I've been out of reach of good local game stores for years now, but a recent foray into civilization allowed me to pick up a bunch of new stuff... and while I have thoughts about the current state of the gaming industry (too much reliance on licensed 'engines' and generally poor design all around, papered over with culture war allegiances or great art, or both), what I'd like to comment on, and solicit commentary on, is the Red Flags of a bad game. I'm sure people have their own things they notice first when evaluating a new game.
Dice pools; This isn't a deal breaker for me, more a nuisance, but it tells me that the focus of the designer isn't on making a sturdy 'engine' to run the game but on just slapping some shit out there to bolster his amazing setting (or what have you). To me Dice Pool games show a distinct lack of interest in emulating a world, or to grudgingly use highly fraught language, an utter disinterest in 'simulation', which is something I tend to value highly. Obviously, using an existing 'engine', such as White Wolf's or the now very popular Mutant Year Zero engine may reflect a loyalty to a system more than an unwillingness to engage in the setting as simulation, and old, legacy Dice Pool systems (such as Shadowrun) don't necessarily reflect that ideal, as the limitations of the mechanic weren't fully known when they were designed.
Katamari Damancy Talents: This seems to be the predominant design philosophy of the modern game, and I can blame Savage Worlds for it, I suspect. I refer, of course, to the idea that 'Talents' under whatever name you give them, are the primary mechanism of character growth, and you just keep sticking on more talents until you are a star. Among other problems, these games, with their never ending quest for long lists of talents, inevitably wind up making things like... aiming a gun... into a talent that presumably requires lots of experience (level equivalents!) to master. I can show you thirty seconds of Old Yeller, where a ten year old boy demonstrates 'Aiming', and certainly he hasn't fought a hundred orcs to master that shit. That's not the only problem. At low levels, you can actually wind up with deeply incomplete characters who lack basic competencies, simply because they don't have enough talents to even do 'their job', as defined by the game (See again: Old Yeller), and at high levels have so many talents that it becomes easier to start a new campaign than keep track of every exceptional 'thing' that they've learned along the way, most of which will be minor nuisance buffs that may often be forgotten in the kludge of having to remember (and find on a character sheet that inevitably only has room for ten or so Talents, yet might have to accomdate fifty or more in a decently long campaign), that you have a +2 to Endure when walking more than a mile. Um.. yay?
Meta-Tech/Vidya Gaem Loot: The grand daddy of all RPGs, despite levelling Heros to the point where tossing planets becomes a mathematical possibility, never fucked this one up (though some of their decendents did, and recently too!). A sharp pointy thing is a sharp pointy thing, no matter what you make it out of. At the end of the day, while their are real and important reasons to use steel over bronze, the affect on a person stabbed by such a sword or knife, (or clubbed by a mace made of stone even...) is pretty much the same regardless of what metal you make it out of. Technology, to be blunt, is not something that 'levels'. Starfinder is not hte first game I've seen, nor Witcher even (though that one is close...) to use video game leveled weapons as a real feature of the setting, but it is ridiculously bad. It is STUPID, and frankly, I wasn't that impressed by the mechanic in Video Games either. Now note, I am aware that magic weapons are a thing, and they tread up to the border of this ridiculousness, but what did I just call them? That's right: Magic. Star-finder and the Witcher, and any other games I am currently forgetting or are blessedly ignorant of, are literally declaring that a norse battle ax is a tier leveled upgrade from a francisca, and That.Is.Just.Stupid. A fundamental failure to understand technology indicates the game is designed by a moron and might well be unplayable as written because clearly only stupid people would write such nonsense. If I had an earlier example of this entry (I don't, but if I did) it would probably be the more primitive and shockingly common 'One Gun to Rule them All', where a piece of equipment in any given catagory is clearly better than all the other entries, to the point where you wonder why anyone bothered listing all the vastly inferior equipment at all (or alternatively, said item costs so damn much you could buy a small army to do your adventuring for you if you could afford one, utterly making a mockery of hte notion of economics...)
I'm sure I have others, but frankly, reminding myself of these horrors is raising my blood pressure... :P
Poor editing and indexing. If it takes me an extended period to nail down a specific rule in your book, chances are good your game system sucks.
Overcomplication. Two words, folks: Phoenix Command. There's a reason why the best games have relatively simple mechanics at heart.
When the core example of your licensed property can't be recreated with the core of your game: FFG's Star Wars game took three core books (each released a year apart) to let us play a pair of smugglers, a Force-sensitive farmboy, and an up-and-coming Rebel leader all joined together to oppose the Empire.
Spike's stuff is essentially levelling. If you take the concept of levelling a character - so that a 3rd level character fights as well as 3 men, or whatever - then it's natural to apply that concept to skills (or talents, or feats, or whatever they're called - the name changes, the concept is the same) and to gear.
Players enjoy two things: having an adventure, and levelling up. Many are content with just one of these. Computer games are not as good at offering an adventure as DMs are, because computers are stupid. Thus the Insurmountable Three Foot Wall Problem and the like. But computers deal with numbers, and levelling is a change of numbers. And there do exist players who are content to ignore all adventures and just level up. If they find an exploit in a computer or tabletop game which allows them to do some trivial repetitive task and make the numbers on their character sheet go up, they will happily spend hours "grinding" making it all change.
It's natural for tabletop game designers to aim for this target market, especially if they're an age where their first exposure to games is computer games. They think the repetitive grinding to level up is just normal. The problem is offering a challenge to the levelled-up character. And so computer games have a lot of Schroedinger's foes - you don't know their level until you enter their cell and they encounter you, and their level is always a fixed proportion of yours. And so we get 88th level bandits and 3rd level dragons, depending on when you meet them. On the tabletop this was called Challenge Rating. All part of "game balance", you see.
The issue, then, is that computers are dumb, and people are copying dumb. "Who is more foolish?" asked Obi Wan Kenobi, "the fool, or the fool who follows the fool?"
Anything borrowed from computer games is generally a bad sign, such as leveled weapons, like you say.
Mechanics that are too clever by half. This would include dice pools. If you have a low roll session, like down time or just role play, what's the point of a clever mechanic to sort a couple of random events? If you have a roll heavy session, like a couple of combats, the mechanic gets in the way. We need to introduce an element of chance, that's it. We don't need to roll 10 dice for that. Plus, a lot of mechanics that are based on clever statistics fail to recognize that the idea of statistics is only valid for large number of samples (n=100). I like rolling dice, but not that much.
Prerequisite lore. I love learning lore but I'd much prefer to learn it during play. I'll read your rule book and get the basics of the lore, but I don't want to have to read a novel just to run a game and I don't want to ask my players to read anything. It's a game and it should be played, not read. Give us small doses and let our imagination fill in the rest.
Treating things that exist in the setting as game objects.
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 22, 2020, 06:08:54 PM
Anything borrowed from computer games is generally a bad sign, such as leveled weapons, like you say.
Leveled weapons were a thing before computer games.
One System To Rule Them All: The idea that you only need one game system to emulate a bunch of different genres. Sometimes you need a different set of rules to emulate a different genre best.
I'll put down the two that are top of mind for me.
1. I'm big on a game's fluff & crunch meshing well, so a big one for me is when the game's mechanics don't reflect the world much if at all. It wrecks verisimilitude for me, which is one reason I'm not a fan of setting generic systems - they never quite mesh with the setting.
2. I hate it when a mechanic spotlights a single character for an extended period of time and the rest of the players might as well go off and make sandwiches or something. IMO, a mechanic should either include everyone (even if some are inferior at it - like the tech/mechanic character barely pulling their weight in a fight - but they're still there popping off shots and trying to stay alive) or it should be done quickly. Probably the most blatant examples are the hacking minigames in many systems like Shadowrun & Cyberpunk, or games with starships where only 1-2 PCs are doing anything but a brainless skill check each round, though I'm sure that there are plenty of other examples.
(In the space western system I'm working on I addressed these two specifically hence my thinking of them off the top of my head. Hacking is a single risk/reward choice followed by a single roll, while starship combat is mostly done the pilot with maybe the gunners helping, but it's designed so that boarding the enemy ship is the alpha tactic for the PCs and the starship combat itself is over in 5-8 minutes and the action gets back to the infantry/mecha level ASAP.)
Honestly I feel I've done poorly in recent posts in getting my points across, but I'm loving all the comments you guys are putting out, so its worth it.
Quote from: jeff37923 on November 22, 2020, 07:47:09 PM
One System To Rule Them All: The idea that you only need one game system to emulate a bunch of different genres. Sometimes you need a different set of rules to emulate a different genre best.
No, you don't really need different systems. However, it's OK to want more than the minimum that we need and I do agree that some systems are better suited to certain genres.
One of my pet peeves: The publishers' pet NPCs are superior to anything the players can generate or attain through play. (FASATrek, I'm looking at *you*.)
Quote from: Spike on November 22, 2020, 02:00:13 PM
Star-finder and the Witcher, and any other games I am currently forgetting or are blessedly ignorant of, are literally declaring that a norse battle ax is a tier leveled upgrade from a francisca, and That.Is.Just.Stupid.
I had a similar response when I first read the rules for Starfinder.
But I find, in play, it's not very noticeable. When you're on the cusp of getting a better laser gun, 2d4 isn't that much crazier than 1d4. By they time you've mad it to an 8d4 laser pistol, you've gone through all the "tiers" one by one instead of jumping from 1d4 to 8d4.
In practice, I find it no dumber than the idea of levels and stacking HP.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on November 22, 2020, 09:29:48 PM
Quote from: Spike on November 22, 2020, 02:00:13 PM
Star-finder and the Witcher, and any other games I am currently forgetting or are blessedly ignorant of, are literally declaring that a norse battle ax is a tier leveled upgrade from a francisca, and That.Is.Just.Stupid.
I had a similar response when I first read the rules for Starfinder.
But I find, in play, it's not very noticeable. When you're on the cusp of getting a better laser gun, 2d4 isn't that much crazier than 1d4. By they time you've mad it to an 8d4 laser pistol, you've gone through all the "tiers" one by one instead of jumping from 1d4 to 8d4.
In practice, I find it no dumber than the idea of levels and stacking HP.
Well, if you're going for simulation, levels get tossed out, too. It works well in non-heroic games designed for it. You might get better armor and weapons, and your skills increase, but you're always just a couple of solid hits away from death. I find in leveling games, I much prefer the hardscrabble early levels anyway, when it really matters if you stumble on some great gear. It's a matter of preference and not bad design, either way.
Designers adding complication for the sake of complication. Instead of any real benefit to the game.
This is a complaint from my Hero System days. Mid-4th Edition. When Steve Long did his Ultimate series of books that added nothing but further complexity to the game system.
And it got worse in 5th Edition Hero. Once he and his partners bought the company.
I find it curious these days that Champions 4th Edition is coming back into physical print. That 4th edition is what the people want. Instead of 5th, 5th Revised, or even 6th.
I had a player back in the day with internet access that wanted me to bring Steve Long's (as of that time) unprinted Lightning Reflexes rules into the campaign I was running at the local comic book shop. I told him no. Because I didn't want extra complication added to an already more than a complex game system for him to abuse. He was insistent to the point of holding up the entire group over his tantrum over not getting his way. And I had to have that player forcibly ejected from the game group because of his bullying and refusing to take no for an answer from the GM.
That particular player did not typically last more than a month in any game group before he started causing major problems. So this wasn't a "me thing", This was a case of a player so obnoxious that he never lasted in any game group he was a part of for very long.
I have a dozen stories about this one player alone shitting on everybody else's fun. He was that exasperating.
Ehhh, I agree with most of the posts here, but disagree on dice pools. I actually don't play dice pool games often, but there is a statistical and mechanical difference between dice pools and straight rolls that suits some flavors of games better than others. I find dice pools less "swingy" than many straight roll mechanics, which suits more heroic games. The idea that they are less "simulationist" is primarily one of interpretation, as D&D (any edition) is so far from a simulation as to make the accusation laughable. What differentiates them is more the granularity of the approximation. A percentile system might try to make the player's odds variable by adding bunches of modifiers based on positioning, tactics, etc., but the dice roll is no more a simulation than the less granular dice pool that assumes those variables are built into the dice variation. In the end, both are still going to result in a hit or miss.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 22, 2020, 10:05:13 PM
Ehhh, I agree with most of the posts here, but disagree on dice pools. I actually don't play dice pool games often, but there is a statistical and mechanical difference between dice pools and straight rolls that suits some flavors of games better than others. I find dice pools less "swingy" than many straight roll mechanics, which suits more heroic games. The idea that they are less "simulationist" is primarily one of interpretation, as D&D (any edition) is so far from a simulation as to make the accusation laughable. What differentiates them is more the granularity of the approximation. A percentile system might try to make the player's odds variable by adding bunches of modifiers based on positioning, tactics, etc., but the dice roll is no more a simulation than the less granular dice pool that assumes those variables are built into the dice variation. In the end, both are still going to result in a hit or miss.
As it happens I generally only ever play D&D or related games out of necessity, by default if you will, because that is what EVEYONE in gaming knows. Left to my own devices I'd probably have only ever played Champions (4e, since Darrin Kelley brought it up, I have my 4.2 book that used to have a disc for the character gen program in the back cover...) and GURPS.
Your closing sentence reminds me a bit about the hilarious statistics statement a former co-worker of mine told me, apparently in all seriousness... in that everything has fifty-fifty odds. It either happens, or it doesn't...
As you can tell. I disagree with adding options to a game system just for the sake of adding more options. Instead of adding new functionality that actually makes a difference in the play experience.
The Lightning Reflexes issue I pointed out in my previous post was this. It would have required one character taking up multiple spots on the combat chart. Forcing the fact, that anytime that one player's character came up for a turn, that he could decide randomly where he could act in that turn. Which caused a level of confusion that the rest of the group, including the GM, were uncomfortable with and found utterly unacceptable.
This was above and beyond the leeway that was already by the game system given for characters aborting to their next actions. So what did this add? Complete chaos. With this player jumping around the combat chart at whatever whim might strike him. Interrupting other players saying, "I want to take my turn NOW!" even more than the system already allowed. Allowing this would have meant throwing out the Combat Chart entirely and having the game revolve around that one player even more than he already forced the game to because of his exploitive character builds.
What is the problem with dice pools? I dont play any dice pool games. The one i tried (wrath and glory) was ass for many other reasons.
I 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.
I don't care what tools are used - dice pools, meta-currencies, levels, classes, OOC stuff, etc. as long as the game's design goal is reached.
The 3.0 and 3.5 bloat was a huge problem. With books of Feats and Prestige Classes coming out left and right. So many options that people didn't know what to do with. It was way too easy to get lost and not know what to do in that sea of options.
To me? That sea of options is bad design. Because it leads to nothing but confusion for consumers.
Dungeondelver and I talked about this in his livestream the other day: reducing choices improves accessibility, eg GURPS/Hero vs "3d6 down the line, choose one of the four basic classes, roll for starting wealth, buy gear, start play." Of course, we were thinking more of newbies.
I'm likely going to get roasted for this opinion.
But 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.
Every game is going to be someone's first. So not targeting the newbie I think is self-defeating.
To me, a tell-tale sign of poor game design is:
The meaningless list of <KEYWORD>. Where KEYWORD can be anything which is not explained, usually given as an 'Example Listing' but without real explanation of it's scope within the game. A good example is the dreaded 'TRAITS LIST'. The rules usually go like this: During character creation/generation, the player will choose which good and bad traits they wish to have (or the GM can choose). These traits modify a roll if the situation calls for it by -3 or -5 or more depending on the GM's mood-ring. Here is a partial list the player and the GM can add on to since our playtesters' ideas are not suitable for anyone with a modicum of shame. SIdebar: <list of 10 good traits we have all seen since 1980> <list of 10 bad traits we have all seen since 1980>
This is a sign of half-assed, can't be bothered to be original, 'non-intuitive but paint-by-numbers-and-rote' design. And of course, it gets worse when villains/monsters can have these as well. It's not just traits - I've seen skill lists, backgrounds, abilities, and even equipment lists like this (particular to the 'new-wave' of rules-lite systems). In effect, the modern equivalent of 'You need XXX Avalon Hill / SPI Game to actually play this part of the game' fuddery.
Quote from: Spike on November 22, 2020, 02:00:13 PM
I'm sure I have others, but frankly, reminding myself of these horrors is raising my blood pressure... :P
Bisexual coloring used in the artwork.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 23, 2020, 12:02:54 AM
Dungeondelver and I talked about this in his livestream the other day: reducing choices improves accessibility, eg GURPS/Hero vs "3d6 down the line, choose one of the four basic classes, roll for starting wealth, buy gear, start play." Of course, we were thinking more of newbies.
Ideally, a level system means you can slowly introduce complexity as the player gain competence.
Games where increased player options (the Katamari Dancey Talents problem) aren't offset by counterbalancing shortcuts to assist GM design. Players who concentrate on one character can afford a lot more time and complexity than a GM who has to build a cast, draw a map and lay out a rough event/encounter structure. (One thing I was extremely impressed by in the 7th Sea reboot was the speed and simplicity with which one can design and play major villains.)
Quote from: Ratman_tf on November 23, 2020, 01:07:36 AM
Ideally, a level system means you can slowly introduce complexity as the player gain competence.
Exactly as AD&D1e does it.
The longer we play, the more we understand that most useful game design happened in the first decade. The rest is just variations on those themes.
Quote from: consolcwby on November 23, 2020, 12:14:13 AM
To me, a tell-tale sign of poor game design is:
The meaningless list of <KEYWORD>.
By contrast, a finite and well-defined keyword list is one of my hallmarks of good game design. Heck... Hit Points, Armor Class and Saving Throw are just keywords we're all so familiar with few people even bother reading the actual definition of them in the books.
A well-defined list of game terms (i.e. keywords) is extremely useful in making mechanics clear and concise.
If I say "Make a Strength check vs. DC 15" just about anyone reading this knows this means you roll a d20, add your Strength modifier to that roll and if the result is 15 or better you've succeeded at whatever you were trying to do.
But that's only because we've memorized a bunch of keywords. To a gaming outsider like my mother, it'd be meaningless jargon.
So clearly defined keywords are a definite aid for clear systems. If you define "dazed" as "loses their reactions until your next turn" then every time the dazed keyword comes up everyone knows the meaning instead of having to explain the dazed effect time and again.
Finding a huge amount of positive reviews of a game, but little forum posts about actual play.
The implication from its fans that a game requires the GM to put in lots of work designing encounters or tailoring things to the party - almost always a form of denialism of a games fundamentally flawed nature.
Unfortunately any game with lots of widgets or movable parts or options is usally a bad sign. Why? Because these need real playtesting and almost never get it to anything like the extent necesary.
Quote from: Itachi on November 22, 2020, 10:48:03 PM
I 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.
I don't care what tools are used - dice pools, meta-currencies, levels, classes, OOC stuff, etc. as long as the game's design goal is reached.
Agree, mostly. I don't have any design preferences against tools, but I do have aesthetic preferences against some. For example, meta-currency is like garlic. It's really good right up to the moment you get to much, then it's horrible. And everyone has a different limit.
Sometimes a game is such that I have no interest in playing it, but that's for other reasons than bad design. After all, a game designed well to do something your really don't want to do is unlikely to be tweaked to suit. I can still appreciate that the designer is so clear about the concepts that I learn very rapidly I don't want to play the game.
Along those same lines, I pretty much despise setting masturbation billed as a game system. Yes, ideally a system and setting should work in harness, but if the effort from the writer is all in portraying a setting, then the writer should drop the pretense of being a game designer and make the setting for a system designed by others.
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 04:05:05 AM
Finding a huge amount of positive reviews of a game, but little forum posts about actual play.
The implication from its fans that a game requires the GM to put in lots of work designing encounters or tailoring things to the party - almost always a form of denialism of a games fundamentally flawed nature.
Unfortunately any game with lots of widgets or movable parts or options is usually a bad sign. Why? Because these need real playtesting and almost never get it to anything like the extent necessary.
Yes. Also makes it increasingly likely that the game was designed by committee, with the corresponding inevitable loss in vision that results.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on November 23, 2020, 01:07:36 AM
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 23, 2020, 12:02:54 AM
Dungeondelver and I talked about this in his livestream the other day: reducing choices improves accessibility, eg GURPS/Hero vs "3d6 down the line, choose one of the four basic classes, roll for starting wealth, buy gear, start play." Of course, we were thinking more of newbies.
Ideally, a level system means you can slowly introduce complexity as the player gain competence.
Right - class/level systems are great for gating complexity. It's one reason why even 3.x D&D is WAY easier to learn to play than something like GURPS - because most of 3.x's complexity is gated to high level play which most tables never actually use.
A new player only really needs to know how their own low level class functions to play, though they gain enough from understanding the other characters at the table that they'll likely pick that up eventually as well. And a new GM only needs to understand how low level play works - which is still considerably more than the players need to start.
The additional major advantage of classes being niche protection, and often allowing a greater variety of viable characters, especially if the table treats the mechanics as a game to play effectively. For classless systems, there are often only a few really potent builds, and having your character be anything other than a variant of one of them will be gimping yourself. Half a dozen classes each with 1-3 top tier builds allows for a good chunk more real options than a classless system is likely to.
