Does Every aspect of a TTRPG need to have a Strategic Mini-game?

[Easy e]

I knew I should have avoided using the word "Startegic" in this thread. :(

[Quertus]

By that logic, not understanding special relativity is just a "temporary condition" to middle schoolers. … 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. … 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"

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?".

Sounds like you get it. If your expected exposure is less than the time it takes to learn, it is Indistinguishable from fiat. I’d add to your list “hidden subjective” variables, like “if the PC has a reputation for being kind, they get a +1 to loyalty rolls for X but a -1 to loyalty rolls for Y”. Does the GM think that the PC comes across as kind? Who knows.

I mean...the only people relevant to the discussion are 21st century people (primarily adolescents and adults) who are interested in playing TTRPGs.

Well, no. RPGs existed in the 20th century, and, in the unfortunate event that the world & humanity & civilization continue existing, RPGs will likely exist in the 51st century, as well.

Further, testing should be done at - at minimum - the boundary conditions, and the quote in question originated from a speaker who often comments on gaming with 7-year-olds, so “children” are clearly important to testing the phrase.

As would those with the lack of explanatory skill necessary to produce the classic “gazebo” story.

The average player who hasn't learned the rules is exactly the person that the GM is responsible for teaching.

You put “GM” and “responsible” in the same sentence.

Not knowing the rules by heart doesn't mean they won't understand how the rules work when they are explained...

Ok. The rule is “any sufficiently advanced rule is indistinguishable from fiat”. Do you understand the rule, now that it has been 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.

Clearly, you’re not familiar with the breed of players with the “eyes glaze over” trait. Or with rules complex enough to be triggering. Note that we are discussing “any sufficiently complex rules”, not “any rules”.

If they forget how it works the next session, the GM tells them again.

There is no next session - it was a one-shot. Or it’s a campaign, but the rule involves the interaction of artifacts and volcanos - not likely to come up 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.

Actually, the Wizard deals megadamage, while the Barbarian only deals regular damage. Also, the Dragon has the [Magical] [Terrifying] [Spirit] and [Incorporeal] attributes, which interact with key words on the Wizard and/or Barbarian class (or, at least, the Spirit Totem Barbarian and Imperial Geometer Witch Hunter subclasses). Oh, and the Barbarian [Rage] feature affects his grappling, not to mention the feats…

… 5 pages of explanation later… so obviously the Wizard is better at grappling the Dragon than the Barbarian.

Any sufficiently advanced rules are indistinguishable from fiat by your “reasonable person”. “Roll Strength” is not sufficiently advanced (for most audiences).

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.

Imagine a Simulation so complex, it can really only be played with the aid of a computer. It tracks precise weight of armaments and fuel, such that your vehicle performance characteristics actually vary each round as you consume fuel & ammo, for example.

The players have never played anything so complex, and only conceptualize “encumbrance” in an old school video game “yes/no”, “can we squeeze one more ounce of loot on this character before we hit our max encumbrance. They’ve never even played modern “take penalties / lose stamina faster” games before.

Oh, and the GM is one of them. He has no clue, either.

They all just enter their data, have the computer both calculate the odds and roll the dice, and have no clue why one player is the rockstar.

Or it’s just something like “grappling”, where peoples eyes glaze over whenever you discuss the really simple mechanics.

[JNAProductions]

The statement "Sufficiently advanced rules are indistinguishable from fiat" might be a true statement.
But it's not a useful statement.

At least for any TTRPG I've played, the rules are such that they're not overly complicated to understand-which makes sense. People have to use them, not computers that can process way faster. Yes, you can envision rules so complicated that they might as well be fiat to anyone not in the know, but do you have any actual examples of such rules, Quertus?
And I will caveat that by saying we should assume an invested and reasonably intelligent player. Yes, players who aren't invested might not learn about grappling if that's not what their PC does, but you can have someone who can fail to learn tic-tac-toe if they're not invested. That's not pertinent to this conversation.

[Quertus]

The statement "Sufficiently advanced rules are indistinguishable from fiat" might be a true statement.
But it's not a useful statement.

At least for any TTRPG I've played, the rules are such that they're not overly complicated to understand-which makes sense. People have to use them, not computers that can process way faster. Yes, you can envision rules so complicated that they might as well be fiat to anyone not in the know, but do you have any actual examples of such rules, Quertus?
And I will caveat that by saying we should assume an invested and reasonably intelligent player. Yes, players who aren't invested might not learn about grappling if that's not what their PC does, but you can have someone who can fail to learn tic-tac-toe if they're not invested. That's not pertinent to this conversation.

Grappling rules. Don’t know why, nobody can ever get them.

2e D&D and earlier: “do I roll High or low? Or High without going over? Or…”

Polymorph.

Time. No, seriously, the concept of things like “10 minutes” just doesn’t click in the way you’d think it would.

Roleplaying (as a rule, I guess “limit the characters decisions to being based on what they know”). Especially by GM’s.

Full auto. Or any rule with the word “cumulative”, actually.

MtG Power and Toughness. And Walls cannot attack.

Do I really need to keep going?

And that’s college-educated adults. 7-year-olds are another story altogether. They’re generally smarter, IME.

And the statement actually has negative value, as my point in stating it was because I didn’t want to discuss it - I wanted a “one and done” “let’s not bother discussing this bit, k?”

Sigh.

[Thrudd]

Sounds like you get it. If your expected exposure is less than the time it takes to learn, it is Indistinguishable from fiat. I’d add to your list “hidden subjective” variables, like “if the PC has a reputation for being kind, they get a +1 to loyalty rolls for X but a -1 to loyalty rolls for Y”. Does the GM think that the PC comes across as kind? Who knows.



Well, no. RPGs existed in the 20th century, and, in the unfortunate event that the world & humanity & civilization continue existing, RPGs will likely exist in the 51st century, as well.

Further, testing should be done at - at minimum - the boundary conditions, and the quote in question originated from a speaker who often comments on gaming with 7-year-olds, so “children” are clearly important to testing the phrase.

As would those with the lack of explanatory skill necessary to produce the classic “gazebo” story.



You put “GM” and “responsible” in the same sentence.



Ok. The rule is “any sufficiently advanced rule is indistinguishable from fiat”. Do you understand the rule, now that it has been explained?



Clearly, you’re not familiar with the breed of players with the “eyes glaze over” trait. Or with rules complex enough to be triggering. Note that we are discussing “any sufficiently complex rules”, not “any rules”.



There is no next session - it was a one-shot. Or it’s a campaign, but the rule involves the interaction of artifacts and volcanos - not likely to come up again.



Actually, the Wizard deals megadamage, while the Barbarian only deals regular damage. Also, the Dragon has the [Magical] [Terrifying] [Spirit] and [Incorporeal] attributes, which interact with key words on the Wizard and/or Barbarian class (or, at least, the Spirit Totem Barbarian and Imperial Geometer Witch Hunter subclasses). Oh, and the Barbarian [Rage] feature affects his grappling, not to mention the feats…

… 5 pages of explanation later… so obviously the Wizard is better at grappling the Dragon than the Barbarian.

Any sufficiently advanced rules are indistinguishable from fiat by your “reasonable person”. “Roll Strength” is not sufficiently advanced (for most audiences).



Imagine a Simulation so complex, it can really only be played with the aid of a computer. It tracks precise weight of armaments and fuel, such that your vehicle performance characteristics actually vary each round as you consume fuel & ammo, for example.

The players have never played anything so complex, and only conceptualize “encumbrance” in an old school video game “yes/no”, “can we squeeze one more ounce of loot on this character before we hit our max encumbrance. They’ve never even played modern “take penalties / lose stamina faster” games before.

