The importance of non combat rules in a RPG.

[Wulf Ratbane]

So that's why RPGs usually hang more on combat than footraces and have detailed systems for resolving combat: combat is able to support that level of detail and interest in an interesting and exciting manner even when abstracted in turn-based rulesets.

That's a good jumping off point for me to summarize my earlier point:

1) Our first design goal is a mechanic that distributes success and failure across multiple checks.

2) The success or failure of any individual check is going to be weighted in favor of the player somewhere between 50-70%. (This keeps the chicken engaged in pecking for the pellet.)

3) Tension is maintained because the ultimate success or failure is iterated across multiple checks and kept in doubt until an unknown number of checks are completed.

4) But most importantly, as Elder-Basilisk notes, each of those iterative checks must include a depth of complexity and meaningful player choices (even if only seemingly meaningful).

"But you could do that with team sports!" you might object. Sure you could. But combat integrates much more naturally into stories than (even) team sports competitions do. Even if you were playing Friday Night Lights d20, odds are good that most of the time the football game would be a sidenote that was not directly integrated into the real story.

SIDEBAR: Although it's not a roleplaying game, I heartily recommend BattleBall. It uses the panoply of polyhedrons (d6 through d20), including a really cool football-shaped d6! The bigger players (linemen) use lower dice (d6s), and the faster players (receivers) use progressively higher dice (d20s). The trick is that you want to roll high for movement and catching the football, and roll low for winning tackles. I love the mechanic!

I would say astrophysics and space flight are more complex that bopping one another with sticks.

At the game mechanics level, they can be made perfectly analogous in terms of complexity. It's only your diction that introduces a seeming disparity. For example, I could successfully argue that human psychology and biomechanics are more complex than blowing fire out the ass end of a tin can.

So you are saying to me that in a game where if I was to play a NASCAR legend, driving at the most famous race of the season... hours and hours of driving, pit stops, crashes, laps..., that to resolve if I win or lose should only be based on a single/simple dice check and should never be given the time, energy or investment in any means for a more drawn out resolution system because it is arbitrarily 'not as complex' as physical combat?

I'm saying that there are certain design choices successfully modeled in iterative check combat resolution systems that can be ported over successfully to any other activity that takes place over a span of time and/or checks-- mechanically. The mechanics are easy, and well-proven at this point through countless RPG systems (pick any one); but where the best game designers shine these days is in making the thrust-and-parry of verbal combat or the high-speed jockeying of a NASCAR race every bit as interesting and engaging as combat.

As for me personally, I don't have any interest in trying-- not just because it's quite possibly beyond my creative capacity, but also simply because I'm extremely content with D&D as a combat-centric RPG.

 

[Chrono22]

As for me personally, I don't have any interest in trying-- not just because it's quite possibly beyond my creative capacity, but also simply because I'm extremely content with D&D as a combat-centric RPG.

Why emphasize combat as the central aspect of a pnp RPG, if this feature is not unique to pnp RPGs?
This really does confuse me. Many modern videogames/roleplaying games do combat better. Aion, for example. It has awesome graphics, a good story, and a rich world. Combat is flexible and subject to player choice.. and it is calculated automatically instead of by slow paper-based rules. Then do we play DnD for the social aspect? Perhaps, but once again this feature is not unique to DnD. Cards, watching movies, MMOs...
I have to conclude that the biggest reason we play pnp RPGs is because they facilitate imagination. They generate user interest by allowing the user to create their own content based on their own desires. Combat in this sense is just a means to an end. It's a medium for allowing player imagination and input to create change and have consequence. Other mechanics can do it- mechanics for race car driving, deep space exploration, sewing...

Making combat central to DnD seems counterintuitive to me. What has made DnD unique for me has never been the combat. It's the sense of exploration, wonder, and fellowship it engenders.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Making combat central to DnD seems counterintuitive to me.

The game has its origins in a tactical miniatures combat game, and it seems counterintuitive to make combat the central focus?

Err... Okay.

Combat in this sense is just a means to an end. It's a medium for allowing player imagination and input to create change and have consequence. Other mechanics can do it- mechanics for race car driving, deep space exploration, sewing...