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 04:05:05 AM
Finding a huge amount of positive reviews of a game, but little forum posts about actual play.
The implication from its fans that a game requires the GM to put in lots of work designing encounters or tailoring things to the party - almost always a form of denialism of a games fundamentally flawed nature.
Unfortunately any game with lots of widgets or movable parts or options is usally a bad sign. Why? Because these need real playtesting and almost never get it to anything like the extent necesary.
Good one. Play testing is huge, and sign of good game design is a long list of play tester credits.
Also, a shout out to all reviewers who up front admit whether or not they've actually played the game. Both kinds of reviews are fine, I just don't want to have to guess which kind I'm reading.
Quote from: Slambo on November 22, 2020, 10:23:46 PM
What is the problem with dice pools? I dont play any dice pool games. The one i tried (wrath and glory) was ass for many other reasons.
I thought I laid out my case pretty well in the OP, actually. Well, color me embarrassed then.
I'll give it another go.
First, a number of my personal issues with Dice Pool systems comes from my personal approach to gaming, where the rules and mechanics should 'simulate' the reality of the setting, rather than serve a meta-narrative at the player or table level. This isn't true for all players or groups, but it is true for me, which is also at the heart of my complaints about 'meta-technology' and other complaints, where the rules are operating at "the wrong level" of the game. I don't want a feat or talent or special skill to defenestrate someone, because windows and gravity work the same for everyone. I'm not particularly fond of games that turn guns into nerf weapons to 'force' players to use swords just to capture a particular mood, espeically since there are more elegant ways to push melee over range than to pretend something doesn't do what it actually does.
What does that have to do with Dice Pools? Well, while dice pools are certainly capable of resolving issues of success and failure they are poor tools for for modelling probability, actually much clumsier than single die or bell curve systems (my preferred resolution method) for that purpose. In real life people don't know they have a 79% chance of successfully pulling into heavy traffic (or what have you), but people do have a pretty good feel for modelling probability, even if they can't put a number on it, yet with dice pools its actually harder to get that 'feel'. Not that it can't be done, in fact in the 1990's when dice pools first really came into vogue we saw a large number of variations on the theme, from early Shadowrun to the more simplistic White Wolf system, to the Roll and Keep of Seventh Sea and L5R, to the Heavy Gear system, as designers did yoeman's work in trying to make dice pools work. And if that was the state of Dice Pools today, I probably wouldn't have mentioned them.
However. While it IS possible for dice pools to be tweaked and worked to create a complex, dynamic model of the in game reality, its actually quite a bit harder and requires a lot more math, and these days, inevitibly, dice pools clearly reflect designers that have no desire to do the hard work and clearly have little grasp of the math. Its not that dice pools, per se, are 'bad', its that upon noting that a system is dice pool based, I know intuitively that the designer is lazy and that next to no effort has been put into designing the system. Now, if you as a player don't want to care about system, that is perfectly fine, even natural. But I'm not happy paying for someone to do that system work for me with that same half assed attitude.
Now, since I don't want to leave on a mere assertion, allow me to demonstrate how we know these game designers are lazy. Every single modern dice pool game uses nearly identical mechanics. Every modifier to difficulty or ease involves removing or adding dice to the pool, nothign more. All target numbers are fixed at the start, and only rarely, if ever, do you see anything more complex than counting successes (dice above said fixed number). Even those notoriously rule/system adverse 'storytelling' fucks at White Wolf were more daring back in the early days, with floating target numbers and whatnot (which they eventually abandoned, because: hard). We don't even see competition in the the equally simple 'add the dice up' form anymore. Its always 'count the successes', and the modifiers are always idiot simple 1, 2, 3, which gives a near meaningless range of variability, especially when combined with the deeply obscured probabilities inherent to dice pools (and the fact that unlike single die and bell curve systems, simply increasing the number of dice usually has a deeply diminishing returns when reaching a threshold of successes is the goal!).
Given all the things you CAN do with dice pools, the things that have already been done, the fact that they ALL seem to resolve down to this one very simplistic mechanical resolution is, itself, evidence that people designing Dice Pool games have no interest in the mechanics at all, and are grabbing for the least-effort system they can, and that inevitably has consequences down the line, such as the ability for a non superhuman person being able to punch harder (with a few talents) than a transhuman tech Gauss Rifle in Mutant Year Zero.
That is just Silly.
Quote from: Spike on November 23, 2020, 09:15:18 AMEvery single modern dice pool game uses nearly identical mechanics. Every modifier to difficulty or ease involves removing or adding dice to the pool, nothign more. All target numbers are fixed at the start, and only rarely, if ever, do you see anything more complex than counting successes (dice above said fixed number).
Agreed. To me the entire point of having a success-counting dice pool is to exploit the interaction of the two probability sliders, i.e. number of dice vs. success threshold/target number. If you're not doing this, probabilistically there's no point not just using a d20, 3d6 or percentile roll as preferred.
One thing that a well-done dice pool does allow is the tangible representation of character resources in a physical medium. Representing fatigue, for example, as physically taking dice out of your combat pool is in many ways a far more visceral experience than remembering to apply the -2 or -3 penalty to a number in your head.
Quote from: Slambo on November 22, 2020, 10:23:46 PM
What is the problem with dice pools? I dont play any dice pool games. The one i tried (wrath and glory) was ass for many other reasons.
I admit to have only a little experience with dice pools. The things I noticed: 1) the randomness being sought could be emulated effectively with fewer dice (like simple d20 or d% vs target); 2) the clever stuff like deciding how many dice to roll, adding/subtracting dice for bonuses, exploding dice, etc. just makes the game more about the dice. I have trouble enough getting people into a new system where I had to remind them which of the 7 regular polys to roll. Our latest system is d% and it's been much easier on everyone. So, a dice pool game wants us to learn some complex way of adjudicating what is essentially a unique random event? And then we have to roll a handful of dice and do arithmetic? No, thanks.
1) and 2) combined amount to unnecessary complexity for the sake of being clever. Besides, the whole bell curve philosophy behind dice pools is misguided.
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 08:57:37 AM
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 04:05:05 AM
Finding a huge amount of positive reviews of a game, but little forum posts about actual play.
The implication from its fans that a game requires the GM to put in lots of work designing encounters or tailoring things to the party - almost always a form of denialism of a games fundamentally flawed nature.
Unfortunately any game with lots of widgets or movable parts or options is usally a bad sign. Why? Because these need real playtesting and almost never get it to anything like the extent necesary.
Good one. Play testing is huge, and sign of good game design is a long list of play tester credits.
Also, a shout out to all reviewers who up front admit whether or not they've actually played the game. Both kinds of reviews are fine, I just don't want to have to guess which kind I'm reading.
This is actually potentially one of the better parts of Kickstarter as a tool for Indie RPGs IMO, though a tool which too few seem to actually use.
Now - not all of them do this, but SOME indie TTRPGs use their Kickstarter backers at beta testers. While hopefully the designers would have done significant playtesting already (and math-ing, it's amazing how much bad design can be spotted with some basic math) I've seen a couple Kickstarters use their backers as a wider net of playtesters to catch anything else which may have been missed. (though even they didn't seem to take advantage of it as well as they could have)
Which does tie into a rule I have for Kickstarter TTRPGs. The mechanics should be 99% done and ready for playtesting by the time of the Kickstarter campaign. Needing more art & editing etc is fine (though some art is likely needed to sell the Kickstarter) - as the campaign is likely paying for the art & copy-editing should wait until after the last playtest is done.
Right after the Kickstarter the backers should all get the current mechanics (reasonably clean & 100% playable) and then should be provided with an easy way to give feedback - preferably a message board or some such. A hivemind of playtesters are great at spotting problems (albeit - often bad at coming up with solutions which don't break something else).
Meh, I disagree with every single point in the OP:
- Dice Pools are my favorite dice mechanic after d20+Mod.
- Talents (or Feats, Advantages/Disadvantages, or WTF you wanna call them) are not only the BEST way to handle ability progression, but class-based systems essentially use them, they just sneak them behind class abilities, which are all essentially "talents". All the bad implementation of talents in various system (such as "Feat Taxes" or gating functions everyone should be able to do behind a "talent") is just that--bad implementation of an awesome feature that should be used in every system and is used even in some (class-based) that don't allow you to pick them.
- Item Levels depend on the implementation, but could actually be a good way to handle items in effect-based systems (assuming that effects have levels or "ranks" in that system, such as FASERIP).
For me, the biggest warning sign of poor design is Lack of Modularity or as I like to call it "House of Cards" style game design. It's why I absolutely HATE DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder with the burning passion of a thousand Foreman Grills.
Most well designed game systems like GURPS or Interlock have a great deal of modularity. If there's a part of the system you don't like, it's very easy to go in, houserule things swap out systems ETC. You can easily change the system to suit your group. Not so with games that suffer from House of Cards style design. In a HoC style game, various skills or abilities or rules are part of a vast, interconnected web. Seemingly unrelated skills or abilities are, in fact either prerequisites of each other or they are designed to work together. So if you miss or don't use a rule or character option, your character ends up being sub optimal. If you miss a rule or decide you don't like it and try not to use it, combat ends up not functioning as it should. The knock on effect of this is that the system is very unstable. If you change one variable, intentionally or not, the entire system collapses.
DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder First Edition are easily the worst offenders here. DnD 3.5 is probably the alpha HoC RPG. It's so difficult to go in and change anything in 3.5 because all of the rules are linked. To reiterate Pundit's example, let's say there's a certain Feat you don't like. If you were to try and not use it, you've just upset the House of Cards. That Feat is probably a prerequisite for a whole bunch of other Feats and there are yet more Feats and rules written with the assumption that the Feat will be there. So if there's a part of the rules you don't like, tough tits. You've got to use it all or the House of Cards comes tumbling down.
Pathfinder 1e has exactly the same problems as 3.5, just worse.
Thanks to the OGL, DnD 3.5 had a suffocating effect on creativity in game development for years. Any other system can accommodate changes to suit whatever story the designer wants to play. No so 3.5 or Pathfinder for the aforementioned reasons. Game designers were forced to mutilate their work and their worlds to make it fit DnD 3.5.
5e was such a breath of fresh air by contrast because it keeps a similarly accessible structure to DnD but adds the modularity that 3.5 was sorely lacking. It's sad that more 3rd party material published for 5e isn't taking advantage of this modularity. I think this has less to do with generational politics and more to do with the lingering specter of the OGL years.
Quote from: Torque2100 on November 23, 2020, 10:23:28 AM
For me, the biggest warning sign of poor design is Lack of Modularity or as I like to call it "House of Cards" style game design. It's why I absolutely HATE DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder with the burning passion of a thousand Foreman Grills.
Interestingly, I'd agree with you that D&D3.5 and PF are examples of this approach done badly, primarily because it's never explicitly acknowledged that this structure exists.
For a contrasting example, Luke Crane, the designer of
Burning Wheel, explicitly admits that every rules module is designed on the assumption of working with every other rules module exactly as written for the sake of creating exactly the in-game experience that the designer wants to create, and warns that house-ruling anything is going to have unpredictable and probably disruptive knock-on effects. Not everybody's going to
like that experience and so may wish to play a different game, but it's clearly not an example of "poor" game design if it's doing exactly what it was intended to do.
So this goes back to the point that was raised earlier by Itachi: are the effects of the chosen design intentional or unintentional?
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 23, 2020, 08:50:38 AM
Right - class/level systems are great for gating complexity. It's one reason why even 3.x D&D is WAY easier to learn to play than something like GURPS - because most of 3.x's complexity is gated to high level play which most tables never actually use.
I agree with your main thesis, but I don't agree with your concluding statement. Characters in 3.X advance quickly, and the game itself put a lot more emphasis on making high levels playable. So the the tables that didn't fold or didn't make a deliberate choice to stick to low levels (using E6 for example) always reached high levels, surprisingly quickly.
3.X doesn't gate complexity by avoiding the issue, but by having the complexity accrue over the course of the campaign. Players (and DMs) can gradually develop system mastery, instead of having to know everything at the start of the game.
Quote from: Spike on November 23, 2020, 09:15:18 AM
Quote from: Slambo on November 22, 2020, 10:23:46 PM
What is the problem with dice pools? I dont play any dice pool games. The one i tried (wrath and glory) was ass for many other reasons.
I thought I laid out my case pretty well in the OP, actually. Well, color me embarrassed then.
I'll give it another go.
First, a number of my personal issues with Dice Pool systems comes from my personal approach to gaming, where the rules and mechanics should 'simulate' the reality of the setting, rather than serve a meta-narrative at the player or table level. This isn't true for all players or groups, but it is true for me, which is also at the heart of my complaints about 'meta-technology' and other complaints, where the rules are operating at "the wrong level" of the game. I don't want a feat or talent or special skill to defenestrate someone, because windows and gravity work the same for everyone. I'm not particularly fond of games that turn guns into nerf weapons to 'force' players to use swords just to capture a particular mood, espeically since there are more elegant ways to push melee over range than to pretend something doesn't do what it actually does.
What does that have to do with Dice Pools? Well, while dice pools are certainly capable of resolving issues of success and failure they are poor tools for for modelling probability, actually much clumsier than single die or bell curve systems (my preferred resolution method) for that purpose. In real life people don't know they have a 79% chance of successfully pulling into heavy traffic (or what have you), but people do have a pretty good feel for modelling probability, even if they can't put a number on it, yet with dice pools its actually harder to get that 'feel'. Not that it can't be done, in fact in the 1990's when dice pools first really came into vogue we saw a large number of variations on the theme, from early Shadowrun to the more simplistic White Wolf system, to the Roll and Keep of Seventh Sea and L5R, to the Heavy Gear system, as designers did yoeman's work in trying to make dice pools work. And if that was the state of Dice Pools today, I probably wouldn't have mentioned them.
However. While it IS possible for dice pools to be tweaked and worked to create a complex, dynamic model of the in game reality, its actually quite a bit harder and requires a lot more math, and these days, inevitibly, dice pools clearly reflect designers that have no desire to do the hard work and clearly have little grasp of the math. Its not that dice pools, per se, are 'bad', its that upon noting that a system is dice pool based, I know intuitively that the designer is lazy and that next to no effort has been put into designing the system. Now, if you as a player don't want to care about system, that is perfectly fine, even natural. But I'm not happy paying for someone to do that system work for me with that same half assed attitude.
Now, since I don't want to leave on a mere assertion, allow me to demonstrate how we know these game designers are lazy. Every single modern dice pool game uses nearly identical mechanics. Every modifier to difficulty or ease involves removing or adding dice to the pool, nothign more. All target numbers are fixed at the start, and only rarely, if ever, do you see anything more complex than counting successes (dice above said fixed number). Even those notoriously rule/system adverse 'storytelling' fucks at White Wolf were more daring back in the early days, with floating target numbers and whatnot (which they eventually abandoned, because: hard). We don't even see competition in the the equally simple 'add the dice up' form anymore. Its always 'count the successes', and the modifiers are always idiot simple 1, 2, 3, which gives a near meaningless range of variability, especially when combined with the deeply obscured probabilities inherent to dice pools (and the fact that unlike single die and bell curve systems, simply increasing the number of dice usually has a deeply diminishing returns when reaching a threshold of successes is the goal!).
Given all the things you CAN do with dice pools, the things that have already been done, the fact that they ALL seem to resolve down to this one very simplistic mechanical resolution is, itself, evidence that people designing Dice Pool games have no interest in the mechanics at all, and are grabbing for the least-effort system they can, and that inevitably has consequences down the line, such as the ability for a non superhuman person being able to punch harder (with a few talents) than a transhuman tech Gauss Rifle in Mutant Year Zero.
That is just Silly.
Quote from: VisionStorm on November 23, 2020, 10:12:15 AM
Meh, I disagree with every single point in the OP:
- Dice Pools are my favorite dice mechanic after d20+Mod.
I personally love dice pools. Though there are a number of ways they have been done that I don't like. I like them so much, I insisted on them for my own games and my co-designer at the time, who rather disliked most dice pools, made clear he would only do dice pools if we approached them a certain way. I think though if you like dice pools and if you make games with them, you have to acknowledge and accept that criticisms like the ones Spike puts forth are prevalent in the hobby, and that dice pools automatically have a very negative connotation to many gamers. I know for example, the moment I mention that my games are run on dice pools, I lose at least half the audience, if not more. And while you can change those numbers by pointing out where your system maybe doesn't have the problem of some dice pool systems (ours for example doesn't just rely on players dice changing but also has shifting target numbers, and it has a soft cap of 6d10 and hard cap of 10d10; and you don't count successes, you just take the single highest result and use that), at the end of the day it is still a dice pool and people who prefer rolling a single die are going to have that as their preference.
What I can say for me is the two big attractions for me as a player when I first encountered dice pools was the feel of having a bigger pool in your hand to reflect your skill and how intuitive it was to know if you have three ranks in something, you roll three dice. I didn't really care for some of the fiddliness you saw in some dice pool systems, and systems where the numbers of dice became excessive never quite worked for me, but overall I liked it. I also liked that it was more intuitive in terms of the player knowing their chances. It just felt very gut level eye balling. And I think all that emphasis on 'feel', which is why I like them, helps explain why some people don't. Fundamentally for me it comes down to the feel of your power growing in your hand.
We did actually put together a probability chart (which appeared in like our first two books I think), and they mostly scale like you would expect them, but the shifting of the number of dice being thrown and the shifting of the target number, make that hard to know off the cuff the probability. When you start counting successes (which we do in an edge case in our games called Open Damage----which is supposed to be rare), then calculating gets quite difficult.
Gotta agree on the analysis of most modern dice pool systems.
My primary experience with them involved a rebuild of Mage the Ascension where I retained the sliding difficulty scale, but with a sort of clamp on extremely easy (diff 3 or less) or hard (diff 9 or more) that added or subtracted dice only at those extremes.
If the modified difficulty of a task was less than four, you keep the difficulty at 4, but add one die per point of difficulty below it... i.e. difficulty 2 is rolled at difficulty 4 with two extra dice. If the modified difficulty was more than 8 you kept the difficulty at 8, but subtracted one die per point above it... i.e. difficulty 10 is rolled at difficulty 8, but with two fewer dice.
This was done expressly because of the probability breakdown at the extreme ends of the difficulty/target number ranges. I also worked out the odds of success for an average unskilled (2 dice), average skilled (4 dice) and extremely talented and skilled (8 dice) for difficulties ranging from 2 to 10 just to make sure my probabilities were working out (2-10 is the range for just about everything except spells... the highest of which I ever saw used was difficulty 37 with a group cast that left them with about four dice at difficulty 8 by the time it all shook out).
That said... making a Mage clone (where the feel of rolling all the dice was important) is literally the ONLY time I've ever delved into dice pool mechanics and, if I had it to do all over again I probably would have switched out to a 2d10+mods vs. TN system regardless of the change of feel (2d10 being my concession to the old d10 mechanics vs. using 2d6 or 3d6).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 23, 2020, 11:24:15 AMWhat I can say for me is the two big attractions for me as a player when I first encountered dice pools was the feel of having a bigger pool in your hand to reflect your skill and how intuitive it was to know if you have three ranks in something, you roll three dice.
Building on this, one of the things that I think a dice-pool system needs to really max out its potential is to introduce the element of pool splitting: i.e. the dice themselves become tactical resources that you have to allocate, when you're using them, between mutually exclusive commitments, like attack vs. defense in a combat pool, or effect on subject vs. caster's endurance in a magic/power pool. (Unsurprisingly,
The Riddle of Steel is one of my all-time favourite games.)
That said, I always like to back up dice pool systems with an option to buy successes with pool dice at low TNs, so you have an effective equivalent of the Take 10 or Take 20 rules. As always, if the stakes or the odds aren't high enough to be interesting, the roll isn't really worth making.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on November 23, 2020, 08:07:45 AM
Quote from: Itachi on November 22, 2020, 10:48:03 PM
I 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.
I don't care what tools are used - dice pools, meta-currencies, levels, classes, OOC stuff, etc. as long as the game's design goal is reached.
Agree, mostly. I don't have any design preferences against tools, but I do have aesthetic preferences against some. For example, meta-currency is like garlic. It's really good right up to the moment you get to much, then it's horrible. And everyone has a different limit.
Sometimes a game is such that I have no interest in playing it, but that's for other reasons than bad design. After all, a game designed well to do something your really don't want to do is unlikely to be tweaked to suit. I can still appreciate that the designer is so clear about the concepts that I learn very rapidly I don't want to play the game.
Along those same lines, I pretty much despise setting masturbation billed as a game system. Yes, ideally a system and setting should work in harness, but if the effort from the writer is all in portraying a setting, then the writer should drop the pretense of being a game designer and make the setting for a system designed by others.
Yes, I agree. I have my own aesthetic preferences too*, and I like when the author makes it clear what the game is trying to achieve and how, so I can discard it fast if it doesn't fall under my own preferences. But then I separate preferences from the topic of "good design". Because of that, I wonder if a better title for this thread wouldn't be "Design preferences" instead.
*I'm also wary of dice pools. But I acknowledge some games do it well enough to realize their design goals. Blades in the Dark comes to mind.
Trying to synthesize not specific mechanics that are "bad" - but where mechanics and design GO bad in terms of conception and execution.
