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! 

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.