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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Giving it some thought, I think you're correct that one good mechanic won't make a whole game system good, but I think that one bad mechanic can make a game bad, especially if it's a very important mechanic.

    For example, I don't like the basic dice mechanics for FFG Star Wars. I think the dice symbols are non-intuitive, it takes too long to build the pool and adjust it and then sort out the roll after youve rolled it, and then I dislike how almost every roll ends up a mixture of success and failure, and more often and to more extreme levels the more experienced your characters are.

    That's the game's basic resolution mechanic. If you're annoyed by it, like I am, then you're going to be annoyed everytime you try to do anything in the game. That one mechanic ruins the whole game for me.
    You might be right. Depending on how fundamental the mechanic is, no amount of polish could redeem the system as a whole. At the very best you could salvage some other mechanic, and homebrew it into other games. I really don't like that you need to spend points to benefit from aspects in FATE, and that ruins the whole system for me.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    If I may, I'd change that to "one bad core mechanic can make a game bad for a person...". Then I'd be in agreement.

    For example, I think that 5e's variant encumbrance is wack. Horrible. Not so much the idea, but that they got all the weights wrong so clerics built according to the quick-start guidelines are encumbered simply by wearing the gear they're provided. Not even the adventuring pack, just the armor and weapon. I'll never use variant encumbrance. That said, it's decidedly not a core mechanic, so meh. Doesn't affect my estimation of the system as a whole.

    If they'd have set the core d20 + mod vs DC thing to be say "roll 1d20, do some calculus to figure out which table to roll on, then roll on that table (and each table uses a different pattern), which tells you which other table to use (once you factor in the phase of the moon)...", I'd say the whole system is bad (for me).

    And that second italics is important. There are only a very few things that can make a system objectively bad. If the system itself just doesn't work at all (such as if you're missing critical parts of generating a character or the rules for doing so are internally contradictory so its impossible to make a legal character). A few things like that. But that's a really easy bar to clear. Beyond that, it's mostly a matter of taste and what works for you, personally, based on the things you're trying to do with it.
    Not to be too pedantic, but if a core mechanic could make a game bad for someone, then it's technically also true that a mechanic could make a game bad. :P

    Jokes aside, I honestly think it's more useful to say that there's nothing wrong with disliking good things than it is to say that nothing is objectively good or bad. Like, if a resolution mechanic takes forever to resolve, that's a bad trait. In Jason's FFG Star Wars example above, it's not like taking a long time to build the pool is good for some people and bad for others. It seems more accurate to say it's a flaw in the system, because nothing is perfect, and Jason cares about that flaw, while fans of the game don't.

    Obviously some things are taste, like genre and rules-lite vs rules-heavy. But in my experience, it's more that fans of a game don't care that much about its flaws, while critics don't care about its strengths (or really do care about its flaws)

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    If they'd have set the core d20 + mod vs DC thing to be say "roll 1d20, do some calculus to figure out which table to roll on, then roll on that table (and each table uses a different pattern), which tells you which other table to use (once you factor in the phase of the moon)...", I'd say the whole system is bad (for me).

    And that second italics is important. There are only a very few things that can make a system objectively bad. If the system itself just doesn't work at all (such as if you're missing critical parts of generating a character or the rules for doing so are internally contradictory so its impossible to make a legal character). A few things like that. But that's a really easy bar to clear. Beyond that, it's mostly a matter of taste and what works for you, personally, based on the things you're trying to do with it.
    I think, like with programming, if the complexity of the process exceeds the required complexity to generate the solution, then you have objectively bad code. Or, at least, objectively suboptimal code - which, for both programs and games, I suspect is synonymous with bad.

  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I think, like with programming, if the complexity of the process exceeds the required complexity to generate the solution, then you have objectively bad code. Or, at least, objectively suboptimal code - which, for both programs and games, I suspect is synonymous with bad.
    If everything suboptimal is bad, then everything's bad. Because everything is suboptimal.

    Especially since "required" is a subjective parameter here. Some people enjoy super-crunchy, super-detailed mechanics. Hit charts, tables for different armor vs weapon types, etc. Whereas I think that even 3e's BAB-per-class + several different AC's was surplus to requirements. Of course there's a U-shaped curve here, where at one end just about everyone agrees that you could really do with a bit more complexity ("Roll 1d20, if it's over 10 you win the game") and at the other just about everyone agrees that maybe you don't quite need all that crunch. But those points are really really far out and in the middle there's a wide variation in what "fits requirements".
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Some people like complexity.

    It's really hard to say that anything is good or bad in a vacuum. It's all about what the individuals are looking for.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    Some people like complexity.
    I'm doubtful of that, though it might depends on what you call "complexity".

    A lot of peoples like the depth that complexity allows.
    But I don't know anybody who would prefer a D&D in which every ability score is a multiple of 0.73 instead of an integer [and the modifier associated is ((N*1.37)-10)/2, rounded down, so same game balance] just for the sake of complexity.

