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RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 06:28 PM
As more of a thought exercise and maybe something to play with my friends than any attempt to make a distributable system, I have started working on my own RPG system. I have a general idea of how I want the game to play. I was thinking of having the magic system be based off of a pool of mana, sort of like 3.5 psionics, and limiting spellcasters to a particular school - no more batman wizards. For the melee, I would like to give them a lot more options than to hit something and to hit it again without resoirting to pseudomagic like ToB, so I was thinking about implementing more battlefield control elements. Aside from that though, the system is fairly undeveloped, and I figured a good way to work on fleshing it out was to identify the problems with other systems and fix them, particularly looking at both 3.5 and 4th edition D&D.

That said, now we get down to business. In trying to identify the main flaws in many RPGs, I have come to ask the playground what they think. I know the main flaw in 3.5 is that spellcasters can do everything melee can do, plus some, all better than everyone else. That's why I'm trying to restrict casters to a single school, so to speak. But what about the rest of the system?

Kurald Galain
2011-02-20, 06:47 PM
You sound like you're trying to houserule an existing RPG.

When you're making a new RPG, the typical approach is to write down clear and concise design goals and start from scratch - not from hundreds of pages of some other system's legacy.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 06:56 PM
Okay then... As far as the design goals go:


Specialized Magic System
Abilities function both in combat and out of combat
Combat focuses on control over damage.
Melee have adequate options for control.
Combat is resource-light, allowing many fights each day.
Strong focus on skill and tactics synergy; planning is key.

dsmiles
2011-02-20, 07:02 PM
Okay then... As far as the design goals go:


Specialized Magic System
I find the magic system in BESM: The Slayers d20 (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=1466) (a.k.a.: Advanced d20 Magic (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=3156&it=1&affiliate_id=35526)) to be fairly awesome in representing a specialized magic system. It also introduces a resource pool, using non-lethal damage to represent fatigue.

MeeposFire
2011-02-20, 07:09 PM
Okay then... As far as the design goals go:


Specialized Magic System
Abilities function both in combat and out of combat
Combat focuses on control over damage.
Melee have adequate options for control.
Combat is resource-light, allowing many fights each day.
Strong focus on skill and tactics synergy; planning is key.


Sounds like you want 4e D&D with magic given a more unique subsytem for kicks.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 07:24 PM
I find the magic system in BESM: The Slayers d20 (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=1466) (a.k.a.: Advanced d20 Magic (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=3156&it=1&affiliate_id=35526)) to be fairly awesome in representing a specialized magic system. It also introduces a resource pool, using non-lethal damage to represent fatigue.

Thanks, I'll give those a look.


Sounds like you want 4e D&D with magic given a more unique subsytem for kicks.

Not really. 4e is very combat-centric, moreso than 3.5 even, and the focus on special abilities like Tide of Iron as opposed to actual movement and techniques turns me off to it. I do see your point, however.

dsmiles
2011-02-20, 07:27 PM
Thanks, I'll give those a look.Keep in mind, though, that with that system, magic becomes enormously powerful. But at a price. You can literally cast yourself to death. I love it.

MeeposFire
2011-02-20, 07:29 PM
If you say so I find that 4e is as combat centric as you want it to be. Myself and a number of different people I know have had entire nights with 4e with no combat when the mood takes us (and nights with all combat too). Of course this applies equally to 3e as well (and every other version of D&D).


Of course you could take the combat stuff from 4e you do like (leave out tide of iron or whatever) and then just add whatever you feel is missing from the non-combat side. Seems like as easy patch.

Of course if you do not want a heavily class based system then stay away from 4e and every non-3e version of D&D as they are all based around classes too strongly to be divorced from them I think.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 08:00 PM
Hmm... I wonder how workable a system would be that divorces itself from classes completely. It's an interesting idea that completely lends itself to flexibility and customization, but it would also be exceedingly complex and difficult to balance.

MeeposFire
2011-02-20, 08:06 PM
Hmm... I wonder how workable a system would be that divorces itself from classes completely. It's an interesting idea that completely lends itself to flexibility and customization, but it would also be exceedingly complex and difficult to balance.

To get an idea just use 3e. With all the multiclassing in 3e if you removed the name from a class would it be a class game? Think of a monk2/fighter2/barb1

Alright I think I will start by taking unarmed damage and the flurry ability. Hm at level 2 I will continue those abilities and pick up this evasion ability. At level two and three I shall use my ability choices to pick extra feats and the improved combat option. At level five I shall pick the rage option and improved combat.

Improved combat would be full BAB at that level.

As you can see 3e can be turned into a classless game rather easily.

stainboy
2011-02-20, 08:12 PM
Not really. 4e is very combat-centric, moreso than 3.5 even, and the focus on special abilities like Tide of Iron as opposed to actual movement and techniques turns me off to it. I do see your point, however.

If you want to try to fix some problems in 3.5, listen to the developer podcasts from when 4e was in early development. It's a really good starting point. It's all about problems like BAB and save bonuses diverging to the point of auto-success/auto-failure, the 15-minute workday, magic being clunky, and class balance being out of whack. The design decisions that made 4e unappealing to most 3.5 players hadn't shown up yet.

The developers started by fixing the right problems, they just didn't know when to stop. So check out the early 4e podcasts even if you don't like the finished product.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 08:12 PM
As you can see 3e can be turned into a classless game rather easily.

Yes, but just look at all the balance issues with it...

kyoryu
2011-02-20, 08:14 PM
What I'd do is a few things:

1) Games are about decisions. What decisions do you want your players to make? Focus on those, and you've got a good bit of your game design.

2) Write down how you see a sample game session going. Build your rules around that.

kyoryu
2011-02-20, 08:16 PM
If you say so I find that 4e is as combat centric as you want it to be. Myself and a number of different people I know have had entire nights with 4e with no combat when the mood takes us (and nights with all combat too). Of course this applies equally to 3e as well (and every other version of D&D).


The game system itself is *very* combat-centric. That doesn't mean the game has to be, though, as you can take the philosophy that "combat is where you actually need rules" - which is what I do.

Tengu_temp
2011-02-20, 08:16 PM
Hmm... I wonder how workable a system would be that divorces itself from classes completely. It's an interesting idea that completely lends itself to flexibility and customization, but it would also be exceedingly complex and difficult to balance.

Seeing that pretty much all modern RPGs other than DND do that, I'd say it's pretty workable.

If I made an RPG, I'd get rid of daily resources - that way I can have as much combat I want, instead of having to take away some of the party's daily powers/spells with boring plot-irrelevant encounters to prevent them from steamrolling the boss by going nova.

valadil
2011-02-20, 11:04 PM
First off, I think you should familiarize yourself with as many game systems as possible. If all you've played is D&D, you'll make systems that are like D&D. You have to see what else is out there before you can really be creative with mechanics. The first time I tried WoD, it blew my mind that you didn't have to roll a die and add a bonus.

Trying systems is also valuable because you don't want to reinvent the wheel. If you want a high fantasy setting, D&D does a good job at that. You don't want to compete with D&D. Make a system that has its own purpose.

Figure out what you want characters to do. Make stats and mechanics that encourage those options. D&D encourages combat because combat is the most interesting part of the game. If you wanted a game with social intrigue, you could encourage that by dropping physical stats. Make the stats wits, looks, memory, charisma, and perception and give the characters appropriate skills and a couple different subsystems for using those skills. If combat is a boring afterthought, players will treat it as such and be less inclined to play it.

Manage complexity. This is the hardest part for me. I have a simplistic game I'm working on. Every so often I have what looks like a breakthrough for how to model something. I'll draw up rules for it and they go way off the deep end in terms of complexity, involving 3 or 4 different checks, all of which take into account various stats. It'd be awesome in a computer game, but be way too complex in a tabletop. It's really easy to write those complicated rules. Resist!

Figure out what type of game you're running. This ventures into GNS territory. I'm not going to assert that GNS is valid, but I think it's worth reading even if you disagree with it.

Even if it doesn't always hold true, there are areas where GNS is useful. Deadlands let people have more actions than others in combat. Some gunslingers are faster than others. They chose to go for that bit of simulationism over the gamist action economy theory where everyone gets a fair turn. D&D 4e doesn't account for diagonal movement. You simply go farther if you go in diagonal directions. That was a choice that is entirely gamist. It's easier to count squares that way. It makes no sense as a model of the world, but it makes the game easier to play.

You will have similar choices. I am of the opinion that it is important to be consistent in how you make those choices that you communicate them to the players. 4th ed is a very gamey game. It makes that clear from the start and does not apologize about it. Even if you don't make the same choices they did you should still make a choice.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 11:42 PM
Alright, thanks for the advice everyone. It's helped a lot.

Xuc Xac
2011-02-21, 01:50 AM
I would recommend that you read at least 10 different RPGs and then play at least 5 of them before trying to make your own. Multiple editions of D&D only count as 1.

If not, you'll just make what's known as a "fantasy heartbreaker". A game which the creator really loves and thinks is really new and interesting, but which is almost exactly like an existing game except for a few minor changes that aren't as revolutionary as the creator thinks. A lot of people try to make "D&D, but better" and fail horribly because they don't know that their new ideas are actually really old and pretty much standard outside of D&D.