For me it's when the mechanical task resolution is too many layers ofabstraction removed from the action itself. Call it meta-mechanics, call them "narrative" mechanics. etc.
Now I think elements of such mechanics work at scale - Domain level stuff, or for Mass combat. But even then, I think there are many good systems that have built-in scalability to handle even those things.
Mechanical Gimmicks For their Own Sake - creating mechanics for things that don't require them from their own core rules. I think a lot of class-based systems like 5e suffer from this. Classes act like mini-resource games and are simply mechanical exercises that are abstract steps removed from the intent of their reason for existing in the first place: Warlocks lookin at you. NO-GM rolling systems. Things like that. The playing the system shouldn't be "the Game" it should just be the framework where you engage in what your PC does.
This arguably is where the OSR gets a lot right, though their designs tend to be pretty conservative in execution (which ironically tends towards more abstraction in many ways).
Otherwise I have no general problem with "Talents" "Edges" "Classes" or whatever. It's all about the execution of them in the context of the game they're trying to model.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 23, 2020, 11:24:15 AM
And while you can change those numbers by pointing out where your system maybe doesn't have the problem of some dice pool systems (ours for example doesn't just rely on players dice changing but also has shifting target numbers, and it has a soft cap of 6d10 and hard cap of 10d10; and you don't count successes, you just take the single highest result and use that), at the end of the day it is still a dice pool and people who prefer rolling a single die are going to have that as their preference.
Yeah - I sort of agree with Spike in that dice pool systems are inherently a red flag for me, but they're not inherently bad.
I do like the sound of the shifting difficulties - though if it shifts too much that can easily break the probabilities. IMO - a dice pool system should generally stick to basically 3 success levels - easy/normal/hard. On a d6 succeeding on a 3/4/5 respectively. Maybe a d10 could get another difficulty or two - but that'd definitely be pushing it.
Which does lead to one pretty inherent limitation of dice pools IMO - is that it really only works in a pretty tight power & difficulty ranges. I would NOT want to use a dice pool in a system designed around anything close to zero to hero. And it's also difficult to do much granularity without getting overly complex and the probabilities starting to break.
But for lighter games with a relatively tight power level, dice pools can work pretty dang well.
Like any other dice system - they should be considered a tool in the designer's toolbox, but they are a tool which I've often seen misused and hence its use leaves me wary.
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.
I'm usually a fan of actually tracking expendibles (cash, ammunition, rations, etc.). I don't like "resource checks" where I can fail to purchase something low-difficulty/inexpensive but almost immediately afterwards succeed on getting something high-difficulty/expensive. It also hurts me to know I have "enough" ammo...until a bad roll says I'm totally dry.
Quote from: HappyDaze on November 23, 2020, 03:07:40 PM
I'm usually a fan of actually tracking expendibles (cash, ammunition, rations, etc.). I don't like "resource checks" where I can fail to purchase something low-difficulty/inexpensive but almost immediately afterwards succeed on getting something high-difficulty/expensive. It also hurts me to know I have "enough" ammo...until a bad roll says I'm totally dry.
I really was going to expand my 'red flag' on meta-rules until I got side tracked talking about vidya game swords, but this sort of thing is definitely on my list, and its probably the biggest single issue I have (in a long list of issues) with the Modiphius 2d20 house system.
Of course, it didn't help that I FIRST saw it in Mutant Chronicles, when the prior editions were practically 'Janes Sci-Fi Guns Annual' in the sheer amount of technical detail they included in their gun porn.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 22, 2020, 11:35:47 PM
The 3.0 and 3.5 bloat was a huge problem. With books of Feats and Prestige Classes coming out left and right. So many options that people didn't know what to do with. It was way too easy to get lost and not know what to do in that sea of options.
To me? That sea of options is bad design. Because it leads to nothing but confusion for consumers.
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
Quote from: HappyDaze on November 23, 2020, 03:07:40 PM
I'm usually a fan of actually tracking expendibles (cash, ammunition, rations, etc.). I don't like "resource checks" where I can fail to purchase something low-difficulty/inexpensive but almost immediately afterwards succeed on getting something high-difficulty/expensive. It also hurts me to know I have "enough" ammo...until a bad roll says I'm totally dry.
Oh Gods Yes!!
I have no problem with systems that use a randomizer for number of rounds in an auto-fire burst...but I abhor the 'resource check' enough that I won't play with them period.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 22, 2020, 11:35:47 PM
The 3.0 and 3.5 bloat was a huge problem. With books of Feats and Prestige Classes coming out left and right. So many options that people didn't know what to do with. It was way too easy to get lost and not know what to do in that sea of options.
To me? That sea of options is bad design. Because it leads to nothing but confusion for consumers.
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
I played up until 4E (lost interest in the current version of D&D after that). My memory is there was bloat in prior editions, but it was exceptional in some way in 3E. I think much of it was the way it all fit into the system with its focus on min-max through multi-class dipping. But I also think in earlier editions the expansion material had a flavor first approach written toward the GM, and the WOTFC expansion material had a mechanics first approach written towards the players. Which resulted in the expansion material being more present at most game tables
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 23, 2020, 05:49:17 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 22, 2020, 11:35:47 PM
The 3.0 and 3.5 bloat was a huge problem. With books of Feats and Prestige Classes coming out left and right. So many options that people didn't know what to do with. It was way too easy to get lost and not know what to do in that sea of options.
To me? That sea of options is bad design. Because it leads to nothing but confusion for consumers.
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
I played up until 4E (lost interest in the current version of D&D after that). My memory is there was bloat in prior editions, but it was exceptional in some way in 3E. I think much of it was the way it all fit into the system with its focus on min-max through multi-class dipping. But I also think in earlier editions the expansion material had a flavor first approach written toward the GM, and the WOTFC expansion material had a mechanics first approach written towards the players. Which resulted in the expansion material being more present at most game tables
Part of the difference was cultural. 3.X had huge amounts of prestige classes but then 2e had huge amounts of kits. However the expectation seemed to be created that prestige classes were to be available anywhere and just reskinned, rather then reserved for a certain setting concept or organisation (even though the 3E DMG suggested just that - WOTC figured out very quickly that they could sell more splats if they encouraged universal uptake.) 3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 06:16:09 PM
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 23, 2020, 05:49:17 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 22, 2020, 11:35:47 PM
The 3.0 and 3.5 bloat was a huge problem. With books of Feats and Prestige Classes coming out left and right. So many options that people didn't know what to do with. It was way too easy to get lost and not know what to do in that sea of options.
To me? That sea of options is bad design. Because it leads to nothing but confusion for consumers.
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
I played up until 4E (lost interest in the current version of D&D after that). My memory is there was bloat in prior editions, but it was exceptional in some way in 3E. I think much of it was the way it all fit into the system with its focus on min-max through multi-class dipping. But I also think in earlier editions the expansion material had a flavor first approach written toward the GM, and the WOTFC expansion material had a mechanics first approach written towards the players. Which resulted in the expansion material being more present at most game tables
Part of the difference was cultural. 3.X had huge amounts of prestige classes but then 2e had huge amounts of kits. However the expectation seemed to be created that prestige classes were to be available anywhere and just reskinned, rather then reserved for a certain setting concept or organisation (even though the 3E DMG suggested just that - WOTC figured out very quickly that they could sell more splats if they encouraged universal uptake.) 3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
I think it is more likely that young players started with 3e and have no experience with anything that happened previously to WotC taking over from TSR.
If you want to look at the change from fluff to crunch then take a look at evolution of the 2e "Complete" Guides
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.
But, but, outside of that my rules are only 10 pages long! :D
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 06:16:09 PM3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
Why do you call it poisonous, out of curiosity? No strong feelings either way on my part, I'm just wondering.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 23, 2020, 07:31:49 PM
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 06:16:09 PM3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
Why do you call it poisonous, out of curiosity? No strong feelings either way on my part, I'm just wondering.
Partly because it undermines ANY link between rules and specific settings. This was what was initially cool about the premise of Prestige Classes in 3.0. You had a way to model rules wise being a member of a particular knighthood or organisation in a setting. But this was quickly thrown away. 3.0 at least kept the Greyhawk fluff for stuff, but it quickly became meaningless. You now have to fight with players to recalibrate their expectations that anything in the rules is permissable and the rules often don't interact very well with settings at all.
In 2E D&D hadn't become so much of a genre in it's own right. There was much more the expectation, seen in published settings, that the rules adapted to fit the setting. The Shai'ir for example was a specific Al Qadim class - there was no expectation you could play one in Dark Sun.
In any case, the distinction between fluff and crunch and the expectation that you will reskin works best if rules are more general and are built with that in mind - and without bloat. In 4E we saw the apogee of the mixed approach where they would release rules elements with highly specific fluff but bland and generic combat mechanics. So this means you either see the fluff and get excited for the concept, but quickly realise that the crunch does nothing to really actualise that concept but is only tenuously connected at best, or you get excited for the mechanics and totally toss the fluff.
The distinction works when you have a fairly clear system built with a specific set of effects that you then add flavour to (like trappings in Savage Worlds) it's a disaster when nobody is really clear about the relationship between fluff and crunch and when even if you're ignoring flavour you still have to navigate your way around restictions built to supposedly reinforce flavour that nobody really cares about (such as specific entry requirements for prestige classes).
TL:DR when someone is writing down things on their character sheet like Paladin 4/Crystal Dragon Adept 4/Assassin of the Scarlet Order 2 and none of these things have any real meaning for the character and are not setting elements why are you using such a convoluted way to put a character together? (Not to mention the fact that if all options are on the table, apart from say, specific setting ones - the complexity of the game grows very quickly)
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.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
BECMI I enjoyed it until the class bloat became too hard to follow. As in every supplement they put out, there were new character classes. That was way too much. Even with the Rules Cyclopedia making things a little easier
I actively played 1st edition AD&D. There were aspects of it I didn't like. But I have that experience.
Actually, I was a huge 2nd edition AD&D fan. And I really enjoyed kits. It's only when TSR jumped the shark with some of the development in 2nd edition that really pushed me away.
3.0 and 3.5 I liked a far enough of to invest heavily in the system. But in the end, there were way too many supplements.
4th edition I couldn't keep up with at all. But then again, I didn't really like 4th edition and subsequently sold all of my books for it on the cheap.
5th edition I like.
Dice pools like in VtM, I dislike, dice pools as in D6 system I love.
After starting with BECMI at age 8 and stopping at 3e when 4e was released, and playing a few other games outside that like the old marvel super heroes (percentile dice, colored column chart) or VtM or star wars D6, I finally gave up on all games (outside axis & allies) when the new age "glitch kiddies" started to show up, demanding you run the game like a computer would read it and allowing them to exploit and glitch or it's not RaW, and if you do allow such, then the game is broken so we should all do call of duty lan tournament instead.
After that, I had fiddled a little with converting WeG's D6 starwars to D&D a little, before discovering the D6 system book and the Space/Adventure/Fantasy books derived therefrom. I bought copies of Fantasy and Adventure (already have star wars, and Space is just that with slight mods and IP removed) and am so zen with it I sold all my other game stuff except things that had maps I wanted to re-use, like undermountain and Zhentil Keep boxed sets...even eventually giving away all my non-D6 dice to a trusted friend to distribute among the new an needy that might play 5e.
And I'll never look back, I'll never go back, for me D6 (which is dice pool technically) is the best hands down game system for ttrpg that has ever thusfar been invented. I know this like i know that water is wet or that dogs bark or that big chungus is a big fat pussy. I cannot, on this point, be bought, bullied, or reasoned with; it would be like a child telling me that the stork brings babies...I just smile and nod, for I know the truth, I know who impregnates the stork and those feathers in my zipper don't mean a thing my eyes are up here buddy.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 23, 2020, 08:17:21 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
BECMI I enjoyed it until the class bloat became too hard to follow. As in every supplement they put out, there were new character classes. That was way too much. Even with the Rules Cyclopedia making things a little easier
I actively played 1st edition AD&D. There were aspects of it I didn't like. But I have that experience.
Actually, I was a huge 2nd edition AD&D fan. And I really enjoyed kits. It's only when TSR jumped the shark with some of the development in 2nd edition that really pushed me away.
3.0 and 3.5 I liked a far enough of to invest heavily in the system. But in the end, there were way too many supplements.
4th edition I couldn't keep up with at all. But then again, I didn't really like 4th edition and subsequently sold all of my books for it on the cheap.
5th edition I like.
So then, as I observed, bloat in every edition.
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 08:03:16 PM
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 23, 2020, 07:31:49 PM
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 06:16:09 PM3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
Why do you call it poisonous, out of curiosity? No strong feelings either way on my part, I'm just wondering.
Partly because it undermines ANY link between rules and specific settings. This was what was initially cool about the premise of Prestige Classes in 3.0. You had a way to model rules wise being a member of a particular knighthood or organisation in a setting. But this was quickly thrown away. 3.0 at least kept the Greyhawk fluff for stuff, but it quickly became meaningless. You now have to fight with players to recalibrate their expectations that anything in the rules is permissable and the rules often don't interact very well with settings at all.
In 2E D&D hadn't become so much of a genre in it's own right. There was much more the expectation, seen in published settings, that the rules adapted to fit the setting. The Shai'ir for example was a specific Al Qadim class - there was no expectation you could play one in Dark Sun.
In any case, the distinction between fluff and crunch and the expectation that you will reskin works best if rules are more general and are built with that in mind - and without bloat. In 4E we saw the apogee of the mixed approach where they would release rules elements with highly specific fluff but bland and generic combat mechanics. So this means you either see the fluff and get excited for the concept, but quickly realise that the crunch does nothing to really actualise that concept but is only tenuously connected at best, or you get excited for the mechanics and totally toss the fluff.
The distinction works when you have a fairly clear system built with a specific set of effects that you then add flavour to (like trappings in Savage Worlds) it's a disaster when nobody is really clear about the relationship between fluff and crunch and when even if you're ignoring flavour you still have to navigate your way around restictions built to supposedly reinforce flavour that nobody really cares about (such as specific entry requirements for prestige classes).
TL:DR when someone is writing down things on their character sheet like Paladin 4/Crystal Dragon Adept 4/Assassin of the Scarlet Order 2 and none of these things have any real meaning for the character and are not setting elements why are you using such a convoluted way to put a character together? (Not to mention the fact that if all options are on the table, apart from say, specific setting ones - the complexity of the game grows very quickly)
Can you explain the distinction between fluff and crunch if you see my character Fighter 12 or Mage 11 as opposed to Paladin 4/Crystal Dragon Adept 4/Assassin of the Scarlet Order 2?
In other words, has character class ever connected fluff and crunch in any way other then Wizards can not wear armour?
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 09:23:27 PM
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 08:03:16 PM
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 23, 2020, 07:31:49 PM
Quote from: TJS on November 23, 2020, 06:16:09 PM3.X was the first time I heard the (I think poisonous) distinction between fluff and crunch put about.
Why do you call it poisonous, out of curiosity? No strong feelings either way on my part, I'm just wondering.
Partly because it undermines ANY link between rules and specific settings. This was what was initially cool about the premise of Prestige Classes in 3.0. You had a way to model rules wise being a member of a particular knighthood or organisation in a setting. But this was quickly thrown away. 3.0 at least kept the Greyhawk fluff for stuff, but it quickly became meaningless. You now have to fight with players to recalibrate their expectations that anything in the rules is permissable and the rules often don't interact very well with settings at all.
In 2E D&D hadn't become so much of a genre in it's own right. There was much more the expectation, seen in published settings, that the rules adapted to fit the setting. The Shai'ir for example was a specific Al Qadim class - there was no expectation you could play one in Dark Sun.
In any case, the distinction between fluff and crunch and the expectation that you will reskin works best if rules are more general and are built with that in mind - and without bloat. In 4E we saw the apogee of the mixed approach where they would release rules elements with highly specific fluff but bland and generic combat mechanics. So this means you either see the fluff and get excited for the concept, but quickly realise that the crunch does nothing to really actualise that concept but is only tenuously connected at best, or you get excited for the mechanics and totally toss the fluff.
The distinction works when you have a fairly clear system built with a specific set of effects that you then add flavour to (like trappings in Savage Worlds) it's a disaster when nobody is really clear about the relationship between fluff and crunch and when even if you're ignoring flavour you still have to navigate your way around restictions built to supposedly reinforce flavour that nobody really cares about (such as specific entry requirements for prestige classes).
TL:DR when someone is writing down things on their character sheet like Paladin 4/Crystal Dragon Adept 4/Assassin of the Scarlet Order 2 and none of these things have any real meaning for the character and are not setting elements why are you using such a convoluted way to put a character together? (Not to mention the fact that if all options are on the table, apart from say, specific setting ones - the complexity of the game grows very quickly)
Can you explain the distinction between fluff and crunch if you see my character Fighter 12 or Mage 11 as opposed to Paladin 4/Crystal Dragon Adept 4/Assassin of the Scarlet Order 2?
In other words, has character class ever connected fluff and crunch in any way other then Wizards can not wear armour?
Well yes. Obviously. A Paladin has a code they have to follow. A wizard, in addition to not wearing armour can cast magic spells, which presumably means people will recognise he is a wizard. Even a Ranger in AD&D could likely be understood to be a ranger. (The limit on how many could act together in 1E strongly implied they were able to recognise each other in some way - plus the alignment restrictions).
Although really that's beside the point.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 09:16:28 PM
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 23, 2020, 08:17:21 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 04:18:50 PM
If you think that 3e bloat was bad then you have never ever played any other edition of DnD.
BECMI I enjoyed it until the class bloat became too hard to follow. As in every supplement they put out, there were new character classes. That was way too much. Even with the Rules Cyclopedia making things a little easier
I actively played 1st edition AD&D. There were aspects of it I didn't like. But I have that experience.
Actually, I was a huge 2nd edition AD&D fan. And I really enjoyed kits. It's only when TSR jumped the shark with some of the development in 2nd edition that really pushed me away.
3.0 and 3.5 I liked a far enough of to invest heavily in the system. But in the end, there were way too many supplements.
4th edition I couldn't keep up with at all. But then again, I didn't really like 4th edition and subsequently sold all of my books for it on the cheap.
5th edition I like.
So then, as I observed, bloat in every edition.
There is such a a thing as scale. A little carbon dioxide is necessary; too much is fatal. And 3e was far more bloated than what came before (even the 2e splats).
Dude, we all know you are a Pathfinder (3e derivative) fanboy. But some things are just not deniable. Admitting the flaws of something you like doesn't invalidate your liking of it.
Quote from: Slipshot762 on November 23, 2020, 09:01:24 PM
Dice pools like in VtM, I dislike, dice pools as in D6 system I love.
After starting with BECMI at age 8 and stopping at 3e when 4e was released, and playing a few other games outside that like the old marvel super heroes (percentile dice, colored column chart) or VtM or star wars D6, I finally gave up on all games (outside axis & allies) when the new age "glitch kiddies" started to show up, demanding you run the game like a computer would read it and allowing them to exploit and glitch or it's not RaW, and if you do allow such, then the game is broken so we should all do call of duty lan tournament instead.
After that, I had fiddled a little with converting WeG's D6 starwars to D&D a little, before discovering the D6 system book and the Space/Adventure/Fantasy books derived therefrom. I bought copies of Fantasy and Adventure (already have star wars, and Space is just that with slight mods and IP removed) and am so zen with it I sold all my other game stuff except things that had maps I wanted to re-use, like undermountain and Zhentil Keep boxed sets...even eventually giving away all my non-D6 dice to a trusted friend to distribute among the new an needy that might play 5e.
And I'll never look back, I'll never go back, for me D6 (which is dice pool technically) is the best hands down game system for ttrpg that has ever thusfar been invented. I know this like i know that water is wet or that dogs bark or that big chungus is a big fat pussy. I cannot, on this point, be bought, bullied, or reasoned with; it would be like a child telling me that the stork brings babies...I just smile and nod, for I know the truth, I know who impregnates the stork and those feathers in my zipper don't mean a thing my eyes are up here buddy.
I haven't played a dice pool game since WEG's Star Wars was first released, but I like the cut of your jib.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 23, 2020, 09:39:36 PM
There is such a a thing as scale. A little carbon dioxide is necessary; too much is fatal. And 3e was far more bloated than what came before (even the 2e splats).
Dude, we all know you are a Pathfinder (3e derivative) fanboy. But some things are just not deniable. Admitting the flaws of something you like doesn't invalidate your liking of it.
I was a 2e fan boy years before being a 3e fan boy;
Here ya go a little CO2 for you....
