Reducing Options to Increase Fun

[Dannyalcatraz]

I loved The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth. Dead simple, Cha Gen takes 3-5 minutes, max. No options about AoOs, grappling, etc., and there are only a handful of spells for the mages. It's possibly the best beer & pretzels RPG ever made.

And love it though I do, I'd still rather play a "full featured" RPG in most circumstances.

That said, I'd also rather play games with clear rules rather than ones where wording is arcane or awkward, or the mechanics are clunky.

 

[Reynard]

It's possibly the best beer & pretzels RPG ever made.

And love it though I do, I'd still rather play a "full featured" RPG in most circumstances.

Interesting. What are the definitions of a "beer and pretzles" rpg versus a "full featured" rpg? Are they ends of a continuum or absolutre definitions? Is it a matter of opinion, or is it more objective? Is 3E "full featured"? B/X? OD&D?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

By "Beer & Pretzels", I mean an RPG that can be picked up, learned and enjoyed by experienced gamers & hobby novices alike, regardless of intoxication. "Rocket surgery" this game ain't. The Fantasy Trip was quite close to its wargame roots, and was only an RPG in the loosest sense of the word. Yet despite its simplicity, it was fully capable of supporting a line of adventures and provided a decent role-playing opportunity. Just don't expect to play anything beyond a warrior or a wizard.

But its really a continuum. Most editions of D&D would fall towards the "full-featured" side of things, AD&D - 4Ed, at least. A casual player or novice- or someone who is intoxicated- is not going to be grasping the majority of the game's rules & situations on Day 1...maybe not even Month 1. Your average kid under age 10 may find some of the lingo a challenge as well.

 

[Hussar]

IMO, the 2E was is infinitely superior: it is easier to adjudicate for the GM and more versatile for the player -- win-win

I'd debate the "infitely superior" thing but, I think I see what you're getting at.

You want fairly simple rules that can be broadly applied. Something like Savage Worlds, forex, where a 4 always succeeds. If your die roll (whatever die you happen to use) plus the modifiers equals or exceeds 4, you succeed, no matter what.

For that sort of thing, yeah, I agree with EW. You need to build from the ground up. Trying to strip 3e down to that level of general rule isn't going to work.

But, I think DannyA is right. D&D has often tried to be "full featured". AD&D is not a rules light system by any stretch. Even a simple combat round can involve numerous rules (weapon vs armor, AC rules, positioning rules, space requirements, size of the target, THAC0). B/E D&D does get around this by not having most of those rules. The problem is, B/E also lacks a lot of rules that many players probably would like.

Skills being probably the biggest one. "How hard is it to jump over a ditch" is something most players want to know the answer to without having to ask the DM, IME. And, it's generally something that's been added to the game for a very long time. Most players want to know their basic capabilities because it affects how they play their characters. It's pretty hard to be a swashbuckling swordsman swinging from the chandelier when I have no idea how difficult that is. Under one DM it might be automatic. Under another DM it might be virtually impossible.

And it's fine to say, "Well, ask the DM". Sure. But, it's impossible to foresee every eventuality before play begins. And, if every player has to have this long, drawn out conversation detailing each character's capabilities, then you're defeating the purpose of having a rules light system in the first place.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

B/E D&D does get around this by not having most of those rules. The problem is, B/E also lacks a lot of rules that many players probably would like.

Skills being probably the biggest one. "How hard is it to jump over a ditch" is something most players want to know the answer to without having to ask the DM, IME. And, it's generally something that's been added to the game for a very long time.

Indeed, even BECMI D&D added skills through the Gazetteer series. But that way they could be used or not be used and the core of the game was unaffected. They were so popular that the Rules Compendium put them in, but their nature was still very optional and modular and could be ignored.

Same with weapon mastery rules for BECMI, you could play a game and do little more than swing your weapon and do damage. The weapon mastery rules (game balance tossed well out the window with this) delivered a wild array of fun weapon options to be added to the fighter. But it was extra rules that could be plugged in or out without unnecessarily complicating the core game for those who just wanted the simpler core.

 

[pemerton]

the degree of granularity is totally dependent on what you want to achieve. And, play should be directed towards that level of granularity. In other words, play the game in front of you, not the game you wish it was.

Very good advice.

essentially undefined skills - that is, reduced options- is preferable in many ways. You b/x fighter needed only a brief character background - a Cimmerians hill man - to expand because what "Cimmerians hill man" entailed and when it applied was based on judgement calla, not hard and fast rules.

HeroQuest regularises this idea a bit via the idea of campaign-specific "keywords" - skills/attributes packages that can be advanced collectively, or even left undefined if everyone at the table is comfortable with what a particular keyword entails (eg "Cimmerian hillman" in a Conan game).

You want fairly simple rules that can be broadly applied.

<snip>

"How hard is it to jump over a ditch" is something most players want to know the answer to without having to ask the DM, IME. And, it's generally something that's been added to the game for a very long time. Most players want to know their basic capabilities because it affects how they play their characters. It's pretty hard to be a swashbuckling swordsman swinging from the chandelier when I have no idea how difficult that is. Under one DM it might be automatic. Under another DM it might be virtually impossible.

