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Anderlith
2014-06-02, 01:37 AM
So I thought I'd ask around,

In your opinion, what game/games have the best cohesive & comprehensive & all around best mechanics you have seen/played?

Rhynn
2014-06-02, 02:10 AM
The Riddle of Steel has hands down the best combat rules for realistic, fun, tactical, reasonably quick, fast-paced, immersive combat between small numbers of fighters in basically any setting up to ~18th or 19th century technological equivalent: Medieval knights, Renaissance duellists, chanbara, pirates, Three Musketeers, Hyborian Age, whatever. Also shooting bows and early firearms, especially as part of a general melee.

Twilight 2013 has hands down the best modern small unit firearms combat rules, including artillery and everything. The psychological damage rules are great. Pretty much all of it is great (although I can understand taking exception at the setting, I guess, if you're into politics and warfare and history and whatever - I couldn't care less), except that keeping inventory of your stuff pretty much requires a spreadsheet.

Aces & Eights has the best rules for Wild West gunfights (shot clock heck yeah!), and fun and atmospheric rules for fistfights and chases. Too bad character creation is a HackMaster 4th Edition -level nightmare.

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World has the best lifepath character creation system and the coolest character advancement, and one of the best magic systems (even if you have to be really careful about giving out the hugely powerful true forms of spells, especially Enchantment Ritual). Also great rules for divine intervention and worship. And cool rules for death and what comes after. And actually a pretty nifty and good combat system.

HârnMaster is just all-around solid and playable, with really good combat rules that don't get too detailed but produce sufficiently realistic results to satisfy most realism buffs. (Just ignore the fantasy and out-of-period weapons on the weapon lists.) Also, HarnManor is the best fief-management system.

ACKS is my favorite D&D retroclone and has awesome little details all over the rules, and has really great domain/realm management rules that produce good results at various scales (except for some hiccups with cities and thieves' guilds that most people probably won't even come across).

Trail of Cthulhu (and all other GUMSHOE system games I guess) has the best rules for investigation, and the best rules for Cthulhu Mythos (Drives, Pillars of Sanity, Stability vs. Sanity).


Out of all those, ACKS, Artesia, and HârnMaster are pretty much all equally the most comprehensive, cohesive, and all-around awesome, for me.

Yora
2014-06-02, 03:17 AM
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is AD&D that actually makes sense. It's a relatively simple system without much frills, that does what it needs to do and does not distract from social interactions and exploration by slapping on any minigames that reduce these elements to dice rolling. The spellcasting system is nonsense, but that's the case with every D&D game.

Airk
2014-06-02, 10:04 AM
Is this thread about MECHANICS or SYSTEMS? They're not the same - they're like trees and forests.

obryn
2014-06-02, 10:27 AM
Some individual mechanics I really, really enjoy (moving past the general idea of best systems):

I love Feng Shui's shot timers. Well, in concept. In Feng Shui 2, it looks like they will be locked down a bit better. I love how it makes combat feel, and how it keeps everyone on their toes. 1-shot defensive moves are great.

I love 4e D&D's Defender Marks, specifically the sort of fake-aggro Catch 22 situation it generates. It's simple enough in play, and makes good tactical fun.

Fate Core's Aspects are pretty revolutionary as far as game "technology" goes, particularly how it allows any descriptor to carry mechanical weight, and how it ensures character flaws will see use in play. (Heck; players will welcome use of their flaws.)

I think Call of Cthulhu's Sanity mechanic just feels right for the genre, with a built-in death spiral of sorts. Some of the cruft around it - like the 20% rule and so on - gets iffy, but the basic mechanic is great.

Rules Cyclopedia D&D has Weapon Mastery, which is a really fun way to give weapon-users a lot of extra fun, and differentiates different weapons better than any other edition of D&D (or most other games, for that matter).

I think Apocalypse/Dungeon World's basic task resolution system is incredibly fun, especially letting the players roll pretty much all the dice. The basic concept (2-6 = don't get what you want; 7-9 = get part of what you want, or get it at a cost; 10+ get what you want) is spectacular and simple.

NichG
2014-06-02, 11:07 AM
Of late I've really been liking mechanics that allow the PCs to perform retroactive definition of the world to emulate foresight or brilliant planning.

I've also found that I like social mechanics that work by giving the players the ability to obtain information or modify conversation state, without abstracting away the actual conversation. So for example 'I didn't actually just say that, now I will try again' or 'how would he respond if I said X'.

In general I like things that help the players make smarter or more effective choices in a very detailed state space, but still put all the details of the decision-making in their hands - systems that help the players themselves be supernaturally competent, rather than systems which abstract away tasks in order to model that sort of competency. IMO, the stories that result are cooler if everyone can see after the fact exactly how and why what someone did was so clever, as opposed to the system just saying 'you did something clever but we won't get into what it was'.

I also really like the idea of mechanics where a significant part of PC power comes from temporary situational resources, like Numenera's cyphers. That said I haven't had much of a chance to actually play or run things using that idea, and it has to be really central to the system to work - if you just tack it on it tends to not work very well.

Another thing I've liked of late is mechanics where there are resource pools and players can use those resource pools to moderate uncertainty. E.g. being able to succeed on any roll if they spend enough of a resource, but not having enough resource to succeed on every roll. Generally the important thing here is 'no uncertainty after spending, only before' - you always know if what you spend is enough to make you succeed or not, but you don't necessarily know what the cost is going to be before you commit to the action.

shadow_archmagi
2014-06-02, 03:33 PM
-level nightmare.
[I]ACKS is my favorite D&D retroclone and has awesome little details all over the rules, and has really great domain/realm management rules that produce good results at various scales (except for some hiccups with cities and thieves' guilds that most people probably won't even come across).



I think my personal favorite mechanic right now is the ACKS Mortal Wounds/Tampering with Mortality charts.

For those who don't ACKS, the way it works is, every time a PC gets knocked below 0 HP, they enter a mystery state. Then, after the fight, when their wounds are examined, you roll on a chart to find out what happened, with bonuses and penalties for things like CON score, how far below 0 they went relative to their maximum HP, whether healing magic is being applied, etc.

I love this because it creates a much more nebulous danger zone around being KO'd and attaches long-term effects to HP damage. Instead of a binary "Dead/Not Dead" there's this wonderful world of broken spines and severed limbs, where characters walk (or crawl) away from near-TPKs, but are really unhappy about it.

Delwugor
2014-06-02, 04:59 PM
Best of course is very subjective but the ones I think are the best and most comprehensive
Fate Core for most genres except for medium/high crunch fantasy
Strands of Fate for medium crunchy fantasy
Burning Wheel/Burning Empire except that the high crunch can get in the way of some gaming
Apocalypse World for capturing everything you need in a game so simply
Mutants and Masterminds for the best d20 implementation and a nice balance between crunch and comprehensive

Sith_Happens
2014-06-02, 08:33 PM
Mutants & Masterminds 3E. Except for a few notable rough spots (Move Object, how does it work?), the whole system is a well-oiled, finely-tuned machine. If your campaign idea calls for fast-paced action and any sort of superhuman abilities, there's at least an 80% chance that M&M 3E is what you want to run it in.

Garimeth
2014-06-03, 02:12 PM
So I've been running 13th Age alot lately, and I really like alot of the mechanics.

Backgrounds:
Rather than selecting skills, you get backgrounds, and the number of points you put into them (max of 5) is what gets added to your ability check to accomplish a task. So I could use "Imperial Legion Cavalry Scout" for horse handling, knowledge about the military, social interactions with people friendly to the military, moving silently, being alert, or any number of things. Its simple, but allows players alot of creativity and incentive for good character creation.

One Unique Thing:
Essentially the player gets to pick one thing that stands out about their character, ranging from the simple: "I was an orphan" to the extreme "I am the only dwarf with a clockwork heart" or "I am an immortal ronin seeking an honorable death". Really cool as a player, and as a DM it gives me so many hooks for plot and world creation stuff. Every system I ever game in from now on I will use this in it.

Icon Relationships:
Icons represent powerful figure in the world (not deities) so like the King of XXX, the High Priest of XXX, the Oldest Gold Dragon XXX, etc. The player gets three points to spend into relationships with these Icons in either positive, negative, or conflicted. And for each point they spend the get to roll a d6 at the start of a session. A 5 means that their relationship will have a mixed effect (positive with a cost) and a 6 mean s good benefit (the paladins relationship with King XXX got them better treatment from the Duke) and its best to think of the icons as heads of Factions.

Millennium
2014-06-03, 06:47 PM
"The best mechanics" for what, exactly? Lots of games have awesome systems for specific niches. Take the horror game Dread, for instance. It models random events using a (modified) game of Jenga: quite possibly the best system ever devised for modeling the building suspense and tension in a horror story, but not a game I could recommend to people who need to play remotely.

Anderlith
2014-06-03, 07:26 PM
For people asking about specifics

I would like to know about the best SYSTEMS that you feel cover the best wide range & deep ways of playing a game

as well as

the best MECHANICS for things that you have found. i.e. Perhaps you like nWoDs dot systems but you also like Mongoose Travellers character creation, & Top Secrets damage mechanics

Mr Beer
2014-06-04, 12:51 AM
I like GURPS, it does what it says on the tin.

neonchameleon
2014-06-04, 06:25 AM
For people asking about specifics

I would like to know about the best SYSTEMS that you feel cover the best wide range & deep ways of playing a game

as well as

the best MECHANICS for things that you have found. i.e. Perhaps you like nWoDs dot systems but you also like Mongoose Travellers character creation, & Top Secrets damage mechanics

Best overall systems:

Apocalypse World (http://apocalypse-world.com/) - a post apocalyptic RPG that is in many ways a clinic in good game design with wildly differentiated classes (and a lot of variance within the class), incredibly easy set up and mechanics, and the rhythm of freeform play meaning that the mechanics don't get in the way much at all. Histories meaning that setting creation works with character creation.

Fate Core/Accelerated (http://fate-srd.com/) - simple, powerful, and very evocative and focussed on who the characters are. Plays larger than life pulp and does it well.

Cortex Plus (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117419/Cortex-Plus-Hackers-Guide) - a family of games that really leverage the flexibility of the dice pool to keep the players' eyes on what is important. Four games in the family although only two in print; Leverage (which redefined Heist Roleplaying), Firefly, Smallville (OOP - action dramas), and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (for my money the best comic book supers RPG going although OOP).

Fiasco (http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/). How to create a Cohen Brothers movie in the time it takes to watch one. Not vastly deep but so effective that no one cares.

(Honorable mentions: GURPS, Burning Wheel, Rules Cyclopaedia D&D, Unisystem, Fudge)

Best individual mechanics.

Monsterhearts (http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/monsterhearts/) - it's amongst other things a Coming of Age drama and the kids are messed up enough that all the moves they can make at first are mechanically self-defeating - but they need to keep making them to gain XP. It uses the engine from Apocalypse World and may even be better than the base game.

The WFRP 3E dice pool (with the slightly weaker Edge of Empire one in second).

Dread's (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/83854/Dread) Jenga tower for evoking tension.

4E's marking/punishment and healing surges.

Airk
2014-06-04, 09:38 AM
I like GURPS, it does what it says on the tin.

In that it does a good job of producing a generic game? :P C'mon man, you can do a better job than that of explaining what's good about it.

Delwugor
2014-06-04, 11:24 AM
For people asking about specifics

I would like to know about the best SYSTEMS that you feel cover the best wide range & deep ways of playing a game

as well as

the best MECHANICS for things that you have found. i.e. Perhaps you like nWoDs dot systems but you also like Mongoose Travellers character creation, & Top Secrets damage mechanics

My favorite mechanic for being wide ranged and flexible is Fate Core's Bronze Rule (http://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/bronze-rule). This allows many things in a game to be treated as a character which then fits in with the overall mechanics without special rules. I've used this for simulating the dangers of spelunking and cave-ins, the business of a traveling peddler, a economically destitute town and currently using it to put together a dungeon crawl.

For Social Conflicts Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Duel_of_Wits) captures the feel of a real debate or argument very nicely. It is very crunchy but once you get the basics down it really flies and gets the point across well.

EDIT to add: Diaspora's Cluster generation (http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/diaspora-srd.html#clusters) rules work very well in creating a group specific setting for a series of systems and planets.

Mr Beer
2014-06-04, 06:29 PM
In that it does a good job of producing a generic game? :P C'mon man, you can do a better job than that of explaining what's good about it.

It has solid crunch that works in most settings with very little effort required (and probably any setting with some effort) and has innumerable sources to help GMs get any particular game up and running. The bonus is that you can take the same characters and move them around different genres (e.g. fantasy, sci-fi, post apocalypse, wild west etc.) extremely easily, since the rules are consistent.

EDIT

I recently ran Expedition to Barrier Peaks using GURPS instead of D&D as the rule system. It was nice to chuck the high tech weaponry in there straight out of the books without feeling like you were shoehorning it into rule systems it was never designed for.

neonchameleon
2014-06-04, 07:37 PM
In that it does a good job of producing a generic game? :P C'mon man, you can do a better job than that of explaining what's good about it.

Honestly the best thing about GURPS is that it's got Grade A sourcebooks for almost any setting (up to and including GURPS Authentic Thaumaturgy). The system itself is a very good consistent 80s simulationist game, but the sourcebooks are high enough quality that I'd recommend them for anyone playing a game where they are relevant, no matter what the system they actually use is. (The exception is GURPS Vehicles 3E which is meticulously researched, mathematically accurate, and more complex to use for vehicle design than a CAD package - it wants you to work out the volume of the vehicle you're trying to make in cubic feet and then use the square of the cube root of the volume for the base frame weight).

Rhynn
2014-06-04, 11:01 PM
Honestly the best thing about GURPS is that it's got Grade A sourcebooks for almost any setting (up to and including GURPS Authentic Thaumaturgy). The system itself is a very good consistent 80s simulationist game, but the sourcebooks are high enough quality that I'd recommend them for anyone playing a game where they are relevant, no matter what the system they actually use is.

So true. The mechanics are solid and useful (within certain limits, IMO, but others disagree on those anyway), but the sourcebooks are just awesome. If I want to run (especially with a system that isn't purpose-built for it) a cyberpunk game, or a swashbuckling game, or a mystery game, or a crime game, or a cop game, or just about any game set in real history, I reach for a GURPS sourcebook. Coinage and exchange rates for a late 17th-century Caribbean pirate game? Forget research, get the GURPS sourcebook!

Also, GURPS Vehicles, GURPS Robots, GURPS Space, and a calculator gave me endless hours of fun activity as a kid. :smallbiggrin: The actual rules for playing them would now be far too complicated for me to want to use, but heck it was fun at that stage.

lightningcat
2014-06-05, 02:52 AM
I've been using GURPS supplements for almost 20 years, and I'm currently working on actually getting to play my first GURPS game.

But for best mechanics, the one that has most changed how I play is the Stunt mechanic from Exalted. Someone might be able to name a system that has taken it and done it better. But I've used this concept in most games that I've ran since I played Exalted.

Airk
2014-06-05, 11:04 AM
And -none- of that is actually "what it says on the tin" (In fact, what it says on the tin is probably a pretty good DETERRANT). So it's a good thing I prompted. ;) Though actually, it sounds like there's not actually that much support for the GURPS -mechanics- here, so much as their content.

Anderlith
2014-06-05, 05:46 PM
So what is everyone's favorite system for modern day urban fantasy? I like things with a bit of crunch but nothing that pins things down too much that you don't have freedom

Sith_Happens
2014-06-05, 06:53 PM
So what is everyone's favorite system for modern day urban fantasy? I like things with a bit of crunch but nothing that pins things down too much that you don't have freedom

I wouldn't know, the only urban fantasy I've played was a Changeling chronicle that imploded after two sessions.

obryn
2014-06-05, 06:55 PM
So what is everyone's favorite system for modern day urban fantasy? I like things with a bit of crunch but nothing that pins things down too much that you don't have freedom
Feng Shui (new in-playtest 2nd edition), obvs. :smallbiggrin:

neonchameleon
2014-06-05, 09:33 PM
So what is everyone's favorite system for modern day urban fantasy? I like things with a bit of crunch but nothing that pins things down too much that you don't have freedom

Does Monsterhearts count? If not Feng Shui II

JBPuffin
2014-06-05, 09:45 PM
Does Monsterhearts count? If not Feng Shui II
Monsterhearts is a bit too niche-y, but it is modern fantasy...some might say too modern. :smalleek:

My favorite overall system is Fate because I'm a tinkering fanatic; I've gotten bizarre yet manageable systems for Yu-Gi-Oh, A:tLA and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon out of it, as well as all kinds of other weird bits and pieces for worlds I've made up.

Individual mechanics, though, are all over the place - Prysm's skill tree supplement made it playable and was REALLY cool, 4e DND's at-will/encounter/daily system and skill encounters worked well, a 3.5 DND overhaul called Eclipse: the Codex Persona made 3.5 playable and was bonkers fun to mess with, Monsterhearts/High School Harem Comedy are fun for screwing up my current fiction work's world and a break from tradition, PTU because POKEMON, man!...I can't think of a system I've read I didn't find something worth trying in it, but that's just me.

So, yeah...derail accomplished, see you at the awards ceremony :smallbiggrin:.

Anderlith
2014-06-06, 03:25 PM
Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

shadow_archmagi
2014-06-06, 03:53 PM
Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

Well, I have no reason to believe the things I'm saying, but if I had to guess, I'd say:

The market for ridiculously over-complicated systems is already well met. Shadowrun's core rulebook is like, nine hundred pages and includes rules for explosions ricocheting in enclosed spaces. D&D 3.5 is familiar and old to most people, and the people who like it are the "True Nerds" who probably work with spreadsheets and ridiculous math in their spare time anyway.

Thus, the prevalence of rules-light systems can be attributed to a combination of factors; First, they feel novel to many of us who grew up with 3.5. Second, those of us who didn't grow up with 3.5 may see it as pointlessly labyrinthine; nerdy things are increasingly becoming mainstream, and people play RPGs today who would never have done so a few decades ago.

NichG
2014-06-06, 04:20 PM
Somewhat cynically, the reason there's a preponderance of rules-light systems is that its easy to promise the world in a rules-light system and not be held too closely to delivering it. You just need one or two really new ideas and ways to look at things, and then make a very loose framework around them, and you've got a rules-light system that appears revolutionary in some way.

On the other hand, building a rules-heavy system that doesn't self-destruct under its own weight is both time-consuming and extremely difficult. You might have some revolutionary ideas in constructing a rules-heavy system, but unless you're very careful and very good and playtest extensively, all of those ideas will be buried under the laundry list of stuff that just doesn't work.

Tvtyrant
2014-06-06, 04:38 PM
I would put Star Wars Sage and Legends as my favorite RPGs conceptionally; playing mostly within the D20 format but fixing the more egregious rules abuses.

For actual game play I would probably use either a heavily modified 4E at the Heroic Tier or E6 D&D 3.5 (steered towards end of line classes like the Totemist) because they fulfill the "character always has something interesting to do" combat meter I run. I hate basic attacks and Attacks of Opportunity, too boring and slow.

I don't really like rules lite systems; I like to optimize as a player and all of my landscapes are based on hard cast rules as a DM.

neonchameleon
2014-06-06, 06:06 PM
Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

Rules heavy/rules light is not a terribly relevant dichotomy any more. It's not dead - but it certainly isn't a huge one. In the 80s and 90s, it definitely was - rules could basically be split into rules heavy and rules light. Where rules heavy was for the purpose of simulation, and rules light was for the purpose of fast conflict resolution that then got the hell out of the way and let you get back to the roleplaying.

On the other hand I can't remember the last time I saw a new game that was rules light in that sense. Actually, now I come to think of it, D&D Next might be closest. Modern Indie systems are about directing emergent play and the actions of the players, and thus providing as much flavour as possible in as small a space as they can. And rather than reinforcing world building most modern indy games try to reinforce the character's motivations (including their place in the world) - but to do it on as light a framework as possible so you can concentrate on what those motivations actually are.

Arbane
2014-06-06, 08:28 PM
Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, it's because I've become fatigued by 500-page rulebooks with unending lists of spells, weapons, feats, powers, races, classes....

Airk
2014-06-06, 08:34 PM
Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

Simple: Because an increasing number of people are FINALLY exploring RPGs as they get older (and therefore have a bit more disposable income) and discovering that having six+ HUGE books of rules actually makes the game WORSE for them, rather than better.

Seriously. What do the rules and supplements and nonsense for D&D really add to the game? A sense of making decisions? Maybe, but it's a false one in many cases, since a system with fewer special cases during chargen often leaves more options during actual play. You want to know what tons of books for D&D and Pathfinder do? They help the bottom line for the companies that make them, and add bulk and cruft to the game until it eventually becomes unplayable due to sheer weight of crud, and they release a new edition to clean up the mess, hopefully selling you tons of books all over again.

When you can get an experience that is at least as satisfying, often moreso (due to being less constrained by rules), for literally hundreds of dollars less, and countless fewer hours spent poring through books, the question is actually: Why is there still such a market for rules HEAVY games?

The answer to that, of course, is mostly "People latch onto game systems and don't explore new ones even if they might enjoy them more, because they fear change, and because they have false perceptions about the amount of time and money involved (Since their standard for how much time and money needs to be spent is set by their experience with rules heavy games).". The number of times people have posted threads on this very forum saying something along the lines of "HELP! I'm trying to do X with D&D and it's just not working!" but STILL refuse when people say "Well, why don't you try playing game Y, since it is known to be very good at doing X?" boggles the mind.

NichG
2014-06-06, 11:12 PM
I think rules-heavy games generally have more to explore and are harder to just 'see through'; they're the kind of thing you can read through and discover new things even 10 years later. That does offer a lot of benefit if you actually like messing with mechanics.

Anderlith
2014-06-07, 12:19 AM
Simple: Because an increasing number of people are FINALLY exploring RPGs as they get older (and therefore have a bit more disposable income) and discovering that having six+ HUGE books of rules actually makes the game WORSE for them, rather than better.

Seriously. What do the rules and supplements and nonsense for D&D really add to the game? A sense of making decisions? Maybe, but it's a false one in many cases, since a system with fewer special cases during chargen often leaves more options during actual play. You want to know what tons of books for D&D and Pathfinder do? They help the bottom line for the companies that make them, and add bulk and cruft to the game until it eventually becomes unplayable due to sheer weight of crud, and they release a new edition to clean up the mess, hopefully selling you tons of books all over again.

When you can get an experience that is at least as satisfying, often moreso (due to being less constrained by rules), for literally hundreds of dollars less, and countless fewer hours spent poring through books, the question is actually: Why is there still such a market for rules HEAVY games?

The answer to that, of course, is mostly "People latch onto game systems and don't explore new ones even if they might enjoy them more, because they fear change, and because they have false perceptions about the amount of time and money involved (Since their standard for how much time and money needs to be spent is set by their experience with rules heavy games).". The number of times people have posted threads on this very forum saying something along the lines of "HELP! I'm trying to do X with D&D and it's just not working!" but STILL refuse when people say "Well, why don't you try playing game Y, since it is known to be very good at doing X?" boggles the mind.

No I'm not talking about sourcebooks. I'm just talking about complexity. Games like Fate & 13th age & Fudge & such. They are basic, bare bones & rely on the GM to make calls. I don't see that as good. Sure it's acceptable for shot little games that fit a niche, but for strong long term games I don't want the GM to play fast & loose with the rules. Especially if that GM plays favorites or is wishywashy. Complex games or on the way out for some reason & that bothers me because I want to be able to trust the game not the person running it.

Grinner
2014-06-07, 12:37 AM
No I'm not talking about sourcebooks. I'm just talking about complexity. Games like Fate & 13th age & Fudge & such. They are basic, bare bones & rely on the GM to make calls. I don't see that as good. Sure it's acceptable for shot little games that fit a niche, but for strong long term games I don't want the GM to play fast & loose with the rules. Especially if that GM plays favorites or is wishywashy. Complex games or on the way out for some reason & that bothers me because I want to be able to trust the game not the person running it.