I'm going to cry if I see another post about how a new game is awesome because it doesn't have alignments or levels or classes or any of the other D&Disms that almost every other game in the past 20 years has dropped.

Thrawn4
2011-02-21, 06:43 AM
What do you want the game to be like?
Epic (battle is easy) or gritty (battle is deadly) ?
You focus a lot on crunch, but you didn't mention any fluff yet. What is the tone of your RPG? What do you want to play with it?
Do you want to focus on light rules and storytelling or on battle and heavy rules for every circumstance?

Necro_EX
2011-02-21, 07:07 AM
It's six a.m., and this is the first I've seen of this topic, so I hope I'll be forgiven if I repeat anything anyone's already said.

This is going to be horribly unorganized, sorry...again, 6 a.m.

First off, I personally can't think of too many flaws with 3.5. Now, I don't mean to say that it's a perfect game as is and should never be messed with, because I love what Paizo has done with Pathfinder, in fact I'd say Pathfinder is an improvement on 3.5. I say this because DnD has always been a game geared toward cinematic roleplaying, at least since 3.0. 1st was really more of a rough tactical simulation with lots of fluff tacked on and 2nd ed was a whole other beast entirely.Personally, I despise 4e, but I'll get to that here in a sec.

Like Kurald, I'd have to say you want to work from the ground up on this, but taking a look at other systems surely will only help.

Looks to me like you're wanting to make something that has a lot of tactical elements to its combat, but has plenty of room for the game outside of combat, right? I think taking a look at some of 3.5's mechanics would be great for this since that's exactly what 3.5 is, 4e on the other hand is what happens when the devs try too hard to make every little thing cinematic.

So, looking at tactics...you want control over damage? That sounds great to me, really.

So, maybe I might suggest giving weapons a striking area, or maybe including different ways of attacking...like, swinging as opposed to thrusting. Assuming you're still using a grid, a swing could hit the three directly in front of you while a thrust could only go straight ahead. Maybe you could include some knockback/knockdown rules (ala GURPS, perhaps?) to give the heavy hitters something to do aside from more damage. This could also create a 'zone of control' effect if you group characters properly.

As for specialized mages...what I might suggest is to decrease how many spells they know/can know to help get rid of Batman-magi. Then, increase their spells per day, which shouldn't be too hard to do with a mana pool like you're wanting to go with. Finally, reduce spells in power, and make them all about different ways of doing something similar...I can't really think of a good reference in-game, but I'd say something like what's done in Avatar. No one knows a whole lot of different things (except Aang, of course), but they can take the one thing they do and make so much utility of it. So...maybe new spells could be similar to others, but offer a new way to use the same old trick...like instead of say...shooting forth some spikes from the ground in a straight line, you instead shoot them in a radiating pattern, or perhaps from directly under an opponent?

Really sounds like you want to make something that could function like a console strategy rpg. If that's the case, I'd maybe say to take a look at Final Fantasy Tactics if you haven't already. Great game, has a lot you might be able to draw from. There was one that had something similar to what I had mentioned earlier about area of effect for melee attacks...Well, I believe Arc the Lad has something like it, anyway.

Now, some flaws that I've seen in some games:

In general:
1. Games that try to be catch-alls tend to be too easy to break.

2. Games with point-buy systems are also usually pretty easy to break.

3. Games with too many options that can stack easily are too easy to break.

4. You want options, though. Options are nice and shiny and are a huge part of the fun of a game, they're what mechanically defines a character afterall, and without a mechanical definition you may as well just be freeforming.

3.5:
1. Some classes were just plain better than others, avoid that if possible.

2. I really think the devs quit double-checking themselves at some point, just
take a look at some of the builds around here, the game's easy to break if you try. That said, anyone who tries to break the game when you're wanting to have a good and balanced (read: fun for everyone) game is kind of an ass.

3. Wizards were just too damned powerful. (I say this even though it's my favorite class.) However, I'm perfectly fine with this because why wouldn't they be? In a high fantasy (read: high magic) setting there's no reason a wizard, or any other spellcaster for that matter, shouldn't be better than straight non-casters. I mean think about it, would you rather have the ability to use magic or not? Those being your only two options, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

4e:
1. Static damage. Serious, that's just retarded. I hate the idea of static damage, at least how it's implemented in 4e.

2. Spells were too limited. Now, this is mostly just because it's a new edition of dnd, a game in which the wizard has always had tons of options. Now, casters get a severely limited choice so everyone else can catch up...that was done to help balance everything out, but I also really can't stand all those powers the martial classes got out of the deal.

3. Martial classes getting powers...what? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense, explain yourself 4e. Specifically, this one's more about the fact that you'll never want to make a basic attack as a fighter...y'know the class all about hitting things with its weapon? Yeah, it doesn't even need to do basic attacks, because it has melee at-wills that are just plain better, right from the get-go.

4. Too many resources...rather, too many abilities that don't rely on them. That's why warlock was sort of broken in 3.5 it could just do it's business all day everyday, which was fine for the fighter since what he does is hit things, he's not shooting balls of energy or anything like that...at-wills made the game require so much less of the player as far as resource management went, which is a big part of the difficulty of the game.

5. No more multiclassing? Now, this one only really applies if you're making something that involves classes, but multiclassing has always been something I've loved...not because it allows me to break the game (which it does), but because it allows me to have that much more control over the flavor of a character. With strict single classing, that controls yanked away from the player. Sure you have paragon paths and epic destinies, but that's just a fancy way of saying you're picking a set of alternate class features between certain levels, given to you at the arbitrary levels of 11 and 21. Ew.

GURPS:
Now, I'm still pretty new to GURPS, but I've noticed a few.
1. Characters are generated with a point-buy, so this game is easily broken...sorta. You can make a disgustingly strong fighter with little problem in GURPS, but you might forget to pick up the like...10 skills you need to survive out in the world.

2. 3d6 = bell curve. I'm all for the bell curve, really, but...not when you force it like that. It really does kind of take away from the excitement of knowing whether or not you're going to hit/succeed or fail, when you know that you have something like a 80+ percent chance of succeeding. More dice always means a greater chance of 'average.'

Actually, yeah...that's the only one I can think of right now.

Shadowrun 4th ed:
1. Again, broken rather easily. Shadowrun's all about specialization. Pick one thing and do it like it's the only thing you know how, and you'll go far...try to be well-rounded and you're boned.

2. I'll just reiterate that. Try to be well-rounded and you're boned. Seriously, you'll find that you can't do **** and you'll just get blasted away in combat.

L5R, 3rd revised:
1. This game's hella lethal, which is cool, but it kinda keeps you from getting attached to a character.

2. This book is so unorganized. Nothing to do with the system, but damn is it unorganized.

Hope I've been able to at least offer some help. :D

JamesonCourage
2011-02-21, 09:15 AM
Hmm... I wonder how workable a system would be that divorces itself from classes completely. It's an interesting idea that completely lends itself to flexibility and customization, but it would also be exceedingly complex and difficult to balance.

It's doable. I've done it, and it's what my group plays.

It's very, very complex. It's pretty damn balanced, though, which is nice. It's also based on realism. I had to balance realism, fantasy, and balance, and it's not easy. Like, at all.

Proceed at your own risk. I had an entire book when I was done (some 500 pages, though that includes races, nations, other realms (planes), etc.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-21, 09:50 AM
Specialized Magic System
Abilities function both in combat and out of combat
Combat focuses on control over damage.
Melee have adequate options for control.
Combat is resource-light, allowing many fights each day.
Strong focus on skill and tactics synergy; planning is key.

Okay...

It seems like what you want to design is a good system for tactical combat. So your first goal should be examining existing games that do that - by that, I mean tactical boardgames or wargames, not RPGs; as a rule, RPGs simply aren't very tactical.

A choice you need to make is whether to use a square grid, hex grid, or no grid. Another one is whether to have every power always accessible, or use a recharging mana-point or fatigue-point system, or to use "once per scene" or "once per combat" powers.

Another important decision is whether to go fluff-to-crunch or crunch-to-fluff. For example, if you have a "flame bolt" spell that deals 5-10 damage, is it primarily important that it acts like a flame bolt (e.g. it sets fire to trees and doesn't work underwater), or that it deals exactly that amount of damage. Almost every RPG chooses the former, and indeed this helps in making effects work both in and out of combat; most boardgames choose the latter; most tactical games choose the latter but add a long list of situational modifiers.

If you want to emphasize tactics over luck, then you need to do the statistics to see if they matter. For example, if good tactics (as opposed to average tactics) give you a +2 bonus on 1d20, then luck has a much bigger impact on the game than tactics.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-21, 10:20 AM
You sound like you're trying to houserule an existing RPG.

When you're making a new RPG, the typical approach is to write down clear and concise design goals and start from scratch - not from hundreds of pages of some other system's legacy.

This. Start by outlining your high level goals. Everything should be derived from them. If one of these goals is realism, make sure it *always* takes a back seat to playability.

Genre blending is cool. Be aware of the different dice systems, and select the one that helps your goals best.