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Rulebooks
2100 Dungeon Master's Guide (original cover)
2101 Player's Handbook (original printing)
2121 Tome of Magic (hardcover)
2121S Tome of Magic (softcover)
2138 Book of Artifacts (hardcover)
2138S Book of Artifacts (softcover)
2159 Player's Handbook (black "revised" printing)
2160 Dungeon Master Guide (black "revised" printing)
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Boxed Sets
1134 Introduction to AD&D (2nd Ed.) with audio CD (small box)
1135 Introduction to AD&D (2nd Ed.) with audio CD (large box)
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Fast Play Game
11331 Wrath of the Minotaur
11373 Eye of the Wyvern
11450 Dungeons & Dragons® Game
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Optional Core Rules
2156 DM's Option: High-Level Campaigns (hardcover)
2156S DM's Option: High-Level Campaigns (softcover)
2149 Player's Option: Combat & Tactics (hardcover)
2149S Player's Option: Combat & Tactics (softcover)
2154 Player's Option: Skills & Powers (hardcover)
2154S Player's Option: Skills & Powers (softcover)
2163 Player's Option: Spells & Magic (hardcover)
2163S Player's Option: Spells & Magic (softcover)
11383 Campaign Option: Council of Wyrms
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - DM Reference Guide
2112 DMRG1 Campaign Source Book & Catacomb Guide
2114 DMRG2 Castle Guide
2123 DMRG3 Arms and Equipment Guide
2128 DMRG4 Monster Mythology
2133 DMRG5 Creative Campaigning
2144 DMRG6 Complete Book of Villains
2151 The Complete Book of Necromancers
2164 Sages and Specialists
2170 Of Ships and the Sea
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Player Reference Guide
2110 PHBR1 The Complete Fighter's Handbook
2111 PHBR2 The Complete Thief's Handbook
2113 PHBR3 The Complete Priest's Handbook
2115 PHBR4 The Complete Wizard's Handbook
2117 PHBR5 The Complete Psionics Handbook
2124 PHBR6 The Complete Book of Dwarves
2127 PHBR7 The Complete Bard's Handbook
2131 PHBR8 The Complete Book of Elves
2134 PHBR9 The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings
2135 PHBR10 The Complete Book of Humanoids
2136 PHBR11 The Complete Ranger's Handbook
2147 The Complete Paladin's Handbook
2148 The Complete Barbarian's Handbook
2150 The Complete Druid's Handbook
2155 The Complete Ninja's Handbook
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Encyclopedia Magica
2141A Encyclopedia Magica, Volume I (faux leather cover)
2141B Encyclopedia Magica, Volume I (smooth cover)
2152A Encyclopedia Magica, Volume II (faux leather cover)
2152B Encyclopedia Magica, Volume II (smooth cover)
2157A Encyclopedia Magica, Volume III (faux leather cover)
2157B Encyclopedia Magica, Volume III (smooth cover)
2161A Encyclopedia Magica, Volume IV (faux leather cover)
2161B Encyclopedia Magica, Volume IV (smooth cover)
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Wizards Spell Compendium
2165 Wizard's Spell Compendium, Volume One
2168 Wizard's Spell Compendium, Volume Two
2175 Wizard's Spell Compendium, Volume Three
2177 Wizard's Spell Compendium, Volume Four
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Priests Spell Compendium
11359 Priest's Spell Compendium, Volume One
11421 Priest's Spell Compendium, Volume Two
11611 Priest's Spell Compendium, Volume Three
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Historical Reference Sourcebook
9322 HR1 Vikings Campaign
9323 HR2 Charlemagne's Paladins
9376 HR3 Celts Campaign
9370 HR4 A Mighty Fortress Campaign
9425 HR5 The Glory of Rome Campaign
9408 HR6 Age of Heroes
9469 HR7 The Crusades
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Player Packs
1112 Fighter's Player Pack
1113 Wizard's Player Pack
1114 Priest's Player Pack
1115 Thief's Player Pack
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Screens
9263 Dungeon Master's Screen (w/module "Terrible Trouble at Tragidor")
9504 Dungeon Master Screen & Master Index
9457 Fighter's Screen
9462 Priest's Screen
9463 Thief's Screen
9468 Wizard's Screen
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Mass Combat Rules
9266 Battlesystem Miniatures Rules
9335 Battlesystem: Skirmishes
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Sites Series
9464 City Sites
9479 Castle Sites
9482 Country Sites
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Card Deck Accessories
9356 CR1 Wizard Spell Cards
9362 CR2 Priest Spell Cards
1090 Cardmaster Adventure Design Deck
9407 Deck of Encounters, set 1
9443 Deck of Encounters, set 2
9423 Deck of Magical Items
9458 Deck of Psionic Powers
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Computer Accessories
2167 AD&D CD-ROM: Core Rules, Version 1.0
2176 AD&D CD-ROM: Core Rules, Version 2.0
11543 AD&D CD-ROM: Core Rules 2.0 Expansion
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Art Books
8441 The Worlds of TSR (Hardcover)
8441P The Worlds of TSR (Softcover)
8443 The Art of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game
8444 The Art of Dragon Magazine
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Miscellaneous
9353 GR1 Strongholds Fold-Ups
9365 GR2 Dungeons of Mystery Fold-Ups
9377 GR3 Treasure Maps
1067 1991 Factory Trading Card Set
1992 Factory Trading Card Set
1993 Factory Trading Card Set
9380 REF6 Rogues Gallery
9426 Treasure Chest Accessory
9506 Chronomancer
9507 Shaman
9515 Den of Thieves
9518 Treasure Tales
9532 World Builder's Guidebook
9556 Dungeon Builder's Guidebook
9549 College of Wizardry
11326 The Vortex of Madness
11361 Warriors of Heaven
11431 Guide to Hell
8118 Snarfquest Anthology
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Monster Books
2108 Legends & Lore
2140A Monstrous Manual (white cover)
2140B Monstrous Manual (black cover)
2145 Monstrous Compendium, 1994 Annual, Volume 1
2158 Monstrous Compendium, 1995 Annual, Volume 2
2166 Monstrous Compendium, 1996 Annual, Volume 3
2173 Monstrous Compendium, 1997 Annual, Volume 4
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Monstrous Compendiums
2102 MC1 Volume I (w/binder #1)
2103 MC2 Volume II
2104 MC3 Forgotten Realms Appendix I
2105 MC4 Dragonlance Appendix (w/binder #2)
2107 MC5 Greyhawk Appendix
2116 MC6 Kara-Tur Appendix
2109 MC7 Spelljammer Appendix I
2118 MC8 Outer Planes Appendix
2119 MC9 Spelljammer Appendix II
2122 MC10 Ravenloft Appendix I
2125 MC11 Forgotten Realms Appendix II
2405 MC12 Dark Sun Appendix I - Terrors of the Desert
2129 MC13 Al-Qadim Appendix
2132 MC14 Fiend Folio Appendix
2139 Ravenloft Appendix II: Children of the Night
2153 Ravenloft Appendix III
2162 Ravenloft Appendices I and II
2433 Dark Sun Appendix II - Terrors Beyond Tyr
2501 Mystara Appendix
2602 Planescape I
2613 Planescape II
2635 Planescape III
AD&D 2nd Edition Core Products - Monstrous Arcana
9521 I, Tyrant
9522 Eye of Pain
9530 Eye of Doom
9536 Eye to Eye
9539 The Sea Devils
9542 Evil Tide
9550 Night of the Shark
9560 Sea of Blood
9569 The Illithiad
9570 A Darkness Gathering
9571 Masters of Eternal Night
9572 Dawn of the Overmind
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Boxed Sets
1056 Castles
1089 Dragon Mountain
1107 Council of Wyrms
1125 Night Below
1143 Tale of the Comet
1145 The Rod of Seven Parts
1162 Return to the Tomb of Horrors
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Character Challenge Series
9330 HHQ1 Fighter's Challenge
9359 HHQ2 Wizard's Challenge
9420 HHQ3 Thief's Challenge
9429 HHQ4 Cleric's Challenge
9427 Fighter's Challenge II
9454 Wizard's Challenge II
9478 Thief's Challenge II: Beacon Pointe
9483 Cleric's Challenge II
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Diablo 2
11548 Diablo II Adventure Game
11612 Diablo II: The Awakening
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Jakandor Series
9511 Jakandor, Island of War
9512 Jakandor, Isle of Destiny
9472 Jakandor, Land of Legend
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Dungeon® Anthologies
11376 Road to Danger
11444 Dungeons of Despair
AD&D 2nd Edition Adventures - Miscellaneous
9422 GA1 The Murky Deep
9424 GA2 Swamplight
9428 GA3 Tales of Enchantment
9448 Temple, Tower & Tomb
9471 The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga
9503 Labyrinth of Madness
9508 The Silver Key
9533 The Gates of Firestorm Peak
9534 A Hero's Tale
9568 Moonlight Madness
9573 The Lost Shrine of Bundushatur
9586 A Paladin in Hell
11325 The Shattered Circle
11347 Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
11377 Destiny of Kings (revised)
11392 Reverse Dungeon
11442 Bastion of Faith
11445 RPGA®: TSR Jam 1999
11614 The Apocalypse Stone
11662 Die Vecna Die!
AD&D 2nd Edition: Al-Qadim - Boxed Sets
1077 Land of Fate (Al-Qadim Campaign Setting)
1091 City of Delights
9366 ALQ1 Golden Voyages
9431 ALQ2 Assassin Mountain
9432 ALQ3 A Dozen and One Adventures
9433 ALQ4 Secrets of the Lamp
9440 Ruined Kingdoms
9449 Corsairs of the Great Sea
9459 Caravans
9467 Cities of Bone
AD&D 2nd Edition: Al-Qadim - Accessories & Adventures
2146 CGR3 The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook
2126 Arabian Adventures
9584 Reunion (adventure module)
AD&D 2nd Edition: Birthright - Boxed Sets
3100 Birthright Campaign Setting
3103 Cities of the Sun
3121 The Rjurik Highlands
3129 Havens of the Great Bay
3134 Naval Battle Rules: the Seas of Cerilia
AD&D 2nd Edition: Birthright - Domain Sourcebooks
3104 Player's Secrets of Roesone
3105 Player's Secrets of Endier
3106 Player's Secrets of Medoere
3107 Player's Secrets of Tournen
3108 Player's Secrets of Ilien
3109 Player's Secrets of Talinie
3111 Player's Secrets of Ariya
3119 Player's Secrets of Binsada
3120 Player's Secrets of Baruk-Azhik
3122 Player's Secrets of Halskapa
3123 Player's Secrets of Khourane
3124 Player's Secrets of Tuarhievel
3127 Player's Secrets of Stjordvik
AD&D 2nd Edition: Birthright - Modules & Accessories
3101 Blood Enemies: Abominations of Cerilia
3102 Sword and Crown
3110 Warlock of the Stonecrowns
3117 Book of Magecraft
3118 The Sword of Roele
3125 Legend of the Hero-Kings
3126 The Book of Priestcraft
3142 King of the Giantdowns
3147 Tribes of the Heartless Waste
AD&D 2nd Edition: Dark Sun - Boxed Sets
2400 Dark Sun Campaign Setting (original)
2418 The Ivory Triangle
2432 City by the Silt Sea
2438 Dark Sun Campaign Setting (revised)
AD&D 2nd Edition: Dark Sun - Accessories
2419 CGR2 The Complete Gladiator's Handbook
2404 DSR1 Slave Tribes
2407 DSR2 Dune Trader
2411 DSR3 The Veiled Alliance
2413 DSR4 Valley of Dust and Fire
2420 DSS1 City-State of Tyr
2422 DSS2 Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
2423 DSS3 Elves of Athas
2408 Dragon Kings (hardback)
2431 The Will and the Way
2437 Thri-Kreen of Athas
2439 Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs
2441 Beyond the Prism Pentad
2444 Mind Lords of the Last Sea
2445 Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas
2446 Psionic Artifacts of Athas
AD&D 2nd Edition: Dark Sun - FlipBook Modules - Miscellaneous
2430 Forest Maker
AD&D 2nd Edition: Dark Sun - FlipBook Modules - Freedom Series
2401 DS1 Freedom
2406 DSQ1 Road to Urik
2410 DSQ2 Arcane Shadows
2412 DSQ3 Asticlian Gambit
2416 DSE1 Dragon's Crown
AD&D 2nd Edition: Dark Sun - FlipBook Modules - Black Flame Series
2417 DSM1 Black Flames
2421 DSM2 Merchant House of Amketch
2424 DSM3 Marauders of Nibenay
2428 Black Spine
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Boxed Sets
1050 Time of the Dragon
1074 Tales of the Lance
1086 Dwarven Kingdoms of Krynn
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Accessories
2143 PG1 Player's Guide to the Dragonlance Campaign
1039 Dragonlance board game
1058 Mage Stones board game
2021 Dragonlance Adventures (hardcover)
8372 The History of Dragonlance
8446 Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home
21516 More Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home
8447A The Art of the Dragonlance Saga (1st printing)
8447B The Art of the Dragonlance Saga (2nd printing)
8448 Atlas of the Dragonlance World
8892 1992 Dragonlance Calendar
8895 1995 Dragonlance Calendar
8896 1996 Dragonlance Calendar
8897 1997 Dragonlance Calendar
8899 1999 Dragonlance Calendar
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DL Series
9130 DL1 Dragons of Despair
9132 DL2 Dragons of Flame
9131 DL3 Dragons of Hope
9139 DL4 Dragons of Desolation
9135 DL5 Dragons of Mystery
9140 DL6 Dragons of Ice
9136 DL7 Dragons of Light
9141 DL8 Dragons of War
9137 DL9 Dragons of Deceit
9144 DL11 Dragons of Glory
9133 DL12 Dragons of Faith
9176 DL13 Dragons of Truth
9180 DL14 Dragons of Triumph
9231 DL15 Mists of Krynn
9237 DL16 World of Krynn
11350 Dragonlance Classic 15th Anniversary Edition
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLA Series
9275 DLA1 Dragon Dawn
9285 DLA2 Dragon Knight
9294 DLA3 Dragon's Rest
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLC Series
9291 DLC1 Dragonlance Classics, Volume I
9394 DLC2 Dragonlance Classics, Volume II
9453 DLC3 Dragonlance Classics, Volume III
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLE Series
9243 DLE1 In Search of Dragons
9244 DLE2 Dragon Magic
9245 DLE3 Dragon Keep
continued:
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLQ Series
9381 DLQ1 Knight's Sword
9382 DLQ2 Flint's Axe
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLR Series
9278 DLR1 Otherlands
9344 DLR2 Taladas: The Minotaurs
9383 DLR3 Unsung Heroes
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLS Series
9314 DLS1 New Beginnings
9319 DLS2 Treelords
9327 DLS3 Oak Lords
9334 DLS4 Wild Elves
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance - Adventures - DLT Series
9395 DLT1 New Tales: The Land Reborn
9396 DLT2 Dragonlance Book of Lairs
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance The Fifth Age - Miscellaneous
1148 Fifth Age Campaign Set
1149 The Last Tower: The Legacy of Raistlin
1150 Heroes of Steel
9517 Heroes of Defiance
9543 Heroes of Sorcery
9546 Heroes of Hope
9551 Wings of Fury
9554 Citadel of Light
9564 The Bestiary
9565 Fate Deck
9565A Fate Deck (with "The Haunted Amulet" mini-adventure)
9565B Fate Deck (with "The Dwarven Crown" mini-adventure)
9565C Fate Deck (with "Death on the Deep" mini-adventure)
9565D Fate Deck (with "The Duntollik Run" mini-adventure)
9566 A Saga Companion
9588 Palanthas
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance The Fifth Age - Chaos War Adventures
9587 Seeds of Chaos
11372 Chaos Spawn
AD&D 2nd Edition: DragonLance The Fifth Age - Battle Lines Series
11329 The Sylvan Veil
11396 Rise of the Titans
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Boxed Sets
1031 Forgotten Realms Campaign, 1st Edition
1040 City System
1044 The Great Khan Game
1060 Ruins of Undermountain I
1104 Ruins of Undermountain II
1083 Menzoberranzan
1084 The Ruins of Myth Drannor
1085 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Revised Edition
1109 City of Splendors
1120 Ruins of Zhentil Keep
1121 Spellbound: Thay, Rasheman, & Aglarond
1142 The North
1159 Lands of Intrigue
9561 Empires of the Shining Sea
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - FA Series
9301 FA1 Halls of the High King
9341 FA2 Nightmare Keep
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - FR Series
9213 FR1 Waterdeep & The North
9217 FR2 Moonshae
9224 FR3 Empires of the Sands
9229 FR4 The Magister
9233 FR5 The Savage Frontier
9235 FR6 Dreams of the Red Wizards
9252 FR7 Hall of Heroes
9262 FR8 Cities of Mystery boxed set
9267 FR9 The Bloodstone Lands
9274 FR10 Old Empires
9300 FR11 Dwarves Deep
9324 FR12 The Horde Campaign
9320 FR13 Anauroch
9351 FR14 The Great Glacier
9373 FR15 Gold & Glory
9388 FR16 The Shining South
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Maztica Series
1066 Maztica (boxed set)
9333 FMA1 Fires of Zatal
9340 FMA2 Endless Armies
9349 FMQ1 City of Gold
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Empires Series
1055 The Horde (boxed set)
9281 FRA1 Storm Riders
9290 FRA2 Black Courser
9304 FRA3 Blood Charge
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - FRC Series
9238 FRC1 Ruins of Adventure
9239 FRC2 Curse of the Azure Bonds
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Avatar Series
9247 FRE1 Shadowdale
9248 FRE2 Tantras
9249 FRE3 Waterdeep
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - FRQ Series
9354 FRQ1 Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
9369 FRQ2 Hordes of Dragonspear
9391 FRQ3 Doom of Daggerdale
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Living City Series
8908 LC1 Gateway to Raven's Bluff
9282 LC2 Inside Raven's Bluff, The Living City
9316 LC3 Nightwatch in the Living City
9315 LC4 Port of Raven's Bluff
9575 The City of Ravens Bluff
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Oriental Adventures / Kara-tur Series
1032 Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms (boxed set)
9307 FROA1 Ninja Wars
9164 OA1 Swords of the Daimyo
9186 OA2 Night of the Seven Swords
9195 OA3 Ochimo: The Spirit Warrior
9203 OA4 Blood of the Yakuza
9242 OA5 Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw
9257 OA6 Ronin Challenge
9258 OA7 Test of the Samurai
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Undermountain Dungeon Crawl
9519 The Lost Level
9528 Maddgoth's Castle
9538 Stardock
9562 Hellgate Keep
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Elminster's Ecologies
1111 Elminster's Ecologies (boxed set)
9489 Elminster's Ecologies I: Battle of Bones
9490 Elminster's Ecologies II: High Moor
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Arcane Age Series
1147 Netheril: Empire of Magic (boxed set)
1165 Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves
9540 How the Mighty Are Fallen
9558 The Fall of Myth Drannor
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Underwater Series
11393 Sea of Fallen Stars
11405 The Wyrmskull Throne
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Marco Volo Series
9444 Departure
9450 Journey
9455 Arrival
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Sword of the Dales Series
9484 The Sword of the Dales
9485 The Secret of Spiderhaunt
9488 The Return of Randal Morn
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Volo's Guide Series
9379 Volo's Guide to Waterdeep
9393 Volo's Guide to the North
9460 Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast
9486 Volo's Guide to Cormyr
9524 Volo's Guide to the Dalelands
9535 Volo's Guide to All Things Magical
11626 Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Sourcebooks
2106 Forgotten Realms Adventures
2142 PG2 Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms
9297 FOR1 Draconomicon
9326 FOR2 Drow of the Underdark
9346 FOR3 Pirates of the Fallen Stars
9390 FOR4 Code of the Harpers
9430 FOR5 Elves of Evermeet
9475 FOR6 The Seven Sisters
9487 FOR7 Giantcraft
9491 FOR8 Pages from the Mages
9492 FOR9 Wizards and Rogues of the Realms
9509 FOR10 Warriors and Priests of the Realms
9547 FOR11 Cult of the Dragon
11316 FOR12 Demihumans of the Realms
11430 FOR13 Secrets of the Magister
9516 Faiths & Avatars
9525 Heroes' Lorebook
9552 Villains' Lorebook
9563 Powers & Pantheons
9585 Demihuman Deities
9545 Prayers From the Faithful
11509 Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Trail Maps
9401 TM4 Waterdeep Trailmap
9402 TM5 Kara-Tur Trailmap
AD&D 2nd Edition: Forgotten Realms - Modules - Miscellaneous
9389 FRM1 The Jungles of Chult
9392 FRS1 The Dalelands
8442 The Forgotten Realms Atlas
9358 Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue
9410 Cormyr
9465 Forgotten Realms Book of Lairs
9474 The Moonsea
9520 The Vilhon Reach
9531 Four From Cormyr
9544 Castle Spulzeer
9574 For Duty & Deity
9589 Calimport
11337 The Accursed Tower
11348 Skullport
11451 Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas CD-ROM
11622 Dungeon of Death
11627 Cloak & Dagger
11634 Into the Dragon's Lair
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Boxed Sets
1015 World of Greyhawk (boxed set version)
1043 The City of Greyhawk
1064 From the Ashes
1068 Greyhawk Wars
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - WG Series
9065 WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
9112 WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
9153 WG6 Isle of the Ape
9222 WG7 Castle Greyhawk
9253 WG8 Fate of Istus
9251 WG9 Gargoyle
9265 WG10 Child's Play
9269 WG11 Puppets
9270 WG12 Vale of the Mage
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - WGA Series
9279 WGA1 Falcon's Revenge
9289 WGA2 Falconmaster
9302 WGA3 Flames of the Falcon
9309 WGA4 Vecna Lives!
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - WGR Series
9292 WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins
9360 WGR2 Treasures of Greyhawk
9386 WGR3 Rary the Traitor
9398 WGR4 The Marklands
9399 WGR5 Iuz the Evil
9405 WGR6 The City of Skulls
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - WGS Series
9317 WGS1 Five Shall be One
9337 WGS2 Howl From the North
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - Lost Tombs Series
9579 The Star Cairns
9580 Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad
9581 The Doomgrinder
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - Silver Anniversary Series
11327 Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
11413 Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff
11434 Return to White Plume Mountain
AD&D 2nd Edition: Greyhawk - Modules - Miscellaneous
9406 WGM1 Border Watch
9385 WGQ1 Patriots of Ulek
2023 Greyhawk Adventures (hardcover)
9025 World of Greyhawk Folio
9576 Return of the Eight
9577 The Adventure Begins
9578 Greyhawk Player's Guide
11374 The Scarlet Brotherhood
11621 Slavers
AD&D 2nd Edition: Lankhmar - Boxed Sets
1144 Lankhmar Rules & Campaign Setting
AD&D 2nd Edition: Lankhmar - Accessories
9162 Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1st Ed.)