There's a lot of unnecessary mental overhead associated with complex rules, particularly on the GM's side of the table. What's that aphorism? Something like "The design is perfect not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to remove." Yes, lighter games tend to rely on a strong GM, but then again, so do most other games.

I would agree with previous sentiments that lighter games tend to exploit human psychological tendencies to create a strong experience, but that methodology is far from being restricted solely to lighter games.

NichG
2014-06-07, 02:14 AM
I think the ideal game for me is heavy for the players and light for the GM. Heavy for the players means that the players have a lot of ability and options to take control of their characters and abilities - that gives a strong sense of self-determination, which is important. On the GM side, complex rules tend to be more time-consuming than useful since often they just get in the way of what the GM is trying to do.

BrokenChord
2014-06-07, 04:19 AM
I think a big factor in the increased popularity of rules-light games is actually the opposite of what most people would expect as a reason. People are switching to rules-light not to avoid rules, but because the roleplaying community's capacity for quickly gaining system mastery is on the rise and more people want to be able to tinker with the rules.

Games like D&D 3.5 are difficult because they didn't start particularly balanced, and while the stuff released later was actually almost universally better, there got to be so much of it that it weighs down everything and gives hundreds, nay, thousands of ways for any little thing to splinter and break under pressure. It also suffered from things I like to call "direct constrasting abilities", which is a fancy way of saying that every little thing that exists is given a name, which presents a vibe that discourages personal creativity.

Rules-light systems mostly leave things to the gamer(s) to figure out, encouraging or even forcing ingenuity. Without the weight of all the heavy rules baggage, gamers can (and again, are usually supposed to) introduce their own things with relatively little fear of some two things interacting wrong with the new rule and causing entire sections of the system to come crashing down in a maelstrom of chaos and inconsistent rule adjudication.

Yet another difference is simply the base assumptions the games are built around. There's a really important, if somewhat outdated (as mentioned above), distinction being made between the games. See, different people game for different reasons, and different games cater to each player's reasons for gaming. Rules-heavy games are meant to be simulationist, strategic, and intriguing about their choice of mechanical focus... Combat and adventuring for the greater majority of rules-heavy roleplaying games, though certainly not all of them. Their point is making the thing good, detailed, and varied from experience to experience. Rules-light systems, by contrast, are usually designed to provide a solid but open-ended mechanical basis for something that isn't mechanical in nature: storytelling.

Rules-light systems give you less to adjudicate and usually require less time spent dealing with the dice-tossing parts of the mechanics. Combat or whatever focus the other rules-heavy games you know might have are still important game elements, but only so far as they advance an interesting, involved, and fun overarching story. The point isn't making the numbers on your character sheet bigger or, most of the time, racing to the next big fight.

Now, I don't say this in rampant defense of games that don't give you enough, whether that's through inadequate core materials or what have you. Nor am I against simulationist rule-heavy games, though I no longer play them myself. The fact is that you're not paying for a rulebook for the purpose of it collecting dust on a shelf while you're roleplaying at the next table based on a loosely defined premise with inconsistent third-rate or even non-existent rules; you're paying for a roleplaying game, and having adequate mechanics is really important.

The difference is that a game needs to be able to provide more with fewer required pages and words and moving parts to keep in mind. You shouldn't need fourteen supplements to build something resembling an Ice Wizard in D&D; you shouldn't need two full pictureless pages explaining the grappling rules in a game unless the game has a primary focus on wrestling; and you shouldn't need three full rulebooks just to establish an initially playable game, not even bringing up the lack of actual substance within said core rules. A big problem with some reportedly rules-heavy games is just how much bulk they need to actually be heavy. A line of rules text is applicable to one scenario, so the game needs to have those thousands of pages of rules just to cover the situations it's trying to cover. Suggesting additional versatility beyond the exact scope of what's written will be treated as a joke, and a bad one.

That's what I find particularly enamoring about my own personal favorite system, Ars Magica 5th Edition. I wouldn't exactly call it rules-lite, but it's danged close (a lot of the core book is more setting material than actual rules). It does, however, do a very good job of giving a lot of substance to the rules it does have. The rules are reliable and consistent, yet versatile. There are... A downright scary number of Abilities (skills, basically), which is a bit of a weakness, but otherwise, the entire premise of the rulebook is establishing the setting and giving you all the tools you need to build what you need out of the rules. It gives you lots of examples of how things might be done so you can verify you understand what's going on, but there isn't a book-long bestiary sitting there devoid of rules for making your own monsters or a list of pre-established spells with a passing glance over or, worse, outright denial of your own ability to mess with the spell system.

Ars Magica supplements are really a lot like GURPS supplements, except for rules AND settings instead of just settings. That sounds contradictory, but the Ars Magica game is complete as-is, and there really aren't hosts of new rules introduced in the supplements. The Ars supplements are guides for people stuck in creative ruts (and at $15.00 per non-core book, they're cheap enough that this purpose doesn't seem like a rip-off, whee!) They do give you material for use in your own games if you're into bogging your game down with all the material you can find, but their primary purpose is to say "We gave you everything you need; the core rulebook of Ars Magica is a totally complete game, and you can take the rules where you want from there. But if you're stuck, here are a few things we did with the rules! Hopefully this sparks ideas and makes those rules more clear!"

I happen to also be a fan of how straightforward the game is about there not really being such a thing as "balance" and that certain groups may want to use house rules to get different things out of the game, and how it rewards storytelling over being a mindless power-hogging sim, but that's not really the point any more, that's just me approving of largely superfluous choices in how some information about what the system is aiming to achieve was presented.

Speaking of which... If you change around some of the setting information a bit, Ars Magica might be the perfect game for your urban fantasy game! Do test it out; it's got really solid and flexible rules, though they might not be as heavy as you're looking for. Especially the magic rules! They're known for having one of the best magic systems for a reason. If you do try it, I hope you enjoy it! And whatever you go with, the most important thing is, have fun! (Without sapping the fun of others, of course)




... Ew, a positive post that contributes something to a fellow member and possibly some other members of the larger community. Quick, I need to say something bigoted and judgmental, otherwise I might lose my rep! Uh... You guys... Are all... Stinky metal-coated mice? Wait, no, Mouse Guard turns that into a compliment...

neonchameleon
2014-06-07, 10:43 AM
No I'm not talking about sourcebooks. I'm just talking about complexity. Games like Fate & 13th age & Fudge & such. They are basic, bare bones & rely on the GM to make calls. I don't see that as good. Sure it's acceptable for shot little games that fit a niche, but for strong long term games I don't want the GM to play fast & loose with the rules. Especially if that GM plays favorites or is wishywashy. Complex games or on the way out for some reason & that bothers me because I want to be able to trust the game not the person running it.

I just don't see this. With the exception of jumping rules (which are usually objective in a rules-heavy game) the GM is probably having to make more calls in a rules heavy game than a rules light one. The DC and exact description is normally a GM call. You are always having to trust the person running the game; a layer of pseudo-objectivity over the top does not change the fact that the strength of that orc, the depth of that pit trap, and the spikes on top of the wall are all DM decisions unless you're running something as nailed down as Harn - and even then current NPC motivations and moods are GM calls. At this point why not play Skyrim?

And in my experience there are games that explicitly tell the GM to play fast and loose with the rules. Heavy ones. D&D 2E does. 3.X has Rule 0. Storyteller had rants about "Roleplaying not rollplaying". Indeed there are fewer reasons to ignore the rules and many fewer guidelines telling the GM to in lighter games.


There's a lot of unnecessary mental overhead associated with complex rules, particularly on the GM's side of the table. What's that aphorism? Something like "The design is perfect not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to remove."

This.


I think rules-heavy games generally have more to explore and are harder to just 'see through'; they're the kind of thing you can read through and discover new things even 10 years later. That does offer a lot of benefit if you actually like messing with mechanics.

I like well built elegant games because they give a lot of scope for messing with the mechanics and seeing it ripple through to the entire game. When I mess with D&D 3.X or Exalted even to understand what the existing mechanics do they frequently break and not always in ways I could have predicted. Or as @BrokenChord says


I think the ideal game for me is heavy for the players and light for the GM. Heavy for the players means that the players have a lot of ability and options to take control of their characters and abilities - that gives a strong sense of self-determination, which is important. On the GM side, complex rules tend to be more time-consuming than useful since often they just get in the way of what the GM is trying to do.

On the PC side that's a function of the game. A long skill list with too few points doesn't empower me. Quite the reverse - it lists things that my PC can't do well. It disempowers my character (3.X Fighter, I'm looking at you!) On the other hand if we look at Apocalypse World which is arguably rules light we get abilities such as (http://apocalypse-world.com/AW-basicplaybooks-legal.pdf):

Visions of death:
when you go into battle, roll+weird. On a 10+, name one person who’ll die and one who’ll live. On a 7–9, name one person who’ll die OR one person who’ll live. Don’t name a player’s character; name NPCs only. The MC will make your vision come true, if it’s even remotely possible. On a miss, you foresee your own death, and accordingly take -1 throughout the battle.
or:

Bonefeel:
at the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 1+1. On a 7–9, hold 1. At any time, either you or the MC can spend your hold to have you already be there, with the proper tools and knowledge, with or without any clear explanation why. If your hold was 1+1, take +1forward now. On a miss, the MC holds 1, and can spend it to have you already be there, but somehow pinned, caught or trapped.

(In other words 1/session most games you can scenecrash).

I could do the same with Fate, Leverage, or most other apparently rules light games I play.

endoperez
2014-06-07, 11:50 AM
Ars Magica has a really nifty way of handling Virtues and Flaws.

Virtues are things that give your character a mechanical, numerical benefit in one way or another. Something concrete. It's like Talents, Feats, Boons etc. in other systems. To get Virtues, you have to take an equal number of Flaws.

Flaws are things that give your character a mechanical, numerical malus (as usual)... OR, and this is where it gets interesting, anything that makes for a better story without giving your character a direct bonus.

An old mentor that your character ask for guidance, but who also will have requests he'll ask from the player... that's a Flaw.

Animal companion? A Flaw.

A talking raven-companion? A Flaw.

Your character is in love with an NPC, and they will go to great length to each other? A Flaw.

Your character has a personality quirk, e.g. being wrathful, or curious, or generous? That's a Flaw.

This means that making a character with a personality and some interesting quirks is an easy way to make your character more powerful. It's so awesome...

NichG
2014-06-07, 12:16 PM
I like well built elegant games because they give a lot of scope for messing with the mechanics and seeing it ripple through to the entire game. When I mess with D&D 3.X or Exalted even to understand what the existing mechanics do they frequently break and not always in ways I could have predicted.

I would say that whether it becomes rules-heavy because of the original designers, or because of the stuff you yourself add on, those can both be examples of rules-heavy games. E.g. if you go to something with 10 pages of rules because you want to add 150 pages of homebrew, then you still end up with a game with 160 pages of rules at the end.

Also, if something is rules-light that can often make it actually harder to mess with the mechanics because there aren't many mechanical hooks to play with. For example, in something like Fate you've got maybe 3-4 mechanical hooks: a mechanical effect give/remove/modify the availability of Fate points; a mechanical effect can change the result of a roll; a mechanical effect can modify the damage track; a mechanical effect can add/remove aspects.

In D&D, you have many more mechanical hooks because the base system has defined more things that have intrinsic meaning and with which the players have been familiarized. For example: modify stats; modify AC - three kinds; modify individual saves; use one stat/save in place of another; modify miss chance; apply/remove/immunize against various previously-defined status conditions; modify hitpoints (current, max, temporary, nonlethal); modify different kinds of die rolls (attack, skill check, save, stat check); modify damage resistances/immunities; modify relationships to specific tagged effects (immune to [Mind-Affecting], etc); modify BAB/attacks per round; modify movement (speed, flight, swim, climb, burrow); etc

So having a rich foundation gives you a lot of stuff to play with in making mechanically unique effects which the players can quickly understand.



On the PC side that's a function of the game. A long skill list with too few points doesn't empower me. Quite the reverse - it lists things that my PC can't do well. It disempowers my character (3.X Fighter, I'm looking at you!)

Anything can be done badly, and its pretty easy to do that in rules-heavy. Those abilities you listed from rules-light games could go just as well in a rules-heavy game. The thing with rules-heavy is that you can have more combos, which means that the player can essentially discover ways to grab power for themselves without having it be explicitly given to them by the DM.

For example, take the Visions of Death power. As written, there isn't much you can combo it with - if you have it, you can do this thing. At best you could modify your roll or something. But we could expand it out a bit and create something where it combos interestingly with other powers:

- Visions of Death applies a status condition called a [Fate], which determines an absolute fact about its target associated with the given scene or storyline. There are multiple kinds of [Fate]s, and other abilities interact with [Fate]s.
-- The particular [Fate] is 'this character will die' or 'this character will not die'
- Add a new ability that allows someone to steal someone else's [Fate].
- Add a new ability that allows someone to gain benefits whenever a [Fate] transpires, as a sort of fate-vampire.
- Add a new ability that allows someone to reflect [Fate]s that others try to apply to them.
- Add an ability that lets some characters postpone their [Fate] until a specific deed/task is accomplished or definitively failed.
- Add an ability that lets people read out [Fate]s of other people around them.
- Add abilities that apply less extreme [Fate]s but which can also hit PCs
- Change the PC/NPC divide to a stat called 'Destiny' - to apply a Fate to someone, you have to exceed their Destiny (with a check, with your own, as a parameter of your ability, etc)
-- There can now be other abilities that modify the Destiny rating of a given ability

There's a lot more we could do here. The point is basically that with rules interactions like this, its possible for there to be clever or interesting things hidden in the system that the players and even the designers were not initially aware of. That means the players can take things into their own hands by cleverly manipulating the system, which is actually quite fun for a lot of players.

Zombimode
2014-06-07, 02:06 PM
When you can get an experience that is at least as satisfying, often moreso (due to being less constrained by rules), for literally hundreds of dollars less, and countless fewer hours spent poring through books, the question is actually: Why is there still such a market for rules HEAVY games?

The answer to that, of course, is mostly "People latch onto game systems and don't explore new ones even if they might enjoy them more, because they fear change, and because they have false perceptions about the amount of time and money involved (Since their standard for how much time and money needs to be spent is set by their experience with rules heavy games).". The number of times people have posted threads on this very forum saying something along the lines of "HELP! I'm trying to do X with D&D and it's just not working!" but STILL refuse when people say "Well, why don't you try playing game Y, since it is known to be very good at doing X?" boggles the mind.

Or, you know, maybe it's because some people actually like D&D/rules heavy games?

Because I do. I like D&D. I like the character building game. I like the depth of abilities, the richness of options, the interesting solutions to various situations (combat and non-combat) that emerge from those abilities and options.

And I'm not talking out of some idealized notion. This is how D&D 3.5 actually plays out at my table. And it is how it works for other people, too, judging by their campaign journals (like the excellent ones by Saph).

It boggles my mind that it is apparently so hard to understand that some (many?) people actually like what systems like D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder have to offer.

neonchameleon
2014-06-07, 02:21 PM
I would say that whether it becomes rules-heavy because of the original designers, or because of the stuff you yourself add on, those can both be examples of rules-heavy games. E.g. if you go to something with 10 pages of rules because you want to add 150 pages of homebrew, then you still end up with a game with 160 pages of rules at the end.

Also, if something is rules-light that can often make it actually harder to mess with the mechanics because there aren't many mechanical hooks to play with. For example, in something like Fate you've got maybe 3-4 mechanical hooks: a mechanical effect give/remove/modify the availability of Fate points; a mechanical effect can change the result of a roll; a mechanical effect can modify the damage track; a mechanical effect can add/remove aspects.

In D&D, you have many more mechanical hooks because the base system has defined more things that have intrinsic meaning and with which the players have been familiarized. For example: modify stats; modify AC - three kinds; modify individual saves; use one stat/save in place of another; modify miss chance; apply/remove/immunize against various previously-defined status conditions; modify hitpoints (current, max, temporary, nonlethal); modify different kinds of die rolls (attack, skill check, save, stat check); modify damage resistances/immunities; modify relationships to specific tagged effects (immune to [Mind-Affecting], etc); modify BAB/attacks per round; modify movement (speed, flight, swim, climb, burrow); etc

So having a rich foundation gives you a lot of stuff to play with in making mechanically unique effects which the players can quickly understand.

And yet what's important is the mechanics interaction with the fiction. And as for rich foundations, I can think of how to do every single one of those D&D affects in Fate core.
* modify stats
I'd really rather not do this due to the recalculation involved but in Fate Stats->Skills
* modify AC
Stunt: When you use Athletics to Defend against a weapon gain +2. (Or play with Damage Reduction)
* modify individual saves
Stunts - Will and Physique being the obvious ones.
* use one stat/save in place of another
This is a textbook example of what stunts do
* modify miss chance
Stunts - or the Create an Advantage action
* apply/remove/immunize against various previously-defined status conditions
This is either the Create an Advantage action or the Overcome an Obstacle action depending on whether you are helping or negating.
* modify hitpoints
Play around with the stress track and Consequences.
* modify different kinds of die rolls
Boosts, and aspects with free invokes.
* modify damage resistances/immunities
Stunts if inherent, advantages if to be created, aspects (or advantages) if they can be overcome. No problem at all.
* modify relationships to specific tagged effects (immune to [Mind-Affecting], etc)
Um... this is how Stunts work?
* modify BAB/attacks per round
As long as you aren't getting iterative attacks as a feature, merely attacking better, this is trivial.
* modify movement (speed, flight, swim, climb, burrow)
These are either permission aspects, skills (for competition), or advantages and boosts - depending on how you do them.

Again, there is no problem with doing all of these in Fate. And because Fate gives me plenty of powerful tools (including the Fate Fractal) I can end up with stunts like:

Master of Disguise. When you’re in a situation where you’re able to slip away unnoticed, you have the option to temporarily drop out of the game altogether.
If you do, spend a fate point to reappear disguised as a faceless NPC already in the scene (a security guard, a lab-coated scientist, a DELPHI goon, etc.).
Getting something like that into D&D would be fairly hard work (not that you couldn't do it).

But because Fate has a unified system you can easily create stunts like:

Backstab. Use Stealth instead of Combat to attack when the target isn’t aware of you.

Simple, effective, and does what it says on the tin. (Both examples taken from Atomic Robo because I happen to have the PDF open). Because BAB is an entirely different subsystem from Hide/Move Silently you need to go round the houses with Sneak Attack or Backstab being a damage multiplier in D&D.


Anything can be done badly, and its pretty easy to do that in rules-heavy. Those abilities you listed from rules-light games could go just as well in a rules-heavy game. The thing with rules-heavy is that you can have more combos, which means that the player can essentially discover ways to grab power for themselves without having it be explicitly given to them by the DM.

Again, even in theory this isn't right. If you have a unified rules light system then all the parts interface with all the other parts. Which means as long as there's an easy way of interfacing between them (as there is in Fate - Create an Advantage) then you as the player can combo any of them. You would not, in D&D, be ever allowed to attack with the Move Silently skill as you can be in Fate.


There's a lot more we could do here. The point is basically that with rules interactions like this, its possible for there to be clever or interesting things hidden in the system that the players and even the designers were not initially aware of. That means the players can take things into their own hands by cleverly manipulating the system, which is actually quite fun for a lot of players.

I know it's fun. I'm good at manipulating systems. But when I do it too much it's at the expense of everyone else's fun. Firstly if I'm manipulating the system too much I'm manipulating the system rather than the gameworld - and playing the game that is the rules rather than playing with the gameworld is something I should do at home rather than disrupting everyone with it. (Playing the interface between the two as in Fate Advantages or 4e combo pushes into dangerous ground on the other hand is great).

And your "You need an entire set of [FATE] tags for that ability" also weakens the ability. Instead of being a "Holy #@%$!" ability it becomes "Yet Another Fate Weaver". This is how in 3.X Succubi (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#succubus) for all practical purposes became "More people able to cast spells from the Sorceror list"

obryn
2014-06-07, 02:30 PM
I think the ideal game for me is heavy for the players and light for the GM. Heavy for the players means that the players have a lot of ability and options to take control of their characters and abilities - that gives a strong sense of self-determination, which is important. On the GM side, complex rules tend to be more time-consuming than useful since often they just get in the way of what the GM is trying to do.
That's precisely why I find 4e so much to my tastes. It's heavy-ish on the player side, but ultimately light and tinker-able on the DM side.

NichG
2014-06-07, 03:53 PM
And yet what's important is the mechanics interaction with the fiction. And as for rich foundations, I can think of how to do every single one of those D&D affects in Fate core.

So the examples you're giving are ways to collapse what are multiple concepts in D&D into a smaller set of concepts in Fate. But take for example:



* modify AC
Stunt: When you use Athletics to Defend against a weapon gain +2. (Or play with Damage Reduction)


This is a discrete ability, its not a game-mechanical concept that can be manipulated by the players from multiple directions. You defining this ability doesn't make 'AC' a thing that players can toss around and play with mentally, and it doesn't guarantee a consistent underlying foundation that ties together a set of different abilities. Essentially, one problem is that when you do things this way every single rule is an exception.

The other problem is that you get lots of overlap. With something like this, the stunt that gives a +2 to defend is exactly interchangeable with any other source of a +2 to the same thing. Though you can define a bunch of different abilities that give those bonuses, the underlying mechanical structure of Fate means that at the end of the day every will boil down to a single number on a single roll, and the particulars of how you came to that number don't matter.




Master of Disguise. When you’re in a situation where you’re able to slip away unnoticed, you have the option to temporarily drop out of the game altogether. If you do, spend a fate point to reappear disguised as a faceless NPC already in the scene (a security guard, a lab-coated scientist, a DELPHI goon, etc.).
Getting something like that into D&D would be fairly hard work (not that you couldn't do it).


Why do you think that'd be difficult in D&D? You could do it exactly as you've written it, but substituting some other resource for Fate Points. Make it a feat powered by, say, action points. Its not really any harder than doing it in Fate.


Again, even in theory this isn't right. If you have a unified rules light system then all the parts interface with all the other parts. Which means as long as there's an easy way of interfacing between them (as there is in Fate - Create an Advantage) then you as the player can combo any of them. You would not, in D&D, be ever allowed to attack with the Move Silently skill as you can be in Fate.

This seems to be a misunderstanding of the idea of a 'combo'. A combo doesn't just mean 'you can use A and you can use B', it means that 'when you have/use both A and B then the effect is greater than/qualitatively different than the effects of A and B alone'. Using a mount to get Skirmish on a full attack is an example of a combo. Having a power that lets you get +2 to a roll, and having a power that lets you attack using Move Silently, and using the two together isn't really a combo.

Using a power that lets you get +2 to Move Silently specifically and a power that lets you attack with Move Silently would be a combo. But if everything is interchangeable, then basically there's no need for that kind of combo - you could go through that convoluted path, but you could also just take the thing that lets you get a +2 to your attack skill instead.



I know it's fun. I'm good at manipulating systems. But when I do it too much it's at the expense of everyone else's fun. Firstly if I'm manipulating the system too much I'm manipulating the system rather than the gameworld - and playing the game that is the rules rather than playing with the gameworld is something I should do at home rather than disrupting everyone with it. (Playing the interface between the two as in Fate Advantages or 4e combo pushes into dangerous ground on the other hand is great).

This is really a matter of taste. Playing the game system doesn't automatically mean that you're having fun at the expense of everyone else, if they are also playing the same game as you are (e.g. they are also playing the game system).



And your "You need an entire set of [FATE] tags for that ability" also weakens the ability. Instead of being a "Holy #@%$!" ability it becomes "Yet Another Fate Weaver".