The best rules-light treatment of this that I know is also HeroQuest. The DC is set based not on simulationist considerations but on pacing considerations (Robin Laws repeats this system - the "pass/fail cycle" in DMG 2, but in HeroQuest it is actually integrated into the core of the game, as opposed to a half-baked add-on).

So a player knows how hard it is to jump the ditch or swing on the chandelier based on their sense of the prior evolution of the game in pacing terms. Ingame descriptions are to be applied by the GM subsequent to setting the DC, in order to make that DC make ingame sense.

 

[pemerton]

A potential side effect of reducing options is reducing the space in which a game can mechanically/tactically challenge the plaeyrs.

A game with simple character build rules, like Basic D&D or HeroQuest, does not challenge the player at this point. This contrasts with a game like 3E, or even 4e (although 4e reduceds the importance of optimisation, as Nifft pointed out upthread it by no means removes it).

A game with very flexible action resolution rules - again like HeroQuest or Reynard's "Cimmerian hillman" backgrounds - also reduces challenges, by either (i) encouraging players to always apply these broad and flexible rules so as to have the best chance of success, or (ii) making action resolution heavily dependent on GM fiat in interpreting what is permitted in any given situation.

Of course, a focus on mechanical/tactical challenges is not the only way to play an RPG!

 

[ExploderWizard]

A potential side effect of reducing options is reducing the space in which a game can mechanically/tactically challenge the plaeyrs.

A game with simple character build rules, like Basic D&D or HeroQuest, does not challenge the player at this point. This contrasts with a game like 3E, or even 4e (although 4e reduceds the importance of optimisation, as Nifft pointed out upthread it by no means removes it).

Quite true. The simpler systems in no way attempt to challenge the player during character generation. Instead the goal is to challenge the player (rather than the character) during actual play.

Complex and involved character generation provides a wealth of options but also removes some of the strategy which can be employed during play and places it into the pre-game building pool.

A simple system makes no up-front demands from the player. Without a menu of pre-selected and defined options, decisions during play can be made based on what seems to make the most sense or appears most reasonable to the player at the time. There is a bit less metagame intrusion into the decision making process.

 

[IronWolf]

Skills being probably the biggest one. "How hard is it to jump over a ditch" is something most players want to know the answer to without having to ask the DM, IME.

Well, it depends on the ditch.

Really though, it really does sort of depend on the ditch. Just using the real world area of the country I live in, a ditch can be drastically different things depending on which one you are looking at. Some you can practically step over in a single long stride, others are big enough to lose a car in. So it really can vary depending on the type of ditch in question.

Now with that said, if I describe it as a relatively small ditch, I would hope the player can at least make a ballpark guess as to the difficulty level versus if I describe it as a rather wide and deep ditch with a stream of water running along the bottom of it. If the player can't then I as DM probably need to consider being more consistent in my setting of DCs for various things to help aid the player in making these decisions without need to analyse in depth each situation.

And, it's generally something that's been added to the game for a very long time. Most players want to know their basic capabilities because it affects how they play their characters. It's pretty hard to be a swashbuckling swordsman swinging from the chandelier when I have no idea how difficult that is. Under one DM it might be automatic. Under another DM it might be virtually impossible.

I think over the course of a few sessions (possibly more depending on how many skill checks the players are exposed to in these sessions) that a player will get a feel for what their character is capable of. Some DMs will go more with the, that sounds really cool, here's a reasonable DC to accomplish it. Other DMs are going to want a less flashy feel to their game and if the player asks to do something cool or outrageous will be more likely to either say no, not possible or set a really high DC to practically guarantee failure. The players will learn which type of DM they have during the first few sessions with a DM.

For example, in the game I play in, I am pretty confident that if I tell the DM I want my character to not waste time running to the back of the theatre house to rush up the balcony steps and instead say I want to jump up and pull myself over the front balcony rail that my DM is going to say go for it and assign a DC that is reasonable if I have ranks in jump and climb. I know this because I have played with the DM for awhile and know he wants to see our characters able to be heroic and do cool things.

I do agree that a player has to learn which DM they are currently playing with. One that is all for them doing flashy things or one that likes a less flashy/swashbuckling game. Games vary from table to table and from DM to DM and for many things it is a matter of learning which style of game this table plays. I think this applies to even more than skill challenges.

 

[Smoss]

Another thing I have found that helps is how a system's rules tie together. For example - 3E with its options like grapple, etc. They do not have the same flow and ease as other rules - are completely separate. Now make that grapple the same as any other attack and give it a different effect than damage. Simpler, easier to use if it follows the same rule conventions.

That is just a simple example but the point is that good integration of rules makes them easier (and faster) to use. There is a reason psionics felt tacked on in most of D&D. It was not integrated with the rest of the system. Grapple feels that way in 3e. One of my main goals when creating my system was to find a "paradigm" and to follow it for all rules and roles.

Of course for me, in the end it came down to TWO similar paradigms (1 - Match a target number. 2- Beat a Threshold). But it has made all the bits of the system work together. And makes balance easy (Same targets/thresholds for all skills, attacks, etc).

It seems one could add a LOT of things someone could do (options) without adding much complexity if the way to resolve it remains the same. Thoughts?
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Smoss
Doulairen
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