There's a game in the Alea Big Box range called Chinatown. It's recently been reprinted by Z-Man games, and that's the version I've played. The game is a fairly simple one: you trade with the other players to get sets of buildings which you then construct on the map. The more sets of buildings on the map you have, the more income you make.
I've only managed to play the game once, but what struck me about the game was how the rules got out of the way of the chief point of the game: trading. Basically, you can make any trade you want. Want to trade for buildings already on the table? You can. Want to do a three-way trade? You can.
The game rules provide a framework that don't interfere with the play of the game. They show you how you make money and get the buildings in the first place, as well as give a victory condition, but interfere very little in the fun part of the game.
On the other side of the equation, you have games like Advanced Squad Leader, where the system tends to be somewhat intrusive. What it has is a lot of chrome: your squad can produce a hero or leader who steps to the fore when most needed. Booby traps can get you as you cross the field, and enemy snipers are drawn to increased activity.
However, I've spent some hundreds of dollars on ASL, and it's one of my top-rated games! Yes, it's fun, despite occasionally spending quite a bit of time looking up rules.
It's interesting to consider ASL and D&D together, because ASL has had a policy of not abandoning rules. Once a rule is included in the book, it is very, very unlikely to be jettisoned. A few rules have changed over the years, but normally, not much. (Rules are on loose-leaf binder pages so they can be exchanged with errata pages). The only big change was in the move from Squad Leader (which had acquired a bunch of contradictory rules in its three expansions) to ASL - which cleaned up a bunch of stuff and basically made a "new game" in much the same way as the transition from oD&D to AD&D.
Meanwhile D&D, which is likely a much-more played system, has had now four major "system resets": each of the editions of "AD&D", and one branch line (BECM D&D) that has only seen minor revision.
In no edition has D&D really been as elegant as Chinatown. The original D&D comes closest, but both it and AD&D are hampered greatly by the lack of a good editor and developer. From the first supplement, Greyhawk, D&D has acquired complexity. AD&D was, like ASL, recasting the complexity garnered through the initial supplements into a more robust system, but, unlike ASL, it didn't have a good editor, giving us such oddities as the initiative system and the monk's surprise chance. (Surprise in AD&D is rolled on d6s, with the number showing on the d6 indicating how long surprise lasts for. The monk uses d% to find out if he's surprised. How do they intersect? No idea - there are different approaches).
AD&D 2nd edition did have a good editor and development team working on it; the base system actually is pretty clean. Unfortunately, the system lacked oversight and, especially with its supplements, had great problems in maintaining an overall tone. (Indeed, the Complete Priest's Handbook recommends throwing out the standard cleric to allow its system - at a different power level - to work!)
Looking back on these systems, you can see the dual desires for completeness (which ASL aspires to) and elegance (which Chinatown displays). Elegance might not be the best word, but for my purposes it will do.
Can you have an elegant, complete system? To a certain extent, you can - depending on the subject matter. There is a certain elegance in 3E design, for instance, even as it attempted to be the most complete system of D&D (a title that, I believe, it still holds). To a large extent, it is the form of elegance displayed by Mark Rosewater in his controversial column on Magic design, "Elegance".
The trouble with trying to design a system that will handle anything is that, along the way, you have to make adjustments to cover things that you didn't think of originally. One of my favourite examples of this is in the introduction of monster intelligence scores to BECM D&D. You see, there's one spell that pays attention to how intelligent the creature is. (Maze, I think). Unfortunately, monsters in BECM didn't have those scores, so one of the BECM rulebooks (Companion? Master?) has a list of intelligence scores of every previously printed monster just to make one spell now function. Yes, the system is now more complete, but at a great loss of elegance.
I personally feel that 4E has sacrificed a certain amount of completeness to become a more elegant game. However, it's not like Chinatown: the rules and abilities are very present in your mind. (Compare to OD&D combat where, for the most part, it's just roll d20, compare to table, and do 1d6 damage). Where it differs from ASL and 3E is that you're unlikely to be looking up rules references all the time - well, assuming you have the condition chart handy.
Completeness or flexibility? That's another question. 4e may be (or become) as complete as 3e, but is it as flexible? Hmm. Or is it more flexible, in the hands of a group that knows it well? Perhaps in certain areas.
A recent World War 2 squad level game, cousin to ASL, is Combat Commander: Europe. This game has a certain correspondence to 4E, in fact: the game is card-driven, which somewhat restricts the play of the game (the main correspondence is to 4e combat, although the DM is free to go beyond the rules in 4e) , but because the special events have moved into the card text - unlike being die-trigger driven like in ASL - the requirement to remember all the special conditions is much, much less.
The point of all of this is not to say that one approach is better than another - certainly that is reliant on personal taste rather than god-given rules of game design - but rather to muse on some aspects of design and some correspondences I've noted between D&D and the board game world.