If you haven't played a great deal of stuff other than D20, I always advise people do so before making a system. Otherwise, it tends to look like a D20 clone, and is generally not fantastic. I strongly recommend 7th Sea(the D10 version), on the basis that it's roughly as different from D20 as possible. I also suggest Paranoia. These all have very different goals from D&D and each other, and have rule systems that support those goals well. It doesn't particularly matter what your goals are...but learning how to translate them from your head to play via the rulebook is the difficult and essential part.

The Big Dice
2011-02-21, 01:00 PM
I strongly recommend 7th Sea(the D10 version), on the basis that it's roughly as different from D20 as possible.

Playing lots of different game systems is critical when you're designing a new one. Though I would say for the Roll and Keep system, Legend of the Five Rings is a better choice. It's still in print for one thing, and is extensively supported across four editions, including 2nd/Dual Stat edition. Which in itself is well worth taking a look at so that a comparison between two different systems attempting to present the same thing with different mechanics can be seen.

One thing that's well worth doing is checking out blogs for game designers. John Wick has an ongoing thing he calls Santa Vaca that shows up onhis blog from time to time. His goal there is to change D&D to suit his feelings on how a system should be, but with the restriction of not being able to change anything on the character sheet. On the way, he's slaughtered some fairly well known sacred cows.

Published game designers are often happy to acknowledge where they got an idea from, or a game they were inspired by. And all of them say the same thing: read as many RPGs as you can get yourhands on. And play as many as you're able.

Read this (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/) piece by Ron Edwards. Ignore everything else the man wrote, since he can't use words properly. Simulations are not all about setting, GNS fans. But this piece about fantasy heartbreakers is probably required reading for would be game designers.

My advice is, pick a genre you want your game to fit into or to represet. Do as much research as you can to find out what the iconography, style and flavour of the genre is. Learn all about it's tropes, to use a term I destest. Then try and make mechanics that model those tropes. Then playtest things to destruction. Find where you like and dislike your system, tweak to suit and playtest to destruction again.

Tengu_temp
2011-02-21, 02:35 PM
I say this because DnD has always been a game geared toward cinematic roleplaying, at least since 3.0.

How? Exalted, Spirit of the Century, Weapons of the Gods - those are games geared towards cinematic roleplaying. DND is a game geared towards killing monsters in dungeons and taking their stuff.

valadil
2011-02-21, 02:47 PM
How? Exalted, Spirit of the Century, Weapons of the Gods - those are games geared towards cinematic roleplaying. DND is a game geared towards killing monsters in dungeons and taking their stuff.

How? I think Necro meant cinematic combat. Your characters will take a beating and keep going. Cinematic isn't gritty realistic but it's not as over the top as anime combat either.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-21, 03:00 PM
I would recommend that you read at least 10 different RPGs and then play at least 5 of them before trying to make your own. Multiple editions of D&D only count as 1.

Guess I have a bit more work to do. So far I've played D&D, Star Wars, D20Modern and GURPS, then I've read some about Vampire:The Masquerade but haven't gotten a chance to play it yet.

Tengu_temp
2011-02-21, 03:08 PM
How? I think Necro meant cinematic combat. Your characters will take a beating and keep going. Cinematic isn't gritty realistic but it's not as over the top as anime combat either.

Are you familiar with the games I mentioned? They have mechanics that encourage roleplaying and doing cool and interesting stuff, ingrained in the very system. That's cinematic. DND got nothing of this sort. It does not actively discourage cinematic roleplaying (except for the fact that 90% of non-casters are useless at higher levels), but it does not encourage it either. It's not a system geared towards it.

valadil
2011-02-21, 03:12 PM
Are you familiar with the games I mentioned?

Only tangentially. I think you and I are using the term cinematic combat differently though and I'd wager that the OP has a third use for it.

erikun
2011-02-21, 03:43 PM
I would also recommend becoming familiar with a large number of gaming systems before you sit down and start changing things. At the least, you will find one that does exactly what you want and you can simply switch to the new system. At best, you are exposed to a wide variety of options and can choose what you want to include with more precision. Remember that no one system will have all the "good ideas" in it - a complex, open system is good for player and GM variety but a short, simple system is far better if you will be playing a specific theme and want to get things started quickly.

It will also make you familiar with the problems in various RPG systems. For example:

I know the main flaw in 3.5 is that spellcasters can do everything melee can do, plus some, all better than everyone else.
...is not the major problem in 3.5e, or at least is an extremely simplified version of the problem. Rather, the problem in 3.5e would be better stated as:


HP Bloat - Your average longsword does 1d8+STR, while your average CR 20 opponent has 20d10+200 HP. As you can see, there isn't much concern from the threat of melee combat at high levels, even from multiple or "free" hits such as provoking AoOs. This is why two-handed fighting is the only melee choice worth anything: it is the only one capable of pushing damage into the hundreds/thousands values needed at higher levels. It is also why magic dominates melee: not because a Fireball is stronger than a Greatsword, but even tying up a single enemy with a 1st level Entangle is far more worthwile than smacking it with a weapon.

Safe Spellcasting - In earlier editions, casting a spell was dangerous. You could be freely hit by anyone nearby, and being distracted by anything ruined the spell. In 3.5e, you may choose not to be attacked for casting a spell, and there was a good chance that you could still cast even with taking damage. The fact that HP bloat ensures that even the frailest spellcasters can take several swordswings to the abdomen also works to keeping melee from effectively stopping spellcasters.

Magi-Mart - All but the most magic-deprived campaigns have somewhere to buy low-level wands, which means that virtually all campaigns have access to wands of Cure Light Wounds, Knock, or a dozen other utility spells. Things that would normally be covered by the use of "skills", such as bandaging wounds or picking locks, can easily be covered by anyone with spellcasting ability or ranks in UMD. The Heal skill, in particular, is almost never used beyond the first few levels.

Stacking Defenses - While you could apply the CHA-three-times-to-AC builds here, I'm talking more about spells giving you multiple layers of defense. Wizards can have immunity to detection with Mind Blank, immunity to sight with Invisibility, immunity to any movement restrictions with Freedom of Movement and Fly, immunity to any for of domination with Protection from Evil, immunity to Magic Missile with Shield, and immunity to ranged projectiles with Protection from Arrows. Gaining a single 50% miss chance is better than wearing full plate (effectively a 40% miss chance) and works on attacks that would otherwise bypass the armor. Miss chances fully stack with each other, meaning that three of those 50% miss chances gives you a 87.5% miss chance - effectively multiplying you HP by eight in melee.


So you can see how the "simple" problem of wizards-beat-fighters is really more a complex combination of multiple factors. Trying to remove one - such as the Magi-Mart or Safe Spellcasting - really doesn't affect the others and the game will still seem "broken" due to spellcasters still dominating. Some people see this and try to take their efforts even farther, but I assume you can see the problems with giving all spellcasting a 1-minute casting time: it still fails to resolve the problem issues, and just makes spellcasting less fun.

This doesn't even touch on the issues in saving throws, or precision damage, or skill ranks, or a dozen other things that I feel are a problem in D&D in general. I hope that it gives you an idea of just how carefully you need to look to see what is causing problems in a system, though.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-21, 03:50 PM
Hmm... Okay, then I guess this thread has now changed from discussing traits of these systems, to what are some interesting systems I can play. Anyone have suggestions?

Kurald Galain
2011-02-21, 06:12 PM
Are you familiar with the games I mentioned? They have mechanics that encourage roleplaying and doing cool and interesting stuff, ingrained in the very system. That's cinematic. DND got nothing of this sort.
Precisely. No edition of D&D is at all about cinematic roleplaying.

For example, a very simple cinematic rule is giving a bonus to an attack roll if the player gives a cool and flashy description of the attack.

Certain systems explicitly run on the Rule Of Cool, Rule Of Drama, or Rule Of Funny. For example, Exalted, TORG, Paranoia, or Toon.


Hmm... Okay, then I guess this thread has now changed from discussing traits of these systems, to what are some interesting systems I can play. Anyone have suggestions?
Try some rules-light systems, because they seem to be missing from your list. Amber DRP has some unique mechanics, as does Paranoia, and Mouse Guard too.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 06:14 PM
Precisely. No edition of D&D is at all about cinematic roleplaying.

For example, a very simple cinematic rule is giving a bonus to an attack roll if the player gives a cool and flashy description of the attack.Which is not a rule in DnD. Some of us do use that mechanic, though. Cinematic combat is WAY more fun than: "I take a 5-foot-step, then I full attack." :smallsigh: Boooooooooooooriiiiing.

stainboy
2011-02-21, 06:42 PM
Hmm... Okay, then I guess this thread has now changed from discussing traits of these systems, to what are some interesting systems I can play. Anyone have suggestions?

Shadowrun or anything White Wolf to get a feel for skill-based die pool systems. That setup is probably the most popular alternative to class and level.

To really understand the strengths of weaknesses of a system you need to play it for years, like I gather you have for D&D. Classes and levels aren't just a stodgy old artifact from the 70's; there are advantages and disadvantages to going to classless skill-based. Whether the tradeoff is worth it is up to your group.


Precisely. No edition of D&D is at all about cinematic roleplaying.

