Legends and Lore 11/22/2011 - A Different Way to Slice the Pie

[tomBitonti]

Seems to be a good idea, but a poor example (AOO's).

DR is a better example, although, coupling that to level seems to be be a problem.

Starting with simple examples is definitely the way to teach new ideas. You have to walk before you run. Introducing new rules as they are needed seems to be the just about right.

For DR, at low levels, that doesn't seem to be needed until you get to undead. Actually, undead introduce several new notions: Immunity to sneak attack, DR, turning. I don't see a need to wait until 3'rd or 5'th level to introduce zombies, but, I would wait until the players had the very basic mechanics understood before added the new details. You could go the same route with state, for example, ghouls or Carrion Crawlers and paralyzation.

Certainly, higher level players have new abilities, some of which are not available at low level: Iterative attacks, say, or a number of more powerful abilities, like teleportation (in 3.5E).

This seems to be not so much as a game design issue as a game presentation / authorship issue, in that there is a need to decompose the game into subsets which can be introduced to play gradually, and, with some priority scheme to mark "core" vs "frequently used" vs "occasionally used" vs "rarely used". Really, that is just the basic groundwork that the game author ought to have had an eye on, perhaps not from the very beginning, but certainly for a long time now that we are contemplating the 5'th edition of the game.

Seriously, this is education / training 101. The game authors need to get off their butts and learn how to present complex ideas in incremental stages.

TomB

 

[Crazy Jerome]

For training, I think there may be some leftover vibes from early editions, where taking so long to go up in levels did often make "increased complexity by level" a viable model. After all, if you are playing, say, 1st ed. AD&D, starting all new characters at 1st level, and being reasonably moderate with advancement--then some people will spend a couple of years under level 11. So it can work, given the right pacing.

But to do that on purpose, as the way to learn the game, I don't like. My preferred method with a new system is to play some pregens at low level, jump several levels, play some more, and maybe do that one more time if the learning curve is still a problem. Then we decide whether to continue with what went before as a campaign or start fresh now that everyone knows how it works. Or, if we don't want to invest that kind of time because we don't think we'll be playing that system very long, introduce a simpler version and start, then bring in the complexity as warranted.

 

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

Going back ... a little ... on my point that this is not a design issue. Rather, there is a design issue, but I place it more in the realm of "is this complexity necessary, in the first place".

This is mostly from the 3.5E point of view. I have a much limited view of 4E, so have only one comment there, and it is made at a distance.

Some of the complexity is self inflicted: See, in particular, grapple, which is still not a coherent set of rules. The problem with grapple is not in when to introduce the complexity, but rather, whether to use those particular rules at all.

This seems to be problem of 4E, where, by refusing to "give up the center", that is, to provide core explanations of monsters and abilities, and rather to barrage folks with particular instances, the game publishers have unnecessarily and dramatically increased the apparent complexity of the game. (I call this "design by obfuscated center", in parallel with "design by exception", which I detest.)

Other complexity arises from a failure to clearly explain the reason for a set of rules: AOO is a consequence, in part of circular initiative. High natural armor is there why, because the creature really has hide that is the equivalent of double layered full plate (in addition to its DR), or, is the natural armor there to counterbalance the players hit bonuses at the target level?

Some complexity arises because of strange special cases. Why is summon a full round activity? Having an action persist between rounds rather violates circular initiative. As a special case, it doesn't fit.

Or, of having non-uniform special cases: It seems that the many special attack actions: Power attack; Trip; Disarm; Cleave; Bull Rush; could be put under a single mechanic, and could use the same style of feat: Anyone can try them, they all use a standard action, and all have a feat to take away some of the penalties to untrained use.

There is complexity because of orthogonal rules systems covering the same area: For example, natural attacks use different rules than character iterative attacks. Why do it this way? How do you tell when to use natural attacks, and when to use iterative attacks?

TomB

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This seems to be problem of 4E, where, by refusing to "give up the center", that is, to provide core explanations of monsters and abilities, and rather to barrage folks with particular instances, the game publishers have unnecessarily and dramatically increased the apparent complexity of the game. (I call this "design by obfuscated center", in parallel with "design by exception", which I detest.)

I'm getting some of that same drift from this latest article; thus the vehemence of my first reaction. But do you dislike "design by exception" always, or simply the way it has been done in D&D?

Reason I ask, is that I have no beef with exception-based design when used properly. For example, if most powers (or skils or feats or whatever) can be done on the general, simple plan--then do them that way. For the things that are left, you can introduce 80% of the complexity of the general system, to handle 20% of the items. Or you can keep the core system simple, and have exceptions for the things that are truly exceptions. Or I guess you can go the 4E route, which is not exception-based design but rather make everything a stand-alone "exception". In practice, I find the middle one the most likely to result in useful rules, procedures, etc.

