Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[niklinna]

That's the third or fourth time I've seen this phrase recently, but I've no idea what its origin or reference is. Please explain...

First used here:

Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

I would love to hear more about this. I had never even considered a distinction between "game world" and "setting". A game world implies a certain sort of tangibility or permanence. Basically, something with an independent existence that you can freely move around in and explore. It's...

www.enworld.org

 

[EzekielRaiden]

"So is the game a dungeon-crawler?"

"No. You can do anything with it!"

"Sure, but it seems like most of the game tools are about dungeon-crawling..."

"But I can homebrew it to be about anything else!"

"Sure, and I can mod Skyrim to hell and play the game by just collecting flowers, but it's still an Action Adventure RPG."

"It's not a dungeon-crawler!"

Ain't it the truth.

Not necessarily. It depends what "bad" means in that context. If it means "poorly designed", its only an issue if its not serving the person's purposes. A tool can be poorly designed for its supposed use, but if someone is used to and comfortable with it, that doesn't say anything bad about them or even the purposes it serves for them.

Fully agreed. Hence why I usually cite the 3rd edition D&D Monk as an example of bad design, and explain why: it is clearly designed to be (and described by the book as) a highly-mobile combatant intended to be doing high-flying wire-fu action. However, its tools cannot accomplish that goal because iterative attacks are too important and nothing is given as an alternative to them. It further has a pile of features, most of which are each individually fine, but collectively add up to less than the sum of their parts due to the rest of the game's structure. It is "bad" design not because it has unwisely chosen goals for its design, but because it is objectively, testably bad at accomplishing the explicit goals for which it was designed. The best goals in the world mean nothing if your efforts to meet them are simply wrongheaded. And it isn't like this can't be fixed! The "Spheres of Power/Might" alternate system for Pathfinder, and the Book of Nine Swords classes (and their 3PP derivatives) show how it is possible to deliver the intended design of the 3e Monk without radically rewriting the game itself. The execution on the 3e Monk is just woefully inadequate.

But it also doesn't make it a good game just because it serves some people's purposes, either. You have to ask why it does and why it does so better than other options.

Yep. Something can be extremely well designed toward unwise or unproductive goals. However, just as the rules of writing cannot tell you whether it is wise or appropriate to write an essay comparing New Coke to genocide, any knowledge we may build up about game design cannot tell you whether it is wise or appropriate to pursue any specific intent. Such things are properly the domain of ethics.

(This is different from criticizing a system on, from lack of a better term, "moral" grounds but that usually only comes from certain particular perspectives and is relatively rarely done; its much more likely to happen with setting material.)

I have criticized a couple of systems on moral grounds, and certain choices during playtests. Specifically, for the first, "Myfarog" (a game that literally uses Nazi race categories as part of character creation) and FATAL (a game that is overtly trying to be offensive; the original acronym phrase was Fantasy Adventure To Adult Lechery); for the second, the proposal during the D&D Next playtest that wanted to make dragonborn developmentally disabled dragons because Mom and Dad failed to get God's permission to have children. (I get where Wizards was coming from on that idea, but it was really really bad and they should have known better.) So while I agree that criticizing a game on properly moral/ethical grounds is rare, it isn't totally unknown either.

Designers often have a surprisingly clearer-eyed view of the strengths and weaknesses of their games than the fans do, if they aren't mired in a bubble.

Unfortunately, at least in the context of D&D, that's a big "if."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So basically it's the usual dull pearl-clutching by the standard people who weaponise their offense-taking

Mod Note:

You’re right at the line for moderation posting this. I’d advise against taking further steps in that direction.

 

[Hussar]

Nope, I'm not falling for this. Nice try.

The point isn't the resolution method or how any given system does it, it's the legitimacy of a GM arbitrarily putting a PC into a scene in the first place where a) said scene directly one of the PC's goals and b) the player/PC had no opportunity to avoid this violation.

I'd argue @Lanefan that you are approaching this from a certain viewpoint that isn't held in that style of game.

In a trad game, like D&D, where success or failure is binary (typically) then having any sort of failure on a successful roll is a violation of the intent of the rules. A rogue/thief that succeeds in stealth isn't seen - that character is hidden and the DM is obligated to adhere to that result.

But, BitD isn't a trad game. Success or failure is never binary. The guard coming over to talk to you isn't a "failure" in this game, it's an opportunity. Because, in this style of game, the player often has some sort of mechanical resources to turn it into an opportunity. In a trad game, the player cannot leverage any mechanics to declare that that guard is an old friend from school days. However, in story games, many have some sort of resource to do exactly that and the GM is obligated to accept that change by the player to the situation.