It can still be a Holy #@%$! ability. The way to keep things distinctive is to forbid duplication. Even if you're using the same status condition as someone else, the fact that you can choose who lives and dies doesn't change. What would weaken it would be if you made wildcard [Fate] powers like 'you can assign any [Fate] you like to a target'. If you avoid the wildcards, then the power remains just as good as before - but now it actually interacts with other things and isn't just a one-off ability.

neonchameleon
2014-06-07, 05:30 PM
This is a discrete ability, its not a game-mechanical concept that can be manipulated by the players from multiple directions. You defining this ability doesn't make 'AC' a thing that players can toss around and play with mentally, and it doesn't guarantee a consistent underlying foundation that ties together a set of different abilities. Essentially, one problem is that when you do things this way every single rule is an exception.

The other problem is that you get lots of overlap. With something like this, the stunt that gives a +2 to defend is exactly interchangeable with any other source of a +2 to the same thing.

Which, I'm afraid to say, is precisely how AC works in D&D no matter which edition you pick. I was choosing the Fate defence that was more like armour class rather than the damage reduction that is also used.


Though you can define a bunch of different abilities that give those bonuses, the underlying mechanical structure of Fate means that at the end of the day every will boil down to a single number on a single roll, and the particulars of how you came to that number don't matter.

Here again you are talking about D&D and its conception of AC far more than you are about Fate.


Why do you think that'd be difficult in D&D? You could do it exactly as you've written it, but substituting some other resource for Fate Points. Make it a feat powered by, say, action points. Its not really any harder than doing it in Fate.

Design philosophy - actually it works in D&D 4e as that also has exception based rather than would be simulationist mechanics (and trying to sim is a huge cause of heavy rules).


This seems to be a misunderstanding of the idea of a 'combo'. A combo doesn't just mean 'you can use A and you can use B', it means that 'when you have/use both A and B then the effect is greater than/qualitatively different than the effects of A and B alone'. Using a mount to get Skirmish on a full attack is an example of a combo. Having a power that lets you get +2 to a roll, and having a power that lets you attack using Move Silently, and using the two together isn't really a combo.

That depends whether move silently is the specific roll it adds to. As for skirmish on a full attack, yes it's a combo. Breaking the power curve is not a good thing unless you are in a "Let's break the power curve" game.


Using a power that lets you get +2 to Move Silently specifically and a power that lets you attack with Move Silently would be a combo. But if everything is interchangeable, then basically there's no need for that kind of combo - you could go through that convoluted path, but you could also just take the thing that lets you get a +2 to your attack skill instead.

There is no need for that sort of combo unless you are trying to build someone who focusses on stealth rather than a straight up fighter. Because such powers will always add to other methods.


It can still be a Holy #@%$! ability. The way to keep things distinctive is to forbid duplication.

And the way you forbid duplication and keep it distinct is by not making it a status condition that interacts with anything else. If you avoid wildcards and interactions there's no point generalising it, and if you don't there's a lack of distinction.

NichG
2014-06-07, 06:07 PM
Which, I'm afraid to say, is precisely how AC works in D&D no matter which edition you pick. I was choosing the Fate defence that was more like armour class rather than the damage reduction that is also used.

That's not actually true of D&D though. AC divides into Flatfooted, Touch, and Armor which inherently respond differently to different attacks and situations, and so that introduces a bit of tactical nuance. It can also be involved in tradeoffs for other bonuses via various abilities (Shock Trooper, for instance). AC also has an interplay with damage taken via Power Attack and the structure of iterative attacks that's somewhat non-trivial. And that's just AC.



Design philosophy - actually it works in D&D 4e as that also has exception based rather than would be simulationist mechanics (and trying to sim is a huge cause of heavy rules).

In practice, D&D doesn't impose this philosophy as strongly as you seem to think. I've run and played in D&D games with mechanics of the same flavor as the one you suggest, and it works fine without any real fiddling. This is an imagined problem, not a real one.


As for skirmish on a full attack, yes it's a combo. Breaking the power curve is not a good thing unless you are in a "Let's break the power curve" game.

Being able to become more or less powerful through your choices as a player is actually strongly enabling, and is a lot of fun. You may not like that style of game, which is fine, but lots of people do.



And the way you forbid duplication and keep it distinct is by not making it a status condition that interacts with anything else. If you avoid wildcards and interactions there's no point generalising it, and if you don't there's a lack of distinction.

In the case of this [Fate] status condition, I gave an example of the sorts of interactions you'd build around it. None of those duplicate the core ability. Many of them allow for clever interactions that the players can discover and make use of, without harming the potency of the original ability.

Its tautological, but the way you avoid duplication is that you don't duplicate things - have discipline as a game designer and keep things distinctive.

neonchameleon
2014-06-07, 08:22 PM
That's not actually true of D&D though. AC divides into Flatfooted, Touch, and Armor which inherently respond differently to different attacks and situations, and so that introduces a bit of tactical nuance.

Given that Touch AC is literally "Armour class without armour" and flatfooting is just a surprise bonus, I'm going to say that unifying the defences (a la 4e or Fate) is a much better way to do things than the fiddly extra systems.


Being able to become more or less powerful through your choices as a player is actually strongly enabling, and is a lot of fun. You may not like that style of game, which is fine, but lots of people do.

There is not and has never been an RPG in history with any character creation choice at all where you can not choose to play someone less powerful through choices like Skill Focus (Basketweaving). Which means that everyone has a choice to be more or less powerful up to a cap in any RPG where there are meaningful character choices. The "choice" to become more powerful through character creation choices is a matter of rewarding system mastery - and it is empowering of the single player at the expense of everyone else and at the cost of ensuring that the game does not function as intended. Calling this empowering is ... questionable.


In the case of this [Fate] status condition, I gave an example of the sorts of interactions you'd build around it. None of those duplicate the core ability. Many of them allow for clever interactions that the players can discover and make use of, without harming the potency of the original ability.

They all reduce the uniqueness of the ability. And the impact of it. While adding next to nothing. To take the first one you list, " Add a new ability that allows someone to steal someone else's [Fate]" - this is utterly useless unless there are Fates flying around left, right, and centre. You need to turn psychic abilities into technology to do this rather than have them as genuinely arcane and distinctive. You need multiple classes that hand out Fates and to make such spread all over the gameworld like Kudzu.

Your idea of turning [Fate] into a keyword therefore has massive unwanted worldbuilding and class design implications.


Its tautological, but the way you avoid duplication is that you don't duplicate things - have discipline as a game designer and keep things distinctive.

And the way you keep disciplined is by keeping your game small - small enough to fit inside your head.

NichG
2014-06-07, 09:20 PM
Given that Touch AC is literally "Armour class without armour" and flatfooting is just a surprise bonus, I'm going to say that unifying the defences (a la 4e or Fate) is a much better way to do things than the fiddly extra systems.


Whether its good or not depends on the goal of the system and the sorts of variations you want to build in. There are times to diversify the mechanics and times to unify. I disagree that unifying this stuff is always a 'much better way to do things'.



There is not and has never been an RPG in history with any character creation choice at all where you can not choose to play someone less powerful through choices like Skill Focus (Basketweaving). Which means that everyone has a choice to be more or less powerful up to a cap in any RPG where there are meaningful character choices. The "choice" to become more powerful through character creation choices is a matter of rewarding system mastery - and it is empowering of the single player at the expense of everyone else and at the cost of ensuring that the game does not function as intended. Calling this empowering is ... questionable.


You're the one insisting that its 'at the expense of everyone else', but if everyone is on the same page about what the game is about then that isn't what happens. There's no reason why one person becoming powerful at their stuff through their own system mastery will interfere with someone else's play in a well-designed system which has reasonable niche protection.

D&D, incidentally, has pretty bad niche protection, mostly because of the presence of too many wildcard powers that can do everything (e.g. spellcasting).



They all reduce the uniqueness of the ability. And the impact of it. While adding next to nothing. To take the first one you list, " Add a new ability that allows someone to steal someone else's [Fate]" - this is utterly useless unless there are Fates flying around left, right, and centre. You need to turn psychic abilities into technology to do this rather than have them as genuinely arcane and distinctive. You need multiple classes that hand out Fates and to make such spread all over the gameworld like Kudzu.

Lets see, they add interactions, internal self-consistency, the ability for players to understand the context of the ability without having to explicitly get that information from the DM. I am in fact suggesting that there should be Fates flying around left, right, and centre - roughly one out of every 5 conflicts/scenarios should involve an externally applied Fate, and there should be other abilities that allow beneficial use of Fates within the party.



Your idea of turning [Fate] into a keyword therefore has massive unwanted worldbuilding and class design implications.


I would not call them 'unwanted'. I'd actually call them beneficial. It gives an opportunity to tie mechanics in with how the world and cosmology work at an underlying level - something that games like 7th Sea for example do very well, and which makes it possible to deeply explore the game at various levels.


And the way you keep disciplined is by keeping your game small - small enough to fit inside your head.

I really don't have any trouble fitting, for example, a game the size of core D&D 3.5 in my head. Part of what can help is to design hierarchically, making top-level decisions about the meta-game constraints of the game design and then propagating them down, so you don't need to compare all pairs of abilities - you just need to know 'this entire set of things is the only thing that can do healing in the system' for example.

Airk
2014-06-07, 10:37 PM
Or, you know, maybe it's because some people actually like D&D/rules heavy games?

Because I do. I like D&D. I like the character building game. I like the depth of abilities, the richness of options, the interesting solutions to various situations (combat and non-combat) that emerge from those abilities and options.

And I'm not talking out of some idealized notion. This is how D&D 3.5 actually plays out at my table. And it is how it works for other people, too, judging by their campaign journals (like the excellent ones by Saph).

It boggles my mind that it is apparently so hard to understand that some (many?) people actually like what systems like D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder have to offer.

So what other games have you played? If you haven't explored others, how do you know if this stuff is coming from the 3.5 rules, or whether it's just coming from the GM and the people at the table? What is it about the 3.5 rules that helps the players come up with "interesting solutions" that they wouldn't otherwise have come up with?

I like tinkering with characters too, but I find that the more time I spend tinkering with the character's abilities at chargen, the less interesting they end up being when I actually play them, because they're inevitably focused on doing a couple of things very well (because specialization is the name of the game.)

I find it difficult to believe that as many people really enjoy D&D's crunch as -claim- to like it, because most of the people who claim to like tend to have not tried other systems, and tend to cite things that don't actually stem from the system as the reasons they enjoy the game. I'm not saying this is true for you, but very little of your post actually supports your assertion, and you haven't indicated you've actually compared.

Zombimode
2014-06-08, 02:29 AM
So what other games have you played?

Those that I can remember the name:

Shadowrun 3e
DSA (The Black Eye for you english speaking folks) 4e
Midgard
Call of Chuthullu
Changeling: The Lost
Savage Worlds (which I'm actively playing besides D&D 3.5)
older D&D editions
stuff I can't remember the names (including some Cyperpunk game that is I think quite popular)

In addition, I have read, but not played:
All Flesh must be eaten
Buffy the RPG (yeah, I know, its Unisystem too)
GURPS
The Riddle of Steel

Rules light games in general don't interest me, so I don't bother with stuff like Fate.


What is it about the 3.5 rules that helps the players come up with "interesting solutions" that they wouldn't otherwise have come up with?

NichG has touched upon this in his comments about combos.

An anecdote from the Age of Worms adventure path:
The situation: So we were in this deep vertical shaft. We noticed some large holes in the walls. At the bottom end of the shaft, we got a glimps at the room below. It was crawling with hundreds and thousands of Kyuss worms. While we were thinking of how to proceed, we noticed that large creature were emerging from the holes in the shaft walls. 6 Worm Nagas descended on our position, floating through the air. Since the room below was dangerous and the Worm Nagas could easily follow us anyway, we were forced to fight.

The fight: My character (for the reference: a Spellthief/Chameleon) won initiative and rushed (under the Fly spell) to the nearest Naga and attacked. Since the Naga was still flat-footed, I could sneak attack and thus stealing a spell. I opted for "one of the highest level spells I could possibly steal" and ended up with ... Slay Living!
My attack dealt some good damage, and by the time my next turn got up, the Naga fell under the attacks of some of my team mates. But still, there were 5 left and they were spellslinging from above, including Dispel Magic which threatened to dispel the Fly spells to drop us (out of the fight) into the worm-infested room below. So we needed to reduce their number fast.

On my turn, I used Cloak of Shadow (a maneuver form Tome of Battle) to turn invisible, flew up to the next Naga, casted Slay Living and because I was still invisible, the touch attack that is part of casting Slay Living counted as a sneak attack, and thus spellthieving. So I was using Slay Living on the Naga, killing it and stealing another Slay Living in the process!
Next turn, I managed to flank a Naga with one of my teammates and could repeat the process, killing another Naga with their own Slay Living spells (it worked so well because the Naga don't have high Fort saves).

It is important to note that this awesome sequence of actions was made possible on the base rules level. Also, the situation was not catered to my character or to our party, seeing that it comes straight out of a published adventure.

Now, two of my best session in recent memory, in which my players escaped the clutches of slavery to a Snow Witch defeating her in the process, and uniting the unruly lords of one of the players county through a well-planed banquette and speech respectively, did operate almost completely outside the rules level. It is just that D&D 3.5 adds an additional layer to the game in which interesting and meaningful decisions are possible that is most apparent in combat, in addition to what is possible in all RGPs.


I find it difficult to believe that as many people really enjoy D&D's crunch as -claim- to like it, because most of the people who claim to like tend to have not tried other systems, and tend to cite things that don't actually stem from the system as the reasons they enjoy the game.

Maybe you are to convinced of your idea that people don't actually like D&D and that people who claim to do so are just misguided, to accept peoples assertions as true?
Often times, people aren't very good in explaining why they like (or dislike) something. This is because liking something isn't completely rational. Or, maybe it is, but exploring the actual reasons would require a level of introspection and reflection that most people are not able or willing to do. Because, lets face it, if you like something, you're probably not terribly interested in knowing why exactly you like it. You are probably happy with the fact that you do.

neonchameleon
2014-06-08, 05:29 AM
Whether its good or not depends on the goal of the system and the sorts of variations you want to build in. There are times to diversify the mechanics and times to unify. I disagree that unifying this stuff is always a 'much better way to do things'.

The thing is that Touch AC gives you literally nothing that sometimes attacking Reflex with weapons doesn't.


You're the one insisting that its 'at the expense of everyone else', but if everyone is on the same page about what the game is about then that isn't what happens. There's no reason why one person becoming powerful at their stuff through their own system mastery will interfere with someone else's play in a well-designed system which has reasonable niche protection.

D&D, incidentally, has pretty bad niche protection, mostly because of the presence of too many wildcard powers that can do everything (e.g. spellcasting).

No. D&D 3.X has pretty bad niche protection due to spellcasting having had one of the shackles weakened and the rest of them removed entirely. oD&D, B/X, BECMI, RC, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2E, and even 4E have pretty functional niche protection. It is literally only 3.X where the spellcasters can do everything better than anyone else.


Lets see, they add interactions, internal self-consistency, the ability for players to understand the context of the ability without having to explicitly get that information from the DM.

Which having that ability as a player side ability does anyway. You don't need a Grand Unified System for context. Indeed games are more interesting in my experience where magic isn't just applied technology.


I am in fact suggesting that there should be Fates flying around left, right, and centre - roughly one out of every 5 conflicts/scenarios should involve an externally applied Fate, and there should be other abilities that allow beneficial use of Fates within the party.

In which case Fatestealing becomes a trap. It only applies about 1 conflict in 5.


I would not call them 'unwanted'. I'd actually call them beneficial. It gives an opportunity to tie mechanics in with how the world and cosmology work at an underlying level - something that games like 7th Sea for example do very well, and which makes it possible to deeply explore the game at various levels.

No. It gives an opportunity to tie down how the world and cosmology work - which is great for some settings and terrible for ones where ignorance of what happened is a feature and where different games using the same setting are in different worlds. It forces a magic/psy as technology on the game and one in which how the world works is discovered through reading rulebooks rather than discovered in play.


I like tinkering with characters too, but I find that the more time I spend tinkering with the character's abilities at chargen, the less interesting they end up being when I actually play them, because they're inevitably focused on doing a couple of things very well (because specialization is the name of the game.)

And I find the same - or rather I find that the games where I spend more time tinkering with to build tend to lead to spammier play (I play for versatility).


Those that I can remember the name:

Shadowrun 3e
DSA (The Black Eye for you english speaking folks) 4e
Midgard
Call of Chuthullu
Changeling: The Lost
Savage Worlds (which I'm actively playing besides D&D 3.5)
older D&D editions
stuff I can't remember the names (including some Cyperpunk game that is I think quite popular)

In addition, I have read, but not played:
All Flesh must be eaten
Buffy the RPG (yeah, I know, its Unisystem too)
GURPS
The Riddle of Steel

Rules light games in general don't interest me, so I don't bother with stuff like Fate.

Right. So you're making incorrect critiques of games you don't know or understand and haven't bothered to look into. This explains things.


An anecdote from the Age of Worms adventure path:
The situation: So we were in this deep vertical shaft. We noticed some large holes in the walls. At the bottom end of the shaft, we got a glimps at the room below. It was crawling with hundreds and thousands of Kyuss worms. While we were thinking of how to proceed, we noticed that large creature were emerging from the holes in the shaft walls. 6 Worm Nagas descended on our position, floating through the air. Since the room below was dangerous and the Worm Nagas could easily follow us anyway, we were forced to fight.

The fight: My character (for the reference: a Spellthief/Chameleon) won initiative and rushed (under the Fly spell) to the nearest Naga and attacked. Since the Naga was still flat-footed, I could sneak attack and thus stealing a spell. I opted for "one of the highest level spells I could possibly steal" and ended up with ... Slay Living!
My attack dealt some good damage, and by the time my next turn got up, the Naga fell under the attacks of some of my team mates. But still, there were 5 left and they were spellslinging from above, including Dispel Magic which threatened to dispel the Fly spells to drop us (out of the fight) into the worm-infested room below. So we needed to reduce their number fast.

On my turn, I used Cloak of Shadow (a maneuver form Tome of Battle) to turn invisible, flew up to the next Naga, casted Slay Living and because I was still invisible, the touch attack that is part of casting Slay Living counted as a sneak attack, and thus spellthieving. So I was using Slay Living on the Naga, killing it and stealing another Slay Living in the process!

OK. So you had at least 10 levels in Spellthief before your Chameleon levels or you couldn't have stolen Slay Living. That's going in late - or being really high level. And you weren't using Cloak of Shadow to turn invisible because that's not what Cloak of Shadow does - it gives you concealment explicitly without the ability to hide. And this is where rules heavy breaks down. There are too many abilities to keep track of - so either you've misremembered the ability you were using or you were giving the ability power way beyond what it is supposed to have. (I think you actually meant Cloak of Deception, which does do what you claim Cloak of Shadow does).

NichG
2014-06-08, 12:02 PM
The thing is that Touch AC gives you literally nothing that sometimes attacking Reflex with weapons doesn't.

It gives you an extra mechanical hook to independently modify. For example, mechanically I could have a power that does something like 'your Touch AC becomes equal to your full AC against an attack by spending an Immediate action' (or 'for the duration of this spell', since a spell like this does actually exist). I might not want that power to mess with your ability to dodge fireballs.

In general, the point is that its good to have a fair amount of mechanical hooks to play with. The more things that the base system is able to cause to be relevant most of the time, the more leeway you have to design mechanically interesting items, effects, abilities, etc. The important part of that statement is 'relevant' - adding a random stat that applies instead of Strength when you're fighting [Plant] creatures isn't a good mechanical hook, because its rarely relevant. That's why e.g. a system where you just make 1000 skills isn't automatically any good. You also have to balance this against keeping things distinctive from eachother both mechanically and thematically so the player can understand what it is that each hook does, and also against the speed of mechanical resolution. Different types of games will weight those factors a bit differently.



No. D&D 3.X has pretty bad niche protection due to spellcasting having had one of the shackles weakened and the rest of them removed entirely. oD&D, B/X, BECMI, RC, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2E, and even 4E have pretty functional niche protection. It is literally only 3.X where the spellcasters can do everything better than anyone else.


I'm not sure I agree that the older D&D's actually had very good niche protection. Better, certainly, but I've played them and there are still egregious things. Spells can still completely replace other characters' class abilities (the usual suspects - basically Climb Walls is hard to keep relevant when you want people to fly). Magic items tend to be the culprits in some cases as well to an extent that D&D 3.5 doesn't have - for example, the 1e Boots of Elvenkind and Cloak of Elvenkind basically gave you 100% success rates on Move Silently and Hide in Shadows respectively, which would let you replace about 25% of the reasons to ever be a thief class (and this was a particularly big deal because normally only the thief, assassin, or bard could Hide in Shadows). This was somewhat moderated by the fact that you couldn't just go to a store and buy those items.

I can't speak to 4ed's niche protection though, though I do understand it was more of an explicit design goal so they probably did do it better.



Which having that ability as a player side ability does anyway. You don't need a Grand Unified System for context. Indeed games are more interesting in my experience where magic isn't just applied technology.


Personal taste, and also not a necessary consequence of having unified cosmology. For example, 'the world seeks to make the stories of legendary individuals more poignant and to distance them from the bulk of mankind, trading power for alienation' is a unified rule of cosmology, but its not 'technology' - its 'mythological physics'. You could (and I have) build mechanics specifically around that concept, but it doesn't mean that characters can pop around to the myth store. Just because the players can figure out things about the world doesn't make the world less beautiful.


In which case Fatestealing becomes a trap. It only applies about 1 conflict in 5.

1 in 5 is reasonable for a power that isn't too expensive to obtain. On its own, it'd be about right for something that is a 'prereq power', e.g. something you inevitably get on the way to other things. Once you add the ability of other PCs to create Fates then its possible to amp it up and make it an every-fight thing by using it with combos.

Which is nice, because it means that the PCs themselves get to choose how relevant [Fate]s will be to the game. If they like the mechanic, they can make the mechanic more important to the game as a whole by choosing to center their gameplay around it. Kind of empowering, no?

And this isn't even considering the implications as an NPC power, which don't require the same density of occurrence. Having a specific NPC who is known for being able to steal fates means that they become a plot resource if the PCs get inflicted with Fates they don't want, or become a frightening enemy to PCs who are used to using Fates to deal with challenges or set up schemes. Obviously use sparingly.



No. It gives an opportunity to tie down how the world and cosmology work - which is great for some settings and terrible for ones where ignorance of what happened is a feature and where different games using the same setting are in different worlds. It forces a magic/psy as technology on the game and one in which how the world works is discovered through reading rulebooks rather than discovered in play.


You can tweak what is known and what is hidden. Just because players can know that their powers use consistent mechanics doesn't mean that they know everything about those powers in-world. What the players know is 'hey, theres this status condition called Fate; lots of stuff uses it. Seems important!'. They don't know that, e.g., the Fates are mediated by the God-Mind Legethos who sits behind the world and derives energy from people struggling against inevitability, energy which he uses to make the very concept of time possible in a world that without direct supernatural intervention would freeze over and become a static and never-changing landscape with people constantly repeating the same tasks over and over.

Having a particular concept highlighted by the rules can be a good way to get the players to investigate things they wouldn't otherwise look twice at. By creating an expectation, it allows you to then subvert that expectation to call attention to things.

In a game where everything is just arbitrary and random 'because its more mysterious' or 'because I don't want it to be technology' then the message you're sending is 'there's no point in taking anything seriously as evidence of anything because there is no underlying truth to find'. Which means that your desire to get the players to learn things in play can backfire, with the players not being motivated to learn anything at all.

Dorian Gray
2014-06-08, 01:18 PM
Come on, guys. We all know that there is only ONE game system that truly covers every possible contingency. Only ONE system that has rules for anything you can think of. Compared to this magnificent system, all the other sets of mechanics are essentially free-form, a bunch of people sitting around a table just making up stuff like the speed at which their characters can talk, or how much more beautiful their PC's face is than their body.

I am, of course, talking about the magnificent FATAL, the best and greatest rule system that has ever existed or will ever exist.

