D&D General Rules, Rulings and Second Order Design: D&D and AD&D Examined

[Staffan]

If I were developing a word party game it would look different than D&D. I would still design that word party game with the goal of being it being a fun game. Obviously it's targeting different experiences.

Does any of this have an actual point other than to just argue?

It illustrates that "fun" is useless as a primary design goal, because fun is something that happens at the table and depends on player preferences. Instead, design toward more concrete goals such as "an engaging tactical encounter experience" or "allow players to immerse themselves in a fantastic culture" or "a framework for exploring the relationships of an iron age barbarian tribe", and make the game good at doing those particular things. Then "fun" will follow for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

 

[Oofta]

It illustrates that "fun" is useless as a primary design goal, because fun is something that happens at the table and depends on player preferences. Instead, design toward more concrete goals such as "an engaging tactical encounter experience" or "allow players to immerse themselves in a fantastic culture" or "a framework for exploring the relationships of an iron age barbarian tribe", and make the game good at doing those particular things. Then "fun" will follow for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

The goal of the game is not to include features you may personally want. It's to review potential features, look at the target market and then decide what features to implement to make the game the most fun for that target market. They decided that a fairly comprehensive, but not completely locked down combat, was a feature that would be fun. Detailed stealth rules would not. Focusing on one narrow niche of "exploring relationships with an iron age barbarian tribe" certainly does not make it fun for their mass market target.

I'm done with the philosophical debate. WOTC's only real goal is to make a game that people will buy so they can earn their salary and stay in business. They do that by making a fun game for their target audience, which includes old as well as new players that want a decent amount of flexibility to play the type of game they want in the fantasy genre.

 

[nevin]

I was just reading the excellent posting by M.T. Black about Dragon Magazine number 67, mentioning Gary "Jake" Jaquet, and it reminded me of an interview Jaquet did some time ago. In an effort to avoid finishing my series of posts about dice mechanics, I've been writing about some issues with "second-order design," and I realized that this early interview, from 1982, actually touched on it. I thought writing about this would achieve two goals- first, honoring Jake Jaquet, who is one of the forgotten important figures in early TSR and RPG history. Second, it would allow me to continue stalling on finishing my posts about dice mechanics. Done and done! As Mama Snarf always told me, "Snarf, never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until next week."

First, a brief refresher on terms-
One constant tension we see in RPGs is the distinction between first-order design and second-order design. While the game designer can exert direct control over the rules of the game, the actual gameplay depends on the processes that emerge at the table. This gameplay, this "second-order design" can be glimpsed through extensive playtesting, and can be addressed through the rules (the first order), but will always be, to some extent, beyond the ability of the game designer to dictate.

In other words, when you're thinking about designing an RPG, first-order design is the rules of the game. Second-order design is the actual gameplay.

A. Jaquet on D&D and AD&D.

A brief primer for those not familiar.
Jake Jaquet was an influential, albeit mostly "behind the scenes" figure, at TSR from 1977 until the end of 1982- corresponding with the dramatic rise of TSR and the RPG hobby. He left TSR at the end of 1982 to launch a new periodical (Gameplay) in 1983. Gameplay folded in 1984, and appears to have left the industry after that. At the time of the interview, Jaquet was credited with being the publisher of Dragon Magazine

Polyhedron was a magazine put out by TSR for the Role Playing Gamers Association.

This article (an interview) is from Vol. 2, No. 3, #6 of The Polyhedron (as it was called then) from 1982. So the references to "AD&D" are to what we call "1e" and the references to "D&D" are to what we call "OD&D". While you might think from the timing that he talking about B/X (Basic), you can see from his reference to playing it for years that he still is referring to the "old rules" (OD&D) as D&D.