There really aren't any correlations of that scale in trad games. So, I would suggest that your entire approach is actually in violation of the intent of something like Burning Wheel or Blades. You are getting tied into a corner that doesn't exist in those games. In a trad game? Absolutely. I have seen DM's do this kind of thing all the time, particularly in infiltration scenarios where the players are basically forced to do a spiraling sequence of checks until they inevitably fail and are forced to deal with the consequences. But, that's not how Story Now games work. Consequence does not equal fail state.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fully agreed. Hence why I usually cite the 3rd edition D&D Monk as an example of bad design, and explain why: it is clearly designed to be (and described by the book as) a highly-mobile combatant intended to be doing high-flying wire-fu action. However, its tools cannot accomplish that goal because iterative attacks are too important and nothing is given as an alternative to them. It further has a pile of features, most of which are each individually fine, but collectively add up to less than the sum of their parts due to the rest of the game's structure. It is "bad" design not because it has unwisely chosen goals for its design, but because it is objectively, testably bad at accomplishing the explicit goals for which it was designed. The best goals in the world mean nothing if your efforts to meet them are simply wrongheaded. And it isn't like this can't be fixed! The "Spheres of Power/Might" alternate system for Pathfinder, and the Book of Nine Swords classes (and their 3PP derivatives) show how it is possible to deliver the intended design of the 3e Monk without radically rewriting the game itself. The execution on the 3e Monk is just woefully inadequate.

In practice the only real use we found for monks was as mage (and similar monsters like beholder) killers because they were mobile enough to get up to them and had no weak save to take advantage of.

Yep. Something can be extremely well designed toward unwise or unproductive goals. However, just as the rules of writing cannot tell you whether it is wise or appropriate to write an essay comparing New Coke to genocide, any knowledge we may build up about game design cannot tell you whether it is wise or appropriate to pursue any specific intent. Such things are properly the domain of ethics.

I was more speaking in terms of looking at whether a particular mechanic is actually serving its goals without other knock-on effects that make it questionable whether even if its working its worth it or couldn't have been done better in other ways (I consider games that use heroic metacurrancy and advancement points as one pool an example of this).

I have criticized a couple of systems on moral grounds, and certain choices during playtests. Specifically, for the first, "Myfarog" (a game that literally uses Nazi race categories as part of character creation) and FATAL (a game that is overtly trying to be offensive; the original acronym phrase was Fantasy Adventure To Adult Lechery); for the second, the proposal during the D&D Next playtest that wanted to make dragonborn developmentally disabled dragons because Mom and Dad failed to get God's permission to have children. (I get where Wizards was coming from on that idea, but it was really really bad and they should have known better.) So while I agree that criticizing a game on properly moral/ethical grounds is rare, it isn't totally unknown either.

See, I consider that a setting element rather than a game system per se, even if they're used in some of the systems.

Unfortunately, at least in the context of D&D, that's a big "if."

That word is, indeed, often doing some heavy lifting. It is very easy for designers on almost any level who don't use or ignore the parts they don't like of blindtesting.

 

[Hussar]

Something I've been noodling around in my brain for a bit is a better description of Map and Key play, which I do find to be a very apt description of trad play and nicely illustrates the differences. And, yes, I absolutely, resolutely will NOT use the word "guess" anywhere in my little essay here. I've learned my lesson.

Description of Map and Key

In M&K play, the point of play is that the GM creates what is essentially a flow chart - sometimes with hard lines between nodes (dungeon crawl) or sometimes fairly soft ones (hexploration) but the point is, the GM creates these nodes which correspond to the key on the map and each node is something "interesting" for the players to interact with. ((Note, I'm painting with a fairly broad brush here, so, yes, I am perfectly aware that exceptions exist - like random encounters forex)) The players, in this style, start from a point of very little information and then explore the map/flowchart in a heuristic way until they have uncovered sufficient information about the map to call it finished. Either they've sufficiently "cleaned out" the dungeon, achieved whatever goal(s) they had or maybe even just decided to go in a different direction for whatever reasons. The point is, the point of play is to explore that map. The DM is constrained by the map and key to not start making unreasonable changes (quantum ogres) because that renders the goal of exploration problematic. While the flowchart might be dynamic (nodes change over time), changes are made in a logical manner which could be revealed to the players and the players would be perfectly fine with the changes. So, the orcs in this location move to that location because they wanted to reinforce that location's inhabitants would be perfectly logical and understandable and no one would object. Spontaneous Orc generation simply to make the encounter harder likely would be objectionable. (although not always)

Non-Trad Play

Now what differentiates non trad play here is that exploring and revealing the map/flowchart is not the goal of play. Often play doesn't even have a keyed map at all. If it has a map, it's more likely vague and generally only used as a sort of general framework rather than the point of play. Players aren't there to explore that map. They are there to explore these characters. Encounters aren't so much challenges to overcome but rather opportunities to further define character. Players are given far more authoritative control over the setting than in M&K play in order to facilitate this different exploration.

I dunno. It made more sense in my head as I was noodling around about it. But, to me, that really highlights the difference between these games. They are both about exploration of a kind, but, the type of exploration is and goals of that exploration are very, very different. Which means that players and game masters really have to shift gears in order to traverse between one style and the other.