    Complexity is the cost of interesting features of a game, but it's still a cost and you don't want to overpay.
    Last edited by MoiMagnus; 2021-04-01 at 11:47 AM.

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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    If everything suboptimal is bad, then everything's bad. Because everything is suboptimal.

    Especially since "required" is a subjective parameter here. Some people enjoy super-crunchy, super-detailed mechanics. Hit charts, tables for different armor vs weapon types, etc. Whereas I think that even 3e's BAB-per-class + several different AC's was surplus to requirements. Of course there's a U-shaped curve here, where at one end just about everyone agrees that you could really do with a bit more complexity ("Roll 1d20, if it's over 10 you win the game") and at the other just about everyone agrees that maybe you don't quite need all that crunch. But those points are really really far out and in the middle there's a wide variation in what "fits requirements".
    Your response did not match my claim. Let me try again.

    An operation - say, calculating n! - has a known complexity. This is not subjective.

    It is a known fact that various sorting algorithms operate at different speeds. And if you are using bubble sort, it is very very much slower than the other common sorting algorithms. This, also, is not subjective.

    I don't care if you enjoy super crunchy code - if you're only adding 2 small numbers together, and you've written a thousand lines of recursive bubble sort that takes days to run, it's bad code (even if it does somehow eventually come to the correct answer (and I don't think I want to know how you're using bubble sort to add two numbers)).

    Now, that said, there is a subjective component; namely, *how* suboptimal something has to be before it is considered "bad".

    And, here, there are many competing factors: speed, readability, simplicity, code reuse, maintainability, etc. Optimizing one is often done at the expense of others.

    Contrary to the opinions of my more efficiency-minded (and, typically, bug-breeding) co-workers, most applications don't require the bleeding edge best - any standard form other than bubble sort is sufficient for most purposes. In fact, if you're simply sorting "the party" by initiative order / matching order / whatever, even bubble sort will work just fine.

    So, yes, just as I talk about how balance is a range, not a point, and different groups will have ranges of different sizes, so, too, will different people have different ranges of *how* suboptimal things can be before they consider them bad, and that range will likely vary by the scenario. Which… is at least *related* to your "U-shaped curve", I guess, in that people will have different preferences. One can like chocolate cake or strawberry cake, sure. But if the chocolate cake carries warnings like major pharmaceutical products (may cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, seizures, or death), I'd say that's a bad cake, regardless of who likes it.

    I like crunch. But I don't want *needless* crunch, I don't value "crunch for Crunch's sake". If you're using NASA supercomputers to track characters' every action, and probabilistically determine their inventory based on data the NSA has collected via spy satellites on what everyone was carrying at every point in time? Unless this is being done as a really expensive April fool's joke, I think you'll get better results by just tracking inventory than by asking the super computer whether or not you have a gun / change for a twenty / keys to the White House at the current moment.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2021-04-01 at 12:20 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    I'm doubtful of that, though it might depends on what you call "complexity".

    A lot of peoples like the depth that complexity allows.
    But I don't know anybody who would prefer a D&D in which every ability score is a multiple of 0.73 instead of an integer [and the modifier associated is ((N*1.37)-10)/2, rounded down, so same game balance] just for the sake of complexity.

    Complexity is the cost of interesting features of a game, but it's still a cost and you don't want to overpay.
    So, look at 3.x. Sure you can make a completely non-combat character by searching through 20 splats and adding stuff together.

    Or I can do the same thing in Fate or GURPS with a lot less effort.

    Some people like showing the mastery that they can do that in 3.x They like mastering the complex system and showing what they can do. It's a thing in tabletop games, in video games, all over the place. Like a lot of systems offer "you can do anything" but, really, boil down to a half dozen builds. People like the complexity of figuring these builds out, rather than just being handed that half dozen choices, even though in terms of real depth it's basically the same.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    I think here the difference between "complexity" and "depth" might be useful. At least, the way that game design distinguishes between the two. I'm oversimplifying greatly, but complexity is basically the amount of rules there are, and depth is something like the diversity of the options given to the player.

    So, as an example, compare Rock Paper Scissors to RPS 101 to Pokemon. Rock Paper Scissors has very low complexity, and very low depth. The rules are simple, and you don't really need to put much thought into your actions. RPS101 has much higher complexity, but basically the same level of depth. Maybe you could read into what signs are more difficult to throw and calculate the best move, but it's basically just Rock Paper Scissors. Pokemon adds a lot of complexity, which results in a much higher depth. The web of type effectiveness is intricate and asymmetrical. And the fact that each pokemon can only learn 4 moves instead of having access to all types, means there's a lot more decision making to be done in creating a team. (Obviously there's more mechanics to pokemon than just type effectiveness, but I think it illustrates the idea well).