D&D's rules don't encourage it but I never found it too difficult to do. D&D supports a lot of "special attacks" which provides a rubric for adding more of them. I know, house ruling, Oberoni fallacy, etc, but you can at least say that D&D provides the language for creating more options.

Personally I dislike stunt systems, because the rewards for stunting often make doing something outside of the combat rules *always* the correct choice. Players don't stunt because it's cool, they stunt for bonuses or to regain Hero Points or to break the action economy. To each his own of course.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-21, 06:49 PM
you can at least say that D&D provides the language for creating more options.
By definition, every RPG does that.



Personally I dislike stunt systems, because the rewards for stunting often make doing something outside of the combat rules *always* the correct choice. Players don't stunt because it's cool, they stunt for the bonuses.
Nevertheless, the result is cool.

The opposite tends to be true in D&D, where doing something outside of the combat rules is *never* the correct choice. For example, 4E's default is to make creative actions (much) less effective than standard powers. The result is, predictably, that people don't stunt (unless you have the rare DM that avoids this default, and players that know this).

stainboy
2011-02-21, 07:33 PM
The opposite tends to be true in D&D, where doing something outside of the combat rules is *never* the correct choice. For example, 4E's default is to make creative actions (much) less effective than standard powers. The result is, predictably, that people don't stunt (unless you have the rare DM that avoids this default, and players that know this).

I agree there, especially in 4e. 3.5 has the same problem, it just provides more options within the combat rules and is less resistant to houseruling in new ones.

The big things 3.5 is missing:
-A way of imposing temporary status effects on enemies (addressed by the Dirty Trick maneuver in Pathfinder).

-A unified system for combat maneuvers to make them easier to handle on the fly (addressed in Pathfinder).

-Rules for using the terrain to assist movement - swinging from vines and such. Most of the problem has to do with Climb being painfully slow and Jump having that stupid rule about exceeding your land speed.

-Rules for climbing onto the bodies of larger creatures, without invoking the grapple rules and getting destroyed by size modifiers.

Knaight
2011-02-21, 11:22 PM
To really understand the strengths of weaknesses of a system you need to play it for years, like I gather you have for D&D. Classes and levels aren't just a stodgy old artifact from the 70's; there are advantages and disadvantages to going to classless skill-based. Whether the tradeoff is worth it is up to your group

Its also worth noting that RPGs are very broad, and any attempt to categorize them that isn't completely binary tends to leave exceptions. In this case, its that classless doesn't necessarily mean skill based. There is Barbarians of Lemuria which is archetype based, Risus which is cliche based, Titled which is based on a Title and a Nature. There are variants of Fate that only use aspects, other games that merely have lists of traits that aren't in any way quantified, etc.

Its been pointed out that one should design RPGs from a high level, however I would posit that it is a very individual process. I designed Titled because of an epiphany for the core mechanic, something that applies just as much to some of my other home-brew, and its something that can work for others. At the same time top down planning has produced great games, because its how some people think.

Bosh
2011-02-21, 11:51 PM
Guess I have a bit more work to do. So far I've played D&D, Star Wars, D20Modern and GURPS, then I've read some about Vampire:The Masquerade but haven't gotten a chance to play it yet.

Yeah it's really really really really important to have some breadth. Basing a game off of D&D is fine but if you don't know other game systems you'll end up doing a lot of reinventing of the wheel and grappling with design issues that other people have been dealing with since the 70's. For example there have been classless RPGs around since before you were born :) Good ones too :)

A good RPG for getting you to think out of the box, even if you don't like it is FATE, take a look at the free SRD here for the Spirit of the Century version of FATE: http://completesrd.wikidot.com/srd:sotc

For example I'm doing some noodling-level design work on a game that's very very strongly D&D inspired and keeps a lot of D&D sacred cows around for nostalgia value but ideas about which aspects of which edition of D&D to keep, which sacred cows to kill, and which things to add is just something that I couldn't do well at all without knowing a lot of non-D&D RPGs.

Necro_EX
2011-02-22, 12:57 AM
How? Exalted, Spirit of the Century, Weapons of the Gods - those are games geared towards cinematic roleplaying. DND is a game geared towards killing monsters in dungeons and taking their stuff.

Bah, you're doin' 3.x wrong if it's not cinematic. D:

I'll give ya that those definitely are cinematic, no questions about any of them.

Xuc Xac
2011-02-22, 01:58 AM
Personally I dislike stunt systems, because the rewards for stunting often make doing something outside of the combat rules *always* the correct choice. Players don't stunt because it's cool, they stunt for bonuses or to regain Hero Points or to break the action economy. To each his own of course.

That's the entire point of stunting systems. The stunt mechanics enforce the idea that "boring is less effective". D&D enforces the idea that boring is more effective.

Let's say there's a tavern brawl. A fighter is standing 10 feet away from a half-orc and there's a table between them. The fighter wants to drop to the floor, roll under the table, and thrust his sword up to skewer the belly of the half-orc standing on the other side of the table.

In D&D, that would require a Tumble check (a cross-class skill he probably doesn't have) and then a -4 penalty to attack for being prone. There's also a -4 penalty to AC for being prone but if the table counts as cover then it cancels out. It would be more effective to just walk around the table and stab the half-orc. It would be even more effective to take a 5 foot step and full attack a closer enemy if there was one within 5 feet. "Cool" is penalized. The best thing for a fighter to do is to be a wizard stand in one place as much as possible so he can maximize his number of sword swings. Trying to act like Jackie Chan just gets you killed by attacks of opportunity for moving around too much.

In Feng Shui stunting, there is no penalty to do something that looks cool if there's no extra mechanical benefit. Doing a cool stunt to stab the half-orc or carefully (and blandly) walking over to stab him are functionally the same. As far as the rules are concerned, they are both equivalent to "One less half-orc in the tavern". "Cool" is not penalized. If you want to kill the half-orc, then you make a roll to kill the half-orc and you can describe it however you want.

Exalted stunting takes it a step further: doing that cool looking stunt would result in a +1 bonus to the attack. "Cool" is rewarded. If you want to kill the half-orc, the best way to do it is to do something entertaining for the other players that makes the game more interesting and exciting.

J.Gellert
2011-02-22, 03:17 AM
In D&D, that would require a Tumble check (a cross-class skill he probably doesn't have) and then a -4 penalty to attack for being prone. There's also a -4 penalty to AC for being prone but if the table counts as cover then it cancels out.

Depending on your DM, it might mean a free Feint attempt, too, so it's a matter of play style and how much this kind of thing is encouraged.

Granted, by the rules, not so much. Eberron has something like Fate Points IIRC, Conan D20 has Fate Points and Maneuvers, Mutants & Masterminds has Hero Points and Extra Effort and Stunts.

So I can understand that "vanilla" D&D 3,5 doesn't actually encourage it... but it's possible.

You just need an imaginative (or lenient, however you see it) DM.

PS. I remember when a friend first introduced me to 2nd ed AD&D. In his explanation, he mentioned an example of combat where a player describes swinging from a chandelier to attack. Heh, I've never quite seen that in play in all the years since. Chairs and tables yes, ceilings... Maybe it's because no one cares to even describe how the ceiling looks?

stainboy
2011-02-22, 03:29 AM
In Feng Shui stunting, there is no penalty to do something that looks cool if there's no extra mechanical benefit. Doing a cool stunt to stab the half-orc or carefully (and blandly) walking over to stab him are functionally the same. As far as the rules are concerned, they are both equivalent to "One less half-orc in the tavern". "Cool" is not penalized. If you want to kill the half-orc, then you make a roll to kill the half-orc and you can describe it however you want.

I'm not familiar with Feng Shui, but that sounds like just a GMing style thing. I can't think of any system where you're supposed to describe things exactly as they happen mechanically. In D&D do you describe characters standing still waiting for their turn or arranging themselves onto 5' grid spaces?




Exalted stunting takes it a step further: doing that cool looking stunt would result in a +1 bonus to the attack. "Cool" is rewarded. If you want to kill the half-orc, the best way to do it is to do something entertaining for the other players that makes the game more interesting and exciting.

Yeah, that's the issue. Why would you ever not stunt? Actually I'll answer that:

1) You prefer your cool wuxia stuff to happen only at dramatically appropriate times, so it seems different and special.

2) Another player is the star of the show at the moment, and you'd like to give them their time in the spotlight and resolve your action quickly.

3) It's late and you're trying to get to a stopping point, so you want turns to go fast.

4) You're new to gaming and shy, and you'd like to just roll dice and watch for a bit until you get comfortable with the group.


There's nothing wrong with any of those things. Why should you take a 1-die penalty for not stunting even when stunting isn't appropriate?

