D&D 4E 4E Player's Handbook just put on some weight!!!!

[lukelightning]

Mwah ha ha, I got in at the old price.

*dances the Gnomish dance of victory*

Me too, woo hoo!

 

[jester47]

What I don't think many game designers understand is that if you have a simple rule set + tons of options the complexity of the game increases with the options. So a rule set with 5 basic rules and 1000 options has 5000 relationships to keep track of. While this is a generalised example it holds true. How each feat relates to and affects all game elements increases the complexity of the game. The same holds true as each spell is a game effect and thus the relationships to other spells, feats, and abilities all come into play when using that spell. While the gaming group does not need to keep track of these effects it is the reason everyone has to look up somthing at some point in the game.

So looking at 3e D&D: Simplifying the rule set allows for the addition of more options. Streamlining the way options are introduced and utilized will create faster game play. Hence 4e.

 

[Jack7]

You are aware that approximately half (or more?) of the PHB 3.0 and PHB 3.5 were devoted to the spell list? A lot of room was also devoted to class descriptions, skills and feats.

The real basic rules are the Combat Chapter and a part of the Magic chapter.

Knowing all spells is pretty hard in 3.x, and not at all uncomplex. But understanding the basics is pretty simple (slots, saving throw DCs, Spell Resistance) and done in a lot less pages. You only need a 20 line paragraph on a spell if you want to cast it.

If we use the military example above: Think of it as a text about how to shoot a rifle, containing also accurate technical descriptions (including illustrations) of each currently employed NATO pistol, rifle, assault rifle, machine gun and rocket launcher, and the various ammunition employed and additional devices available for them (silencers, scopes, bayonets, magazines)... You don't need to know that the G3 is blow-back operated or the standard G36 magazines can be "clipped" together to learn how to shoot with a rifle in general. But the information about these weapons might be useful if you ever hold one of them. But then, you probably need only the information about the one you want to actually use.

I wouldn't argue your specific points at all, were my analogy about producing a technical manual describing the intricacies of life and death weaponry used in combat.

And your point on spells, and weapon's descriptions is logical and well stated and well put.

But my analogy was about the development of a system to communicate useful information easily and efficiently regarding a given design parameter. This is after all just a game. One which requires the transmission of certain data, but does not for game purposes require a description of the technical components of recoil springs, or slide levers, or precise projectile data for optimal sniping situations. That is the game does not require this as a component of either easily and efficiently executing a description of the game, nor does it require that level of real world sophistication (though I have nothing against that level of sophistication, we use that level of sophistication in my game because of the way it functions and because it is heavily centered on real world circumstances and events - but the players didn't develop that level of complexity - the players contributed to it, and the game itself did not develop that level of complexity, I as DM did). And the vast majority of data contained in such manuals is never memorized or used by the average soldier, nor should it be. Technical specialists may commit to memory thousands of details of a trivial nature, but soldiers require not complexity but usability and ease of execution. And that's what I'm saying, or one of my points anyway. The game has become a game not of general usefulness, or widespread enjoyment, but an entertainment of a primarily technical and overly specialized nature. That is to say it is up to the DM and players to develop necessary and specific levels of complexity related to their own game. But it is not a game design imperative (indeed it is counter-productive to do so) to develop hugely complex systems for direct presentation to the player and DM, for this discourages new recruits, market expansion, and game functionality. Let me explain it this way. You start out with Basic Training. That is the Genesis Point. (You do not begin your career at the Pentagon or in the Intel services, or at CENTCOM.) Then if the soldier (continuing that analogy) decides he wishes to pursue new skill sets or new assignments or necessity dictates then he seeks additional assignments, missions, and complexity related to his function and intent. I'm not saying information needs to be functionally sparse, but it needs to be properly targeted to the correct parties, and it also does not need to be so complex as to defeat practicality and encourage the development of the "professional gamer" as the only interested gaming party. Any game which discourages general and easy employment is necessarily restricting not only its own growth, but it's more general purposes as a game.

Soldier's don't need to know the grain count of a given projectile nor it's relative material and atomic composition. When you chamber a round and set on target you need to know this, "will it fire smoothly and effectively kill the enemy."

The gun designer and ammunition manufacturer (game designer in the first case, and DM in the other) need to know these things; manufacturing techniques, material composition, rate of fire, rifling patterns, ammunition types, best operating conditions, etc. The player (soldier) needs to know "is it reliable and efficient." Will it do the job, my job. Not the General's job, not the weapon manufacturer's job, but my job, as front line player. And if my weapon, or my rules of engagement, are so complex and hard to understand that I cannot operate quickly, efficiently, properly, or well, then I am at a distinct and material disadvantage in any engagement I currently face, or will face in the future.

This is a part of the whole modern problem of Role Confusion. Placing many of the functions and responsibilities of the designer and DM in the hand of the players, and vice-versa. Which renders a system so complex that it fails at most every stage of execution. Modern gaming has an extremely heavy and unnecessarily burdensome Top-Down design, approaching the player as if he were the General. The player is not the General. He is the line-solider. The Design is the Command Structure and Command Structures should be very easy and simple to understand. Containing the most basic and useful information possible to communicate. the DM is the field commander, the player is the solider. Do not make the player into the General, that is neither his function nor his mission. If he wants to graduate to those responsibilities later, I say then let his ambition carry him as far as possible. But do not let the idea that the General is the same as the foot soldier, or the idea that the line combatant is interchangeable with the General cloud your design parameters or even your executable intentions.

Now your point is logical, depending upon the degree to which it is taken, and I have no general argument with the absolute specifics of the overall point you are driving at, but I was speaking to the overall mindset of the game design parameters.

That the current design prerogative renders a faulty and complex game design, which decreases both usefulness and enjoyment in favor of a false professionalism of role confusion and intent equation.
I do not wish to see such self-restrictive design limitations carried over into and replicated in 4E, and since I haven't seen it I have drawn no specific conclusions, but I don't like the implications of a 300 plus page Player's Handbook.

Or put more simply, modern gaming is too complex to be either really fun, or really useful, to anyone other than a devotee.

Well, I got work to do, but it was nice yakking with you guys and dolls.
Excuse my mistakes, I had to write quickly.