Do Shorter Lists Make Players/GMs More Creative?

[dbm]

I think it’s complicated, to give a non-answer.

If I consider GURPS with it’s huge lists of advantages, for example, I still find that a system that fosters creativity whereas looking at something like feats in 3.x derived games I find them to be constricting. So I don’t think it is how long the lists are that encourages or discourages creativity, I think it how the game uses those lists and what other things the system emphasises.

I also suspect there is a population effect with D&D in particular. Many people prefer to consume content rather than create it (which is fine - no moral weight is applied to either preference). Given the relative ease of getting into a D&D game (through the network effect) I suspect people with a strong preference for consumption over creation will likely get into a D&D game and be very happy picking from the options presented. This probably becomes a self-reinforcing situation as other people will create stuff for this relatively large audience (by TTRPG standards) to continue consuming while getting the novelty of new stuff that more creative people might just create for themselves. More niche games have less of an audience for ‘commercial’ creation so players of these systems are more likely to DIY or move on to another system if they don’t want to do that.

People’s ’on ramp’ for games is also probably a factor, again most notably in D&D or similar systems where there are computer game implementations of the rules. Since CRPGs can’t (yet) handle highly creative PC actions well there is, again, a tendency to present lists of exclusive options for the players to pick from. People who enjoy CRPGs may well decide to switch to a TTRPG at some point but still not make a big step-change in exercising personally creativity beyond using their character’s stated abilities in more novel situations presented by a real-world GM.

So to summarise, I think how you handle lists is more a feature of the people playing a game than the game itself.

 

[Autumnal]

I like to quote Roger Ebert: “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.” Makes sense that long lists and short ones could work that way too.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I’m fine with short lists as samples but having a good foundation on how to create your own is necessary.

A point system for powers (or a gp cost system) for making magic items would work.

Honestly, my favorite spell system was Dresden Files. Spells were based on the Power of the spell which was finite based on your Conviction stat. Each tag you put on it ate up Power. Besides that, you could make it do whatever you wanted and it was described based on your specialty.

An evoker with Power 5, could do a 5 damage scorching ray, or a 3 damage fireball in a whole zone (covering a zone costs two power). But could catch things on fire.

An ectomancer with power 5 could summon a ghost that would attack you and do 5 mental damage. But would have other negative fallout

An ice mage could make a whole zone “slippery” causing people to slip and slide and fall down.

The rules for creating spells were well drawn out but the story of the spells had lots of fun potential effects outside the spell itself.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Double post: creative and new spells in D&D

I find most invented spells in D&D, because the rules for creating spells are not well defined, is just a venue for power creep.

 

[R_J_K75]

Dynamic Spells D&D

I've often thought about something similar to this. I havent given it much thought to the point of outlining how to do it, but the long and short of it would be to break down spells by school, effects, duration, casting time, saving throws, so they scale by level. I would remove the spell by class restriction.

Say for instance a player wants to cast an evocation spell as a cone of fire, let them do it. If they want to cast it as a burst radius, great. Basically, break the spell effects down to the lowest components, and get rid of a few hundred spell descriptions and just have rules for shaping the spell effect as the player wants.

I could say this for a lot of things in the core books. The long lists of character options, equipment, skills, feats, spells and magical items, for me only hampers the game. The 2024 5E core books are way too long. I think there are a lot of ways the game could be streamlined so character creation, game prep and game play could be quicker.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I've often thought about something similar to this. I havent given it much thought to the point of outlining how to do it, but the long and short of it would be to break down spells by school, effects, duration, casting time, saving throws, so they scale by level. I would remove the spell by class restriction.

Say for instance a player wants to cast an evocation spell as a cone of fire, let them do it. If they want to cast it as a burst radius, great. Basically, break the spell effects down to the lowest components, and get rid of a few hundred spell descriptions and just have rules for shaping the spell effect as the player wants.

I could say this for a lot of things in the core books. The long lists of character options, equipment, skills, feats, spells and magical items, for me only hampers the game. The 2024 5E core books are way too long. I think there are a lot of ways the game could be streamlined so character creation, game prep and game play could be quicker.

This should already work for how I have it listed above.

need a Cone? Just order the Area 5ft squares in any pattern you wish.
Components? easy, just adds 1 extra "mana" you have to work with. Not required.
Want your fireball to 'look' like a fire demon? Sure, just add to Saving Throw for Effect of "Fear"

 

[Leatherhead]

What do you think?

There will always be people, who whenever you hand them a hammer, will view every problem as a nail.

But that is not the problem you are having. The problem you are having is that the bell curve you are looking at is so large you can't see past the horizon. When examining the 800lbs gorilla that is modern D&D, the vast majority of fans are far more casual than the people who post here (for example). Even among people who are equally as entrenched, there are people who lack confidence or simply time to homebrew. Which means there will be a huge signal to noise ratio whenever you look for D&D homebrew stuff as opposed to D&D stuff in general. (Also, I'm not going to cover how search engines have been on the decline recently, that's an entire minefield of a subject that requires it's own discussions.)

In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, the 3rd party scene might also be a factor. The volume of new ideas that someone else (presumably) spent the time and effort to playtest and perfect, means there is so much content out there you never have to actually homebrew up something yourself. Let me tell you, my inbox and even the videos I watch online are constantly filled with adds for the latest splatblocks from places like Kickstarter or Backerkit.

But despite these hurdles, there are entire communities dedicated to just homebrewing up their own things, such as r/UnearthedArcana/, where hundreds of people post their homebrew ideas every week. There are also Discord channels for people passionate about it, but those are harder to find because you can't just casually search to see what is in them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think there's an argument for this being to some extent true, I just think the price of it in other areas is unacceptable (though I'm not necessarily a big fan of massive exception based design either, so...)