nineGardens
2018-10-02, 11:44 PM
The Problem to be solved:
Players want unique personalized characters, but the additional rules required to allow this flexibility bogs people down, and can be daunting and confusing for new players.
In first edition D&D you rolled some stats, and picked a class (in that order) and you were good to go. There was like... 4 classes. This lead to a problem with characters not feeling particularly unique, especially once you allow players the freedom to point buy attributes.
Now we have a dozen or so classes, and once you pick your class, you pick a subspecialty, and a familiar, and then arrange your attributes, and pick your first level spells.
This is what I will refer to as “nested” choices.
Nested choices allow players the versatility they need to build a more unique character... but complicate character building.
In theory, Nested choices make decision making easier- you decide to be a wizard, and THEN you decide to specialize in conjuring, and THEN you look at familiars. By nesting decisions, each individual decision can be simpler. But, Nested decisions tend to add complexity in two different ways: Firstly, you end up making different KINDS of choices in each round. The knowledge you used to make your Class decision doesn’t help you make your fighting style decision, because this is fundamentally a DIFFERENT choice. Secondly, the nesting of decisions acts to obscure earlier decisions – my choice to play as an Alchemist is not based on “Are alchemists cool” but on “Oh, and if I take the poisoner specialty later on...” - I have to look further ahead in the decision tree in order to make my first decisions in a sensible manner.
There’s also the tension between “Specificity” and “Versatility” in classes: A fighter can be a soldier, or a bandit, or a gladiator, and different builds may make sense... but when you tell your friends “Oh, I played as Logan the fighter” there is no strong picture in their head. By contrast a Paladin is well... a Paladin. People have a strong picture, but the class gives less latitude to make it your own.
The need for Versatility in class concept is discussed here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?55947-On-the-Philosophy-of-Class-Design
A brief mention of the dangers of “Fighters look boring” is mentioned here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?570490-DnD-5E-Homebrew-Class-The-Exemplar-Would-like-to-hear-your-constructive-feedback
Proposed solution:
All players pick three classes. Classes do not have “sub-specialties”
Each class is super narrow, super specific, and fits on one page.
All abilities available to a class are written on the one page, and no separation is made between feats, class abilities, spells etc.
There is no Strength, Con, Int etc to roll or point buy.
There are no longer the choice between favored weapon and animal companion. You either pick some sort of "Swordbound" class or you pick the "Companion-Gorilla" ("Companion- Armidillo" is an entirely separate class)
The idea is to put all of a players major choices on "One level".
If you want to be a Necromancer, you don’t pick “Witch- Death Mystery”, you pick “Necromancer” as one of your three classes.
You want to combine it with Conjuration and Elementalist to be an epic mage? Go ahead!
Combine it with Con-artist and Swashbuckler instead? Sure- fine, go ahead. You'll be some kind of evil dread pirate.
Okay, so that's the theory- I'd be interested in anyone's discussion on the general triclass concept...
But also this is a design forum, and I've been working on such a Triclass system, and I would really appreciate some feedback on it if anyone is interested.
You can find a link to it Here:
https://v1.overleaf.com/read/qyhqqwvmyymx
For readability, you are probably best off hitting the "PDF" button and downloading (the bookmarks are helpful for navigation, and adjusting zoom is easier offline.)
For those of you who want a condensed description of the game before following the link:
Nine Gardens
Genre: Space opera/RPG
Rules weight: Medium (lighter than D&D, heavier than say... Legacy: life in the ruins. Probably similar to World of Darkness).
Primary mechanical features: Take three classes, smush them together, play. The goal is to give players a chance to really buy into their character from the get go, while also keep the rules as simple as possible.
Humans got really good at Genetic engineering, and managed to cause a speciation event.
After that we terraformed a couple planets, built a few space stations, and used advances in AI to create the Gods.
This did not go well.
Humanity is now scattered amongst the stars. There are Robots, and weird human variant species, and benevolent insane super AIs, and partially completed Terraforming.
So, as far as the game goes, feedback that is wanted:
Does this concept look fun?
Does the setting work for you?
Anyone want to take a shot building themselves a character (I'm curious to see how well it works with people unfamiliar to the system, who are building just based on the rule book, and without my input).
Am I in the right forum? (Most of the threads here are on class adaptions and smaller scale stuff, and very D&D focused.)
If not, does anyone have somewhere else they'd recommend?
If anyone wants to suggest other names for the game, be my guest. If the current name works for people, that'd be good to know also.
(the username and game name matching is an accident, involving bad chronology, I apologize)
Any other feedback also welcome, those are just the broad brush things I am trying to get right starting off.