Oh, and the GM is one of them. He has no clue, either.

They all just enter their data, have the computer both calculate the odds and roll the dice, and have no clue why one player is the rockstar.

Or it’s just something like “grappling”, where peoples eyes glaze over whenever you discuss the really simple mechanics.

"Imagine a simulation so complex"...in a discussion about game systems for TTRPGs? Have you ever encountered such a game? I propose that there is no such TTRPG, and therefore bringing up this hypothetical simulation, or computer games, in a discussion about designing pen and paper RPGs is a nonsequitur.

You're right that the grappling example is not "sufficiently complex", that's my point. Players not being able to remember or understand a mechanic doesn't mean it's "too complex". Hiding the mechanics doesn't make them "sufficiently complex". I don't think there is any TTRPG with mechanics sufficiently complex to be indistinguishable from fiat, and my post was attempting to refute the idea that any of the proposed examples of such things are actually very complex. They only resemble fiat when they are hidden from the players, so they don't know what variables are affecting the odds.

Everyone playing RPGs right now lives in the 21st century. Games that were created in the 70's and 80's, where they are still being played, are being played in the 21st century by people with 21st century knowledge. Whatever form TTRPGs might take in subsequent centuries is quite irrelevant.

players whose "eyes glaze over" at even simple rules do not make the case for "rules sufficiently complex..."

your example of a system with many different riders and keywords affecting how they interact with things is an example of complexity- but is it "sufficient"? When players are thinking about what sort of character to choose and what abilities to take as they level up, these things create complexity that might only be fully exploited by someone who has studied the game and all its options quite a bit. But in the moment, when they are actually interacting with the rules in-play, each player has one character with a set of abilities they see on their character sheet, and they know (unless they are an "eyes glaze over" sort), that each keyword and number on their sheet adds and subtracts things from different tests, and it isn't so complex that they can't tell that they will do more damage if they use the thing with the bigger number, or by targeting the thing the enemy is weak in they will be more likely to succeed. That they might not know all the abilities of other PCs or all the potential enemies they can run into doesn't mean that outcomes resemble fiat to them. Getting lost and unable to keep track of all the things that affect outcomes might mean the system is unwieldy and hard to play, but it doesn't look like fiat.

If the real aim of your arguments is: "games intended for 7 year-olds shouldn't be too complex", I don't disagree and I don't think anyone else would either. However, not all games need to be playable by 7 year-olds. Things too complex for the average 7 year-old are not too complex for the average 10 year-old, let alone teens and adults. Most TTRPGs are not targeted towards children so young. So, while your particular needs might result in pursuit of very simple games to play with your children, this is a niche concern which doesn't apply to TTRPG players on the whole. Children grow older and learn things (hopefully). A lot of us who started playing young graduated from simpler games to more complex ones.

I'm not debating that sometimes the results of a mechanic might look like fiat to some players in specific circumstances. In a one-shot, where nobody really knows the rules of the game - in a situation that only comes up once and never again - for children who barely know how to add and subtract - when everything is hidden from the players - but these cases don't mean the mechanic is so complex that it is indistinguishable from fiat. It means that maybe having complex mechanics for these specific situations is not worth the load on the GM, unless they have tools that make things quick to resolve and/or the integrity of simulation is important to them.

Yes, we're always balancing GM workload, playability and accessibility, simulation and challenge and all that stuff, when designing games. It's worth thinking about when and where to use mechanics, and when to leave things up to the GM. But a TTRPG is never going to have mechanics so complex that it might as well be fiat, at least as long as they are intended to be played by humans. In the 51st century, when we're all cyborgs or mentats, things could look a lot different- but then, things that would be "sufficiently complex" to resemble fiat to us would not seem as such to an advanced computer brain, would it? lol

[Quertus]

"Imagine a simulation so complex"...in a discussion about game systems for TTRPGs? Have you ever encountered such a game? I propose that there is no such TTRPG, and therefore bringing up this hypothetical simulation, or computer games, in a discussion about designing pen and paper RPGs is a nonsequitur.

This is a tricky one.

1) I’m told there was an RPG that was based on a military simulator that didn’t require a computer, but did factor in individual bullet weight when calculating performance characteristics, such that “casual” players would never want to play it without such. I never played or even saw it myself.

2) it wouldn’t be that hard for me to take such a simulator and turn it into a turn-based computer-aided RPG. It’s kinda hard to imagine a good programmer/tester hasn’t done so already (unless I am the only good programmer/tester dual-class, which I guess wouldn’t be too surprising anymore, I suppose).

So the full example is a theoretical, yes, but the individual components should theoretically exist.

You're right that the grappling example is not "sufficiently complex", that's my point. Players not being able to remember or understand a mechanic doesn't mean it's "too complex".

It makes it “too complex for them”. That’s kinda my point. Different people have different metrics for “too complex”.

“Wounds and Vitality”, as outside my previous experience, was “too complex” for me to instantly grok. With sufficient exposure, I got it; had my expected exposure been less than that, it would have been “too complex for me to grok” - which, granted, is not identical to “too complex to distinguish from fiat”, but I imagine you get the right chemicals in me (enough whiskey might do it), and you’d find the results indistinguishable.

Hiding the mechanics doesn't make them "sufficiently complex".

Hiding the mechanics, while an explicit part of some systems (and some tables) is less about lowering the bar for what’s too complex, so much as it is about lowering the bar for the reader to understand the idea, to be able to accept, “oh, if I think in terms of ‘not seeing’, I can see how someone with a mental block, or who lacked the same experience I have, could manage to just not see how this works”.

I don't think there is any TTRPG with mechanics sufficiently complex to be indistinguishable from fiat, and my post was attempting to refute the idea that any of the proposed examples of such things are actually very complex. They only resemble fiat when they are hidden from the players, so they don't know what variables are affecting the odds.

I’m guessing you didn’t play in the heyday of “for the GM’s eyes only” games?

See also “hidden subjective” variables, like “does the GM think that this character is kind” or “does the GM think that this character has sufficiently violated the codes of their religion”?

Everyone playing RPGs right now lives in the 21st century. Games that were created in the 70's and 80's, where they are still being played, are being played in the 21st century by people with 21st century knowledge. Whatever form TTRPGs might take in subsequent centuries is quite irrelevant.

The statement was not bounded by time. “Sufficiently advanced… Indistinguishable” involves subjective measurements - what’s “too complex” will vary from person to person.

players whose "eyes glaze over" at even simple rules do not make the case for "rules sufficiently complex..."

It’s subjective - it’s too complex for them, too complex for them to distinguish from fiat.

Really, if you don’t get that it’s subjective, I guess I can see how you might not understand where I’m coming from. You might say that the concept is just too complex for you.

your example of a system with many different riders and keywords affecting how they interact with things is an example of complexity- but is it "sufficient"?

Sufficient to be counterintuitive to your “reasonable person” example.

I’ve played games like this, that were highly counter-intuitive. Sometimes just to new players (like 3e “Fighter is a sidekick to the Wizard”), but made sense once you accepted the new paradigm; other times, I’ve never met players who could explain any underlying theme.

When players are thinking about what sort of character to choose and what abilities to take as they level up, these things create complexity that might only be fully exploited by someone who has studied the game and all its options quite a bit. But in the moment, when they are actually interacting with the rules in-play, each player has one character with a set of abilities they see on their character sheet, and they know (unless they are an "eyes glaze over" sort), that each keyword and number on their sheet adds and subtracts things from different tests, and it isn't so complex that they can't tell that they will do more damage if they use the thing with the bigger number, or by targeting the thing the enemy is weak in they will be more likely to succeed.

