i.e. your "budget" is 1 Trait), then what's the point if you can still have a mustache without choosing it as a Trait? Or conversely, suppose we try to make sense of this by saying you must choose the Mustache trait in order to have a mustache. Then nobody will have a mustache. No matter how you answer the question, you're worse off than free-forming it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415606Suppose the list of Traits is (1) Mustache (2) Major NPC Enemy (3) "Big" physique +2 HP/level and +2 damage when you hit. You get to pick one (i.e. your "budget" is 1 Trait), then what's the point if you can still have a mustache without choosing it as a Trait? Or conversely, suppose we try to make sense of this by saying you must choose the Mustache trait in order to have a mustache. Then nobody will have a mustache. No matter how you answer the question, you're worse off than free-forming it.

Burning wheel does exactly this (somewhat to irritation) and also calls them Traits? Anyone remember off the top of their head which came out first?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;415587...And you are in Iron Heroes, Elliot. You're given two trait selections from a list. Each trait costs one of your selections. Seriously, RTFM.
What "budget" are you talking about? You pick two things off a list.

Is this some sort of joke? There is no difference at all between "pick two things off this list" and "you have two points to spend, things on this list cost 1 point each." For that matter, it's the same as if you had 20 points to spend and all selections cost between 7 and 10 points each. Seriously, this isn't even "these concepts are similar" but an actual "A == A" style definitional identity.

It's like you just stood up and shouted "That's not a dog, it's a domesticated canine! RTFM!" What are you actually trying to say or prove?

-Frank

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415606I was just reading Frank's critique of IH, thought it was interesting, would have happily read cogent counterarguments, but Benoist stumbled in and started arguing about balance for some reason.

Well it was a cogent argument, since Frank later argued the virtues of rules balance in game design. My reason for doing so was that it simply was an opportunity to restate my position on this: that rules balance as some sort of holy virtue of game design is HIGHLY overrated, and absolute rules balance is pointless (and unreachable), since plenty of other factors participate to the actual balance of a game as it is being played.

Quote from: Cole;415614Burning wheel does exactly this (somewhat to irritation) and also calls them Traits? Anyone remember off the top of their head which came out first?

No, but BW is an avowed Forge game--at least I think it was by the time Revised was written. Whether or not the Forge was directly responsible for this, the point I want to make is that BW, like a lot of Forge games, takes a strong stance against in-character P.O.V. and in favor of active story-construction and thespianism. While I'm not entirely favorable to those approaches, I think they inform a rules set which is designed to guide you into creating your PC in roughly the way that a GM would create an NPC. In other words, for the purpose of "portraying" a character to the rest of the group. And IIRC BW does follow this up by having mechanical bite for all Traits--whether it be immediate mechanics or simply ways to gain Artha if the rest of the group likes how you embody the Trait.

Quote from: Benoist;415619Well it was a cogent argument, since Frank later argued the virtues of rules balance in game design. My reason for doing so was that it simply was an opportunity to restate my position on this: that rules balance as some sort of holy virtue of game design is HIGHLY overrated, and absolute rules balance is pointless (and unreachable), since plenty of other factors participate to the actual balance of a game as it is being played.

That would be cogent & relevant if Frank had actually claimed that as the basis of his critique. I don't think he did--it certainly wasn't what I got out of it on reading before I came to your replies. But maybe you can show me where he did.

Quote from: RPGPundit;415343Yes, that's true. Portals and Planes was quite good.

RPGPundit

By no cooincidence, that's the exact book I had in my head when I said I wouldn't agree he's done nothing good.

I don't like 4e (but blame heinosoo more) and was not wowed by Iron Heroes. But i's still pulling stuff from P&P years later.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415627That would be cogent & relevant if Frank had actually claimed that as the basis of his critique. I don't think he did--it certainly wasn't what I got out of it on reading before I came to your replies. But maybe you can show me where he did.

Well that's what I got out of it, personally:

"Where did Iron Heroes go wrong? Everywhere! Every. Single. Part of that game system was awful. The entirety of Iron Heroes is an unbalanced, incomprehensible, tedious, clunky, and directionless mess. But like a beautiful fractal made out of feces, every single portion of it, no matter how small, is exactly as wrong and wholly unsalvageable as the complete product."

Later, if you look at the back-and-forth between Frank and me, you can see that Frank has a very different opinion about the balance of the rules as I do. He actually makes the point several times that this is the only way to measure a system's worth objectively. Right now, he's making the argument about lists and how a set number of choices equates point buy, which implies that all the options must be strictly balanced.

If you don't see how that is relevant to the greater picture of rules balance and its place in game design, that's great, you're free to dismiss it. But I do think it's totally relevant, personally.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415626No, but BW is an avowed Forge game--at least I think it was by the time Revised was written. Whether or not the Forge was directly responsible for this, the point I want to make is that BW, like a lot of Forge games, takes a strong stance against in-character P.O.V. and in favor of active story-construction and thespianism. While I'm not entirely favorable to those approaches, I think they inform a rules set which is designed to guide you into creating your PC in roughly the way that a GM would create an NPC. In other words, for the purpose of "portraying" a character to the rest of the group. And IIRC BW does follow this up by having mechanical bite for all Traits--whether it be immediate mechanics or simply ways to gain Artha if the rest of the group likes how you embody the Trait.