2137 Lankhmar: City of Adventure (2nd Ed.)
9461 Rogues in Lankhmar
9470 Cutthroats of Lankhmar
AD&D 2nd Edition: Lankhmar - Modules
9150 CA1 Swords of the Undercity
9170 CA2 Swords of Deceit
9276 LNA1 Thieves of Lankhmar
9305 LNA2 Nehwon
9318 LNA3 Prince of Lankhmar
9371 LNQ1 Slayers of Lankhmar
9295 LNR1 Wonders of Lankhmar
9329 LNR2 Tales of Lankhmar
9481 Avengers in Lankhmar
AD&D 2nd Edition: Mystara - Boxed Sets
1105 First Quest - Intro to AD&D
2500 Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure
2511 Glantri: Kingdom of Magic
2504 Red Steel Campaign Expansion (boxed set)
9500 Red Steel - Savage Baronies Accessory
AD&D 2nd Edition: Mystara - Modules
2502 Hail the Heroes
2509 Night of the Vampire
2513 Mark of Amber
AD&D 2nd Edition: Mystara - Accessories
2506 Poor Wizard's Almanac III
2517 Joshuan's Almanac
2510 Player's Survival Kit
2512 Dungeon Master's Survival Kit
AD&D 2nd Edition: Planescape - Boxed Sets
2600 Planescape Campaign Setting
2603 Planes of Chaos
2607 Planes of Law
2615 Planes of Conflict
2610 Player's Primer to the Outlands
2621 Hellbound: The Blood War
AD&D 2nd Edition: Planescape - Accessories
2609 In The Cage: A Guide to Sigil
2611 The Factol's Manifesto
2620 The Planewalker's Handbook
2623 On Hallowed Ground
2624 Uncaged: Faces of Sigil
2625 A Guide to the Astral Plane
2630 Faces of Evil: the Fiends
2633 A Guide to the Ethereal Plane
2634 The Inner Planes
AD&D 2nd Edition: Planescape - Modules
2601 The Eternal Boundary
2604 The Well of Worlds
2605 In the Abyss
2606 The Deva Spark
2608 Fires of Dis
2614 Harbinger House
2619 Something Wild
2626 Doors to the Unknown
2628 The Great Modron March
2629 Faction War
2631 Dead Gods
2632 Tales From the Infinite Staircase
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - Boxed Sets
1053 Ravenloft Campaign Setting, 1st Ed. ("Realm of Terror")
1079 Forbidden Lore
1088 Castles Forlorn
1103 Masque of the Red Death Campaign Setting
1108 Ravenloft Campaign Setting, 2nd Ed.
1124 The Nightmare Lands
1141 Bleak House
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - Van Richten's Guides
9345 RR3 Van Richten's Guide to Vampires
9355 RR5 Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts
9412 RR6 Van Richten's Guide to the Lich (RS1)
9416 RR7 Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts
9417 Van Richten's Guide to the Created
9451 Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead
9477 Van Richten's Guide to Fiends
9496 Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani
11447 Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Volume One
11507 Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Volume Two
11613 Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Volume Three
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - Children of the Night
9513 Vampires
9555 Ghosts
9583 Werebeasts
11360 The Created
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - RA Series
9298 RA1 Feast of Goblyns
9321 RA2 Ship of Horrors
9338 RA3 Touch of Death
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - RM Series
9413 RM1 Roots of Evil
9414 RM2 The Created
9415 RM3 Web of Illusion
9418 RM4 House of Strahd
9419 RM5 Dark of the Moon
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - RQ Series
9352 RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead
9364 RQ2 Thoughts of Darkness
9375 RQ3 From the Shadows
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - Grim Harvest Trilogy
9523 Death Unchained
9526 Death Ascendant
1146 Requiem: The Grim Harvest
AD&D 2nd Edition: Ravenloft - Miscellaneous
9439 RE1 Adam's Wrath
9331 RR1 Darklords
9336 RR2 Book of Crypts
9348 RR4 Islands of Terror
1163 The Shadow Rift
2174 Domains of Dread
9452 The Awakening
9456 Hour of the Knife
9466 Howls in the Night
9476 When Black Roses Bloom
9493 Circle of Darkness
9494 A Light in the Belfry
9495 Chilling Tales
9497 The Evil Eye
9498 The Gothic Earth Gazetteer
9499 Neither Man Nor Beast
9510 Forged of Darkness
9529 A Guide to Transylvania
9537 The Forgotten Terror
9541 Servants of Darkness
9559 Champions of the Mists
9582 Vecna Reborn
11382 Carnival
AD&D 2nd Edition: Spelljammer - Boxed Sets
1049 AD&D Adventures In Space
1065 Legend of the Spelljammer
1072 War Captain's Companion
1087 The Astromundi Cluster
AD&D 2nd Edition: Spelljammer - Accessories
2130 CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook
9313 SJR3 DM's Reference Screen
AD&D 2nd Edition: Spelljammer - Modules
9273 SJA1 Wildspace
9286 SJA2 Skull & Crossbows
9299 SJA3 Crystal Spheres
9325 SJA4 Under the Dark Fist
9347 SJQ1 The Heart of the Enemy
9280 SJR1 Lost Ships
9312 SJR2 Realmspace
9328 SJR4 Practical Planetology
9361 SJR5 Rock of Bral
9374 SJR6 Greyspace
9409 SJR7 Krynnspace
9411 SJR8 Space Lairs
What the fuck was that?!
That's not bloat! That's just a Titan-sized lean mean badass gaming machine!!!! 2e forever!
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 10:31:38 PM
What the fuck was that?!
In the voice of the thug from TANGLED, first looking at Rapunzel's hair. "Thaaaat's a lawwwwwtta books."
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 10:31:38 PM
What the fuck was that?!
Someone who can't define bloat. And somehow thinks that adventure modules are examples of it.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 23, 2020, 10:51:13 PM
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 10:31:38 PM
What the fuck was that?!
Someone who can't define bloat. And somehow thinks that adventure modules are examples of it.
Those aren't just adventure modules though, I see a bunch of "Complete... [insert class/race/etc]" and the likes.
Honestly, I never understood the need for so much stuff myself. I don't even grok the separation of a game in GM book + Players book. Runequest 2e was just a single, thin book, and with a supplement like Cults of Prax was enough for infinite games. If a game needs more than a single book for it's "basic experience", that's a hell of a red flag for me.
(Nothing to do with good or bad design though, that's just personal preference)
2E had a lot of bloat. There's no denying it.
But it's also the case that lot of it was not designed to be used together.
There was no expectation that the Gladiator handbook options for Dark Sun were relevant to a Forgotten Realms game.
This was no doubt bad from a business perspective, but it does mean the bloat wasn't as bad as it may appear.
A game probably has poor design if it's never critiqued as having poor design.
I definitely wouldn't consider things like adventure modules, settings, etc as bloat.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 10:18:06 PM
<snipped for sanity>
What're you trying to prove here? That TSR cranked out a shitload of 2E material, across four or more settings? Yeah, no shit sherlock.
But if you're arguing rules bloat, you done fucked up by including things like Volo's guides or the DL artbooks.
I think the point Shasarak was trying to make it's not so much poor rules design so much bad for the company profits in the long run to have so much stock to keep in print. Then again Lorraine Williams thought we were all losers and lesser form of life so she probably mandated that TSR keep cranking out stuff since she figured we would by any crap. Unless an rpg company is smart which imo TSR was not keeping all that in print was probably taking a decent chunk of their profits. TSR fate was sealed when they began screwing around with Random House which was a major book publisher at the time: https://www.enworld.org/threads/when-random-house-sued-tsr-for-9-5m.667729/ .
Yeah TSR was screwed. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
Quote from: Itachi on November 23, 2020, 11:18:56 PM
Honestly, I never understood the need for so much stuff myself. I don't even grok the separation of a game in GM book + Players book. Runequest 2e was just a single, thin book, and with a supplement like Cults of Prax was enough for infinite games. If a game needs more than a single book for it's "basic experience", that's a hell of a red flag for me.
I decided upon a separate Player's and GM's Guide for my system in order to reduce the cost of entry for a new player as much as possible.
My target has always been for the player book to be in the $20-25 range (also the reason I'm going 6x9 softcover) making it an almost impulse buy level purchase. If I had gone with a combined Player/GM book in the usual RPG 8.5x11 hardcover format the cost of entry would be more like $50-60 for a new player and there'd be about half the book (the entire GM section) the player would just have no use for.
Low cost of entry is also why I long ago dropped my original plan for new options in every supplement for providing everything in the core Player's and GM Guides and all further supplements would just be world books (think Rifts style only just world detail instead of new options) and adventures.
For me poor game design is lack of proper organization of the rules in the core. With magic rules being in a section completely not related to magic etc... Author writing in personal opinions about game design and how great his rpg is compared to others and how it was properly tested when it reality it was not. Too many copy and paste errors or simply too many errors in the first printing (looking at your Shadworun 6 ) . Claiming that the rules are goiod and then adding "remember all rules are optional". Why the fuck am I buying your rpg if all the rules are optional. Having the option of writing two manuscripts A that the fans want and the B almost none of the fanbase do. Instead have Freelancer XYZ write manuscript B because he REALLY wants to write on it.
In case you missed it most of the list is from Palladium Books. One of the rpgs that while I still enjoy are the standard for me at least on poor game design.
Making one large core book like Pathfinder did. Great that it's all in one a pain the ass to lug around. To the point that I gave away my hardcovers and bought two pocket editions of the core. Trying to market the rpg as something other than D&D only purist edition warriors keep drawing a line in the sand between both. My gaming group still refers to it as D&D.
Quote from: sureshot on November 24, 2020, 08:54:58 AM
For me poor game design is lack of proper organization of the rules in the core. With magic rules being in a section completely not related to magic etc... Author writing in personal opinions about game design and how great his rpg is compared to others and how it was properly tested when it reality it was not. Too many copy and paste errors or simply too many errors in the first printing (looking at your Shadworun 6 ) . Claiming that the rules are goiod and then adding "remember all rules are optional". Why the fuck am I buying your rpg if all the rules are optional. Having the option of writing two manuscripts A that the fans want and the B almost none of the fanbase do. Instead have Freelancer XYZ write manuscript B because he REALLY wants to write on it.
In case you missed it most of the list is from Palladium Books. One of the rpgs that while I still enjoy are the standard for me at least on poor game design.
Making one large core book like Pathfinder did. Great that it's all in one a pain the ass to lug around. To the point that I gave away my hardcovers and bought two pocket editions of the core. Trying to market the rpg as something other than D&D only purist edition warriors keep drawing a line in the sand between both. My gaming group still refers to it as D&D.
If 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.
Quote from: HappyDaze on November 24, 2020, 09:03:43 AM
Light print on dark backgrounds.
Narrow margins where the text is lost in the spine.
Those two are on my worst list as well. Fortunately, it seems like the era of fake parchment backgrounds on all RPG pages is over.
I'll also add "White text on a black background for games primarily sold as PDFs"; there's no way I'm printing that out.
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.
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.
There might also be a critical mass that, one crossed, pushes some gamers to stop even trying to keep up and to instead switch to pirating pdf copies (many of which will be read only once, at most).
Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 24, 2020, 09:34:45 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on November 24, 2020, 09:03:43 AM
Light print on dark backgrounds.
Narrow margins where the text is lost in the spine.
Those two are on my worst list as well. Fortunately, it seems like the era of fake parchment backgrounds on all RPG pages is over.
I'll also add "White text on a black background for games primarily sold as PDFs"; there's no way I'm printing that out.
White text on a black background is easier to read on a conventional screen. It sucks for printing.
Sans-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.
Conclusion? PDFs optimized for screen reading should not be used for printing, either personally or POD. You need two, one for screen and one for print. The downside is, if you have a specific "trade dress" for your work, you either have to have a screen variant and a print variant, or have a "trade dress" that favors one format over the other and take your lumps in the non-favored format.
TL;DR: PDF is not interchangeable with print; plan for both or suck in one or both.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 23, 2020, 10:51:13 PM
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 10:31:38 PM
What the fuck was that?!
Someone who can't define bloat. And somehow thinks that adventure modules are examples of it.
Thats right man, you just double down.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 24, 2020, 08:24:43 AM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 10:18:06 PM
<snipped for sanity>
What're you trying to prove here? That TSR cranked out a shitload of 2E material, across four or more settings? Yeah, no shit sherlock.
But if you're arguing rules bloat, you done fucked up by including things like Volo's guides or the DL artbooks.
I dont want to be mean to you because you probably just dont know that TSR mixed their new rules up with their new setting material.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 24, 2020, 02:50:11 PM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 24, 2020, 08:24:43 AM
Quote from: Shasarak on November 23, 2020, 10:18:06 PM
<snipped for sanity>
What're you trying to prove here? That TSR cranked out a shitload of 2E material, across four or more settings? Yeah, no shit sherlock.
But if you're arguing rules bloat, you done fucked up by including things like Volo's guides or the DL artbooks.
I dont want to be mean to you because you probably just dont know that TSR mixed their new rules up with their new setting material.
Do you need help moving those goalposts? I have a wheelbarrow.
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.
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.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 24, 2020, 06:14:04 PMOne 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...
WYSIWIG? I think you might be showing your age there. :P
Quote from: Bren on November 24, 2020, 09:09:50 PMWYSIWIG? I think you might be showing your age there. :P
You mean I'm dating myself? Well, why not, nobody else will date me. ;D
Quote from: Shasarak on November 24, 2020, 02:48:24 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 23, 2020, 10:51:13 PM
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 23, 2020, 10:31:38 PM
What the fuck was that?!
Someone who can't define bloat. And somehow thinks that adventure modules are examples of it.
Thats right man, you just double down.
Pathfinder Rulebooks:
Planar Adventures
Ultimate Wilderness
Book of the Damned
Adventurer's Guide
Bestiary 6
Villain Codex
Horror Adventures
Ultimate Intrigue
Bestiary 5
Occult Adventures
Pathfinder Unchained
Strategy Guide
Monster Codex
Advanced Class Guide
PFS Guide to Organized Play 6.0
Bestiary 4
Mythic Adventures
Ultimate Campaign
NPC Codex
Ultimate Equipment
Advanced Race Guide
Bestiary 3
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate Magic
Bestiary 2
Advanced Player's Guide
GameMastery Guide
PRPG Core Rulebook
Pathfinder RPG Bestiary
Bonus Bestiary
Player Companions:
Chronicle of Legends
Heroes of Golarion
Wilderness Origins
Martial Arts Handbook
Plane-Hopper's Handbook
Heroes from the Fringe
Blood of the Ancients
Merchant's Manifest
Disciple's Doctrine
Potions and Poisons
People of the Wastes
Blood of the Coven
Antihero's Handbook
Elemental Master's Handbook
Blood of the Sea
Adventurer's Armory 2
Legacy of the First World
Heroes of the Darklands
Monster Hunter's Handbook
Heroes of the High Court
Psychic Anthology
Healer's Handbook
Paths of the Righteous
Blood of the Beast
Divine Anthology
Haunted Heroes Handbook
Legacy of Dragons
Spymaster's Handbook
Magic Tactics Toolbox
Armor Master's Handbook
Blood of Shadows
Arcane Anthology
Agents of Evil
Weapon Master's Handbook
Black Markets
Occult Origins
Heroes of the Streets
Dirty Tactics Toolbox
Monster Summoner's Handbook
Cohorts and Companions
Heroes of the Wild
Melee Tactics Toolbox
Familiar Folio
Giant Hunter's Handbook
Ranged Tactics Toolbox
Advanced Class Origins
Champions of Corruption
People of the Stars
People of the River
Blood of the Elements
The Harrow Handbook
Undead Slayer's Handbook
Alchemy Manual
Champions of Balance
Bastards of Golarion
People of the Sands
Magical Marketplace
Blood of the Moon
Mythic Origins
Faiths and Philosophies
Demon Hunter's Handbook
Dragonslayer's Handbook
Pathfinder Society Primer
Kobolds of Golarion
Quests and Campaigns
Champions of Purity
Dungeoneer's Handbook
Animal Archive
People of the North
Blood of the Night
Knights of the Inner Sea
Varisia, Birthplace of Legends
Blood of Angels
Blood of Fiends
Pirates of the Inner Sea
Dragon Empires Primer
Faiths of Corruption
Goblins of Golarion
Faiths of Balance
Humans of Golarion
Faiths of Purity
Halflings of Golarion
Inner Sea Primer
Orcs of Golarion
Sargava, the Lost Colony
Gnomes of Golarion
Adventurer's Armory
Andoran, Spirit of Liberty
Dwarves of Golarion
Cheliax, Empire of Devils
Qadira, Gateway to the East
Taldor, Echoes of Glory
Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs
Elves of Golarion
Campaign Settings:
Druma, Profit and Prophacy
Concordance of Rivals
Faiths of Golarion
Construct Handbook
Distant Realms
Nidal, Land of Shadows
Inner Sea Taverns
Taldor, the First Empire
Aquatic Adventures
Lands of Conflict
Qadira, Jewel of the East
The First World, Realm of the Fey
Horror Realms
Inner Sea Temples
Planes of Power
Path of the Hellknight
Inner Sea Intrigue
Heaven Unleashed
Inner Sea Faiths
Darklands Revisited
Cheliax, the Infernal Empire
Occult Realms
Distant Shores
Inner Sea Races
Occult Bestiary
Hell Unleashed
Inner Sea Monster Codex
Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom
Tombs of Golarion
Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes
Lost Treasures
Ships of the Inner Sea
Undead Unleashed
Technology Guide
Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars
Occult Mysteries
Inner Sea Combat
Inner Sea Gods
Osirion, Legacy of the Pharaohs
Inner Sea NPC Codex
Towns of the Inner Sea
Mythic Realms
Demons Revisited
The Worldwound
Castles of the Inner Sea
Dragons Unleashed
Fey Revisited
Chronicle of the Righteous
Irrisen - Land of Eternal Winter
Mystery Monsters Revisited
Inner Sea Bestiary
Artifacts and Legends
Paths of Prestige
Magnimar, City of Monuments
Lost Kingdoms
Giants Revisited
Isles of the Shackles
Distant Worlds
Mythical Monsters Revisited
Dragon Empires Gazetteer
Book of the Damned - Volume 3: Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Lands of the Linnorm Kings
Pathfinder Society Field Guide
Inner Sea Magic
Dungeons of Golarion
Undead Revisited
Rival Guide
Rule of Fear
Inner Sea World Guide
Lost Cities of Golarion
Book of the Damned - Volume 2: Lords of Chaos
Misfit Monsters Redeemed
City of Strangers
Heart of the Jungle
Faction Guide
Classic Treasures Revisited
NPC Guide
Guide to the River Kingdoms
Classic Horrors Revisited
Cities of Golarion
Book of the Damned - Volume 1: Princes of Darkness
Seekers of Secrets
Dungeon Denizens Revisited
The Great Beyond - A Guide to the Multiverse
Dark Markets - A Guide to Katapesh
Dragons Revisited
Guide to Absalom
Into the Darklands
Gods and Magic
Pathfinder Campaign Setting
Guide to Darkmoon Vale
Classic Monsters Revisited
Guide to Korvosa
Pathfinder is apparently full of bloat.
Note - I included Setting books since you seem to think they are bloat. I didn't include adventures or adventure paths (even though you did), because they are not bloat, regardless of how you might like to use them to exaggerate.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 24, 2020, 10:16:26 PM
Quote from: Bren on November 24, 2020, 09:09:50 PMWYSIWIG? I think you might be showing your age there. :P
You mean I'm dating myself? Well, why not, nobody else will date me. ;D
;D
Quote from: Itachi on November 23, 2020, 11:18:56 PMI don't even grok the separation of a game in GM book + Players book.
"What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. [...] As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing is as something less than worth of honorable death. Peeping players there will undoubtedly be, but they are simply lessening thei own enjoying of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that otherwise arises from a game which has rules hidden from participants. It is in your interests, and in theirs to discourage possession of this book by players." - the
Dungeon Master's Guide,
AD&D1eWhile this raises some questions - like if you once DM, must you DM forever? - the idea is that part of the joy of a game lies in the mysteries of the game world. We've all played with the guy who, when the party encounters monster A, he can rattle off all the thing's stats - and by listing all its numbers, he takes away some of the drama of fighting it.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 25, 2020, 12:00:25 AMlike if you once DM, must you DM forever?