Which enemy is weak to [Witch Hunter] is likely easy to Intuit (right or wrong), but which enemies do you think will be weak to [Rage]? Not all keywords evoke an obvious interaction (regardless of whether what’s “obvious” is actually correct or not).

That they might not know all the abilities of other PCs or all the potential enemies they can run into doesn't mean that outcomes resemble fiat to them. Getting lost and unable to keep track of all the things that affect outcomes might mean the system is unwieldy and hard to play, but it doesn't look like fiat.

If you were simply told that your Barbarian failed to grapple the Dragon, but the Wizard succeeded, how would you distinguish that from fiat?

If the real aim of your arguments is: "games intended for 7 year-olds shouldn't be too complex", I don't disagree and I don't think anyone else would either. However, not all games need to be playable by 7 year-olds. Things too complex for the average 7 year-old are not too complex for the average 10 year-old, let alone teens and adults. Most TTRPGs are not targeted towards children so young. So, while your particular needs might result in pursuit of very simple games to play with your children, this is a niche concern which doesn't apply to TTRPG players on the whole. Children grow older and learn things (hopefully). A lot of us who started playing young graduated from simpler games to more complex ones.

Again, my experience is that 7-year-olds do a better job learning RPGs than college-educated adults. So… feel free to market those simplified RPGs to adults, I guess?

I'm not debating that sometimes the results of a mechanic might look like fiat to some players in specific circumstances.

That’s… pretty much what I’m saying with the subjective “Indistinguishable”.

In a one-shot, where nobody really knows the rules of the game - in a situation that only comes up once and never again - for children who barely know how to add and subtract - when everything is hidden from the players - but these cases don't mean the mechanic is so complex that it is indistinguishable from fiat. It means that maybe having complex mechanics for these specific situations is not worth the load on the GM, unless they have tools that make things quick to resolve and/or the integrity of simulation is important to them.

Yes, we're always balancing GM workload, playability and accessibility, simulation and challenge and all that stuff, when designing games. It's worth thinking about when and where to use mechanics, and when to leave things up to the GM. But a TTRPG is never going to have mechanics so complex that it might as well be fiat, at least as long as they are intended to be played by humans. In the 51st century, when we're all cyborgs or mentats, things could look a lot different- but then, things that would be "sufficiently complex" to resemble fiat to us would not seem as such to an advanced computer brain, would it? lol

Mostly just left this in ‘cause it’s fun. Although I’m liking the ideas you’ve put forth about complexity. I’m… guessing… my head is stuck in… something adjacent to… “the integrity of simulation is important to them”? Or maybe a cross between that and “consistency”? “The consistency of the resolution of the system”? Eh, maybe I’ll figure it out.

[Thrudd]

It makes it “too complex for them”. That’s kinda my point. Different people have different metrics for “too complex”.

So is the point of this to say: "when designing mechanics one should strive for greatest simplicity- keeping in mind the abilities of young children, potentially drunk players, and those who might not be able to grok too much." I don't totally disagree. I'd say, keep in mind the likely capabilities of your intended audience, level of inclusivity, and the intended format for games when designing (among other concerns). Greatest simplicity in all things may or may not be the optimal choice.

If you're playing a game and some or all of your players aren't "grokking" something- maybe the rules are too complex for them, or the game is poorly designed, or what it's simulating is outside their experience, or they just haven't had a chance to read the rules or had them explained sufficiently. The solution might be to amend or house rule so it is easier to use- it might be to make a point to explain how it works more thoroughly- it might be to switch systems or GMs, if everyone is having the same problems.

[Quertus]

So is the point of this to say: "when designing mechanics one should strive for greatest simplicity- keeping in mind the abilities of young children, potentially drunk players, and those who might not be able to grok too much." I don't totally disagree. I'd say, keep in mind the likely capabilities of your intended audience, level of inclusivity, and the intended format for games when designing (among other concerns). Greatest simplicity in all things may or may not be the optimal choice.

If you're playing a game and some or all of your players aren't "grokking" something- maybe the rules are too complex for them, or the game is poorly designed, or what it's simulating is outside their experience, or they just haven't had a chance to read the rules or had them explained sufficiently. The solution might be to amend or house rule so it is easier to use- it might be to make a point to explain how it works more thoroughly- it might be to switch systems or GMs, if everyone is having the same problems.

The original point was to say, “I don’t want to talk about rule complexity or fiat in the context of evaluating the value of the Strategic and/or Tactical layer(s)”.

The most related question I’d rather look at is, does the extent to which your players grok the game affect the relative value of the Strategic and/or Tactical layer(s)?

[Thrudd]

The original point was to say, “I don’t want to talk about rule complexity or fiat in the context of evaluating the value of the Strategic and/or Tactical layer(s)”.

The most related question I’d rather look at is, does the extent to which your players grok the game affect the relative value of the Strategic and/or Tactical layer(s)?

Oh, well yes, obviously it does. Not grokking elements of the game definitely reduces the ability to participate in strategy and tactics relying on those elements. If all your players don't grok strategy or tactics (and/or the mechanical systems which enable them in the game), then you're probably better off not trying to play a game that relies on those elements. If you are setting up strategic and tactical challenges for your players, relying partly or wholly on game mechanics, but all they can do is flail about and hope because the game and its mechanics are a mystery to them, I'd say there's little value in giving them such challenges- unless your intention is to teach them, and when they start flailing about, you help them see/learn what they might be missing.

[gbaji]

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.

Um... But you are literally defining "100% success" as the absence of random factors (die rolling in this case). That's exactly what I said. That you prefer game systems (or playstyle) in which there are no die rolls used to determine outcomes. Again. You are insisting that you don't hold this position, and yet you repeat it over and over.

I'm not saying that you demand this. I'm saying that you prefer it. Given that you just defined a 100% success as being "no dice come out", I'm not sure why you are debating this.

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 here's you repeating it. Again. I'm talking about your preference, which you have been clear about in the past, and are being very clear about again right here in this post. Just own your preferences. There's nothing wrong with that.

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.

Sure. But that's a pretty extreme example (strawman even). There's a whole range of things we may need to resolve in a game that fall well within the range of uncertainty, unlike "superman vs normal humans". How about batman vs a city? Or just joe the cop dealing with a small lightly armed gang member? Leaping immediately to the most absurd case doesn't a strong argument make.

? 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.

I'm going to assume you meant to say "nuance" there. And yes, I absolutely agree. But then why go to the least nuanced example case of "superman vs humanity"? How about something far less clear cut? Those are the areas we might want to create or run mini-games, right? So let's examine those cases instead.

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.

Yup. More or less the same concept as Occam's razor. And yes, also often misused.

But the concept is absolutely applicable to a mini-game. The rules should be just as complex as needed to simulate whatever you are simulating, and no more. That's what I've been saying all along. If the players are happy resolving things by just flipping a coin (or even just the GM saying "yeah, you can do that" or "nope. wont work"), then that's sufficient. In most systems, however, we may want to decide if/why some characters may be better at some things than others. At that point, we may need to create skills and abilities that define those things. And we may need to create a means to determine whether someone who has X skill level in a skill can accomplish the tasks, but someone with Y skill level cannot. Or maybe both can. Or neither. All are possible outcomes, and a good system should be able to resolve those cases and the conditions that lead to them.

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…”).

Um... Not to be picky, but you didn't actually state a problem here. Just defined the methodology.

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”?

It adds uncertainty and risk to the game. If I have 7 hps, and I'm presented with a challenge that will cost me 5hp, I know I will survive. Period. There's no wondering about it. If I'm presented with a "you will lose 1d6+3 hps", then I'm not certain what will happen. The average loss is 6.5 hps. Maximum is 9. I could die, or I might live. Should I risk taking the action? I'm not sure. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry: "Do you feel lucky?"

