Extra Credits: Marginal Mechanics and Red Herrings

[Endarire]

This episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_H9JR7ud8E) felt SO MUCH like D&D 3.x. I also remembered Monte Cook's Ivory Tower Game Design (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design).

[Lord Raziere]

I do hate red herrings.

there shouldn't be any red herrings in my opinion. if your going to make something a bad option, just tell me so that I don't get my hopes up, so I can get tot he important stuff.

really this whole form of game design is real deceptive. I'm not sure I entirely trust it or want it. I don't get games for the metagame nonsense, I get it for the game itself.

while combinatory mechanics are only as good as how little they break the game. they are useless if they make you too powerful and screw everything up by doing so. if your going to be combinatory, know what your doing so that things don't fall apart when applied, and don't have to resort to crazy counterspell wars or something like that.

[fire_insideout]

Yea, I watched this yesterday and during the red herring part all I could think was 'Huh, that's exactly what the Fighter class is.'.

Very good video IMO.

[martixy]

If we don't just circle-jerk on why red herrings are bad, we might discover the actual reason why some things are the way they are.

Design principles and metagame evolve. Things can have applications in very specific situations without having to be useful outside of those to justify their existence.

[Pleh]

Useful to keep in mind that sometimes there isn't time to fix a broken item in the game and it isn't always intentional.

"Deceptive" is harsh. In video games, it's a bit easier to feel directly how well a mechanism in a video game works because the computer calculates just about instantly. In tabletop, you can't always be sure your first few failures weren't just unlucky, and fighter shines best at early levels anyway. You don't really start to see the disparity til past level 5.

The creators probably didn't know that the fighter was so underpowered when they launched (remember they overvalued strength) and it was clearly meant to be combinatory since the game assumes 3 or 4 players.

[Fouredged Sword]

Some of the 3.5 creators have posted explanations that show they have pretty questionable ideas about how system mastery should be something that is earned and should make your character more powerful. Many in the 3.5 community disagree and, IMHO, one of the major draws of the 3.5 thread is the spreading of system mastery to allow anyone to play in any game regardless of base optimization level of the table.

I too remember when I thought fighter 2 / rogue 3 was an OP build...

[Martin Greywolf]

First of all, be very, very careful when trying to apply EC episodes to TTRPGs, EC isn't about TTRPGs in the first place, it's about digital games, with overwhelming focus on PC and consoles.

Next, I have a feeling you sort of didn't get the definition of Red Herring Mechanic (RHM) - it's a mechanic that is in a game that the designer knows full well is useless in most, if not all, situations, yet keeps it in there anyway.

First problem in TTRPGs is that we have to frame of reference for most situations - mechanics for drowning will not likely come up in a desert adventure, but will be pretty useful in a seafaring campaign. What the level design, if we can call it that, is in these games depends on the groups using them. Therefore, we don't have marginal mechanics or status effects - if one class is super specified to taking out undead, then it will be great (perhaps overpowered) in undead-centric game and not very useful in a game that has maybe two or three zombies per session.

And when it comes to fighter, there's an important distinction here - Fighter isn't a RHM because he wasn't meant to be as uselessly underpowered as he is. Okay, we can't know for sure, not unless someone in the DnD design team tells us "Yeah, we hated Fighter and nerfed him into the ground," but there are bits and pieces there that tell you what Fighter was envisioned as: a class that allows you to specialize in a particular way of methodically stabbing other things in the face. Fighter-only feats and bonus feats are clear indication of that.

That makes the Fighter not a RHM, but a failure of game design, specifically a failure of balance.

On the other side of the coin, we have wizard spells, many of which are clearly broken, so we need to ask ourselves what the intended mechanical balance is even supposed to look like. Wizards being stronger is not necessarily bad design, wizards being stronger when this level number says they are at the same level as you is.

tl;dr version of this is that DnD 3.5 has its mechanical balance so botched we can't really tell what is a RHM and what isn't.

[ryu]

Some of the 3.5 creators have posted explanations that show they have pretty questionable ideas about how system mastery should be something that is earned and should make your character more powerful. Many in the 3.5 community disagree and, IMHO, one of the major draws of the 3.5 thread is the spreading of system mastery to allow anyone to play in any game regardless of base optimization level of the table.

I too remember when I thought fighter 2 / rogue 3 was an OP build...

Only half right. Easy to learn hard to master is the ideal maxim. In other words, while you should be able to simply enter the game and function regardless of skill actually putting in some measure of effort or talent into getting better should lead to tangibly more effective play. How to achieve? Chop off everything below tier 3, then buff and possibly re-brand as much as you can salvage. Stuff like warlock that's on the verge of tier 3 can be saved. Stuff like fighter that is far below the bar and highly generic probably can't.

[Pleh]

First of all, be very, very careful when trying to apply EC episodes to TTRPGs, EC isn't about TTRPGs in the first place, it's about digital games, with overwhelming focus on PC and consoles.

While they are careful to distinguish the difference, EC themselves will commonly reference tabletop board games, card games, and even TTRPGs from time to time to make a point.

It's not that it's inapplicable, just that you need to bear in mind the translation that needs to occur.

[Psyren]

First of all, be very, very careful when trying to apply EC episodes to TTRPGs, EC isn't about TTRPGs in the first place, it's about digital games, with overwhelming focus on PC and consoles.

Yes, but that's not as sharp a distinction as you seem to believe. Indeed, EC themselves explicitly encourage designers to use board games as a starting point. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VONeNVPaNs)


Useful to keep in mind that sometimes there isn't time to fix a broken item in the game and it isn't always intentional.

"Deceptive" is harsh. In video games, it's a bit easier to feel directly how well a mechanism in a video game works because the computer calculates just about instantly. In tabletop, you can't always be sure your first few failures weren't just unlucky, and fighter shines best at early levels anyway. You don't really start to see the disparity til past level 5.

The creators probably didn't know that the fighter was so underpowered when they launched (remember they overvalued strength) and it was clearly meant to be combinatory since the game assumes 3 or 4 players.

Agreed on all points. Having said that, the solution there is two-fold:

1) Future-proof your design: Both PF and 5e did a much better job of this than 3.5 did. The basic idea is that you give every basic class a bunch of class features. The PF Fighter for instance has Weapon Training, Armor Training, Bravery etc., while the 5e Fighter has a modular Martial Archetype Feature. With those, if the base fighter ends up underpowered, it makes it easy for you to "fix" by simply releasing a strictly better archetype later, much like the Lore Warden in PF, or even modular features like Advanced Weapon Training.

2) Easy FAQ and Errata: 3.5 shot itself in the foot via its "Primary Source" and "text trumps table" rules. They made it so that nobody, not even the real actual designer of a given class, could simply say what they intended, clear up ambiguities, or fix glaring problems via issuing a FAQ or writing an article. If it wasn't official errata, which needs to go through a rigorous publishing process, it was useless. Compare to PF, where designers are free to answer questions via forum posts and FAQ, and especially look at 5e, which uses Twitter to make rulings. If you make it hard for your designers to be listened to when they try to fix problems, they simply won't bother, and the game will stagnate. For games of this complexity, patching and hotfixing are a necessity.