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View Full Version : One measure of good game design (rantish)



Devils_Advocate
2008-02-20, 02:22 PM
I typed up the following in response to a thread asking what people like and dislike about AD&D and 3E. But I'm not quite sure how well it would fit there, and I think that it might be worth a thread of its own. So...


I'm not too familiar with AD&D, but I get the impression that a lot of 2E players have/had an attitude towards crunch similar to that which I often see 3E players expressing towards fluff: "Well, the DM can just make something up." And I am of the opinion that that sucks, in both cases.

The DM should be free to change material. The game should be approached with the understanding that just because something is included in an official book, that doesn't mean that the gaming group is obligated to use it exactly as it is presented, or at all. But the amount of material that the DM is required to invent should be minimized. It is a bad thing to force the DM to design part of the game, because designing the game is something that he paid someone else to do, dammit. In theory, he could build his own system and his own setting from scratch, but he obviously lacks the time or the inclination to do this, or he wouldn't have needed to buy any sourcebooks in the first place. Every time the DM has to fill in some hole in the game, he's being made to do the work of designing part of the game. And the fact that he only has to design some of the game instead of all of it isn't good, it's just not as bad as it could be.

The same thing goes for stuff that is poorly designed. The DM shouldn't have to change or remove anything to make the game work. It's possible for a DM to recognize that something is a problem, but to be unsure of how to change things to make the game balanced and realistic. And that's really not something that the DM should have to figure out. Ideally, the game would be realistic and balanced to start with. Changes should be allowed. It should ideally even be easy to make significant changes and not have everything collapse because of a bunch of non-obvious, difficult-to-understand dependencies. But changes should not be necessary.

This is an ideal. In practice, it will not be possible for a sourcebook to cover everything. Not only is it impossible to account for everything that might come up, but there are space limitations. But the game should require as few additions, removals, and changes as possible, and they should be required as infrequently as possible.

"It's good if you have a good GM" speaks badly of a game. That means that the game needs to be fixed, and if the GM can't fix it properly, that's his fault. No. Something is a good game only if it runs well with no changes and/or any problems with it are at least easy to fix. "It's good if you have a good GM" means that something isn't really a good game, but can be made into a good game by someone sufficiently talented. That's true of so close to anything as to be nearly meaningless.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-20, 02:26 PM
It depends on what you mean by "required to invent".

I absolutely agree that a GM shouldn't be required to houserule away bad rules, on the other hand I don't think that there is anything wrong with a game system simply not including something, on the grounds that GMs can provide it themselves.

To take an example: I would *far* rather have a game system with *no* rules for making money by working a mundane job than a game which *does* have rules for making money by working a mundane job which are nonsensical or badly thought out.

I'd far rather have a game with no setting, than a game with a setting I didn't like.

Devils_Advocate
2008-02-20, 02:39 PM
Hmmm.... I think that in some cases, bad rules for something can be better than no rules for it. A bad rule can provide a baseline to work from. Some bad rules can be tweaked into good rules.

But if a rule's entire premise is flawed, such that it can't be tweaked into a good rule, and has to be just tossed out and replaced entirely, then it really is worse than having no rule. In that case, the possibility that a group will use the rule as written and possibility that the GM will use a modified version of it are both bad things.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 03:06 PM
Well, here's the thing. RPGs can be simple. They only become complex when you make them that way. AD&D is a simple game with a lot of Optional Rules to make it more complex. For the most part you're confusing 'task resolution is open' with 'you can just make something up', but more importantly the original designers of D&D viewed 'making up rules' as part of the fun of the game and had quite a culture shock coming to terms with the idea that not everybody thought so and some people want concrete rules for as many tasks as possible.

That said, AD&D presents many types of task resolution and lets the DM decide which he wants to use or whether he wants to use one of his own devising. The basic version of AD&D [i.e. First Quest] presented only one method of task resolution and as a result was a lot clearer about how the game worked.

A complete system is 'one measure of good game design' and if you want that from your RPG it may be the only measure. For me it's not a measure of good game design, and I think extensively described and prescribed rules hinder the style of play that I like.

When it comes down to it, all task resolution in RPGs come down to probability. A very difficult task you might assign a 25% chance of success, a very easy task 95% or whatever. You might choose to modify this by taking into account the character and situation, but that's all there is to it. Tables of prescribed modifiers, suggestions, guidelines, skill ranks, racial bonuses, class bonuses, etc... are all ways of formalising this basic mechanic. The formalisation of a mechanic has the advantage of being always mechanically consistant, but it has the disadvantage of being labour intensive and the potential to fail to model what was in the first place desired (a probability that seems reasonable relative to the task).

valadil
2008-02-20, 03:20 PM
Too many rules is just silly though. If D&D's climb skill summary included DCs for climbing stairs, climbing carpeted stairs, climbing a ship's narrow stairs, climbing icy stairs, climbing human stairs as a halfling, climbing halfling stairs as a human, ad absurdum, you'd never get around to playing the game. Instead there should be enough rules that you can make approximations. Climb stairs: DC0; Climb Ladder: DC5; Climb Tree: DC10; Climb Rope: DC15; etc. The GM has to be able to interpret those situations that fall in between the rules. There should be enough rules that the GM has a good basis to make his judgement, without getting bogged down by reading through the Complete Climber and Complete Spelunker.

Swordguy
2008-02-20, 03:32 PM
Too many rules is just silly though. If D&D's climb skill summary included DCs for climbing stairs, climbing carpeted stairs, climbing a ship's narrow stairs, climbing icy stairs, climbing human stairs as a halfling, climbing halfling stairs as a human, ad absurdum, you'd never get around to playing the game. Instead there should be enough rules that you can make approximations. Climb stairs: DC0; Climb Ladder: DC5; Climb Tree: DC10; Climb Rope: DC15; etc. The GM has to be able to interpret those situations that fall in between the rules. There should be enough rules that the GM has a good basis to make his judgement, without getting bogged down by reading through the Complete Climber and Complete Spelunker.