    So, complexity will usually but not always lead to depth, and depth is what the general audience is really after.

    There's another way to get depth though, and that's through what they call 'elegance'. Elegance in programming and game design means something specific. It's basically when simple rules lead to complex systems. A good way to show complexity is the way that flat damage reduction, and multiple attacks interact. Imagine you have one fighter with 4 defense and another fighter with 0, while you have one attack that deals 10 damage, and another that deals two hits of 6 damage. Against the 0 defense fighter, your double attack will deal 12 total damage, making it better than your single attack. But, against the 4 defense fighter, your double attack will only deal 4 damage ((6 - 4) x 2), while your single attack will deal 6 damage.

    We end up with a system that basically has type effectiveness that arises as the natural result of simple rules. There's not a lot of complexity, but we do have a decent amount of depth.

    Wall of text aside, I think there are people who like complexity, independent from depth. Some people like memorizing type effectiveness, or reading through page after page of options to come up with something unique.

    TLDR: the general audience likes depth, and complexity is an easy, reliable way to get depth. There are other options though. There are also people who like complexity in and of itself.
    Last edited by Stonehead; 2021-04-01 at 02:14 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #69
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    I'm doubtful of that, though it might depends on what you call "complexity".

    A lot of peoples like the depth that complexity allows.
    But I don't know anybody who would prefer a D&D in which every ability score is a multiple of 0.73 instead of an integer [and the modifier associated is ((N*1.37)-10)/2, rounded down, so same game balance] just for the sake of complexity.

    Complexity is the cost of interesting features of a game, but it's still a cost and you don't want to overpay.
    We want a simple foundation that has no upper ceiling on the possible (optional) complexity that's available.

    For example, rolling a die to see if you succeed has a very low ceiling.

    Having a pool of d6s to represent your actions, and you can spend as many as you want on a single action and you can't do any action more than once, has a relatively high ceiling despite a fairly low floor.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-04-01 at 02:18 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stonehead View Post
    I think here the difference between "complexity" and "depth" might be useful. At least, the way that game design distinguishes between the two. I'm oversimplifying greatly, but complexity is basically the amount of rules there are, and depth is something like the diversity of the options given to the player.

    So, as an example, compare Rock Paper Scissors
    Here's how I relate the two.

    In game theory, there's a concept called a "dominated strategy". That's a choice you can make where, no matter what your opponent does, a single other choice is better. I stretch that slightly to "as good, or better".

    So, let's look at RPS. In RPS, there's a Nash Equilibrium (which is NOT the same as an optimal strategy, but for our purposes is close enough) of "play r, p, and s randomly and equally". That's because rock beats scissors but loses to paper, etc. etc. We know RPS.

    There is no dominant strategy in RPS. We could lock at rock vs scissors and say "a-ha! Rock is dominant becuase it does better than paper or scissors!" but that's not true because it needs to do better no matter what the opponent does. If the opponent picked paper instead, rock would lose. RPS has no dominant strategies.

    Let's add The Bomb. The bomb is just a fist with your thumb sticking out. The bomb blows up paper and rocks, gets its wick cut by scissors, and ties against itself.

    So... what does this do to RPS?

    Well, we can do a lot of math and diagrams and stuff, but the answer is pretty simple - it replaces paper. In every case where you might play paper, the bomb will do at least as well, and does better in some cases. So once we know that paper is dominated, we can basically just forget about it..... and once we do, we have RBS.

    Once you remove paper, RBS is exactly the same as RBPS. And RBS is exactly the same as RPS.

    So, here's the thing, RBPS has more complexity - there's more options to consider. But once you do the math and figure it out, the actual choices have the same count as RPS, so it doesn't have any more depth.

    Some people like navigating that and determining the optimal choices, and good for them! Some don't care, and would rather have the final available strategies be obvious so you can play the game on that level, and that's great too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stonehead View Post
    TLDR: the general audience likes depth, and complexity is an easy, reliable way to get depth. There are other options though. There are also people who like complexity in and of itself.
    The interesting thing is that complexity can actually reduce depth. It's fairly common, actually Let's say a game has ten classes, and then they change the game to some kind of point buy system.... if the resulting point buy system has less than ten actually viable builds, then you've reduced depth (the number of valid choices) while increasing complexity (the knowledge needed to figure out the valid choices). (By "valid" here I mean "a choice that is, in some way, better than another choice in some ways"). As combinatorial complexity increases, this becomes more and more likely.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2021-04-01 at 06:13 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    The interesting thing is that complexity can actually reduce depth. It's fairly common, actually Let's say a game has ten classes, and then they change the game to some kind of point buy system.... if the resulting point buy system has less than ten actually viable builds, then you've reduced depth (the number of valid choices) while increasing complexity (the knowledge needed to figure out the valid choices). (By "valid" here I mean "a choice that is, in some way, better than another choice in some ways"). As combinatorial complexity increases, this becomes more and more likely.
    Even outside this pathological case (where depth scales inversely with complexity), the general case is that depth scales slower than complexity. Doubling the complexity (by some measure) may only increase the depth by 10%. This is one of my big gripes with 3e D&D--tons of complexity and options theoretically, but most of it is utterly pointless. It's just noise to be dug through by people who want to actually play the game. Or, worse, fodder for "look at my system mastery" comparisons (ie letting the experienced players say "git gud nub" when a new person falls into one of the traps the system digs for people). Plus, increased complexity often leads to unintentional dominant choices. Where by combining X, Y, and Z, you get something that the designers never planned for and which breaks the game unless the DM accounts for it (which often leads to arms-races and party struggles as one person's character warps the game around them due to mechanical prowess). That kind of thing results in even less actual depth, because with dominant strategies like that, your options are
    1) play to those dominant strategies both as a player and as a DM (resulting in a much more limited palette of choices)
    2) everyone agrees to avoid those dominant strategies (which is fine, but often takes system mastery because you can accidentally break things)
    3) have a mix and suffer unless everyone's fine with playing BMX Biker and Angel Summoner.