That's also only one area in which randomization is present in a game system (and a poor example for a mini-game discussion IMO). A more relevant one is skill rolls. Our strike team needs to bypass the security system to get through the blast door. We have a crack security guy with 8 ranks in "disarm security doors" skill (or whatever). Unfortunately, that guy (team1) got caught up in a firefight on level 3 and is delayed. A second group (team2), which took a different route has arrived at the security panel, but the best guy in that team only has 4 ranks in "disarm security doors". He may be able to open the door. We've got a third team (our main strike force), currently pinned down waiting for that door to open, or they're going to start taking casualties. It'll take 3 round to make the door opening attempt. It'll take about 5 more rounds for the team1 to get to the door, now that they've gotten through that minor firefight. Do you risk the less skilled guy making the attempt, possibly just failing and nothing happens, or possibly failing and causing a lock down and the whole mission fails? Or do you wait another 5 rounds, then take another 3 to have the expert attempt it?

Having skill levels and die rolls to determine this provides additional depth to the discussion and decision. If you know absolutely that a 4 rank skill will always fail with a lock down, you wont attempt it at all. If you know that it'll just fail, you wont attempt it (no harm in trying in this case, but you may be better off doing something else with your time). But what if that 4 rank skill is up against a level 10 security system, where you know that you get to roll a D10 and add your rank to determine success (with reaching the difficulty level being success, -5 means lock down). See. I'm making up a mini-game right here while writing this example. Ok. So I know that my rank 4 guy has to roll a 6 or better to succeed. Not great odds, but possible to succeed and get the mission moving. But, if I roll a 1, the result will be a 5, and that's -5 from the security difficulty, so the lockdown will occur. So 50% chance of success, 40% chance of simple failure, and 10% chance of lockdown. What do you do? You have a 50% chance of getting the blast doors open in 3 rounds, with a risk of lockdown and total mission failure, or you have a 90% chance of success if you take 8 rounds (5+3), with zero chance of lockdown (cause that's why he's the expert, right).

That's the advantage of adding die rolls to your game system. We can go further and assume hidden versus known factors. In my case, the player knows his skill level (4), knows the difficulty factor of the security system (10), and knows the game rules for this mini-game (roll a D10, add your skill ranks, and compare to the difficulty). They know the risks, and can make an educated choice about what to do. All while not actually knowing for certain what the actual result will be. If the factors are hidden, then the player still knows his skill level (4), still knows the rules (roll D10, add to skill, match against difficulty). He just doesn't know how difficult the security door is. He may know it's "high", and that his skill isn't great, so may speculate how well he'll do, but doesn't know for sure. This can heighten the unknown factors, which is still "fun" (and still "unknown").

In the "no die rolls" scenario, the rules may simply be "you either have enough skill or you don't". So obviously, we have to change the difficulty level to make this work. Let's say that it's a level 6 difficulty security system, so we know that the rank4 guy can't ever succeed, but the rank8 guy will always succeed. We also know that -5 will activate a lockdown, so the rank4 guy wont fail badly enough to trigger that (thank goodness we put that guy in team2, or we'd have the rank1 guy there, and we'd be screwed, right?). This means there is no decision to be made at all. We wait for the expert and have no reason to make any choice. But what if we hide the factors? It's an unknown difficulty, right? So it could be level 4 or lower, and we should attempt it. Or it could be rank 9 or higher, and we'll fail and lockdown. But then the rank8 guy would have had no chance, so we know that if the mission is at all possible to achieve, then we can't activate the lockdown by trying, right? And it costs us nothing to do so (3 rounds vs waiting 5 rounds to even start, right?), so why not? Again, there's no real risk here, unless the GM has set us on a mission we could not possibly succeed at in the first place. So you should always make the attempt in this case (again, no actual "choice" being made here).

That's where random rolls add value and depth to a game. Now maybe you don't like this, but most players do.

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.

I just did. In every play situation, the introduction of a die roll based rules system for this scenario makes the gameplay more interesting and more challenging to the players. It forces them to actually make a decision without knowing for certain what the outcome will be. It introduces risk to the outcome as well, and even when playing with hidden factors it *still* provides the players with more real choices to make. The absence of such things becomes an exercise in robot play. Follow the script. You know what will happen if you do X versus Y, so all choices are clear as to outcome, so mistakes will only happen if the players just don't think clearly or something.

There is a reason why the vast majority of all TTRPGs (and strategy games as well) utilize dice rolling. Now, don't get me wrong, I love me a good game of Diplomacy when I can find a good set of players. Incredibly fun (and difficult!) game. But for most games? Die rolling provides that uncertainty and is a better method for simulating "real life situations" than just static methods. And also, ironically, what can happen in static systems which include hidden GM applied modifiers (in order to create that uncertainty) is that it will become more like GM fiat. The GM knows the player skill levels, and can set the difficulties to ensure success or failure of any given action that is attempted. That takes a lot of the choice/power away from the players and puts it in the hands of the GM. The other way around? No real choices to be made. Just following a pre-defined "pass/fail" graphed route to success. I find that boring. I mean, there are ways of making such games interesting, but they all require some level of social interaction *and* unknown factors (typically player versus player). Games like Diplomacy and RoboRally do this very well. But those are players competing against each other. What about cooperative games (like most TTRPGs)? Player vs GM doesn't work well without die rolls (arguably at all).

[Quertus]

Oh, well yes, obviously it does. Not grokking elements of the game definitely reduces the ability to participate in strategy and tactics relying on those elements. If all your players don't grok strategy or tactics (and/or the mechanical systems which enable them in the game), then you're probably better off not trying to play a game that relies on those elements. If you are setting up strategic and tactical challenges for your players, relying partly or wholly on game mechanics, but all they can do is flail about and hope because the game and its mechanics are a mystery to them, I'd say there's little value in giving them such challenges- unless your intention is to teach them, and when they start flailing about, you help them see/learn what they might be missing.

You know, I’m not sure if it’s the players or the characters of “the All guardsman party” that completely fail at several things. So I’m not sure if “that’s what you get when you give them such games anyway” is true or not.

Regardless, when some players don’t “get it”, it sounds to my ears like a golden opportunity for spotlight sharing. Or, put another way, some players/characters will get to shine; the GM (and maybe the party) just needs to look for opportunities for the others to get to shine, as well.

[Quertus]

My battery and I might not last, but let’s see how far we get.

Um... But you are literally defining "100% success" as the absence of random factors (die rolling in this case). That's exactly what I said. That you prefer game systems (or playstyle) in which there are no die rolls used to determine outcomes. Again. You are insisting that you don't hold this position, and yet you repeat it over and over.

I'm not saying that you demand this. I'm saying that you prefer it. Given that you just defined a 100% success as being "no dice come out", I'm not sure why you are debating this.

I’m not sure (as I’m bad at reading comprehension) if this connects to what I said or not. So let’s try again: one can define things (desires, perhaps?) such that A success can involve “the dice do not come out on this scenario - it is handled purely at the CaW strategic layer”, without requiring 100% success rating across all challenges, without requiring always successfully resolving things at the strategic layer.

I mean, heck, with Resurrection in 3e, one can define success as “surviving” without requiring a 100% success rating across all encounters. Doesn’t usually work as well irl, though.

Are we on the same page wrt “a success” and “100% success rating”?

And here's you repeating it. Again. I'm talking about your preference, which you have been clear about in the past, and are being very clear about again right here in this post. Just own your preferences. There's nothing wrong with that.

