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2022-10-27, 09:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
There is two questions actually, which skills you are looking to test and how much you are looking to test them. And then there other things such as "Does the game actually test those skills?" but from a design perspective I think we can focus on those two.
I'm going to skip over the "which" part since I think everyone is clear on that. For the "how much" part, ever heard of skill ceilings? A skill ceiling represents the hard to quantify point at which getting better doesn't improve your results, or starts giving significantly diminished returns. I would be surprised if anyone here has hit the skill ceiling in chess, there could be a chess grandmaster wandering around but I don't expect it. On the other hand if half the people in this thread have hit the skill ceiling in Tic-Tac-Toe, that just kind of makes sense. And now I realize that skill ceilings are just a bridge to skill floors.
A skill floor is how good at a game (the skills it is testing) you have to be to function as intended within it. I'm not interesting in limiting skill ceilings, but making sure the skill floor is accessible is important. Being a masterful public speaker might help play a good bard, but it shouldn't be required.
But by "strategy" they could either mean anything on the strategic layer, or they could have meant positioning, threat evaluation and a bunch of other skills that go into a combat mini-game? The second is my second definition and if you are here for a game about expression, getting into a character's head and improvising a story arc suddenly being tested on a completely different set of skills could seem unfair.
As a possibly useful illustration; Quertus, the academic mage for which your account is named, researched a lot of spells over his many adventures correct? I recall hearing stories about that. Could you send me that research? You did that research in real life to test your player skill before Quertus the character researched the spell, right? No?** Well, of course not, because the skills the character is expressing aren't always the ones we want to test on the player. So yeah, I get that player skill is involved, I don't see why your small squad combat skills should be one of them.
The squad combat skills are part of my second definition of strategy, which is the one I've been talking about most of this post. But it is not part of the first definition. In fact the first isn't really a skill because it is actually more general than that, so I don't think you could test it without narrowing it down a bit first.
* Although I'm sure if I spent some time in a player horror story thread I could find one.
** Admittedly you are high on the list of people who might actually do that, but pretend you didn't for a moment. Also send me that research if you still go it, that sounds really cool.
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2022-10-27, 09:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Actually, that's a really good point I hadn't thought of. "These systems are hidden from the players' perspective" and "These players don't care about these systems they could hypothetically read" are two different situations. I don't think there's anything wrong with the second group of players joining a campaign either.
We're getting into the area of personal experience here, so keep in mind everything I'm about to say is one person's anecdotal experience with one DM.
I've played in multiple campaigns in which I couldn't tell what was going on behind the scenes or, to a lesser extent, if our actions even had consequences. From what we were told OOC, the DM was tracking major world events with various clocks, Blades in the Dark style. He tracked the different major factions' development, who would go to war with who, what major artifacts were where, etc. The clocks themselves weren't shown to the players. Any changes we made to the clocks was similarly not told to us, and neither was what threats even had clocks. From our perspective, we couldn't tell if he was actually tracking anything, or just making it all up. Gut instinct is to trust your friend when they tell you you're doing something, but you can never really be sure.
BitD style threat clocks are hardly a complex set of rules, but to the players they were incomprehensible. Not because of any complexity, but because it was totally obfuscated. So maybe "rules so complex that an attentive player can't predict the outcomes" don't exist in real life, but "systems that attentive players can't predict" certainly do. At the very least, one system does.
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2022-10-27, 09:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Speaking as someone whose social abilities are not automatic or instinctive, I take exception to this. I'm attentive. And 90% of the time, my ability to predict the outcomes of things is subject to massive uncertainty. Especially in "unstructured" social events. If I try to emulate "how other people will respond to <X>", by the time I can come to any kind of conclusion, the conversation has moved on and mooted the entire thing. Everyone seems to be moving based on completely obfuscated, randomly changing rules.
This has gotten better as I've aged, but most of that is due to not participating in such unstructured events nearly as much.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
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2022-10-27, 11:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
That's true. But I wouldn't call the behind-the-screen management of the game world a strategic mini-game. it's not ever meant for the players, but to aid the GM in keeping the world moving. Players are only expected to predict things based on information available to their characters. They should be able to tell that, if they increase their advantages and decrease their disadvantages they will have a better chance of success at specific tasks; and it ought to be clear, in general, what things will be advantageous or disadvantageous in most circumstances, based on both the fiction and the math of the mechanics. You might not know that more bad guys will show up in five turns, but you do know that if you have someone keep watch, you'll have a better chance of not being ambushed by anything, or at least you ought to, whether the mechanics are rolled behind the screen or up front by the players. The players know that one character has better perception than others, and will therefore have the best chance on watch. Even if there's twenty calculations that happen to the perception score and the DC to figure out what happens, there's likely no way that a character with lower perception score would have a greater chance of success in the same circumstances.
But I suppose that the BitD example is an example of "mechanics indistinguishable from fiat", though in this case that is precisely the intent of the mechanics, as they are intended to be GM-side only. That you couldn't tell if your actions were doing anything is, I'd say, more a fault of the GM and the specific scenarios than of the system itself. But I mean...if you killed a bad guy, you do know you had an impact- now that bad guy isn't around to cause trouble anymore. If you were worried about enemies preparing to attack your stronghold, you probably sent out scouts to see who, if anyone, might be lurking around your territory. You don't know if the GM has preplanned an attack, or rolled on a series of tables to see if there will be one, but you know that conducting reconnaissance will give you a better chance of detecting a threat before it's on top of you (or it ought to, with a fair GM and a system that makes sense). So of course, nobody should ever totally be able to predict the outcome, or absolutely always see what's coming, that's the excitement of this sort of game. But you will know what might tip the odds in your favor, or against you, in the situations immediately facing your characters.
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2022-10-28, 08:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
How about Encumbrance? If the players don’t know that encumbrance has effects on their characters’ performance, do you expect results which differ from my experience, and that the players will quickly realize this fact?