    A lot of classic monsters have to be completely rewritten or just left out--giving everyone and their mother spells so they can keep up with the T1 casters is one example of this adaptation.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Even outside this pathological case (where depth scales inversely with complexity), the general case is that depth scales slower than complexity. Doubling the complexity (by some measure) may only increase the depth by 10%. This is one of my big gripes with 3e D&D--tons of complexity and options theoretically, but most of it is utterly pointless. It's just noise to be dug through by people who want to actually play the game. Or, worse, fodder for "look at my system mastery" comparisons (ie letting the experienced players say "git gud nub" when a new person falls into one of the traps the system digs for people). Plus, increased complexity often leads to unintentional dominant choices. Where by combining X, Y, and Z, you get something that the designers never planned for and which breaks the game unless the DM accounts for it (which often leads to arms-races and party struggles as one person's character warps the game around them due to mechanical prowess). That kind of thing results in even less actual depth, because with dominant strategies like that, your options are
    1) play to those dominant strategies both as a player and as a DM (resulting in a much more limited palette of choices)
    2) everyone agrees to avoid those dominant strategies (which is fine, but often takes system mastery because you can accidentally break things)
    3) have a mix and suffer unless everyone's fine with playing BMX Biker and Angel Summoner.

    A lot of classic monsters have to be completely rewritten or just left out--giving everyone and their mother spells so they can keep up with the T1 casters is one example of this adaptation.
    I would definitely argue that 3x falls into the "greater complexity leading to lesser depth" model, even if you ditch the truly TO stuff like Pun-pun.

    And I wasn't even getting into the fact that many of those dominant choices would be unintentional, but that's pretty clearly the case. It's rare that people intentionally design like that, but the combinatorial complexity pretty much guarantees it. It really happens in almost every sufficiently complex system. I think that's why you see Blizzard getting out of expansive build trees and into more direct choices - they can make the choices actually meaningful as well as being accessible to more players.

    I mean, that's a decent chunk of the argument, really, that by reducing the complexity you also reduce the testing surface and it's easier to ensure you're more-or-less where you want to be in terms of overall balance.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Another thing to keep in mind here is that rpgs are also role playing games. That doesn't take away from the optimization discussion which is all still valid, but there's more to a game's complexity (and also it's quality) than just build options. Building characters is basically a game upon itself, but actually playing the game has its own levels of complexity.

    Everything that's been said about builds also applies to gameplay, but it's a bit more obscured, because in role playing games, like in life, the objectives aren't very clear and they usually differ from person to person. A game's resolution mechanic could be as simple as "Roll a d20, add your level, >10 is a success, < 10 is a failure". That's obviously not very complex. It doesn't really have any depth at all, but honestly if it's just a "beer and pretzles" game, it would be more fun than a few rules-lite systems I've played. Even adding attributes to rolls in addition to/instead of your level would increase a game's complexity, but also it's depth. Like, think about how you approach problems in rpgs, you try to play to your character's strengths (or show off their weaknesses for comedic effect). I would consider the barbarian deciding to intimidate the guard instead of sweet-talking him because it suits him better a very lite form of depth.

    Also, think about lookup tables. Hardly any modern rpgs still use lookup tables (ie, roll 1d20, 3d6, 1d100, and look up the result on this table) in their main game play. They add a lot of complexity (having 100 possible results instead of 2, or 4 if you run with partial success/failure). But they don't really add much depth. Especially because the players rarely know what the content of the tables are before rolling.

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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    I would definitely argue that 3x falls into the "greater complexity leading to lesser depth" model, even if you ditch the truly TO stuff like Pun-pun.

