Jon Peterson: Does System Matter?

D&D historian Jon Peterson asks the question on his blog as he does a deep dive into how early tabletop RPG enthusiasts wrestled with the same thing.

Based around the concept that 'D&D can do anything, so why learn a new system?', the conversation examines whether the system itself affects the playstyle of those playing it. Some systems are custom-designed to create a certain atmosphere (see Dread's suspenseful Jenga-tower narrative game), and Call of Cthulhu certainly discourages the D&D style of play, despite a d20 version in early 2000s.

Does System Matter?

Dungeons & Dragons started out as a game with such an adaptable and open-ended set of rules that early adopters questioned whether any fur...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

 

[turnip_farmer]

Oh. Perhaps you misunderstand the fallacy?

A "sunk cost" is a cost that has already been incurred, that cannot be recovered. Sure, you can sink resources into learning a game.

The fallacy is in, "Since I have sunk this cost, I should stick with this product/project." The fallacy is that the sunk cost should have any bearing on how you move forward. In fact, the sunk cost does not increase the likelihood or value of success or benefit going forward.

If your computer is on the fritz, and you paid $400 for repairs and it still doesn't work, that $400 should not be part of the calculation on whether you spend more money to repair the machine, or just get a new machine.

Say you just finished a D&D campaign, and spent hundreds of hours on it. The time and money you spent on that campaign does not tell you whether or not you should pick up Savage Worlds for your next campaign. The next campaign should be analyzed for its own cost and merits, not the costs sunk in the past.

Everyone knows what the sunk cost fallacy is. They're saying it doesn't apply because changing system imposes a cost which sticking with the system you know doesn't.

If I know how to play DnD, and nothing else, the time investment in learning required to play is zero.

The investment in time learning a new system and, potentially, in books, for any other other system is non-zero.

Choosing an option that requires the least future investment is not an example of the sunk cost fallacy

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I really wish people would stop with the intentionally offensive titles and cover art. From where I sit, her work appears just as toxic as several noted OSR authors. Sufficiently so as to not bother looking any deeper.

Being edgy and provocative isn't the same as being offensive and toxic, inasmuch as edginess and procativeness can be used to make an artistic point as opposed to just trying to hurt people/piss them off/drag them down.

The title may be shocking, for sure, but having scanned the Kickstarter page, the previews look pretty well put together. Certainly nothing I'd call "toxic"; the game does have some pretty heavy themes and imagery, but in a way that suggests "transgression as means of catharsis/working it your own issues", not "screw those random people who did nothing wrong for no reason in particular". Honestly it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary as far as emotionally-charged PbtA goes.

 

[dragoner]

Everyone knows what the sunk cost fallacy is. They're saying it doesn't apply because changing system imposes a cost which sticking with the system you know doesn't.

If I know how to play DnD, and nothing else, the time investment in learning required to play is zero.

The investment in time learning a new system and, potentially, in books, for any other other system is non-zero.

Choosing an option that requires the least future investment is not an example of the sunk cost fallacy

Yes, it is only a sunk cost fallacy if one uses the sunk cost in justifying something one shouldn't, like playing a game one doesn't want to play.

I mean there was a learning curve with M-Space, and we played out a Steampunk-Byzantium adventure where there was a zeppelin blown off course to Monster Island; then parlayed that experience to running Caverns of Thracia with Mythras, only as the Caverns of Cyrene plus using Mythic Constantinople for both adventures. No time wasted, fun had by all.

 

[Umbran]

Everyone knows what the sunk cost fallacy is.

With respect, lots of people quote logical fallacies, and don't understand them fully. The number of times folks claim in reports that a statemetn is an ad hominem argument, when it is not, might stun you.

They're saying it doesn't apply because changing system imposes a cost which sticking with the system you know doesn't.

Again, with respect, if the statement is of the form, "I have already spent time..." then you are implicitly engaging in the sunk cost fallacy, as you are appealing to the value of that past time as support.

If you only ever reference the future time you might spend on a new system, then maybe you can avoid the fallacy.

