Consequence and Reward in RPGs

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I like to compare trends in the game industry as a whole with individual segments, such as RPGs. Often what’s happening “out there” will turn up in the individual segments, if it hasn’t already.



The most striking trends in hobby games is the movement from games of consequence to games of reward. Players in hobby games in the past have been expected to earn what they received, but more and more in hobby games we’re seeing games that reward players for participation. This is a general trend in our society, where schoolkids expect rewards for participation rather than for achieving excellence, and in fact excellence is sometimes not allowed!

Reward-based games have always been with us via party games, and to a lesser extent family games. Virtually no one cares who wins a party game, and all of these games tend to be very simple and fully accessible to non-gamers. Mass-market games are much more reward-based then consequence-based. Hobby gamers might call them “not serious”.

A reward-based game is more like a playground than an organized competition, and the opposition in reward-based games tends to be weak/inconsequential/nonexistent.

Home video “save games” have always tended to make video games a “you can’t lose” proposition. We’re moving beyond that.

With free-to-play video games dominating the mobile market and a strong influence in other markets, designers reward players so that they’ll play the game long enough to decide to spend money in it. We see players who blame the game if they fail, who expect to be led around by the hand, even in games that people purchase.

Tabletop RPGs generally involve an unspoken pact between the players and the GM, so that the players can have fun and not have to worry too much about losing. But the game tends to be more enjoyable when there’s a possibility of failure - the triumphs are sweeter. The co-creator of D&D (Gary Gygax) put it this way in one of his last publications (Hall of Many Panes) "...a good campaign must have an element of danger and real risk or else it is meaningless - death walks at the shoulder of all adventurers, and that is the true appeal of the game."

Classic games involve conflict. Many so-called games nowadays do not involve conflict, and there are role-playing "games" that are storytelling exercises without much opposition.

Reflections of this trend in RPGs often involve abundant healing and ways to save characters from death, such as the ridiculous Revivify spell, usable by a mere fifth level cleric in D&D Fifth Edition, that brings back the dead on the field of battle.

35 years ago, a young player GMed his first game for our shared-characters campaign. He really wanted to ensure the players had a good time - so he gave out lots of magic items. We wanted players to earn what they received, so myself and the other lead GM waved our hands after the adventure and most of those items disappeared.

I’m a senior citizen, in my roots a wargamer, and I prefer games of consequence. But that's not where the world is headed.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher

 

[S'mon]

...Something like "Hitler liked it so it must be bad", which is of course
nonsense...

OMG Lewis Pulsipher is Literally Hitler!!

 

[Mallus]

OMG Lewis Pulsipher is Literally Hitler!!

Don't tell [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. He'll be heartbroken!

 

[Hussar]

Well, at least I got called out by name.

But, yeah, nothing I've seen here has particularly changed my mind. The notion that somehow back in the day, games were more "challenging" (whatever that's actually supposed to mean) is ridiculous.

What does that even mean? What does "challenging" in this context mean? I can look at a game like Blades in the Dark, which is a heavily story driven game, pretty strongly in the Narrative camp, where "getting the treasure" doesn't really mean anything and combat isn't the point of play, and see that challenge in that game means putting in as good of a performance as you can in order to entertain the group.

I used to play The Dying Earth RPG, some years ago. Fantastic game. But, the challenge there was to immerse yourself in a Vancian setting, complete with it's own idiom and language. Tons of fun. But, apparently, not a "challenge"? I'm going to tell you right now that if you actually played the game, you'd find it all sorts of challenging.

And, again, all sorts of ignoring actual history going on here. I mentioned Dragonlance, and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] put that as a sort of 2e design thing. But, let's be honest here, that was being played in the 70's, LONG before 2e was a gleam in anyone's eye. 2e design didn't come out of a vacuum. 2e was a recognition of what was being played. Maybe not played by everyone, true, but, certainly a recognition of how the game was being played at a number of tables.