Kurald Galain
2011-02-22, 03:44 AM
So I can understand that "vanilla" D&D 3,5 doesn't actually encourage it... but it's possible.
Yes, that's the difference between "discourage" and "disallow" :smallamused:


4) You're new to gaming and shy, and you'd like to just roll dice and watch for a bit until you get comfortable with the group.
I find that Stunt mechanics draw such people out quicker. Basically, the mechanics are encouraging them to roleplay more.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-22, 03:59 AM
Common tasks should have simple mechanics. There should be a core mechanic other things extrapolate from. Don't feel arbitrary.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-22, 05:00 AM
Hmm... Okay, then I guess this thread has now changed from discussing traits of these systems, to what are some interesting systems I can play. Anyone have suggestions?
Hey, lists of things! I can do that :smallbiggrin:

Old School
These are RPGs as they used to be
AD&D: Any edition of Dungeons & Dragons published by TSR is a fine choice, but AD&D (either 1st or 2nd Edition) is a good place to start. It serves as a nice "default" for the world of Gaming That Was and has the correct eclectic mix of "verisimilitude" rules and Player vs. DM gameplay.

Old World of Darkness (any): The other side of the Old School spectrum, it was one of the early "mainstream" dramatic systems. It shares the eclectic mix of rules that AD&D exemplifies but the rule books spend a lot more time trying to build and explain how to run a campaign like a story (with chapters, etc.) rather than as a series of Dungeon Crawls. Any game within the oWoD will do, but I recommend Vampire: The Masquerade (the "classic" version of oWoD) and Mage: The Ascension (for its novel & dramatic rule set).

Shadowrun (Pre-4th Edition): Somewhat orthogonal to the D&D-WW Axes, Shadowrun is distinctive for having an elaborate rules system while also maintaining a detailed campaign setting for the game. More of a personal favorite of mine than anything else, but its use of Dice Pools was novel when it was created and its layers of sub-systems can provide a cautionary tale for anyone who really things that every action needs a unique way to resolve it.

Contemporary
A selection of interesting and enlightening systems from today
Burning Wheel: One of the most talked about Indie RPGs there is today with a novel system which focuses on tying mechanics to roleplay. You should at least read the main book if nothing else.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons: I'm pretty sure you've played it, but if you haven't you should. The way it is structured is a unique perspective on what it means to build a Pen & Paper RPG and the craftsmanship of the system is spectacular. It should be a point on the compass of any game developer today.
There are, of course, a wide variety of fun and interesting systems out there today. Many of the so-called Indie RPGs work well to illuminate niches of game design and can be useful after you have a solid foundation in Pen & Paper RPG design.

Now, if you really just want to have a system that does certain things then you need to list those things out. We are blessed these days with a wide variety of specialized RPGs to choose from; it is now almost always easier to find a game that matches your style of play rather than to make one from scratch.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-22, 05:19 AM
Eh, Fourth Edition was fun, but it wasn't the kind of fun I was looking for. Considering there has been a pretty successful product that much more continues the 3.X style of gaming, not to mention all the amateur d20 revisions on this site alone, I don't think I am alone in this. It's not just nostalgia, I am such youngling, I started my career playing fourth edition.
Still, if you want an easy to play, hard to mess up system, it's great, I just don't feel it has the depth to maintain my long term interest.

The Big Dice
2011-02-22, 08:33 AM
Old School
These are RPGs as they used to be
Old World of Darkness (any): The other side of the Old School spectrum, it was one of the early "mainstream" dramatic systems. It shares the eclectic mix of rules that AD&D exemplifies but the rule books spend a lot more time trying to build and explain how to run a campaign like a story (with chapters, etc.) rather than as a series of Dungeon Crawls. Any game within the oWoD will do, but I recommend Vampire: The Masquerade (the "classic" version of oWoD) and Mage: The Ascension (for its novel & dramatic rule set).
I can't believe you're describing a mid 90s game like WoD as Old School. Especially considering that Vampire: the Masquerade was literally the game that put a bullet in the carcass of old school gaming.

There's a difference in philosophy in old school gaming. The best way to sum it up is, Rulings, not Rules.

That's to say, many modern gaming systems have rules for everything. Precisely defined game mechanics that tell you what your character can and can not do. Old school games don't have that. They might have a basic combat, experience and skills system, but then leave it to you the play group to decide exactly how to implement that.

Old scool RPGs are things like the various TSR versions of D&D.

But there's also RuneQuest, the first skill rather than level based game. And also the first to be strongly tied to a distinct setting.

There's Traveller, the original science fiction game, still famous for character creation having the possibility of your character not surviving to reach the end of being made.

Call of Cthulhu is another old school classic. The first RPG to make the point that there are other ways than simply fighting.

RoleMaster was the Game of Charts and Dice Rolls. Literally running down a hall to open a door required a Move/Manoeuver Roll and had the potential for catastrophe implicit in it. This was a favourite of people who like to say "The dice killed you, not me."

If you were to generalise by date of publication, the writing was on the wall for old school gaming in the late 80s. Games like Warhammer FRPG, Cyberpunk and GURPS were the first whispers that things could be different. By the mid 90s, with the rise of White Wolf and the sudden surge in CCG play, old school gaming was pretty much a thing of the past.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-22, 10:13 AM
There's a difference in philosophy in old school gaming. The best way to sum it up is, Rulings, not Rules.

That's to say, many modern gaming systems have rules for everything. Precisely defined game mechanics that tell you what your character can and can not do. Old school games don't have that. They might have a basic combat, experience and skills system, but then leave it to you the play group to decide exactly how to implement that.
I'd say that's a fair way to describe oWoD, wouldn't you? :smallamused:

Regardless of the how the game was perceived at the time, the oWoD rules set had more in common with its contemporaries than the "rules for everything" games of today.

* * *

The reason I didn't list the various "D&D Clones" in the Old School games is because - from a design perspective - I don't think they teach you much (if anything) different than AD&D would. For someone trying to get a good grasp of game design I think the three systems I choose (D&D, WW, SR) can fairly be called touchstones for gaming of that era. Off hand, I can't think of any developments in the games listed that weren't either incorporated into the systems I named or turned out to be developmental dead-ends in the long run.

The Big Dice
2011-02-22, 10:41 AM
I'd say that's a fair way to describe oWoD, wouldn't you? :smallamused:

Regardless of the how the game was perceived at the time, the oWoD rules set had more in common with its contemporaries than the "rules for everything" games of today.
Actually, I'd say oWoD was all about pushing people into thinking that the story was more important than the rules. Which is a very different mindset from the rules being guidelines to be changed if you feel they need changing.

And if you look at oWoD and it's contemporaries, they are all very much of the "Story before Rules" pattern of design. One that's become so pervasive that a certain well known RPG actually has the gall to tell players that if they are playing it differently from that mould, they are doing it wrong.

I'd say no World of Darkness game is Old School. They might be old in terms of having been around for almost 20 years. But Old School Gaming goes back to almost 20 years before then.

kyoryu
2011-02-22, 01:21 PM
Actually, I'd say oWoD was all about pushing people into thinking that the story was more important than the rules. Which is a very different mindset from the rules being guidelines to be changed if you feel they need changing.

And if you look at oWoD and it's contemporaries, they are all very much of the "Story before Rules" pattern of design. One that's become so pervasive that a certain well known RPG actually has the gall to tell players that if they are playing it differently from that mould, they are doing it wrong.

I'd say no World of Darkness game is Old School. They might be old in terms of having been around for almost 20 years. But Old School Gaming goes back to almost 20 years before then.

To be fair, the "story is the most important thing" started before oWoD, mostly with DragonLance.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-22, 01:27 PM
Actually, I'd say oWoD was all about pushing people into thinking that the story was more important than the rules. Which is a very different mindset from the rules being guidelines to be changed if you feel they need changing.
I have a hard time seeing the difference here. All you're saying is that WW said "changes the rules when the story requires it" instead of everyone else who said "change the rules when..."

Of course, I am unsurprised to find that we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion in regards to game design :smalltongue:

Fhaolan
2011-02-22, 02:26 PM
Concur with the other posters.

First: Play a bunch of different games, and not just RPGs. Play things that you wouldn't normally be interested in. And you need to play them while paying attention to their design properties. Here's a couple of videos that talk about doing so for Video Games. While the specifics are different because you want to design a Pen-and-Paper RPG, the base principles for 'playing as a designer' are still valid:

Playing like a Designer Part 1 (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2713-Playing-Like-a-Designer-Part-1)

Playing like a Designer Part 2 (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2738-Playing-Like-a-Designer-Part-2)

Second: List out your design principles, as in what do you want this game to achieve? Realism? Balance? Flexibiliy? Heck, use of specific die types (d20, d6, d10)?

Third: Imagine a game session using this system. What is the flow of the game like? Do you have a specific genre or setting? What parts of the gaming experience do you want dictated by the game 'engine' and which are not.

Once you've done this, then you can get into the nitty-gritty of the design.

Good luck. :)

The Big Dice
2011-02-22, 07:24 PM
I have a hard time seeing the difference here. All you're saying is that WW said "changes the rules when the story requires it" instead of everyone else who said "change the rules when..."

Of course, I am unsurprised to find that we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion in regards to game design :smalltongue:
Actually, the different opinions we have about game design are pretty much the heart of the difference between Old School, as embodied by games like AD&D, BRP or RoleMaster, and newer paradigms. As displayed by games like the World of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings or Arrowflight. I see a huge difference between "The rules are subservient to the story" and "The rules are a toolkit for you to add to or take away from."