Worked for me. ;D
My first experience with an RPG (as opposed to choose your adventure books) was DMing Dragonlance.
In the 30+ years that have passed since that event, I have been a player in a grand total of 2 campaigns, one of which was very short. I lost count of how many campaigns I DMed about 15 years ago.
I have a lot of personal preferences, but I can't think of any single thing that I'd consider prima facie bad design. The devil's always in the details, though. For the longest time, I thought I just hated feats(or feat-like things) thanks to my extremely underwhelming experiences with D&D 3.x. But I never had an issue with Savage World's edges, and Fantasy Craft . . . well, I can hardly gush enough about how great I think that game is.
For me, it all boils down to bad math and excessive bookkeeping, though the latter is really just a preference. There was that bloke a few pages back going on about, paraphrasing, "dice pools are bad when they're too simple and the math is easy to follow," which seems just dumb to me. I don't mind dice pools being more fiddly, and have enjoyed a few games where that was the case, but I don't want extra fiddliness just for its own sake. I just want the math to work, and for the system to not be easy for the players to accidentally break, in both directions. In normal 3.x, it's incredibly easy for someone to accidentally make their character really suck at higher-level play. In Fantasy Craft, not so much. Both have their exploits, but the 3.x ones tend to be far more numerous and egregious even before including all the supplemental options. And I just can't with Pathfinder.
And note I said accidentally above. If someone purposely tries to break the system, that's on them, and I'll deal with them accordingly. I can't think of many, if any, systems that can't be exploited somehow if you're clever enough. But if they stumble upon something obviously broken by accident(thus in retrospect), then I think that's at least evidence that the system is less well designed in a more substantial way.
How much needs to be wrong before I'll consider the system overall poorly designed? I dunno. I think 3e is pretty poorly designed, though the core is solid(as Fantasy Craft shows). I don't even have to like a game to consider it well-designed, either. For example, I think 4e, at least before the supplement treadmill(I've heard about some of the options added later), was pretty well-designed. It certainly wasn't something I'd ever want to play, but it seemed very good at doing what it was designed to do. The square-grid tactical battles in 3e were already the part I cared for the least, so that but more so wasn't a big selling point(though I did look into the basics of the new system to see how it works; just because I didn't want to pay it didn't mean I wasn't a little curious).
It's not as if design is consistent in games, either.
The Burning Wheel "hub" (first 70 pages, core of the game) is very well designed. It's presented somewhat poorly (albeit better in the later editions than the earlier ones). But it does exactly what it says it does. You could run a game using mostly just that while ignoring all of the various sub systems, and the system advice encourages you to do exactly that.
BW also includes page after page of details during character generation that--well, I can't say that are poorly designed so much as barely designed at all. The "design" such as it is, is that the character generation details are firmly in the setting camp. BW has some language about how such things are "designed" but it would be more accurate to describe them in video game terms as "skinned". You take those solid hub rules and skin some flavor on top of them to introduce a new character generation element or monster or what have you. The weird part about it is how half the mechanical widgets on your character are those not-designed setting elements.
Meanwhile, those aforementioned subsystems are all over the place in design quality. Some are very fiddly to the point of extreme aggravation, but I can't say how much of it is necessary. You see some of the merits and faults of dice pool systems in the subsystems. Most of the fiddly stuff is working around the limits of the dice pool base mechanics that work so well in the hub. (This is why Mouse Guard is a much better example of the same design. The fiddly stuff has been almost entirely removed, with the tiny bit that is left serving an obvious purpose.)
I'd play or run BW (or MG or Torchbearer) with the right group--assuming that we could do so without giving them any more money. (It's not just the politics of the company. I'll just say that before "Gamer-Gate" that I was also not impressed with their customer support.) The chances of me finding that group are so close to nil that I doubt I'll ever do it properly, despite already owning all 3 games. It's designed to run for 1 GM and 2-3 players that all really dig manipulating game mechanics ruthlessly during play and pushing a game hard all the time like monkeys on crack. All of whom also want to do this is in a setting as extreme to match. 5-7 players, half of them casual, gave it a strong shot, but it is not for us.
I wonder if you can chart the number of DMG sales that resulted from telling the players it was forbidden.
I am seeing some recurring gripes here: dice pool mechanics, "House of Cards" style game design.
I would like to say that I don't think any of the above automatically makes a game bad. I do think that these mechanics are tempting for game designers for a variety of reasons, but they present various traps and pitfalls which inexperienced or deluded designers can easily fall into if they are not careful.
One element I've grown to see as bad design for level-based games is "Too Many Levels."
I'll specifically point to 3e's Epic Level Handbook (which became "core-ish" in 3.5 by inclusion of many of its rules into the 3.5e DMG), 4E's 30 levels, and Arcanis' attempt at their own system that ended up with effectively 50 levels. I'd even argue that basic 3e and 5e with their 20 levels are just a little too much.
The biggest problem with all those levels is that you have to find something to fill them with and, while 4E at least recognized some of this by having you replace weaker powers as you leveled up rather than just adding them on top... it still leads to pretty unmanageable characters at upper levels as all the widgets they gained on the way up load down the character with things to track.
The second problem is that, in my experience, almost no group ever actually reaches those max levels if they start from level 1. More than half the 3e and later games I've played that started at level 1 petered out by level 6. The longest campaign I was involved in achieved level 22 in 4E before the sheer weight of options just made it not fun anymore (we then time-jumped 15 years to their kids and converted to the system I'd been writing).
My honest opinion is that B/X and Palladium Books pretty much had the sweet spot nailed with 14-15 levels. Enough room to grow, but still possible to reach the capstone abilities before your group burns out on it... and not too many extra abilities needed to bog down the character with even if you were adding one at each level.
The capped levels (including AD&D/BECMI ending hit dice gains around level 9-10 and adding just a few extra hp/level after that) also prevented the massive bloat in hit points (and therefore needing bloated damage or 'save or die' effects to deal with it) and spell capacity. There's a huge difference between an AD&D fighter 14 who has about 65 hp before Con mods and a 3e fighter 14 who very likely has 130+ hp thanks to magical stat boosters and 14 hit dice, the first of which is maxed. This is to say nothing of the ancient huge red dragon's 88 hp in AD&D 1e vs. the 660 hp of a great wyrm red dragon in 3.5e (40d12+400 including the Con modifiers).
Its honestly why I ended up with 15 levels in my own system.
Quote from: Torque2100 on November 25, 2020, 08:33:00 AM
I am seeing some recurring gripes here: dice pool mechanics, "House of Cards" style game design.
I would like to say that I don't think any of the above automatically makes a game bad. I do think that these mechanics are tempting for game designers for a variety of reasons, but they present various traps and pitfalls which inexperienced or deluded designers can easily fall into if they are not careful.
I did label is 'Signs', and another poster used the term I probably should have included in the OP... Red Flags.
In other words, none of these gripes is, in itself, proof that a game is badly designed. I, who listed Dice Pools, also defended some dice pool games.
IOW: You are right, and it probably needs to be said every few pages. Of course it should also be said that a lot can come down to personal tastes. If all you care about is having a system that doesn't get in the way, a sloppy but very tactile single target dice pool system might be a 'good design' for you. I mean we have a poster complaining about thieves in D&D...
In other words: and "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table. I'll note that bad designs seem to be dominating the RPG market right now as most new games seem to be entirely made using a tiny handful of systems, which I think I predicted would start happening years ago when I realized we were running out of 'new mechanics' and new games were getting increasingly gimmicky in an effort to be new, or perhaps to avoid being accused of 'ripping off' some earlier game's mechanics (which, to my knowledge, are not protectable under any IP laws... you just can't lift the text itself or any trademarked terms, but IANAL, etc).
The Smart Guys (TM) who started licensing their game engines are making money hand over fist (I hope?), I just wish that they were as good at design as they are at marketing.
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 25, 2020, 09:22:38 AM
One element I've grown to see as bad design for level-based games is "Too Many Levels."
[snip for length]
You clearly never talked to players in the AD&D days, where you could always find some guy willing, nay eager, to tell you about his 157th level half elf paladin (or whatever) who suddenly gained 30 levels overnight after participating in ragnarok (names have been changed to protect the innocent, but yes, I heard nearly that exact story in my very first year playing D&D...). I mean: You may never SEE one of these campaigns play out, but apparently they did exist, at least in players minds.
I can make a converse argument that tightly constrained levels can make a game feel claustrophobic, as you approach the level cap you start getting a feeling that its time to end the campaign because you're at the end of the system (hypothetically. I've only played level 20 D&D in one-shots, where levelling and xp were non-starters). Open ended systems can leave you feeling like you have never ending potential for exploration... and notably in my humble experiences, most games/gamers will never actually experience all that (often very poorly designed) high level bloat.
Then again, my next thread was going to be on the absurdity of Roleplaying games addiction to the idea of XP and levelling, with a shoutout to Traveller which perhaps goes too far in shutting down growth after creation, and special mention to Kyle Aaron, who almost scooped me with an earlier post in this very thread! No game that I can recall makes any effort to actually model how people grow and learn...
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:28:51 AM(N)one of these gripes is, in itself, proof that a game is badly designed. ...(An) "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table.
Case in point: By most standards I think people would suggest today, the AD&D1E rules are rather "badly" designed -- there's little consistency, lots of holes allowing for endless interpretation arguments, some madly unbalanced items and abilities, not a lot of support for mechanically resolving actions not explicitly described in the rules, and a number of fun-ruining "landmines" (I personally loathed the original level loss via energy drain; nothing was more infuriating than the waste of the time needed to earn one's hard-fought levels). Yet the game is still a landmark of entertainment, and it's not just because of its originator status.
Again, it's the whole question of, "Is the time and obsession required to master these rules a bug or a feature?" For a lot of strategy gaming's original (and current) audience base, it's a feature. Modern marketers may be trying too hard to find something that can be plausibly marketed to both.
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:28:51 AM
In other words: and "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table. I'll note that bad designs seem to be dominating the RPG market right now as most new games seem to be entirely made using a tiny handful of systems, which I think I predicted would start happening years ago when I realized we were running out of 'new mechanics' and new games were getting increasingly gimmicky in an effort to be new, or perhaps to avoid being accused of 'ripping off' some earlier game's mechanics (which, to my knowledge, are not protectable under any IP laws... you just can't lift the text itself or any trademarked terms, but IANAL, etc).
The Smart Guys (TM) who started licensing their game engines are making money hand over fist (I hope?), I just wish that they were as good at design as they are at marketing.
This makes me think that perhaps a sign of good design would be a game that uses X system but modified. All other things being equal, that would suggest to me that the designer wanted the game to be accessible but found the system needed modification to function properly with the setting/vision of the game.
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:28:51 AM
In other words: and "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table. I'll note that bad designs seem to be dominating the RPG market right now as most new games seem to be entirely made using a tiny handful of systems, which I think I predicted would start happening years ago when I realized we were running out of 'new mechanics' and new games were getting increasingly gimmicky in an effort to be new, or perhaps to avoid being accused of 'ripping off' some earlier game's mechanics (which, to my knowledge, are not protectable under any IP laws... you just can't lift the text itself or any trademarked terms, but IANAL, etc).
I think on the new system front, it is just harder these days to get people interested in a new system. There is still a niche market for that, but you are probably better off, just from a marketing and making money point of view, with taking making a game for a system that already has an audience where people don't need to learn a whole new book of rules. The last time it seemed like the norm to make a new system all the time was the 90s (the d20 boom was all about d20, and since then, even in corners of the hobby I think of as liking new systems, one or two systems have come to dominate: the PbtA system for example). Personally I prefer new systems. I think just because I spent a lot of time in the 90s playing new games as they came out, and the expectation was you'd have a completely new system designed for that game. But that is just a preference.
In terms of objectively good and bad. I think design goals and target audience are really the only objective measure. You can have a game with wonky math, but if it is intentional, because you like it, or you know your audience has fun with it, I don't think you can really call it bad design (you achieved the goals you set for yourself when you made the game, and you and your audience are happy with the final result). If the wonky math is totally unintentional that is a different story. But the purpose of designing a game is so people play it and have fun. Any objective criteria for game design, I think needs to be based on that. That said, if by objectively good design, one means a game that will have the broadest possible appeal among gamers, that is also a different story.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 25, 2020, 09:39:48 AM
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:28:51 AM(N)one of these gripes is, in itself, proof that a game is badly designed. ...(An) "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table.
Case in point: By most standards I think people would suggest today, the AD&D1E rules are rather "badly" designed -- there's little consistency, lots of holes allowing for endless interpretation arguments, some madly unbalanced items and abilities, not a lot of support for mechanically resolving actions not explicitly described in the rules, and a number of fun-ruining "landmines" (I personally loathed the original level loss via energy drain; nothing was more infuriating than the waste of the time needed to earn one's hard-fought levels). Yet the game is still a landmark of entertainment, and it's not just because of its originator status.
This ground I am sure has been covered elsewhere but to weigh in on this, I held the view in the early 2000s that AD&D (both 1E and 2E) were clunky, wonky and 'old design' (which just seemed to be the assumption a lot of us had at the time). But I picked up the 1E DMG again, then ran a 2E Ravenloft campaign again (it had been some years since I had done so). And I realized many of the things I thought of as clunky or weird (for example having a different die roll for initiative, and reading it from lowest to highest) actually made the game better. I think by the 2000s it was possible we overvalued a system with unified mechanics. Unified has its advantages for sure, but it also does have the downside that it is harder to get specific with individual elements of the game. Not saying AD&D was perfect, just I was very surprised, when I went back to it, how much I preferred it over what I was playing under 3rd edition (and the feel of the game shifted in really positive ways for me going back to those mechanics as well).
On the levels thing, that has always been a bit divisive, but I definitely feel nothing makes creatures more scary than the prospect of level loss. So for me, on the player side, it makes the game more exciting to have it. On the GM side, you can see the impact level loss has. The problem with level loss, is it is divisive, so you will run into players who get really angry over it from time to time. But my attitude is I much prefer a game where all those pitfalls are on the table, they are part of what make the game fun for me.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 25, 2020, 09:59:29 AMI think on the new system front, it is just harder these days to get people interested in a new system. There is still a niche market for that, but you are probably better off, just from a marketing and making money point of view, with taking making a game for a system that already has an audience where people don't need to learn a whole new book of rules. The last time it seemed like the norm to make a new system all the time was the 90s (the d20 boom was all about d20, and since then, even in corners of the hobby I think of as liking new systems, one or two systems have come to dominate: the PbtA system for example). Personally I prefer new systems. I think just because I spent a lot of time in the 90s playing new games as they came out, and the expectation was you'd have a completely new system designed for that game. But that is just a preference.
I'm with you here, more or less. I like new games presenting their own rules to reflect that game's goals and themes.
QuoteIn terms of objectively good and bad. I think design goals and target audience are really the only objective measure. You can have a game with wonky math, but if it is intentional, because you like it, or you know your audience has fun with it, I don't think you can really call it bad design (you achieved the goals you set for yourself when you made the game, and you and your audience are happy with the final result). If the wonky math is totally unintentional that is a different story. But the purpose of designing a game is so people play it and have fun. Any objective criteria for game design, I think needs to be based on that. That said, if by objectively good design, one means a game that will have the broadest possible appeal among gamers, that is also a different story.
Good point. How about this for a criteria:
- Does the game do what the
author intended in the opinion of the
target audience?
:)
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 25, 2020, 09:22:38 AM
One element I've grown to see as bad design for level-based games is "Too Many Levels."
*extra well-said stuff I'm cutting*
While I do somewhat see where you're coming from - as most systems have a "sweet spot" of gameplay which veterans of the system all know. Usually it's a couple of levels above a starter character (which are often set up to be tutorial characters) but before the very high levels when the number of abilities becomes crazy, HP bloat gets out of hand, and the math/probabilities of the system often break down. (You mentioned 3.x - and I know that in both 3.x & Pathfinder, the general consensus seems to be that the sweet spot is around levels 3-8ish. You aren't going to die from a lucky crit, spellcasters get their 2nd level spells, but they also don't get 5th spell level craziness and around 10-12 is also when the math starts to break down.)
HOWEVER - I would argue that for the success of the system, having those levels exist, even when almost no one actually plays at them, is beneficial to its longevity.
For example, if you're in a system with only 10 levels and you hit level 8, it can start to be demotivating that you only have two levels to go and the campaign may peter out because of it. Or if you ever DO hit level 10, even if that was the right place to end the campaign, you might decide that you're done with the system and never pick it up again.
But if the system goes up to level 20, the higher levels are always out there singing their sirens' song to you. You may even know that you'll likely never get there, and you'll feel the mechanics start to break down at level 9-12ish, but those high levels still exist.
This is even more true if the setting & mechanics are tied closely together (a big plus IMO), as the existence of higher levels allows bigger scarier things to always be out on the horizon. If the game maxes out at 10, are the PCs then the most powerful entities in the world? Are there a bunch of 10s who are all approximately equal? Something else? From that front, it's just easier from a world-building perspective if there are a bunch of extra levels even if virtually no one plays a campaign at them.
I didn't go as extreme as D&D, but I put 15 levels into the space western system I'm working on. The first 3 are pretty blatantly the tutorial levels as you pick up your advanced class at 4 and they require less EXP, and around 8ish the EXP requirements for the next level start to spike, and I'm doubtful that many campaigns would ever hit 15. (Also of note - Space Dogs doesn't have a ton of 'zero to hero' as the PCs start as pretty badass and, due to the point-buy hybrid system, they actually gain fewer raw power increase after the first few levels - gaining more breadth in abilities than just power & bigger numbers.)
But I do 100% agree with you that systems shouldn't have a bazillion levels of progress for their own sake. They should be thought out and designed deliberately to get the experience that the designer actually intends.
Edit: Spelling/Grammar
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 25, 2020, 10:36:04 AMI think by the 2000s it was possible we overvalued a system with unified mechanics. Unified has its advantages for sure, but it also does have the downside that it is harder to get specific with individual elements of the game.
Q.v. the debate between generic and setting-specific systems, where the former is argued to be easier to pick up and run but the latter is generally held to be better (when competently designed) at evoking the "feel" people want from/love in a particular setting.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 25, 2020, 11:17:47 AMHOWEVER - I would argue that for the success of the system, having those levels exist, even when almost no one actually plays at them, is beneficial to its longevity.
"A PC's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's an Epic-level handbook for?" ;D
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 25, 2020, 11:17:47 AM
This is even more true if the setting & mechanics are tied closely together (a bit plus IMO), as the existence of higher levels allows bigger scarier things to always be out on the horizon. If the game maxes out at 10, are the PCs then the most powerful entities in the world? Are there a bunch of 10s who are all approximately equal? Something else? From that front, it's just easier from a world-building perspective if there are a bunch of extra levels even if virtually no one plays a campaign at them.
I didn't go as extreme as D&D, but I put 15 levels into the space western system I'm working on. The first 3 are pretty blatantly the tutorial levels as you pick up your advanced class at 4 and they require less EXP, and around 8ish the EXP requirements for the next level start to spike, and I'm doubtful that many campaigns would ever hit 15. (Also of note - Space Dogs doesn't have a ton of 'zero to hero' as the PCs start as pretty badass and, due to the point-buy hybrid system, they actually gain fewer raw power increase after the first few levels - gaining more breadth in abilities than just power & bigger numbers.)
But I do 100% agree with you that systems shouldn't have a bazillion levels of progress for their own sake. They should be thought out and designed deliberately to get the experience that the designer actually intends.
Agree with all this. Yeah, having more levels just to have levels isn't a good enough reason. It might have some positive aspects to it in the psychology of it all, but if the levels are there, they should be useful.
However, exactly what a "level" constitutes has to be considered. I have 24 levels in my current design. It's that way because class isn't the only thing affected by levels--and having fractional levels is plain silly. It's not a straight match, but roughly you can think of the system has having 12-15 levels in the normal D&D sense of the term, while the other levels are bringing in those other mechanics. Hit dice only increase on odd levels, for example. I also did this as part of a goal to tamp down power across the board and spread out the "sweet spot" but also change some of the relative values of when things are gained. The gaining of spells is stretched thinner, the system makes non-casters quite competent, and it has easy customization with no feats or multi-classing.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on November 25, 2020, 11:39:25 AM
However, exactly what a "level" constitutes has to be considered.
Oh sure - I basically just used it as shorthand for character progression. A point-buy system also needs to worry about character progression, how it flows, and how it ties into the setting etc.
As I said above - while my system Space Dogs has levels, it's really more of a level & point-buy hybrid. A lot of what you gain each level are 10 attribute points & 10 skill points - which are used to purchase attributes & skills respectively with a quadratic point increase. (So the first increase in a primary attribute [from 3 to 4] costs 1 point, the second increase costs 4 points, the third costs 9 points etc.) This means that each successive level will actually gain your character less in attributes & skills - and (especially in skills) promote having a greater breadth of skills rather than just focus on a couple.
