Whizbang Dustyboots
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
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Stole this from reddit:
Minimalism isn't some overarching virtue that everyone should strive for. Not even just game design, but in design in general, people are seemingly hyper-fixated on this idea of aesthetically excessive minimalism and its hurting their products. They're unintuitively more cumbersome and dissatisfying to use. For game design in particular, so many games now are just so bare of meaningful interaction.
They're overly limited and cramped because they weren't given the necessary space to stretch out. They're like the square watermelons sold in japan. They look intriguing (and are expensive), but because they don't have the proper room to grow, are comparatively useless as actual food. A true white elephant.
Lastly, RPGs are games. Game is the noun, RP is an adjective. If your game isn't fun for the gameplay, it isn't a good game. You can do other things than play games, but an RPG must, by definition, be a game
People say to branch out from DND, but the real killer idea is to branch out from minimalist games.
Minimalism isn't some overarching virtue that everyone should strive for. Not even just game design, but in design in general, people are seemingly hyper-fixated on this idea of aesthetically excessive minimalism and its hurting their products. They're unintuitively more cumbersome and dissatisfying to use. For game design in particular, so many games now are just so bare of meaningful interaction.
They're overly limited and cramped because they weren't given the necessary space to stretch out. They're like the square watermelons sold in japan. They look intriguing (and are expensive), but because they don't have the proper room to grow, are comparatively useless as actual food. A true white elephant.
Lastly, RPGs are games. Game is the noun, RP is an adjective. If your game isn't fun for the gameplay, it isn't a good game. You can do other things than play games, but an RPG must, by definition, be a game
People say to branch out from DND, but the real killer idea is to branch out from minimalist games.
W'rkncacnter
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Exactly - it's one of the real advantages to being multiclassed.
A F-3/MU-3/T-3 has 9 levels it can burn through...but then again that does make it a nice tasty snack for a level-drainer, particularly one that gains something for each level it drains...
I've always had multiclass characters (pre-WotC) have separate xp tracks for each class, in part for just this reason: gaining or losing xp (or a level) in one class doesn't affect the others in any way. But, I'm harsher on multiclassers in other ways, so I guess it evens out in the end.
It is rather fascinating. The fixation on minimalism really is everywhere, and despite how very much non-minimalist DND is, people will still assert that minimalism is the only acceptable answer to addressing its issues. If it isn't a magical one sentence fix that exponentially solves entire Pillars of Play its D.O.A.
You can even go see it here in the endless discussions on Rangers, where the conversation revolves around alternating bouts of just rearranging what already exists, or arguments over the apparently garish and offensive idea of adding more to the game to better support the archtype; if it doesn't already exist in DND, the idea is D.O.A. For some people anyway.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
So, in other words, more complexity is good.
In some ways I agree with this, though I'm not sure minimalism itself is the faulty element. The fault lies more with oversimplification, and a desire to shoehorn too many systems that should be discrete into one unified mechanic; which can and have been done in games that are still nowhere near minimalist (hello, 5e).
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