To be fair, the "story is the most important thing" started before oWoD, mostly with DragonLance.
Mark Rein-Hagen was the guy who codified what is now the Storytelling school of GM thought. Weiss and Hickman were on the road to a story telling style, but the original DragonLance modules were so railroaded that it wasn't funny. Because you were literally playing the story of the novels, so certain things had to happen at certain points in the narrative.

dsmiles
2011-02-22, 07:34 PM
Actually, I'd say oWoD was all about pushing people into thinking that the story was more important than the rules. Which is a very different mindset from the rules being guidelines to be changed if you feel they need changing.I actually prefer the story to take precedence over the rules. It seems right, to me, that the rules be secondary. I grew up on AD&D 1e & 2e, which were pretty rules-intensive, IMO, and moved to Storyteller for a while before coming back to 3e/3.5, and now 4e. Yeah, rules have their place in the game, but enjoying the story that the GM and Players are telling is more important. It shows in my DMing style, and my players seem to like it that way.

kyoryu
2011-02-22, 08:13 PM
I have a hard time seeing the difference here. All you're saying is that WW said "changes the rules when the story requires it" instead of everyone else who said "change the rules when..."

Of course, I am unsurprised to find that we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion in regards to game design :smalltongue:

One thing I look at games as being is about three things - story, the world, and the characters. Different games prioritize these differently.

Old school games are typically about the world first, the characters second, and the story third. The story ends up being about what the characters do in the world. In a game like that, you break or change the rules primarily when it makes logical sense within the world.

Newer games are about the story first and foremost, the characters secondarily, and the world third. Some swap the characters and story, though. In these games, you change the rules for the *story* or the *characters*, but the world is subservient to both. In many cases, the world is only a backdrop for a single story, as opposed to the old school games where a single world would be a setting for many characters, and even more stories.

And, yeah, I do see the tipping point for that as being DragonLance. While it's not as fully new-school as the WoD stuff, it's pretty clearly a deviation from Greyhawk/etc. - the DragonLance setting exists first and foremost to tell the DragonLance story.

stainboy
2011-02-22, 08:35 PM
Actually, I'd say oWoD was all about pushing people into thinking that the story was more important than the rules. Which is a very different mindset from the rules being guidelines to be changed if you feel they need changing.

Bit of a tangent but since we're talking about game design here...

oWoD failed at this once combat started. D&D rocket tag has nothing on White Wolf rocket tag. Dramatic license is fine, but when it means someone acts out of turn and makes an unresisted roll to mind control you, you demand strict initiative order.

White Wolf's solution was a bunch of lecturing about "powergaming," because they didn't understand their own rules well enough to know where the line was. You didn't need Dark Fate or amphetamines or silver nitrate hollowpoints to oneshot fools. You could make a character naively and be fully equipped for rocket tag. All it took was picking something with either mind control or extra actions and spending the points the book gave you on abilities the book told you to take.

oWoD failed at dramatic combat because the writers thought that Story > Rules excused them from writing good rules. Anyone interested in writing a rules-light system should take note.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-22, 08:47 PM
oWoD failed at dramatic combat because the writers thought that Story > Rules excused them from writing good rules. Anyone interested in writing a rules-light system should take note.
I don't think it's nearly that bad. Yes, oWOD rules fail when excessively powergamed - but so does every other rules set, including 3E, 4E, GURPS, nWOD, and whatever else you can think of.

Imho, you should instead note that there are only a handful of RPGs that considers balance a big deal in the first place. Every single other RPG notes that it is cooperative, rather than competitive.

valadil
2011-02-22, 08:56 PM
Imho, you should instead note that there are only a handful of RPGs that considers balance a big deal in the first place. Every single other RPG notes that it is cooperative, rather than competitive.

Yes, but if the guy with Celerity has more turns than the rest of his team combined, they may grow impatient and frustrated even if they're winning.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-22, 08:57 PM
I don't think it's nearly that bad. Yes, oWOD rules fail when excessively powergamed - but so does every other rules set, including 3E, 4E, GURPS, nWOD, and whatever else you can think of.

Imho, you should instead note that there are only a handful of RPGs that considers balance a big deal in the first place. Every single other RPG notes that it is cooperative, rather than competitive.
Out of curiosity - what RPG system would you call "competitive?" :smallconfused:

Anyhow, it seems like "balance" has now become another empty term in the field of game design. A pity :smallsigh:

The Big Dice
2011-02-22, 09:28 PM
Out of curiosity - what RPG system would you call "competitive?" :smallconfused:

Anyhow, it seems like "balance" has now become another empty term in the field of game design. A pity :smallsigh:

I had my eyes opened to other possibilities on winning and losing by the Angry DM (http://angrydm.com/2010/07/winning-dd/). His ideas on the difference between enjoyment and satisfaction were quite intriguing.

And as for balance,I've always maintained that it's a myth. People claim D&D 4th ed is balanced. But they also complain that it's got homogeneous classes. So what is it to be? If everyone can contribute equally in every situation, there's nothing to make anybody stand out. But if characters vary wildly in power and flexibility, then you canend up with a game as borderline unplayable as D&D 3rd edition*

So while it's nice to dream of balance, as long as one character can do something another can't, it's just going to be a dream.



*This is purely the opinion of The Big Dice and does not reflect the opinions of the Giant,the Playground or any other sapient life forms.

stainboy
2011-02-22, 09:35 PM
I don't think it's nearly that bad. Yes, oWOD rules fail when excessively powergamed - but so does every other rules set, including 3E, 4E, GURPS, nWOD, and whatever else you can think of.


That's my point though. If a game breaks when you go out of your way to break it, fine, every game does. But oWoD broke without powergaming. Make an Ahroun werewolf using only the main book, no Gifts from splats, no merits/flaws, no points in Fetish (snrk), no freebie points spent on Rage, physical attributes, or Brawl. You're not even remotely optimized, you're playing exactly the character that the writers expected one of in every party. You can still do 15-20 health levels of damage per round.

You only have 7 health levels, and every Rank 1 Black Spiral Dancer in the world has pretty much the same build you do. So you damn well better win initiative. (At least until rank 2, when you get "automatically win initiative" by picking the first ahroun gift on the list.)

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-22, 09:41 PM
And as for balance,I've always maintained that it's a myth. People claim D&D 4th ed is balanced. But they also complain that it's got homogeneous classes. So what is it to be?
I doubt you'll find people who both celebrate the balance while complaining about homogeneous classes :smalltongue:

No, Balance used to be a term which was useful for game developers when designing games. I still use it when considering the mechanical options available for use but I don't think it would be helpful or worthwhile to devote more space within this thread to try and iron out a textbook definition.

So yeah.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-23, 03:56 AM
That's my point though. If a game breaks when you go out of your way to break it, fine, every game does. But oWoD broke without powergaming.
No. What you're describing is still powergaming. Just because you can make it even more powerful with splatbooks doesn't mean it isn't powergaming.

Because a normal Ahroun has, say, strength 8 or 9 in crinos (meaning an average of 4-5 damage per succesful attack) and five dots of rage (not all of which can be spent in a single turn) and there's just no way in Malfeas that this is going to add up to 15 damage per turn.

Aside from that, combat being brutal is pretty much the point of playing a Werewolf. Yes, a powerful Ahroun can tear apart a Spiral Dancer, that's what Ahroun do. Bring on the nexus crawler!

Tyndmyr
2011-02-23, 09:07 AM
I doubt you'll find people who both celebrate the balance while complaining about homogeneous classes :smalltongue:

I've long complained about 4e's classes that all feel alike, but it is fairly balanced. I won't argue that. I simply feel that it's a poor way to achieve balance since I place a high value on what was sacrificed to do it. Note that even in 4e, some options are certainly superior to others...it's just that the range is much smaller than 3.5

That said, I'm convinced that balance isn't actually necessary to make a successful game. Oh, it's good, sure, but even a cursory examination of successful games will show you plenty without significant effort toward balance being a part of them. I wouldn't consider 3.5 borderline unplayable...and if anything, I think the greatest hit to playability in 3.5 comes from character complexity, not balance. The more complex the characters, the steeper the learning curve for a new player. 3.5 made it work, but I wouldn't advocate taking any approach that adds further complexity to such a system.

IMO, Story should never, ever trump rules. First off, if you want a story focused system, you should design those rules to support the story, not conflict with it. If certain rules come into routine conflict with the story in playtesting(and yes, you must playtest), then you need to make a decision. Either you're going to support that sort of story within the rule system or you won't. Regardless of which you choose, make it clear within the books what sort of game your system is intended to run, and make sure the rules support it. As an example, I point to Paranoia, which is geared toward certain types of games. It's rules, ranging from security clearances to perversity, support this style of gameplay well.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-23, 09:54 AM
I've long complained about 4e's classes that all feel alike, but it is fairly balanced. I won't argue that. I simply feel that it's a poor way to achieve balance since I place a high value on what was sacrificed to do it. Note that even in 4e, some options are certainly superior to others...it's just that the range is much smaller than 3.5
I should have been clearer.

Pretty much everyone agrees that 4e is balanced. Even if you can't define balance, it's something that is tied to the edition. However, people who enjoy 4e don't say that the classes "feel alike" since - presumably - such a thing would detract from the game.