Cheers,
Me.
Players want unique personalized characters, but the additional rules required to allow this flexibility bogs people down, and can be daunting and confusing for new players.
In first edition D&D you rolled some stats, and picked a class (in that order) and you were good to go. There was like... 4 classes. This lead to a problem with characters not feeling particularly unique, especially once you allow players the freedom to point buy attributes.
Now we have a dozen or so classes, and once you pick your class, you pick a subspecialty, and a familiar, and then arrange your attributes, and pick your first level spells.
This is what I will refer to as “nested” choices.
Nested choices allow players the versatility they need to build a more unique character... but complicate character building.
In theory, Nested choices make decision making easier- you decide to be a wizard, and THEN you decide to specialize in conjuring, and THEN you look at familiars. By nesting decisions, each individual decision can be simpler. But, Nested decisions tend to add complexity in two different ways: Firstly, you end up making different KINDS of choices in each round. The knowledge you used to make your Class decision doesn’t help you make your fighting style decision, because this is fundamentally a DIFFERENT choice. Secondly, the nesting of decisions acts to obscure earlier decisions – my choice to play as an Alchemist is not based on “Are alchemists cool” but on “Oh, and if I take the poisoner specialty later on...” - I have to look further ahead in the decision tree in order to make my first decisions in a sensible manner.
There’s also the tension between “Specificity” and “Versatility” in classes: A fighter can be a soldier, or a bandit, or a gladiator, and different builds may make sense... but when you tell your friends “Oh, I played as Logan the fighter” there is no strong picture in their head. By contrast a Paladin is well... a Paladin. People have a strong picture, but the class gives less latitude to make it your own.
The need for Versatility in class concept is discussed here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?55947-On-the-Philosophy-of-Class-Design
A brief mention of the dangers of “Fighters look boring” is mentioned here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?570490-DnD-5E-Homebrew-Class-The-Exemplar-Would-like-to-hear-your-constructive-feedback
Proposed solution:
All players pick three classes. Classes do not have “sub-specialties”
Each class is super narrow, super specific, and fits on one page.
All abilities available to a class are written on the one page, and no separation is made between feats, class abilities, spells etc.
There is no Strength, Con, Int etc to roll or point buy.
There are no longer the choice between favored weapon and animal companion. You either pick some sort of "Swordbound" class or you pick the "Companion-Gorilla" ("Companion- Armidillo" is an entirely separate class)
The idea is to put all of a players major choices on "One level".
If you want to be a Necromancer, you don’t pick “Witch- Death Mystery”, you pick “Necromancer” as one of your three classes.
You want to combine it with Conjuration and Elementalist to be an epic mage? Go ahead!
Combine it with Con-artist and Swashbuckler instead? Sure- fine, go ahead. You'll be some kind of evil dread pirate.
Okay, so that's the theory- I'd be interested in anyone's discussion on the general triclass concept...
But also this is a design forum, and I've been working on such a Triclass system, and I would really appreciate some feedback on it if anyone is interested.
You can find a link to it Here:
https://v1.overleaf.com/read/qyhqqwvmyymx
For readability, you are probably best off hitting the "PDF" button and downloading (the bookmarks are helpful for navigation, and adjusting zoom is easier offline.)
For those of you who want a condensed description of the game before following the link:
Nine Gardens
Genre: Space opera/RPG
Rules weight: Medium (lighter than D&D, heavier than say... Legacy: life in the ruins. Probably similar to World of Darkness).
Primary mechanical features: Take three classes, smush them together, play. The goal is to give players a chance to really buy into their character from the get go, while also keep the rules as simple as possible.
Humans got really good at Genetic engineering, and managed to cause a speciation event.
After that we terraformed a couple planets, built a few space stations, and used advances in AI to create the Gods.
This did not go well.
Humanity is now scattered amongst the stars. There are Robots, and weird human variant species, and benevolent insane super AIs, and partially completed Terraforming.
So, as far as the game goes, feedback that is wanted:
Does this concept look fun?
Does the setting work for you?
Anyone want to take a shot building themselves a character (I'm curious to see how well it works with people unfamiliar to the system, who are building just based on the rule book, and without my input).
Am I in the right forum? (Most of the threads here are on class adaptions and smaller scale stuff, and very D&D focused.)
If not, does anyone have somewhere else they'd recommend?
If anyone wants to suggest other names for the game, be my guest. If the current name works for people, that'd be good to know also.
(the username and game name matching is an accident, involving bad chronology, I apologize)
Any other feedback also welcome, those are just the broad brush things I am trying to get right starting off.
Cheers,
Me.