Choosing an option that requires the least future investment is not an example of the sunk cost fallacy

Doing so lazily probably still is.

For example, let us consider financial costs, and say you already play D&D. Are you never going to buy D&D content again? Or, if you play, are you going to keep buying new books, pdfs, adventures, and so on? If the latter, then you already accept you have some number of dollars per year you are investing in play. Comparing "$$ cost of new game" to "zero $$ cost of old game" only holds if you aren't actually going to spend any money on the old game.

As for time, this gets to a thing I've said repeatedly in this thread, but let us attach it to this context.

There was some time in the past in which you didn't know, say, D&D. When presented with D&D, you engaged in the time to learn it, and probably didn't consider the time you took to learn it compared to the time it takes to engage in other amusements you had. Why not? How is it that time spent was okay, but new time spent isn't?

How is it that learning the game is considered a cost, rather than an amusement itself? Can you approach learning in a way that keeps it from being a cost?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Small point:

People often refer to "logical fallacies." It is rarely a good thing in terms of a improving a conversation.

Most of the time, they are discussing one of the many informal fallacies (such as the argumentum ad vercundium or the argumentum ad hominem). Informal fallacies may be important to pay attention to, but are not necessarily incorrect in argument (ethos, logos, pathos) and are often useful as heuristics. For example, the appeal to motive is ad hominem, but it is common and accepted to both weaken an argument ("Of course she's providing an alibi- she's the wife!") as well as strengthen an argument ("He's a stalwart company man, but he admitted they poisoned the river.")

Actual formal fallacies are fairly rare and usually quickly spotted. An example would be, "All animals are unicorns, therefore some animals are unicorns." Or "To be a successful musician, a person has to be a hard worker or very lucky. I know a successful musician who is very lucky. Therefore, that person is not a hard worker."

Neither type of fallacy applies to other issues (such as biases and paradoxes), even when they are called fallacies. A number of cognitive biases, for example, are labelled fallacies, even though they have nothing to do with the argumentative fallacies.

 

[pemerton]

if the statement is of the form, "I have already spent time..." then you are implicitly engaging in the sunk cost fallacy, as you are appealing to the value of that past time as support.

Frankly that doesn't seem right.

Someone who says (eg) "I have already spent time learning D&D" is very clearly implying, even if they don't say so expressly, that they don't want to spend similar time on learning a different system. They are not appealing to the value of the past time; they are pointing to the fact of past time, and expressing a desire not to spend further such time in the future.

That is why (for instance) a relevant response to such a statement might be to explain that system X is not as complex as D&D, and so won't involve the same time sink in learning how to play it.

 

[aramis erak]

Oh. Perhaps you misunderstand the fallacy?

A "sunk cost" is a cost that has already been incurred, that cannot be recovered. Sure, you can sink resources into learning a game.

The fallacy is in, "Since I have sunk this cost, I should stick with this product/project." The fallacy is that the sunk cost should have any bearing on how you move forward. In fact, the sunk cost does not increase the likelihood or value of success or benefit going forward.

If your computer is on the fritz, and you paid $400 for repairs and it still doesn't work, that $400 should not be part of the calculation on whether you spend more money to repair the machine, or just get a new machine.

Say you just finished a D&D campaign, and spent hundreds of hours on it. The time and money you spent on that campaign does not tell you whether or not you should pick up Savage Worlds for your next campaign. The next campaign should be analyzed for its own cost and merits, not the costs sunk in the past.

The cost of system 1 is already paid; the sunk cost fallacy only exists as a fallacy when the prior paid-off item is of little or no benefit to the ongoing effort, or cannot pay off, or incurs additional costs. Perhaps that portion of it escapes you? (I'll note that that subtlety is often left out in summaries. It wasn't left out in my Psych 111 class in 1990, nor my Philosophy class in 1989, nor my various education methods classes in 2007. ) The sunk refers to unrecoverability of the expense.