NichG
2014-06-08, 01:26 PM
Come on, guys. We all know that there is only ONE game system that truly covers every possible contingency. Only ONE system that has rules for anything you can think of. Compared to this magnificent system, all the other sets of mechanics are essentially free-form, a bunch of people sitting around a table just making up stuff like the speed at which their characters can talk, or how much more beautiful their PC's face is than their body.

I am, of course, talking about the magnificent FATAL, the best and greatest rule system that has ever existed or will ever exist.

And this is a perfect example of how it's a lot easier to mess up when designing a rules-heavy game than a rules-light one... Rules-light FATAL would be far less interesting to bash :smallsmile:

Grinner
2014-06-08, 01:27 PM
I am, of course, talking about the magnificent FATAL, the best and greatest rule system that has ever existed or will ever exist.

Fixed that for you.

I really saved your ass there. :smalltongue:

Raimun
2014-06-08, 02:04 PM
I like Savage Worlds mechanics a lot. Your attribute or skill ranges from D4 to D12 and the target number to succeed is always 4... unless it's a contested roll, in which case the higher roll wins. Simple as that. No RPG I've played is as fast paced and still as detailed.

I also like any RPG that has Luck. You know, being able to re-roll or avoid death at a few key points during an adventure. That really makes the game more cinematic and dramatic. Savage Worlds was the first RPG I played that had this kind of mechanics, even though I thought of a pretty much identical mechanic before I even heard of Savage Worlds.

That said, I think Shadowrun has the best character creation rules. You can do varied characters that can be really versatile, without being too insane.

Zombimode
2014-06-08, 03:14 PM
OK. So you had at least 10 levels in Spellthief before your Chameleon levels or you couldn't have stolen Slay Living. That's going in late - or being really high level.
:smallsigh:
Dude. Master Spellthief is, like, a thing.

The character in question was level 11 or 12 at that point.


And you weren't using Cloak of Shadow to turn invisible because that's not what Cloak of Shadow does - it gives you concealment explicitly without the ability to hide.

True. I meant Cloak of Deception. I was typing out of memory and was confusing the two rather similar sounding names.


And this is where rules heavy breaks down. There are too many abilities to keep track of

So because I misremembered the name of one ability for writing an anecdote, rules heavy suddenly breaks down? There are too many abilities to keep track of? I am perfectly able to keep track of my characters abilities at the time when I'm actually playing them.

You're grasping at straws here.

Knaight
2014-06-08, 03:55 PM
I think rules-heavy games generally have more to explore and are harder to just 'see through'; they're the kind of thing you can read through and discover new things even 10 years later. That does offer a lot of benefit if you actually like messing with mechanics.

Sure, but there's also plenty of room for messing with rules light systems. I play a lot of Fudge, and it's not rules heavy by any stretch of the imagination. I've also messed around with it a great deal, built a number of subsystems, etc. Some of these get pretty crunchy.

As for rules light and rules heavy - both work, and they serve different preferences. Some people play both, some favor one of the other, and it's very much a good thing that we have a plethora of options in both of them.

Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing. Even D&D Next is becoming REALLY rules like & reflecting a lot of the things 13th Age did. Anyone have a good guess?

I wouldn't consider either D&D 5e or 13th age all that rules light. As for the popularity of them, plenty of people like them. I'm comfortable with GM adjudication, and the rules light games do have consistency. Take Fudge - the scale works in a reliable way. There are defined modifiers for things. Assigning difficulties is subjective, but things like whether or not rolls meet them aren't. It does cover things, it just paints in broad strokes and relies on fair GMing. I have absolutely no issue with this, and consider not dealing with heavily crunchy systems (and not teaching them to new people all the time) a very nice thing.

It also fits with complicated games and such just fine. The complexity just works best located in the setting and not the system. Political intrigues in complex societies and such can make a good long game, and can even be done in a free form fashion.


No I'm not talking about sourcebooks. I'm just talking about complexity. Games like Fate & 13th age & Fudge & such. They are basic, bare bones & rely on the GM to make calls. I don't see that as good. Sure it's acceptable for shot little games that fit a niche, but for strong long term games I don't want the GM to play fast & loose with the rules. Especially if that GM plays favorites or is wishywashy. Complex games or on the way out for some reason & that bothers me because I want to be able to trust the game not the person running it.
So play the rules heavy games. They aren't really on the way out - a smaller proportion of what's made now is rules heavy, but there are still plenty of rules heavy games being made. Plus, the older games are still there, and a lot of them are still readily available - particularly if .pdf format is acceptable. It's hardly a play style that isn't supported.

There's also a difference between rules light and fast and loose. The rules are often fairly concrete even in rules light games, they're just not super complex. The big thing is that difficulties have to be adjudicated, but that's generally pretty easy to do fairly. It works just fine for a lot of people.

As for the examples - Fudge was published in 1994 originally, with the 1995 edition being more definitive. Fate traces back to the early 2000s. This is not all that much of a new trend.

Loxagn
2014-06-08, 04:18 PM
I am privately extremely fond of the magic system presented in Shadowrun 4e.

Let's see... other mechanics I enjoy. I love the simplicity of encounter generation that the Returner's Final Fantasy RPG gives, as a DM. Abilities are entirely modular, everything worth a particular amount of xp and a particular amount of gil worth of loot. No mucking about with CR or wondering if you're making it too powerful for the group; everything's equivalent.

Having played Mutants & Masterminds, I also love the entirely point-based system.

CombatOwl
2014-06-08, 06:27 PM
That's not actually true of D&D though. AC divides into Flatfooted, Touch, and Armor which inherently respond differently to different attacks and situations, and so that introduces a bit of tactical nuance.

Fate Stunts can also be situational. The GM is far more likely to okay "+2 to Athletics when blocking an attack with a shield," than "+2 to Athletics to any sort of blocking whatsoever." The individual play group will arrive at a consensus opinion about the scope of stunts--a group that wants tactical play can define stunts more specifically than a group that doesn't. Aspects are inherently situational, and can provide modifiers as well. Fate can be quite tactical, if the GM runs it that way and players make use of the tools at hand. The system doesn't really need any change for that, just a change in GM style.

Even at a very basic level, there is a sizable difference between someone who plays Fate while using Create an Advantage and someone who doesn't. Free invocations on aspects create the sort of situational nuance you seem to be suggesting does not exist in Fate. When one guy gets +4 to what he's doing because he set himself up with some free invocations on scene aspects, he has a very substantial mechanical advantage derived entirely from the situation and tactical planning.

D&D doesn't handle this nearly so neatly or transparently; what situational rules exist are often forgotten in actual play and very incomplete.


It can also be involved in tradeoffs for other bonuses via various abilities (Shock Trooper, for instance). AC also has an interplay with damage taken via Power Attack and the structure of iterative attacks that's somewhat non-trivial. And that's just AC.

There is no reason a Fate stunt couldn't provide similar consequences. A stunt can provide a penalty, if that's what the player wants or the group expects.


In practice, D&D doesn't impose this philosophy as strongly as you seem to think. I've run and played in D&D games with mechanics of the same flavor as the one you suggest, and it works fine without any real fiddling. This is an imagined problem, not a real one.

D&D's design philosophy kind of is a problem. D&D 3.5e's insistence on obscure modifiers has always been a source of silliness.

Player: "Okay, I've got a +8 to hit, so that's an... 18."
Player2: "Did you remember to take into account that you were flanking?"
Player: "No, okay, that was a 20."
Player3: "Hey, wasn't Joe the Bard singing last round? How many rounds are left?"
Player4: "Oh, yeah! Uhh... I think that was 3 rounds ago."
Player2: "Do you have Lingering Song?"
Player3: "How long do bard songs last, anyway?"
Player: "It says here that a level 7 bard gives a +1 bonus."
Player2: "Hey, Player4, didn't Joe use his badge of valor?"
Player4: "I can't remember if he did or not, it was like an hour and a half ago."
DM: "Fine, whatever, let's just get this going. You're still inspired by the song, I'll give Joe the benefit of the doubt and say he used his badge."
Player: "Okay, so that was a +20, right? From the +2?"
Player2: "Don't forget the flanking. 22."
DM: "Okay, that doesn't hit the monster's AC. You were pretty close though."
Player3: "Hey, wasn't he on higher ground, too?"

Basically a paraphrased conversation I've had in game regarding this silliness. This doesn't really happen with Fate, probably because bonuses tend to be immediate only. D&D probably could be run in a way that clears up some of this absurdity, but hardly any groups actually consistently use cards and countdown dice to track situational bonuses.

At least regarding Fate it's easy to assess what aspects exist and what your assets available are. Generally because groups play with simple zone maps and index cards with aspects anyway. All you really have to do is remember what aspects you've got a free invocation on. You don't have to suddenly taken into account relative height--if you have a height advantage it's explicitly noted with an aspect and clearly visible. If you're being inspired by a song, you don't have to go back and figure out what the exact bonus is (as you might need to do if a bard has a badge of valor)--you have an explicitly declared aspect on the table and you know what you can do with aspects.


Being able to become more or less powerful through your choices as a player is actually strongly enabling, and is a lot of fun. You may not like that style of game, which is fine, but lots of people do.

Having objectively terrible choices hidden in the rules isn't really a great selling point. "Oh, I want to focus really hard on protection magic, being the good and noble wizard I am. I'd better take Spell Focus: Abjuration to make my protections better!" Of course, in D&D being focused in abjurations is a complete and utter waste of a feat... because D&D has no philosophical design issues with having objectively inferior choices littered throughout the rules for new players to mistakenly choose. 3.5e didn't even make recommendations, or indicate that a feat might be highly situational or that it didn't work as advertised.

In Fate, this does not happen. Even if you were to load up your aspects with bad ones, that's just fodder for compels, giving you more fate points. Because of the design-it-yourself nature of the stunts, you know how they work and what you intend to use it for. Even if you somehow make a mistake, Fate offers far more frequent options to fix a mistake or adjust your character to changing circumstances. D&D has retraining rules, but it has a philosophical design issue with allowing radical changes to characters without serious effort through play. Maybe you think that's okay, but a lot of us don't--for us, making it easy to make huge mistakes on a character "build" and offering limited or difficult options for fixing those mistakes later is a bug not a feature.

NichG
2014-06-08, 07:25 PM
Fate Stunts can also be situational. The GM is far more likely to okay "+2 to Athletics when blocking an attack with a shield," than "+2 to Athletics to any sort of blocking whatsoever." The individual play group will arrive at a consensus opinion about the scope of stunts--a group that wants tactical play can define stunts more specifically than a group that doesn't. Aspects are inherently situational, and can provide modifiers as well. Fate can be quite tactical, if the GM runs it that way and players make use of the tools at hand. The system doesn't really need any change for that, just a change in GM style.


This isn't what I mean my a mechanical hook though. I don't mean a single case of specificity/situationality. I'm talking more about sets of things that behave consistently and at the same time in different ways across a wide variety of interactions. For example, take a Will save as opposed to a Reflex save or Fort save. Now, lets take two examples - one game system in which a Will Save is a specific thing, and one game system in which you're creating something with the structure of a Will Save through situational conditions. Now lets build mechanics around those concepts:

I want to make a magic item to improve this particular defense. In the former case, I can say 'this item gives +1 to Will saves'. In the latter case, I would say 'this item gives +1 to defense when defending against things which target your mind' perhaps. So far so good.

Now I want to make a spell called 'Schizophrenia' that also interacts with this - maybe what it does is that thematically it bifurcates the caster's mind so they can muster up twice the willpower to defend themselves against attacks versus their persona. In the former system, I say 'when rolling a Will save, roll twice and take the better result'. In the latter system, I say 'when defending against things which target your mind, roll twice and take the better result.

Now, I want to start to build things up into combos. I create an ability that thematically allows you to defend the minds of your followers with the strength of your own will, but if you fail to defend then you're hit by the effect as well as them. In the former case, I can say 'when one of your followers would make a Will save, you can choose to make the save in their place but then both you and they must suffer the effects of a failed save'. In the latter case, I'd say 'when your followers are defending against things which target their mind, you can defend in their place but you and they take the consequences of a failed defense'.

Now lets look at a case that doesn't combo. I'll have a warrior ability that allows one to use their physical endurance in place of willpower to resist mental attacks. In the former system 'You may roll a Fort save in place of a Will save'. In the latter system, 'when defending against something that attacks your mind, you can use bonuses to physical defenses in place of the bonuses you would receive for a mental defense'.

You can write language that makes all of this work in the latter system, but the result is that you have a bunch of stuff where its somewhat unclear how it should interact. For example, in the case of the last power, it uses this very roundabout phrasing to specify switching 'one set of bonuses' for 'another set of bonuses' but its unclear whether that makes certain things stop working (e.g. if a follower uses this to defend against a mental attack, can you still use your defense in place of theirs?). On the other hand, if I associate things with specific terms, I can simplify both the communication of abilities as well as their interpretation. It becomes much clearer when a combo is possible or not because of the shared terminology.

It also creates a specific concept in the player's mind, that 'defenses against mental attacks' are one of the major classifications of defenses, and that unknown bonuses are likely to fall into the system that has been established (e.g. if Will saves defend against teleportation as well as mind control, they can reason that an enemy with a strong will probably will resist being forcibly teleported; or that something that 'improves mental defenses' could help in that situation as well).

So its not just about being able to make things situational. Its about creating distinctive concepts in the player's mind that you can use to quickly and efficiently communicate the idea of specific/unique powers or effects. 'This aura causes you to take a -5 to Will saves' becomes a simple thing to understand, compared to 'this aura causes you to take a -5 penalty when defending against things that influence your mind'.



D&D doesn't handle this nearly so neatly or transparently; what situational rules exist are often forgotten in actual play and very incomplete.


That's because generally overly situational stuff is bad when the particular conditions are easy to forget or to fail to specify/communicate. All the fiddly things like 'is it dim lighting? dark? am I above my enemy? do I have a racial bonus against his race? is there a strong wind that is interfering with ranged attacks?' etc tend to lead to a sort of mother-may-I situation where either the DM needs to pregenerate a long list of specific environmental conditions, or the players need to be constantly asking.

Fate's Aspects would actually work pretty well in a more rules-heavy game than Fate, because combined with a keyword system you could boil down those situation effects into the most notable or important characteristics of the situation, rather than having to cross-check a big list. The thing that makes it rules heavy is that there'd be specific keywords and each keyword would have specific mechanical interactions, so you no longer have the case where any descriptive phrase could be an Aspect. For example

Aspect: Icy
Effect: [Fire] powers cost 50% more to use. Movement abilities with the [Ground] tag are 50% more effective. Area [Fire] effects change this aspect to 'Wet'.



D&D's design philosophy kind of is a problem. D&D 3.5e's insistence on obscure modifiers has always been a source of silliness.


I completely agree with this, though.



Having objectively terrible choices hidden in the rules isn't really a great selling point. "Oh, I want to focus really hard on protection magic, being the good and noble wizard I am. I'd better take Spell Focus: Abjuration to make my protections better!" Of course, in D&D being focused in abjurations is a complete and utter waste of a feat... because D&D has no philosophical design issues with having objectively inferior choices littered throughout the rules for new players to mistakenly choose. 3.5e didn't even make recommendations, or indicate that a feat might be highly situational or that it didn't work as advertised.


'Objectively terrible' is kind of a D&D hallmark, and an example of why you have to be a lot more careful in building a rules-heavy system.

On the other hand, 'not the most powerful possible build but still completely functional choices' are fine in my book. Even better if the optimization has to do with finding a place in the rules where the interactions and tactics make the most sense to you personally, such that another player would find those choices highly suboptimal because they weren't able to actually come up with the right ways to use them.

An example of that from my current campaign - I have one player who mostly fights using the ability to change the terrain around him at will combined with the ability to create mystic symbols that have various effects. However, that style would be terrible for some of my other players who prefer much more direct sorts of things - being able to hit really well/etc.

At the same time though I have another player who has an ability that is insanely versatile and powerful - 'summon any mythological creature you can name', but which he sometimes has trouble figuring out how to use in ways that don't screw the party over. Although the summoning power is insanely good, he's been looking for ways to diversify his character's mechanics so that when he has a mental block he has more direct options (recently he's been body-swapping into the corpses of more and more physically buff NPCs in order to gradually refocus towards a physical combatant).

So thats an example of something where the player can really have a lot of control over how their character plays and also how powerful they are, but at the same time its not like its a strictly linear scale where the choices just vary between 'trap' or 'broken'.

shadow_archmagi
2014-06-08, 07:31 PM
So what other games have you played? If you haven't explored others, how do you know if this stuff is coming from the 3.5 rules, or whether it's just coming from the GM and the people at the table? What is it about the 3.5 rules that helps the players come up with "interesting solutions" that they wouldn't otherwise have come up with?



I've played

D&D 4e
D&D 3.5
Shadowrun 4e
Shadowrun 5e
Firefly (Cortex, I think? I know there's like, a dozen Firefly RPGs out there)
Adventurer Conquerer King System (Well, GMed it anyway)
Dark Heresy
Rogue Trader
Mutants and Masterminds (2e?)

and read, but never played
Iron Kingdoms RPG



I like tinkering with characters too, but I find that the more time I spend tinkering with the character's abilities at chargen, the less interesting they end up being when I actually play them, because they're inevitably focused on doing a couple of things very well (because specialization is the name of the game.)

I enjoy tinkering with characters and reading book after book of material to comb through for feats. Many of my 3.5 characters tended to multiclass blobs (Swordsage2/psychicwarrior3/metric bandit 1/vacuum dynamo2//factotum9 sort of nonsense)

It's pleasant to work through. I find the trick to preventing characters from becoming uninteresting is to try not to think too hard about your sheet when you roleplay, and also the fun is in trying to find ways to apply your specialization to any given situation.



I find it difficult to believe that as many people really enjoy D&D's crunch as -claim- to like it, because most of the people who claim to like tend to have not tried other systems, and tend to cite things that don't actually stem from the system as the reasons they enjoy the game. I'm not saying this is true for you, but very little of your post actually supports your assertion, and you haven't indicated you've actually compared.

I admit that D&D 3.5's crunch is a mess. As is Dark Heresy's. And yeah, a lot of the fun that came from playing it wasn't actually 3.5 related, but just a general function of gathering friends together. I'm sure if we played Potato RPG

Whenever a situation becomes too ambiguous, roll a potato on the table. If it lands potato side up, then potato occurs

We could still have had wild and crazy adventures. Even so, many of the stories my group tells are memorable because of particular, unlikely combinations of abilities. (My favorite: I had a character get in a fistfight with an entire village of elves. Village was surrounded by a wall of trees; didn't have a door, the trees just magically very slowly separated like a gate. So my character asks if, before they throw him in a dungeon, he can look out at the free wilds one last time. Elves lead him to their very slow gate, which opens, he looks, it closes very slowly, he activates Anklets of Translocation to teleport past it and gets a nice long head start while the slow gate opens.

Group lol'd really hard at that, and it only happened because I went through the laundry list of 80000 items and thought about each one and said "A really short teleport? I bet THAT could be fun."

Airk
2014-06-08, 10:18 PM
Those that I can remember the name:
Rules light games in general don't interest me, so I don't bother with stuff like Fate.

So, basically, you are here to assert that "I've never played any game that wasn't crunchy as %^$#$, but I know I wouldn't like them, because I have fun playing the games I play!" And you wonder why I don't tend to believe people who assert this kind of thing? You really don't have any credibility in my eyes here unless you've tried something else. If your favorite food is the bacon cheeseburger, and you like it because out all the foods you've tried (Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Bacon Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger with Avocado and Fried Chicken Sandwich) it's hard to sound credible when you say you don't like Ice Cream.



An anecdote from the Age of Worms adventure path:

It is important to note that this awesome sequence of actions was made possible on the base rules level. Also, the situation was not catered to my character or to our party, seeing that it comes straight out of a published adventure.

Okay. So now take that same situation and those same character concepts and explain to me how this would have played out hugely differently in a less rigid game? Honestly, I think you'd be surprised at how little would have changed, since, essentially, what you have here is:

A) A very interesting battle area. The monsters involved are mostly irrelevant, except that...
B) They are weak against their own magic.
C) A character concept based around stealing magic, who was able to steal the opponent's own magic and thus use it against them.

Seems like given the set up, you'd have remarkably similar experiences in other systems.



Now, two of my best session in recent memory, in which my players escaped the clutches of slavery to a Snow Witch defeating her in the process, and uniting the unruly lords of one of the players county through a well-planed banquette and speech respectively, did operate almost completely outside the rules level. It is just that D&D 3.5 adds an additional layer to the game in which interesting and meaningful decisions are possible that is most apparent in combat, in addition to what is possible in all RGPs.

And this, of course, has nothing to do with D&D or 3.5 at all. You're pretty much spouting platitudes.



Maybe you are to convinced of your idea that people don't actually like D&D and that people who claim to do so are just misguided, to accept peoples assertions as true?

It's possible, but you're not doing much to convince me with your "I don't need to try it" attitude.



Often times, people aren't very good in explaining why they like (or dislike) something.

Yeah, especially when they don't even know what the something is or how it works. :)


Because, lets face it, if you like something, you're probably not terribly interested in knowing why exactly you like it. You are probably happy with the fact that you do.

Actually, in my case, it's usually important to be able to explain it; How else am I supposed to sell people on the things I like?

Anderlith
2014-06-08, 10:55 PM
Please stow your measuring stick, your lists just aren't long enough guys. Please stop derailing this thread, this is not a "D&D is terrible you shouldn't play it" thread & neither is it a "Bare-bones indie games are betterz cause there aren't many rules"

This is a open discussion not a narrowminded argument

Echobeats
2014-06-09, 02:21 AM
Not sure if this thread is supposed to be about mechanics or systems, but (with apologies for being late to the party) I'm going to answer with one of my favourite mechanics.

Ever thought it odd how in D&D, no amount of damage will affect your performance? You can be running around on 1hp and still hitting as accurately and dealing as much damage as at full health. This makes things easier but is a bit counterintuitive.

So in Star Wars: Saga Edition they invented the Condition Track. There are five steps on the Condition Track:

-1 penalty to attack rolls, skill checks and defences
-2 penalty
-5 penalty
-10 penalty, and move at half speed
Unconscious

You move a step down the condition track when the damage dealt to you in one go equals or exceeds your Damage Threshold (DT). Typically your DT = your Fortitude defence, though you can take feats which boost DT without affecting Fort. This means that as you go down the Condition Track, your DT gets worse (with your Fort) so it is ever easier to slip down. And the penalties are exponential.

Of course there are ways to recover, and ways to move enemies extra steps down the track, but that's the basic idea. There are also persistent conditions, which can't be improved except by a specific thing (e.g. 8 hours' rest, expert medical treatment, a successful Use the Force check...)

Note this means you can drop unconscious with more than 0hp, and you can get to 0hp without taking any penalties. But it does quite well at reflecting the concept that, if you take a massive hit, it should hamper you somewhat.

Anyway, that's my two Galactic Credits.

Jammyamerica
2014-06-09, 04:35 AM
Nice thread!!!

Knaight
2014-06-09, 04:36 AM
So in Star Wars: Saga Edition they invented the Condition Track. There are five steps on the Condition Track:

-1 penalty to attack rolls, skill checks and defences
-2 penalty
-5 penalty
-10 penalty, and move at half speed
Unconscious



It's more that they borrowed it from a huge part of the non D&D industry, stuck a different name on it, and adapted the mechanics, along with strapping it to an hp system. I wouldn't really call it invention.

prufock
2014-06-09, 12:15 PM
Hm. For simplicity, I developed my own simple d6 system that I like for certain types of rules-light games (usually one-shots). It's an extension of the d6 system that started with Ghostbusters.

There are 6 stats that are essentially the same as D&D with different names. Each stat is minimum 1, maximum 5. To accomplish a task, you roll a number of d6 equal to your stat number (which you can boost with "action points") versus a difficulty. If any one of your dice exceeds (it's "beat only" rather than "meet or beat" as in d20), you succeed at the task. If you get more than 1 roll over the difficulty, you succeed to a higher degree if applicable.