I may be the wrong person to have this conversation with you (or maybe the very right person?), as my “skill floor” involves 7-year-olds and roleplayers whose character actions can be at times detrimental (constantly detrimental characters are “politely” asked to leave, or given Uncle Enzo’s treatment of his old CO, and their players beaten with a clue-by-four wrt group expectations). But…
It’s fine at my tables to play a BDF who never sets up obvious flanking opportunities, whose tactical acumen amounts to “charge the closest foe” (that was pretty much the entire party except my character in one game) or “hit whoever hit me last”. It’s fine at my tables to play a Wizard who is saving his spells “for the right moment”, or a Psychic Warrior who goes nova every fight then whines for 15m work days. It’s fine at my tables to literally “phone in” your character’s actions oblivious to the battle mat or even the rules of the game, and from just hearing descriptions - to, in effect, act at the strategic layer (and to do so suboptimally) rather than the tactical layer.
I think that’s a pretty low skill floor*.
And, yes, “having a clue” is an absolutely huge force multiplier compared to that floor. The ceiling lies so far beyond that floor as to make one identical character able to be a rock star and carry the entire party.
* this distinction, that it’s table rather than system, might be important. Also, it’s come up in another thread (about “heroic” something), although the definitions there are pretty terrible so far - maybe after people nail down a single thing to discuss, it might be worth starting a new thread that’ll actually be productive to discuss.
Absolutely not required (or even helpful) at my tables. Noticing the puffiness around the eyes (I forget how the GM described it), making inquiries, and saying “sorry for your loss” to the NPC farmer, without assuming that “Betsy” was a cow? That level of social acumen, to make the right choices, to move the conversation in the right direction, is handy to leverage your character’s skills in a productive manner.
Yes, people use “strategy” to mean “tactics”. I’m not seeing the value in mentioning that except in passing in a conversation about the value of the existence of the strategic layer.
My player skill (and roleplaying) was in which spells to research. Just like my players skills (and roleplaying) is in which spells to memorize and cast (and at what area / targets).
I’m not really seeing a significant difference here.
Now I’ve gotta read… if your second “definition” of “strategy” is conflating it with “tactics”, then… I really have negative cares?
But for actual strategy? Do you go straight for the mothership, or do you clear out the fighter escorts first? Do you focus fire on one target, or split off into one on one duels (and, if the latter, how do you choose who fights whom?)? Do you wrap your message subtly into the story, or do you shove it in peoples faces with a lecture? Do you take turns punching Doom, or do you crouch down behind him so your teammates can use you to trip him? Do you let Quertus stand there useless, or do you throw him under the bus to get the bus driver to stop the bus (I’ll get him back for that some day )?Do you use Loxodon Warhammer or Basilisk Collar to gain lifelink… no, that’s tactical…do you add a source of lifelink, some form of threat removal, or focus on killing your foes faster / hopefully before that matters? Do you use any old dice, or test them & use the “lucky” ones? Do you test how your players will respond to different styles of games with a series of one-shots, or do you say, “nah, it’ll be fine”, and start the next campaign with untested rules? Do you build just a single character, or do you have replacements ready for if they die?
If your evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor can’t understand the question, it’s probably not at the strategic layer. If you feel you absolutely have to stop roleplaying to answer the question, it’s probably not at the strategic layer*,**.
* or your table places the floor too high, or the system has some nonsensical mechanics that break you out of RP stance over strategy.
** ignoring that I think 2 or 3 of those are meta, where you are the character in question.
Unlike my academia mage, irl I hate such things. Even if there were rules for such, I’d ask the GM if I couldn’t stick to the strategic layer, rather than playing through the tactical minigame here.
Item creation, otoh, I do enjoy writing arcane recipes like…Last edited by Quertus; 2022-10-28 at 08:55 AM.
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2022-10-28, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Why would players not know about encumbrance? That's definitely a thing the character would be aware of, and if the rules track it, then the players will know that, too. If being encumbered means -5 speed and -2 on dex checks, the players knows how it will affect their performance. If the players would rather not pay attention to that, so the GM tracks it for them, then it would also be the GM's responsibility to tell them when they are carrying too much stuff and that it will make them slower. I still don't think that players unwilling or unable to learn rules or track numbers is a good argument for rules being the same as fiat.
"If you choose to ignore the existence of the rules, and/or the GM keeps them all hidden from you, then the rules appear the same as fiat" might be true- but I'm not sure of the aim of pointing that out?
Is it to say that the GM shouldn't bother with any rules that would be opaque to the players, might as well just fiat all of it?
Or that if your players aren't interested in strategic or tactical play, then forgo rules and play free form, or as simplified a system as possible?
Certainly it is possible to go too far in trying to model complex interactions with mechanics, making a pen&paper game unwieldy, nobody denies it. But this doesn't mean any modeling will be too complex. If your players struggle to notice what factors are giving them disadvantages, the GM can point them out, and then the players will learn and be able to make better decisions on their own. The strategic "floor" doesn't need to stay in one spot. One of the GM's roles is to teach the players how to play the game. Early on you needed to hold their hands more, the more you play, the more they remember and the better they get at the strategy and recognizing how the mechanics affect what is happening.
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2022-10-28, 06:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2022
Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Agree 100% There is definitely a "sweet spot" where you have enough rules to model something, but not so many that it becomes cumbersome. Obviously, where that spot is can vary from table to table. I do absolutely agree that players will become more familiar with any given system over time, so rules that may have appeared complex or even unwieldy at the start are second nature a few months later. I always err in two directions:
1. Try the rules out for a while and see how the work. As observed above, sometimes rules that may have appeared too complex at first turn out to be "just right" once you get the feel for them. Also, sometimes you may not see why a rule is written a specific way when reading it, but when playing things out you go "Oh! That's why the rule works that way". The flip side to this is that if we've played with a rule for a while and it's just not working, then we have a conversation about it and propose a change, and repeat the testing process again.
2. Having said that, when creating my own rules, or adding new rules to an existing game, I always try to start small. Keep them as simple as possible. If we decide that we really need some sort of rule for handling pottery making in our game, I'm probably going to start out with a single skill "Pottery making", slot it into an existing skills category, and move on (and yeah, this is probably already supported by the main game rules, it's just an example...). 99% of the time, just having a single simple skill is sufficient. If we *really* want to get into the intricate details of every step in pottery making though, we can break that down into a handful of smaller and more specific skills though (er, again, don't get caught up on the admittedly silly example here).
