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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 9339635" data-attributes="member: 6777737">In general, I think people complaining about "exception-based design" are mostly complaining about how heavy the rules are more than anything else. It's a complaint about preference while feigning being merely descriptive. You can tell that to be the case because people only seem to use it to describe systems they wish to criticize.In Monopoly, when you're sent to jail the only way out is to roll doubles or pay the fine. Except when you have a Get Out of Jail Free card. In Chess, kings only move one space and only knights can move through other pieces. Except when you castle. And pawns can only advance one square. Except the first square. Oh, except there's en passant capture, too.I struggle to think of any game without some exceptions or special cases. Poker might be the only one I can imagine, and I think it's because money is involved. Go has few exceptions, although ko and komi and handicapping are certainly approaching it.Exceptions can be used to introduce asymmetry, too. In the Dune board game, the factions of the game are all exception-based. There's a general rule for the sequence of play and player actions, and each player gets their own exception to it. That is where both the fun of the game comes from, and how the game expresses the fiction of the novel. The same is true in Cosmic Encounter, where each alien species has a unique ability that is totally unlike the other players. Other games like Scythe or Imperial Assault are similarly structured with players having unique abilities, pieces, items, and so on.In TTRPGs, though, the game is created out of asymmetry. An Elf is not a Dwarf, and a Wizard is not a Fighter. Whether you're playing Pathfinder 2e, 5e D&D, B/X, or Shadowdark, that's the case. Asymmetry naturally must introduce exceptions. Most characters do not get spells, but Wizards do. Most characters do not speak Dwarven, but Dwarves do.D&D is said to be exception-based because it makes Fireball work completely differently than Cone of Cold, and they're totally independent. In a game like Savage Worlds, every character just uses the Burst power! Except... not every character has the Burst power. Often, most characters don't have powers at all! You need to have the correct edges to take powers.The problem -- if there is one -- isn't that exceptions and special rules exist that only some players can use. It's simply that there can be too many exceptions to manage. Like tracking bonuses in 3e, it can be quite tedious and error-prone to figure out what is actually going on. Sometimes, exceptions contradict each other, too. Complexity is not inherently virtuous, but how much is good is incredibly subjective. There's a reason there aren't more people sitting down to play Phoenix Command or Campaign for North Africa, but some players do.In the same way that calls for "game balance" are often telegraphed calls for additional mechanical complexity and more crunch, calls for less "exception-based design" are often telegraphed calls for less mechanical complexity and less crunch. I don't think you will ever convince someone who is happily invested in Pathfinder 2e that "exception-based design" is a bad thing. That whole system is built around a network of exception-based rules.</blockquote>

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