After all, there is a good chance that it's more useful to dabble in 8 different skills - which would be most of them (if not a background skill they cost double, so 2 points each for the first rank - attributes have the same thing for secondary and tertiary attributes at x2 & x3 respectively) than to get that 4th rank in one of your primary skills (costing 16 skill points due to the quadratic increases). This was done intentionally, as while I didn't want to force particular builds, I did want the system to encourage branching out after the first few levels.
Anyway - sorry for the tangent - my main point in what you quoted and here is that the designer should be deliberate in how character progression works both within the mechanics themselves as well as how that meshes with the setting.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on November 25, 2020, 07:43:17 AM
It's not as if design is consistent in games, either.
The Burning Wheel "hub" (first 70 pages, core of the game) is very well designed. It's presented somewhat poorly (albeit better in the later editions than the earlier ones). But it does exactly what it says it does. You could run a game using mostly just that while ignoring all of the various sub systems, and the system advice encourages you to do exactly that.
BW also includes page after page of details during character generation that--well, I can't say that are poorly designed so much as barely designed at all. The "design" such as it is, is that the character generation details are firmly in the setting camp. BW has some language about how such things are "designed" but it would be more accurate to describe them in video game terms as "skinned". You take those solid hub rules and skin some flavor on top of them to introduce a new character generation element or monster or what have you. The weird part about it is how half the mechanical widgets on your character are those not-designed setting elements.
Meanwhile, those aforementioned subsystems are all over the place in design quality. Some are very fiddly to the point of extreme aggravation, but I can't say how much of it is necessary. You see some of the merits and faults of dice pool systems in the subsystems. Most of the fiddly stuff is working around the limits of the dice pool base mechanics that work so well in the hub. (This is why Mouse Guard is a much better example of the same design. The fiddly stuff has been almost entirely removed, with the tiny bit that is left serving an obvious purpose.)
I'd play or run BW (or MG or Torchbearer) with the right group--assuming that we could do so without giving them any more money. (It's not just the politics of the company. I'll just say that before "Gamer-Gate" that I was also not impressed with their customer support.) The chances of me finding that group are so close to nil that I doubt I'll ever do it properly, despite already owning all 3 games. It's designed to run for 1 GM and 2-3 players that all really dig manipulating game mechanics ruthlessly during play and pushing a game hard all the time like monkeys on crack. All of whom also want to do this is in a setting as extreme to match. 5-7 players, half of them casual, gave it a strong shot, but it is not for us.
I'm of the almost opposite opinion. I feel like "the hub" by itself is way too much and kind of stupid for a rules light system. It's not until the character creation, skills with obstacle lists, and the deeper subsystems that the game justified itself.
I like to peg a game for what kind of stories its meant to tell. Savage Worlds is for anything that would make for a good movie or TV show, with action being easier to pull off. The Burning Wheel is for fantasy book stories, which normally make for terrible RPG experiences, but why I consider The Burning Wheel well designed is it manages to pull this off in a Rules Heavy RPG. But if you didn't have lifepaths, detailed stocks (races), hundreds of skills, and various systems of conflict resolution for higher stakes conflict, you couldn't pull that off.
OSR games have rules for combat because that tends to kill characters. They tend to have something like saving throws to give a character a last shot to not have something terrible happen to them. If you and your players sit down to The Burning Wheel and want to be competitive basket weavers, the game has detailed progression and conflict resolution systems for that kind of game. You could run a whole campaign about the basket weavers and their various quests to perfect their craft and prove that theirs is the one true way to create baskets.
Without all those fiddly bits, you have a stupid die pool mechanic to make random numbers that are arbitrary and don't really mean anything. The bellcurve probability would hurt the game then because some swingyness would at least add some chaos that could be fun... and oops I've re-wrote an OSR game with a meta currency.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 25, 2020, 10:36:04 AM
This ground I am sure has been covered elsewhere but to weigh in on this, I held the view in the early 2000s that AD&D (both 1E and 2E) were clunky, wonky and 'old design' (which just seemed to be the assumption a lot of us had at the time). But I picked up the 1E DMG again, then ran a 2E Ravenloft campaign again (it had been some years since I had done so). And I realized many of the things I thought of as clunky or weird (for example having a different die roll for initiative, and reading it from lowest to highest) actually made the game better. I think by the 2000s it was possible we overvalued a system with unified mechanics. Unified has its advantages for sure, but it also does have the downside that it is harder to get specific with individual elements of the game. Not saying AD&D was perfect, just I was very surprised, when I went back to it, how much I preferred it over what I was playing under 3rd edition (and the feel of the game shifted in really positive ways for me going back to those mechanics as well).
I think we've (the gaming community) gotten a bit too attached to 'smooth' systems. There is a sweet spot in game design (according to theory... though maybe just mine?) that a game that is too simple is mastered too easily and becomes boring and is eventually rejected, while a game that is too complex doesn't pick up players at all because they can't have fun.
One thing all those fiddly and unique mechanics does is add a sense of fun to learning and playing the game, because it adds variety. Did you know that the flatness of Kansas actually causes suicides? That may seem a non-sequitur, but it is not. People crave variety, they crave depth of field, they crave clutter. If every rule is some minor variation on the same mechanic this can create a sort of vast oppressive wasteland of sameness, just like Kansas, only I hope without the suicides.
This is one of the great advantages of older games, like AD&D, despite how clunky they SEEM vs the newer, streamlined design ethos.
There is also something to be said for quirky options that are not quite balanced (in both directions!). Not everything in life is fair, and RPGs are not exactly competitive sports... where even there you have optimal 'tactics' based on the rules as they lie (check the differences between how college and pro football games are played, they are almost different sports based on the skills required to be competitive (I've heard... I'm not a voyuer who enjoys watching others play games)), yet part of this 'smoothing' of modern design is to ruthlessly ensure every thing is mechanically balanced to the nth degree. And much like the unified systems, it sounds like a laudible goal, but the end results are increasingly bland games and no one seems to know why.
Quote from: SpikePeople crave variety, they crave depth of field, they crave clutter.
This is the best segue point I could pick up on to share this video.
It's about why movies aren't documentaries, for example "Why aren't those two guys fighting wearing helms?" well because nobody wants to watch twenty-five minutes of two anonymous guys slugging it out and hearing only muffled grunts from them. I think a lot of what he says applies to game design, but I have to think about it a bit.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 24, 2020, 10:32:21 PM
Pathfinder is apparently full of bloat.
Note - I included Setting books since you seem to think they are bloat. I didn't include adventures or adventure paths (even though you did), because they are not bloat, regardless of how you might like to use them to exaggerate.
Pathfinder is full of bloat.
Who is going to argue that it is not?
Oh thats right, the "I only bought the PHB" guy.
Quote from: SpikeNo game that I can recall makes any effort to actually model how people grow and learn...
No, because a realistic one would have,
1. months or years of study
2. which many people would give up on (eg about 1 in 3 people (https://www.universityrankings.com.au/degree-completion-rates/) don't finish their degree)
3. which lead to random gains in skill (not every graduate is equally-skilled)
4. and skills degrade over time - "I used to be much stronger", as the old bloke said in
The Wedding Singer5. oh and for every skill there's a chance that you think you're much worse than you think you are, so we're going to write "99%" on your character sheet but you will keep failing anyway (hello Dunning & Kruger)
Like the actual healing process after injury, the rehab and chances of drug addiction and depression, nobody
really wants to roleplay how people actually grow and learn - because it's a slow, uncertain and reversible process. We want rapid, certain and irreversible skill growth.
Edit: double-post
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 25, 2020, 09:59:29 AM
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:28:51 AM
In other words: and "Objectively" bad design, mechanically, might be a subjectively fun game at the table. I'll note that bad designs seem to be dominating the RPG market right now as most new games seem to be entirely made using a tiny handful of systems, which I think I predicted would start happening years ago when I realized we were running out of 'new mechanics' and new games were getting increasingly gimmicky in an effort to be new, or perhaps to avoid being accused of 'ripping off' some earlier game's mechanics (which, to my knowledge, are not protectable under any IP laws... you just can't lift the text itself or any trademarked terms, but IANAL, etc).
I think on the new system front, it is just harder these days to get people interested in a new system. There is still a niche market for that, but you are probably better off, just from a marketing and making money point of view, with taking making a game for a system that already has an audience where people don't need to learn a whole new book of rules. The last time it seemed like the norm to make a new system all the time was the 90s (the d20 boom was all about d20, and since then, even in corners of the hobby I think of as liking new systems, one or two systems have come to dominate: the PbtA system for example). Personally I prefer new systems. I think just because I spent a lot of time in the 90s playing new games as they came out, and the expectation was you'd have a completely new system designed for that game. But that is just a preference.
In terms of objectively good and bad. I think design goals and target audience are really the only objective measure. You can have a game with wonky math, but if it is intentional, because you like it, or you know your audience has fun with it, I don't think you can really call it bad design (you achieved the goals you set for yourself when you made the game, and you and your audience are happy with the final result). If the wonky math is totally unintentional that is a different story. But the purpose of designing a game is so people play it and have fun. Any objective criteria for game design, I think needs to be based on that. That said, if by objectively good design, one means a game that will have the broadest possible appeal among gamers, that is also a different story.
I'm less interested in new systems these days because I've been burned too many times.
New systems are usually not playtested and fall apart under actual play. Two systems in recent memory that I learnt and tried were Symbaroum and A Song of Ice and Fire. It became quite clear after a while that neither could have possibly been playtested in their final forms. And these are just the most recent in a long line.
These days I'd rather just hack a system I already know. This way I don't get ugly surprises.
Quote from: Spike on November 25, 2020, 09:38:02 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 25, 2020, 09:22:38 AM
One element I've grown to see as bad design for level-based games is "Too Many Levels."
[snip for length]
No game that I can recall makes any effort to actually model how people grow and learn...
I made a stab at it in my Galaxies In Shadow rules ( http://www.uncouthsavage.com/uploads/1/3/3/2/133279619/gisgrfx.pdf )
The character creation summary is on pages 15 and 16.
At one point it had atrophy rules but they were very unpopular. Though, really, that's what the increasing cost of skills represents in most games. Heck players routinely balk at aging even when the main effect is a reduction in the number of experience points received per year.
The event table does allow a chance for incompetent people to get promoted but they're more likely to lose their job. Some days I'm not sure that's realistic.
The wisest thing to do is to simply clamp down, hard, as a GM.
Case in point: I told my players I would not allow Tasha's Book of Uncontrollable Virtue Signaling to be used. And any options taken outside of the PHB or Xanathar's would need to be reviewed by me. Seems to have worked all right; we have one uncommon character type (an aarakocra of all things), being run by one of our veterans so I'm not too concerned.
As the dice have been fucking bizarre this campaign (we all hold our breath when the wild mage sorcerer casts a spell, as she has gotten the 'ten surges in succession' result TWICE now), I am content.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 26, 2020, 02:55:19 AM
Quote from: SpikeNo game that I can recall makes any effort to actually model how people grow and learn...
No, because a realistic one would have,
1. months or years of study
2. which many people would give up on (eg about 1 in 3 people (https://www.universityrankings.com.au/degree-completion-rates/) don't finish their degree)
3. which lead to random gains in skill (not every graduate is equally-skilled)
4. and skills degrade over time - "I used to be much stronger", as the old bloke said in The Wedding Singer
5. oh and for every skill there's a chance that you think you're much worse than you think you are, so we're going to write "99%" on your character sheet but you will keep failing anyway (hello Dunning & Kruger)
Like the actual healing process after injury, the rehab and chances of drug addiction and depression, nobody really wants to roleplay how people actually grow and learn - because it's a slow, uncertain and reversible process. We want rapid, certain and irreversible skill growth.
There are games that model some of these ideas at least to some degree (at least at the level of verisimilitude sough by the rest of the game). Things like extended downtime where you improve skills but are subject to random downtime events, too. Or direct learning from other PCs or NPCs who have a skill that you want, which takes time and carries uncertainty. And yes, healing that is realistic in that you're handicapped for weeks and/or could suffer an infection and die. Mind you these are non-heroic games where you can't just drink a red potion and be back to normal instantly. For a game to do this well, there needs to be some consequence, otherwise everyone would just rest for a year, heal up, and increase skill.
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 26, 2020, 10:15:44 AM
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 26, 2020, 02:55:19 AM
Quote from: SpikeNo game that I can recall makes any effort to actually model how people grow and learn...
No, because a realistic one would have,
1. months or years of study
2. which many people would give up on (eg about 1 in 3 people (https://www.universityrankings.com.au/degree-completion-rates/) don't finish their degree)
3. which lead to random gains in skill (not every graduate is equally-skilled)
4. and skills degrade over time - "I used to be much stronger", as the old bloke said in The Wedding Singer
5. oh and for every skill there's a chance that you think you're much worse than you think you are, so we're going to write "99%" on your character sheet but you will keep failing anyway (hello Dunning & Kruger)
Like the actual healing process after injury, the rehab and chances of drug addiction and depression, nobody really wants to roleplay how people actually grow and learn - because it's a slow, uncertain and reversible process. We want rapid, certain and irreversible skill growth.
There are games that model some of these ideas at least to some degree (at least at the level of verisimilitude sough by the rest of the game). Things like extended downtime where you improve skills but are subject to random downtime events, too. Or direct learning from other PCs or NPCs who have a skill that you want, which takes time and carries uncertainty. And yes, healing that is realistic in that you're handicapped for weeks and/or could suffer an infection and die. Mind you these are non-heroic games where you can't just drink a red potion and be back to normal instantly. For a game to do this well, there needs to be some consequence, otherwise everyone would just rest for a year, heal up, and increase skill.
I remember playing a game with somewhat realistic, or at least plausible, vital sign tables. There has always been a push and pull between realism and the abstraction required for gaming. One thing I will say about that, and about complex versus simple games, it isn't always as simple as even having one single preference. I find I fluctuate. When I first started publishing, all I wanted to do was make rules light games. That is what I wanted to play and at the time that was what felt perfect. Then I started to crave more variety again, and complexity. So I made and played more rules medium and complex games. But that too got old with time. I started wanting that lighter framework so I could focus on the events in the game and not worry so much about mechanics all the time again. So I started playing lighter RPGs and making lighter RPGs. And if I look back at myself over time, this is a pattern that extends to my early days of gaming. Even for a single individual the sweet spot is going to shift. And in the hobby in general there are always shifting tastes and fashions (bell bottoms can't remain in style forever!)
How exactly are you defining "simulationism"?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2020, 03:38:43 PM
How exactly are you defining "simulationism"?
Idk how they are, but based on my definition of the term the games with the most simulationism go GURPS > Burning Wheel > ... > D&D 3e > ... > OSR games > Pbta
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 26, 2020, 10:15:44 AM
There are games that model some of these ideas at least to some degree
Yes. But none do
all of them, and games doing even one of them are less popular than those which don't. Most particularly,
no games allow the Dunning-Kruger effect, everyone has an
exactly correct understanding of their level of skill - it's a number on their character sheet which nobody ever doubts, as opposed to the real-world ratings of people's skills.
"I'm an excellent driver, definitely definitely an excellent driver." In RPGs, slow, uncertain and reversible skill growth is less popular than rapid, certain and irreversible skill growth. And nobody wants to be incompetent and unaware of it.
You can put some of those things in your game design - I have - just don't be surprised when it's unpopular. Only a small subset of the gaming population is masochistic enough to want their gaming to ever come within shouting distance of being realistic. For example: "Here's our new first person shooter. You get a single playthrough with permadeath. That'll be $100, thanks." Watch the money roll in, baby!
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 26, 2020, 06:25:09 PM
Quote from: rytrasmi on November 26, 2020, 10:15:44 AM
There are games that model some of these ideas at least to some degree
Yes. But none do all of them, and games doing even one of them are less popular than those which don't. Most particularly, no games allow the Dunning-Kruger effect, everyone has an exactly correct understanding of their level of skill - it's a number on their character sheet which nobody ever doubts, as opposed to the real-world ratings of people's skills. "I'm an excellent driver, definitely definitely an excellent driver."
You can see the Dunning-Kruger effect if you are adding a d20 to your success roll.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 26, 2020, 06:25:09 PM
Most particularly, no games allow the Dunning-Kruger effect, everyone has an exactly correct understanding of their level of skill - it's a number on their character sheet which nobody ever doubts, as opposed to the real-world ratings of people's skills. "I'm an excellent driver, definitely definitely an excellent driver."
To be fair, there's a difference between what the player knows and what the character knows. If you want to get technical about it, your attributes other than lifting strength, running speed and how long you maintain a pace or hold your breath would be just as subject to Dunning-Kruger as skills.
The only way to REALLY apply something like Dunning-Kruger (and its also worth noting that not everyone sucks at evaluating their abilities and, in general, the more experienced you are in a given skill the better you are at judging your ability with it) would be to just keeping the character sheets in the hands of the GM.
Now I would argue that it's one of the reasons we roll dice at all, to represent that very uncertainty. The way I roll, most of my characters suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect.
Quote from: David Johansen on November 26, 2020, 11:52:39 PMThe way I roll, most of my characters suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect.
The way I roll, it pretty clearly shows how
I suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. :o
Quote from: David Johansen on November 26, 2020, 11:52:39 PM
Now I would argue that it's one of the reasons we roll dice at all, to represent that very uncertainty. The way I roll, most of my characters suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect.
Dice can indeed do funny things.
Like Boris "the Unlucky" in a long ago 3e campaign. Barbarian with an 18 Strength (22 when raging), but could never roll above a 3 on the d20 and rolled natural 1s probably 15% of the time.
He was retired after three sessions and the player's new PC using the same dice had no issies at all.
A similar thing happened with an old AD&D fighter of mine. He started out with a slightly battered mundane sword and the DM quickly offered up a magic one among our loot. However, as soon I picked it up I couldn't roll better than a 4 on the die and finally suffered two natural 1s in a row, the first time dropping it in the campfire and the second getting it stuck in a tree.
In frustration I just whipped out my old battered sword and proceeded to roll two natural 20s in a row followed by nothing less than a 15 the rest of the fight. The party, playing in character, presumed the magic sword to be cursed and left it stuck in the tree.
Fun story, right? Except it happened the next time my PC got a magic sword... including the critical hit the moment I abandoned it for my battered old blade. The third time I managed to shatter a sword expressly designed to cut through magic barriers on a magic barrier. No magic sword every worked for me, only mundane weapons.
The GM eventually just rolled with it and basically started playing things as if my PC was some sort of anti-magic anomaly (more accurately, anything magical I touched went haywire).
All because of dice weirdness.
In that respect I'd say the best representation of something like Dunning-Krueger would be task resolution using a d20 (vs. 3d6 or anything else that generates a bell curve).
Alternately you could have a system where you allocate dice to attributes and skills and the GM rolls them behind the screen to get actual ratings and the players never know what they're rolling against. It'd be very Gygaxesque.
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.
What made me think of it was an interview with one of the creators of Lancer, where half of it was about how D&D was mechanically bad and also fundamentally racist (because ability scores = bioessentialism), but there's a lot of kneejerk hate for D&D out there.
Well, that's weird.
I mean, I respect peoples opinions on whatever they want to hate, but D&D was such a pivotal stone in the evolution of the hobby, both for those replicating it and for those trying to get away from it, that I find weird someone hating on it. Specially so as a piece of game design.
Quote from: Itachi on November 27, 2020, 09:10:36 PM
Well, that's weird.
I mean, I respect peoples opinions on whatever they want to hate, but D&D was such a pivotal stone in the evolution of the hobby, both for those replicating it and for those trying to get away from it, that I find weird someone hating on it. Specially so as a piece of game design.
I think that most D&D hate is one of two things (or a combination thereof).
1. They like taking potshots at the market leader (likely more true in the indie designer space).
2. They get frustrated with how difficult it often is to find a game to play anything except for D&D. Tied to this (and more in the designer space) is how it can be a bit frustrating to see people tie themselves into knots changing D&D into doing things it was never designed to do instead of just picking up a new system.
I like D&D pretty well (other than 4e), but the latter point can be a bit frustrating to me too.
Quote from: Itachi on November 27, 2020, 09:10:36 PMI respect peoples opinions on whatever they want to hate, but D&D was such a pivotal stone in the evolution of the hobby... I find weird someone hating on it. Specially so as a piece of game design.
I think people don't hate D&D so much as an overall game, as they found themselves annoyed at the system's occasional tendency to produce nonsensical outcomes, or at certain genre-emulative/niche-protective rules that felt arbitrary when their purpose and context wasn't entirely clear.
And after all, it's precisely because so many people have invested so many play-hours into it that every possible place where it could be found frustrating or confusing gets turned up -- and it's precisely the emotional enjoyment of those hours that makes the memory of the annoying or frustrating bits stick.
Quotethey found themselves annoyed at the system's occasional tendency to produce nonsensical outcomes
I'm reminded of that saying that fiction is more constrained than reality, because fiction has to be plausible.
In alternate history discussions, people sometimes write DBWI - double-blind what-ifs - where someone writes as though they're from an alternate reality, wondering how this actual historical event could have happened. "What if the British were defeated by the American revolutionaries?"
"That'd require the intervention of Alien Space Bats on the side of the Americans, how could a country that went on to defeat the French after almost a quarter-century of continuous warfare during which every European country at one time or another stood against them, be defeated by a bunch of farmers with muskets?"