So yeah, for me, the answer to the OP is an absolute "no". Certainly "every aspect" does not need its own specialized rules. But the more focused the game becomes on an area in which the rules are maybe a bit vague? Sure. Add some additional rules. These decisions aren't even game system dependent but strongly table play based (and often player makeup as well). I've had players who were absolutely obsessed with world building stuff. Wanted to start businesses, build castles, play kingmaker games, etc. Other players? Want to get into making potions, or whatnot. Others are just fine with beating things up and taking their cash. Totally dependent on your players IMO.
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2022-10-29, 11:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Every rule you add to a game comes at a cost, one that scales faster-than-linear with the total weight[1] of rules. Every rule you add may come with a benefit as well. In the best case, those benefits scale slower-than-linear (and certainly slower than the costs) with the total weight of rules. Some rules provide little or no benefit whatsoever. Some rules provide massive benefits. And both costs and benefits depend, at least partially, on the people playing (ie what some people consider costs, others consider benefits and vice versa, or some weigh different costs and benefits differently). Both costs and benefits are also path dependent--they depend on the history of the game when added after people start playing[2]. Thus, there's a point that critically depends on the individuals involved and on the rest of the system, as well as the actual rules and what they're addressing where adding a particular new rule will only add net cost, not benefit.
The ur-state, the primal origin of roleplay is with kids doing imaginative play. This generally starts out as unstructured free-form, with only the haziest (if any) rules, and those mostly dictated by the one most willing to get mad. Rules quickly evolve in many cases. At first, those rules are great scaffolds. They help the players have a shared language, a shared structure for resolution, and take a huge load off of the players by allowing pre-agreement about how some cases will be handled. But just like you need different scaffolds on different parts of the building, you need different rules for different parts of play. Generally those parts that are least accessible in that particular design need the most scaffolding. Want to paint high vaulted ceilings? Better have a good scaffold or some kind of hoist (which is an alternate form of support). Are you painting the normal-height walls or floor? Scaffolds are not only unnecessary, they're actively in the way. And rules-first types of people often keep adding rules for the sake of having rules for things until you've got scaffolds covering the entire surface and you can't actually get at the building itself.
And, like scaffolds, rules are secondary. They're helps, not the game itself. Because the game is much deeper, much older, pre-existing rules likechickens predate eggs(oops )...like being a baby pre-dates (in any individual's history) getting old.
[1] not necessarily number or even page count. High-density, high-convolution rules "weigh" more. This is intentionally fuzzy because "weight" is somewhat subjective in this context.
[2] Both in the history of a game system[3] and in the history of an individual campaign. The latter is obvious--people generally react to significant houserules differently when added 6 months in by surprise than when presented at session zero.
[3] rules set expectations. And when the developers later push some rules that "clarify" (aka nerf) things, people react much worse than if the game had been designed that way all along.Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2022-10-29 at 11:38 AM.
Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
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2022-10-29, 11:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
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2022-10-29, 01:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2015
Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Generally true perhaps, but for this thread, the fact that people use "strategy" to mean "tactics" is the only reason the word "strategic" appears in the title of this thread; that is probably worth mentioning. Easy e can clarify if they would like, but most of the opening post is about flow state in mini-games, just mentions tactical combat and doesn't seem to say anything about the strategic layer.
And I got nothing else to say on mini-games and the strategic layer. Just: Any well designed mini-game complex enough to have approaches in it should make those choices in approach be a meaningful decision (for a mini-game too simple for that... maybe engaging in the mini-game is the strategic choice, depends on context). Also, connections between the mini-game and the rest of the system, allowing one to affect the other, are also good and allow for larger scale consequences and meaningful decisions.
So now, moving onto mini-games and the other definition of strategy, which means something like tactics. I don't think a mini-game has to be designed to test player skill. Like driving a car, which does take player (er, driver) skill but testing that skill is not the point. In fact, a lot of effort has been put into making it as low skill as possible, because people messing up is bad.
(Just encase it wasn't obvious, I realized my previous attempts weren't getting my point across. So I decided to use a completely different sort of explanation to get my point across. Also I figured more stuff out myself and hopefully folding that in also makes things clearer.)
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2022-10-29, 03:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I continue to hold that, any part of the game worth caring about, the strategic layer should matter. The tactical layer? Meh.
So let’s look at two examples: Combat, and Conversation.
“Roll combat” is a terrible way to resolve combat - there’s no game. (Reminder: “playing the game” means “making meaningful decisions”, not “rolling dice”). However, if combat is resolved by a strategic minigame? “If you attack the mothership, turn to page 47; if you destroy the Fighter escorts first, turn to page 123.”? That’s worth thinking about, that’s actually getting to play the game. And when it’s not a “choose your own adventure” book, but an actual RPG, where you can go off-script, and do things like “introduce a virus (either type) to the enemy fleet” or “sneak aboard the mothership to sabotage its recreational systems”, it’s worth asking, “WWQD?”, it’s worth actually roleplaying, instead of just playing the minigame.
IME, when 2 PCs talk to one another, they usually just roleplay, occasionally aided by a roll (or magical ability), when appropriate. And I generally prefer my interactions between PCs and NPCs (or even between multiple NPCs) to be handled the same way. Did you offer Quertus the chance to become famous? Yeah, he’s not interested. Did you promise the king that you’d spank his bratty daughter once you rescued the dragon from her evil clutches? Um…
The big thing about the tactical minigame is that it had best not get in the way of either the strategic layer, or of roleplaying. And, as a lesser subset of that, there’d best not be strange dissonance between the layers / perverse incentives that exist only at the tactical layer, that unreasonably invalidate higher-level decisions.
As far as “not testing player skill” goes… the strategic layer absolutely should? And if the tactical layer doesn’t, what’s the point?