Making exhaustive rules and/or some Rube-Goldberg contraption to systemize every corner case that you want "powers" to cover--bad. Throwing up your hands and making every class have a unique "powers" list--bad.** Making common powers and systemizing them where simple and convenient, and then having a few exceptions for classes (or roles or sources or whatever)--good. If that means that Fighters have one unique 9th level power and Rogues have an extra class features and Clerics have some extra class abilities and "arcane casters" get a few special spells, then fine.

** This is what Sean Reynolds advocated for 4E, building off of 3E/3.5. Not that he wanted that result, but that doing what he advocated would have gotten to there all the same.

 

[tomBitonti]

I'm getting some of that same drift from this latest article; thus the vehemence of my first reaction. But do you dislike "design by exception" always, or simply the way it has been done in D&D?

Reason I ask, is that I have no beef with exception-based design when used properly. For example, if most powers (or skils or feats or whatever) can be done on the general, simple plan--then do them that way. For the things that are left, you can introduce 80% of the complexity of the general system, to handle 20% of the items. Or you can keep the core system simple, and have exceptions for the things that are truly exceptions. Or I guess you can go the 4E route, which is not exception-based design but rather make everything a stand-alone "exception". In practice, I find the middle one the most likely to result in useful rules, procedures, etc.

Making exhaustive rules and/or some Rube-Goldberg contraption to systemize every corner case that you want "powers" to cover--bad. Throwing up your hands and making every class have a unique "powers" list--bad.** Making common powers and systemizing them where simple and convenient, and then having a few exceptions for classes (or roles or sources or whatever)--good. If that means that Fighters have one unique 9th level power and Rogues have an extra class features and Clerics have some extra class abilities and "arcane casters" get a few special spells, then fine.

** This is what Sean Reynolds advocated for 4E, building off of 3E/3.5. Not that he wanted that result, but that doing what he advocated would have gotten to there all the same.

I find that I rather dislike it as a central design principle. Having exceptions, when necessary, is fine, but I don't think that is what is "Design by exception" means for 4E. For 4E, I take it to mean that variety is provided, both through the available optional powers, and through the particular classes, by providing select exceptions to the rules, thereby giving each power or class a unique feature. A corollary is that leveling a character means selecting a range of "exceptional powers" and making unique combinations with them. I'm alright with there being unique powers, but not so much by introducing them as "unique ways to break the common rules" without a good reason for how that is achieved.

That is, the exceptions are not "at need" but "by deliberate intent".

TomB

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That is, the exceptions are not "at need" but "by deliberate intent".

OK, I think we are on the same page then. Except, I'm still pushing back against calling what 4E did "exception-based design"--because I don't like giving a good concept a bad reputation by using the term improperly.

Heck, it is not as if "design via lists" is entirely lacking in the proper context, especially not in a printed product. Several versions of D&D made good use of it with spells, and Rolemaster practically turned it into a fetish.

 

[tomBitonti]

OK, I think we are on the same page then. Except, I'm still pushing back against calling what 4E did "exception-based design"--because I don't like giving a good concept a bad reputation by using the term improperly.

Heck, it is not as if "design via lists" is entirely lacking in the proper context, especially not in a printed product. Several versions of D&D made good use of it with spells, and Rolemaster practically turned it into a fetish.

Haha; I didn't make that up; that (sic: Design by exception) was one of the 4E talking points!

TomB

 

[GSHamster]

Stuff like opportunity attacks, on the other hand, could have been used from day one. Given a game system which allows the player to design his character, this might lead to characters built in a "wrong" way. What about a character built on the concept of battle field mobility? Without opportunity attacks this character works, but with the inclusion of this new rules he might be skewered in the very first round of combat.

Well, for example, you could encapsulate Attacks of Opportunity into a feat.

Opportunist
Requires BAB +5
If an enemy next to you takes a move action, casts a spell, or fires a ranged weapon, you may immediately make a regular melee attack against that enemy. You may only make one extra attack per enemy each round.

Doing something like moves AoOs out of the general rules and into the feat list. AoOs do not appear below 5th level. AoOs only appear if someone deliberately takes the feat. If you don't want to deal with AoOs, you can ban or not use that single feat.

Your battlefield mobility guy would work against most opponents, but would have trouble against opponents with this specific feat. Which is good design, as long as not every opponent has this feat.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Haha; I didn't make that up; that (sic: Design by exception) was one of the 4E talking points!

I know. And some people use "impact" as a verb. You know what they mean, but that doesn't make it correct.

 

[Mark CMG]

I know. And some people use "impact" as a verb. You know what they mean, but that doesn't make it correct.

That's often done by Creatives.