Skip Williams and trap options as part of design

[Schwann145]

Anyone recall (or even better, have a link to) the article/interview/whatever it was where Skip basically admitted that 3.X had bad player options put in the game on purpose, as a part of the design philosophy?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It was Monte Cook. Here (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=13812.0) is a thread with a quote, and here is the quote:


When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the "lessons" we could learn from Magic: The Gathering, like making the rulebooks -- or the rules themselves -- collectible. ("Darn, I got another Cleave, I'm still looking for the ultra-rare Great Cleave.")

But, in fact, we did take some cues from Magic. For example, Magic uses templating to great effect, and now D&D does too. (To be clear, in this instance, I don't mean templates like "half-dragon," so much as I mean the templating categories such as "fire spells" and "cold-using creatures," then setting up rules for how they interact, so that ever contradictory rules for those things don't arise again, as they did in previous editions.)

Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While D&D doesn't exactly do that, it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.

Toughness, for example, has its uses, but in most cases it's not the best choice of feat. If you can use martial weapons, a longsword is better than many other one-handed weapons. And so on -- there are many other, far more intricate examples. (Arguably, this kind of thing has always existed in D&D. Mostly, we just made sure that we didn't design it away -- we wanted to reward mastery of the game.)

There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.

Perhaps as is obvious from the name I've coined for this rules writing style, I no longer think this is entirely a good idea. I was just reading a passage from a recent book, and I found it rather obtuse. But it wasn't the writer's fault. He was just following the lead the core books offered him. Nevertheless, the whole thing would have been much better if the writer had just broken through the barrier this kind of design sets up between designer and player and just told the reader what the heck he was talking about.

To continue to use the simplistic example above, the Toughness feat could have been written to make it clear that it was for 1st-level elf wizards (where it is likely to give them a 100 percent increase in hit points). It's also handy when you know you're playing a one-shot session with 1st-level characters, like at a convention (you sure don't want to take item creation feats in such an instance, for example).
Ivory Tower Game Design requires a two-step process on the part of the reader. You read the rule, and then you think about how it fits in with the rest of the game. There's a moment of understanding, and then a moment of comprehension. That's not a terrible thing, but neither is just providing the reader with both steps, at least some of the time.

While there's something to be said for just giving gamers the rules to do with as they please, there's just as much to be said for simply giving it to the reader straight in a more honest, conversational approach. Perhaps that's what the upcoming D&D for Dummies book will be. I hope so.I think at this point most people realize Monte Cook was covering his ass and didn't realize what options were powerful and which weren't. And frankly, that's more forgivable than creating trap options on purpose, even with the dishonesty added in.

[Xervous]

Wasn’t it Monte Cook and Ivory Tower?

Edit: aha swordsaged.

[Telonius]

Yeah, that's the official quote from Monte Cook. I would read it with a bit of a grain of salt, though. The article came out a few years after the online community had torn the game to shreds with theoretical and practical optimization, and shown that some options actually were traps. The article always came across to me as covering the designers' backsides after the fact. "Oh, yeah, we totally intended to do that," sort of thing. When it was written, Monte Cook had already left Wizards and was doing his solo thing with Malhavoc Press, so he would have an incentive to do that.

Place that against the fact that, as late as 2006, WotC was saying (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) (with an apparently-straight face) that, "The monk is the only other core class, aside from the barbarian, that has no dead levels. Players always have something to look forward to with the monk, which boasts the most colorful and unique special abilities of all the character classes."

[rrwoods]

The ... but ... the games ... have entirely ... different goals ...

... yeah this argument holds absolutely no water at all. None. You can't justify this in a social game, you just can't :/

EDIT: It's also laughable to think that 3.5 has any templating at all. Like, they made some stuff referenceable. That's cool. But "templating" is about consistently wording effects. If they were actually "templating" anything in 3.5, they'd have drawn a clear distinction between fluff and crunch text, for a start.