So, without further verbiage or explanation, the relevant parts of the interview-

HQ: Strictly as a gamer, and not as a TSR employee, do you think that the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS or ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game (whichever you prefer) is a better fantasy role playing system than any other available?
JJ: II's a difficult question to answer on a strictly objective level, because of my association with the DUNGEONS &DRAGONS game from its beginning, and also because it was in existence before anything else. First of all, I find it more appealing than others simply because it WAS first, because it carries the concepts down to the wording of the thing (although it's been rewritten several times now) that puts it above the other fantasy role playing games. They're trying to say the same things without using exactly the same words, since the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game was out first, all the meaningful game terms were used. It's the flavor of the rules that appeals to me first, more so than the others.
I like the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and ADVANCED DUNGEONS &DRAGONS games lots better than some, and just mildly better than others. There are some other good systems out there. I like it better in some respects because it does NOT attempt to say "This is away to handle every circumstance in a realistic fashion." It does NOT attempt to say, "There are no arbitrary rules to make the game playable in this system." This is what I hear from so many of the other systems, in both the wording of their rules and in their advertising.
The one thing we see more often than not, in comparing role playing systems, is "This one is more real; this one simulates reality better," blah, blah, blah. Well. how can you more realistically simulate the casting of a fireball? It's fantasy, you have to imagine it. Someone may say, "Well, the D&D game system uses the Vancean system to simulate magic, whereas this system uses the Johnson-Whitfield system of magic, and Johnson-Whitfield is obviously a far more realistic way for magic to work, because it involves the temporal energies flowing from six planes," and blah, blah, blah. Well, BUNK. I mean, fantasy is fantasy; the fireball is either cast, or it's not. And if it's your bag to have that rationalization behind it, if it somehow makes you feel better and more secure, or if somehow things are more playable or more enjoyable in the game, well that's fine, go ahead and play that way. But I really see no need for it. The D&D game system says a fireball works. In game terms, it has this effect, and that's all I need.
The D&D game rules say, basically, "This is a game, and it operates in this fashion." They admit that some of the mechanics in it are arbitrary, placed there to make the game work . Now, it may not be realistic to assume that a giant 30 feet tall exists. I've seen lots of scholarly works saying, "Well, a creature this large can't exist, because its muscles and flesh and blood would crack ..." well, okay, maybe it would. I'm not too concerned about that. If a 30 foot giant makes the game playable, that's what I require from the game, and that's what makes the game enjoyable.
I consider one game better than another because of playability and enjoyability. If I were doing a comparison of every game ever put out, I would have an "Enjoyability over Playability" quotient that I would rank them all by. Obviously you have to make some distinction; you can't compare OTHELLO against the TRAVELLER system, for instance.
There's another system for fantasy role playing that has characteristics in such detail that you wouldn't believe it. Maybe D&D game characteristics are a little arbitrary, to place a person's entire persona into 6 different characteristics, but how is having 57 characteristics any different? If we're going to try and simulate reality, we're going to have to carry that out to a couple of million different characteristics, and EVEN THEN it'll still only be a close simulation. It won't be real, because a human personality is infinite in its variability. But, okay, it's arbitrary, and if you, as a gamer, can't function without having a lot more detail in the game to make it more enjoyable for you -
HQ: Appearance, to add a simple one?
JJ: Right, right, exactly - then you can't enjoy D&D and AD&D games more than some other systems which claim to be more real, or more detailed, or whatever.
HQ: You're saying D&D and AD&D games; do you have a preference between the two, strictly personally?
JJ: Personally I like D&D game rules better than the AD&D game system. The AD&D system is sort of a concession to people that find the D&D system a little too free-form. But it's not really a concession, because it was an evolution; it's distinctly different from the D&D game rules. In D&D games, I don't have to worry about being constrained by an author's point or rule or chart, about making a judgement as a referee, or player within the D&D system. When I run a D&D game, the stuff I've put into the game myself is in my head. In an AD&D game, though, I can be called upon by the player and just pullout the DMG, and say "Right here on page 157 it says you can't do that"; yet in D&D games you CAN do that. because that rule doesn't exist. I mean, there's nothing that substitutes, or that's different, it's just that it doesn't exist; it's up to the DM to make that determination.