When opposing other characters, you make an action vs their target number. To punch someone, for example, you roll 4d6 (assuming STR 4) vs their DEX 3, so you need higher than 3 to hit them. If you roll 1, 2, 5, and 6, you land a hit for 2 potential damage. They roll CON to try to shrug off the damage. Assuming CON 3, they roll 1, 2, 6 and negate 1 point of damage, lowering the CON score by 1.

It works out to be fairly intuitive after a few actions, and it is versatile. For example, instead of targeting CON, you could say "I want to kick him in the knee" thereby targeting DEX instead of CON.

I've used this for a horror game and a spacefaring game, and it works pretty well.

Magic Myrmidon
2014-06-09, 12:49 PM
Haven't been following the long discussion, just browsed the first few posts, but I always have to say that it's a crime that Legend from Rule of Cool isn't more well known or played. The versatility in making characters is incredible, despite what the track system would seem to imply. And it's just dang fun to play, giving absolutely every character fun, useful abilities.

Echobeats
2014-06-09, 01:11 PM
It's more that they borrowed it from a huge part of the non D&D industry, stuck a different name on it, and adapted the mechanics, along with strapping it to an hp system. I wouldn't really call it invention.

What was it borrowed from?

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-09, 01:30 PM
What was it borrowed from?Well, I was going to come in and say that I like Shadowrun's condition track system, where you take increasing penalties the more damage you've taken...

The grappling mechanics in D&D 3.5 are my actual favorite, though, because no other mechanic brings me the same level of amusement. Specifically the part where you can move a grapple (and everyone in it) with a standard action, meaning if you and your friends make a big group hug you can travel faster than you could by running. And then you can imagine a ball of commoners breaking land speed records...

NichG
2014-06-09, 01:33 PM
What was it borrowed from?

Just off the top of my head, L5R has a death spiral of this sort. I'm sure other people can chime in with other examples as well.

HolyCouncilMagi
2014-06-09, 01:48 PM
Actually, grapple movement only happens in 5-foot increments, so you'd need rather a lot of people to move faster than if you were all separated. Not to mention, that would get really awkward really fast for everyone involved.

As for the discussion on cumulative combat penalties, yeah, no, that's nowhere near unique. Ars Magica's entire combat system is based around receiving penalties for the wounds you take and doesn't even use HP at all. It works like "this much damage is a Light wound, that bigger amount is Medium, and even more gets into Heavy wound territory, with stacking -1, -3, and -5 penalties respectively." The whole point is getting a few initial wounds on your enemy, which lowers their defense and thus lets you deal even more damage, until you break the Heavy Wound threshold with your next attack into "Incapacitating Wound" territory.

(Like, each attack will inflict a kind of wound, their wounds don't build up into worse condition or something. In case that wasn't clear.)

Not a unique system by any means, as in the grand scheme of things it's pretty hard to do something truly unique in an area that's already been tinkered with so much and effectively amounts to "how much crap you take before you die." But I find it interesting nonetheless.

Knaight
2014-06-09, 01:53 PM
What was it borrowed from?

Again, a quite large part of the non D&D industry. Just off the top of my head, highly similar systems were first found in:
World of Darkness
Fudge
GURPS (kind of)
Traveller
The Riddle of Steel
Burning Wheel (I believe it predates SAGA, originally)
Pendragon

There's far more than this - I'm no expert in games of the period, and I can compile that list.

Arbane
2014-06-11, 12:04 AM
I'm rather fond of Legend of the Wulin's "Chi Conditions" - a simple little system which handles everything from a broken leg to a broken heart, with stops along the way for social influence, poisons, prophecies, and Master Plans.

The short form: A Chi Condition either gives you a bonus when you go along with its effect (for example, you might get +5 on any roll relevant when going along with 'in love with the Ghost Fox') or a penalty when you don't go along with it (-10 on all relevant rolls when you can't work 'broken leg' into your actions). Some Chi Conditions can also aid or hamper kung-fu, or even give extra XP for going along with them! It's a mix of a death-spiral (like the Star Wars rules mentioned above) and a good way to complicate PCs' lives.

Echobeats
2014-06-11, 03:44 PM
Sorry, my bad; I didn't mean to say that the entire concept of cumulative penalties accruing due to damage taken was totally unique to SWSE. Just that they developed their own version of it that worked with a ruleset based on D&D 3.5E (which of course doesn't have a condition track).

Out of interest, though, are any of the similar mechanics mentioned above identical (or practically so) with the SWSE version?

NichG
2014-06-11, 04:11 PM
Sorry, my bad; I didn't mean to say that the entire concept of cumulative penalties accruing due to damage taken was totally unique to SWSE. Just that they developed their own version of it that worked with a ruleset based on D&D 3.5E (which of course doesn't have a condition track).

Out of interest, though, are any of the similar mechanics mentioned above identical (or practically so) with the SWSE version?

Yes, though the numbers (and what they mean) are different since its different dice systems.

L5R: 0, -3, -5, -10, -15, -20, -40, out, dead

World of Darkness: -0, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, unconscious, dead

Mastikator
2014-06-11, 04:27 PM
The best combat system I've seen is the Swedish Drakar och Demoner: Trudvagn.

It was a skill based system where you had to roll below your skill on a d20 in order to succeed with said skill (occasionally with modifier). However during combat you instead gained "combat points" equal to your combat skill + appropriate combat skill specialization (which would grant say +5 to one-handed swords). Each weapon had a combat action value associated with it, that is the number of attacks OR parrys you may do during a round, each in combat action you freely spent your combat skill and if rolled below on a d20 you'd succeed with the attack or parry, certain actions had penalties associated with the action, which would simply cost that many combat actions.

Lets say you had a combat skill of 16 (considered elite level) and two specializations in armed combat, two in swords, two in shields, each grants +5. That's a total 46 combat points per round, you use a small shield and a short sword, each have 3 combat actions associated. 10 of the points MUST be used on a sword, 10 must be used on a shield.
So you could choose to do 3 attacks with 12, 12, 12 (60%, 60%, 60% chance to succeed) and leave the 10 for the shield or just spend 16, 16 and leave 14 for the shield or break it into lots of insecure attacks.

It lead to a lot of attack - parry - attack - parry combats, which was fine because 2-3 hits and you were done for (less if using 2handed weapons). It was very dynamic and interesting and fast and balanced. There was really no downside to this system, it just worked perfectly.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-11, 07:30 PM
Actually, grapple movement only happens in 5-foot increments, so you'd need rather a lot of people to move faster than if you were all separated. Not to mention, that would get really awkward really fast for everyone involved.Au contraire:
You can move half your speed (bringing all others engaged in the grapple with you) by winning an opposed grapple check. This requires a standard action, and you must beat all the other individual check results to move the grapple.It gets awkward... but hilarious.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2014-06-11, 08:30 PM
The World of Darkness penalties given above are for Old World of Darkness. In New World of Darkness, you have Health Boxes equal to your Size (5 for a human) plus your Stamina (where 2 represents your average healthy human). Damage ticks off your boxes. Only the last, right-most 3 boxes give penalties, of -1, -2, and -3 respectively if ticked. But there are 3 types of damage that they can be filled with. There's Bashing Damage, which is all you need to be ticked with to get a penalty, and if your right-most box is filled with Bashing you fall unconscious, and any subsequent Bashing damage upgrades to Lethal damage. Once your right-most box is filled with Lethal damage, you're bleeding out, any more Lethal or Bashing damage upgrades your damage to Aggravated, and your Lethal damage is slowly upgrading itself to Aggravated damage. Once you get full of Aggravated damage, you die.

Aggravated damage used to be fairly common, but since the latest rule revision it's super rare, pretty much reserved for either catastrophic bodily harm like getting hit by a train or being fully dropped in serious acid, or supernatural damage. They can also play with how different supernaturals take damage: for example Vampires only take Bashing from almost any source, don't fall unconscious at full Bashing, and seem dead but don't Bleed Out when they're at full Lethal. Only Fire and (for older and more distant vampires) Sunlight deal Lethal to vampires, or magic again.

Efstrofos
2014-06-15, 06:46 AM
I think the ideal game for me is heavy for the players and light for the GM. Heavy for the players means that the players have a lot of ability and options to take control of their characters and abilities - that gives a strong sense of self-determination, which is important. On the GM side, complex rules tend to be more time-consuming than useful since often they just get in the way of what the GM is trying to do.

I agree with this 100%. Can anyone recommend some systems like this? Lots of player options when building their character (bonus if they're mostly balanced), but light on the rules for GM. My group is considering running Numenera, it looks really light on character options.

obryn
2014-06-15, 10:51 AM
I agree with this 100%. Can anyone recommend some systems like this? Lots of player options when building their character (bonus if they're mostly balanced), but light on the rules for GM. My group is considering running Numenera, it looks really light on character options.
D&D 4e, which is why I run it.

Airk
2014-06-16, 09:15 AM
I agree with this 100%. Can anyone recommend some systems like this? Lots of player options when building their character (bonus if they're mostly balanced), but light on the rules for GM. My group is considering running Numenera, it looks really light on character options.

This may be a dumb question but:

Why do you need lots of CHARACTER CREATION options to have a "sense of self determination"? Isn't that what you are allowed to DO, not what you are allowed to 'make'? What purpose is actually served by moving a bunch of decisions into character creation instead of leaving options open to be decided in play?

Historically, having lots of character creation options usually means that you end up with very specialized characters whose decisions tend to along the lines of "What is the best way for me to get into position to do my specialized thing?" rather than "What is the coolest/smartest/most fun/most interesting/most tactically sound option to pursue here?"

NichG
2014-06-16, 02:47 PM
This may be a dumb question but:

Why do you need lots of CHARACTER CREATION options to have a "sense of self determination"? Isn't that what you are allowed to DO, not what you are allowed to 'make'? What purpose is actually served by moving a bunch of decisions into character creation instead of leaving options open to be decided in play?

Historically, having lots of character creation options usually means that you end up with very specialized characters whose decisions tend to along the lines of "What is the best way for me to get into position to do my specialized thing?" rather than "What is the coolest/smartest/most fun/most interesting/most tactically sound option to pursue here?"

It depends how specialized the 'specialized thing' is.

So the thing I've observed is that players feel in general like they have less control in play than in character creation. This makes sense - in play, you have to contend with what the other players are doing, what the antagonists are doing, and also whatever stuff the DM is doing with the environment/setup of the scenario. Its hard to feel truly in control in that situation - in fact, playing the game is basically about establishing some degree of control over an uncontrolled chaos. You're trying to make something occur and the world is resisting you with obstacles and challenges.

In character creation, its different. The constraints you're dealing with are static and there's more time to manipulate the tools you have. Character creation is a moment of pure control where, aside from the constraints of the rules, each player basically can put together what they want and also know how each element of it will work. They can decide things like 'I will be able to jump 30ft gaps reliably' or 'I will be very good at hitting things' or 'I can fly'. There's no uncertainty involved.

So I really think that fundamentally these 'generative' moments are a different kind of gameplay than the in-game choices. The in-game choices are best when they're difficult, strenuous, rushed, and hard to control. To counter-balance that, the player gets to choose what tools they will have at their fingertips when entering that uncomfortable situation. By choosing their tools, the player can guarantee that there is at least some part of the situation that they have a firm grasp on - the mechanics of their character - and that can give them the confidence to enjoy dealing with something chaotic and difficult whereas in a game that didn't give them some kind of control like that it might seem overwhelming.

There's also the simple joy of basically tuning your toolkit so that you get to use your favorite types of subsystems. Some people like preparing spell lists and tracking spells and resources, while other people like to not have to worry about book-keeping like that. Some people like having to use indirect methods to deal with a situation creatively, while others like to be able to bull through things. A reasonably complex character generation system allows people to tune their gameplay to their tastes.

Airk
2014-06-16, 03:09 PM
It depends how specialized the 'specialized thing' is.

So the thing I've observed is that players feel in general like they have less control in play than in character creation. This makes sense - in play, you have to contend with what the other players are doing, what the antagonists are doing, and also whatever stuff the DM is doing with the environment/setup of the scenario. Its hard to feel truly in control in that situation - in fact, playing the game is basically about establishing some degree of control over an uncontrolled chaos. You're trying to make something occur and the world is resisting you with obstacles and challenges.

In character creation, its different. The constraints you're dealing with are static and there's more time to manipulate the tools you have. Character creation is a moment of pure control where, aside from the constraints of the rules, each player basically can put together what they want and also know how each element of it will work. They can decide things like 'I will be able to jump 30ft gaps reliably' or 'I will be very good at hitting things' or 'I can fly'. There's no uncertainty involved.

So I really think that fundamentally these 'generative' moments are a different kind of gameplay than the in-game choices. The in-game choices are best when they're difficult, strenuous, rushed, and hard to control. To counter-balance that, the player gets to choose what tools they will have at their fingertips when entering that uncomfortable situation. By choosing their tools, the player can guarantee that there is at least some part of the situation that they have a firm grasp on - the mechanics of their character - and that can give them the confidence to enjoy dealing with something chaotic and difficult whereas in a game that didn't give them some kind of control like that it might seem overwhelming.

There's also the simple joy of basically tuning your toolkit so that you get to use your favorite types of subsystems. Some people like preparing spell lists and tracking spells and resources, while other people like to not have to worry about book-keeping like that. Some people like having to use indirect methods to deal with a situation creatively, while others like to be able to bull through things. A reasonably complex character generation system allows people to tune their gameplay to their tastes.

An interesting view on the subject, but my counterquestion is:

Why do these two types of experiences need to be connected in any way. The way you make chargen sound, it could, essentially, be wholly divorced from play, and just sated by messing around in a character builder. It's only WITH the opposition that any of those choices become meaningful - you can't have self determination in a vacuum.

And again, if you've got a system where you need to devote character resources to being able to, say, jump 30', you're probably going to end up jumping a lot. As opposed to a system where just being athletic and having enough dice gets you there, in which case, you have a much broader collection of options for dealing with a problem.

Zavoniki
2014-06-16, 03:45 PM
A Dirty World has the best mechanics for doing film noir stories I've ever seen(and just really innovative mechanics in general). You can also talk someone to death, despair, or blinding rage if you so choose.

Better Angels lets you play Supervillains. Supervillains who always almost succeed at their evil plot to hold the cities valued Arctic Penguin collection hostage. And makes it fun.

NichG
2014-06-16, 06:47 PM
An interesting view on the subject, but my counterquestion is:

Why do these two types of experiences need to be connected in any way. The way you make chargen sound, it could, essentially, be wholly divorced from play, and just sated by messing around in a character builder. It's only WITH the opposition that any of those choices become meaningful - you can't have self determination in a vacuum.

And again, if you've got a system where you need to devote character resources to being able to, say, jump 30', you're probably going to end up jumping a lot. As opposed to a system where just being athletic and having enough dice gets you there, in which case, you have a much broader collection of options for dealing with a problem.

Yes, the opposition later on is what makes the choices during character creation meaningful. By analogy, character creation is picking your favorite programming language, then dealing with in-game conflicts is using it to solve an externally presented programming problem. You can just futz around in a programming language to no real end, but having that external tension is often a necessary inspiration to do great things with it.

What I would say is that if you have a system where you can choose to be really good at jumping in particular, and you make that choice, then what you're saying is 'I want jumping to be involved in my ability to solve problems, because for some reason I understand jumping/like jumping/think jumping is cool'. The 'large athletics die pool' example can in fact work as well, but only if its very clear to the player what that large die pool gets you.

For example, if its just 'you're better than the other guy at athletic tests' then that doesn't actually put any control in the hands of the player. Is the DM going to set the difficulty of the athletic tests? Do I even get to say 'I want to solve this with an athletic test', or will it be entirely when the DM calls for it? Can I take my die pool and say, concretely, what that allows my character to do or not do? Gradually, in answering these questions concretely, the natural result is that the game system becomes more rules-heavy. That rules-heaviness allows the player to know and choose their character's abilities concretely, which means they can make confident statements about certain things in the game world without having to go through the DM - yes, Jonas can jump that gap; yes, Jonas can hit that target; etc.

Anderlith
2014-06-16, 08:00 PM
I played in a Warhammer Fantasy RPG game once. I was a Knight Errant of Bretonia & was trying to make Realm Knight. To advance to this class I had to either own land or swear myself to a noble lord. The DM spent so long with us fighting this & fighting that & jumping through hoops for me to own a bit of land on the border that by the time I owned it I was able to use all the EXP I had earned & jump all the way through the class & on to the next. It was annoying, it was counter productive. It also made no sense.

When in character gen you decide what kind of character you are. If you didn't have a character gen, then everyone starts out as the same schmuck & would have to spend a significant time of gaming just to advance yourself into having an identity.

I wanna be a Fire Mage, well then I take options to be a mage that uses fire. If I want to be a gun bunny with poor social skills but is really charming non-the-less, I don't want to wait 5 sessions to be able to earn EXP so that I can upgrade to be that. I want to be able to start the game with an identity & the basics of my idea of my character & how I want him to develop.

Airk
2014-06-17, 09:00 AM
When in character gen you decide what kind of character you are. If you didn't have a character gen, then everyone starts out as the same schmuck & would have to spend a significant time of gaming just to advance yourself into having an identity.

I wanna be a Fire Mage, well then I take options to be a mage that uses fire. If I want to be a gun bunny with poor social skills but is really charming non-the-less, I don't want to wait 5 sessions to be able to earn EXP so that I can upgrade to be that. I want to be able to start the game with an identity & the basics of my idea of my character & how I want him to develop.

No, all of this is completely missing the point. No one is saying "You should only get to make character choices once you've earned some XP, and back in my day we had to walk uphill to school in the snow both ways so get off my lawn, whippersnapper."

All I am saying is that an exceptionally complicated chargen (such as D&D 3+) serves to remove a lot of choices. Okay. You make your Fire Mage, that uses fire. But since you didn't think about (or maybe have any points for) whether your fire mage knows how to ride a horse or whatever, now you suck at it. Also, you tend to end up with a character who is only good for setting things on fire. A looser, quicker chargen STILL lets you make a fire mage who uses fire (I can do that character concept in Dungeon World and chargen there takes like 3 minutes) but you end up with a less RESTRICTED character. Even if the rules don't specifically say "When you cast an area fire spell, your area fire is slightly larger and more firey than a normal mage's."

NichG: I think it should go without saying that people need to understand the consequences of their character creation decisions. Saying "they need to understand that a high athletics skill will let them do that." is the same as saying "They need to understand that the feats "long jump" "high jump" and "really long running jump" all stack." Only one of them involves fewer rules and is easier to 'get' since they only need to be aware of the existence of one rule. This is another problem with complicated chargen - unless you have the equivalent of the D&D 4E compendium, how do you know that you're really making your character as good at jumping as they could be? For all you know, you missed a super obvious choice and you're actually an inferior jumper.

I also disagree that making the rules heavier in any way means that the GM can't arbirtarily F- with you by assigning unfair target numbers. I think heavier rules systems provide the ILLUSION that you have a more defined idea of what your character can do, but in most cases do not.

Efstrofos
2014-06-17, 11:16 AM
This may be a dumb question but:

Why do you need lots of CHARACTER CREATION options to have a "sense of self determination"? Isn't that what you are allowed to DO, not what you are allowed to 'make'? What purpose is actually served by moving a bunch of decisions into character creation instead of leaving options open to be decided in play?

Historically, having lots of character creation options usually means that you end up with very specialized characters whose decisions tend to along the lines of "What is the best way for me to get into position to do my specialized thing?" rather than "What is the coolest/smartest/most fun/most interesting/most tactically sound option to pursue here?"

I don't disagree with what you're saying completely, but I think what you're explaining can be avoided while still offering lots of character options. I think myself, and probably many others, like the concept of group roles, which is essentially a form of specialization. It's fun to be the group tank sometimes, or to know that you can count on your sneaky friend to sneak past the guards while you make a distraction. The problem is when you can never do anything outside of that specialization (which is how I feel with D&D 3.x). That's when games get dull and boring and basically become what you described. In Numenera, if the Nano (think wizard) specialized in mind control wants to kill a guy with a sword, he can pick up a sword and use a resource called 'effort' to actually have a chance of success. If the generally uncharismatic Glaive (think fighter) specialized in breaking things wants to persuade the barkeep to give him some juicy gossip, he can spend effort to have a good chance at success. Essentially, you still have specialists, but because specialists can still do other things, I'm hoping the gameplay is far different than you described. Neither of those would be possible in D&D.

I've read the Numenera Player's Guide since my last post. So far, my reading of the Numenera rules so far seems to really match the vision I have in mind in all ways except for combat. The combat related character options seem quite limited and dull. I hope I'm proven wrong when I actually get to play it.

NichG
2014-06-17, 11:51 AM
NichG: I think it should go without saying that people need to understand the consequences of their character creation decisions. Saying "they need to understand that a high athletics skill will let them do that." is the same as saying "They need to understand that the feats "long jump" "high jump" and "really long running jump" all stack." Only one of them involves fewer rules and is easier to 'get' since they only need to be aware of the existence of one rule. This is another problem with complicated chargen - unless you have the equivalent of the D&D 4E compendium, how do you know that you're really making your character as good at jumping as they could be? For all you know, you missed a super obvious choice and you're actually an inferior jumper.

My point is that when the rules specifically lay out exactly what the consequences of each thing are as far as what the character can do, that is already in a somewhat rules-heavy territory. D&D 3.5 gets called out a lot on this for having specific DCs and rules for every individual thing you could do. The upside of that is, you know when you make the character if you can do it or not.

In 3.5ed though, its skewed in a particular way. That creates the kind of situation I think you're really arguing against - namely that if you're unfamiliar with those rules, you may be surprised when you discover that your character really can't do something you thought that everyone should be able to do (like hop across a certain sized gap, or swing from a chandelier, or whatever).


I also disagree that making the rules heavier in any way means that the GM can't arbirtarily F- with you by assigning unfair target numbers. I think heavier rules systems provide the ILLUSION that you have a more defined idea of what your character can do, but in most cases do not.

Oh, the GM can always mess with players. Illusions are powerful and useful things though, and the feeling of self-determination can be a lot more important than actual self-determination in a lot of cases. Also, not all systems rely entirely on the GM to assign target numbers in all cases. D&D for example has fixed target numbers for a boatload of stuff. If the GM messes with those numbers, the player directly knows they're being F-'d with ('what do you mean its DC 40 to do a 5ft horizontal jump?!')

Airk
2014-06-17, 01:40 PM
I don't disagree with what you're saying completely, but I think what you're explaining can be avoided while still offering lots of character options. I think myself, and probably many others, like the concept of group roles, which is essentially a form of specialization. It's fun to be the group tank sometimes, or to know that you can count on your sneaky friend to sneak past the guards while you make a distraction. The problem is when you can never do anything outside of that specialization (which is how I feel with D&D 3.x). That's when games get dull and boring and basically become what you described. In Numenera, if the Nano (think wizard) specialized in mind control wants to kill a guy with a sword, he can pick up a sword and use a resource called 'effort' to actually have a chance of success. If the generally uncharismatic Glaive (think fighter) specialized in breaking things wants to persuade the barkeep to give him some juicy gossip, he can spend effort to have a good chance at success. Essentially, you still have specialists, but because specialists can still do other things, I'm hoping the gameplay is far different than you described. Neither of those would be possible in D&D.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Numenera PROBABLY doesn't have massive lists of feats and things to 'customize' your character with though. That's usually what people mean when they talk about complex character creation.


My point is that when the rules specifically lay out exactly what the consequences of each thing are as far as what the character can do, that is already in a somewhat rules-heavy territory. D&D 3.5 gets called out a lot on this for having specific DCs and rules for every individual thing you could do. The upside of that is, you know when you make the character if you can do it or not.