    And I wasn't even getting into the fact that many of those dominant choices would be unintentional, but that's pretty clearly the case. It's rare that people intentionally design like that, but the combinatorial complexity pretty much guarantees it. It really happens in almost every sufficiently complex system. I think that's why you see Blizzard getting out of expansive build trees and into more direct choices - they can make the choices actually meaningful as well as being accessible to more players.

    I mean, that's a decent chunk of the argument, really, that by reducing the complexity you also reduce the testing surface and it's easier to ensure you're more-or-less where you want to be in terms of overall balance.
    I mean the problem with systems that lead to unintentional broken things and depth of interaction is that they really only work in card games like Mt:G and Hearthstone, because the entire point is to let dominant strategies emerge to determine a temporary meta- but then that meta eventually has to rotate out. it doesn't stay. this makes sure you have to constantly change decks and be in the habit of changing up your strategy to play. and allows that depth to be explored by making sure the choice is a time limit, once it rotates out it isn't competitive anymore.

    this doesn't work for roleplaying games, because roleplaying games operate on a slower timescale. a card game has more room for brokenness and unintentional interaction because if you screw up, whatever broken thing you make is not going to last and people will get tired of the interaction real quick. but when you design a roleplaying game edition, that edition's ruleset is going to be around for years. if you don't make sure what interactions and strategies you want to exist actually do and match up to the vision you want and you end up with something that isn't what you intended to make, you can't take that back as easily, because now whatever you designed, your stuck with unless you make books to fix that and thats when diminishing returns come into play as the more books you put out, the less likely as many people will buy them. meaning you have to get that first book right, or whatever fixes you make will be taken as "meddlesome" with the likelihood rising the later it comes.

    and of course if you have that slower timescale, that produces a stagnant environment where your stuck with a non-ideal meta, everyone soon knows the strats and everyone becomes complacent about it or starts modifying the game to fix it in their own way, which is fine from a player perspective, not so great from a designer perspective. now emergent gameplay can be good, but that isn't the be-all end-all of gaming and just because you can enjoy oranges from a system meant to enjoy apples, doesn't mean the system should be about oranges or that it is about oranges, because no matter how little that matters from a player perspective, thats a failure from a design perspective, because an apple enjoyment system should be able to enjoy apples instead of screwing up so much you get oranges enjoyment instead. There is something to be said for a system intending an experience and successfully delivering on that experience.
    Last edited by Lord Raziere; 2021-04-01 at 11:14 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    So, look at 3.x. Sure you can make a completely non-combat character by searching through 20 splats and adding stuff together.

    Or I can do the same thing in Fate or GURPS with a lot less effort.

    Some people like showing the mastery that they can do that in 3.x They like mastering the complex system and showing what they can do. It's a thing in tabletop games, in video games, all over the place. Like a lot of systems offer "you can do anything" but, really, boil down to a half dozen builds. People like the complexity of figuring these builds out, rather than just being handed that half dozen choices, even though in terms of real depth it's basically the same.
    I think that is more how granular 3.x could get, you could make just about any character concept and represent it mechanically. I don't know about Fate or Gurps but at least in 5e I have gotten frustrated trying to make some fairly basic concepts with what is given. But that might be more limitations of the class system, 3.x had enough classes to get the options but there were so many that it was difficult to navigate, where 5e has so few and the use of sub classes can make for grab bags of abilities that don't make much sense for the character or things that simply don't exist.
    My example was trying to make a Frost priest, homebrewing a domain because the existing ones don't really fit, and my conclusion was you would still end up with a lot of healing, light, and radiant damage without overhauling the cleric.
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    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    while increasing complexity (the knowledge needed to figure out the valid choices).
    That's probably where we differ. I mostly define complexity as "the number of rules" and "how difficult it is to apply those rules", not the amount of knowledge needed to figure out the valid choices.

    As such, with my definition, Go is one of the less complex games in existence, while being one of the game that reward system mastery and knowledge the most. (Chess is also an example of reasonably low complexity [there are 2-3 obscure rules, so not as great as an example as Go] but high skill/knowledge reward)

    [While I make a difference between the depth of the character-creation-system, which is how interesting and skill-rewarding is the mini-game of creating your own character and finding the better builds, and the depth of the gameplay itself, which is how interesting and varied is the game once you settled on a valid build]
    Last edited by MoiMagnus; 2021-04-02 at 03:06 AM.

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    Go and Chess are extremely high complexity games.

    Complexity is definitely not just how many rules are in the book. They're interactions and application of the rules. The play experience is definitely a part of that.

    A good example of very low complexity is Monopoly or Life, or better: snakes and ladders.

    There is a reason those latter are kids / family games, and go and chess are not.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Complexity is definitely not just how many rules are in the book.
    That was the point of my previous message. Noting that I was not using the same definition of complexity.