Now, to backpedal slightly… sure, you could say that the strategic layer of “getting on the good side of the mob boss by cooking him a meal vs getting him a gift vs whatever” could be played as fluff, like the child being told a story asking if the color of the character’s clothing could be the hue of their choice. The existence of the strategic layer doesn’t necessitate that the choice is meaningful.
But anywhere where the choice is meaningful, I don’t see how you can get away from the fact that player skill is important in making the correct choice.
Still, I’m curious if you have anything… if not “actionable”, at least “meaty” wrt the idea of lowering the floor on required player skill (especially when the one asking already plays with 7-year-olds, and otherwise has a purportedly pretty low skill floor required).
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2022-10-29, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
"Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-10-29, 04:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Test and skill imply there are right and wrong answers and actions. You can have meaningful choices without those, where the outcomes on either side are merely different.
You can have games where success is assured and the real question is what do you choose to do, not do you succeed at doing it.
So I disagree.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
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2022-10-29, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
How do you think that relates to what I said in my post?
Spoiler: StuffSo let's look at two examples: Combat, and Conversation.
"Roll combat" is a terrible way to resolve combat - there's no game. (Reminder: "playing the game" means "making meaningful decisions", not "rolling dice"). However, if combat is resolved by a strategic minigame? "If you attack the mothership, turn to page 47; if you destroy the Fighter escorts first, turn to page 123."? That’s worth thinking about, that's actually getting to play the game. And when it's not a "choose your own adventure” book, but an actual RPG, where you can go off-script, and do things like "introduce a virus (either type) to the enemy fleet" or "sneak aboard the mothership to sabotage its recreational systems", it's worth asking, "WWQD?", it's worth actually roleplaying, instead of just playing the minigame.
IME, when 2 PCs talk to one another, they usually just roleplay, occasionally aided by a roll (or magical ability), when appropriate. And I generally prefer my interactions between PCs and NPCs (or even between multiple NPCs) to be handled the same way. Did you offer Quertus the chance to become famous? Yeah, he's not interested. Did you promise the king that you'd spank his bratty daughter once you rescued the dragon from her evil clutches? Um...
The big thing about the tactical minigame is that it had best not get in the way of either the strategic layer, or of roleplaying. And, as a lesser subset of that, there'd best not be strange dissonance between the layers / perverse incentives that exist only at the tactical layer, that unreasonably invalidate higher-level decisions.
As far as "not testing player skill" goes... the strategic layer absolutely should? And if the tactical layer doesn't, what's the point?
Now, to backpedal slightly... sure, you could say that the strategic layer of "getting on the good side of the mob boss by cooking him a meal vs getting him a gift vs whatever" could be played as fluff, like the child being told a story asking if the color of the character's clothing could be the hue of their choice. The existence of the strategic layer doesn't necessitate that the choice is meaningful.
But anywhere where the choice is meaningful, I don't see how you can get away from the fact that player skill is important in making the correct choice.- I mean you just researched the spell after you decided which spell to research, why can't I just win the combat after picking who to fight at some cost of HP.
- Turn to page 47 or turn to page 123 is not a meaningful choice. And that is what combat can feel like at low skill levels. And at higher skill levels the choices start to feel like loose 13 HP to win or loose 27 HP to win.
- Yes, open ended decisions is definitely a positive, I don't see how that relates here.
- I have no idea what this mob example is getting at. But sure, let's say that I say "well... you have to get the thing from the mod to continue, so I'm not even going to pretend you can fail... so just say how you succeed" and one character points out they are so dangerous it isn't worth making them angry over this, get the thing, another offers a magically enforced deal to get the thing, and gets the thing, one points out they have mob connections chats the mob boss up and buys an expensive bottle of something as payment and gets the thing. They all got the thing but in meaningfully different ways. I agree with PhoenixPhyre, skill testing means that you can make the wrong choice, I think that isn't the point. Ever heard of the 8 aesthetics of play? Only one of them is challenge (testing player skill) the other seven are about different things. Now that is still just one model, but still there are other things I'm interested in. As a bonus question, what of those three methods above showed the most player skill.
- What are you doing to your posts? I keep having to edit all the "Â"s out. I did which is why you can't see them. (And that one mutated after I copied it out, it had a ^ before.)
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2022-10-29, 10:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
This thread has been confusing me, and I think it’s mainly because people are using ‘strategic’ in a manner I find hard to follow.
There are generally accepted as three levels of analysis, originally derived from military writing.
Tactical - what happens on the battlefield. Where each unit moves and fights.
Strategic - What you do before the battle starts. Where to fight, what troops to commit to the fight.
Operational - Resource allocation. Where to send reinforcements and supplies.
In RPG terms
Tactical - what happens on the battle-map or equivalent.
Strategic - The hexcrawl. Choosing where to go and with which members of the party. In an RPG choosing between knocking down the front door or sneaking in the back door is a strategic decision.
Operational - Choosing attributes, skills and equipment for your character.
In an RPG a strategic minigame is generally covered in the exploration mechanics. How to run a ship minigame is a strategic minigame. Hexcrawling through the wilderness is a strategic minigame. Dungeon mapping can be a strategic minigame.
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2022-10-30, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
In your post, you addressed how words had been used. I was restating my position in that context. So, the literal answer to your question is that your post was the context for that statement.
I’m glad you didn’t skip it.
That sounds like a perfectly viable set of rules for combat in an RPG to me? (Granted, I’d prefer a little more game, where attributes like “immunity to fire” or “ranged” or whatever can affect those numbers against certain opponents, but even the base is viable). But I’ll assume the literal answer is, “because that doesn’t match the rules of the RPG you are playing”.
But the point is, if the choice is meaningful, then the strategy of who fights whom must actually matter. It must actually change the outcome in a meaningful way. So, lose 1 HP if you fight a pawn, lose 3 HP for fighting a Knight or Bishop, etc? In the right setup, that can involve meaningful choices, where you actually have to think about your moves, where your decisions can matter to the final outcome. (EDIT: imagine a “clear the chess board without losing a party member given 4 10-HP heroes and 1 5-HP sidekick”; see also the “one jug holds 5 gallons, the other holds 7” puzzle)
Or, the encounter could have been handled by “bribe” (lose X resources), stealth (lose Y time), etc? That also presents potentially meaningful choices.
