Artistry vs. Playability in Game and Setting Design

[Fenris-77]

I agree that narrowly focused RPGs can lack long term playability, or perhaps replayability, for some people. That comes as part of the exchange for tightly focused mechanics that are designed to enhance some of the genre indexing aspects of play. I'm usually quite happy with that exchange. Its far easier to write great mechanics for a narrow genre focus than it is to accomplish the same thing for game that aspires to be kitchen sink.

Im not even sure you can do both. I would descibe it as a sliding scale with narrow genre specifcs at one end and universal rules at the other. For my part, I find that crunch and detail past a certain point loses its ability to enhance my game experience in directed ways. That's probably why I've never been a huge fan of universal rules systems and have become even less so as I get older.

 

[Aldarc]

~ double post ~

 

[Aldarc]

Complete aside - I am so cheesed that that kickstarter open and closed before I even learned it existed. grumble

I'm upset for not buying in for a hard copy.

 

[Scott Christian]

Middle-earth, as a setting, is a work of art in a class above and beyond any D&D setting (IMO!). It is a finely wrought Alan Lee or John Howe watercolor, while most D&D worlds are collages of often clashing colors and shapes. But when it comes down to playing time, I kind of want the collage, the playability over artistry.

I think this is an insightful statement that I've never heard expressed as succinctly as this. I also ten to agree. I do wonder if it is because it allows us, as GM's, more freedom of expression, than using just a watercolor style.

The same basic principle applies to game mechanics. I have always thought that dice pools and any system that only uses d6, or even non-dice mechanics, has a certain aesthetic quality to it. But I'll be damned if I don't like rolling d20s, and any time I have tried my hand at game design, one of the underlying design goals was "make sure it includes the whole polyhedral family!"

The camp that I am overbearingly stubborn on is - the setting creates the mechanics. When it doesn't it just feels so wrong (IMO).

Rolemaster's old Middle Earth was a dangerous world. Crit tables represented that danger. Sam being able to seriously injure Shelob is a great example of this. Killing orcs with one blow. Another great example. And it's ability to use luck points or defense or whatever it was called seemed logical.

D&D is mildly dangerous. Hence, death saves, HP bloat, etc. And it makes sense from what I see of the settings they create. (I mean, how many times should Drizzt or Bruenor have died? I think PF's Golarion falls into this category as well. (I would throw in VtM also.) So these mechanics seem to match their settings.

Conan and Dangerous Journeys does an ok job, but not great. I feel the same with Numenera.

The Witcher RPG does not match the setting. It is mildly frustrating, and made me stop playing after one session.

I don't know, maybe that is just my pet-peeve. But, a game's mechanics should be built around its setting. When it isn't it is blindingly obvious. Half the rules seem like wooden square pegs smashed through round holes, leaving splinters everywhere.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

When we were younger and had more time, we played all sorts of RPGs. Now, it's mostly D&D. We have less time to play and the time and effort to get people up-to-speed on the rules and setting isn't something everyone wants to commit to.

Having a baseline set of rules and world assumptions is pretty handy. I don't need to explain what Schlorbs and Blonkenmorgs are, or that all magic requires a person to roll a d6+d4 and subtract their Arcane Stench statistic.

Buuuut...I think that there's something enjoyable about systems that are purpose-built for a setting. Think about The Spire, or Warhammer Fantasy, and how those rules and worlds flow together to shape the game. On the converse, I tend to not like one-size-fits-all systems like GURPS, FATE, Powered by the Apocalypse, Palladium's in-house system, and so on.

 

[zarionofarabel]

System Matters (TM)

At least I have believed that for a long time. I lived through the "everything D20!" era and it was awful.

IMHO there is nothing worse than a system that doesn't fit the setting. DnD is super duper great for playing D&D. It's absolute shite for anything else. Then again, I wouldn't want to use Pendragon for FR or Greyhawk.

 

[Fenris-77]

Then again, I wouldn't want to use Pendragon for FR or Greyhawk.

Go big or go home. How about Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine for a game of CoC?

 

[aramis erak]

There are probably entire libraries about what the nature of magic is in Middle Earth and what the powers of Gandalf had and why he was limited in using them. It's just not something that D&D models well without serious tinkering.

The only tinkering needed really is limiting wizards (and everyone else) to 5th level, and having to spend all those nasty hours of prep per spell a la AD&D 1E, and opening up the weapon proficiencies to wizards.
The hard part of that is getting the fighter to agree to a level 5 cap...

THere's an old Dragon article that points out D&D magic for all that we see Gandalf pull off, except for the resurrection after the Balrog, is 3rd level spells and under.

To be honest, that's what makes it so unsuitable - the mods are easy, but limit character growth severely.

Aside, of course, from the halflings all multi-classing into fighter.

 

[pemerton]

Most of my RPGing has been with non-D&D systems.

By hours, the system I've played the most is Rolemaster. Next would be 4e D&D, and after that probably AD&D.

Over the past five years I've played a mix of non-D&D systems: Burning Wheel, Classic Traveller, Prince Valiant, and MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic have been the main ones. This has included my own fantasy variant of Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy for MERP/LotR.

I've never felt any particular tension between "artistry" and playability. In the context of D&D, 4e is - to my mind - clearly the version of the game with the most deliberate aesthetic of world and characters, and also the most playable version in the sense of reliably delivering great RPG experiences.

In a different sense of artistry, Classic Traveller has one of the strongest design aesthetics of the early RPGs - striking trade dress (the "little black books"); a uniform approach to PC build that is famous as one of the first "lifepath" PC gen systems; 2D6 for almost all rolls that the game calls for. And it's also a highly playable RPG, in my view much moreso than most of its contemporaries.

Luke Crane's Burning Wheel books are full of authorial voice - maybe not as much as Baker's Apocalypse World, but heading in that direction - and BW is a great game that I love to play and GM.

Trying to think of a RPG that felt evocative but I suspect is not all that playable, the first that came to mind is Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. But I don't think its the evocative material that is the obstacle to playability - it's the baroque 3E-derived system.

Conversely, a good, playable system is often itself the manifestation of artistry. Vincent Baker's games are probably the best examples of this. Poison'd is a game I may never play, but not because the artistry of it's design gets in the way - more for reasons of theme and content.