    Using programming metaphor (which doesn't apply well to social games like RPGs), I was calling "complexity" the difficulty to code a program that allows users to play the game, and "depth" the difficulty to code an AI that play the game cleverly. While other peoples (like you), would use "complexity" to refer to the second one too.

    [Which makes Go and Chess very low "complexity" games but with very high "depth"]
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    That was the point of my previous message. Noting that I was not using the same definition of complexity.

    Using programming metaphor (which doesn't apply well to social games like RPGs), I was calling "complexity" the difficulty to code a program that allows users to play the game, and "depth" the difficulty to code an AI that play the game cleverly. While other peoples (like you), would use "complexity" to refer to the second one too.

    [Which makes Go and Chess very low "complexity" games but with very high "depth"]
    In computer science, they usually define the complexity of games to be a function of the number of possible game states, and the connections between them. That doesn't really make sense for role playing games though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    A good example of very low complexity is Monopoly or Life, or better: snakes and ladders.
    Snakes and Ladders is an interesting example, because I would argue it's way more complex than it needs to be. The players have literally no input on the game. If we assume the dice rolls are fair, then there are zero choices to be made in a game of chutes and ladders. You could roll a single die to determine who wins, and have basically the same outcome as a full game. All those extra rules make the game more complex, although it's still a very simple game, but they don't add depth at all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I mean the problem with systems that lead to unintentional broken things and depth of interaction is that they really only work in card games like Mt:G and Hearthstone, because the entire point is to let dominant strategies emerge to determine a temporary meta- but then that meta eventually has to rotate out. it doesn't stay. this makes sure you have to constantly change decks and be in the habit of changing up your strategy to play. and allows that depth to be explored by making sure the choice is a time limit, once it rotates out it isn't competitive anymore.
    Sure, and a lot of roleplaying games sit in this weird space where "deck-building" (character building) is a primary focus, but occurs once over a long time scale. That's just kind of fundamentally hard to deal with.

    Quote Originally Posted by Witty Username View Post
    I think that is more how granular 3.x could get, you could make just about any character concept and represent it mechanically. I don't know about Fate or Gurps but at least in 5e
    GURPS is extremely granular and can generate damn near any character concept.

    Fate is far less granular, but still can generate... damn near any character concept.

    5e can't because 5e rolled back its flexibility to pre-3e levels, and chose to focus on "adventuring" as opposed to being a pseudo-generic system. And I think 3e was only a pseudo-generic system unintentionally. 5e has no illusions about being generic in any way. It does "D&D adventuring".

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    That's probably where we differ. I mostly define complexity as "the number of rules" and "how difficult it is to apply those rules", not the amount of knowledge needed to figure out the valid choices.

    As such, with my definition, Go is one of the less complex games in existence, while being one of the game that reward system mastery and knowledge the most. (Chess is also an example of reasonably low complexity [there are 2-3 obscure rules, so not as great as an example as Go] but high skill/knowledge reward)
    I'd really say that complexity is the number of choices available, while depth is the number of useful choices.

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    [While I make a difference between the depth of the character-creation-system, which is how interesting and skill-rewarding is the mini-game of creating your own character and finding the better builds, and the depth of the gameplay itself, which is how interesting and varied is the game once you settled on a valid build]
    This is a very good point, and different people will prefer that balance to be in different places.... I prefer depth of at-table gameplay over character creation, personally.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Go and Chess are extremely high complexity games.
    By my definitions, I'd say Go is a high depth game more than anything.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    A good example of very low complexity is Monopoly or Life, or better: snakes and ladders.

    There is a reason those latter are kids / family games, and go and chess are not.
    As far as rules complexity goes (which gets away from my more formal definition), Go isn't much more complex than them. Chess is more complex, but Go arguably has greater depth.

    The rules of Go aren't much more complex than Othello.
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    When discussing game design, I would separate the complexity of emergent gameplay from the complexity of the game's ruleset. For fans of those games, Chess and Go deliver complex gameplay experiences from really quite simple rules.

    At least in my estimation, the former (the complexity of emergent gameplay) is depth, or at least part of depth, and the latter (the complexity of the ruleset) is complexity, or at a major part of it.

    Chess and Go, by my reckoning, are deep games, but not particularly complex. This is why you can teach Chess and Go to children, probably starting around age 7-8, but those games can still enthrall and engage adults of all ages, where many "kids' games" targeted at the same age segment quickly become tiresome (at least in my experience).

    D&D (especially WotC-era D&D), World in Flames, and The Magic Realm, by contrast, are all complex games.

    Tying back to my earlier claim about return on investment, I would say that in general, an RPG with more depth is likely to produce a better return on investment for any given player. I would also say that in general, an RPG with a lower depth-to-complexity ratio is likely to produce a lower return on investment for any given player. (Even a player who enjoys complexity for its own sake would, I expect, prefer a higher depth-to-complexity ratio.)
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    I think that mostly tracks, but I do think there are people that just really like mastering complexity, and have less care about depth.