That said, what separates an RPG from a war game is the ability to go outside the box. So the extent to which the system discourages the GM from accepting strategies not on the explicitly given list of options is the extent to which it isn’t suited to being an RPG.
And, again, anything not meaningful generally isn’t worth my time.
Um… “Turn to page 47 or turn to page 123” is not the choice, it’s the outcome. If you’re having trouble with things that basic, we may need to take a few steps back.
I’ll need context… hmmm… ok. Here’s my guess: I think you’re referencing “WWQD”, which I think is me referencing your earlier statement involving comments about roleplaying (maybe combat taking you out of roleplaying?). I’m saying, so long as there’s (in your words) an open-ended strategic layer, so long as it’s an RPG, you can roleplay. Period.
Now, your table may set the floor too high / your character may be too tactically inept to succeed in such an environment, but even so, the opportunity to roleplay their failure is there.
Well, this is astolenborrowed example (hopefully from this thread? (Darn senility)), but I’ll do my best.
Goal: get on the mob boss’s good side
Strategy: get him a gift, fix him a meal, tell him about his wife’s infidelity
Tactics: who cares? (Fresh ingredients, authentic ingredients, from his homeland, favorite meal, favorite spices, etc)
If I read you right, you’re playing the game at an even higher level, outright rejecting the goal of “get on the mob boss’s good side”. And that’s outside the scope of the question, “does ‘get on his good side’ need a strategic (or tactical) minigame?”. But it’s good evidence that you could play CaW.
New phone?Oh, I think I see - it’s “curly quotes” (I think) being misinterpreted.
Really? I’d think the first bit, about removing tactical combat as we know it, and replacing it with purely strategic combat choices, was the real winner here.Last edited by Quertus; 2022-10-30 at 12:01 PM.
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2022-10-30, 12:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I think this is… an interesting bit of language?
Suppose Witch Hunter Robin wants to test her powers, and see how many candles she can light / what her current “light percent accuracy” is / whatever. The test doesn’t really have a “fail” state, outside oddities like being unable to measure the results (“I told you we couldn’t do this test outside in a Hurricane!”). But it is still a test, to measure her current abilities.
Suppose I want to build a Magic deck. There’s not much in the way of fail states - so long as I can count to 60 (or 100 for Commander, or 40 for more casual play, or…), and I don’t include the Ace of Spades or something, the end result will be a Magic deck. But the choice of what I put in the deck is meaningful, and involves skill.
Suppose I want to post in a thread about “strategic” minigames. This will probably require my player to choose a goal and strategy, and to make at least an Expression roll for me. Now, while I may fail to achieve my goal, “posting in a thread” doesn’t inherently have win/fail conditions.
Suppose I’m playing an RPG, and see multiple paths forward. Regardless of whether or not any of those paths have a chance of “failure”, my skill is being tested wrt my ability to determine where those paths will lead, what the effects and side-effects of this decision might be. What might happen if I offer to abduct a second Dragon for the evil Princess? If I preemptively kill and Animate the citizens of the kingdom as a firebreak against the Necromancer? If I travel back in time, and replace the stolen relics with replicas before their theft? If I pickpocket Harry and Thanos before they can do their respective snaps?
There’s definitely skill involved, regardless of whether one is measuring “success” or difference. And I think it’s fair to say that those skills are being tested, even in cases where they cannot fail.
That at least seems true from a certain point of view.Last edited by Quertus; 2022-10-30 at 05:30 PM.
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2022-10-30, 06:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I’m about to sound like something I hate from the Dresden RPG, but there’s a whole lot packed into those few little words. Let’s unpack them together.
First off, this is obviously a “choose your own adventure” book format, not something from an RPG. For those unfamiliar, the reader is presented with a scenario (“and then this happened”), and asked to make a choice, generally wrt the actions of the “viewpoint” character.
This isn’t roleplaying (by my definitions), because the options are pre-written - you can no more play a pacifist in this scenario than I can write additional pages into the book.
Despite these limitations, it’s enough to fool some readers into believing that they’re roleplaying, and the general sequence of “this is the scenario” “I take this action” “this is the new scenario” is the heart and core of (most?) RPG gameplay loops. So it’s kinda like a proto-RPG. Because it’s a simplified proto-RPG, it’s simpler and easier to discuss and dissect than a full RPG.
(For anybody who hasn’t fallen asleep yet, it’s the “would you rather…” counterpart to a full open-ended RPG. Rather than asking, “WWQD?”, you’re limited to answering, “would Quertus rather…?”. For anybody unfamiliar with “would you rather…?”… look it up.)
Now, presumably, this isn’t page 1 - this isn’t where you start. In fact, even if it is page 1, it still isn’t where you start. Where you start is with the descriptive text, with the author setting the scene, giving you the details you need to answer the question.
So, would Quertus go straight for the mothership, or would he destroy the Fighter escorts first? Is the answer obviously one or the other, or does it depends on additional details of the scenario, or on what has happened before?
For example, a vengeful character might choose to attack whichever had something / someone he felt vengeful against. Someone who paid attention to what the pilots in Wing Commander said would clear the Fighter escort first. Someone who was familiar with the underlying mechanics of Wing Commander (and many other video games) would believe that fighters auto-replenish, and would act accordingly (in this case, that means choosing “target the mothership”).
All that said, irrespective of the character, the scenario might well give you the “correct” answer. For example, if the mothership can destroy whole planets, and you’re defending your homeworld?
A) there are 20 fighters and 1 mothership. You can destroy a Fighter every 10 seconds; the mothership takes 2 minutes of concentrated fire to destroy. It takes 3 minutes for the mothership to fire its planet-destroying bream.
B) the mothership cannot fire its beam without all its fighters, which it can regenerate 1 every 10 seconds.
C) you are expecting reinforcements in 5 minutes.
