Evolution of Rules, is it really a good thing or not?

[MerricB]

Considering that if we didn't have innovation, we wouldn't have D&D - as it's a innovation to a miniature wargame...

 

[fjw70]

I will also add that even though some people consider anything newer to be better, the equally illogical position to me is those that think the original is always better.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In other words, that evolution and innovation obviously make rules better now than they were previously.

More modern rules are not automatically better, but it's a learning process. You learn more about your customers. You learn what didn't work.

For example, a fan of 3e will say...3e/3.5 was the rules finally catching up to what modern RPGs were doing, that AD&D rules were outdated, and hence the evolution up to 3e was a MUCH NEEDED catchup of the D&D rules.

On this I agree. I used to play 2e before 3e came out. The new rules made more sense. I was especially pleased with ability scores, a sensible point buy system (Alternity didn't work, as the point buy wasn't weighed), classes that didn't have different XP tracks, and so forth.

Of course, every time you implement a rules change, someone will say "you changed it, now it sucks". Do that enough and you get an entirely different fanbase.

It's struck me enough that people are stuck on this idea that a ruleset made over 10 years ago is old and outdated (or make that 20, or 30 years ago) and in order to be good need to be updated with current ruleset though...that I'm puzzled.

Instead of applying broad brushes, you should ask what about the old ruleset is outdated. I don't think there's a specific time period that's listed as "outdated".

How many truly think a game, like D&D or Pathfinder are worse if they haven't been "updated" recently?

Have you taken a look at Palladium? That's a game that hasn't been updated in a really long time, and it shows. (I'm not counting splatbooks. There's been no change to the core rules for two decades.)

I see this same idea with boardgames and it puzzles me (especially when you have boardgames that have truly stood the test of time such as Go, Chess, Shogi, Backgammon, or even Draughts).

Does anyone call Go or Chess outdated? Monopoly might be outdated though.

I am one who seriously thinks BECMI and or B/X was one of the more perfect game rulesets made...and that one is over or almost over 30 years of age.

I've not played those rulesets, only 2e, so I can't competently debate that with you. Of course, if you don't think that's outdated, you can continue to play it. WotC is releasing a bunch of older D&D material, a big deal for those who want to legally acquire material and can't find it in FLGSs anymore.

However, I get the impression I am distinctly in the minority here. It seems that most (at least from what I gather in their references to AD&D being outdated, an old ruleset and not keeping up with the times, that it was behind when in the 90s and other rulesets had evolved to be much better then it, or that 3e had run behind what other game systems were doing, was adhering to old and outdated ideas and such which 4e made better) of those here actually think that because something is innovative...it therefore is better?

What specific innovations? It seems you didn't see those innovations as positive. I don't believe people are automatically latching onto newer systems as better, they are evaluating it for themselves. If anything, the fragmentation of the fanbase suggests that people do not automatically see the newer games as "better".

That innovation absolutely means something is going to be better...or that because something is newer and shinier than what came in the past...it is automatically better?

Nobody really thinks that way.

What do you think of this, is this truly the overwhelming opinion of most of the folks that post on this site?

I think the majority of gamers in general, not just on ENWorld, like the newer systems because there's parts of the newer systems that are better for them.

I actually can see this...as it also happens in boardgames. Some companies get to reprint a boardgame, but instead of simply reprinting it with the old rules...they have to "add" to the game in order to include the modern ideas that have made boardgames better...that the evolution of rules and creating boardgames are so awesome and innovative today, that without updating these old boardgames the boardgames would be hated (whilst ignoring that half the reason they are reprinting them is the love of those old rules that the gamers have in the first place!!!).

Thing is, older gamers who love those old board games already own them. It's rather difficult to sell a copy of Monopoly to someone who already has it.

I see a whole bunch of people jump on board and agree with this in the boardgame market most of the time as well (on BGG...chess is actually NOT rated I the top 10 games...despite it's overwhelming popularity and length of time it's been around in the rest of the world at large).

Maybe chess isn't that popular. While chess is technically a board game, I see a vast gulf between it and Monopoly or other such games. I don't think they're attracting the same customers. (Also, it's hard to sell chess. It's available online, in a format that lets you play a computer or someone else online. I'm sure you could play Monopoly online too, but who would want to?)