At this point, it is probably necessary to include the famous quote from Gary Gygax about why he is making AD&D as a counterpoint-
Because D&D allowed such freedom, because the work itself said so, because the initial batch of DMs were so imaginative and creative, because the rules were incomplete, vague and often ambiguous, D&D has turned into a non-game. That is, there is so much variation between the way the game is played from region to region, state to state, area to area, and even from group to group within a metropolitan district, there is no continuity and little agreement as to just what the game is and how best to play it. Without destroying the imagination and individual creativity which go into a campaign, AD&D rectifies the shortcomings of D&D.


B. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

One theme that I have consistently returned to in my various posts is the push-pull between the desire for more rules, and the desire for less rules. In games, as in almost any sphere, new issues that arise almost invariably cause people to clamor for rules- "There should be a rule for that!" On the other hand, additional rules inevitably come with a cost- added complexity, added issues of interpretation, added issues of how different rules will intersect, and even just the cost associated with people learning more rules. Here, we see the same pattern repeated- on the one hand, we had a new system (OD&D) that allowed experimentation and variation and an explosion of new games; it is a practically a truism to say that the vast majority of RPGs in the 1970s were created as either the publication of DM's notes of OD&D campaigns, or as reactions to OD&D. On the other hand, you have a desire for standardization, for ORDER.

Which gets to the issue of second-order design. Second-order design is normally not that big of an issue in, say, board games. Yes, there can be house rules or misunderstandings (many people play Monopoly "incorrectly"), but generally the rules will prescribe exactly how to play; you can choose to put money under Free Parking in Monopoly, but you know, just by looking at the actual rules, that you have chosen to play something different.

On the other hand, second-order design is a much larger issue in RPGs, to the extent that in conversations about it, we try to ensure that we don't castigate variation as "badwrongfun." In the history of D&D, many people will refer to this distinction as "rules" (the first-order design) and "rulings" (the second-order design). More rules means more standardization. More rulings means more variation between tables.

Of course, it's not always that simple; many people played AD&D in a fast and loose manner, ignoring the multiplicity of rules for various reasons- sometimes because it added unneeded complexity (weapon v. AC), sometimes because it didn't make much sense (the full surprise and initiative rules), and sometimes because the rules were buried in dense verbiage (what do you do with a dead elf?). On the other hand, many people played OD&D and just codified their rulings over time in writing until they had their own notes that exceeded in depth and scope anything put out as AD&D. Just like Hasbro can't tell you what to do with Free Parking, Hasbro can't tell you how to play D&D.

The other interesting thing to note about the interview excerpt (other than the weird aside about appearance ... a preview of the late and not-lamented seventh ability score!) is Jaquet's insistence, which was common, that D&D was a game.
I consider one game better than another because of playability and enjoyability.

There are those that look askance when people say that what they are looking for in the hobby is ... fun. To a certain extent, I can understand the objection; fun, after all, is certainly a difficult-to-measure metric. Still, isn't that the only one that truly matters? Isn't fun ... playability and enjoyability ... what people look for in a hobby? Different people have different approaches to fun; but I would still say that Jaquet was entirely correct. The true measure of a game in the RPG field is not how it works in theory, nor how it slots into a given construct (even FKR!), but simply whether it is playable, and whether it is enjoyable.


Hope you found this brief detour interesting. Please feel to discuss any of the above issues!

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

A little Robert Jordan says it all.

 

[nevin]

It illustrates that "fun" is useless as a primary design goal, because fun is something that happens at the table and depends on player preferences. Instead, design toward more concrete goals such as "an engaging tactical encounter experience" or "allow players to immerse themselves in a fantastic culture" or "a framework for exploring the relationships of an iron age barbarian tribe", and make the game good at doing those particular things. Then "fun" will follow for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

When you start a project you define what it is for and what it will do to keep your parameters within a range that will keep it from going off into the weeds. FUN is the target. If fun is a useless concept then you are all but doomed to end up in the weeds unless lady luck takes the wheel.

 

[Clint_L]

I feel like it goes without saying that "fun" is the target, but I also agree that it is useless as a design goal.

Back in the early 70s, it seems like the design goal was something like "make a refereed skirmish-level wargame that allows the players to pretend to be one particular character and accommodates actions that go beyond the battlefield, such as exploration, amassing wealth, building a fortress, and recruiting followers, in the style of fantasy literature." So they started with what they knew, making a wargame, and then kept bolting stuff on.