I dunno; You kindof HAVE to offer SOME kind of guidelines for what an 'easy' roll is in a given skill. Even if it's just 'examples' most games provide this kind of thing in some capacity.


Also, not all systems rely entirely on the GM to assign target numbers in all cases. D&D for example has fixed target numbers for a boatload of stuff. If the GM messes with those numbers, the player directly knows they're being F-'d with ('what do you mean its DC 40 to do a 5ft horizontal jump?!')

"Houserule" or "You're wearing lots of armor (And I don't care that that's supposed to be part of the Armor Penalty, that's not realistic)" or whatever. Again; I think that if the players have an idea of how the game works, they can tell if they are being F-'d with.

NichG
2014-06-17, 01:55 PM
I dunno; You kindof HAVE to offer SOME kind of guidelines for what an 'easy' roll is in a given skill. Even if it's just 'examples' most games provide this kind of thing in some capacity.

In the furthest extreme of rules-light systems, they don't do even this. For example, something like Fudge where the player defines their skills and assigns them vague descriptors.

But yes, when I say I like rules-heavy for the players, I do mean more than just giving examples for skill rolls. I also mean having fiddly things that can be inspiring or can be combined in various specific ways and so on. Basically, setting up a large set of 'mechanically relevant' things to inspire the player to think about the scenarios of the game in particular ways. Its a fine line between shutting down creative thinking and inspiring greater creativity, but I do think its useful to walk that line.

Especially in the case where the players have no real OOC knowledge about something you want them to learn to be good at in game. If I take something like a complex political scenario like, say, House of Cards or something from West Wing or whatever, most of my players would get bogged down in trying to approach that level of maneuvering - none of us are political scientists or diplomats or whatever OOC, so the sort of 'creative solutions' we'd come up with would be very blunt and pretty stupid compared to someone who actually knew what they were doing.

On the other hand, if we build a system that gives the players certain 'moves' they can make without worrying about the how, then that reduces the decision space into something more manageable, and the players can explore that space and maybe be inspired by it to learn a little more about political maneuvering. Picking the sorts of moves that are most inspiring and least limiting of creativity is the challenge of designing a good rules-heavy system for politics, and is by no means a trivial step of this.




"Houserule" or "You're wearing lots of armor (And I don't care that that's supposed to be part of the Armor Penalty, that's not realistic)" or whatever. Again; I think that if the players have an idea of how the game works, they can tell if they are being F-'d with.

Yes, in this kind of case it makes it abundantly clear they're being F-'d with. Generally though, I'd call actually ending up in this situation a form of dysfunctional play.

Airk
2014-06-17, 03:24 PM
In the furthest extreme of rules-light systems, they don't do even this. For example, something like Fudge where the player defines their skills and assigns them vague descriptors.

Well, I don't think anyone is really arguing for like, Risus or something here, per se.



But yes, when I say I like rules-heavy for the players, I do mean more than just giving examples for skill rolls. I also mean having fiddly things that can be inspiring or can be combined in various specific ways and so on. Basically, setting up a large set of 'mechanically relevant' things to inspire the player to think about the scenarios of the game in particular ways. Its a fine line between shutting down creative thinking and inspiring greater creativity, but I do think its useful to walk that line.

I agree; but I think there are better ways to inspire creativity than to have large numbers of little knobs and dials that you have to pick from, especially if part of the problem is NOT understanding what sorts of things you can do.



Especially in the case where the players have no real OOC knowledge about something you want them to learn to be good at in game. If I take something like a complex political scenario like, say, House of Cards or something from West Wing or whatever, most of my players would get bogged down in trying to approach that level of maneuvering - none of us are political scientists or diplomats or whatever OOC, so the sort of 'creative solutions' we'd come up with would be very blunt and pretty stupid compared to someone who actually knew what they were doing.

On the other hand, if we build a system that gives the players certain 'moves' they can make without worrying about the how, then that reduces the decision space into something more manageable, and the players can explore that space and maybe be inspired by it to learn a little more about political maneuvering. Picking the sorts of moves that are most inspiring and least limiting of creativity is the challenge of designing a good rules-heavy system for politics, and is by no means a trivial step of this.


See, I consider this the OPPOSITE of a rules heavy game. A rules heavy game would have lots of little precise definitions for very SPECIFIC actions. (Is this a Manipulate Roll, or a Deception Roll?) therefore forcing you to come up with ways to use the specific actions that you might be able to do to solve the problem in whatever way; A game with a set of broad moves that cover general situations is rules light almost by definition. ("I'm going to Smooth Things Over." - where it doesn't matter HOW you are doing it, just what you are doing.)



Yes, in this kind of case it makes it abundantly clear they're being F-'d with. Generally though, I'd call actually ending up in this situation a form of dysfunctional play.

That was actually sortof my point - if you are worried about your GM F-ing with you, having a rules heavy game doesn't ACTUALLY protect you in any way, in spite of the illusion of safety that being able to point to a chart and say "But it says a 15 should be good enough!" provides. Unless it's an honest mistake - in which case "Does a target of 30 seem a little high, since that's better than a human being could possibly achieve, and this is only an 8 foot running jump? That's like the length of the table." will probably have the same effect - you're not really getting anything from it. While I realize that a LOT of the stuff in the later editions of D&D (Challenge ratings and suggested encounter levels and stuff) seems to have grown out of the hope that people can protect themselves against bad GMs with it, it's really a fallacy.

NichG
2014-06-17, 05:23 PM
Well, I don't think anyone is really arguing for like, Risus or something here, per se.

I agree; but I think there are better ways to inspire creativity than to have large numbers of little knobs and dials that you have to pick from, especially if part of the problem is NOT understanding what sorts of things you can do.

See, I consider this the OPPOSITE of a rules heavy game. A rules heavy game would have lots of little precise definitions for very SPECIFIC actions. (Is this a Manipulate Roll, or a Deception Roll?) therefore forcing you to come up with ways to use the specific actions that you might be able to do to solve the problem in whatever way; A game with a set of broad moves that cover general situations is rules light almost by definition. ("I'm going to Smooth Things Over." - where it doesn't matter HOW you are doing it, just what you are doing.)


To me, an elegant rules-heavy game has only rules or choices that matter, but at the same time it is engineered such that a reasonable number of rules/choices matter. Something that just has meaningless choices or meaningless details can also be rules-heavy, but I'd consider that a poorly designed example. This is why I said that its harder to design a good rules-heavy game than a rules-light one earlier on the thread.

Maybe our disagreement then is one of terminology. I could try to give specific examples of what I mean in order to clarify it.

Rules-lite politics example

- A given political conflict has people weighing in on either side. Each supporter has a certain DC set by how much they care about the objective. In order to overtly change their side, you need to beat this DC on a check against them. However, you can modify the DC or flip them directly by conversing with them, or by getting other people to apply pressure to them (essentially you can get other NPCs to make the check against them as well).
- Each person can make only one check to flip a given person's vote.
- Each character has three political skills: Bribe, Debate, Deceive. Each person you're trying to flip is susceptible to only one of the three approaches
- If the party manages to change the outcome of a conflict by flipping people, then they gain a point of Favor with everyone who wanted the new outcome. This can be added to rolls to flip them later on.

Anything I put here could be called a strawman, so I'll admit that its probably possible to do better. However, for concreteness sake I'd call this 'rules-light'. Its pretty simple and gives room for players to try various things outside of the rules to modify NPC behavior. However, its hard to tell how much Bribe/Debate/Deceive is 'a good amount', and there isn't really much room to customize characters mechanically in this system - the party doesn't really get all that much out of having two characters who both have a lot of Bribe, for example. The mechanics also don't really drive the RP very much.


Rules-heavy

- As before, a political conflict involves a group of people each with a vote on the outcome.
- There are different trees of 'political powers' that each let you do something distinct to interact with the voters. Powers each have prerequisites of the powers above them, etc, etc.
- Active powers are activated with a resource called 'Influence', which refreshes each vote. A character's Influence pool is equal to the total number of powers they've purchased. Generally 1st,2nd,3rd tier powers cost 1,2,3 influence respectively. Passive powers are just always on.
- 'Favor' points are influence that persist between conflicts, but also do not refresh.
- Your rating in a given category is equal to the number of powers you've purchased in that category.
- Participants in multiple simultaneous political conflicts must rank them in terms of importance.

From here, imagine a bunch of different power trees. I'll do a bit of the 'Bribe' tree to give an example.

- Bribe Tree
-- Corruptible(Passive, Tier 1): When you are voting in a conflict, you gain [Bribe] points of Favor whenever you acquiesce to a bribe.
--- You Pat My Back, I Pat Yours(Active, Tier 2): When acquiescing to a bribe, you may force the target to flip on an issue they consider less important than the one they bribed you on.
---- Unintentional Involvement(Active, Tier 3): You can bring a target into a political conflict that they were not otherwise involved in, so long as they are connected to one of the existing voters in some way.
----- Borrow Power(Active, Tier 4): You can use this ability to use a political power of Tier 3 or lower possessed by another NPC whom you are able to bribe. It is two steps easier to bribe someone to use their abilities for you than it is to bribe them to flip their vote in a given conflict (steps meaning rankings on the list of importance)
-- Determine Importance(Active, Tier 1): When a target is involved in multiple political conflicts, you can use this power to determine the ranking of those conflicts as far as importance to that target.
--- Determine Weakness(Active, Tier 2): You can determine what issue the target would be most sensitive to if they were to be involved in it (e.g. how to blackmail them, what kind of conflict you could start to bump other things down in importance for them).
---- Self-Sanitization (Active, Tier 3): You can pre-emptively protect your weaknesses in this conflict by analyzing yourself and getting there before your enemies. Attempts to attack that weakness via blackmail or bribes automatically fail. You must declare a specific weakness to protect when using this ability.
----- Counterattack (Passive, Tier 4): When someone attacks something you've self-sanitized, gain 4 points of Favor.

... and so on. This system could get fairly complex with the interactions between all the various powers, so I would class this as 'rules-heavy'. At the same time, its not necessary for the DM to actually use all these abilities for the political maneuvering that is going on behind the scenes - instead the DM can declare the outcome before the players arrive as the boundary-conditions of the scenario, and then only worry about cases where NPCs try to manipulate the PCs.

Again, this is probably not be the best system one could write for a political conflict game, but I feel that this gives the players many more ideas for ways that they can try to achieve their desired outcome, and also casts parts of the conflict into particular repeated forms and ideas (e.g. 'every character will internally rank how much they care about different things - that can be used to figure out how to manipulate them').




That was actually sortof my point - if you are worried about your GM F-ing with you, having a rules heavy game doesn't ACTUALLY protect you in any way, in spite of the illusion of safety that being able to point to a chart and say "But it says a 15 should be good enough!" provides. Unless it's an honest mistake - in which case "Does a target of 30 seem a little high, since that's better than a human being could possibly achieve, and this is only an 8 foot running jump? That's like the length of the table." will probably have the same effect - you're not really getting anything from it. While I realize that a LOT of the stuff in the later editions of D&D (Challenge ratings and suggested encounter levels and stuff) seems to have grown out of the hope that people can protect themselves against bad GMs with it, it's really a fallacy.

I don't believe that there is any way to truly 'protect' yourself from the GM. However, I disagree that illusions and fallacies are unimportant, because the sorts of dysfunctional games where the GM is out to get you should be fairly rare and should not dominate the set of scenarios that the game is designed for. So basically, I'd want to design games such that their functionality assumes good faith on both sides of the screen, but at the same time I'd want to design it to create a feeling of comfort on both sides of the screen even if that feeling isn't strictly necessary.

Also, not all issues of control are as dysfunctional as the examples you give. Its useful to give the player confidence in knowing precisely what their character can and can't do just to help the player's decision making process, even putting aside 'catching the GM in the act of abuse of power' sorts of scenarios. Using, say, World of Darkness as an example: a perfectly well-meaning GM can still be on a different page from a player as far as what things like '3 successes on an Investigation check' should do. If on the other hand you have a table saying something like '1 success: find footprints, determine when items have been moved; 2 successes: find fingerprints, forensic evidence; 3 successes: determine gender, height, weight, and emotional state from trace evidence' then the player and the GM can both be on the same page about what the character can do with their Investigation roll.

Another benefit of this is that its less workload for the GM. The GM doesn't have to remember all the previous situations in which they called for an Investigation check and roughly what they decided each result could do. They also don't have to self-police to make sure they're being fair and consistent (e.g. not subconsciously scaling the DCs to the skill of the investigator). Also, if the player is sufficiently familiar, they can basically roll and also say what the result means without the GM having to go and look it up.

This goes double for discrete abilities that don't involve a die roll - 'I detect if anyone has been here in the last 12 hours' is easier to run for than 'I roll to see what I can find out about this crime scene'.

Anderlith
2014-06-17, 09:28 PM
I think I see the problem here. Rules Heavy does not mean Rules Dense. D&D is both but not all Rules Heavy are Rules Dense

D&D thinks that you should know the Feats & Skills & SA's of the game so that you take the optimal choice. & that better system knowledge rewards you. Not all Rules Heavy games are like this. Games like Shadowrun or Warhammer. Warhammer especially is Rules Heavy but also Rules Soft (being the antonym of Rules Dense) since you don't actually have many options that aren't useful.

Knaight
2014-06-18, 09:29 PM
In the furthest extreme of rules-light systems, they don't do even this. For example, something like Fudge where the player defines their skills and assigns them vague descriptors.

If by "vague descriptors" you mean "commonly used adjectives attached to an obvious hierarchy (e.g. Great being better than Fair)" with explicit examples, sure. Fudge is almost entirely examples, uses example recognizable characters freely, explicitly notes that "Fair" is generally the typical level of one actually in the profession in general, etc. It's a numerical scale from -4 to 4, where each integer has a descriptive adjective, and assigning skills on it is, if anything, less arbitrary than assigning attributes in a system like D&D.

As for the players defining their skills, that's a sometimes. Skills are left undefined (though there are example lists, and they tend towards the heavy side - Aerial Acrobatics and Acrobatics are listed as separate skills in the 10th Anniversary Edition), but there's a lot of text that suggests that the GM either make or lift a concrete skill list, with actual usable lists for a few genres, plus the generic list for everything. This is before we get to the actual subsystems, which are full of modifiers, subsystem specific statistics and rules that aren't on the ladder (e.g. ODF, DDF, and the Wound Track in combat), etc.

Basically, you have skills. The skills have numbers. The numbers are attached to an adjective ladder to make it clear what they mean. The exact same numbers and adjective ladder are used for difficulty, and it's really easy to see what you rolled. As such, there's plenty of room to set up what your character can do ahead of time, and it's really obvious when the GM is inflating difficulties, just like it is in a rules heavy system. It's just that instead of making a character a good climber and every wall mysteriously being worn smooth and made out of some sort of slippery material, you make a good climber* and the GM sets difficulties that are obviously wrong, as you know full well that fairly unimpressive climbers could reliably make the climb - or they pull the same thing that rules heavy games do, which is at least more subtle.

*Good Climbing could even be an actual game stat, so you cut out the middleman here.

NichG
2014-06-19, 12:22 AM
It's just that instead of making a character a good climber and every wall mysteriously being worn smooth and made out of some sort of slippery material, you make a good climber* and the GM sets difficulties that are obviously wrong, as you know full well that fairly unimpressive climbers could reliably make the climb - or they pull the same thing that rules heavy games do, which is at least more subtle.

What kinds of surfaces can a 'Good climber' climb? What constitutes a 'fairly unimpressive climber'?

For example, IRL I've done climbing wall stuff with knobby plastic protrusions where you hold on with your fingertips, overhangs, etc. Yet, I'm far from a professional climber of any sort. So is a climbing wall a Fair challenge, a Good challenge, a Great challenge? Am I comparing myself to the average office worker on the low end and olympic climbers on the high end, or am I comparing myself to, say, lizards with sticky feet who can hang upside-down on the high end? Do I and the DM share the same perception of what kinds of climbs are easy or difficult? And how about varying levels of success - can I climb to the cliff in time before the villains take off in their aircraft, or am I not going to make it?

Just having colloquial terms and an ordering on the set doesn't actually define what someone can do with respect to the narrative of the game world. If you have anchoring points however, then you can relate the ordered ability ratings to specific kinds of tasks, meaning that the DM doesn't have to guesstimate 'how difficult is X', but only 'is X more or less difficult than examples Y and Z?' - and so there's a higher chance of agreement in expectations between the player and DM (and even if there isn't agreement, the mismatch is more stringently bounded)

Knaight
2014-06-19, 01:03 AM
What kinds of surfaces can a 'Good climber' climb? What constitutes a 'fairly unimpressive climber'?

For example, IRL I've done climbing wall stuff with knobby plastic protrusions where you hold on with your fingertips, overhangs, etc. Yet, I'm far from a professional climber of any sort. So is a climbing wall a Fair challenge, a Good challenge, a Great challenge? Am I comparing myself to the average office worker on the low end and olympic climbers on the high end, or am I comparing myself to, say, lizards with sticky feet who can hang upside-down on the high end? Do I and the DM share the same perception of what kinds of climbs are easy or difficult? And how about varying levels of success - can I climb to the cliff in time before the villains take off in their aircraft, or am I not going to make it?

Fair (0) is an explicit professional. As in, a mountain climber, though not an outstanding one. Poor (-2) would be someone who is pretty typical, but not in a climbing related career. Both you and the GM are working off of that, and it generally works. Given that the typical mountain climber can climb a climbing wall really easily, and some of them can be climbed pretty easily by just about anyone, it works out to either a Poor (-2) or Mediocre (-1), depending on the specifics (a 5.3 and a 5.12 are not the same difficulty, and those are about the ends of the typical climbing wall spectrum). Sure, this isn't explicitly spelled out, but in all the time I've played Fudge I can't think of a single GM that would have ruled it any other way. There's also a fairly obvious upper range. Legendary is the top of the scale, and there are actual mountain climbers and actual mountains that are obvious candidates here. The anchoring points exist.

Sure, it relies on some level of common understanding, based on said anchoring points. I've never seen it be an issue. Moreover, a number is still not a "vague descriptor", and it doesn't somehow become more vague when you also add an adjective to contextualize it. The accusation makes no sense.

NichG
2014-06-19, 01:43 AM
Sure, it relies on some level of common understanding, based on said anchoring points. I've never seen it be an issue. Moreover, a number is still not a "vague descriptor", and it doesn't somehow become more vague when you also add an adjective to contextualize it. The accusation makes no sense.

A number is exactly as vague of a descriptor as a number plus adjective. Its really all about the anchoring points.

You gave a breakdown of the difficulty of various climbing tasks, but if I were running it I probably would have called the climbing wall 'Fair' (I ended up doing so in my post, after all, so it seems reasonable to surmise that I would have made the same spot judgement in a real game). The gap between Poor (-2) and Fair (0) is huge in Fudge. Maybe that means I'm just a bad Fudge GM (well, I am I guess), but from the point of view of a player, who is to say whether I'm going to get you, who will rate it as Poor (-2), or me, who will rate it as Fair (0)?

Its very difficult for said hypothetical player to say, in a complete vacuum, 'yes, I can climb this wall most of the time'. Based on years of common understanding with a DM, a player who bothers to learn to read their GM can reach the point where they have a good bead on things, but straight out of the gate its hard to say what your character can really do when it comes down to it (even worse if the system and the GM are giving you mixed messages - e.g. 'Fair' being professional level, but the GM for whatever reason running 'Fair' as 'average' as I mistakenly did).

In D&D, as 'dense' as it happens to be, if you have a +15 Climb modifier you can figure out exactly what you can and can't climb, how fast you can climb it, etc. If its a 'natural rock surface with handholds and footholds' or similar, you can climb without a roll. If its a brick wall, you have a 50/50 shot. If its an overhang, you've got a 25% shot. Note that this may not actually hold up to 'realism' concerns - I've climbed overhangs at the climbing wall, but there's no way I could climb a brick wall - but it does tell you, at least for those things in the table, 'yes, no, or maybe with particular odds'.

(Not to mention, if you have Spiderclimb, then the answer to 'can I climb it?' is 'yes!').

Airk
2014-06-19, 09:20 AM
In D&D, as 'dense' as it happens to be, if you have a +15 Climb modifier you can figure out exactly what you can and can't climb, how fast you can climb it, etc. If its a 'natural rock surface with handholds and footholds' or similar, you can climb without a roll. If its a brick wall, you have a 50/50 shot. If its an overhang, you've got a 25% shot. Note that this may not actually hold up to 'realism' concerns - I've climbed overhangs at the climbing wall, but there's no way I could climb a brick wall - but it does tell you, at least for those things in the table, 'yes, no, or maybe with particular odds'.

This doesn't add up at all. Yeah, great, you can find out exactly whether you can climb it or not if it is in the EXTREMELY SHORT LIST of surfaces with a precisely defined difficulty. Whoopee. Is a stone wall harder to climb than brick? Is there a listing for "stone wall with no mortar?" How about "stone wall with crumbling mortar"? "Tree with no branches within reach"? Etc. All D&D has done here is give a few examples of what they hope are common difficulty targets. While this has merit in establishing standards, it neither eliminates uncertainty nor gives the player a clear idea of how hard things will be under most circumstances (unless "most circumstances" are surprisingly narrowly defined) and it has the downside of not allowing the game to scale easily to more heroic or more 'gritty' difficulties. Maybe your GM wants to run a more over the top game - one where a +15 climb lets you scale pretty much anything that a human could sanely climb. No can do here, without tossing out all the examples.

There is no way for even the most rules heavy game to cover all the possibilities, and while it's sometimes useful to enumerate 'targets', it does bring in its own share of problems. Generally, I like having a COUPLE of examples - especially to set the tone for what 'normal' is, but acting like it's some sort of panacea that prevents disputes is nonsense. The only thing that's going to prevent disputes is a rational, polite dialogue between the GM and player about what sorts of things a character should be able to do.

NichG
2014-06-19, 11:14 AM
This doesn't add up at all. Yeah, great, you can find out exactly whether you can climb it or not if it is in the EXTREMELY SHORT LIST of surfaces with a precisely defined difficulty. Whoopee. Is a stone wall harder to climb than brick? Is there a listing for "stone wall with no mortar?" How about "stone wall with crumbling mortar"? "Tree with no branches within reach"? Etc. All D&D has done here is give a few examples of what they hope are common difficulty targets.

Yes, they've given anchoring points, which is the most any system can realistically do without becoming a morass of micro-rules. Everything is a matter of degree - Fudge gives you very few anchoring points, while GURPS gives you very many.

A player, when making their character, is only going to have (or need) a certain degree of tactical resolution in their own mind about the character's abilities. This will relate to what the player mentally envisions the character playing out like - what kinds of scenarios they will be able to engage with, etc. That set of scenarios creates a framework where the player is comfortable expressing statements about their character's abilities.

For example, a player is more likely to think in terms of something like 'I want to make a guy who is a second-story man, who can get on top of buildings, get into high windows, climb up and down chimneys, etc'. The player has some set of specific scenarios in mind, and can attempt to evaluate how their character would behave against those tasks.

E.g. 'Buildings are generally made out of brick. I can climb a brick wall without rolling, so I'm fairly confident that I can climb into a second-story window - this is part of my core competency'.

At the same time, the little tweaks that push the DC around are not going to generally be foremost in their mind 'What if its rainy? What if there's a tree nearby?' etc. What's a bit more likely is that they might keep those modifiers in mind and expect that their assessment of their character's abilities becomes compromised in the presence of those adjustments - 'normally I can climb up to a second story window trivially, but the DM said its raining tonight so I am not sure of myself' or 'I can't climb a sheer rock surface like this, but if there's some kind of other climbable thing nearby (branches, etc) then maybe I have a shot at it!'