In any case, if all you can get from 4e is that it is balanced then it should still be something a budding game designer should study. You could study 3.P as well, I suppose, but it occupies an awkward mid-point between Old School and Contemporary games: it shows fidelity to the style of Old School design while attempting to produce a "legal rules" system. A fine transition, to be sure (and a game many people enjoy) but is not as developed as a "legal rules" system as 4e and it corrupts the logic behind the Old School design paradigm found in games like AD&D.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-23, 10:02 AM
Pretty much everyone agrees that 4e is balanced.
That strikes me as exaggerated.

For example, there's the "handbook of broken" on the WOTC site, and common discussion about the alleged power creep in the PHB3 or HOFL books, and frequent suggestions to not use Dragon magazine because it's said to be unbalanced. That's a far cry from universal agreement.

If anything, "balance" is a sliding scale, not a black-and-white property.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-23, 10:28 AM
That strikes me as exaggerated.

For example, there's the "handbook of broken" on the WOTC site, and common discussion about the alleged power creep in the PHB3 or HOFL books, and frequent suggestions to not use Dragon magazine because it's said to be unbalanced. That's a far cry from universal agreement.

If anything, "balance" is a sliding scale, not a black-and-white property.
Well, what I mean is that - from the forums - the idea that "4e is Balanced" seems to be one of the few things people can agree on about the edition. It's a tag much like "FATAL is terrible" or "GURPS is complicated" - a bit of received wisdom from the Internet, but something without real content.

And, like I said, "balance" seems like another "verisimilitude" when it comes to discussing game design - a term without objective meaning when used in a debate. If I wanted to get into a debate about the meaning of the term (which I don't) I'd argue along the lines that "balance" is a design goal in which the designer makes a conscious effort to structure the game mechanics in relation to each other. 4e was designed with such Balance in mind; 3e was not and neither were any of the Old School games.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-23, 11:25 AM
Well, what I mean is that - from the forums - the idea that "4e is Balanced" seems to be one of the few things people can agree on about the edition. It's a tag much like "FATAL is terrible" or "GURPS is complicated" - a bit of received wisdom from the Internet, but something without real content.
I don't think those terms are meaningless. However, none of them are binary properties, so to speak. Saying that 4E is balanced begs the question, compared to what?

So it's commonly agreed upon that "4E is more balanced than X" (usually than 3E, because people rarely judge any other RPG by its balance), and that FATAL is one of the worst games in the world.

GURPS being complicated strikes me as merely a stereotype, I don't think there's a consensual opinion about that.


4e was designed with such Balance in mind; 3e was not and neither were any of the Old School games.
Yes. Importantly, if "balance" was never a design goal for any particular game, then "lack of balance" cannot be a design flaw for that game, either.

Eldan
2011-02-23, 11:33 AM
What I think is the problem in 3.5 is not "balance" per se. It's "usefulness". I would have absolutely no problem with one class totally owning one segment of the game. What I have a problem with is if the generalists trump the specialists in their home area. If the druid outfights the fighter, that's a problem. The second problem with 3.5 is that it is often misleading to new players. Options seem useful, but aren't.

I have now actually sat down and looked at the core 4E books, and I think they look for the wrong kind of balance. They seek to make everyone good in combat when, in my opinion, combat is only a part of the game. One class trumping in combat and one out of it wouldn't be a problem to me.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-02-23, 11:43 AM
I don't think those terms are meaningless. However, none of them are binary properties, so to speak. Saying that 4E is balanced begs the question, compared to what?
Against itself, of course :smallamused:

Like I said, the term "balance" is one without clear definition. It is surely a useful Term of Art (unlike "terrible" or "complicated" from my examples) but it has turned into just another word that gets thrown around without purpose in these casual debates.


Yes. Importantly, if "balance" was never a design goal for any particular game, then "lack of balance" cannot be a design flaw for that game, either.
It is a flaw if you believe that games are better if they are balanced :smalltongue:

This is in much the same way that people complained about 4e lacking things like bards when it was released - if you're looking for a game with X and it lacks X, then the lack of X is a real problem for the individual.

Now, from a game-design perspective:
I'd argue that all games need to be designed with Balance in mind. If you're going to make rules you should make sure that the rules work as intended and that means balancing them against each other. As an example, SR (pre-4) intended lethal ammo to be the preferred tool for killing people; in practice "stun" weapons were vastly superior at overcoming standard defenses and incapacitating enemies. If SR had been intended to be Balanced they would have compared the Lethal rules against the Non-Lethal rules and noticed that Non-Lethal weapons were just much better at taking out people than "lethal" ones.

Why didn't earlier designers focus on Balance? I think it has more to do with their evolution from wargames-with-characters: there were already balanced rules for combat borrowed from wargames but there was no idea how you should structure things like social interactions. As a result, the designers pulled from the realm of pure imagination and said "well, what would be realistic?" Look at the PHB for AD&D and how it treats non-weapon proficiencies: more often than not the invocation is "if the Player can explain how it works, the Character can do it." There's no attempt to model these sorts of interactions as though they took place in a game - it's practically the same as playing an game of Pretend (which it is).

Nowadays there is more of an emphasis on Roleplaying Games being Games and not simply Role-Playing exercises. IMHO this brings real value to a given game since you don't need to spend $40 to just play Pretend with your friends; to be a valuable commodity, a gaming book needs to give you more to work with. Content is cheap to create - good rules are not. And if you want to have good rules in your game you need to make sure the rules all work together - Balancing.

EDIT: @Eldan - the reason 4e made everyone useful in combat is because of The Decker Problem.

Never heard of it? Don't worry - it's a phrase I coined myself :smalltongue:

...or so I thought. OK, turns out someone else (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RPG_Lexica:DEF) put up an elegant explanation of the same deal.

For reference:
Decker Problem
One of the more infamous published game design errors, a classic example of the Specialization problem (q.v.) In two of the most well-known cyberpunk games, Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020, the rules explicitly state that only a character who is specialized at operating in cyberspace (the "virtual reality internet" common in the genre) could do anything at all within it. (Such a character is usually called a "decker" , thus the term.) The range of characters in both games was such that any given group would need only one decker. Both games then specified large, detailed tactical rules systems for resolving encounters in cyberspace, which - while involving and interesting in theory - were unplayable in practice, because it would be socially unacceptable to leave the other players with nothing to do while the decker's player played through them. (Cyberpunk 2020 made things even worse by specifying that an entire cyberspace adventure could take only a few seconds of game time - meaning that the other characters were not only unable to be involved in the cyberspace encounter, but unable to do anything at all, because in the game world they would not have had time to do so.) Generically speaking, the Decker problem could be said to be any elegant, novel and original rules solution to a problem of genre emulation, that nevertheless cannot be implemented in-game on a regular basis because it would be socially unacceptable to use it.
D&D is a game about going into Dungeons and killing Dragons - adventure and combat. The ability to make characters who were unable to do anything in combat does not contribute to a good game of D&D and, really, seems like a silly thing for the rules of such a game to enable. It makes perfect sense to make a non-combatant for a more social system like oWoD Vampire or Maid RPG but it is no virtue for D&D.

Dairun Cates
2011-02-23, 11:49 AM
Honestly, as someone who has actually home-brewed an entire system from scratch instead of basing it on an existing one, I can tell you that there's essentially 4 things you need to determine before you start.

1. What's the Setting? Fantasy or Sci-fi? Is there anything specifically unique about this setting? If not, why does this need a system?
2. What's the Tone? Funny or serious? Realistic or over-the-top?
3. Is it combat or roleplaying focused? You can get a fair balance of both, but ultimately, you're gonna focus on one over the other to SOME degree.
4. Rules Lite or Heavy? Is the game heavy on rules or light on rules? Is the game fast and easy or deep and tactical?

Once you get those down pat, you can start working on mechanics itself. I wouldn't work on them before that, because these questions SPECIFICALLY effect how your mechanics evolve.

DeltaEmil
2011-02-23, 11:50 AM
I on the other hand would find it not a good idea if a character can't do anything worthwhile in something that is meant to incorporate the entire group.

Fighting is in this case important, and having a character sit out completely and be useless means that the player might as well go do something else until this segment stops. Rolling dices to reduce hit points of fictional monsters is meant to be a group activity.
However, the same holds true when you have a social-interaction-challenged character (meaning completely useless), where nothing that the player does would really matter if his character sheet doesn't have the bonus required to function at those in the first place.

The idea of balance is in that case for me the possibility to contribute when I actually want to contribute, without having the gm needing to hold my hands like a little child and focusing his time with me while neglecting the other players.

That should be possible in combat as well as social interaction, or environment camping and trekking. Or at the very least your character shouldn't be so bad that you might as well not bother with that stuff in the first place.

You can always choose to not contribute or be purposefully bad (by for example simpy giving yourself a penalty just because, without any compensation). That can still be done in 4th edition, it will be possible to do that when D&D 100th edition that is super-balanced, idiot-proof, with holographic high definition holographic engine included and the secrets of life will be developed.

stainboy
2011-02-23, 12:20 PM
No. What you're describing is still powergaming. Just because you can make it even more powerful with splatbooks doesn't mean it isn't powergaming.