So where are all the games about race car driving, deep space exploration, and sewing? Do you have anything to explain the lack of interest in such subject matter as opposed to the BILLION dollar industry that Dungeons and Dragons pioneered with its relentless, philistine brand focus on... killing things and taking their stuff?

 

[Ariosto]

The game has its origins in a tactical miniatures combat game, and it seems counterintuitive to make combat the central focus?

From what I gather, it would be more accurate to say that D&D has its origins in strategic and grand strategic games, some of which employed grand tactical, a.k.a. operational miniatures rules sets as sub-systems. Arneson apparently pressed the small-unit/man-to-man rules from Chainmail very briefly into service before finding them unsuited to the needs of that portion of his campaign game.

Blackmoor seems more Braunstein than Boot Hill.

 

[Primal]

So where are all the games about race car driving, deep space exploration, and sewing? Do you have anything to explain the lack of interest in such subject matter as opposed to the BILLION dollar industry that Dungeons and Dragons pioneered with its relentless, philistine brand focus on... killing things and taking their stuff?

Wulf, I don't think anyone would claim that games about such subjects could ever compete with the most popular fantasy, horror or sci-fi titles in terms of popularity and commercial success. However, there are other motives for designing games than just fame and fortune, and there ARE indie RPGs that belong to quite small subgenres and/or approach the themes from either weird or mundane angles (for example, 'Nicotine Girls', 'Breaking the Ice', 'Carry', and '3:16').

 

[Chrono22]

The game has its origins in a tactical miniatures combat game, and it seems counterintuitive to make combat the central focus?

Err... Okay.



So where are all the games about race car driving, deep space exploration, and sewing? Do you have anything to explain the lack of interest in such subject matter as opposed to the BILLION dollar industry that Dungeons and Dragons pioneered with its relentless, philistine brand focus on... killing things and taking their stuff?

Way to totally ignore the meat of my position. I would do the same for you, but I actually want you to see how wrongheaded this is.

DnD was based off of miniature wargames thirty years ago. There's a reason it ceased being known as a miniature wargame- the focus of play changed. Instead of being groups of player-controlled creatures against eachother, it became a group of player-characters vs. the game environment. The assumptions about play were not the same. You have made design choices based on playstyles from 30 years ago. That seems like a bad idea somehow.
There are systems devoted to space-travel. Race car driving is iffy, but I know it exists as a subsystem within d20 modern. Sewing was just a silly example of how anything that can be represented mechanically and holds player interest could be made the focus of play.

The DnD brand is large because it was first, and for all the mistakes of TSR it did create brand recognition. Why is combat still so important?- people are violent, and tradition. There really aren't better reasons. Combat catches the attention of most, dramatic combat especially. But it need not be the focus. If people played DnD primarily for the violence, they wouldn't play it in the first place. There are better and faster methods.

Your design goals were based around assumptions you held about the focus and motivations of play- so you emphasized features that don't truly define DnD. No surprise that half of the fanbase dropped the edition, and the other half are only sticking with it because of brand loyalty.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

You have made design choices based on playstyles from 30 years ago. That seems like a bad idea somehow.

No, it's an extremely good idea, hence the undying popularity of Dungeons and Dragons and the countless other games it has spawned in the "Kill things and take their stuff" genre.

It's pure tradition that keeps these games selling, and selling, and selling. Sure.

There are systems devoted to space-travel. Race car driving is iffy, but I know it exists as a subsystem within d20 modern. Sewing was just a silly example of how anything that can be represented mechanically and holds player interest could be made the focus of play.

Get back to me when Blizzard launches World of Needlepoint.

No surprise that half of the fanbase dropped the edition, and the other half are only sticking with it because of brand loyalty.

Ahhhh... Now we get to the heart of your biases.

 

[El Mahdi]

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[El Mahdi]

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[Scribble]

I'd love to see a Critical Hits and Fumbles chart for that system!

PM: You find yourself walking along the road to Sewinsworth when suddenly you're abbushed by a group of angry Selvege Memory Quilts!

Player: ARRG! Well lets see how they stand up to my new Bobbin of Thread Looping plus five! CRITICAL STITCH!

Player 2: Way to cross your backstich!