There are other musings I might make upon how retroclones may become even more elegant than initial oD&D, but I've mused long enough today.
Cheers!
I've only managed to play the game once, but what struck me about the game was how the rules got out of the way of the chief point of the game: trading. Basically, you can make any trade you want. Want to trade for buildings already on the table? You can. Want to do a three-way trade? You can.
The game rules provide a framework that don't interfere with the play of the game. They show you how you make money and get the buildings in the first place, as well as give a victory condition, but interfere very little in the fun part of the game.
On the other side of the equation, you have games like Advanced Squad Leader, where the system tends to be somewhat intrusive. What it has is a lot of chrome: your squad can produce a hero or leader who steps to the fore when most needed. Booby traps can get you as you cross the field, and enemy snipers are drawn to increased activity.
However, I've spent some hundreds of dollars on ASL, and it's one of my top-rated games! Yes, it's fun, despite occasionally spending quite a bit of time looking up rules.
It's interesting to consider ASL and D&D together, because ASL has had a policy of not abandoning rules. Once a rule is included in the book, it is very, very unlikely to be jettisoned. A few rules have changed over the years, but normally, not much. (Rules are on loose-leaf binder pages so they can be exchanged with errata pages). The only big change was in the move from Squad Leader (which had acquired a bunch of contradictory rules in its three expansions) to ASL - which cleaned up a bunch of stuff and basically made a "new game" in much the same way as the transition from oD&D to AD&D.
Meanwhile D&D, which is likely a much-more played system, has had now four major "system resets": each of the editions of "AD&D", and one branch line (BECM D&D) that has only seen minor revision.
In no edition has D&D really been as elegant as Chinatown. The original D&D comes closest, but both it and AD&D are hampered greatly by the lack of a good editor and developer. From the first supplement, Greyhawk, D&D has acquired complexity. AD&D was, like ASL, recasting the complexity garnered through the initial supplements into a more robust system, but, unlike ASL, it didn't have a good editor, giving us such oddities as the initiative system and the monk's surprise chance. (Surprise in AD&D is rolled on d6s, with the number showing on the d6 indicating how long surprise lasts for. The monk uses d% to find out if he's surprised. How do they intersect? No idea - there are different approaches).
AD&D 2nd edition did have a good editor and development team working on it; the base system actually is pretty clean. Unfortunately, the system lacked oversight and, especially with its supplements, had great problems in maintaining an overall tone. (Indeed, the Complete Priest's Handbook recommends throwing out the standard cleric to allow its system - at a different power level - to work!)
Looking back on these systems, you can see the dual desires for completeness (which ASL aspires to) and elegance (which Chinatown displays). Elegance might not be the best word, but for my purposes it will do.
Can you have an elegant, complete system? To a certain extent, you can - depending on the subject matter. There is a certain elegance in 3E design, for instance, even as it attempted to be the most complete system of D&D (a title that, I believe, it still holds). To a large extent, it is the form of elegance displayed by Mark Rosewater in his controversial column on Magic design, "Elegance".
The trouble with trying to design a system that will handle anything is that, along the way, you have to make adjustments to cover things that you didn't think of originally. One of my favourite examples of this is in the introduction of monster intelligence scores to BECM D&D. You see, there's one spell that pays attention to how intelligent the creature is. (Maze, I think). Unfortunately, monsters in BECM didn't have those scores, so one of the BECM rulebooks (Companion? Master?) has a list of intelligence scores of every previously printed monster just to make one spell now function. Yes, the system is now more complete, but at a great loss of elegance.
I personally feel that 4E has sacrificed a certain amount of completeness to become a more elegant game. However, it's not like Chinatown: the rules and abilities are very present in your mind. (Compare to OD&D combat where, for the most part, it's just roll d20, compare to table, and do 1d6 damage). Where it differs from ASL and 3E is that you're unlikely to be looking up rules references all the time - well, assuming you have the condition chart handy.
Completeness or flexibility? That's another question. 4e may be (or become) as complete as 3e, but is it as flexible? Hmm. Or is it more flexible, in the hands of a group that knows it well? Perhaps in certain areas.
A recent World War 2 squad level game, cousin to ASL, is Combat Commander: Europe. This game has a certain correspondence to 4E, in fact: the game is card-driven, which somewhat restricts the play of the game (the main correspondence is to 4e combat, although the DM is free to go beyond the rules in 4e) , but because the special events have moved into the card text - unlike being die-trigger driven like in ASL - the requirement to remember all the special conditions is much, much less.
The point of all of this is not to say that one approach is better than another - certainly that is reliant on personal taste rather than god-given rules of game design - but rather to muse on some aspects of design and some correspondences I've noted between D&D and the board game world.
There are other musings I might make upon how retroclones may become even more elegant than initial oD&D, but I've mused long enough today.
Cheers!
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