I'm one of those that absolutely HATE what FFG did with FWHRPG, and I tried to give it a fair shot. I'm glad they kept 40KRPG as it is...but they even tried to overhaul that drastically recently with a new print of Dark Heresy...until I suppose they got enough fan outrage (probably from people like me that LIKE the old system) that they changed their minds on just how massive an overhaul they were planning.

The only big change in Warhammer Fantasy that I'm familiar with is Fantasy 2e going to 3e. I had issues with 2e (specifically rolled everything). 3e fixed that... but it was so completely different it was basically a new game.

But for others, because it's not evolving to catch up with the modern games...it's an old and outdated system and almost criminal that it's still around.

With the exception of talk of Palladium, I have never heard anyone talk like that.

Perhaps a psychologist here can explain this phenomena and why the crowd automatically ascribes old=bad and new=good.

You won't get a psychologist to tell you that, because it's not true.

And how do many here feel in regards to this...WHY do you feel the modern games have actually evolved for the better and in what ways do you think this is so?

I could go into a lengthy explanation, but that could spark an edition war. Also, I don't know B/X, so my examples (based on 2e) wouldn't make sense to you. If you don't know 4e, the examples would make even less sense to you.

 

[billd91]

Maybe chess isn't that popular.

Do not despair. Chess is still popular but it's out in the mainstream and most mainstreamers don't go to boardgamegeek.com to rate Chess. The inherent bias in the BGG community's makeup underrates the popularity of Chess in favor of niche board games.

 

[ExploderWizard]

People have always been attracted to the new and different. Game rules are not that much different than other things. Old games still function so its more a matter of the amount of novelty required to enjoy something than anything else. New ideas and the infusion of old ideas with new concepts will keep happening and games will continue to spawn other new games as long as people keep playing them and thinking, what if we did X?

Constant evolution and invention is a good thing because tabletop games are not technology. Newer is not better or worse, it is merely different. Anyone can play old games, or newer games, or even build on these to make games of their own. The more tinkering and experimenting that happens, the more variety of games there are to enjoy. There are those who will always chase the latest games for the sake of novelty, others will continue playing old favorites, and some will mix and match.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Seems to me... the real thing we should be asking is that if in fact games are "evolving" and that people say that this evolution is a good and needed thing...

So what?

Why does it matter that some people think a game like D&D needs or should evolve, or are happy when the game is changed a bit? What difference does it make? And why bother trying to figure out why those people feel the way they do?

You play your game... and they'll play their game. And don't waste your own energy worrying about that person, because goodness knows they aren't wasting their energy worrying about you.

 

[Umbran]

All in my opinion: to say that game rules are evolving is a misuse of the term "evolution".

If your new game rules are designed with a specific goal in mind, that's change, but not evolution. Evolution is not directed. It is not driven. It is a random walk through possibilities, over many generations. In evolution, the old and the new compete, and we see which one survives in the long run, and that process doesn't work cleanly in the RPG market.

This may sound like semantics, but the word "evolution" includes with it certain connotations and expectations that do not yet solidly apply to the development of RPGs, and we should weed those expectations out. The change in RPGs is has less to do with natural processes, and more to do with, say, the tendency for the automobile industry to have new cars every year.

As Morrus said, I feel It is a combination of changing fashion and design aesthetics, and changing knowledge of game-engineering.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I see this with boardgames, and I see this with RPG's. For some reason people seem to view that getting "modernized" or getting a ruleset "up to current methods" in regards to boardgames, and rpgs (which is what this post is mostly about) always means the rules are getting better.

In other words, that evolution and innovation obviously make rules better now than they were previously.

...

It's struck me enough that people are stuck on this idea that a ruleset made over 10 years ago is old and outdated (or make that 20, or 30 years ago) and in order to be good need to be updated with current ruleset though...that I'm puzzled.

How many truly think a game, like D&D or Pathfinder are worse if they haven't been "updated" recently?

I see this same idea with boardgames and it puzzles me (especially when you have boardgames that have truly stood the test of time such as Go, Chess, Shogi, Backgammon, or even Draughts).

I am one who seriously thinks BECMI and or B/X was one of the more perfect game rulesets made...and that one is over or almost over 30 years of age.

...

That innovation absolutely means something is going to be better...or that because something is newer and shinier than what came in the past...it is automatically better?

Innovation is not automatically better, obviously. I don't think that anyone would seriously claim that it is. Innovation in and of itself is a neutral thing. But there are specific reasons we might want to innovate the rules for an old game; reasons that are more meaningful than making the game 'new and shiny'.

