D&D 5E Final playtest packet due in mid September.

[Ahnehnois]

However, if a game functions such that character build decisions do not trump character play decisions for efficacy, I think it can still satisfy those who desire system mastery and those who desire balance.

...but not those who desire meaningful character build decisions (including, but not remotely limited to the charop crowd).

The experience of playing a magic-heavy party, running into a golem, and feeling worthless is part of the game. The experience of playing a bunch of rogues and being able to sneak up on and kill most non-elite opponents easily is part of the game. The experience of playing a bard, believing for all the world that it would be as useful as the barbarian and seeing that it just wasn't is part of the game. I don't see any of those outcomes as being broken, and I think it's important to offer those kinds of options for players.

So there needs to be something better at it for me to say it didn't succeed? I don't think that makes sense.

I'm just not clear on what your bar for successful genre emulation is, or what a game that met it would look like.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It can/does if we are trying to simulate novels. Then we are looking to achieve stories that match what we see there. My contention is that the sequences of events are easily distinguishable. I would contend that the D&D stories you mention here are more like sports memories than they are like fantasy novels, w.r.t. their origination.

Obviously it will simulate "bad" novels because it isn't entirely planned out.

However, I could see almost the entirety of Lord of the Rings happening in a D&D game. I could definitely see the plot of a number of my D&D games being novels instead.

They'd be distinguishable. But they'd be along the same lines. For instance, here's the plot of my last major D&D campaign:
A bunch of adventurers are called by the church in order to save the city. The city has a seed that slows down the growth rate of plants in an area around it. In this world, which grow at an extravagant rate and everyone in the city would die if this seed wasn't here. The seed has a crack in it and is slowly losing its power. The adventurers need to go to an old, abandoned and cursed city and retrieve their seed in order to replace the broken one. They fight their way past a bunch of creatures. Along the way they find an ancient vault in the abandoned city and bring its contents back with them along with the seed.

The adventure continued past that, but that seems like what would have been book 1 in a fantasy series. Sure, the characterizations were kind of flat and there were parts that would likely be edited before publishing. But D&D simulated the KIND of story you'd see in a novel.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But who really wants to play a role playing game that isn't open-ended as far as options go? That's part of the freedom of playing a game in which, in many ways, anything goes. And whenever you allow options, there is a good chance that, no matter how reasonable they seem encapsulated within themselves, they may conflict or synergize with other options in unexpected ways.

The solution isn't to require the game designers to close the system or thoroughly test every possible combination. The former gives us the limitations of the computer RPG or MMO, where the entirety of the game is constructive and if it isn't deliberately constructed it can't exist, the latter puts pressure on the designers to add nothing at all because the overhead cost of doing so just grows. The solution is for everyone involved, DMs and players, to approach the addition of new elements reasonably, rationally, collaboratively, and experimentally. If the experiment doesn't work - adjust the it until it does.

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about closing the system. You can make a game that has no creative restraints without leaving mechanics unrestrained. I think this is where Next is headed and other games I've played work well without requiring a DM to participate in someone's haphazard experiment and pay for the privilege.

 

[pemerton]

the idea that system mastery should not be a factor is equivalent to taking skill out of the game. A truly balanced game, in this paradigm some people are putting forth, would be Chutes and Ladders. You make no relevant choices and the outcome is completely random.

The game changes to another form of system mastery, it's not 'how you built your charatcer' but how you play him

I agree strongly with sidonunspa on this. Traveller or Runequest, for instance, have basically no system mastery in PC buid or advancement, but that doesn't mean that they remotely resemble Snakes and Ladders in their play. Putting to one side the mechanical skill at action resolution that sidonunspa mentions, there is also the fact that both are RPGs, and therefore depend heavily on choices that establish, and then build upon, fictional positioning.

 

[billd91]

I agree strongly with sidonunspa on this. Traveller or Runequest, for instance, have basically no system mastery in PC buid or advancement,

In advancement, maybe. And though system mastery may be less important than in a game in which more is under the direct control choices of the player, I wouldn't agree that PC build has basically no system mastery in either Traveller or Runequest.

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't agree that PC build has basically no system mastery in either Traveller or Runequest.

Examples? They're the most austerely simuationist systems I know, which have almost no player decision points, and hence almost no scope for metagame leverage.

 

[LostSoul]

The experience of playing a magic-heavy party, running into a golem, and feeling worthless is part of the game.

Heh. Which game? Golems are not much trouble for wizards in 3E. (Web, web, web web web...)

 

[pemerton]

But who really wants to play a role playing game that isn't open-ended as far as options go?

Two fairly well-known systems that are pretty open-ended in PC build without thereby giving rise to the sorts of balance issues being discussed in this thread are HeroWars/Quest and Marvel Heroic RP. In fact, Marvel HRP is so open-ended that a lot of critics accused it of having no PC build rules at all!

If that's really true, we do see stories in the events that transpire, then does it matter?

Well, it does if we want the actual experience of play to deliver something like the same sorts of aesthetic experiences as we get from watching a movie or reading a novel.

 

[billd91]

Examples? They're the most austerely simuationist systems I know, which have almost no player decision points, and hence almost no scope for metagame leverage.

I know Traveller better than Runequest but a knowledgeable player can definitely make more effective choices on their skill roll tables in Traveller than a less knowledgeable one and probably has a better idea what skills are useful for the style of game they want to play. For example, a player wanting to make a lot of money via speculative trade will want to roll on the tables with skills like broker on them, probably wants to play a merchant to get a better shot at mustering out with a free trader (but will probably take the far trader option if the GM allows it because he can then jump-2 even if he has less cargo), and will be willing to suffer a bit of loss of his physical stats to get a better shot at rolling it because of advanced rank (depending on how low his stats are to begin with). The use of dice for these matters reduces the certainty of his control, but he certainly can use his system mastery to channel his character.

In RuneQuest, the player gets to choose his background profession which determines many of his skill bonuses but he still gets to distribute more points on top of that, giving him an opportunity to optimize along certain lines he expects to be valuable as an adventurer. The knowledgeable player who knows the GM likes to include a lot of combat and forest quests can pick a background that puts its 50 points worth of skill bonuses into skills likely to be useful rather than playing a salty dog of a sailor whose 50 points are less likely to be useful.

Whenever you've got player choices of any real significance, you've got some degree of system mastery. There may be less than a system like D&D, which has less, in turn, than games like Champions, GURPS, and Mutants and Masterminds, but I think it's a rare case that I'd ever say there is basically none.

 

[billd91]

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about closing the system. You can make a game that has no creative restraints without leaving mechanics unrestrained. I think this is where Next is headed and other games I've played work well without requiring a DM to participate in someone's haphazard experiment and pay for the privilege.

Is it possible to have no creative restraints with restrained mechanics? I'm not entirely convinced that's the case. I think some universal point-oriented systems come pretty close to covering just about anything, but I'd also say that none of the ones I'm familiar with (GURPS, Hero, M&M) have completely restrained mechanics that avoid the necessity of GM intervention.