EDIT: I mean, technically it's true that the monk's abilities are colorful and unique! :P

[Elves]

I get the sense that Jonathan Tweet was the most competent of the three given that he made Ars Magica and argued for including the sorcerer.

I could be utterly wrong. But just to look at their CVs, Cook's work is inconsistent and Skip Williams hasn't done much since (guessing his role was mainly about his link to Gygax and the history of the game) whereas Tweet has done several well-received games on his own.

[Kurald Galain]

Anyone recall (or even better, have a link to) the article/interview/whatever it was where Skip basically admitted that 3.X had bad player options put in the game on purpose, as a part of the design philosophy?

It's an obvious cover-your-ass move.

Now MtG has bad cards by design, or more appropriately "cards that are for a player type that you're not"; Maro has a lengthy article on the topic. Those arguments clearly don't apply to D&D, and particularly not as a half-hearted apology years after the books were published.

[Fizban]

I get the sense that Jonathan Tweet was the most competent of the three given that he made Ars Magica and argued for including the sorcerer.
Speaking of, I don't suppose you have links for that? I thought the stuff about the other two hating the sorc was mostly lost, but if you've got those or one directly linking Tweet to its inclusion, I'd like to read 'em.


Now MtG has bad cards by design, or more appropriately "cards that are for a player type that you're not"; Maro has a lengthy article on the topic. Those arguments clearly don't apply to D&D, and particularly not as a half-hearted apology years after the books were published.
It's fair to say MtG does in fact have deliberately bad cards, not even that they're meant for other player types- because they're meant for a different format. In current-set only Limited, Sealed, and Booster Drafts (and heck, even Standard), where your options do not include everything ever printed, cards that are deliberately worse than previous classics are still useful, because the format does not include those more powerful versions. It's only in the larger formats or casual play where these bad cards are actually bad enough they have no possible use (and even then they can still retain niche uses anyway).

And just the same, in DnD, if you're actually playing the original core-only, there's tons of stuff you'd use that you might not otherwise. The power level the rest of the group is playing at itself defines the limits of the "format" you should be choosing your "cards" from and designing your build.

[Lans]

In the countdown to third in dragon magazine they mention something along those lines. It has been like 2 decades so I'm sketchy on details

[VladtheLad]

Is there anywhere where monte talks about 3.0-3.5, apart from the easily found critique on the just released 3.5. I am interested to see on his take on how 3rd edition works.

I remember him bein criticized for making wizards too good/loving wizards too much, but reading both arcana evolved and books of experimental might he makes real attempts to bring casters down a peg.
At the same time its obvious he has a pretty limited view on what fighter types should be able to do and his love for casters is real, the magister was easily the strongest class in arana evolved after all.

[Nousos]

If you read through Ptolus, Cook's personal setting (and the setting he used as in house wotc DM during the 3e-3.5 run) he gives his insight into the system. For example, he says that if the players have access to any hub or place of safety, like a city, the average adventuring day will only be as long as the party wants. Which of course leads him to state that in such circumstances, classes with limited use but stronger abilities (IE wizards) will outshine the fighters (duh) who have the "ability to go all day" but are weaker as a result. Cook says doing things like giving the fighter a sword that can cast wall of stone a few times per day can help, so that he can do good things in a fight while the other classes blow their load.

There are notes of his all over Ptolus laying out ways to deal with the system and making it clear he knew exactly what such a power imbalance would lead to, and ways to make it enjoyable for everyone. Who knows how much of this Cook knew when they were actually designing the core books of 3e/3.5, or how much of it was influenced by him.

Edit- Its also funny looking at the characters some designers played in one of his campaigns. Like SKR being a fighter/rogue/cleric bc of course he would.

[Biggus]

Place that against the fact that, as late as 2006, WotC was saying (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) (with an apparently-straight face) that, "The monk is the only other core class, aside from the barbarian, that has no dead levels. Players always have something to look forward to with the monk, which boasts the most colorful and unique special abilities of all the character classes."

I thought when I first read that "I notice they didn't say "powerful" or "useful""...