Between the original article and Mr. Pulsiver's second post, I get the serious smell of troll coming from this thread.

 

[Shasarak]

OMG Lewis Pulsipher is Literally Hitler!!

Has anyone ever seen Hitler and Lewis together in the same room?

Seems legit!

 

[Hussar]

It seems to me that there are two issues here, related but separate.

1. The historical argument that gaming has changed. That might be true, but, the changes are hardly new. We saw all sorts of more story driven games coming out almost from day one. I mean, you have things like Empire of the Petal Throne, which is damn near as old as RPG's, where the point of play wasn't so much about challenge, but about exploration and interaction with the setting. While EPT was based on the OD&D ruleset, it approached play very differently.

As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said, how can these be considered changes to how gaming is done when these changes are as old as the hobby?

It's kinda like the old argument about how D&D used to be all about the mega-dungeon. Fair enough if all you read was the AD&D DMG. Obviously the mega dungeon campaign was a pretty standard way to play. Only thing is, as soon as you widen your scope a bit, mega-dungeon play wasn't the only game in town. All you have to do is look at the modules. The mega-dungeon is the exception, not the rule when you look at modules. Even looking at something like the shift from Basic to Expert D&D, we see that the dungeon is no longer the focus of play - Expert rules and more importantly the Isle of Dread, showcase play that is almost completely divorced from dungeon crawling.

2. The argument that challenge necessarily means "earning" rewards. Thing is, that's so subjective that it's virtually meaningless. What does that even mean? It presumes that the only rewards that are involved in play are the in-game rewards for your character, which in D&D means treasure and XP. Thing is, the issue with "Monte Haul" campaigns isn't so much about not earning the rewards, but that it futzes so badly with game balance. If everyone is hauling around a +5 sword, it makes adventure design so much more difficult.

I remember an anecdote by Gygax in Dragon talking about how one of the players had a Vorpal Sword. The issue wasn't one of Monte Haul, but, that the sword was too powerful and it made encounters too easy. So, he maneuvered a way into the game to get rid of the sword. Not because the player hadn't "earned" it.
[MENTION=30518]lewpuls[/MENTION]' notion that "earning it" only means having a high risk of PC death is simply mired in an approach to the game that I don't particularly share. For me, "earning it" means that you've played the game in such a way that everyone at the table has had a great time. Whoopee, you rolled a high enough Save Vs Poison on that trapped chest so you "earned" your magic sword for getting lucky and rolling high on a d20? How is that "earning" anything? It's like the old rules for bonus Xp for high stats. Has absolutely nothing with earning anything. You just got 10% more XP than the guy beside you because you managed to roll higher on your stats? What did you do to earn that 10% XP?

Sorry, but, rewards in games should be for smart and entertaining play that makes the table a better place to be. Rewarding someone simply for getting lucky is just gambling. And I'd rather gamble if that's what we're going to do. Rolling this back around to war-games, I MUCH prefer my war-games that minimize randomness. Sure, Risk or Axis and Allies can be tons of fun, or, like one A&A game I played, Germany falls in the second turn because the player couldn't roll above a 2, no matter how many times he rolled. Yay, great game everyone. Sorry, I'll take things with a little less random chance and a lot more thinking thanks. There's a reason that Euro-games have completely dominated board games for the past twenty years or so. Far less winning through random blind luck and a lot more actual thinking and planning.

I'll stick to games that reward thinking and planning thanks.

 

[TwoSix]

<shrug> I'm perfectly okay if gamers of this generation are less competitive and challenge-driven, as a whole (obviously counterexamples abound) than gamers of a previous generation. So what? We're a little wimpier than our forebears? Oh well, we're nicer and better people because of it.

 

[Hussar]

Whoops, nothing to see here.

 

[Lanefan]

That just doesn't match my experiences with Old-school at all. Mine seem much more in line with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s, even when the DM was using all or most of the rules that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] mentioned. I don't think I've ever met an old-school dwarf who made it more than a few levels without somehow running into the Franklin Mint Dwarven Heritage Artifact Collection.