D) if you attack the fighters, you can hold out for 10 minutes. If you ignore them, you won’t last 1.
Did you notice how your opinion of “which is the correct choice” changed as you read these details?
Now, these details might not be gift wrapped and handed to you. In fact, they might not be visible at all until after the fact (like if you challenged a Rook from my other example, and only then learned that the result was “loose 5 HP”, and you had to build the rules and a successful strategy while you play the game).
So, the author has to walk the line, providing enough information at the right time to allow the reader to have an enjoyable experience playing with the PoV character’s choices, just as a GM has to walk a very similar line, providing enough information for the players to make meaningful decisions in an enjoyable fashion.
Now, sometimes, you don’t have anywhere near such clear math. Sometimes, all you have to work with is knowledge: author - from what I know of this author, from the choices I’ve made thus far in this “choose your own adventure” book, and the responses that the author has given, are they likely to believe that “clearing the fighters” or “attacking the mothership” is the correct answer? Which are they more likely to reward / which choice will they reward more?
So the choice of “Attack mothership” vs “clear fighters first” can be informed by the character, by scenario considerations, and/or by knowledge: author. Just like how, in an RPG, one’s choices could be informed by roleplaying the character, by scenario considerations, and/or by Knowledge: system and Knowledge: GM… plus things like metagame concerns, like “will this hurt anyone’s fun?” and “what are our gentleman’s agreements?”.
Nonetheless, when the reader turns to page 123, they should not feel betrayed by the results. They should, if only in retrospect, be able to see how said results logically followed from the scenario, and their choices. Even if a sufficiently ignorant reader may not understand why a pawn caused the character challenging them to lose 1 HP, they should at least be able to understand that there is an underlying consistency.
All that, obvious from just those few words. Just like Dresden being a Wizard PI or whatever. Truly, masterfully efficient communication at its finest.
Anyway, that’s my stab at trying to spell out everything I was trying to communicate with those few words. I probably missed a few things.
So, what does so that have to do with the necessity of the strategic and/or tactical layer?
Any time the reader/player is to make a meaningful choice (such as between “attack the fighters first” vs “charge straight at the mothership”), a) there must be a meaningful difference between the outcome of possible choices (page 47 vs page 123)… and several other letters that are left as an exercise to the reader to fill in.
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2022-10-31, 10:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I think you're reading these words more narrowly than intended.
Presuming you have an ideal end result, or at least some things you'd prefer to see and not to see, if you have any reasonable agency at all, some of your choices will/are more likely to end up in the ideal end result than others.
Your ability to make the choices that result in your desired end result is at some level a matter of "skill", though which skill it is can be very different.
There's really two exceptions to this - one where no matter what you do, the same results happen (therefore the caveat on decisions being meaningful) and another one where you just say what you want to happen (there's no uncertainty or other actors). Which starts to get close to just writing a book.
So, in the broad sense, I'm standing by that, though I agree with you in the more narrow sense."Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-10-31, 01:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
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2022-10-31, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
No, I’m trying to describe what is ‘strategic’. The question in the OP is literally meaningless because not every aspect of RPGs are strategic in nature. ‘Strategic minigames’ are a subset of minigames, the other main subsets being ‘tactical minigames’ and ‘operational minigames”.
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2022-10-31, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I think the point that was raised is that you can add even more depth to a game by not just presenting absolute "action/outcome" pairs, but "action/probability" pairs instead. So instead of "action A/flip to page X" or "action B/flip to page Y', you have "action A takes skill B, which has probability C" vs "action X, takes skill Y, which has probability Z". Doing it this way provides the same ability for the players to make choices, but also presents it in a more realistic way (you can never know for sure how good you are at something, and no skills are absolute). And yes, you can still introduce the same concept of "hidden outcomes" by the fairly common game mechanic of the GM setting unknown difficulty factors to the die roll for skill B or skill Y attempts.
I know that you seem to want/desire games with absolute outcomes that are always known ahead of time (even if just by the GM and not the players), such that all outcomes are based solely on player choices, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most players don't prefer this, and most players like the idea that by introducing skills into games, with ranks/level/whatever, that they can achieve discrete and measurable values for determining both probability *and* character advancement over time in a game.
There is value to this purely because it introduces uncertainty into the game, while still retaining "good vs bad choices" dynamics. And, heaven forbid, it allows us a method to determine what happens then "the best swordsman in the world" faces off with someone else who is "the best swordsman in the world". Not having such things, and yes, the various mini-games/rules/whatever to allow for them, leaves us either just declaring a winner, or restricting us to never having two people with similar abilities ever face off against each other (cause we have no method to resolve this).
You can certainly play games with diceless and/or skillless rules. But given that the entire topic of this thread assumes otherwise, maybe we should stick to that range of game styles and assume that we're operating within that framework? Introducing a min-game of any kind into a system like Tune, for example, would be silly. But that's the exception case and not what I'm assuming is being examined here.
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2022-10-31, 06:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I honestly have no idea where you got this impression from.
Yes, the moments where it’s obvious how things will turn out, no rolls required, that are powered purely by the characters’ choices, like Anakin falling to the dark side because he chose to kill the raiders, because he chose to kill Dooku, because he chose to betray Mace, those are the best. But I’ve never held that you should eat only chocolate. I may consider games without any chocolate inferior, but that doesn’t mean that I consider games that are entirely chocolate to be superior.
That said, it’s also 100% irrelevant (as is your commentary on what is better/deeper/whatever), as the “choose your own adventure” format was chosen for its simplicity - and, in that regard, I can only hope that you can see, once it’s pointed out to you, that removing those extra things makes the example, well, simpler.
EDIT: although, technically, some “choose your own adventure” books actually do have that element of random chance - usually calculable, as you advocate, but sometimes not.Last edited by Quertus; 2022-10-31 at 07:21 PM.
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2022-11-01, 09:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I think "can" is the important word here. A good GM can make sure the players are all well informed, and the minigames are all understood, but not everyone's a good GM. I think a perfect group could have fun in essentially any system. The rules are there in part to make that easier.