Sunk cost benefit is in fact the whole point of universal systems - a large number of genres are supported by each one I've read and used. None of them is truly universal. Once the cost for the core is paid (in time and money, or time and risk of being caught pirating), new settings within the well supported range have reduced cost to learn vs a custom system. Note that it's not uncommon for there to be little to no reduction in monetary/fiscal cost, only in (presumably uncompensated) time.

Recent case in point: The new Stargate RPG... the sunk m(unrecoverable) costs of the potential purchasers are not a fallacy to the publisher, which is why it's using a D&D 5E derivative. It saves a large portion of mental effort learning the game. Whether or not it works for any given purchaser is a different matter, and from their point of view, the sunk cost of 5E might not have been paid. Fortunately, it's a standalone, so the fiscal costs aren't increased by not knowing/having D&D 5e, only the time and mental effort costs. Further, for some, it's not going to work. for others, it will. If GM X buys the core and it doesn't work for GM X and/or X's players, buying the supplements becomes a sunk cost fallacy if they're buying them for other than reading or collecting value. (And there are a shocking number of people who buy games just to read the fluff.)

 

[Weiley31]

I don't know if it's just me, but I've noticed lately that there are a number of System Agnostic RPG settings that seem to list themselves as system agnostic. Mork Borg has it's own system, but also allows you to use other OSRs with it without too much of a problem. So technically you can just use the Mork Bork book for your background flavor setting and then insert your preferred mechanics. (So if you wanted your Mork Bork to use the 5E engine, then its just refluffing.) When looking at the rpg news articles that pop up on here, they have listed a number of such settings and settings that use an actual system.

I guess in the end, system doesn't matter really if you reskin stuff and/or use the engine underneath while overlaying the carcass of the setting you prefer.

On my end when it comes to Vampire The Masquerade: I'm mostly a lover/interested in the 20th Anniversary versions of the Old World of Darkness. However, I bring over the Second Inquisition and First Light into it and the lore, even though those two concepts ONLY exist in VtM 5E, its a draping that is applied upon when I need a military opposition against vampires. While the systems, I assume would be very similar, there are takes upon the mechanics in their own way.

Heart: The City Beneath, pretty much brings to my mind the Darkest Dungeon, so it's pretty much, if I wanted to do a Darkest Dungeon hack, it would pretty much use those mechanics with the lore layer on top.

Ultimately in the end, it probably depends ultimately on what you want. You could have Dungeons and Dragons as an overlayer on top of your Fantasy AGE/Dragon Age games. You could play pen and paper Warcraft but use the DND 4E system underneath.

System Agnostic RPGs probably rely, and understand, that the player base want to use an available system for such RPGs, then they can do that.

 

[Aldarc]

Heart: The City Beneath, pretty much brings to my mind the Darkest Dungeon, so it's pretty much, if I wanted to do a Darkest Dungeon hack, it would pretty much use those mechanics with the lore layer on top.

What if I told you that there was a pre-existing TTRPG upon which Darkest Dungeon was based and inspired by?

 

[turnip_farmer]

For example, let us consider financial costs, and say you already play D&D. Are you never going to buy D&D content again?

Quite possibly. I don't really need any other stuff, much as that may concern WotC. If a player wants to use some new spell or class option from Salty Norman's Pamphlet of Superfluities then I'm sure they'll show it to me.

But honestly money's not the major concern any more, I have plenty of disposable income these days. Time is the concern. I'm expecting to start a new campaign once Corona restrictions allow, and am struggling with the decision on this already. There's a couple of systems I know well and can do ahead and start statting up adventures for. And I know I'll have fun.

But there are also things about the systems I don't like, and I'm thinking about looking into Warhammer Fantasy or Shadow of the Demon Lord instead. But don't know which, and maybe I won't enjoy them.

So I'm choosing between guaranteed fun at little effort, which won't be perfect but nothing is. Versus learning a whole new ruleset and probably buying a published adventure or two depending on how easy the system is to get the hang of, for no guaranteed payoff at all, since maybe I just won't like the game.