While this has merit in establishing standards, it neither eliminates uncertainty nor gives the player a clear idea of how hard things will be under most circumstances (unless "most circumstances" are surprisingly narrowly defined) and it has the downside of not allowing the game to scale easily to more heroic or more 'gritty' difficulties. Maybe your GM wants to run a more over the top game - one where a +15 climb lets you scale pretty much anything that a human could sanely climb. No can do here, without tossing out all the examples.

I would actually say that this is a benefit for the player. Consider the alternative, that the GM decides to run a more over-the-top game or a more gritty game and doesn't actually communicate what that means, so the characters either act like timid mice who are afraid to take on tasks they could do in their sleep, or they act like insane idiots who keep getting themselves killed because they expected to be able to handle stuff.

In general, if the GM is going to alter what character abilities can do, this needs to be communicated clearly. In something with a lot of anchoring points like D&D, the GM merely has to say something like 'all Climb DCs are reduced by 20' or 'all Climb DCs are halved' or 'all Climb checks are doubled' to do the over-the-top game. Or even something like adding a rule: 'if you have 10 ranks in Climb, you can always hold to a surface you've been climbing even if you fail a check to proceed' (or really, all sorts of other variations - lots of leeway to mess around with ideas there).

In a rules-light game, the GM might say 'okay, this is an over-the-top action-genre campaign'. But I would say that for most players that's not helpful, because until they've gamed with that GM for a few years its not going to be clear what the GM thinks 'over-the-top action' is, precisely. The players will have more difficulty imagining what their character can accomplish outside of the environment of the game.



There is no way for even the most rules heavy game to cover all the possibilities, and while it's sometimes useful to enumerate 'targets', it does bring in its own share of problems. Generally, I like having a COUPLE of examples - especially to set the tone for what 'normal' is, but acting like it's some sort of panacea that prevents disputes is nonsense. The only thing that's going to prevent disputes is a rational, polite dialogue between the GM and player about what sorts of things a character should be able to do.

The point was never to prevent disputes. I'd maintain that basically disputes will happen with or without all of this. The point is to put the players in a mental place where they feel confident in asserting things about their character's abilities. Giving players the ability to be more confident in what they can do encourages them to be more proactive, makes them feel more in control, and generally (I feel) makes the experience more fun for them all around.

Anyhow, none of this is black and white, and you don't need to (nor should you) try to enumerate every conceivable variation. Its not like suddenly you add one more anchoring point and Fudge becomes rules-heavy. Its the general observation that what adding more rules and anchoring points (in the right places) can achieve is to increase a player's confidence in estimating what their character can and cannot succeed at doing before 'rubber hits the road' as it were - so without GM feedback.

Airk
2014-06-19, 02:28 PM
The problem I have with your entire argument is that it's too "soft"; You're basically saying "More reference points are better! Except when you have too many reference points!"

I'd suggest that maybe a dialogue between the GM and the player ("How many dice in climb do you think I would need to reliably climb a brick wall?") would resolve all these problems more effectively and without the need for a bunch of crufty specific rules.

The correct way to address problems/communications issues between the GM and the players is to encourage the GM and the players to communicate, not to try to head off the need for them to do so, because you will inevitably fail at the latter.

NichG
2014-06-19, 09:42 PM
The problem I have with your entire argument is that it's too "soft"; You're basically saying "More reference points are better! Except when you have too many reference points!"

Just because the two ends of the spectrum are 'Cowboys and Indians' and 'FATAL' doesn't mean we have to pick one or the other to champion. Everything is a tradeoff, so of course its going to be soft. My argument is basically me pointing out the benefits that come with the cost of increasing complexity, At some point, the cost of increasing complexity becomes more burdensome than the benefits you gain - thats where you stop. Of course there are nuances - you can distribute the complexity in different ways between players and GM (part of why I favor 'rules light for the GM, rules heavy for the players')



I'd suggest that maybe a dialogue between the GM and the player ("How many dice in climb do you think I would need to reliably climb a brick wall?") would resolve all these problems more effectively and without the need for a bunch of crufty specific rules.

The correct way to address problems/communications issues between the GM and the players is to encourage the GM and the players to communicate, not to try to head off the need for them to do so, because you will inevitably fail at the latter.

It isn't about problems or communication issues. I said as much in my last post so I don't know why you're continuing to bring this up. What its about is encouraging a certain ability and state of mind in the players which can be described most succinctly as the term 'confidence'. What you describe (everything being a dialogue between GM and player) ends up creating a situation which usually goes by the name 'mother may I?' - where the player cannot know in advance without constantly asking the GM what they can and cannot do. This basically hinders the ability to plan and causes the entire game to be even more chokepointed by the GM's attention, because now the GM not only has to adjudicate how the world reacts to the PCs' actions, the GM also has to adjudicate sets of actions that end up never being taken (e.g. when the player asks 'how many dice do I need?' and then decides not to climb the wall because the answer is much more than they have).

Maybe the best way to explain this would be to compare it with games that divvy up narrative control differently. Many games nowadays play with the idea of giving players a degree of explicit control over the narrative - this takes the form of story cards, action point systems, dramatic editing powers, all sorts of stuff. The game says 'if the player has and spends this resource, they get to declare what happens next in some way'. Giving the players a rules-heavy base to build from where the specifics are in place and things are made fairly definite and solid means that you're giving the players narrative agency - they can say 'I climb the wall!' rather than 'would I be able to climb the wall?'. Furthermore, you're taking processing load off the GM by giving the players tools that allow them to (ostensibly 'fairly') also GM parts of the story for themselves - the parts that involve the proactive actions of their characters. Taking processing load off the GM is very important, because in most GM-centric games they're already dealing with running the world and multiple NPCs, whereas the players only have to run their own character.

Anderlith
2014-06-19, 10:13 PM
Can a mod please delete this? It's just a pointless endeavor

Arbane
2014-06-20, 08:01 PM
Can a mod please delete this? It's just a pointless endeavor

Hey, the basic point of the thread has a point - there's a LOT of games out there, and some of them have some very innovative ways of doing things.
It's just the squabbling that's pointless.

Anyway, another good mechanic, if not a 'best': Basic Roleplaying (Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, etc)'s skill improvement system: If you use a skill successfully in play (most 'applied' skills, anyway), check a little box next to it. During downtime, roll a skill-check. If you FAIL, you gain a few % points in that skill. So it's easy to get some skill, but getting really good requires professional training. (Which generally costs time and money, but guarantees you an improvement roll.)

Anderlith
2014-06-20, 08:27 PM
Hey, the basic point of the thread has a point - there's a LOT of games out there, and some of them have some very innovative ways of doing things.
It's just the squabbling that's pointless.

Anyway, another good mechanic, if not a 'best': Basic Roleplaying (Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, etc)'s skill improvement system: If you use a skill successfully in play (most 'applied' skills, anyway), check a little box next to it. During downtime, roll a skill-check. If you FAIL, you gain a few % points in that skill. So it's easy to get some skill, but getting really good requires professional training. (Which generally costs time and money, but guarantees you an improvement roll.)

I was disappointed that it devolved into a shouting match is all.

Have you seen Mongoose Traveller's system where it takes x amount of weeks to learn a skill level but doesn't actually cost anything but time?

Arbane
2014-06-20, 09:13 PM
Have you seen Mongoose Traveller's system where it takes x amount of weeks to learn a skill level but doesn't actually cost anything but time?

So, they're trying to make it E.V.E. Online, Tabletop Version? :smallbiggrin:

I haven't seen that one - I know you can do similar in GURPS and Fusion, though. It's a perfectly reasonable way to handle learning skills, I think.

Grinner
2014-06-20, 09:32 PM
I was disappointed that it devolved into a shouting match is all.

One thing I've learned is that the longer a thread goes on, the more likely it is that it's devolved into shouting.

Airk
2014-06-22, 09:49 PM
One thing I've learned is that the longer a thread goes on, the more likely it is that it's devolved into shouting.

No one here is shouting. This is how you have a discussion in the internet.

Anderlith
2014-06-22, 11:15 PM
No one here is shouting. This is how you have a discussion in the internet.

This was not intended to be a thread about arguing about what is "Best". This was just about opinions so that people could share & be interested in other games & systems & rules, & partly a research effort on my part. Instead it turned into "Fate is better than D&D, D&D is better than Fate" It completely undermined the thread.

Knaight
2014-06-22, 11:23 PM
This was not intended to be a thread about arguing about what is "Best". This was just about opinions so that people could share & be interested in other games & systems & rules, & partly a research effort on my part. Instead it turned into "Fate is better than D&D, D&D is better than Fate" It completely undermined the thread.

Nobody is saying that Fate is better than D&D. The rules heavy camp is saying that rules light games are inferior products that are, at best, useful for one shots and not real games. The rules light camp is saying that some people like rules heavy games, some people like rules light games, and that it's nice having both for different play styles.

Or, more succinctly - We have some people saying that rules light games suck and are worthless, and some people saying that they aren't. Absolutely nobody is attacking rules heavy games at all.

NichG
2014-06-22, 11:26 PM
I think its pretty natural in a thread about the 'best game mechanics' to discuss why we think those particular game mechanics are 'best'.

Anderlith
2014-06-22, 11:47 PM
So anyhow, ignoring the argument...


What are your guys' opinions on Target boxes/hit locations? Has anyone ever played Top Secret? It's got a cool way to do it that i've always wanted to copy

Knaight
2014-06-23, 12:03 AM
What are your guys' opinions on Target boxes/hit locations? Has anyone ever played Top Secret? It's got a cool way to do it that i've always wanted to copy

It's usually not worth it, but if there's a particularly fast method for using them which doesn't need additional rolls (e.g. ORE) or there system is particularly focused on the sort of combat where they might be relevant (Battletech) they fit. It's a situational thing.

Jammyamerica
2014-06-25, 12:51 AM
What was it borrowed from?

Your Bright

kyoryu
2014-06-26, 05:18 PM
It's usually not worth it, but if there's a particularly fast method for using them which doesn't need additional rolls (e.g. ORE) or there system is particularly focused on the sort of combat where they might be relevant (Battletech) they fit. It's a situational thing.

This... is pretty much the case for just about any mechanic (assuming that it mathematically works).

Design isn't so much a matter of "what's best" as it is "what effect am I trying to get, why, and how can I get it?"

Knaight
2014-06-26, 05:29 PM
This... is pretty much the case for just about any mechanic (assuming that it mathematically works).

Design isn't so much a matter of "what's best" as it is "what effect am I trying to get, why, and how can I get it?"

Pretty much, yes. Though when evaluating individual mechanics, it's often more along the lines of "how much does this take resource wise, and what does it add". The ORE system is one where it takes jack-all resource wise, as the core mechanic already gives you two pieces of information per roll, and in combat that quickly gets you where and how hard you hit. Battle tech is an example where it adds quite a bit, because intricate mech combat is the entire point of the game, and it's just really fun to blow a mech's arm off and take the rockets and machine gun mounted there with it. Plus, it sucks much less having your mech's arm blown off than having your character's arm blown off, unless there's some serious medical tech/magic in the setting.

kyoryu
2014-06-26, 06:18 PM
Giving the players a rules-heavy base to build from where the specifics are in place and things are made fairly definite and solid means that you're giving the players narrative agency - they can say 'I climb the wall!' rather than 'would I be able to climb the wall?'.

I've heard this argument, and it falls flat to me.

In the rules-light system, the GM has to provide the information of how difficult the wall is to climb.

In the rules-heavy system, the GM has to provide the material and all other modifiers so that the player can figure out how hard the wall is to climb.

In both cases, the information comes from the GM. In both cases, the GM gets to decide how hard hte wall is to climb. The only difference is that in the rules-heavy system, the GM has to justify their decision with the appropriate mechanical widgets.

(Mind you, that difference may be enough for some people).

NichG
2014-06-26, 07:11 PM
I've heard this argument, and it falls flat to me.

In the rules-light system, the GM has to provide the information of how difficult the wall is to climb.

In the rules-heavy system, the GM has to provide the material and all other modifiers so that the player can figure out how hard the wall is to climb.

In both cases, the information comes from the GM. In both cases, the GM gets to decide how hard hte wall is to climb. The only difference is that in the rules-heavy system, the GM has to justify their decision with the appropriate mechanical widgets.

(Mind you, that difference may be enough for some people).

It has to do with shared assumptions about the nature of reality/the nature of the genre. Usually there's a lot of external information that the player and DM both possess to some degree that can be imported as a sort of statistical prior.

E.g. if I and my DM both think about 'what are the walls of most buildings in a modern city made of?' we might come up with fairly short lists of various materials: stone, brick, wood, stucco. Our ideas might not agree completely (maybe the DM lives in a place where stucco is very common, and I live in a place where brick is the most common material), but it gives me a range of expectations which I can use to estimate my chances. I can tell that none of those surfaces are going to have lots of handholds, but they're also not 'slick glass overhangs'. So if there are DCs, I can get a rough idea what I can do.

For more absolute abilities, its even more so - if my ability says 'you can fly' or 'you can climb any surface' then I know that none of those walls will be a problem. Without asking the DM, I can be reasonably confident of being able to get onto an arbitrary rooftop.

By tying things to stuff that exists in (our) physical world, you basically get to tap that shared understanding that players and the DM will have by virtue of all being humans who live on Earth. That cuts out a lot of back and forth. Of course when this background information disagrees, you can get dysfunctional play.

Anderlith
2014-06-26, 07:54 PM
TOP Secret is a percentile system (roll under) & the one's die dictates where the blow was struck.

Head 0
L Chest 1
R chest 2
Abdomen 3
L Arm 4
R Arm 5
L Hand 6
R Hand 7
L Leg 8
R Leg 9

Airk
2014-06-26, 08:34 PM
It has to do with shared assumptions about the nature of reality/the nature of the genre. Usually there's a lot of external information that the player and DM both possess to some degree that can be imported as a sort of statistical prior.

E.g. if I and my DM both think about 'what are the walls of most buildings in a modern city made of?' we might come up with fairly short lists of various materials: stone, brick, wood, stucco. Our ideas might not agree completely (maybe the DM lives in a place where stucco is very common, and I live in a place where brick is the most common material), but it gives me a range of expectations which I can use to estimate my chances. I can tell that none of those surfaces are going to have lots of handholds, but they're also not 'slick glass overhangs'. So if there are DCs, I can get a rough idea what I can do.

See, I think this is the problem; You can't even be considered "likely" to come in on the same page when you're talking about modern stuff that everyone has SEEN (MY first idea of what buildings in a modern city are made of was 'glass' because I work downtown near the financial district and see lots of shiny skyscrapers, and who needs to climb a two story house?) - and that's before we start wandering off into the more 'fantastic' scenarios. What's the average fantasy building built out of? "It depends".

The GM _HAS_ to establish this stuff. Maybe not every time, but in general for an area the first time anyone thinks about it (or at chargen, but you seem to have already rejected the idea that the GM and the player can have a conversation that goes "I'd like to be able to climb most buildings pretty easily." "Okay, make sure you have three points in climb."). If he doesn't, you just get the same "Well, I thought what you meant was..." disconnects that result in players getting really unhappy because they tried something that they thought made sense but which the GM thought was super dumb.



For more absolute abilities, its even more so - if my ability says 'you can fly' or 'you can climb any surface' then I know that none of those walls will be a problem. Without asking the DM, I can be reasonably confident of being able to get onto an arbitrary rooftop.

I question why you are even bringing this up, since these sorts of abilities work the same way in rules light games. If my Fate aspect says "Rocket powered jet pack" then I don't need to roll to get on top of a building. If the rocket boosters on my giant mecha say "Can jump 20 meters" I can jump 20 meters. So what? are you arguing that rules heavy games have MORE absolute abilities?



By tying things to stuff that exists in (our) physical world, you basically get to tap that shared understanding that players and the DM will have by virtue of all being humans who live on Earth. That cuts out a lot of back and forth. Of course when this background information disagrees, you can get dysfunctional play.

And you will, unless the GM does his job and informs the players of this stuff. I really don't see how adding more rules helps at all.

NichG
2014-06-26, 11:29 PM
See, I think this is the problem; You can't even be considered "likely" to come in on the same page when you're talking about modern stuff that everyone has SEEN (MY first idea of what buildings in a modern city are made of was 'glass' because I work downtown near the financial district and see lots of shiny skyscrapers, and who needs to climb a two story house?) - and that's before we start wandering off into the more 'fantastic' scenarios. What's the average fantasy building built out of? "It depends".

This is a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think? If I went up to a skyscraper and asked 'what's it made of?' and you said 'glass' I don't think I'd be particularly put out. If I went up to a two-story townhouse and you said 'glass' then that'd be a different story.



I question why you are even bringing this up, since these sorts of abilities work the same way in rules light games. If my Fate aspect says "Rocket powered jet pack" then I don't need to roll to get on top of a building. If the rocket boosters on my giant mecha say "Can jump 20 meters" I can jump 20 meters. So what? are you arguing that rules heavy games have MORE absolute abilities?


Yes, they often do, and are accessible without confirming with the DM. Your Fate aspect is something I'd have to run past the DM before I could expect it to be allowed. If my Lv5 Wizard wants to take Spiderclimb and Fly as spells known, I can generally expect that that will be okay and that I won't end up being told 'no, you can't take those spells'. It could of course happen, but its not the norm.

If we're playing Fate in a modern setting with, say, low-power superheroes (Spiderman and the like) then is my 'Rocket powered jet pack' going to be okay? Probably... perhaps? Does it have enough fuel for me to fly across the Grand Canyon? Maybe...? If we're playing D&D and I have Fly, then the answer is 'that's 10 miles, I go 120ft/round when flying, and my flight lasts 50 rounds... so no'. I can figure that out on my own without having a step that goes 'ask the DM'. I can look and see that 'Overland Flight' is a spell that I can learn in 4 levels, and that it can do it. So I can draw the conclusion 'my 5th level character can't fly across the Grand Canyon, but when I hit 9th level I will be able to if I get this spell'. I know what I can do now, and I know what I will be able to do in the future, and I know how to pursue it. If my life's ambition is flying across the Grand Canyon (or fantasy equivalent terrain feature) and I don't want to wait, I can start scouring libraries and magic shops for a scroll of Overland Flight and pull it off ahead of time. I can figure out 'to accomplish this ambition, I will need about 1125gp and to be good enough at Spellcraft to pull it off'.

Its a bit of a silly example, but its the kind of long-term planning and self-directed goals that having certainty about how things work can provide. 'I want to have a fortress made of Obdurium' - okay, this is what I will need to pursue. 'I want to slay the Lich that killed my master' - okay, this is roughly how powerful I'll need to become before I have a chance.

Anderlith
2014-06-26, 11:53 PM
I have to agree with NichG about this.

I hate having the GM/DM to be so involved with my character. I do not like having to ask the GM for every little ability or option.

Airk
2014-06-27, 08:28 AM
I have to agree with NichG about this.

I hate having the GM/DM to be so involved with my character. I do not like having to ask the GM for every little ability or option.

It's not about having to ask PERMISSION. I'm literally not aware of ANY games that require you to ask the GM for permission to take stuff. And that INCLUDES Fate, which invalidates the whole "Well, the GM might not let me take that!"; Sure, if you pick "Rocket Powered Jet Pack" in a Detective Noir game, he's probably going to stop and say "Uh, about that..." but that's not "asking permission" that's the GM having veto power, which he does in EVERY game, even if it has a spell list.

Also, depending on what D&D edition you are playing, you might NOT be able to take Fly and Spider climb, because you might have to ROLL to see if you can learn them. That's handy, eh? It seems to me that you are generalizing bad things about rules light systems and generalizing good things about Rules Heavy systems.

But if you really feel that looking something up in a book to determine how to complete your long term character goal is more interesting than playing something out in the game, I guess I can't help you.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-27, 12:26 PM
Look, the difference between rules "Lite" systems and rules "Heavy" systems is simply in details.

Rules lite systems simply don't bother with them under the assumption that during roleplay you don't need anything more than a loose reference to what your character can or can't do. Sort of like assuming that a person can be a Bad fighter, or an Average fighter or a Good fighter. So if a Good fighter and an Average fighter are dueling, the Good one will win, right? Well... what kind of weapon is being used? What kind of style? How's the terrain like, what's the distance between fighters? Not covered by the rules. At most you can expect a generic advantage/disadvantage system, with only one kind of bonus.
Usually, this is not a problem.
Except when you do care enough about details that it does become a problem.
At this point you find yourself with two option: you handwave it or you make stuff up on the spot for it.

So if eventually you have to make stuff up, why not having it written in the first place? That sounds like a good idea, right? Not having to come up with potentially unbalanced or unfair calls during a life-or-death situation? Worst yet, if a similar situation arises later, let's say after 10 sessions or so, can you remember how you dealt with it the first time?

Ideally, having details is good. It's really good. It means the game designer has put time, work and research into his game so that you don't have to while playing.
The problem might turn up when you are forced to constantly go into detail because the system is so rules heavy that you have to be specific about everything. But that's a problem with how the rules are implemented, not with their existence in the first place.

The point I'm trying to make is this: having defined rules for details is always good, having to constantly look them up is not.
I have a problem with FATE or Dungeon World because they doesn't provide a solid framework for details, they simply handwave it away and expects the GM and the players to either not care enough or do all the work on the spot.
And they mask this by saying that going into detail is not in the spirit of the game.

What I personally would hold as a perfect system is a system that covers a lot of fine details about how things work, but the basics are good enough that you need to look them up only when it's actually relevant. Or that said rules are simple and consistent enough that you can easily learn them.

The problem with a game like D&D is more about the power creep with all the optional manuals and the fact that it uses a variety of rules to cover a lot of different things. Getting into a fight? There's Armor Class, there's Base Attack Bonus and a lot of other rules. But if you are trying to avoid a boulder? It's a Relfex save. Oddly enough being a skilled swordfighter doesn't cover being quick on your feet. You can be a sluggish fatso and still be the best fighter ever if you have enough Armor Class and Base Attack Bonus. Worst yet every weapon has a different type of dice to roll for the damage. Are you kidding me?
The problem is not in the amount of rules but the fact that they are bad for the player. Mechanically, they might work. But they are not well designed nor balanced. People can put up with them, but until they really get into the game, interacting with the rules of D&D is not something you look foward to.
If you have a mind for puzzles and math maybe you can get into it, I know I did, for a time. But to someone that is only interested in playing his character the way he wants it, it's a chore.

But going on the opposite side of the spectrum and handwaving everything is not acceptable in my book. If in your system a longsword and a spear function in exactly the same way *cough*FATE*cough*, you have a problem. And no, the fact that you can give a spear the "throwing weapon" Aspect or some **** like that is not enough: because how that Aspect works is entirely up to you, player or GM, so you are making stuff up when instead you should be able to look up for reliable and simple details in the manual. And aside from that, it still relies on your idea of how a throwing weapon should behave and you might not know anything about those. How far can you throw them? How well would they work in a determined situation? Everything is left to GM fiat, or player fiat because "It Makes Sense".
Based on what facts, dear "rules lite system"? Based on what? :smallsigh:

Airk
2014-06-27, 12:29 PM
I don't think what you are asking for is possible, Kal; You're basically saying "I want rules for all the fiddly things, but I don't want to have to look them up"; How is that going to happen? The whole reason games like Dungeon World exist is NOT because people "don't care about the details" but because having rules for all the details bogs the game down in reference and minutae, and some people decided that keeping the game moving was more important than having rules for all the details.

It's a sliding scale, IMHO; You can't both "have all the details" AND "keep the game moving briskly."

Edit:


Everything is left to GM fiat, or player fiat because "It Makes Sense". Based on what facts, dear "rules lite system"? Based on what?

Based on the generally accepted rules of the fiction, of course. The alternative is that the game designer writes down something arbitrary on which to base them. If you'd rather have someone else's arbitrary decisions guide your game, you can, but I promise you, most game designers have not done any serious research into how far a person can throw a spear.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-27, 12:33 PM
I don't think what you are asking for is possible, Kal; You're basically saying "I want rules for all the fiddly things, but I don't want to have to look them up"; How is that going to happen? The whole reason games like Dungeon World exist is NOT because people "don't care about the details" but because having rules for all the details bogs the game down in reference and minutae, and some people decided that keeping the game moving was more important than having rules for all the details.

