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 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 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. 

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.