D&D was never designed as a ground-up TTRPG because that concept didn't even exist, and that is why it is the weird hybrid beast that so many of us love. It a portmanteau game, sort of like those early D&D monsters inspired by cheap plastic Japanese toys. It is the owlbear of TTRPGs.

 

[bloodtide]

AMFs are rare

They are? Do the rules say this somewhere? And even if you could point to some random rule line, what does "rare" even mean? In a typical fantasy game magic is "rare" in that it is "everywhere" and "all foes have and use it" and the "player characters have tons". But ok, it's "rare" as in thousands of farmer npcs have never encountered magic?

This is the exact problem. Where people get an idea, like "AMFs are rare" just locked into their brains.

and, generally, punish everyone, not just the spellcasters. (Consider that most Fighters depend on magical arms and armor to be able to fight, at least in 3e/PF, which I assume is your primary reference point here.) In both 3e/PF and 5e, AMF is an extremely high-level effect, an 8th level spell in 5e, a 6th level spell in 3.5e. Things that can fly appear quite early in both games; from what I can see, the cocatrice is a CR 1 creature with flight.

Again, this will depend on your game play.

Also, I know I only mentioned "anti magic" and you focused on only the anti magic field spell on page 88 of the offical rule book. But there are many types of anti magic beyond that. Plus wild magic, suppressed magic, absorbed magic and much much more. Just because "some guy" did not write something down in the offical rules does not mean it can't be in your game.

So, while style matters here...so do the rules. The rules make it easy to invalidate the mundane character. They make it a nuclear option (including the "fallout affects everyone" sense) to invalidate the magic-using character.

Rules designed differently, rules that made it both easier and less dramatic to nix magical characters, and both harder and more dramatic to nix mundane characters, would be much less affected by such stylistic problems. You can't eliminate the problems, but you can make things better.

It is not the rules. It's how you use the rules and how you play the game.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No, see I actually understand what @EzekielRaiden is coming from here and why they are butting up against you. Because you and they are not seeing the same scenario the same way or parsing the language the same way.

To use your example of food... a chef isn't cooking "tastes good". That's not a thing. Rather what they doing is cooking a steak. THAT is their end state. That is their end goal-- to cook a steak. And everything they are doing is to cook that steak. Now the hoped-for result of cooking that steak is for it to "taste good". And all the bits and bobs they add to their recipe go towards their cooked steak tasting good. No one disagrees with that. But before you can get to "tastes good" step in the process you need to decide on what it is you are actually cooking first, and then work towards it tasting good. You can't have "tastes good" until you have "steak".

That's where you both are butting heads. You appear to me to be skipping the part of deciding on the thing and going straight to the "fun"-- the "tastes good". But Ezekiel isn't doing that because "fun" in and of itself isn't a thing-- it's not an object-- that you can put in these books. Instead, "fun" is the result that comes from a thing-- a rule. We have to put in the rules first and then have or make those rules be fun. From their perspective in the conversation, one can't have the fun until you make the rules.

You both are ending up at the same result... a game and game rules and a rulebook that is fun to play. But they are just suggesting you need to stop at the "making the rules" step first and then the fun can come out of it.

"I consider one game better than another because of playability and enjoyability."

That's from Jake Jaquet.

In order to understand what's actually being discussed, you have to understand the genesis of the conversation. This isn't the first time that this poster has (repeatedly!) insisted that fun doesn't matter. On the other hand, I've repeatedly stated that understanding what makes something fun is always worth investigating. So, what is this discussion really about?

This goes back to something I often quote- the settled law of Judge John Hodgman:
People like what they like. You can’t force someone to like something. You can expose them to a piece of work, but if they don’t like it, that’s the way it is. You can’t talk them out of it.

