Timmy, Johnny, & Spike - Rules for different types of players

[RangerWickett]

Reading Mike Mearls' recent articles reminded me of all the design articles of Mark Rosewater, a big name for WotC's other game, Magic: the Gathering. I started wondering if some of the insights from one game can help in the design of the other.

Anyone who spends much time reading WotC's Magic site knows about the three main player profiles.

Timmy likes big effects, doesn't want to waste much time on subtlety or finesse, and thinks he ought to do well if he's doing something dramatic. In D&D, this might mean "My barbarian sets himself on fire and grapples the ice troll, head-butting for full power attack!"

Johnny likes to tinker with the rules, and likes to achieve success as a result of his own creativity and ingenuity of putting together unusual elements. In D&D that might mean "I've taken the right combination of feats and class levels to be able to punch someone and deliver Baleful Polymorph as an at-will touch spell, so every time I punch someone, they turn into a toad!"

Spike likes to be as efficient and effective as possible. They're competitive, they want their playing skill to be rewarded, and will typically pick whatever tactics are the best to win. In D&D, that means, "I found this really nice build online, and it can deal an average of 17.3 damage per round. Plus it grants itself temporary hit points and regeneration." (Sometimes they also intentionally handicap themselves, just to see if they can still win by outwitting their opponents.)

Timmy wants to win big. Johnny wants to win with style. Spike wants to not lose (or at least not to screw up).


Mearls' latest articles were about different dials of complexity. You also need rules to cater to different playstyles.

In general, Timmy likes simpler rules, because there are fewer ways the rules can get in the way of doing cool things. I mean, mechanically, grappling a monster while you're on fire is not nearly as effective as just hacking at it with your sword, and if the grapple rules are complex enough, it ends up turning a cool idea into a lame and tedious moment of disappointment.

Johnny likes rules that are interactive. In this regard, I feel 3e was a lot nicer than 4e, because multiclassing let you mix and match stuff so much more easily in 3e. In 4e I can't have my eladrin invoker take feats intended for elf clerics. Also, everything is so well balanced mathematically that few powers let you do wonky but numerically weak things, like turn enemies into toads, or trade access to higher-level powers for the ability to use weaker ones more often.

Spike likes rules that he has to figure out. Winning tic-tac-toe is not nearly as satisfying as winning chess, because chess is a better demonstration of skill.

How in the world can you make a game that serves all these play styles? Any ideas?

What type of player are you? I think I'm a Spike.

 

[Croesus]

How in the world can you make a game that serves all these play styles? Any ideas?

What type of player are you? I think I'm a Spike.

First off, I'm a combination of Johnny and Spike.

As for designing a game for all these styles, I've run many a Champions campaign that would work for all three.

Timmy can run a brick, or a straightforward energy projector with a some cool stunts.

Johnny can design a character with interesting combinations of different powers. For example, I designed a character who entangled his opponents, then exploded the entangles on them. Another character concept was an archer who cast darkness spells (to which he was immune) and shot the now-defenseless targets with his arrows.

Spike can spend hours figuring out how to maximize his character, within the limits the GM sets. So long as he doesn't end up outshining everyone else all the time, no one minds how much time he spends on character creation.

 

[GSHamster]

My first thought is that D&D doesn't do enough with "costs".

Costs are how Magic manages to balance the three player types. Big Giant Dragons have correspondingly large costs, while Spike tends to be attracted to efficient cards, cards which have have a good power to cost ratio. Meanwhile, Johnny cards tend to also be costed slightly above normal, both in mana and time.

In D&D, you can't really save up resources for a big splash (within an encounter). All actions have very similar costs. And that kind of pushes the game towards Spike, in my view.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Reading Mike Mearls' recent articles reminded me of all the design articles of Mark Rosewater, a big name for WotC's other game, Magic: the Gathering. I started wondering if some of the insights from one game can help in the design of the other.

No. Stop right there.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Don't forget Melvin and Vorthos!

Vorthos is mainly a flavor guy while Melvin is mainly a mechanics guy. It seems that half the fights here are between Vorthos and Melvins once you think about it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am Legion, I contain multitudes.


(Iincluding Timmy, Johhny, Spike, Melvin, Vorthos, Balthazar, Flargin and Dingle, to name but a few.)

 

[Ainamacar]

No. Stop right there.

<Casts Counterspell>

Phew, for a second there you had me worried that a game couldn't gain insights from another game without being purified or corrupted (whichever you prefer) by it. Dungeonmagic and Dominionquest, and all that.

Personally, I'm mostly a Johnny/Spike mix when the rules permit sufficient complexity, albeit constrained by my vision of the character.