I don't mind if a game system occasionally tosses up something crazy. The dice are always right.
My only issue with D&D is that the best versions of it don't have the D&D brand. It's also the worst game I'll play like McDonald's is the worst restaurant I'll go to. Now I like McDonald's, but if you were worse than McDonald's I would never have any reason to go to your cause McDonald's was available.
Same thing with D&D. Why would I play a worse RPG? It then unfairly holds the worst spot in my personal rankings because it is the Gatekeeper to even be considered.
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 27, 2020, 07:09:56 AM
A similar thing happened with an old AD&D fighter of mine. He started out with a slightly battered mundane sword and the DM quickly offered up a magic one among our loot. However, as soon I picked it up I couldn't roll better than a 4 on the die and finally suffered two natural 1s in a row, the first time dropping it in the campfire and the second getting it stuck in a tree.
In frustration I just whipped out my old battered sword and proceeded to roll two natural 20s in a row followed by nothing less than a 15 the rest of the fight. The party, playing in character, presumed the magic sword to be cursed and left it stuck in the tree.
Fun story, right? Except it happened the next time my PC got a magic sword... including the critical hit the moment I abandoned it for my battered old blade. The third time I managed to shatter a sword expressly designed to cut through magic barriers on a magic barrier. No magic sword every worked for me, only mundane weapons.
The GM eventually just rolled with it and basically started playing things as if my PC was some sort of anti-magic anomaly (more accurately, anything magical I touched went haywire).
All because of dice weirdness.
In that respect I'd say the best representation of something like Dunning-Krueger would be task resolution using a d20 (vs. 3d6 or anything else that generates a bell curve).
Holy shit, that happened to me once. I was DMing a one-shot and part of the adventure involved finding a magic mace that would be useful later against some enemies (minor golems).
Unfortunately, any PC that wielded the mace could no longer roll better than a 4 on d20.
It was henceforth christened 'The Mace of Slack-Jawed Drooling'.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 28, 2020, 11:05:26 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 27, 2020, 07:09:56 AM
A similar thing happened with an old AD&D fighter of mine. He started out with a slightly battered mundane sword and the DM quickly offered up a magic one among our loot. However, as soon I picked it up I couldn't roll better than a 4 on the die and finally suffered two natural 1s in a row, the first time dropping it in the campfire and the second getting it stuck in a tree.
In frustration I just whipped out my old battered sword and proceeded to roll two natural 20s in a row followed by nothing less than a 15 the rest of the fight. The party, playing in character, presumed the magic sword to be cursed and left it stuck in the tree.
Fun story, right? Except it happened the next time my PC got a magic sword... including the critical hit the moment I abandoned it for my battered old blade. The third time I managed to shatter a sword expressly designed to cut through magic barriers on a magic barrier. No magic sword every worked for me, only mundane weapons.
The GM eventually just rolled with it and basically started playing things as if my PC was some sort of anti-magic anomaly (more accurately, anything magical I touched went haywire).
All because of dice weirdness.
In that respect I'd say the best representation of something like Dunning-Krueger would be task resolution using a d20 (vs. 3d6 or anything else that generates a bell curve).
Holy shit, that happened to me once. I was DMing a one-shot and part of the adventure involved finding a magic mace that would be useful later against some enemies (minor golems).
Unfortunately, any PC that wielded the mace could no longer roll better than a 4 on d20.
It was henceforth christened 'The Mace of Slack-Jawed Drooling'.
Since we're sharing amusing stories...
In D&D 3e, Rangers were mechanically advantaged toward two-weapon fighting. My wife played a halfling Ranger using a pair of hand/throwing axes. She couldn't roll for shit with them. In an adventure, she found a +1 dwarven waraxe (a "hand-and-a-half" axe equivalent to a bastard sword). Without the exotic proficiency, she could only wield it with two hands--which didn't much matter to her since she was a halfling--so she started to use it and her dice rolls were remarkably better when doing so. She's avoided two-weapon fighting on every character since then because she associates it with her run of bad luck.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 27, 2020, 10:38:03 PM
Quote from: Itachi on November 27, 2020, 09:10:36 PM
Well, that's weird.
I mean, I respect peoples opinions on whatever they want to hate, but D&D was such a pivotal stone in the evolution of the hobby, both for those replicating it and for those trying to get away from it, that I find weird someone hating on it. Specially so as a piece of game design.
I think that most D&D hate is one of two things (or a combination thereof).
1. They like taking potshots at the market leader (likely more true in the indie designer space).
2. They get frustrated with how difficult it often is to find a game to play anything except for D&D. Tied to this (and more in the designer space) is how it can be a bit frustrating to see people tie themselves into knots changing D&D into doing things it was never designed to do instead of just picking up a new system.
I like D&D pretty well (other than 4e), but the latter point can be a bit frustrating to me too.
There are also plenty of legitimate things that D&D can be criticized about, and plenty of fanboys to defend it or different editions of it, even since the old (or median?) days, which only fuels into the D&D-hate and tends to end in flame wars. I used to get into a lot of arguments with D&D players back in the day (the 90s), who would not play anything but Basic D&D or even learn other systems, but always had a criticism for any other games, including AD&D. It would get frustrating and we'd end up talking pass each other cuz they already had a preconceived notion about other games or systems that deviated from Basic D&D, while I was more interested in options and features that didn't exist in Basic D&D, and willing to try out other games and look beyond D&D assumptions, which only cemented my dislike for Basic D&D. Even to this day whenever I hear praises for Basic D&D I tend to roll my eyes.
Truth be told, I hate every edition of D&D for different reasons, but would also use features (or elements "inspired) from every D&D edition--even Basic D&D--if I was gonna make my "ideal" edition of D&D. I probably use 3e mechanics as a base, but take out all the clutter and simplify classes down to Basic D&D levels of simplicity, but replace class complexity with a revamped version of feats more comparable to Fantasy Craft in terms of power. I would also bring back old school HD caps, cuz even 9 to 10 HD max already provide ridiculous HP, but 20 HD is just absurd. I would make a complete frankenmonster out of D&D.
*double post* :P
These bother me the most:
You didn't playtest this, did you?. I feel this while running 5e campaigns. Curse of Strahd, for example, has NO REASON to be treated like an hexcrawl. It is something you don't notice browsing through the book, but it becomes apparent once you run it.
Useless multiplication of game mechanics. Not easy to explain, but basically redundant mechanics, all meaning the same thing. For example, how Barbarians in 5e get a bonus to initiative, armor, and dexterity saving throws... just give them a dex bonus already! Or how 5e has two IDENTICAL polearms instead of a single weapon called "polearm" (or two DIFFERENT polearms!).
Quote from: Eric Diaz on November 28, 2020, 02:17:37 PM
These bother me the most:
You didn't playtest this, did you?. I feel this while running 5e campaigns. Curse of Strahd, for example, has NO REASON to be treated like an hexcrawl. It is something you don't notice browsing through the book, but it becomes apparent once you run it.
Would you mind elaborating on this one? I have read, but not played Curse of Strahd (leafed through it and it looked good quality but just didn't click for me as a Ravenloft book). Just curious about this remark
I don't really play much D&D anymore (mostly play other games) but my take on D&D and D&D criticism, is it is a little like the audience score versus the critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. You can make a more critically successful game, but D&D knows what its audience wants and tends to cater to that. It also has a number of things going for it in terms of playability and campaign survival. While I don't play a lot of D&D, when I do return to it, which I do on occasion, it is just an instantly gameable system with conceits that work for prepping a campaign that will easily get off the ground.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan on November 28, 2020, 02:33:39 PM
Would you mind elaborating on this one? I have read, but not played Curse of Strahd (leafed through it and it looked good quality but just didn't click for me as a Ravenloft book). Just curious about this remark
Sure! I wrote a lot about CoS, will try to make a summary with the relevant parts:
The map on CoS in an HEX map... but there is no reason to use it for an hexcrawl. All the significant locations are on roads.
You shouldn't have to "count hexes" like if you were exploring the wilderlands.
What you need is a guide to the distances in Barovia... The map of Barovia makes the campaign look like an hex-crawl, but there is no reason to look at it this way. The characters will not be exploring unknown locations (like they would on a hex-crawl), but the only traveling through roads and trails, and going to cities, castles, ruins, etc.
This should be organized as a point-crawl, but apparently they were not familiar with the concept. Going "off road" is possible but not expected and should carry explicit consequences.In practice, you have to count hexes* to calculate distances and them convert them to time... to know how many encounters you'd have. If you just had the distance between places in miles (or, even better, hours), you could quickly see how many encounters an, more important, wether you can arrive at the next town before nightfall**.
*which is absurd because there are obvious "shortcuts" on the roads that make no sense if you're using it like an hexcrawls; the roads would make you slower
** huge missed opportunity of giving more emphasis to that
Here are some links:
http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/09/curse-of-strahd-guide-part-iii-minimum.html
https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/08/rant-bad-hexcrawl-in-tomb-of.html
Quote from: VisionStorm on November 28, 2020, 02:07:20 PM
There are also plenty of legitimate things that D&D can be criticized about...
Oh sure - no argument from me. D&D is hardly a perfect system - no edition of it. Plenty to complain about when the context is right.
I was more referencing the people (especially indie designers) who go on and on about how D&D is horrible and anyone who plays it is stupid etc. (albeit - a bit of hyperbole here on my part) even in situations where you don't need to bring up D&D at all.
Weirdly I only just now remembered a big one that was supposed to go into the OP, but... despite being the inspiration for the thread somehow got utterly forgotten when it came to write it up.
Build Substituition Meta Rules*
This is when the game designer puts in methods of making alternative 'builds' for characters, usually to overcome some deficiency in his design, as a patch, and is closely related to the phenomenon of keeping PCs weak and incompetent (the zero to hero, where Zero is often roughly equivalent to a twelve year old child in terms of general competence). The first time I ever noticed it, and a decent example to explain what I mean, was in Brave New World, where they introduced a new Martial Art using the 'Spirit' stat to make 'battle nuns' more competent fighters. I vaguely recall that by the end of the game line you could have a Martial Art based on any of your stats, so you could have a nerdy martial artist who could beat Bruce Lee by punching him with his brain-thoughts, or maybe I only imagined that because of the implications of the addition of the Two-Inch Prayer Fist.
I've noticed that the Mutant Year Zero game line does this an AWFUL lot. There are only four attributes and twelve common skills, but there are about twenty talents between teh books that let you change which attribute covers which skill (usually for the Career skills, but still...). So, for example, you can have an investigator who solves crimes with his 'social' stat instead of his intelligence stat, meaning he can put together and spot clues even if he has a room temperature IQ. This is especially hilarious as the MYZ's dice pools are generally small enough and the cost of a talent is the same as a an additional point in a skill that it should almost never be viable to take these talents unless you really did make a genuine Moron as an Investigator. So the real reason is, so far as I can determine, to take advantage of the already incredibly Meta 'Push' rules.
To me these sorts rules represent a point in the game's design phase where the designer should have asked himself 'why does a battle nun 'not work' unless she can stack a combat skill under her faith stat? Why would any player need a special talent to make a social/intuitive detective viable over a smart detective (In this case: Because of the need to "Push" rolls, and with four Houses each given a single Attribute they can Push, without this talent only members of House (For Elysium, different Year Zero games divide up the push stats differently) Kilgore would ever be viable detectives!). Its a immersion breaking patch rather than a proper fix. The BNW model (alternate skills) is just nonsense that damages immersion, in the MYZ model, you actually wind up trading rare character resources (talents, which cost XP and represent a major part of your character's growth) to simply' tread water' in trying to make a non-optimal character (which should totally not be non-optimal... Recall: the purpose here isn't to make a Columbo who solves most of his crimes by talking his suspects into incriminating themselves (a bad description of Columbo, I know...) but to patch over the fact that only Investigators from House Kilgore (who get free Pushes for Wits checks), would actually be competent in the High-Wiff MYZ ruleset. SInce in real life people don't work that way we make reality break so people can stack more skills onto their 'free push' stat via talents so they can acheive basic competence.
I'm not trying to pick on Brave New World (not that I'm worried about rabid fanboys for a more or less dead game) or the Year Zero engine games. I've seen this elsewhere, but they were the examples most ready to mind for me, for reasons I think I explained well enough above.
*I honestly have no idea what to call this, so forgive the clunky name, eh?
Never had a problem with that. On the contrary, it always seemed to me a good method for giving variety in character concepts.
Which, again, only shows that everything you posted so far is just your personal preference and has absolutely nothing to do with good/bad game design.
I must remind you that I am a Super Genius and You Are Not.
Really, you people.
Quote from: Spike on December 23, 2020, 09:37:31 AM
Weirdly I only just now remembered a big one that was supposed to go into the OP, but... despite being the inspiration for the thread somehow got utterly forgotten when it came to write it up.
Build Substituition Meta Rules*
This is when the game designer puts in methods of making alternative 'builds' for characters, usually to overcome some deficiency in his design, as a patch, and is closely related to the phenomenon of keeping PCs weak and incompetent (the zero to hero, where Zero is often roughly equivalent to a twelve year old child in terms of general competence). The first time I ever noticed it, and a decent example to explain what I mean, was in Brave New World, where they introduced a new Martial Art using the 'Spirit' stat to make 'battle nuns' more competent fighters. I vaguely recall that by the end of the game line you could have a Martial Art based on any of your stats, so you could have a nerdy martial artist who could beat Bruce Lee by punching him with his brain-thoughts, or maybe I only imagined that because of the implications of the addition of the Two-Inch Prayer Fist.
-snip-
I'm not trying to pick on Brave New World (not that I'm worried about rabid fanboys for a more or less dead game) or the Year Zero engine games. I've seen this elsewhere, but they were the examples most ready to mind for me, for reasons I think I explained well enough above.
Yes, that is a great example of the kind of fud RPGs can make when you think of stats/skills as separate entities within the system and then attempt to 'blend' them together like a smoothie. I've always been of the opinion that a skill is representitive of competence, that it wouldn't matter if you have a low agility if you have a high acrobatics. To me, it means the character has formal training as an acrobat but is otherwise a clutz. If that doesn't sit well with you, I agree! This is the problem with the current paradigm and may never be fully solved! How does one quantify a skillset in relation to a physical or mental attribute within a numeric system which takes nuance into account?
I'm only asking, cuz - you know - you're a genius! ;D
Quote from: Spike on December 23, 2020, 09:37:31 AM
Weirdly I only just now remembered a big one that was supposed to go into the OP, but... despite being the inspiration for the thread somehow got utterly forgotten when it came to write it up.
Build Substituition Meta Rules*
...
I always thought of that as building a system and then going back and slapping patches on it to let it fit the characters/genre/whatever you were really aiming for. I actually have zero problem with it in small doses, but I do agree that some systems feel like nothing but patches.
It's an understandable urge. Going back to the core system and tweaking it is a lot harder to do and it's easy to accidently break something else when you do.
I've found that it's especially common on systems such as Modiphius's 2d20 or PbA where the core system was brought in whole before any of the pieces were thought out rather than having the specific system/vibe in mind when building the pillars of the mechanics from the ground up.
A lot of those meta-mechanics come down to not having the right set of stats for the system and how the skills are tied to specific other attributes.
For example, D6 Star Wars works really well because it's stats are well tuned to the setting. It doesn't bother to distinguish between strength and constitution since in that setting strength and resilience are both functions of size and density.
At the same time it does distinguish between Dexterity and Mechanical aptitude since, I can tell you as a pilot there's a world of difference between the full body actions Dex covers vs. the coordination and multi-tasking required to fly a plane. At the same time they distinguish between mechanical aptitude and technical skill (diagnosing and repairing systems) and between technical skill and more general knowledge.
Then you drop Star Wars into the d20 System. Dex now handles blasters, acrobatics and piloting, but every other aspect of mechanical is now INT-based and lightsabers are Strength-based by default because they're melee weapons. Likewise, INT covers all of knowledge and technical and bits of mechanical while d6 Strength gets split into Str and Con and D6 Perception into d20 Wisdom and Charisma.
The D&D stats don't quite fit the setting so kludges get added.
An example of this in reverse was actually when I converted my LUGTrek campaign to the d6 system. If you actually look at LUGTrek something like 80% of the skills were tied to intellect because their four stats of basically Str, Dex, Int and Presence and a setting focus on science/technology, logic and diplomacy as solutions made half their stats only good in a small subset of situations (but cost as much each as Int alone).
The WEG Star Wars base offered a lot more options since it better divided mental ability into more categories. I took it a step further and merged Str and Dex into Fitness since in Star Trek you're either physically competent or not and it rarely matters whether that prowess comes from agility or power. Thus one physical stat (fitness) and five mental ones (knowledge, perception, mechanical, technical and presence) better reflects the focus of the series and allows each PC to shine in ways proportional to the investment and in different areas vs. one stat being a nigh universal solution to all problems.
Quote from: Chris24601 on December 24, 2020, 11:09:09 AM
Then you drop Star Wars into the d20 System. Dex now handles blasters, acrobatics and piloting, but every other aspect of mechanical is now INT-based and lightsabers are Strength-based by default because they're melee weapons. Likewise, INT covers all of knowledge and technical and bits of mechanical while d6 Strength gets split into Str and Con and D6 Perception into d20 Wisdom and Charisma.
Yep - this is a solid example of what I was talking about above.
I actually don't hate the Saga d20 Star Wars. It's not bad, and it's a good way to get people who already know d20 into a Star Wars game as they already know the basic mechanics. But there is definitely some kludge as they had to shoehorn Star Wars into the d20 mold. Perhaps most obvious being DEX being the god-stat for 95% of builds. Even most Jedi are better off using finesse and going DEX rather than STR if they want to go lightsaber focused - the only exception are the more force-based Jedi. Virtually all non-Jedi should go DEX top with other attributes as secondary.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on December 24, 2020, 11:39:27 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on December 24, 2020, 11:09:09 AM
Then you drop Star Wars into the d20 System. Dex now handles blasters, acrobatics and piloting, but every other aspect of mechanical is now INT-based and lightsabers are Strength-based by default because they're melee weapons. Likewise, INT covers all of knowledge and technical and bits of mechanical while d6 Strength gets split into Str and Con and D6 Perception into d20 Wisdom and Charisma.
Yep - this is a solid example of what I was talking about above.
I actually don't hate the Saga d20 Star Wars. It's not bad, and it's a good way to get people who already know d20 into a Star Wars game as they already know the basic mechanics. But there is definitely some kludge as they had to shoehorn Star Wars into the d20 mold. Perhaps most obvious being DEX being the god-stat for 95% of builds. Even most Jedi are better off using finesse and going DEX rather than STR if they want to go lightsaber focused - the only exception are the more force-based Jedi. Virtually all non-Jedi should go DEX top with other attributes as secondary.
Yeah, D&D's attributes work for it because they play into specific conceits of the fantasy genre and I think a lot of that grew from the fact that their original effects in OD&D were largely the XP bonus they granted to the matching class meant that they were well matched.
Side-bar; I do wonder what a game where your stats only affected the rate you could improve class features; anyone can learn to fight or cast spells, the xp costs are just lower for those with high strength or intelligence respectively... a jack of all stats would pay more for individual levels, but less than high strength/low intelligence PC trying to learn wizard spells.
Anyway, it almost seems like a lot of the older games outside the fantasy genre were stronger more because they didn't feel the need to bank on the OGL/d20SRD and so just had better tailored stats whereas these days the default seems to be start with the d20 stats/mechanics and only deviate if it just proves impossible to deform the genre up enough to fit.
Side-bar 2; Just from my own experience the systems that seem to need to deviate most are genres where vehicles have particular focus (ex. Mecha and/or space combat particularly) just because personal scale stats just don't scale well to 50 ton war machines. The few systems I've seen try to pull off mecha using d20 stats just pale compared to dedicated systems like Mekton, Battletech or Jovian Chronicles.
Which is why, when I eventually write up my sci-fi themed RPG to follow up my fantasy one I'm not even going to try to make them fully compatible... though basic task resolution and action economy could be the same, the stat priority would be completely different and armor as degrading resistance feels more in line with the genre than AC would be.
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 26, 2020, 10:45:48 PMthe more experienced you are in a given skill the better you are at judging your ability with it
Dunning and Kruger found that the best performers were also not good at judging their own ability. The difference was, the top performers underestimated themselves where the lower performers overestimated. The people who most accurately judged their own performance were in the third quartile.
To put Dunning and Kruger's findings in D&D terms, if your stat roll was 10 or less, you'd estimate your ability as about 11. If it was 11 or 12, you'd get it about right. If it was 13 or more, you'd estimate about 12.
I think the SJW-safe things more than anything. Including genger politic and racial policing hurt Paizo with Pathfinder 2e. It threw off a portion of the gamer base and it was apparent on the Paizo forums.
Keep politics out of your game. WotC is doing well to avoid the SJW Twitter cries. They saw what it did to Paizo. The BASE gamer JUST DOESN'T CARE. They want the game as it's supposed to be.
People talk about 50th edition D&D being an SJW paradise.
Don't count on it. I'm expecting something more akin to the Rules Cyclopedia (expanded skills, more classes, expanded combat & downtime rules, plus how to make campaigns more engaging).