Now, for some reason (I will let you guess the reason why!) this quote, and the related enworld maxim, ""I double-dog dare you to describe how totally awesome your favorite (game/playstyle) is, WITHOUT comparing it to any others" is incredibly difficult for some people to understand.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living; despite that admonition, there exist countless people that will continue to lead those lives. For various reasons, there are people that will insist that, because of reasons, the fact that a person can truthfully discuss their experience about something is somehow invalid. On a forum like this, discussing gaming, that reason might be ... oh, fun!

"Why do you play (this game that I personally don't like)"?
"Because it's fun!"
"Well, it can't be fun, because of X, Y, and Z. Obviously, there's something wrong with you."

It's completely missing the forest for the trees. If people actually cared about what goes into the design of the game, they'd be going in with a good-faith effort to try and understand why the person enjoys the game- not trying to argue with a person that their preferences can't be "fun."

In the end, fun (playability and enjoyability, or however you want to call it) is the design goal for most designers- at least, the ones that are designing games for people to play, and not just thought experiments. There are great and valid discussions about how to get there- more rules or less rules. What types of dice mechanics might be more enjoyable. The type of market you want to appeal to (not everyone finds the same things fun, and games designed for mass markets generally have to be designed differently).

But the reason that this is a so-called conversation is not because I don't discuss those intermediate steps- far from it. I simply refuse to accede to agree that repetitive arguments wherein people are told that their enjoyment of a game is somehow "lesser" for lack of examination is correct.

 

[jmartkdr2]

"I consider one game better than another because of playability and enjoyability."

That's from Jake Jaquet.

In order to understand what's actually being discussed, you have to understand the genesis of the conversation. This isn't the first time that this poster has (repeatedly!) insisted that fun doesn't matter. On the other hand, I've repeatedly stated that understanding what makes something fun is always worth investigating. So, what is this discussion really about?

This goes back to something I often quote- the settled law of Judge John Hodgman:
People like what they like. You can’t force someone to like something. You can expose them to a piece of work, but if they don’t like it, that’s the way it is. You can’t talk them out of it.

Now, for some reason (I will let you guess the reason why!) this quote, and the related enworld maxim, ""I double-dog dare you to describe how totally awesome your favorite (game/playstyle) is, WITHOUT comparing it to any others" is incredibly difficult for some people to understand.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living; despite that admonition, there exist countless people that will continue to lead those lives. For various reasons, there are people that will insist that, because of reasons, the fact that a person can truthfully discuss their experience about something is somehow invalid. On a forum like this, discussing gaming, that reason might be ... oh, fun!

"Why do you play (this game that I personally don't like)"?
"Because it's fun!"
"Well, it can't be fun, because of X, Y, and Z. Obviously, there's something wrong with you."

It's completely missing the forest for the trees. If people actually cared about what goes into the design of the game, they'd be going in with a good-faith effort to try and understand why the person enjoys the game- not trying to argue with a person that their preferences can't be "fun."

In the end, fun (playability and enjoyability, or however you want to call it) is the design goal for most designers- at least, the ones that are designing games for people to play, and not just thought experiments. There are great and valid discussions about how to get there- more rules or less rules. What types of dice mechanics might be more enjoyable. The type of market you want to appeal to (not everyone finds the same things fun, and games designed for mass markets generally have to be designed differently).

But the reason that this is a so-called conversation is not because I don't discuss those intermediate steps- far from it. I simply refuse to accede to agree that repetitive arguments wherein people are told that their enjoyment of a game is somehow "lesser" for lack of examination is correct.

When I've seen it articulated well, the pushback for "fun" as a goal is that "fun" is too broad - there are many different kinds of fun. I've seen academic papers define at least 8, and one was "challenge" - a broad concept in itself. A game being fun is as good at directing design as saying it should be "good." Yes, a game should be good rather than bad, fun rather than boring, and playable rather than unplayable. But those are such broad and low standards that it's not telling you much.

Link to the article: http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf (it's a PDF not a web page. It's also a pretty easy read)

Exceptions to the objection to fun-as-goal:

1. A game being "not fun" is a vague way to say it's not working - "unplayable" is a more damning phrase but "unfun" is still telling the designer they done goofed. But it's not really telling the designer how they failed or what needs fixing. (Of course, playtesters are notoriously bad at telling designers what's wrong, just that something's wrong.) "Enjoyable" is the same thing as "fun" in this context.

