[L&L] Balancing the Wizards in D&D

[Herschel]

I'm of the opinion that modern games are largely over-designed. This applies to video games and RPGs like 4e. Modern games are "scientifically" well-designed and you can recognize where established design principles have been applied. Unfortunately, they've often lost something in the process. It's hard to say exactly what that "something" is, but the slick presentation, well-thought-out-balance, empirically-proven pacing and reward cycles leave me a little cold.

I'm definitely in agreement with this regarding many things.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Using this type of example us audio recording techniques. Listen to "When The Levee Breaks" by Led Zepelin, particularly John Bonham's drums. That thunderous, echoing sound was created "organically" because there wasn't a better method. Bonham played Ludwig Vistalites (Acrylic shells) with no muffling and tuned a bit high. That is the start of that boomy sound but it wasn't enough. They wanted an echoing reverb so they went to a castle, set up the kit at the bottom of a tower and set the microphones up top, allowing the sound to bounce around and off the sides, creating that canyon effect.

Almost 40 years later you can just run the sound through a digital effects processor and get the same effect quicker, cheaper and more efficiently.

I also used to do echo/reverb in sound recording by potting the recording destination up slightly to create that extra "loop" and I was good at it. Again, now I could just use a digital effects processor.

But, if I'm more comfortable with the old ways, feeling they're more "organic", "natural" or whatever I can still use them if I prefer them.

but now you are getting into actual technological advances (and I am not convinced by arguments that compare game systems to tech). I was talking about stylistic developments. To me the more appropriate musicial anology is the 80s fusion of baroque and 1950s musical sensibilities and techniques. There is nothing inherently better about using baroque scales and counter point over say the more bluesie pentatonic scales and arrangements that were in vogue in the 70s. You are talking about trends. Many of the things we attribute to modern design (focused concepts, unified mechanics, etc) I wuld label trends, not objective improvements.

 

[Hussar]

Attributing it to nostalgia is an understandable mistake.
Is it so hard to believe that those older systems are liked because the people find them better than newer systems? That people feel they were actually well designed and served the game better? That just because something is newer doesn't mean that it is well designed?
Unfortunately, equating newer with better happens all too frequently around here.

The problem here is you are conflating "I like it" with some sort of judgement of quality. That you or I might like X does not preclude it from being a horrible kludge of design.

I would hope that after thousands of hours of play, and more thousands of man-hours of design, the later edition of anything would be better designed than what came before.

Heck, compare the 1e DMG to the 3e DMG. We could talk about flavour and writing styles and that's fine. But, at the end of the day, the 3e DMG is a better designed book. It's layed out better, it's easier to reference, it's easier to use, it's better indexed. By any reasonable judgement of quality, the 3e DMG is a better designed DMG than the 1e DMG.

Now, whether or not you happen to like one or the other is a separate issue. but, as the saying goes, the tendency to conflate personal taste with quality is extremely common.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm of the opinion that modern games are largely over-designed. This applies to video games and RPGs like 4e. Modern games are "scientifically" well-designed and you can recognize where established design principles have been applied. Unfortunately, they've often lost something in the process. It's hard to say exactly what that "something" is, but the slick presentation, well-thought-out-balance, empirically-proven pacing and reward cycles leave me a little cold.

Now take it the next step. The evolution of techniques is often:

1. Learn new technique. Use it for the sake of the technique itself and/or over use it for things it isn't designed for.
2. Learn the proper balance of the technique in the whole. Integrate it into the craft.
3. Now, with the fully integrated new technique, see that something is still missing. Start looking for the next technique.

Repeat the cycle ad infinitium. Meanwhile, the art of the thing is using whatever techniques you have, best you can, and recognizing that somethings don't have a technique (either yet or ever--it really doesn't matter much which when you don't have it right now).

There was no humanly possible way, for example, that we would ever get thoughtful, balanced use of CGI special effects in film until a bunch of people had pushed the envelope so hard that CGI became "the thing" in their projects. It's theoretically possible to do it, but humans aren't wired that way. I'm sure the same principle applies in any field that is part art, part evolving techniques.

 

[mcintma]

That something is the familiar way the games sucked when they weren't as well designed. It's part nostalgia, part missing the 'lawless wild west' factor. Actually living in the wild west sucked, some jerk might come and shoot you for your boots or steal your horse or jump your claim at any moment. But, that adversity was exciting to read or watch movies about long after it was over. Heroic fantasy is also about characters dealing with extreme adversity. Conflating the adversity the hero faces due to heroic challenges, and the adversity the player faces due to bad rules is an understandable mistake.

Well, you may take comfort in the fact that your line of reasoning will soon apply to 4e. Since 5e will be 'newer = better', 4e must by definition be archaic design and join the quaint and antique 'nostalgia' versions 1-3e

 

[Hussar]

Well, you may take comfort in the fact that your line of reasoning will soon apply to 4e. Since 5e will be 'newer = better', 4e must by definition be archaic design and join the quaint and antique 'nostalgia' versions 1-3e

Again, you're equating something you like with something of quality.

Look, there's no escaping that a new car is better than an old car. It just is. In every single measurable way, a 2012 car is better than a car produced in 1965.

But, I know which one I'd rather own, a 2012 Prius or a 1965 Mustang.

However, I'm under no illusions that that classic car is better designed than the new one. It just isn't. It can't be. Many of the things that the new car has simply didn't exist back then.

The same applies to RPG's. The idea, for example, of action points. That players could have authorial control over events in the game didn't exist in 1978 when AD&D came out. No one, as far as I know, had come up with that idea in an RPG. Now, move forward a few years and you have the James Bond RPG, which did have something like Action Points. It was a very cool idea.

And, lo and behold, years later, we see that concept incorporated into many RPG's.