Or Crossing the street being a Moving Maneuver in Rolemaster that can lead to the death of the character?

Yeah.

Prometheus
2008-02-20, 10:01 PM
Granted the source material should be balanced. The DMs should use it as a baseline when they invent new things and contributions to the game, to ensure that it will have the intended effect and to ensure that certain assumptions the players make about the way they play the game will be maintained. Certainly nothing should require the DM to invent new material, and I think WOTC has worked so hard on making their material consistent with itself (in terms of setting) just to allow DMs not to have to invent their own.

That being said, I think the thing that will always set D&D apart for RPGs is the creative element. Players should be able to attempt things that their aren't mechanics for. The DM's imagination should enrich the game and throw new and exciting things at the players. This is the only way D&D is worth doing all the hand calculations and rules-remembering that is all computerized in other games.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-21, 06:04 AM
This is an issue of design philosophy.

However, a very real problem is that it is de facto impossible to make rules that cover every conceivable situation (other than by forbidding every action that is not explicitly covered by the rules, which works well in e.g. strategy games but kind of defies the point of roleplaying).

Obviously, by creating more rules, you cover more situations, but also increase game complexity. However, there is a curve of diminishing returns: there is a large number of increasingly uncommon situations that one could create a seldom-used rule for, and the complexity of the game increases by the combination of those rules. The former is linear, the latter exponential.

This is really not a matter of absolutes, although many people will vigorously argue that it is, and that their preference is the absolute best.

Instead, we have a sliding scale, kind of like this:
(0) no rules (cowboys-and-indians)
(1) rules-light (Amber DRP, Off the Edge, FUDGE, Paranoia)
(2) moderate rules (White Wolf, TORG, Call of Ctulhu)
(3) rules-heavy (D&D, GURPS)
(4) extreme rules (Hackmaster, SWORD)
(5) the theoretical game that has a rule for everything.

It goes without saying that the lower-numbered ones are easier to learn. It is argued that the higher-numbered ones do not require as skilled a DM, but not everybody agrees with that point. Bottom line is that everybody has their preference, and repetitive conflict on message boards occurs between the adherents of (2) and the adherents of (3), because these are the biggest groups.

kamikasei
2008-02-21, 06:27 AM
That being said, I think the thing that will always set D&D apart for RPGs is the creative element. Players should be able to attempt things that their aren't mechanics for. The DM's imagination should enrich the game and throw new and exciting things at the players. This is the only way D&D is worth doing all the hand calculations and rules-remembering that is all computerized in other games.

You're drawing a false dichotomy between D&D, which is pen-and-paper, flexible, and creative, and all other RPGs, which are computerized, set in stone, and flat. There are other tabletop games besides D&D, and they solve the problem of letting DMs' and players' imaginations soar in different ways. D&D should not blindly be taken as how things have to be if you don't want to be bound by a program.

KIDS
2008-02-21, 08:06 AM
Well put Devils Advocate, I agree with you. And it's completely ok and polite, not rantish at all :)

Raum
2008-02-21, 09:02 AM
I'm not too familiar with AD&D, but I get the impression that a lot of 2E players have/had an attitude towards crunch similar to that which I often see 3E players expressing towards fluff: "Well, the DM can just make something up." And I am of the opinion that that sucks, in both cases.I suspect we view gaming very differently. I've seldom used printed adventures, and when I have, they've been heavily modified - sometimes completely changing both encounters and goals. As such, I seldom want detailed 'fluff' I'd rather have a framework I can easily build on. Similarly with mechanics, create a simple, unified mechanic that will disappear into the background of the game and let the players figure out when it should be used. A common mechanic is simply rolling a die and adding an attribute (skill, inherent ability, or both) to see if you meet some target number. Add in some modifiers for easy, moderate, difficult, and very difficult tasks and you have all the mechanics needed to play a game. The game's genre & style usually make deciding what tasks should be easy vs difficult simple. Basically I don't want tables to look things up for every possible situation, my ideal would be something so simple you never need to open the book while playing.

Neither gaming style is 'wrong' they're simply different. That's why we get so many heated discussions on the forums though... :)


That being said, I think the thing that will always set D&D apart for RPGs is the creative element. Players should be able to attempt things that their aren't mechanics for. The DM's imagination should enrich the game and throw new and exciting things at the players. This is the only way D&D is worth doing all the hand calculations and rules-remembering that is all computerized in other games.If you really want to emphasize creativity there are better systems. D&D is one of the more crunchy rule sets out there. It tends to frontload the creativity...you have lots of resources to tailor a character (or adventure) at creation but very few during play.

horseboy
2008-02-21, 01:36 PM
Or Crossing the street being a Moving Maneuver in Rolemaster that can lead to the death of the character?

Yeah.
Hey! If the Department of Transportation would come by once in a while and pick up those imaginary dead turtles...Oh wait, that's a 2 handed fumble.

Rules that are present should make sense. They should cover the most common occurrences in the game quickly and easily. Big bonus points if they give an example or two of how to handle the more "unusual" occurrences, for new DM's to understand how to tinker with things.

Fluff and Crunch are interlinked. I know it's fashionable to dismiss fluff as inconsequential, but quite often it's the meat that puts the mechanics into a workable context that stops the exploitation. Oh, Meat & Mechanics. I like the alliteration. But if you change one, you have to be mindful of the effects it will have on the other.

There should be plenty of wiggle room for player's to be able to express their imagination. If the idea isn't just mind numbingly retarded or built simply to break verisimilitude there should be a way to express it.