My preference is for a well-earned 8-hour tactical slog minigame, because we definitively proved that this was worth playing through. That’s my preference.

Or it’s closer to it than your belief of my preference is.

Sure. But that's a pretty extreme example (strawman even).

No, we’re talking my preference, remember? Things of that ilk are definitely something I hate.

There's a whole range of things we may need to resolve in a game that fall well within the range of uncertainty, unlike "superman vs normal humans". How about batman vs a city? Or just joe the cop dealing with a small lightly armed gang member? Leaping immediately to the most absurd case doesn't a strong argument make.

A good tester understands the value of “boundary conditions”. I’ve just helped define my preference by returning the result at a boundary condition. That result is hatred.

Btw, while CaS Batman pulls out the dice with glee, CaW Batman drops a nuke on the city. With autopilot.

I'm going to assume you meant to say "nuance" there.

Maybe. Darn autocorrect.

And yes, I absolutely agree. But then why go to the least nuanced example case of "superman vs humanity"? How about something far less clear cut? Those are the areas we might want to create or run mini-games, right? So let's examine those cases instead.

Again, we’re talking about your mis-statement of my preferences. And I’m a good tester, who understands the value of boundary conditions.

Do I need to spell out… fine. So, therefore, I’m demonstrating in memorable fashion a boundary condition, like Superman vs naked humans, where, even against billions of them, not only is the outcome a foregone conclusion, but I would expect very few people would want to manually roll out via individual attack and damage rolls.

This is far more worth talking about, because most reasonable people would be more likely to remember this example, and maybe even remember it if someone once again says something like, “Quertus always wants…”.

Nah. I almost always want to try to resolve things in the CaW Strategic layer. I also want to often, but not always succeed at doing so, and therefore sometimes have to break to the Tactical layer. But decidedly not on the stupid. In fact, one could perhaps build a spectrum with “the stupid” at one end, and use that to approximate how I might feel about breaking to the tactical layer. It won’t be 100% perfect accurate, as there are other factors involved, but it might be closer than your statement of my preferences.

Boundary conditions. They have value outside of testing.

Yup. More or less the same concept as Occam's razor. And yes, also often misused.

But the concept is absolutely applicable to a mini-game. The rules should be just as complex as needed to simulate whatever you are simulating, and no more. That's what I've been saying all along. If the players are happy resolving things by just flipping a coin (or even just the GM saying "yeah, you can do that" or "nope. wont work"), then that's sufficient. In most systems, however, we may want to decide if/why some characters may be better at some things than others. At that point, we may need to create skills and abilities that define those things. And we may need to create a means to determine whether someone who has X skill level in a skill can accomplish the tasks, but someone with Y skill level cannot. Or maybe both can. Or neither. All are possible outcomes, and a good system should be able to resolve those cases and the conditions that lead to them.

It feels like you’ve managed to put the cat before the house (autocorrect, not fixing it, hoping someone finds it funny) twice here, which IMO is a record. This statement feels too early in the conversation, and, more importantly, I tend to put “having stats” before “evaluating whether we need to roll vs yeah you got this”.

Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, doesn’t need to roll Spellcraft because his bonus is an order of magnitude higher than the DC. The outcome of Superman vs Humanity isn’t in question because we’ve established that their damage output is orders of magnitude too low to affect him.

Um... Not to be picky, but you didn't actually state a problem here. Just defined the methodology.

Touché. This is the Playground, home of the highest standards in pedantry, so I’d not fault you for being picky, even if the conversation wasn’t about ironing out minute details of misunderstanding (which it is), or what was missing wasn’t also a rather vital omission (Which it is).

What was stated in the later summary, but should have been explicitly stated here as well, was that you need to demonstrate that the capacity for access to randomization in a “would you rather…”, “choose your own adventure” format is inadequate to demonstrate its validity to be used to evaluate the necessity of the strategic and/or tactical layer.

What was included was, indeed, an attempt at explaining just what (notably non-zero) randomization capacity was available.

It adds uncertainty and risk to the game.

That’s… not terribly useful. There already is the capacity for uncertainty - in fact, @Cluedrew was concerned that there was too much, and one could easily add more.

I’m guessing you’re attempting to argue that it adds a particular flavor of uncertainty.

If I have 7 hps, and I'm presented with a challenge that will cost me 5hp, I know I will survive. Period. There's no wondering about it. If I'm presented with a "you will lose 1d6+3 hps", then I'm not certain what will happen. The average loss is 6.5 hps. Maximum is 9. I could die, or I might live. Should I risk taking the action? I'm not sure. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry: "Do you feel lucky?"

Still not terribly useful. Might be more useful if coupled with a discussion of evaluating alternatives. Here, this is worded as “would you rather…”, but where one of the two choices is “do nothing”. As written, it’s even less interesting than the model it presumes to replace.

That's also only one area in which randomization is present in a game system (and a poor example for a mini-game discussion IMO). A more relevant one is skill rolls. Our strike team needs to bypass the security system to get through the blast door. We have a crack security guy with 8 ranks in "disarm security doors" skill (or whatever). Unfortunately, that guy (team1) got caught up in a firefight on level 3 and is delayed. A second group (team2), which took a different route has arrived at the security panel, but the best guy in that team only has 4 ranks in "disarm security doors". He may be able to open the door. We've got a third team (our main strike force), currently pinned down waiting for that door to open, or they're going to start taking casualties. It'll take 3 round to make the door opening attempt. It'll take about 5 more rounds for the team1 to get to the door, now that they've gotten through that minor firefight. Do you risk the less skilled guy making the attempt, possibly just failing and nothing happens, or possibly failing and causing a lock down and the whole mission fails? Or do you wait another 5 rounds, then take another 3 to have the expert attempt it?

Now that’s a good example.

That said…

If you have the less skilled guy make the attempt, draw 3 “combat consequences” cards for team 5, and roll Skill 4 - 3+ successes turn to page 42; fewer, turn to page 76. If you wait for the team1 Expert, draw 8 combat consequences cards for team 5, then roll Skill 8 - 3+ turn to page 42; fewer, turn to page 76.

Not seeing how that example invalidates “choose your own adventure” as sufficiently featureful to suffice as a simplification.

Having skill levels and die rolls to determine this provides additional depth to the discussion and decision. If you know absolutely that a 4 rank skill will always fail with a lock down, you wont attempt it at all. If you know that it'll just fail, you wont attempt it (no harm in trying in this case, but you may be better off doing something else with your time). But what if that 4 rank skill is up against a level 10 security system, where you know that you get to roll a D10 and add your rank to determine success (with reaching the difficulty level being success, -5 means lock down). See. I'm making up a mini-game right here while writing this example. Ok. So I know that my rank 4 guy has to roll a 6 or better to succeed. Not great odds, but possible to succeed and get the mission moving. But, if I roll a 1, the result will be a 5, and that's -5 from the security difficulty, so the lockdown will occur. So 50% chance of success, 40% chance of simple failure, and 10% chance of lockdown. What do you do? You have a 50% chance of getting the blast doors open in 3 rounds, with a risk of lockdown and total mission failure, or you have a 90% chance of success if you take 8 rounds (5+3), with zero chance of lockdown (cause that's why he's the expert, right).

That's the advantage of adding die rolls to your game system. We can go further and assume hidden versus known factors. In my case, the player knows his skill level (4), knows the difficulty factor of the security system (10), and knows the game rules for this mini-game (roll a D10, add your skill ranks, and compare to the difficulty). They know the risks, and can make an educated choice about what to do. All while not actually knowing for certain what the actual result will be. If the factors are hidden, then the player still knows his skill level (4), still knows the rules (roll D10, add to skill, match against difficulty). He just doesn't know how difficult the security door is. He may know it's "high", and that his skill isn't great, so may speculate how well he'll do, but doesn't know for sure. This can heighten the unknown factors, which is still "fun" (and still "unknown").