It's a sliding scale, IMHO; You can't both "have all the details" AND "keep the game moving briskly."

Edit:



Based on the generally accepted rules of the fiction, of course. The alternative is that the game designer writes down something arbitrary on which to base them. If you'd rather have someone else's arbitrary decisions guide your game, you can, but I promise you, most game designers have not done any serious research into how far a person can throw a spear.

I obviously disagree. Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K RPGs are a fairly detailed system that has very streamlined rules that are easy to remember, for example. It's certanly easier to get into than D&D, but it's also as detailed if not even more.

It is possibile, it's just that most game desingers don't care enough.

Edit: there is no such thing as generally accepted rule of fiction. There are tropes, of course, but even those come in all sort of shapes, as you may know if you often visit a certain site.
Meanwhile, it's true that most game designers do not do research, but that's not an excuse to stop trying. And at least it's something. At least you can sort of assume that it's balanced since it will be internally consistent. And you can choose to ignore it if it doesn't work, which requires much less work on your side than actually making the rule from step 0.
And if it isn't that's not a problem with the concept of "rules heavy", it's a problem with their implementation.

Airk
2014-06-27, 12:48 PM
I obviously disagree. Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K RPGs are a fairly detailed system that has very streamlined rules that are easy to remember, for example. It's certanly easier to get into than D&D, but it's also as detailed if not even more.

I'm sorry, but streamlined is the opposite of detailed in RPG rules as far as I am concerned. Either you have lots of fiddly edge case rules for details, or you don't.



Edit: there is no such thing as generally accepted rule of fiction.

Of course there are. They are established in play. If the rider on horseback just made a dramatic leap across a fourty food chasm, you've established something about how things work in the fiction.

The answer, all too often is not "can he throw a spear that far" as either "does it make sense that he can?" or "Is it cool if he can?"

Sure, you can say "Oh, yes, well, that's not an excuse to not try" except that if you did copious research on every little detail of your game (and apparently you like your games pretty detailed) you'd never finish. So sooner or later you're going to be using an arbitrary rule anyway, and you probably won't even be able to tell which is which.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-27, 01:27 PM
I'm sorry, but streamlined is the opposite of detailed in RPG rules as far as I am concerned. Either you have lots of fiddly edge case rules for details, or you don't.



Of course there are. They are established in play. If the rider on horseback just made a dramatic leap across a fourty food chasm, you've established something about how things work in the fiction.

The answer, all too often is not "can he throw a spear that far" as either "does it make sense that he can?" or "Is it cool if he can?"

Sure, you can say "Oh, yes, well, that's not an excuse to not try" except that if you did copious research on every little detail of your game (and apparently you like your games pretty detailed) you'd never finish. So sooner or later you're going to be using an arbitrary rule anyway, and you probably won't even be able to tell which is which.

You are not making any sense.
First of all, streamlining and detailed rules are absolutely possibile and I don't even get why you would think otherwise. You simply need to use one kind of dice, that's already a big improvement in streamlining while also allowing as much details as you want. Also you can do things like unifying game mechanics, like everything is a Skill check for example. Why would this prevent details?
Your argument doesn't go beyond "nuh-hu, it's impossibile!".

As for your example of "rules of fiction"... Doesn't make sense, either.
There is such thing as the tone of the campaign. If it's epic fantasy it can be expected that some people are able to perform superhuman feats or jump a horse over a chasm or whatever. But that doesn't help your character understanding the boundaries of what can or cant' be done, unless you make up a rule for it, which is exactly my point!

And I don't think that you taking my love for detail and exaggerating helps proving that implementing it in a reasonable fashon is impossibile. All you are doing is saying "well since you can't have all the details right, you shouldn't even try".
Sorry, I don't see an argument here beyond your personal doubts that a system could be both detailed and easy to play.

I'll give you another one though. What if FATE had detailed rules for weapons? Would that be bad? If you don't like them you could still run the game as you are running it now, with weapons being just a number you add to your rolls. But if you do feel the need for more detailed rules, they are there. You don't have to make stuff up.
I really don't understand the argument for rules lite systems. If you dislike having rules, don't use them. Run a bare bone version of the system. That's easy enough. It's far easier to do than picking up a system that doesn't have detailed rules in the first place and being forced to make stuff up later. What, is the mere presence of rules enough to scare you off?
I really don't get it and quite frankly I think it all comes down to novelty and bias against D&D.

Both of which I understand, by the way. But after you are done thinking "oh cool, this is new" and you realize that D&D can't hurt you if you don't let it hurt you, why sticking to something that doesn't have your back when you need to go into details?

NichG
2014-06-27, 01:31 PM
Its possible to do what Kal wants. The way to do it is to make the details something optional which can be induced into the game by the individuals who intend to use them. This is actually how most rules heavy systems function to some degree. For example, D&D has a class called a Shadowcaster. It has a bunch of rules detail. If no one is playing a Shadowcaster, that detail sits off in its book and doesn't impinge on the game.

Having 'reducible' rules is also a way to do this. You allow pre-computation of the complexity which boils it down to a smaller set of information that actually needs to be brought forward to the table. So e.g. the player has to juggle 10 numbers during character generation to build their character, but only 5 of them directly impact the game. Feats are an example of this - if you have a feat that gives +1 Dodge AC, you can just add that into your AC totals rather than always recomputing on the fly. Minimizing passive conditionalities is generally a good thing to do - that is to say, abilities like '+4 to saves against fear when its windy' are awful game design, because if you have a lot of those you have to redo the math all the time. However, you can still have rules complexity and rich rules without having extreme conditionality.

I feel like some people think 'rules heavy = giant lookup tables of modifiers for every situation'. But thats conflating one arguably bad design element with an entire subclass of games. Having a lot of those tables might make a game rules heavy, but not every rules heavy game is just a big list of modifiers on a rules light chassis.

So to bring this back to what Kal wants, I'd say the key is to ensure that for every detail which can matter, there is a default state (e.g. 'off'), but that there are player abilities which toggle them, and of course the DM can start them 'on' if desired. Something like Fate's aspects is actually a good place to start with this, except that for what Kal wants you basically would want to create a list of specific aspects and what they each do when tagged (replacing Fate's usual bonus-or-reroll mechanic). So none of those details matter unless someone wants them to matter for a reason.

Edit: It actually suggests an interesting game setting. The setting is a sort of Cowboys-and-Indians dreamland, where the rules of reality are generally very soft and nearly non-existent. However, it is possible for certain individuals to force the world to temporarily 'descend towards reality', impinging upon the open-ness of the dreamworld with the far more restrictive rules of the corporeal universe.

So if someone is flying, a Grounder can apply the rule 'long-term activity is exhausting' and suddenly everyone has a stamina bar that depletes by various amounts based on their activities. If someone throws a spear at a Grounder from across the Dreamlands, they can apply the rule 'weapons have a finite range' to defend themselves.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-27, 01:38 PM
Its possible to do what Kal wants. The way to do it is to make the details something optional which can be induced into the game by the individuals who intend to use them. This is actually how most rules heavy systems function to some degree. For example, D&D has a class called a Shadowcaster. It has a bunch of rules detail. If no one is playing a Shadowcaster, that detail sits off in its book and doesn't impinge on the game.

Having 'reducible' rules is also a way to do this. You allow pre-computation of the complexity which boils it down to a smaller set of information that actually needs to be brought forward to the table. So e.g. the player has to juggle 10 numbers during character generation to build their character, but only 5 of them directly impact the game. Feats are an example of this - if you have a feat that gives +1 Dodge AC, you can just add that into your AC totals rather than always recomputing on the fly. Minimizing passive conditionalities is generally a good thing to do - that is to say, abilities like '+4 to saves against fear when its windy' are awful game design, because if you have a lot of those you have to redo the math all the time. However, you can still have rules complexity and rich rules without having extreme conditionality.

I feel like some people think 'rules heavy = giant lookup tables of modifiers for every situation'. But thats conflating one arguably bad design element with an entire subclass of games. Having a lot of those tables might make a game rules heavy, but not every rules heavy game is just a big list of modifiers on a rules light chassis.

So to bring this back to what Kal wants, I'd say the key is to ensure that for every detail which can matter, there is a default state (e.g. 'off'), but that there are player abilities which toggle them, and of course the DM can start them 'on' if desired. Something like Fate's aspects is actually a good place to start with this, except that for what Kal wants you basically would want to create a list of specific aspects and what they each do when tagged (replacing Fate's usual bonus-or-reroll mechanic). So none of those details matter unless someone wants them to matter for a reason.

Edit: It actually suggests an interesting game setting. The setting is a sort of Cowboys-and-Indians dreamland, where the rules of reality are generally very soft and nearly non-existent. However, it is possible for certain individuals to force the world to temporarily 'descend towards reality', impinging upon the open-ness of the dreamworld with the far more restrictive rules of the corporeal universe.

So if someone is flying, a Grounder can apply the rule 'long-term activity is exhausting' and suddenly everyone has a stamina bar that depletes by various amounts based on their activities. If someone throws a spear at a Grounder from across the Dreamlands, they can apply the rule 'weapons have a finite range' to defend themselves.

Exactly this, thank you very much for getting it. :smallsmile:

Knaight
2014-06-27, 02:37 PM
But going on the opposite side of the spectrum and handwaving everything is not acceptable in my book. If in your system a longsword and a spear function in exactly the same way *cough*FATE*cough*, you have a problem.

So then don't play rules light systems. That's not a reason to present them as if they are fundamentally unacceptable for anyone. I honestly don't see having a longsword and spear function in the same way as a problem, provided that the game isn't particularly combat focused. It's an acceptable abstraction - particularly as they will never work exactly the same way, as even if they do have the exact same statistics. They have different physical presences within the setting, different social implications within the setting, etc, regardless of statistics.

The short version is, rules light systems have a niche. They aren't for everyone, but there are people who prefer them. The idea that their existence is somehow unnaceptable, even for these people, is getting really, really, old. Though it is at least nice that nobody has pulled the "people who play rules light games are brain damaged innumerate morons", so there's that.

NichG
2014-06-27, 03:12 PM
So then don't play rules light systems. That's not a reason to present them as if they are fundamentally unacceptable for anyone. I honestly don't see having a longsword and spear function in the same way as a problem, provided that the game isn't particularly combat focused. It's an acceptable abstraction - particularly as they will never work exactly the same way, as even if they do have the exact same statistics. They have different physical presences within the setting, different social implications within the setting, etc, regardless of statistics.

The short version is, rules light systems have a niche. They aren't for everyone, but there are people who prefer them. The idea that their existence is somehow unnaceptable, even for these people, is getting really, really, old. Though it is at least nice that nobody has pulled the "people who play rules light games are brain damaged innumerate morons", so there's that.

You're being pretty defensive here. No one is saying this.

What is being said is things like 'I prefer a rules heavy game' or 'I prefer a game that's rules light for the GM and rules heavy for the players'. This is being met with 'You don't need rules heavy! Rules light can do everything you want!'. The problem is that that's not true, and some of us are trying to explain why that's not true for us and what advantages rules heavy stuff actually has for us.

That's said, its hard to have a meaningful debate when a statement like 'I feel like I have more control of my character when I have rules that define how my character interacts with the world' is responded to by 'no, you don't actually feel that'.

elliott20
2014-06-27, 03:27 PM
Best overall systems:

Apocalypse World (http://apocalypse-world.com/) - a post apocalyptic RPG that is in many ways a clinic in good game design with wildly differentiated classes (and a lot of variance within the class), incredibly easy set up and mechanics, and the rhythm of freeform play meaning that the mechanics don't get in the way much at all. Histories meaning that setting creation works with character creation.

Fate Core/Accelerated (http://fate-srd.com/) - simple, powerful, and very evocative and focussed on who the characters are. Plays larger than life pulp and does it well.

Cortex Plus (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117419/Cortex-Plus-Hackers-Guide) - a family of games that really leverage the flexibility of the dice pool to keep the players' eyes on what is important. Four games in the family although only two in print; Leverage (which redefined Heist Roleplaying), Firefly, Smallville (OOP - action dramas), and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (for my money the best comic book supers RPG going although OOP).

Fiasco (http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/). How to create a Cohen Brothers movie in the time it takes to watch one. Not vastly deep but so effective that no one cares.

(Honorable mentions: GURPS, Burning Wheel, Rules Cyclopaedia D&D, Unisystem, Fudge)

Best individual mechanics.

Monsterhearts (http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/monsterhearts/) - it's amongst other things a Coming of Age drama and the kids are messed up enough that all the moves they can make at first are mechanically self-defeating - but they need to keep making them to gain XP. It uses the engine from Apocalypse World and may even be better than the base game.

The WFRP 3E dice pool (with the slightly weaker Edge of Empire one in second).

Dread's (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/83854/Dread) Jenga tower for evoking tension.

4E's marking/punishment and healing surges.

damn, this guy right here. You just hit up like 4 of my favorite systems.

I'll add a couple more

Prime Time Adventures: a game about playing a TV show. With the right number of people and little bit of attention on focus, it's AMAZING.

Knaight
2014-06-27, 03:49 PM
You're being pretty defensive here. No one is saying this.

What is being said is things like 'I prefer a rules heavy game' or 'I prefer a game that's rules light for the GM and rules heavy for the players'. This is being met with 'You don't need rules heavy! Rules light can do everything you want!'. The problem is that that's not true, and some of us are trying to explain why that's not true for us and what advantages rules heavy stuff actually has for us.
What's being explained is now why that's not true for you, and what advantages rules heavy stuff has for you. What's being explained is how that's not true for anyone, and how rules heavy stuff is just better for everyone. The rules light position is that the rules light games can do that for some people. I'm being defensive because rules light games are being attacked. Choice quotes from the thread:

"Why is there so much popularity of rules light/indie systems? I can see why people who don't have the time to run complicated games who just want little adventures would like them but they seem to be becoming a bigger & bigger thing."

"No I'm not talking about sourcebooks. I'm just talking about complexity. Games like Fate & 13th age & Fudge & such. They are basic, bare bones & rely on the GM to make calls. I don't see that as good. Sure it's acceptable for shot little games that fit a niche, but for strong long term games I don't want the GM to play fast & loose with the rules."

"Please stop derailing this thread, this is not a "D&D is terrible you shouldn't play it" thread & neither is it a "Bare-bones indie games are betterz cause there aren't many rules"

"I really don't understand the argument for rules lite systems. If you dislike having rules, don't use them. Run a bare bone version of the system. That's easy enough. It's far easier to do than picking up a system that doesn't have detailed rules in the first place and being forced to make stuff up later. What, is the mere presence of rules enough to scare you off?"

"I really don't get it and quite frankly I think it all comes down to novelty and bias against D&D."


So, basically:

Rules light games aren't real games, but they are suitable for pseudo gaming with "little adventures".
It's unnaceptable to support rules light games in this thread.
Rules light games are pointless, because you can just use part of a real system.
The only thing rules light games have going for them is novelty and bias against D&D. Quality doesn't come into it.


So yes, there's some defensiveness. It turns out that making arguments along the lines of "rules light games are innately inferior systems used for innately inferior role playing" fosters it. Shocking, really.

NichG
2014-06-27, 04:34 PM
What's being explained is now why that's not true for you, and what advantages rules heavy stuff has for you. What's being explained is how that's not true for anyone, and how rules heavy stuff is just better for everyone. The rules light position is that the rules light games can do that for some people. I'm being defensive because rules light games are being attacked.

I'm not explaining just why its not true for me personally or what advantages it has for me personally. I'm explaining what advantages and disadvantages there are in general. I am confident in the stance that the factors I'm discussing are general factors and would hold true across a large set of players, because I've personally seen the playing habits and tendencies of maybe 40-50 players over my gaming career in addition to having generally observed discourse on gaming forums like these. So my sample size isn't 1, its effectively a hundred or so - certainly enough to make some usable generalizations.

But to say 'this is generally a problem that can occur' isn't the same as saying 'you would have to be a bonehead to play this'. Pollution is generally a problem that can occur from using automobiles to commute, but that is a tradeoff for the various benefits of using automobiles compared to e.g. walking. A similar balance exists between rules light and rules heavy systems. Its clearly the case that rules heavy systems introduce further complexity in learning, remembering, adjudicating, and applying the rules - I'm willing to state that this is a strictly negative feature. Furthermore, you lose a degree of flexibility and improvisation. Those are the downsides of rules-heavy systems, and I'm perfectly willing to admit them as such.

But you pay those flaws in order to get certain benefits in exchange. And much of this debate has been people claiming 'no, those benefits don't actually exist'. Well, they do - I experience them, gamers I've played with experience them, and the huge number of people who spend a significant portion of their time messing around with convoluted D&D 3.5 builds for fun experience them too. Please don't try to tell me that I'm hallucinating those benefits, because its the equivalent of me telling you something like 'no, actually rules light games are super-complex too'.

Now, its perfectly reasonable for a player's personal taste to weight that added complexity more heavily than the various benefits I've been discussing. Those different weights give rise to the niches that allow for multiple game systems to exist and each have their purpose. To say 'this is a flaw with rules light' is not the same as saying 'rules light is stupid' - you're the one choosing to hear it that way. What its saying is that the choice to go rules light involves a certain tradeoff, and in terms of targeting system design towards a particular audience or purpose you'd better be aware of that tradeoff and be willing to take it into account. Denying that the tradeoff exists is silly.

I take exception to the idea that 'all of our systems are perfect just the way they are', and that somehow being critical of potential problems is a form of personal attack. That tends to make every debate emotional rather than rational, and it shuts down discourse about how we can do better. Holding the position 'Fate is perfect, just not for you!' or 'D&D is perfect, just not for you!' means that we won't actually explore why people like or dislike the games, and furthermore what can be done to make future games that are even better.

Debate the ideas, not the people. If you like Fate, don't tell me why I'm wrong for not liking Fate or try to accuse me of attacking your tastes. Don't try to claim that my goals don't exist or are 'well, its just you and no one else thinks that way'. Instead, talk about the upsides of Fate, the downsides of D&D, etc.



Choice quotes from the thread:

...

So, basically:

Rules light games aren't real games, but they are suitable for pseudo gaming with "little adventures".
It's unnaceptable to support rules light games in this thread.
Rules light games are pointless, because you can just use part of a real system.
The only thing rules light games have going for them is novelty and bias against D&D. Quality doesn't come into it.


So yes, there's some defensiveness. It turns out that making arguments along the lines of "rules light games are innately inferior systems used for innately inferior role playing" fosters it. Shocking, really.

You can choose 'I will get emotionally bothered by other people not understanding' or you can choose to stay rational and explain things calmly. Getting emotional and defensive about it shuts down actual debate in favor of dividing people into camps that can't come to a mutual understanding. Once you get emotional, it encourages other people to respond emotionally too, which means they stop thinking about what you're saying and start thinking more about how you choose to say it. They'll hear 'defensiveness!' rather than listen to, e.g., 'I don't like how rules heavy systems box in my character and prevent me from having the flexibility to pull off stuff everyone thinks is cool but the rules don't allow' or other such arguments.

Anderlith
2014-06-27, 04:38 PM
Rules Light is just that though. It's basic. My OPINION, is that I wouldn't play one long term. I FEEL like rules heavy games are being attacked for "Being too Complicated" or "Restricting personal &/ or narrative &/or artistic freedom".

To help with this discussion. Let's not mention D&D. It's too controversial.

I prefer rules heavy. I want to know that the game that I've spent money on will have rules in it for most situations that I will encounter while gaming.
I have played Mongoose Traveler. EVERY roll is 2d6. Sometimes it's used like a percentile 6-66%, it has only a handful of skills & 6 stats used for everything. Even special abilities/resources are kept to a minimal list.
It is VERY straightforward. & guess what? It has a rule for everything. I can confidently grab the book & look something up if a player wants to do something that isn't basic things like attacking or moving or skill use.

It's a great example of Rules Heavy, but not Dense.

WarHammer Fantasy or 40K has such simple mechanics that you only need to glance at the book to know what to do, but the detail of what you can do is abundant. Want to play a Tech-Priest? BOOM here's a class with access to abilities & special items just for you. Want to just play a grunt? BOOM here is a list of maneuvers that you & your friends can use in combat to take out that Weirdboy before he kills you with his brain

Knaight
2014-06-27, 04:48 PM
But to say 'this is generally a problem that can occur' isn't the same as saying 'you would have to be a bonehead to play this'. Pollution is generally a problem that can occur from using automobiles to commute, but that is a tradeoff for the various benefits of using automobiles compared to e.g. walking. A similar balance exists between rules light and rules heavy systems. Its clearly the case that rules heavy systems introduce further complexity in learning, remembering, adjudicating, and applying the rules - I'm willing to state that this is a strictly negative feature. Furthermore, you lose a degree of flexibility and improvisation. Those are the downsides of rules-heavy systems, and I'm perfectly willing to admit them as such.

Yes, there are balances between rules light and rules heavy systems. However, any discussion of this is moot once it's been decided that rules light systems aren't suitable for real gaming, and that's been the thinly veiled subtext throughout this thread.

I am entirely willing to have a discussion about the merits of rules density regarding rules heavy and rules light systems. Heck, I'm entirely willing to play both. I just don't expect it to be constructive after the incoherent criticisms thrown around this thread, much as I wouldn't expect you to think a constructive conversation would happen if people were to say that rules heavy games are "rollplaying for powergamers".

I'd actually be willing to take this to PM - none of the quotes I highlighted that push this conversation out of the potentially constructive field are from you.

NichG
2014-06-27, 06:27 PM
Yes, there are balances between rules light and rules heavy systems. However, any discussion of this is moot once it's been decided that rules light systems aren't suitable for real gaming, and that's been the thinly veiled subtext throughout this thread.

I am entirely willing to have a discussion about the merits of rules density regarding rules heavy and rules light systems. Heck, I'm entirely willing to play both. I just don't expect it to be constructive after the incoherent criticisms thrown around this thread, much as I wouldn't expect you to think a constructive conversation would happen if people were to say that rules heavy games are "rollplaying for powergamers".

I'd actually be willing to take this to PM - none of the quotes I highlighted that push this conversation out of the potentially constructive field are from you.

I'm interested in continuing, but I would prefer publically. Airk has also been providing a lot of good counterpoints and critique in driving the debate parts of the thread and I'm not sure there's a way to have a three-way PM conversation. I'd also say that its somewhat more useful for it to be public, just in the sense of engaging people in general in thinking analytically about rules design.

That said, if you aren't willing to continue publically I'll be happy to continue over PM.

Knaight
2014-06-27, 09:41 PM
I'm interested in continuing, but I would prefer publically. Airk has also been providing a lot of good counterpoints and critique in driving the debate parts of the thread and I'm not sure there's a way to have a three-way PM conversation. I'd also say that its somewhat more useful for it to be public, just in the sense of engaging people in general in thinking analytically about rules design.

That said, if you aren't willing to continue publically I'll be happy to continue over PM.

I'd be good with just bailing on this thread, and having a split one for the rules-light rules-heavy merits.

NichG
2014-06-28, 06:24 AM
I'd be good with just bailing on this thread, and having a split one for the rules-light rules-heavy merits.

Alright, I'll start a new one tomorrow when its not so ridiculously late and I can think a bit more coherently.

Seharvepernfan
2014-06-28, 08:57 AM
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned fantasycraft yet.

I haven't actually played it (mostly because I dont know anybody else who has it and knows it), and I don't really know it yet. It's very complex, moreso than D&D (though it has less splat), but it's just...better. A lot of the rules make more sense than D&D's, it is better balanced (though sometimes it causes the game to not make sense; like when goblins are stronger than giants), and it has rules for stuff D&D doesn't but should.

My problem with the game is that it seems to lack structure and doesn't have anywhere to go. It has levels up to 20, but it seems like not much changes in those levels, kinda like E6.