    They'd like the greater complexity, whether or not depth increases, and may not actually like more depth (past a point).

    IOW, they'd be less concerned about the ratio, and more about the measure of complexity in and of itself.

    Which, I mean, is fine. Not every game needs to or can appeal to every player.

    And I think that's my big thing about game design - "good games" isn't a single objective set of criteria. It's all about what the individual player wants, and whether or not a game does the things that a specific player wants.

    "Bad games" though I think can be more objective. Like, a game that has design elements that make other things it tries to do hard can be said to have "objectively bad" design because at some point it doesn't meet any set of criteria due to having conflicting mechanics... for example, a super-heroic type game with characters doing epic feats - but having a fairly high chance of just random death from a bad roll. It's not going to satisfy people wanting to be "heroic" because random death stuff is usually counter to that, and it's not going to satisfy "gritty" gamers because the overall tone will be too heroic and over the top. It might satisfy some super narrow niche of folks, but that would be an extremely narrow niche.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2021-04-02 at 01:51 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    And I think that's my big thing about game design - "good games" isn't a single objective set of criteria. It's all about what the individual player wants, and whether or not a game does the things that a specific player wants.

    "Bad games" though I think can be more objective. Like, a game that has design elements that make other things it tries to do hard can be said to have "objectively bad" design because at some point it doesn't meet any set of criteria due to having conflicting mechanics... for example, a super-heroic type game with characters doing epic feats - but having a fairly high chance of just random death from a bad roll. It's not going to satisfy people wanting to be "heroic" because random death stuff is usually counter to that, and it's not going to satisfy "gritty" gamers because the overall tone will be too heroic and over the top. It might satisfy some super narrow niche of folks, but that would be an extremely narrow niche.
    If that's the case, couldn't you just say that all the games that aren't sufficiently "bad" are "good"? There's no formula for identifying a good game, but I don't think that means the entire concept of objective quality is ruined.

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    Life scientific theories according to Popper, which can never be proved true but can be disproved (1), games might not be able to be said to be objectively good but can be said to be objectively bad. Good requires fit for an individual, which is subjective. But bad only requires lack of fit with internal objectives, which is (more) objective.

    (1) I'm not claiming this is really the case, just making an analogy to a mode of thought/concept where proof and disproof are not binary.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stonehead View Post
    If that's the case, couldn't you just say that all the games that aren't sufficiently "bad" are "good"? There's no formula for identifying a good game, but I don't think that means the entire concept of objective quality is ruined.
    Basically? You can separate two concepts:

    1) a good game is one which meets is objectives, or at least some set of objectives.
    2) a good game is one which meets the needs of a particular person or group

    The point is that there's no one set of objectives which is good. You can't say "you should design a game according to these principles" because you can't say that one game is flat out better than another. Some players will like swingy games, some will hate them, etc.

    You can say that some games are good at meeting some needs, and some are better at meeting other needs. You could even theoretically prove one "better" in a limited sense if you could prove that it was better at meeting every possible need than another game.

    We can definitely say "these games are good for you" in some fashion, by figuring out the things you actually are looking for in a game, and then figuring out which games deliver those things.

    But you can't say "games should be designed like so", except in the most generic of higher-order criteria like "don't have rules which fight against the objectives other rules aim for". And even that game might hit the sweet spot for a limited number of people.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Life scientific theories according to Popper, which can never be proved true but can be disproved (1), games might not be able to be said to be objectively good but can be said to be objectively bad. Good requires fit for an individual, which is subjective. But bad only requires lack of fit with internal objectives, which is (more) objective.

    (1) I'm not claiming this is really the case, just making an analogy to a mode of thought/concept where proof and disproof are not binary.
    Basically. Or you allow the concept of "a good game but not a good game for me." I can recognize that D&D 3 does a lot of things well - they're just things I don't want. I don't think it's a bad game, but I do think it doesn't fit my needs well at all.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2021-04-02 at 02:39 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Once upon a time, people tried for the umpteenth time to get me to play the FF series. I said while it's great to watch the cut scenes, the gameplay doesn't look engaging, doesn't seem challenging. They argued that it was.

    I said, OK, set me up with an interesting fight. They saved the game before the "hardest fight in the game".

    I explored the menus of options, picking each one and seeing what it did.

    And accidentally beat the fight while trying to understand the interface.

    -----

    There definitely should be words for "how much effort it takes to code a game" and "how much effort it takes to code an AI". But those are only a few of the values necessary to determine if a game is *good*, let alone whether a particular player will enjoy it.

    Some other related values include the level of system mastery necessary to create a competent / top tier / "successfully models your concept" / fun to play character, how successful you can be by "button spazzing" (in play, or in character creation), and what the costs of failure look like (for example, in 3e, people claim that you lost the moment you wrote "Fighter" on your character sheet, but that that isn't obvious until much later).