In the "no die rolls" scenario, the rules may simply be "you either have enough skill or you don't". So obviously, we have to change the difficulty level to make this work. Let's say that it's a level 6 difficulty security system, so we know that the rank4 guy can't ever succeed, but the rank8 guy will always succeed. We also know that -5 will activate a lockdown, so the rank4 guy wont fail badly enough to trigger that (thank goodness we put that guy in team2, or we'd have the rank1 guy there, and we'd be screwed, right?). This means there is no decision to be made at all. We wait for the expert and have no reason to make any choice. But what if we hide the factors? It's an unknown difficulty, right? So it could be level 4 or lower, and we should attempt it. Or it could be rank 9 or higher, and we'll fail and lockdown. But then the rank8 guy would have had no chance, so we know that if the mission is at all possible to achieve, then we can't activate the lockdown by trying, right? And it costs us nothing to do so (3 rounds vs waiting 5 rounds to even start, right?), so why not? Again, there's no real risk here, unless the GM has set us on a mission we could not possibly succeed at in the first place. So you should always make the attempt in this case (again, no actual "choice" being made here).

That's where random rolls add value and depth to a game. Now maybe you don't like this, but most players do.

Oh no, you’ve sold me on the value of random rolls. (Kudos! Excellent example, really made me want to play. 10/10.)

BUT

They’re just like avoiding rolls, they’re chocolate: a game without them may be inferior, but that doesn’t mean that pure chocolate is superior.

Or, at least, that’s my preference.

(Also, my preference is for, well, stuff like you just described, tbh. That was such a good recipe, I might only half-heartedly ask if anyone can just blow the door open, or blast through the wall, or hack the lockdown, or reset the computers, or “fight defensively” / throw smoke grenades / attempt to parlay / whatever to reduce casualties while waiting for the door to open, or…)

(Note that convincing me is not the same as convincing a true old school CaW maximally paranoid tactician of the value in letting dice decide one’s fate.)

I just did. In every play situation, the introduction of a die roll based rules system for this scenario makes the gameplay more interesting and more challenging to the players. It forces them to actually make a decision without knowing for certain what the outcome will be. It introduces risk to the outcome as well, and even when playing with hidden factors it *still* provides the players with more real choices to make. The absence of such things becomes an exercise in robot play. Follow the script. You know what will happen if you do X versus Y, so all choices are clear as to outcome, so mistakes will only happen if the players just don't think clearly or something.

No, you’ve only… proven? Demonstrated? Whatever. You’ve only addressed one of the two requirements; namely, the value of randomization. You have not addressed the other half, demonstrating that the simplified “code your own adventure” format provides inadequate access to that tool. (Autocorrect, leaving it). In fact, I demonstrated how your example could be written in that format.

There is a reason why the vast majority of all TTRPGs (and strategy games as well) utilize dice rolling. Now, don't get me wrong, I love me a good game of Diplomacy when I can find a good set of players. Incredibly fun (and difficult!) game. But for most games? Die rolling provides that uncertainty and is a better method for simulating "real life situations" than just static methods. And also, ironically, what can happen in static systems which include hidden GM applied modifiers (in order to create that uncertainty) is that it will become more like GM fiat. The GM knows the player skill levels, and can set the difficulties to ensure success or failure of any given action that is attempted. That takes a lot of the choice/power away from the players and puts it in the hands of the GM. The other way around? No real choices to be made. Just following a pre-defined "pass/fail" graphed route to success. I find that boring. I mean, there are ways of making such games interesting, but they all require some level of social interaction *and* unknown factors (typically player versus player). Games like Diplomacy and RoboRally do this very well. But those are players competing against each other. What about cooperative games (like most TTRPGs)? Player vs GM doesn't work well without die rolls (arguably at all).

I’m not sure of the relevance. Am I just too tired to process this, does it actually matter to the two ____s that need to be ____ed, or is it its own Topic?

[Quertus]

So, again, my position, in summary:

Every aspect of a TTRPG involving meaningful decisions worth caring about needs to have a CaW Strategic layer, where the decisions the characters make have the ability to affect the outcome of the story in a substantive way.

The presence or absence of the CaS Tactical layer is optional.

——-

While not an RPG, a “would you rather…”, “choose your own adventure” format is a nice simplification with which to evaluate this question.

——-

Both “resolving things within the Strategic layer” and “rolling dice” are “chocolate”, IMO: the game is better with their liberal inclusion, in the right places, but the game needn’t be composed entirely of either.

[Satinavian]

I seem to remember that your idea of CaW basically only includes static problems that get treated by the players like a riddle and not situations where the PCs and their adversaries compete on the strategic layer dynamically.

So no, this kind of CaW is not necessary. You can have very meaningful strategic gameplay that not conforms to this idea.

[Quertus]

I seem to remember that your idea of CaW basically only includes static problems that get treated by the players like a riddle and not situations where the PCs and their adversaries compete on the strategic layer dynamically.

So no, this kind of CaW is not necessary. You can have very meaningful strategic gameplay that not conforms to this idea.

Terminology error: I’m talking about the strategic layer, not about CaW. CaW is being used to help differentiate what I mean by the word “Strategic layer”. So your comment is misplaced.

That said… um… never mind. I guess “you can have meaningful Strategic gameplay without the Strategic layer” isn’t actually worth discussing.

I think you may have an interesting point in here, but it’s hampered by your misinterpretation of my use of “CaW” in context. (EDIT: “the Strategic layer can be put to more uses than strict/pure/oldschool CaW utilizes” - would that be a valid rewording of your point?)

[Satinavian]

(EDIT: “the Strategic layer can be put to more uses than strict/pure/oldschool CaW utilizes” - would that be a valid rewording of your point?)

Yes.

But if you mean "strategic layer", please write "strategic layer" and not CaW. Those terms are not interchangeable.


Thinking about how long the last discussion about CaW dragged on, it is probably better to avoid the term altogether if you want to be better understood..

[Quertus]

Yes.

But if you mean "strategic layer", please write "strategic layer" and not CaW. Those terms are not interchangeable.


Thinking about how long the last discussion about CaW dragged on, it is probably better to avoid the term altogether if you want to be better understood..

Different people are using words differently; therefore, I am referring to the CaW Strategic layer, to differentiate it from other definitions of “Strategy”-centric words.

How else would you recommend enhancing comprehension rates in this current quagmire of words, given my stated goals?

That said (or asked, or whatever)…

I agree that “pure” CaW underutilizes the strategic layer. Do you have any comments wrt how that impacts discussion of whether a game needs a strategic and/or tactical layer?

CaW says “there needs to be both a tactical and strategic layer. If we actually have to use the tactical layer, we’ve messed up. It’s a necessary fail state.”

CaS says “there needs to be a tactical layer, but the strategic layer needs to not exist / needs to be inaccessible / is cheating.”

So I see how CaW and CaS have commentary wrt the layers; I’m just drawing a blank on how “CaW underutilizes the strategic layer” informs our analysis of the necessity of the two layers. (EDIT: “the Strategic layer is more powerful than pure CaW gives it credit for, and, thus, the tactical layer actually is optional, contrary to what one would Divine from pure CaW”? That’s… kinda my position (“Strategic layer is required, Tactical layer is optional”), so… I agree?)