Is newer always better? No of course not. Some new ideas fail. That's a given. However, "because I like it" is NEVER a valid judgement of quality.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, you're equating something you like with something of quality.

Look, there's no escaping that a new car is better than an old car. It just is. In every single measurable way, a 2012 car is better than a car produced in 1965.

But, I know which one I'd rather own, a 2012 Prius or a 1965 Mustang.

However, I'm under no illusions that that classic car is better designed than the new one. It just isn't. It can't be. Many of the things that the new car has simply didn't exist back then.

The same applies to RPG's. The idea, for example, of action points. That players could have authorial control over events in the game didn't exist in 1978 when AD&D came out. No one, as far as I know, had come up with that idea in an RPG. Now, move forward a few years and you have the James Bond RPG, which did have something like Action Points. It was a very cool idea.

And, lo and behold, years later, we see that concept incorporated into many RPG's.

Is newer always better? No of course not. Some new ideas fail. That's a given. However, "because I like it" is NEVER a valid judgement of quality.

but any measure of quality in an rpg is going to be subjective. And all you are doing here is equating newer with quality. You seem to be arguing it isn't possible for a game made the 80s to be better designed than a game in 00s simply because there were fewer mechanics to choose from. How well designed a game is entirely depends on what criteria you are using for quality. Diversity of design options is one among many possible measures. And anytime you evaluate the quality of design you are subjectively selecting which measures to include. I would argue that 1e and 2e are more soundly designed in many respected than 3e (which has a lot of issue due to its multi class system and its unfied mechanic with uncapped math).

I also dont think you can totally divorce quality from " i like it".

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heck, compare the 1e DMG to the 3e DMG. We could talk about flavour and writing styles and that's fine. But, at the end of the day, the 3e DMG is a better designed book. It's layed out better, it's easier to reference, it's easier to use, it's better indexed. By any reasonable judgement of quality, the 3e DMG is a better designed DMG than the 1e DMG.
.

Better layout, better organization and better index have less to do with the design side of the hobby. Those are entirely on the editorial/layout and graphic design side of the hobby. Arguably organization is a part of design, but even that is really a basic component of good writing. People were quite capable of writing clear and well organized paragraphs in 1978 (even if Gary's unqiue style tended away from this).

There are two issues here though. Again you are focusing on things you regard as essential features of quality design. Not everyone agrees. And there is the inescapable fact that the 1E DMG (for all its flaws) continues to be read even by people who don't play 1E because it has a great deal of utility and warmth.

But 1e was first and is bound to be less polished...but that is a writing issue not an issue of game design (you will note a similar tendancy in many RPG or book lines where later editors and writers polish up the first manuscript to make it clearer and better organized). Instead take the 2E versus 3E dmgs. Those are seperated by about ten years of development. Personally I don't think there is anything particularly notable about 3E DMG's quality of the 2E DMG, even using the criteria you have laid out (2E DMG is well organized, well indexed, etc).

 

[billd91]

Heck, compare the 1e DMG to the 3e DMG. We could talk about flavour and writing styles and that's fine. But, at the end of the day, the 3e DMG is a better designed book. It's layed out better, it's easier to reference, it's easier to use, it's better indexed. By any reasonable judgement of quality, the 3e DMG is a better designed DMG than the 1e DMG.

I hope you actually mean the 3.5 DMG there, because the 3.0 one wasn't very good for layout and reference by comparison. 3.5 was much better. That said, I'm still faster at finding stuff in my 1e DMG than with 3.5.
And the indexing of the 1e DMG is actually quite good.

 

[The Shadow]

but any measure of quality in an rpg is going to be subjective.

Not quite. Mind you, your other statement:

I also dont think you can totally divorce quality from " i like it".

has an element of truth to it as well. Nevertheless, judgment of quality is not wholly subjective. It is possible to tell when a game system is *getting in your way*.

I had many hours of fun with AD&D, and have a lasting treasure of memories of those hours. I would not willingly part with them.

Nevertheless, when I moved from AD&D to other systems, it became clear that AD&D had serious design flaws. It was, in a word, clunky - it was constantly getting in my way, drawing attention to itself. It had too many fiddly rules that were unnecessary. I got frustrated with it.

Of course, those other systems had their own flaws. I can't see myself playing Champions again, now that I have Mutants & Masterminds. M&M is just plain better at what it does - deliver fun superhero gaming - with very little downside. Still, Champions (and GURPS, and others) showed me what was wrong with AD&D, because their warts were in different places.

I reiterate: I had many, many hours of fun with AD&D. But likewise I can't see myself ever playing it again, because there are newer systems that just plain deliver the gaming experience better.

That said, I do agree that rule codification has been carried to far, and I applaud the 5e designers for trying to get back to more GM adjudication; it's a positive effort to recover something that I agree has been lost. But the excessive codification of 3e was an overreaction to a real problem in AD&D as I see it. For the most part, and not without flaws, it was a real improvement.

Then there's 4e. Here is a clear example of the non-subjectivity of quality judgment: I think 4e is a completely brilliant example of game design. I am in awe of the ambition of the effort and the degree to which it succeeded. Not to say that 4e doesn't have its own problems, but wow, there's no question the design is amazing. And I can't stand the game.

The problem? All that brilliance was directed at producing a type of game I have no interest in playing. I'm just not interested in tons and tons of tactical options - it bores me to tears. If it floats other people's boats, more power to 'em, but it doesn't float mine.

I haven't actually played D&D in a while. (A little bit of Pathfinder, but mostly M&M and True20.) I'm here excitedly talking about 5e because AD&D was my first love. I can see now we weren't meant for each other, but that doesn't change the fact that we had a great time together. So I can't help but hope that this time it will all work out.