I don't think "The GM just did it wrong" is always a very good defense of a rule set. Sure there are definitely times in which GMs just miss important parts of the system, or homebrew the thing into a non functionality then blame the original game, but there are also games with pointless bloat and games that require a lot more out of GMs than others. "Handling hidden information" definitely falls in to one of the latter categories.
On the original point about advanced subsystems vs GM fiat, the GM deciding when to give information to the players based on how well it looks like they're understanding things kinda sounds more like GM fiat to me.
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2022-11-01, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
If the information is available to the players, but they are new and aren't accustomed to the system yet, it isn't really the GM deciding to give them hidden information- it's completely in the players' hands to read and learn the system. You're right, "The GM did it wrong" is a bad defense of a poorly designed system that few people can actually use as written. But this doesn't mean that every time a GM or a player is confused by something in a system, it is necessarily a poorly designed system. The GM needs to learn the system they are running, and teach it to the players. There is a learning period during which the players might not understand how everything works. This is a temporary condition. During that brief learning period, the GM may be said to exercise "fiat" in when and how to introduce certain rules, balancing explaining how things work with actual play- but this brief condition doesn't reflect any real parity between mechanical/mathematical resolution and fiat. It is a sign that a system is too complex or burdensome for a particular group, if the learning period goes on too long, and players never catch on. If this is the case with most groups trying to use the system, then it's a sign of a poorly designed system. However, a GM who fails (or even refuses) to help their new players learn the system is a bad GM, imo. Excluding outright bad systems and bad GMs, and following the necessary teaching period, players will not be mystified by the results of a game's mechanics. Predicting something that depends on GM fiat is an exercise in psychology...predicting something that depends on mechanical rules requires math. Those aren't the same thing.
I also think that there are few to no examples of systems so complex that anyone paying attention would be confused about how results are achieved. There certainly are those that are bloated and burdensome to run, which aren't worth the effort - but I'm not sure that there are any actually using math so complex that people can't tell how the numbers they can see will affect outcomes. It's more likely that they use so much randomness that it becomes frustrating, because their ability to tweak numerical advantages and disadvantages have minimal impact on results. In this case, you might say the mechanics are not much different from fiat, because nothing the players do will reliably change the outcome. This is not an excessively complex game, though, rather an excessively simple one where there aren't many modifiers and single pass/fail dice rolls decide most things. If the GM decides to keep some or all such die rolls behind the screen, then I can see the comparison with fiat growing closer.
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2022-11-01, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I'm going to assume you just forgot to fill your blue ink cartridge on that one. In just the short time I've been posting here, I've seen repeated and consistent posts by you extolling the virtues of CAW vs CAS, multiple statements about the value of the strategic layer over the tactical one, and yet more statements about how if the players take an action without already knowing the outcome, then they are "doing it wrong". Every one of those positions is about wanting systems (or at least play style) in which if all of the possibilities and choices are examined, there will be one which will achieve the desired goal with absolute certainty, with no die rolls needed (or with the die rolls being irrelevant), and if there isn't, then you don't seem to have much use for said system, or at least prefer not to play in it.
And then there's statements like this:
So you aren't saying that situations where the outcomes are "obvious" and "no rolls are required" are "best"? Cause that's literally what you just said. Why be surprised when someone points this out? You clearly prefer outcome generation where there is no random chance involved. That's clearly your position, right? Why not just own it? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, just that it "is", and that this preference is certainly going to influence your opinion on the subject of mini-games (I would assume in the negative).
Just presenting the flip side here, where differences in probability matter. It's relevant to a thread about mini-games because typically in mini-games we're exploring additional skills/abilities and how those might provide more granularity/accuracy in determining outcomes in the specific game aspects being detailed. And yes, your example does make things "simpler", but it also removes the very thing that we're talking about in the first place (more skills/abilities in a mini-game provide more choices, which in turn can be examined by differing probability of success based on which choice is made, the relative skill applicable skill level, and the difficulty assigned).
Removing those skill differences (and resulting probability differences) removes the reason to have a mini-game in the first place. You may as well have just said "I don't like rolling dice to determine outcomes, so mini-games have no value to me". Which is a totally valid response BTW. Unless you are proposing mini-games of a strict "do X, always get Y outcome" nature? I'm not sure I'd even define that as a mini-game, but I suppose it's possible.
Having said all of that, I will observe that increasing a small ruleset into a larger more granular one can be very problematic (and unbalancing) in game systems with skill point buy. You basically will discourage investment into that area of the game, since it will automatically become more expensive for characters to be equally as good. So there are definite negatives and pitfalls to this approach. And yes, you absolutely are correct that if the increased complexity doesn't add sufficiently to the gaming experience, then it's not worth it. That calculation, however, is entirely based on the likes/dislikes of the players. Not all tables or players are going to want the same things.
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2022-11-01, 05:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I… whew. I’m probably too old and too senile to figure out what you will and won’t hear, but I guess I’ll stop trying to learn when I’m dead. So here goes.
Part 1 - Strategic / CaW / Chocolate
Chocolate is the best. That means desserts with no chocolate are inferior, but does not mean that pure chocolate is superior. I know I said it before, but I’m saying it again anyway.
So I can say that CaW - that aiming to solve things on the strategic rather than the tactical level - is how I play. Aiming needn’t involve 100% success.
I can say that to the original, old school, pure CaW players considered any time the dice came out to represent a failure… without implying the same for myself.
I could even consider any time the dice come out to represent a personal failure… without demanding a personal 100% success rate.
I can say that the best moments in a game are ones where the situation is resolved at the strategic layer, without the dice coming out, without requiring that all moments occur that way.
And I’m a War Gamer. I like the 8-hour tactical minigames.
What I don’t like is the stupid, like demanding we drop to the tactical minigame for Superman vs Humanity, if it’s painfully obvious that it’s a complete waste of time, there’s no need for rolls, Superman kills billions, guaranteed.
Are you any closer to understanding that there’s more nuisance to my position than
? Because there’s actually a lot more nuisance to it than what I’ve stated, but I’m hoping that’s enough to see that such nuisance exists in my position.