A question we can reasonably ask about the rules for any game is whether those rules help the game achieve what it was designed to do. If they do, great! But for many games, we will see ways in which they could be improved. Take Tic-Tac-Toe: it's 'designed' to be a simple competitive game that two people can play with just a pen and paper. But the problem is that too many games end in draws. So Tic-Tac-Toe could be improved. There's room for innovation.

Chess, on the other hand, arguably does what it was intended to do perfectly: it's a two-player strategy game with no element of luck. It has simple rules but an almost unlimited number of strategies to win. While we can imagine variations on the rules of chess (and people HAVE created chess variants) none of them are likely to make chess better at what it's supposed to do. Chess doesn't have much room for innovation.

Tabletop roleplaying games are vastly more complicated than chess. For starters, there are different types of participants in the same game: the GM and the players. Even among the players there are differences: there's the player that wants to slay monsters and the player that wants to bring to life a fantasy character. We need the rules to accommodate all these different types of participants.

You don't really 'win' at a TRPG, like in chess. Instead the goal of the game is to have fun. But people have fun in different ways. The perfect game would accommodate all these different ways.

Unlike chess, which is limited to pieces on a board, TRPGs allow just about anything to happen. We need rules for at least some of these things, or the game will devolve into players and GMs endlessly debating about how to adjudicate events in the game. These rules are obviously going to be a lot further-reaching than the rules of chess, and there will probably be more of them.

So we have a TRPG like D&D, which is a very complicated game which is trying to achieve many different goals and please many different types of people. The chances that the first version of D&D would ever have accomplished all of that approach zero. In fact it's very likely that there is no perfect ruleset for D&D. Don't get me wrong, there are better and worse versions, but there is probably no version which is simply the best D&D possible for everyone.

This means that the game can always get better. There is always space to innovate.

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were great game designers, no doubt about it. They created an entirely new category of game. But we should hardly expect them to have gotten such a new and massively complicated game completely right the first time (even if we accepted that that was really possible). In the intervening forty years lots of people have had great ideas about the game. Ideas which can help improve the game, at least for some people.

Here are some categories of rules that might improve the game:

• Rules that make the game easier to run for the DM.
• Rules that make the rules simpler or more understandable for the players.
• Rules that allow players to further customize their characters.
• Rules that facilitate roleplaying.
• Rules that adjudicate more kinds of game events.
• Rules that support a game narrative.
• Rules that make combat with monsters more interesting.

Since D&D is a game mostly about players exploring fantasy dungeons, there is a whole category of rules that can be basically summed up as,

• Rules that help the players do cool stuff.

Over four decades it turns out that a LOT of people have had ideas for rules that help players do cool stuff. People have also come up with innovations that can make DM prep easier or the rules of the game simpler.

And these are just a few categories off the top of my head. Depending on what the specific players and DM are interested in, we could go on and on. The point is that there are lots of ways the game could be 'improved', at least for some people.

Now in your specific case, GreyLord, you apparently have already found a version of the rules that fulfills all your personal requirements. That's great! But everyone else isn't just like you. For those people, there's a version of the rules of D&D that would help them enjoy it more. Since this is a game with complicated rules and somewhat amorphous goals, there will always be room for innovation.

Again, I don't think we will ever get to a 'best' version of D&D. And some people will find that an existing version already satisfies all their requirements. But there will always be room for new ideas, new 'tech', new variations on the rules, new versions and editions.

If you have found your perfect D&D in an existing version of the game, go play it! But expect innovations to keep coming as other people look for theirs.

 

[billd91]

All in my opinion: to say that game rules are evolving is a misuse of the term "evolution".

If your new game rules are designed with a specific goal in mind, that's change, but not evolution. Evolution is not directed. It is not driven. It is a random walk through possibilities, over many generations. In evolution, the old and the new compete, and we see which one survives in the long run, and that process doesn't work cleanly in the RPG market.

This may sound like semantics, but the word "evolution" includes with it certain connotations and expectations that do not yet solidly apply to the development of RPGs, and we should weed those expectations out. The change in RPGs is has less to do with natural processes, and more to do with, say, the tendency for the automobile industry to have new cars every year.

I think you're the one imparting way too much to the term evolution which can be as simply defined as "a process of slow change and development" (thank you, Merriam Webster).

 

[TwoSix]

Changing the game might make it better (for certain goals), and might make it worse (for other goals). The main thing that change DOES do is make me more likely to buy something. I don't pay for stuff I already have.