    However, an RPG is not a competitive CCG, and so "only the best can win" is even more toxic in an RPG (like 3e) than in a CCG (like MtG). I'll play silly decks in MtG, because I realize that winning isn't everything, and isn't nearly as important as having fun. 3e offers a *huge* range of potential and, even when I run somewhere close to the top of that range - like with Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named - I can still balance to the table by role-playing him as tactically inept.

    So, IME, 3e is made of win and options, not some optimal strategy preventing the possibility of playing others.

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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Once upon a time, people tried for the umpteenth time to get me to play the FF series. I said while it's great to watch the cut scenes, the gameplay doesn't look engaging, doesn't seem challenging. They argued that it was.
    Bit of a tangent, but I wholeheartedly agree. I realize now I enjoyed JRPGs because games kinda sucked compared to today's standards. You played something because it's what you had. I think I enjoyed everything but the gameplay in JRPGs.

    That being said, I strongly recommend trying out Lightning Returns on Hard. It is probably the most fun I've ever had playing something that leaned heavily on the actual game side of RPG. The plot's a little odd (you're the henchman of a godlike alien, a former nemesis, that's trying to move the people from this world to another because the conflicts between you two broke reality and is now causing this world's reality to decay. Final Fantasy: Noah's Ark), but it works as long as you don't think about it too much.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-04-02 at 07:03 PM.
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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    We can definitely say "these games are good for you" in some fashion, by figuring out the things you actually are looking for in a game, and then figuring out which games deliver those things.

    But you can't say "games should be designed like so", except in the most generic of higher-order criteria like "don't have rules which fight against the objectives other rules aim for". And even that game might hit the sweet spot for a limited number of people.
    This is a good point. I think art is a good analogy. Obviously, there isn't cut and dry criteria for good art. But, if you narrow down your scope, you can start to define some guidelines. Like, good realism, or good impressionism, they have general guidelines that you should follow. Similarly, you can't define the rules of a "good rpg", but you can get close to some guidelines if you narrow it down to a good "rules-lite political intrigue game", or a good "tactical dungeon crawling game"

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    Basically. Or you allow the concept of "a good game but not a good game for me." I can recognize that D&D 3 does a lot of things well - they're just things I don't want. I don't think it's a bad game, but I do think it doesn't fit my needs well at all.
    Honestly, I think this is the key. Like, I'm not a fan of games that make choices for my characters, but I can still kind of tell the difference between when it helps characterization and when it's just obtrusive. Or like, I don't like the resource system in Fate, but I get that there are people who just don't care about that.

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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    But you can't say "games should be designed like so", except in the most generic of higher-order criteria like "don't have rules which fight against the objectives other rules aim for". And even that game might hit the sweet spot for a limited number of people.
    Though you can say "this methods can help to design good games".

    Game design is a lot like cooking. Just because peoples have different taste, and that some peoples will find disgusting the favourite meal of other, doesn't mean you can't be a better cook than someone else, and that you can't have some overhaul guideline on "what to do" and "what not to do (unless you have a very good reason to)".

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    Default Re: What makes an RPG good?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stonehead View Post
    This is a good point. I think art is a good analogy. Obviously, there isn't cut and dry criteria for good art. But, if you narrow down your scope, you can start to define some guidelines. Like, good realism, or good impressionism, they have general guidelines that you should follow. Similarly, you can't define the rules of a "good rpg", but you can get close to some guidelines if you narrow it down to a good "rules-lite political intrigue game", or a good "tactical dungeon crawling game"
    You're getting closer for sure but there's still variance.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stonehead View Post
    Honestly, I think this is the key. Like, I'm not a fan of games that make choices for my characters, but I can still kind of tell the difference between when it helps characterization and when it's just obtrusive. Or like, I don't like the resource system in Fate, but I get that there are people who just don't care about that.
    That also leads to "I hate this game, but others like it. I wonder why? What is it doing for them? What does that say about what they want and what I want?" which can also lead to being curious about other game styles, or at least gaining an understanding of them.

    At the very least "yeah, it seems like a good game for X, Y, and Z, but honestly I'm not interested in those things" is wayyyyy more likely to lead to a productive conversation than "Game X sucks".

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    Though you can say "this methods can help to design good games".

    Game design is a lot like cooking. Just because peoples have different taste, and that some peoples will find disgusting the favourite meal of other, doesn't mean you can't be a better cook than someone else, and that you can't have some overhaul guideline on "what to do" and "what not to do (unless you have a very good reason to)".
    I'd agree with that. There are techniques and tools for sure, and knowing what those are, what they do, and when to use them is super useful.

    Sadly, most people in the space don't have the objectivity to actually list those kinds of things out.... "how to design a game in general terms" almost inevitably gets intertwined with "what I like", at least if put forth into general conversation. If I were to try to do that exercise, I'd have to strongly limit the audience of that conversation.
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