Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Creativity?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8931284" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] I feel the need to reiterate that I am not confused about the play pattern you're talking about and explaining it to me again is not an argument for its value. I just don't like it, and don't think it's particularly essential to an RPG. I've said elsewhere I don't like board games that have a similar structure (something like Dead of Winter's push your luck combined with shedding and resource deleting feels close, or maybe from what I've heard Flesh and Blood, a game I haven't tried that involves a constantly weakening board state and a really to down your opponent before you run out of resources). The point of those games is generally to space out the damage you're taking across several different resources, and/or concentrate it into one resource. I find it frustrating to go from a largely unconstrained decision space, to an increasingly desperate one, and tend to prefer games where the decision space increases as time goes on, or is constrained in specific places at specific times. This is a maxim that's true about me across genres and mechanics, meaning I don't like quite popular games like Warchest or Undaunted that involve a similar spiral. I certainly don't find that play more compelling as the basic structural building block of a TTRPG. If anything, it's a distinct disincentive to this entire genre of design.</p><p></p><p>It honestly doesn't matter if any of the 4 choices I presented earlier is a particularly good description of the actual experience they're purporting to model. I picked those specifically, because they all break down neatly into different climb DCs in the 3.5 RAW, and frankly are sufficient abstractions to the task that will all cause slightly different board states. It's perfectly possible none of those board states matter, or that there is one that's a particularly good choice. Perhaps the only that really matters is the time spent on the situation because there's other stuff happening elsewhere that needs attention.</p><p></p><p>I worry that we're getting caught up in all these examples because it is arguably a strength of the kind of game you're talking about that just about anything can be cast as a "challenge." It's simply a matter of framing the situation as the obstacle, and then working out the space between the goal and the player's choices, until you get to a move which will, more likely than not, allow a new complication to emerge, whereas my position necessitates that an obstacle is only as relevant as the actual rules allow it to be, and if it's not, then it's simply not a problem. The players will then pick some other goal, until they eventually run into a problem, the scope of which will change wildly with level.</p><p></p><p>The sort of play I'm looking for, involves the player trying to win as efficiently and completely as possible, all the time, and gives them a diverse set of actions with specific outcomes they can leverage to do that. It's not up to the rules to make the situation interesting, it's up to the situation to be interesting. The rules are the tools the players are going to use to break whatever the problem is down.</p><p></p><p></p><p>You keep saying this, and I don't know why it's a problem. The fiction motivated the player to get to this situation, and will motivate them to do something else once they leave, why should they not go look at the rules of the game, and try to find the best action to take to succeed in the current board state? If we set aside that we're playing a TTRPG, you're describing the actual thing people playing board games do for fun, as if it's a problem. Assume that it's intrinsically appealing to make decisions and use rules in a complex system. Figuring out the best line of play given a set of choices is intrinsically interesting, and a fun thing to do.</p><p></p><p>The fiction gives way to the goals the player is pursuing, it gives a reason to make all these decisions and sets the victory condition you're aiming for, but it doesn't need to do anything else. You keep positing that mechanical interaction is intrinsically bad somehow, as if it must be less interesting than pretending you're not playing a game, and letting the rules come to bear descriptively after you've made choices without them, where I'm very much looking for a game where the player reads the book, finds a thing they can do, and does that thing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8931284, member: 6690965"] [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] I feel the need to reiterate that I am not confused about the play pattern you're talking about and explaining it to me again is not an argument for its value. I just don't like it, and don't think it's particularly essential to an RPG. I've said elsewhere I don't like board games that have a similar structure (something like Dead of Winter's push your luck combined with shedding and resource deleting feels close, or maybe from what I've heard Flesh and Blood, a game I haven't tried that involves a constantly weakening board state and a really to down your opponent before you run out of resources). The point of those games is generally to space out the damage you're taking across several different resources, and/or concentrate it into one resource. I find it frustrating to go from a largely unconstrained decision space, to an increasingly desperate one, and tend to prefer games where the decision space increases as time goes on, or is constrained in specific places at specific times. This is a maxim that's true about me across genres and mechanics, meaning I don't like quite popular games like Warchest or Undaunted that involve a similar spiral. I certainly don't find that play more compelling as the basic structural building block of a TTRPG. If anything, it's a distinct disincentive to this entire genre of design. It honestly doesn't matter if any of the 4 choices I presented earlier is a particularly good description of the actual experience they're purporting to model. I picked those specifically, because they all break down neatly into different climb DCs in the 3.5 RAW, and frankly are sufficient abstractions to the task that will all cause slightly different board states. It's perfectly possible none of those board states matter, or that there is one that's a particularly good choice. Perhaps the only that really matters is the time spent on the situation because there's other stuff happening elsewhere that needs attention. I worry that we're getting caught up in all these examples because it is arguably a strength of the kind of game you're talking about that just about anything can be cast as a "challenge." It's simply a matter of framing the situation as the obstacle, and then working out the space between the goal and the player's choices, until you get to a move which will, more likely than not, allow a new complication to emerge, whereas my position necessitates that an obstacle is only as relevant as the actual rules allow it to be, and if it's not, then it's simply not a problem. The players will then pick some other goal, until they eventually run into a problem, the scope of which will change wildly with level. The sort of play I'm looking for, involves the player trying to win as efficiently and completely as possible, all the time, and gives them a diverse set of actions with specific outcomes they can leverage to do that. It's not up to the rules to make the situation interesting, it's up to the situation to be interesting. The rules are the tools the players are going to use to break whatever the problem is down. You keep saying this, and I don't know why it's a problem. The fiction motivated the player to get to this situation, and will motivate them to do something else once they leave, why should they not go look at the rules of the game, and try to find the best action to take to succeed in the current board state? If we set aside that we're playing a TTRPG, you're describing the actual thing people playing board games do for fun, as if it's a problem. Assume that it's intrinsically appealing to make decisions and use rules in a complex system. Figuring out the best line of play given a set of choices is intrinsically interesting, and a fun thing to do. The fiction gives way to the goals the player is pursuing, it gives a reason to make all these decisions and sets the victory condition you're aiming for, but it doesn't need to do anything else. You keep positing that mechanical interaction is intrinsically bad somehow, as if it must be less interesting than pretending you're not playing a game, and letting the rules come to bear descriptively after you've made choices without them, where I'm very much looking for a game where the player reads the book, finds a thing they can do, and does that thing. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Creativity?
Top