[Satinavian]

I agree that “pure” CaW underutilizes the strategic layer. Do you have any comments wrt how that impacts discussion of whether a game needs a strategic and/or tactical layer?

Mostly i was just complaining about your confusing use of the word, not the underlying argument.

But if were to consider the question which of the layers is necessary, i would say neither. Most RPGs i have played have both layers, but i have been in games with only the strategic layer and i have been in games with only the tactical one. Those experiences were quite different, but i still would consider them as roleplaying experiences/games without any reservation. So neither layer is necessary.

However, if you are asking about meaningful decisions that change the outcome of the story, there is a strong correlation to the strategic layer. But those meaningful decisions are in itself, while often desired, optional as well. There are many groups out there who are perfectly happy to get railroaded through an existing story and mostly play the reaction of their characters to the unchainging events.

[Quertus]

Mostly i was just complaining about your confusing use of the word, not the underlying argument.

But if were to consider the question which of the layers is necessary, i would say. Most RPGs i have played have both layers, but i have been in games with only the strategic layer and i have been in games with only the tactical one. Those experiences were quite different, but i still would consider them as roleplaying experiences/games without any reservation. So neither layer is necessary.

However, if you are asking about meaningful decisions that change the outcome of the story, there is a strong correlation to the strategic layer. But those meaningful decisions are in itself, while often desired, optional as well. There are many groups out there who are perfectly happy to get railroaded through an existing story and mostly play the reaction of their characters to the unchainging events.

“Every aspect of a TTRPG involving meaningful decisions worth caring about needs to have a CaW Strategic layer”, in the case where there are 0 such meaningful decisions does, indeed, work with your “getting railroaded through unchanging events”. It’s not the most obvious application of the rule, but it was designed and intended to not break for that use case.

[Satinavian]

I am aware. I did not actually disagree with this particular statement.

[gbaji]

Well, I tried to trim this down a bit. I really did. Then my fingers kinda got away from me. Sigh...

A good tester understands the value of “boundary conditions”. I’ve just helped define my preference by returning the result at a boundary condition. That result is hatred.

Again, we’re talking about your mis-statement of my preferences. And I’m a good tester, who understands the value of boundary conditions.

Do I need to spell out… fine. So, therefore, I’m demonstrating in memorable fashion a boundary condition, like Superman vs naked humans, where, even against billions of them, not only is the outcome a foregone conclusion, but I would expect very few people would want to manually roll out via individual attack and damage rolls.

This is far more worth talking about, because most reasonable people would be more likely to remember this example, and maybe even remember it if someone once again says something like, “Quertus always wants…”.

This whole bit. I'm not sure where you're going with it. Yes. I get the concept of a boundary condition. But that's you telling me your "anti-preference". If someone says "Hey Quertus. Based on your posting history, you seem to prefer strawberry ice cream", responding with "I don't know why you think that, I just hate chocolate" isn't terribly useful.

Literally no-one is disagreeing with your assertion that there's no value to spending time resolving a "superman vs naked humans" contest. No one. Ever. At all. It's not even remotely in question. Also, not remotely relevant to the issue.

The assumption behind even considering a mini-game is when we have a need to resolve something which is not automatically clear in terms of how it should be resolved (ie: *not* superman vs naked humans), and there do not appear to already be sufficient rules to manage that resolution. Again. That's the assumption here. So let's discuss cases where that is, well... the case. Right?

I'll also point out, as someone who works directly in a testing industry, that setting boundary conditions is only the very first step in testing. Actually, it's not even technically part of testing. It's like setting the environment in which you will run tests. The actual testing is all of the conditions inside the boundaries. So (to follow my silly analogy above), we don't talk about chocolate at all, but test whether vanilla is better than strawberry, or blueberry, or peach, or praline, or mint, or whatever. All the other "stuff" is what you test, not the boundary. If the only thing my testing equipment could output in such tests is "chocolate" or "not chocolate", it's a useless test. Ok, to be fair, that might be considered a basic "continuity test" or similar, used just to verify that the equipment is working or something, but those aren't actual test results that provide us any real data, much less allow us to make any decisions based on that data.

So yeah, if my response to your posts is that you may have a bit of bias towards certain systems, based on my own observations of your past posting on such topics, that's a valid thing for me to point out. The correct response should either be "yeah. Those are my preferences and that's why I prefer <insert resolution methodology here>" *or* "No, that's not my preference, my preferred method for resolution is really <insert some other methodology here instead>". Simply saying "I don't know where you got that idea", and then only talking about extreme examples of methods you dislike (and which everyone else, regardless of preference probably also dislikes), is not terribly useful.

Don't tell me what you dislike. Tell me what you like.

Nah. I almost always want to try to resolve things in the CaW Strategic layer. I also want to often, but not always succeed at doing so, and therefore sometimes have to break to the Tactical layer. But decidedly not on the stupid. In fact, one could perhaps build a spectrum with “the stupid” at one end, and use that to approximate how I might feel about breaking to the tactical layer. It won’t be 100% perfect accurate, as there are other factors involved, but it might be closer than your statement of my preferences.

Again. We all agree with that. But how about "non-stupid" conditions, in which breaking down to a more tactical layer may be useful? How do you feel about such things? I'm assuming every game session you play isn't purely strategic: "We will resolve the enemies plot by breaking into his headquarters in town while he's not there, stealing his plans, then interrupting his plans and saving the day", and the GM just says "That's a brilliant plan! You succeed. The city has been saved", and then you all have pizza or something? At some point, there must be some amount of drill down into details, right? And at some point, there must be some method used to resolve at least some conflicts those details involve. I mean, you have to determine if you can break into the HQ. Whether there are guards and security systems to deal with. Whether you can find the plans, depending on where they are, how well hidden, encoded, whatever. Then, once you have them, you have to figure out another plan to defeat the bad guys plan, right? And that may also involve many details.

I'm just struggling to understand how you can play a TTRPG without frequent dips into the "tactical layer", unless the entire game is just players and GM doing cooperative story time or something. Unless the entire game world is segmented into very clear and already known "things you can do" and "things you can't do", I'm not sure how this works.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of having a strong strategic layer and "plan" to act on. But my experience is that the vast majority of the "fun" of a TTRPG is actually playing out the actions, not just sitting around a table making the plans. So it's a bit strange to encounter someone who seems (again this is just my perception) to hold the exact opposite view. And yeah, I'm honestly curious if this is just a miscommunication or represents a complete style of play that I've never really encountered outside of a handful of pure strategy games (like Chess, Checkers, Diplomacy, etc), none of which are anything similar to what I'd call a TTRPG.

Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, doesn’t need to roll Spellcraft because his bonus is an order of magnitude higher than the DC.

If this is actually the case, all the time, in your game, then your GM is "doing it wrong". Can we both agree on that? And therefore also reject this as a case to examine? What about the situations where your mage is facing a situation where the DC is high enough to challenge his spellcraft skill? What do you do then?

If you have the less skilled guy make the attempt, draw 3 “combat consequences” cards for team 5, and roll Skill 4 - 3+ successes turn to page 42; fewer, turn to page 76. If you wait for the team1 Expert, draw 8 combat consequences cards for team 5, then roll Skill 8 - 3+ turn to page 42; fewer, turn to page 76.

Not seeing how that example invalidates “choose your own adventure” as sufficiently featureful to suffice as a simplification.

Er. Except you've converted your original "choose your own adventure" example into a die rolling situation. You've made a distinction without a difference. If "page 42" is where I wrote the part of my adventure that details what's behind the blast door when they open it, and "page 76" is where I wrote what happens if they fail to get the door open, you've basically not changed anything at all. You've just introduced drawing cards as the random generator rather than rolling dice. It's still random determination, right? No real difference except what physical media you are using to do so.