Instead of designing a game to be for all 3 types of players, consider designing a game that is "against" the problematic incarnations, mechanically speaking, of these types. Problem players exist, and to some extent everyone is one. A good game should be difficult to ruin just by playing to type within the rules. Don't be a dick is a fantastic rule, but good mechanics don't rely on it overmuch. A dick can always find a way to ruin a game, but that doesn't mean we should be providing opportunities.

The Spike is most a problem when he gets to mash the "I win" button much more frequently than other players. Some groups won't mind, but then again those aren't the ones that need help. The objective frequency with which that button is mashed will depend a great deal on genre and other considerations, but in general I think D&D has worked best when it is an occasional occurrence. This player requires the game have some semblance of balance in its mechanical portions. In D&D there is typically some assumption about the abilities of the average player, but much less about what the permissible variances from these averages are. The Spike always moves to the edge, and therefore pushes the mean. A game that can handle a Spike puts some constraints on what the Spike can accomplish, and this should probably be considered just as important a part of the math of a game as analysis of its averages.

The Johnny is a problem player when his mechanically complex (if conceptually elegant) solutions leads to the "I win" button or dramatically slows down play. Many Johnnys will find the "I win" button boring and won't press it, but those who don't are probably the most dangerous Spikes. Complex game systems (for various values of "complexity") are the only ones a Johnny is likely to want to play, and also the ones most at risk from falling apart under the accumulated stresses of its various bits. Generous stacking rules and anything that permits trading power in one area to gain it in another are the usual suspects. Combating this means aggressive cost/benefit analysis, a detailed look at opportunity cost from the perspective of a player that wants to maximize power, and a willingness to avoid power creep. It is here that something can be learned from magic, and really all of game theory.

The second problematic aspect of Johnny is that he is most likely to pursue complex interactions, find corner cases, and generally pursue options which will slow down play. Solutions include a universal resolution mechanic, a fast resolution mechanic, restrained use of situational modifiers, numerical interactions with other players/characters that rely only on universally defined quantities (e.g. armor class), simple stacking rules, spreading the burden of especially complex interactions over multiple turns, siloing decisions into a deep stack with relatively few choices at each level, and limited need to share/obtain information with/from other players until resolution. This isn't even close to a complete list, but I think the main point is that all of the above don't necessarily remove interaction, they attempt to streamline it.

The problematic aspect of the Timmy is usually when the cool dramatic thing actually sucks. (Admittedly, this is less likely to instantly ruin the game for everyone else, even if Timmy isn't having fun, so maybe this discussion will be "for" the Timmy rather than "against" him.) If the system balance is tight enough than it will never particularly suck, but it might also not feel particularly dramatic. In addition, mechanical balance usually doesn't include the impact of drama in its calculations, since by definition it can't be known until it's happening. This is where actions points, hero points, FATE aspects, and other mechanics that are potentially "drama aware" should serve the game. I especially like systems where dramatic action mechanics raises the stakes (sometimes literally), and generally lets Timmy be a special flower, just not every turn. I think these options help the Spike and Johnny as well, because their optimizations or elegant combinations can be altered each round in keeping with the action in the game's narrative while also tickling the urge to optimize or be mechanically creative.

Everything above is my initial opinion, not a thoroughly considered one. However, I feel pretty strongly that the best games in the D&D mold are those resilient to the Spike/Johnny combo while still giving them a fertile playground. When MtG can help navigate those waters, I'm more than happy to listen.

 

[FireLance]

How in the world can you make a game that serves all these play styles? Any ideas?

Basically, you create a game that allows the players themselves to choose which rules they want to use. For example, when defining their characters' abilities, each player can choose different - well, let's pluck a term completely out of the air - "powers". Some "powers" are simple, heavy-hitting Timmy-type "powers", others can be combined in interesting ways to attract the Johnnys, and others are simply slightly more efficient for the Spikes.

A game designed along these lines would certainly rock!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Basically, you create a game that allows the players themselves to choose which rules they want to use. For example, when defining their characters' abilities, each player can choose different - well, let's pluck a term completely out of the air - "powers". Some "powers" are simple, heavy-hitting Timmy-type "powers", others can be combined in interesting ways to attract the Johnnys, and others are simply slightly more efficient for the Spikes.

A game designed along these lines would certainly rock!

HERO anyone? Or M&M?

 

[Gentlegamer]

<Casts Counterspell>

Phew, for a second there you had me worried that a game couldn't gain insights from another game without being purified or corrupted (whichever you prefer) by it.

I reject the entire paradigm offered in that the three types all refer to combat only, particularly in manipulating rules for benefit (rules-play). If there's something for rules structure to be learned from another game, I'm for it, but not to put the entire "crunch" of the game into combat.

The only "type" offered that has something to offer is Timmy, who possibly represents that in-game improvisation that is at the heart of real role-playing games.

Let's borrow concepts that will allow participants to act in a way that the rules "fade into the background" in the light of free flowing play at the table.