What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

Thomas Shey said:

While I'm no big fan of spell slots, that specific complaint only follows if you consider spells running on physical rather than spiritual energy.

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Okay so what are the prayers I can use to decrease spell slots? What are the deeds that would decrease/increase my spell slots as a wizard/druid/bard? what alignment of moon and stars effect my spell slots? I'm a huge fan of bizarre medieval mysticism so there's loads of inspiration here, surprising that even Clerics only have an on/off button to their spell slots

Thomas Shey said:

Though you have to follow-through. As someone upthread indirectly references, its actually a bit odd that there's not much I've seen over the years that can damage spellslots other than indirectly by lifedrain back in the day. You'd expect there to be at least a few.

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I'm a-okay with post-hoc justifications since I'm a true blue gamist that hates simulationism, but I've played Chronicles of Darkness Games so I'm very dismissive on people who say that vancianish spell slots are in anyway 'fiction first'.

Thomas Shey said:

Though you have to follow-through. As someone upthread indirectly references, its actually a bit odd that there's not much I've seen over the years that can damage spellslots other than indirectly by lifedrain back in the day. You'd expect there to be at least a few.

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Players don't like to lose their cool powers. I expect that's why life drain went away.

billd91 said:

Well, vive la différence, right? For people who like the detail and crunch, it's not unnecessary. It adds to the experience.

Ideally, there are games for everybody's preferences. People who like deeper military logistics can play Campaign for North Africa. People who don't can play Axis and Allies. And people who like some of the logistics but like to mix in international politics can play John Prados's Advanced Third Reich.

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Oh, sure, I'm totally for that!

But I think there's a difference between crunch with a purpose and what I was talking about. For eg, even if I don't like GURPS I can see what it does and why. I like Shadowrun but can't see the why and how of all those clunky subsystems (there's a reason half the players I know dislike playing with deckers on their teams).

Makes sense?

VLessa said:

Oh, sure, I'm totally for that!

But I think there's a difference between crunch with a purpose and what I was talking about. For eg, even if I don't like GURPS I can see what it does and why. I like Shadowrun but can't see the why and how of all those clunky subsystems (there's a reason half the players I know dislike playing with deckers on their teams).

Makes sense?

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Shadowrun is subsystem-heavy - heavy enough that I'm not much of a fan of the game overall (plus, WAY too many dice. I mean I like a D&D fireball or a Champions 10d6 energy blast as much as the next guy but Shadowrun is over the top). But if I was a fan of the deckers (or the mages, or the riggers, or a street samurai maxing out their cyberware, etc), I don't think I'd want to dispense with the relevant subsystems because each of those subsystems is pretty much that archetype's bread and butter. That crunch has a purpose - it's just a purpose for the hardcore players who really like those subsystems and the detail. It's definitely crunch with a purpose.

billd91 said:

Shadowrun is subsystem-heavy - heavy enough that I'm not much of a fan of the game overall (plus, WAY too many dice. I mean I like a D&D fireball or a Champions 10d6 energy blast as much as the next guy but Shadowrun is over the top). But if I was a fan of the deckers (or the mages, or the riggers, or a street samurai maxing out their cyberware, etc), I don't think I'd want to dispense with the relevant subsystems because each of those subsystems is pretty much that archetype's bread and butter. That crunch has a purpose - it's just a purpose for the hardcore players who really like those subsystems and the detail. It's definitely crunch with a purpose.

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Nah, I love Shadowrun as it was my first RPG, but those subsystems are the nearest to an objectively bad set of rules I've ever seen. They're not just needlessly complex, they are super slow in practice, which take away from the action that's supposedly at the center of the game' premise and flow*. These rules are only there because complex subsystems was the fad at the time.

Contrast it, again, with GURPS. The later is admitedly complex too but it's rules are mostly frontloaded and agile. Also, the math behind it is tighter (dice pools like seen in Shadowrun are, in general, wonky math-wise), etc.

And I say this as someone who loves and still plays Shadowrun, and dislike GURPS.


*when a majority of the player base - not reviewers nor theorists, but actual hardcore players with dozens of sessions under their wings - recommend avoiding the decking rules entirely, you better believe there's something wrong with those rules.

Btw, I think Shadowrun is an interesting example that touches on the discussion about modern design. Just like me, I see a lot of people stopped playing the official Shadowrun editions due to the perception of unnecessary/incoherent crunch, and migrating over to lighter options like Anarchy, Neon City Overdrive, Pbta/FITD hacks like The Sprawl or Runners in the Shadows, etc, etc.

I would bet my money that a Free League attempt at the game would be more successful in coming up with more purposeful and usable crunch than whatever Catalyst has been spilling in the last decade.

GobHag said:

Okay so what are the prayers I can use to decrease spell slots? What are the deeds that would decrease/increase my spell slots as a wizard/druid/bard? what alignment of moon and stars effect my spell slots? I'm a huge fan of bizarre medieval mysticism so there's loads of inspiration here, surprising that even Clerics only have an on/off button to their spell slots

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I recall seeing a few things that would increase spell slots back in the 3e days, but they weren't thick on the ground.

GobHag said:

I'm a-okay with post-hoc justifications since I'm a true blue gamist that hates simulationism, but I've played Chronicles of Darkness Games so I'm very dismissive on people who say that vancianish spell slots are in anyway 'fiction first'.

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Like you say, its pretty much post-hoc when you see it. Its pretty clear the OD&D way of doing that, though it had some vague inspiration from a fictional source, was just a convienient way to handle spells like they were specialty ammunition.

Micah Sweet said:

Players don't like to lose their cool powers. I expect that's why life drain went away.

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Yeah, but I'm not talking about permanent things like lifedrain was, just things like "This attack will expend one of the lowest spell slots on an arcane caster of its target." Arguably that's no worse than damaging someone and making them spend a resource to fix it.

billd91 said:

Shadowrun is subsystem-heavy - heavy enough that I'm not much of a fan of the game overall (plus, WAY too many dice. I mean I like a D&D fireball or a Champions 10d6 energy blast as much as the next guy but Shadowrun is over the top). But if I was a fan of the deckers (or the mages, or the riggers, or a street samurai maxing out their cyberware, etc), I don't think I'd want to dispense with the relevant subsystems because each of those subsystems is pretty much that archetype's bread and butter. That crunch has a purpose - it's just a purpose for the hardcore players who really like those subsystems and the detail. It's definitely crunch with a purpose.

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Yeah. There are ways some of the later editions slimmed that down a little bit, but as I've commented, you can have a lot of mechanical engagement with subsections of play or you can not; its just that a lot of people are used to only seeing that with direct combat, and at least SR also did it with decking and magery.

(Not that it couldn't get pretty thick on the ground there; I ran a SR 1e game years ago where the decker had so many dice we gave him a bowl to roll them all in).

VLessa said:

*when a majority of the player base - not reviewers nor theorists, but actual hardcore players with dozens of sessions under their wings - recommend avoiding the decking rules entirely, you better believe there's something wrong with those rules.

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A lot of that is the typical netrunner/decker problem of it turning into a complete separate subgame though; at least the latter-day versions set it up so that doesn't happen much any more.