And it's not really "choose your own adventure", since the pages in the book are just the portions of my adventure notes where I detail different things that are there. You've managed to eliminate the very thing I was objecting to (the lack of random factors in a "choose your own adventure" book) and then insisted that this somehow invalidate my objection. Er. It doesn't. I don't care if we call the adventure a "book", and the portions of the adventure specific "pages in the book", or whether we use dice, or cards, or computer generated musical notes to determine outcomes, you've not invalidated my original objection, which was not to the tools used, but to the absence of any sort of random results generation engine being used.

If you're in agreement that using methods to generate random numbers to determine outcomes does, in fact, work, then that's great. I'm still not sure if that's what you're actually saying though.

(Also, my preference is for, well, stuff like you just described, tbh. That was such a good recipe, I might only half-heartedly ask if anyone can just blow the door open, or blast through the wall, or hack the lockdown, or reset the computers, or “fight defensively” / throw smoke grenades / attempt to parlay / whatever to reduce casualties while waiting for the door to open, or…)

Lol! When I was posting that, my first thought was "Quertus is going to ask about blowing through the wall, or nuking it from orbit, or something else to get around things". Yeah. Let's assume the "blast door", is somewhat by definition, weaker than the walls around it (cause otherwise that's pretty stupid, right?). And let's also assume that the entire reason you need to hack the security panel is because you cannot bring anything capable of blasting through the door to get inside with your strike team(s), due to size restrictions, need for stealth on approach, weight restrictions on the HAHO jump to get there, etc. And no, in this game world there exist no magical phasing tech to get through, nor teleportation tech that can penetrate, nor are any of the ventilation/water shafts large enough for you to get through, and let's also assume that you need something inside to be removed to "outside", intact (the princess held in the detention level, plans for the death star, or whatever), so you can't just nuke the facility and call it a day or something.

(Note that convincing me is not the same as convincing a true old school CaW maximally paranoid tactician of the value in letting dice decide one’s fate.)

I find it a personal challenge to force those old school paranoids into having to get their hands dirty by touching dice. I mean, unless they just want to automatically fail instead of having a chance to succeed, that's what they're going to have to do. And they'll just have to learn to love it or something...

No, you’ve only… proven? Demonstrated? Whatever. You’ve only addressed one of the two requirements; namely, the value of randomization. You have not addressed the other half, demonstrating that the simplified “code your own adventure” format provides inadequate access to that tool. (Autocorrect, leaving it). In fact, I demonstrated how your example could be written in that format.

As I've already pointed out though, all you did was counter my argument that random number generation methods should be used to resolve conflicts in which there is doubt about the outcome, by... providing a more complex version of "choose your own adventure" in which you used random number generation to resolve the conflict. So you disagreed with me by agreeing with me?

It's not the format that I care about, or what we call the thing we wrote down the different outcome sections of the adventure in ("adventure notes" vs "choose your own adventure pages"). I care about whether we should employ some form of random tools to generate success/fail outcomes. That was literally my objection to your original example (the absence of random generation). You "solved" that by adding in random generation, so... what was your reasoning again?

Are we agreed that incorporating some form of random number generation to produce outcomes where skill vs difficulty provides for uncertain outcomes is a valid method to use? Just wanting some form of clarification here.

Because IME, a whole heck of a lot of gaming involves this. And yes, not to bring this back to the original topic, but it's also pretty much the entire point of creating any form of min-game at all. No one creates mini-games to resolve things in which the resolution is automatic and obvious. It's always the cases where it's not automatic, nor obvious, what the outcome should be that we look at for these things. And to go even further, it's cases where those two things exist *and* for which there do not appear to be sufficient rules already present to sufficiently generate outcome determinations given desired player choices and the game world environment, in which we're going to want to do this.

And yeah, at the risk of repeating myself, most of those mini-games are going to involve rules more complex than "If you have skill A, you can simply do thing A". I mean, you could do it that way, but then you actually are creating mini-games for the equivalent of "superman vs humans", which you and I (and everyone else) agrees is pointless. So, assuming we *don't* want to do that, then we're left with those other cases, and those other cases somewhat require some method of die rolling (or equivalent RNG) be involved. Again, at least to me, this is somewhat axiomatic. Any case where you might consider actually needing a mini-game is always goin to be one where the outcomes are uncertain, and your players maybe want some more details in which to use to resolve that uncertainty in a more satisfying and realistic way.

At least, that's what I think mini-games are for.

[Cluedrew]

Even given how busy I've been recently, I am not so busy the reply that this had to take this long. Woops, sorry about that.

Now I’ve gotta read... if your second "definition" of "strategy" is conflating it with "tactics", then... I really have negative cares?

The first part is true (I agree it is a conflation, but that is how the words are used sometimes) and the second part is my point. So I think we are done.

I knew I should have avoided using the word "Startegic" in this thread. :(

Now I am curious, was your intent to refer to strategy, tactics or nothing?

[Easy e]

Now I am curious, was your intent to refer to strategy, tactics or nothing?

My intent.... I'm not sure I even know anymore.

I think it was to address the concept that everything in an RPG needed a mini-game/effort vs impact/Cycle of Reward/Game Theory of some type in order to make it more impactful or meaningful to players.

[gbaji]

My intent.... I'm not sure I even know anymore.

I think it was to address the concept that everything in an RPG needed a mini-game/effort vs impact/Cycle of Reward/Game Theory of some type in order to make it more impactful or meaningful to players.

IMO, the broad answer is "no". As Quertus has (correctly) pointed out, situations where the outcome is certain should just be narrated and then we move on. Every other situation should be resolved with a level of specificity proportional to how interesting/valuable that level of specificity is. And yeah, I get that this is a completely circular statement, but that's probably the most clearly stated way of looking at it.

The key here is "impactful or meaning full to players". This is always going to have to be balanced with "time/effort by the players". And this will vary wildly from table to table and game to game. Players will be willing to drill down into greater detail, and follow more specific rules if and only if the payoff is worth it to them. What "worth it" means will depend on the players. I think we've bashed the details beyond that point to death at this point though.

[KorvinStarmast]

"Feeform" doesn't mean "without rules". It means "free in format", as in, a player can explain what they want to do in a natural language, in any way they see fit.

It is completely common for freeform games to have rules. One of the more common ones is "one person is chosen as a referee - in case of a dispute, the referee has final say". Tabletop roleplaying games copied this from wargaming and feeform wargames existed before modern tabletop roleplaying games.

I am reminded of a game we played in High School called Dangerous Parallels, that had some elements of free form in it as moderated by the referee/teacher, but maybe that had too much structure to fit into 'free form' in the sense that you mean it.

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.

Indeed. TTRPGs only get strategic at the campaign level.

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.

Not sure what military writing you are referring to, but a key aspect of the strategic is knowing what the aims are (indeed, establishing what they are in the first place) and then setting up a series of steps / operations to achieve them.
I won't go into the formal education in operational art, et al, I got while in the military but it's a little bit different from what you outline there. If I may restate your summary (which has some merit) somewhat differently:

- Strategy involves identifying aims and assets allocated to achieve those aims.
- The Operational art is resourcing, and positioning (in time and space) the assets to achieve those aims
- The tactics is, with a given set of assets, going out and using various steps (and METT-T analysis, et al) to materially achieve those aims - to include the tried and true 'economy of force and mass of effects at the decisive points'.
That last bit is alive and well in TTRPGs at the tactical level in a given combat encounter, and in some systems in the social encounters depending on which game currency one is allocating.

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.

OK, close enough, particularly in a game without an overarching campaign or goal.