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David Noonan on D&D Complexity
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<blockquote data-quote="D'karr" data-source="post: 3120664" data-attributes="member: 336"><p>The game has become more granular. This gives room for almost limitless expansion. New options provide new avenues of growth. This all adds to what some might view as complexity. If you simplify the game you start removing some of those options. By removing the "wrong" options you take away from the game.</p><p></p><p>What I believe is needed are guidelines for DMs on how to remove some of those complexities without impacting the "fun". From a design standpoint, what things are critical and which are not. Give concrete examples that allow a DM to extrapolate for a wide range of creatures and situations. The "tactics" section for some creatures are a good start.</p><p></p><p>Noonan makes a good point that for the Delve he took anything extraneous and removed it from the front page. Remember when statblocks looked like this "Black Dragon : AC 2 HD 7 HP 60 Damage 2-5/2-5/2-20 Save F7." It was oversimplified because those were the only things you needed to handle combat.</p><p></p><p>I'm not proposing that we need to go backwards and get to that level of simplification. But a simpler way of displaying the <strong>critical stuff</strong> would be nice. And what I mean by critical stuff is the stuff that has a direct impact on combat. The fact that monster A has 15 ranks in Appraise or that it has a backpack is irrelevant to combat. But if it usually uses Tumble in combat and tries to attack from a flanking position with its +2 longsword, then that becomes important.</p><p></p><p>The more complex the monster the harder it becomes to distill that critical combat information.</p><p></p><p>The guidelines should show the DM how to "fish" and give him an example of a "fish". That way the DM can use the knowledge of how to convert the complex into the simple and run with it. BTW I would like to see something like this in the DMG.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="D'karr, post: 3120664, member: 336"] The game has become more granular. This gives room for almost limitless expansion. New options provide new avenues of growth. This all adds to what some might view as complexity. If you simplify the game you start removing some of those options. By removing the "wrong" options you take away from the game. What I believe is needed are guidelines for DMs on how to remove some of those complexities without impacting the "fun". From a design standpoint, what things are critical and which are not. Give concrete examples that allow a DM to extrapolate for a wide range of creatures and situations. The "tactics" section for some creatures are a good start. Noonan makes a good point that for the Delve he took anything extraneous and removed it from the front page. Remember when statblocks looked like this "Black Dragon : AC 2 HD 7 HP 60 Damage 2-5/2-5/2-20 Save F7." It was oversimplified because those were the only things you needed to handle combat. I'm not proposing that we need to go backwards and get to that level of simplification. But a simpler way of displaying the [B]critical stuff[/B] would be nice. And what I mean by critical stuff is the stuff that has a direct impact on combat. The fact that monster A has 15 ranks in Appraise or that it has a backpack is irrelevant to combat. But if it usually uses Tumble in combat and tries to attack from a flanking position with its +2 longsword, then that becomes important. The more complex the monster the harder it becomes to distill that critical combat information. The guidelines should show the DM how to "fish" and give him an example of a "fish". That way the DM can use the knowledge of how to convert the complex into the simple and run with it. BTW I would like to see something like this in the DMG. [/QUOTE]
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