Because a normal Ahroun has, say, strength 8 or 9 in crinos (meaning an average of 4-5 damage per succesful attack) and five dots of rage (not all of which can be spent in a single turn) and there's just no way in Malfeas that this is going to add up to 15 damage per turn.


We're not talking about 15 damage per turn sustained. We're talking about a 15 damage nova on Round 1, trying to drop a vampire before he activates Celerity or Dreadgaze or something.

Basically all of the ahroun's attacks hit. Either his opponent hasn't acted yet and can't dodge, or his opponent can't throw up enough extra actions to make dodging matter. The ahroun rolls 7 dice at a reasonable, non-powergamed minimum (3 Dex base + 1 Dex for Crinos + 3 Brawl), each of which has a 40% chance of rolling the single success he needs to hit. His chance to hit with each attack is (1 - 6^7 / 10^7), or about 97%.

Continuing with the assumption that he has 4 Dex in Crinos, he can dump 4 Rage per round, giving him 5 actions. That's 15 damage easy. He'll be almost out of Rage in Round 2, but it doesn't matter because there won't be a Round 2.

Josie Whales
2011-02-23, 01:22 PM
If you want to try to fix some problems in 3.5, listen to the developer podcasts from when 4e was in early development. It's a really good starting point. It's all about problems like BAB and save bonuses diverging to the point of auto-success/auto-failure, the 15-minute workday, magic being clunky, and class balance being out of whack. The design decisions that made 4e unappealing to most 3.5 players hadn't shown up yet.

The developers started by fixing the right problems, they just didn't know when to stop. So check out the early 4e podcasts even if you don't like the finished product.

Anyone have a link to this?

Tyndmyr
2011-02-23, 01:25 PM
If anything, "balance" is a sliding scale, not a black-and-white property.

Would agree. While 4e is more balanced relative to 3.5, you probably can't practically achieve perfect balance without eliminating player choice rather dramatically.

4e probably isn't a bad system to study from a design standpoint, but I wouldn't place it near the top of the list, simply because most prospective game designers have already played at least one D20 system, and I feel it's important to experience a variety of systems early on, before exploring one deeply.

Yukitsu
2011-02-23, 02:47 PM
When I make rule sets, I follow these principles:

1: Games should be about fun. You're not a crusader creating a new medium of art or interactive literature.
2: Rules should come from the setting first, the setting from the rules second.
3: Balance is impossible, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
4: When designing, stop and think like the player, then stop and think like a DM for every paragraph. The designer will often think something is clear when it can be ambiguously used to the advantage of one or the other.
5: If you're not having fun designing it, no one's going to have fun playing it.


More specifically, I use these:

1: The difficulty in staying alive/resurrected should be inversely proportional to the time it takes to create a character. The harder it is to build a character, the harder it should be to die.
2: The game should be stacked in the player's favour if you want it to be a story driven game.
3: Combat driven, lethal games should have mechanisms to expediate reincarnation or character creation, and should involve less time leveling, or be a system that allows an individual to create a level "20" character in a short period of time.
4: If you did your job right, rule zero should be an unecessary copout.
5: There's no reason you can't make "no looping" a rule.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-23, 03:20 PM
Yes. All of the above stuff is great, and is on my list as well.

I actually have a pretty complete core ruleset finished that I and a coupla friends have been working on for a while. Needs some more detailed content typed up before it's ready for playtesting, though. And it ain't finished until it's playtested.

Arbane
2011-02-23, 03:45 PM
If we're still recommending rules-systems to look at, I'll plug Risus (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm). it's about as rules-light as a RPG can get before becoming Cowboys and Indians again.

One bit with game design - look at a few generic systems, like FATE, Silhouette, GURPS, HERO, d20, etc. If you can do your new game idea in one of those without compromising it, why bother reinventing the wheel?

Kurald Galain
2011-02-23, 06:12 PM
We're not talking about 15 damage per turn sustained. We're talking about a 15 damage nova on Round 1, trying to drop a vampire before he activates Celerity or Dreadgaze or something.
Let's see, your example assumes

That you start combat in crinos form. The Veil says you don't.
That you surprise the vampire, because otherwise he does get to dodge. Auspex begs to differ.
That the vampire has no soak dice to speak of. Fortitude would like a word with you.
That you start combat in charge range; modern vamps dig sniper rifles.
That you take all your actions simultaneously, whereas I'm pretty sure that all extra (celerity/rage/time sphere) actions go at the end of the round.
And that the vampire is the kind of idiot that has no minions, ghouls, obfuscate, or other trick.


So yeah, it strikes me that you're exaggerating quite a lot here. And, once again, that an Ahroun can one-shot a vampire is intentional. Conversely, that Garou have no easy counter for e.g. Dominate or Obfuscate is also intentional.

If, in a werewolf campaign, the PCs are constantly one-shotting vampires, then (1) it's not a big deal since Garou are written as combat monsters, and (2) the DM doesn't know how to play a Kindred properly.

stainboy
2011-02-23, 09:15 PM
And, once again, that an Ahroun can one-shot a vampire is intentional. Conversely, that Garou have no easy counter for e.g. Dominate or Obfuscate is also intentional.

So werewolves can oneshot vampires now? And vice versa? :smallconfused:

White Wolf of course knew that Dreadgaze, Celerity, and Rage novas won fights instantly. There was even a sidebar in the W:tA 2e about werewolf vs vampire combat that said basically that. ("A Get of Fenris can do enough damage to sink a destroyer, but when the vampire uses her Presence power..." sound familiar?) But just because they knew about it doesn't mean it met their design goals. When Rein "dot" Hagen and co. first decided to play Anne Rice RPG using Shadowrun with d10s, nobody said "we need to make sure combat characters kill each other in 1 round and social characters can mind control anyone with no meaningful chance of failure." Rocket tag is objectively a bad thing. Nobody ever sets out to make a system that features it.

Their big failing was not understanding how important it was to fix rocket tag in a rules-light narrative. When combat is this nightmarishly lethal, a fight isn't Roleplaying Time. It's Keep Your Beloved Character From Dying Time.

Yukitsu
2011-02-23, 10:35 PM
Looking at these specifically:


Specialized Magic System

Fairly simple. Don't categorize magic into too few groupings, or don't group them at all. Say to yourself as you develop spells, "This group is damage, this group alters terrain, this group alters people etc." Don't do what D&D did and allow overlap.

Then decide how much an individual has to specialize. If the character themselves don't need to be too specialized on what spells they have, allow them carte blanc, and don't create groupings at all.

If you want the characters to be specialized, allow a little bit of effect bleed through the different groupings, but always remember, a damage effect in a non-damage group must be inferior to a damage effect of the same level in a damage grouping. In this case, decide how specialized a character is going to be.

If you want to give a choice, remember that the value of specialization to versatility isn't equal based on how many groups you gave up, but in how many roles you're no longer capable of fulfilling. Ergo, if you can still DPS somewhat as an illusionist in D&D when you've given up evocation, (shadow evocations etc) then the cost of specialization is low.


Abilities function both in combat and out of combat

This doesn't have to be mechanical in nature. In my system, I did add rules for this sort of thing, and I did so by letting you reduce the effects of spells, letting you for instance, light a fire without killing everyone by using a fireball etc. I recommend that you simply state outright that out of combat uses of spells should be suitably epic, should not directly contradict the mechanics (you can't light a candle with a flaming sphere from 5 miles away for instance, or at all because you'd melt the candle) and should not be abuseable in combat.


Combat focuses on control over damage.

The biggest deficit is there is no mechanics for certain situations, elements, losses or other such factors that can herd enemies in one direction or another. Making a mechanism stating certain things will run from XY or Z, or at the very least, won't even attempt going towards, past or through it can allow for a much finer degree of control over the battlefield.

eg: You're attacked by a treant, and drop a fire wall. D&D, it runs through and kills you anyway. Ideally, it decides to go all the way around it, or possibly let you escape.


Melee have adequate options for control.

Use something like, I dunno, blood points gained by killing stuff. At a certain value of these (as indicated on the monster profile) the monster will shy away from that particular character, at a higher value, will run away even avoiding easier targets, and at an even higher value, basically cut his own throat if cornered. They won't run from characters who attacked from afar, simply because they weren't sure who was doing that, and frankly, blood soaked melee is more immediately present.

Also, create example rules for certain types of improvised, reasonable terrain. A good example is the use of lit oil around you. In D&D, this doesn't have much of an effect, and isn't really a deterrent.


Combat is resource-light, allowing many fights each day.

Balance everything around the assumption that it's not charged, or give a weak free ability and strong limited ability to the casters, and a "weak" strong but limited ability with a strong constant attack on non-casters. To avoid emulating 4E, I think martial characters shouldn't burst with a specific ability, but a specific mental state of heightened awareness and skill.

Alternatively, video game it, let character's find MP replenishing consumables, and severely limit the amount a character can cast in a single combat.


Strong focus on skill and tactics synergy; planning is key.

This is module dependant, and largely out of the control of the main rulebook creator IMO. The only true alternative is to give a lot of easy forsight granting abilities that DMs tend to hate, such as a monster map making spell that shows you where the enemies in the next room are.