2. If you've already defined the game's genre, "fun" might have an understood (by people into the genre) meaning. If I'm making a dungeon-crawling game, then I've probably already decided to make it challenging rather than submission, exploration rather than narrative, etc. You've also probably decided on the kind of challenge you want to present - it's about conserving resources for long-term success. Once you're at a certain point of theme-picking, "fun" becomes a shorthand for some more specific concepts than can meaningfully drive design.

3. Although first-order design frames second-order design, the players can always add new kinds of fun if they really want to. You can roleplay parchisi if you want to; the cops can't stop you.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

When I've seen it articulated well, the pushback for "fun" as a goal is that "fun" is too broad ....

Again, as I just articulated ... if someone is telling you that the reason that they play a game is because the game is fun, then if your interest is in finding out why the game is fun, you should ask them what they enjoy about it. They may or may not be able to articulate it, but they aren't lying to you about their enjoyment.

If, on the other hand, when someone tells you that they find something fun, and you feel the need to "pushback," then you are likely not paying attention to what I just spent time writing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

"I consider one game better than another because of playability and enjoyability."

That's from Jake Jaquet.

In order to understand what's actually being discussed, you have to understand the genesis of the conversation. This isn't the first time that this poster has (repeatedly!) insisted that fun doesn't matter. On the other hand, I've repeatedly stated that understanding what makes something fun is always worth investigating. So, what is this discussion really about?

This goes back to something I often quote- the settled law of Judge John Hodgman:
People like what they like. You can’t force someone to like something. You can expose them to a piece of work, but if they don’t like it, that’s the way it is. You can’t talk them out of it.

Now, for some reason (I will let you guess the reason why!) this quote, and the related enworld maxim, ""I double-dog dare you to describe how totally awesome your favorite (game/playstyle) is, WITHOUT comparing it to any others" is incredibly difficult for some people to understand.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living; despite that admonition, there exist countless people that will continue to lead those lives. For various reasons, there are people that will insist that, because of reasons, the fact that a person can truthfully discuss their experience about something is somehow invalid. On a forum like this, discussing gaming, that reason might be ... oh, fun!

"Why do you play (this game that I personally don't like)"?
"Because it's fun!"
"Well, it can't be fun, because of X, Y, and Z. Obviously, there's something wrong with you."

It's completely missing the forest for the trees. If people actually cared about what goes into the design of the game, they'd be going in with a good-faith effort to try and understand why the person enjoys the game- not trying to argue with a person that their preferences can't be "fun."

In the end, fun (playability and enjoyability, or however you want to call it) is the design goal for most designers- at least, the ones that are designing games for people to play, and not just thought experiments. There are great and valid discussions about how to get there- more rules or less rules. What types of dice mechanics might be more enjoyable. The type of market you want to appeal to (not everyone finds the same things fun, and games designed for mass markets generally have to be designed differently).

But the reason that this is a so-called conversation is not because I don't discuss those intermediate steps- far from it. I simply refuse to accede to agree that repetitive arguments wherein people are told that their enjoyment of a game is somehow "lesser" for lack of examination is correct.

Personally, it seems to me like you are missing @EzekielRaiden 's point as well.

Because a person cannot discuss what is fun until they know what it is that may or may not be fun.

I mean when someone says the end goal of D&D is to make it fun... then I could just say "Okay, put a roller coaster in it." Roller coasters are fun. If all that matters is fun, then a D&D that has a roller coaster in it satisfies the request.

But of course that is a ridiculous statement to make even though it is true. Because what we are actually talking about are the rules of the Dungeons & Dragons game. What we are discussing are whether the rules-- the it-- are or are not fun. Which means the actual goal isn't "fun" in of itself, it is having "game rules that ARE fun". Step One: Make a game rule. Step Two: Have that game rule be fun to play. Step Three: Profit.

The end-result you are both looking for is the same-- a fun D&D game. It's just where your focus is to be able to get there is different.