Part 2 - the value of simplicity vs oversimplification
I believe it was Einstein who said, “everything should be as simple as it can be… and no simpler”. Most humans oversimplify that to “everything should be as simple as it can be”, just as they oversimplify most things.
If I tried to take a discussion about human hands and grasping capabilities, and tried to simplify it to talking about fingerless stumps, that would be an obvious oversimplification. If, instead, I caught that the key concept was “opposable thumbs”, and simplified to “crab claws”, there might be some arguments to be made about the validity of the model for certain applications.
Here, we’re talking about the value of the strategic and tactical layers. You are (I believe - reading comprehension isn’t my strong suit) attempting to claim that “randomness” is a vital component to understanding the value of the tactical layer over the strategic, thereby making my “choose your own adventure” format an oversimplification, rather than a mere simplification.
There are two problems with this.
The first is (as I’ve already stated) “choose your own adventure” books can utilize random rolls. Yes, even going so far as to involve different rolls and different probabilities of success for different approaches! (“If you attempt to sneak past, roll Stealth DC X - success turn to Y, fail turn to Z; if you attempt to go through the checkpoint, roll Charisma DC…”).
The second is, you need to demonstrate that the randomization actually adds some value vital to the discussion of the importance and necessity of the different layers. What is gained by having “challenge the Rook” mean “lose d6+3 HP” over the flat “lose 5 HP”?
So, for my simplification to be classified as an oversimplification, you need to address both issues - you need to explain why randomization is essential to the discussion of the value of the layers, and demonstrate that the randomization a “would you rather” format can offer is insufficient to fill that role.
Afaict, you have done neither.Last edited by Quertus; 2022-11-01 at 05:29 PM.
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2022-11-01, 09:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
Ok, but anyone can learn anything given enough time. By that logic, not understanding special relativity is just a "temporary condition" to middle schoolers. Also, I don't understand why not understanding being temporary makes the "Any sufficiently advanced system is indistinguishable from fiat" statement untrue. It's clearly a reference to the "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" quote, which still makes sense if the technology is learnable. Show the internet to someone from the 40s, and it'd seem like magic. 60 years later, they very well might understand it. And besides, if it takes some player 5 weeks to finally understand how grappling works, and you run them a one-shot then switch to a different system, then we have "a system indistinguishable from fiat"
Also, it's not hard to come up with real world examples at all:
- Grappling is one, I play with a guy who still doesn't understand grappling. "Ok, he's grabbed, now I want to tie him up." "Sorry, you need him to be pinned to do that." "Are you just making this stuff up?".
- I know there are monsters in DnD that deal different dice of damage based on the targets' alignment. When 1d6 can deal 6 damage and 2d6 can deal 2, it's pretty easy for the damage to seem arbitrary.
- Random encounter tables with modifiers. I've seen games in which doing dangerous things (being closer to a dungeon, carrying too many valuables, etc) adds a flat modifier to the table. Random encounters are usually rolled in secret, and +20 isn't that easy to notice on a d100 table.
- Hidden clocks are an obvious example from an earlier post.
- Any lookup table as a resolution mechanic. Off the top of my head, Fright Checks in GURPS.
- Collision damage/fall damage in GURPS.
Finally, you shouldn't overestimate the average person. Sure 21st century men like you and I can understand germ theory, but even the smartest people from the 14th century didn't. Diehard ttrpg enthusiasts who post on forums understand grappling or whatever, but your average player who's played a wizard for half a year in his cousin's campaign probably doesn't.
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2022-11-02, 03:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I'm reminded of the Viva La Viva PUBG video where Ben doesn't realize he's why he's moving so slowly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5isf1Sh0PEk
True friends right there :)
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2022-11-02, 09:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?
I mean...the only people relevant to the discussion are 21st century people (primarily adolescents and adults) who are interested in playing TTRPGs. The average player who hasn't learned the rules is exactly the person that the GM is responsible for teaching. Not knowing the rules by heart doesn't mean they won't understand how the rules work when they are explained...so the player who doesn't know how grappling works will understand it, when the GM says it's a strength check and the enemy can use strength or dex to oppose it. They will understand that having high strength makes it easier, and trying to do it against someone with high strength or dex is less likely to succeed. If they forget how it works the next session, the GM tells them again. That isn't akin to fiat- no reasonable person will be mystified by the results if they try to grapple a dragon and fail, or won't understand why the barbarian is better at it than the wizard. Being a casual player who doesn't remember all the rules isn't the same as being unable to calculate your odds despite the mechanic being visible and explained.
Yes, the more random it is, the less predictable it is, and therefore may resemble GM fiat more. However, hidden random tables wouldn't be a "strategic mini game" (by whatever definition of "strategic" is intended). It's true that luck plays a big role when dice are involved, and the bigger the die and the smaller the modifiers, the less predictable it will be - but if players are allowed to know the possible results and the modifiers which affect those results, as would be required for it to be considered a "strategic mini-game", then they will know their odds. If the players aren't told the mechanics, then they can't be said to be participating in a "mini game". Which gets back to my original problem with the statement that "sufficiently complex mechanics resembles fiat" - this applies only in specific conditions, not as a general rule. There is a big caveat necessary to make it true: "when the players are not allowed to see the mechanics" or "when the players refuse to learn the mechanics and the GM declines to inform them of relevant modifiers".
If the players could see the random tables and knew what sort of actions and abilities will generate modifiers to the rolls, then they know their chances, even though it is still heavily dependent on luck. They can strategize ways to make it more likely to get the results they prefer. This does not resemble fiat- GM fiat would mean the players are guessing what they can do to affect the GM's decision making, not knowing whether anything they do will have any effect for certain. A table with modifiers means they know they can take an action or have an ability that will give them 1% or 5% better odds of getting a good result. Perhaps these things are equally predictable- but that is a condemnation of using too much luck in your mechanics rather than a condemnation of having mechanics with too many modifiers and fiddly bits- which I believe is the gist of the criticism of creating "mini-games" or subsystems for various aspects of PC engagement with the game world.