Where in 35 years I've yet to meet a Dwarf in any game with any more than one of the set...and even then, it doesn't always work quite right.

in my current game there's a Dwarf with a "Dwarven Thrower" hammer - when thrown it turns into a (usually screaming) Dwarf, splats against the target, returns to hammer form and flies back to its owner.

My High School group played mostly published adventures and my first college group played mostly homebrew in the FR. I don't know how you miss all the treasure. Just put your finger on the wall and never let go until you've mapped and murdered the whole place.

You must have had amazing luck finding secret doors.

Also, can someone please define what [MENTION=30518]lewpuls[/MENTION] means by "legacy games"?

Lan-"when used as a handheld melee weapon the Dwarven Thrower is - and behaves as - a very nice enchanted war hammer"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

2. The argument that challenge necessarily means "earning" rewards. Thing is, that's so subjective that it's virtually meaningless. What does that even mean? It presumes that the only rewards that are involved in play are the in-game rewards for your character, which in D&D means treasure and XP.

In-game, those are the most commonly-seen rewards, yes...but with one caveat.

Experience points in and of themselves aren't much of a reward. The real reward is the level-ups they eventually represent, and the associated increase in powers, abilities, (usually) survivability, and so on.

This is relevant when looking at, say, 2e advancement rates vs. 3-4-5e.

As for randomness: I kinda like it in reasonable amounts as something of an equalizer. Besides, winning at anything usually involves a fair amount of luck no matter how much skill you bring (just ask the Anaheim Ducks about that).

Lan-"and any game that's based on dice is going to come down to luck, no matter what you do"-efan

 

[Libramarian]

A final comment: in some domains of activity, relative "toughness" or "hardcoreness" is fairly easy to identify. Running a half-marathon is, in some objective sense, more gruelling than jogging 500 m. Climbing a mountain is, in some objective sense, more gruelling that climbing over the fence at the local park.

But in what way is playing classic dungeon-crawling D&D supposed to be more gruelling than, say, playing DL back in the day, or playing the final encounter of some WotC AP, or (to turn to a non-D&D game) playing a session of DitV? There is a tone in some of the posts in this thread - with references to lethality, difficulty, etc - that clearly imply this is the case. But they don't explain what the nature of the gruelling-ness is supposed to be.

It's just the pain and embarrassment when your character dies. It's gruelling to roll up a new one and start over. It's especially gruelling to not have anyone else to blame. Can't blame the DM (assuming "hygienic" practices), can't blame the adventure (assuming a sandbox rather than AP). You just have to eat it.

Although I wouldn't say the gruelling-ness itself is what I like about this way of playing. I think Luke Crane describes the pleasure of old school dungeoncrawling very well in this post (which I know you're a fan of):

"I realized at that moment that this group had done something all too rare in my experiences with roleplaying games. Rather than bending the game to our predilections, we bent our collective will to the game. We learned it, and it taught us. It taught us how to play it, but it also taught us lessons."

It's refreshing to play an RPG that doesn't care what you're trying to do with it, where the PCs are basically avatars and the focus is on the players' learning curve rather than the DM's story or the PCs' dramatic development. It's almost more like work than play, but stimulating work, not drudgery. Compared to most RPG play I find it to be, as the poet Thom Gunn said after reading too much "very poetic poetry", like drinking water after too much birthday cake.

Sorry, I'll take things with a little less random chance and a lot more thinking thanks. There's a reason that Euro-games have completely dominated board games for the past twenty years or so. Far less winning through random blind luck and a lot more actual thinking and planning.

I'll stick to games that reward thinking and planning thanks.

I always like old style gamist D&D to poker in terms of the balance of luck and skill. If you just look at an individual hand, you'd think luck dominates, but after several hours of play, the skilled players probably have the big stacks.