Minor off-topic point I'm confused about, hopefully it won't be too thread-derailing, but how can you (the big "you", not the Eliot specifically "you") promote "thespianism" without also promoting "in-character POV"? Isn't "thespianism" acting, which seems to me like playing a character from that character's POV?

Benoist, you just quoted me saying that unbalance was one of the five bad things about Iron Heroes Why do you keep tilting at windmills to argue against the idea that balance or unbalance is all that matters? No one on this thread has made the argument you keep railing against. Kindly shut the fuck up. Seriously, you're acting like America.

-Frank

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415626No, but BW is an avowed Forge game--at least I think it was by the time Revised was written. Whether or not the Forge was directly responsible for this, the point I want to make is that BW, like a lot of Forge games, takes a strong stance against in-character P.O.V. and in favor of active story-construction and thespianism. While I'm not entirely favorable to those approaches, I think they inform a rules set which is designed to guide you into creating your PC in roughly the way that a GM would create an NPC. In other words, for the purpose of "portraying" a character to the rest of the group. And IIRC BW does follow this up by having mechanical bite for all Traits--whether it be immediate mechanics or simply ways to gain Artha if the rest of the group likes how you embody the Trait.

True, but not, in my opinion, preventing it from being irritating

I'm just wondering if it were a plausible influence on IH's approach to traits. One of my annoyances with IH (and many games) is far less its pursuit of "balance," but the playability clusterfuck generated in clumsily pursuing it.

Compare Burning Wheel, where a "guerilla approach" to characterization goals by equating disparate categories of stuff - extremely mechanically powerful traits, penalties, "Every Bartender is a Good Listener!" chuckles - muddles and overcomplicates the process. You have to flip back and forth 6 times to figure out whether your required trait does something or nothing to develop a character, which Teaches a Valuable Lesson In An Intuitive Way About Play Goals etc  but is a giant pain in the ass that greatly outbalances the didactic benefits of refusing to denote which is which in clear fashion.

I.E. in both cases being so in love with game DESIGN as to impede playability. I like BW and don't dislike Iron Heroes but I think both games were damaged in a similar way by the writer having a hardon for the "making a game" process that outstrips their interest in the results.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;415639Benoist, you just quoted me saying that unbalance was one of the five bad things about Iron Heroes Why do you keep tilting at windmills to argue against the idea that balance or unbalance is all that matters? No one on this thread has made the argument you keep railing against. Kindly shut the fuck up. Seriously, you're acting like America.

-Frank

Kindly direct this plea to shut the fuck up to Elliot, who keeps repeating my point wasn't relevant.

Quote from: Sigmund;415634Minor off-topic point I'm confused about, hopefully it won't be too thread-derailing, but how can you (the big "you", not the Eliot specifically "you") promote "thespianism" without also promoting "in-character POV"? Isn't "thespianism" acting, which seems to me like playing a character from that character's POV?

If thespanism is acting, this spins the question about a mile off the RPG planet into the frigid hell-world of peformance theory. This could be its own thread, but I would suspect it would be a contentions and ball-injurious one.

Quote from: Benoist;415619Well it was a cogent argument, since Frank later argued the virtues of rules balance in game design. My reason for doing so was that it simply was an opportunity to restate my position on this: that rules balance as some sort of holy virtue of game design is HIGHLY overrated, and absolute rules balance is pointless (and unreachable), since plenty of other factors participate to the actual balance of a game as it is being played.

Um, no.  Here's a brief recap of how this thread has progressed:

Frank said the design of IH was bad and gave many, many examples backing up his assertion.

Then you came in and said the rules don't matter because the game was based on cool ideas and you had fun with it despite the poorly-designed system.

Then Frank and I and others laughed at you for suggesting the rules of a RPG don't really matter (I'm still not sure exactly what you do value from your RPG books - do you just want a collection of cool ideas regardless of how well they are implemented?)

Your whole "balance" argument came after that, when you used it as a strawman to attack Frank, me, and anyone else who disagreed with you - basically saying all we cared about was "balance uber alles" despite none of us ever having said anything close to that.

Then when Frank and others kept pointing it out, you made a really bad argument about how we all must have been talking about "balance" because that is obviously the only point of wanting rules that are good.

When people started arguing with that point, pointing out that all games are based on a generic concept of balanced play, then pseudo came in and declared he wanted to be mayor of crazytown instead, insisting that choosing a discrete number of items off of a list is somehow not at all the same as purchasing options with costs from a pool of points, despite being exactly the same thing.

QuoteBut here's where he lost me: the Knight. His first big project for WotC. And... it sucks. Its abilities don't synergize, the code doesn't make any sense, and the central ability is a very under-explained MMO-style "hate grabbing" mechanic. It is, in short, unfinished.

Could you elaborate a bit on that. I enjoyed that class immensely. (Like all classes from PHB2.) For reference, here it is.

The code certainly makes sense to me. It even explains what it's all about beforehand. I would have explicitely included poison, but other than that, I see nothing wrong with it.

As for class abilities that do not synergize, which one are you talking about? Armor mastery (medium) probably wouldn't come into play that much, but then again, one might find a mithril armor early on. Not that many classes have good synergy in their abilities.

Finally, the challenge seems rather clear as well. "Take on someone your size!" What's not to get? It even ends when an ally interferes.