The perfect game for me would probably use a "simulationist" framework - trying to model something we can relate to in the real world, without getting overly complicated, and adds a gamist/narrative layer to establish themes and game balance.
Levels are not that hard to rationalize but the way xp were earned in AD&D, the multiclassing restrictions and skills being tied to your level certainly were.
The subsequent editions tried to alleviate these inconsistencies but 4e brought them back with the rigid classes and the new skill system.
Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.
As to high-octane premises and system ideas - obviously the 4e design team think there's something to be learned about system ideas from indie games, because skill challenges (and, to a lesser extent perhaps, other aspects of the 4e mechanics) incorporate some of those ideas. Likewise the idea of an explicit and metagame-heavy endgame (via Epic Destinies).
Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.
I don't know that I agree entirely with the second sentence, but I think that much of what makes a game suitable for gamist play (ie player empowerment, either in the character build or action resolution mechanics) also facilitates narrativism - though reward mechanics don't necessarily straddle this divide well.What I don't agree with is the idea that games need to be "pure" in any of these regards. I think most good games mix all aspects to some extent.
HARP is also like this - simulationist mechanics (resembling RM in many respects, although very streamlined) but with a narrativist Fate Point mechanic and reward system. (Though the design of the game has certain minor incoherences eg it can't decide if character build rules should be understood as simulationist a la RM, or as purely metagame as would make sense for narrativist play).The perfect game for me would probably use a "simulationist" framework - trying to model something we can relate to in the real world, without getting overly complicated, and adds a gamist/narrative layer to establish themes and game balance.
Torg is pretty close to that
Yes, I've read them. I've never really got an "endgame" vibe from the paths to immortality, but I imagine they could be played that way (as could the stronghold rules from 1st ed AD&D, I guess).Have you ever read the BECMI rules (also known as Basic or Classic D&D)? Epic Destinies are a direct rip-off of the "paths to immortality" from that ruleset. It's got nothing to do with indie gaming - it's a throwback to old-school D&D. Unless there was an indie game scene in 1985.
Fair enough. I find the major essays reasonably clear, myself. As is fairly typical for criticism, the definitions tend to emerge in the course of use rather than in the glossary. The glossary is in my view not all that helpful.I see nothing wrong with RPG criticism and theories of gaming per se, but most GNS discussion strikes me as incredibly pretentious and vague, throwing around a lot of big words and trying to avoid giving a clear definition of anything.
Mearls I find quite clear, especially in the old Monster Makeover columns. Rob Heinsoo I don't find all that clear. W&M I found pretty clear, but I don't know who wrote that.Contrast this with what Mike Mearls and other WotC designers have said about the craft of game design. It's easy to understand what they're saying, because it's grounded in actual play experience and is concentrated on getting specific and visible results. You may or may not agree with their results, but you can at least understand them.
What about that dive through Moria? What about that escape from the goblins caves under the mountains?
Dungeon delves by a ragtag, oddball mix of characters.
That is a whole whopping serving of D&D right there. Do Howard, Vance, or Moorcock ever really get THAT close to the game?
Or, in your opinion, is that part of what is wrong with D&D?
I haven't played enough games or long enough, but Torg (release 1990) is the oldest one I played that a skill challenge like mechanic.The irony here is that MMOs could handle wound levels and hit location tracking without a hiccup, since the most complicated PnP system ever devised is child's play for a computer. But MMOs are still very much stuck in the D&D mold - hit points, levels, classes, XP for killing stuff, and so on - and have yet to really break out and explore the options the new medium offers them.
I think I'll go on the Blizzard forums and start grousing about how WoW is just like D&D.
Have you ever read the BECMI rules (also known as Basic or Classic D&D)? Epic Destinies are a direct rip-off of the "paths to immortality" from that ruleset. It's got nothing to do with indie gaming - it's a throwback to old-school D&D. Unless there was an indie game scene in 1985.
I don't know about skill challenges; those may in fact have been taken from indie games. Or they may have been the result of experiments within WotC.