IMO, where things get all fouled up is when one insists that the way you play one type must work in the other type of game. And it just doesn't. It can work, if you are willing to do a LOT of yeoman work to kitbash it together, but, the end goals of the different games really means that it's probably far more work than it's worth. Not always. After all, the old 007 game was fairly traditional in it's approach - map and key, that sort of thing. But, it also had Bond Points, (I think that's what they were called) that let the players make changes in the game in order to make them look and feel more like 00 agents. So, that Russian Spy DOES fall for my (incredibly cringe) pick up line for example. That sort of thing.

So, there can be cross pollination, but, at it's heart, the two styles of games really are quite different.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In a trad game, like D&D, where success or failure is binary (typically) then having any sort of failure on a successful roll is a violation of the intent of the rules.

I agree with the rest of your post, and I don’t really disagree with the quoted bit, but I wanted to highlight it because it made me think of something I touched on in an earlier post in this thread.

I think the most common outcome in D&D (generally speaking) is actually a partial success. This is in the form of an attack roll that hits but does not kill its target.

We don’t tend to think of it in that way, but that’s really what’s happening. Surely most oft he time when a PC attacks an NPC or monster, the intent is to kill them or otherwise remove them from play. We’ve been conditioned to think that a PC is simply trying to hit the enemy, but that's not the goal. The goal is to take them out.

I think many D&D players are used to the concept in practice, but not in theory. That’s simply because of how the game works and how those elements have simply become assumed in discussions.

In combat, it’s accepted simply as the way things are. But most other cases skew toward binary pass/fail resolution.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd But, that's not how Story Now games work. Consequence does not equal fail state.

Well, that's not how the game system equates them. As I've noted, whether a player involved considers them such is a more complex question.

That said, I do agree there's a big difference between imposing consequence on success in a binary pass/fail system, and a system like most PbtA variants that bake it into the resolution roll. To claim imposing a consequence when the mechanics tell you to do so is a violation of the social contract is either not understanding how those mechanics work or not accepting the mechanics in the first place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree with the rest of your post, and I don’t really disagree with the quoted bit, but I wanted to highlight it because it made me think of something I touched on in an earlier post in this thread.

I think the most common outcome in D&D (generally speaking) is actually a partial success. This is in the form of an attack roll that hits but does not kill its target.

We don’t tend to think of it in that way, but that’s really what’s happening. Surely most oft he time when a PC attacks an NPC or monster, the intent is to kill them or otherwise remove them from play. We’ve been conditioned to think that a PC is simply trying to hit the enemy, but that's not the goal. The goal is to take them out.

I think many D&D players are used to the concept in practice, but not in theory. That’s simply because of how the game works and how those elements have simply become assumed in discussions.

In combat, it’s accepted simply as the way things are. But most other cases skew toward binary pass/fail resolution.

This isn't really true. It just happens to be the damage roll is an accumulated success roll not produced by a simple roll. Its like the accumulated success rolls in some other systems. However I think there's a big difference between "success with consequences" and "success over time" especially when the vast majority of tasks using that specific subsystem will cost you time, and it may, in fact, not be possible to do so with one simple roll. I guess if you want to be really picky you could call "taking extra time" a consequence, but I think that only makes sense when succeeding without that consequence is possible, and in most cases it isn't; its simply not a single-die-roll resolution.

Edit: I suppose you could also call the opportunity to take damage a "consequence", but again, it just seems like success-over-time are a different thing than partial success/partial failure systems, because, again, its usually a given that you can't solve the problem with one success (at least barring a critical, but then, crit/success/failure/fumble systems can all be argued to be partial success/failure systems, its just that the "true" success is the crit and the "true" failure is the fumble).

 

[Hussar]

I agree with the rest of your post, and I don’t really disagree with the quoted bit, but I wanted to highlight it because it made me think of something I touched on in an earlier post in this thread.

I think the most common outcome in D&D (generally speaking) is actually a partial success. This is in the form of an attack roll that hits but does not kill its target.

We don’t tend to think of it in that way, but that’s really what’s happening. Surely most oft he time when a PC attacks an NPC or monster, the intent is to kill them or otherwise remove them from play. We’ve been conditioned to think that a PC is simply trying to hit the enemy, but that's not the goal. The goal is to take them out.

I think many D&D players are used to the concept in practice, but not in theory. That’s simply because of how the game works and how those elements have simply become assumed in discussions.

In combat, it’s accepted simply as the way things are. But most other cases skew toward binary pass/fail resolution.

I think you're conflating two things though. The hit roll is purely success/fail. It's the damage roll that gives you partial success, but, even then not really because you entirely succeeded (presumably) in dealing damage. The trick is, you need several successes before achieving your goal.

But, if you try to apply that logic to anything outside of combat (a la a Skill Challenge or Social Combat system forex) there is just zero chance that the conversation will be productive.