Game design has "moved on"

[Mishihari Lord]

RPGs are changing in two ways as time moves on. First there are changes in what the game is trying to do. As an example, there was an emergence of games that try to promote stories in play. Second there are changes in how the games try to accomplish those things. The change from to-hit table to THAC0 is an example of this type of change.

With regard to the first, it's art. There's no good argument to be made that one design goal is objectively better than another. With GNS as an example, there's no way to say sim, narrativist, or gamist play is objectively superior to the others. Their fashionability and popularity change with respect to each other over time, but again, that's like art.

With regard to the second, you could argue that design gets better over time, as long as you can agree on the criteria for "better." With THAC0 ve 3E's system, for example, both are dead simple to use once you know them, but 3E is easier to learn for newbies so it is considered better by many people. I don't care about how easy it is to learn so I see the change as more of a sideways move, neither an improvement nor a deterioration of design.

A significant difficulty in discussing whether one edition is better than another is that both changes in what the game is trying to do and in how it does it happen at the same time. Player A might like AD&D better than 4E because it promotes exploration, and Player B might prefer the reverse because it has more elegant math. Unless they're specific about whether their preferences are about what the games do or how they do it, they're going to have a hard time discussing anything.

In practical application "games have moved on" is usually just an attempt by a poster to dismiss and discredit an approach he doesn't care for without offering any substantive criticism. As such I generally just ignore such posts.

 

[Derren]

Notice any patterns?

Yes, that "streamlining" for the mass market is sadly not limited to video games and movies.

 

[Jhaelen]

Player A might like AD&D better than 4E because it promotes exploration

Now, I'm curious: How does AD&D promote exploration?

 

[Balesir]

Now, I'm curious: How does AD&D promote exploration?

Through the art on the covers of the rulebooks.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Now, I'm curious: How does AD&D promote exploration?

I think there is a lot in AD&D for exploration and dungeon crawls (particular in the DMG). How it handles encounters, time increments, its advice, etc. But I dont think it was limited to that. Because D&D has been the go to game for so many people, focusing exclusively on aapect of play likethat would be a bad idea IMO. It needs to include. Exploration, but that isn't all it is going to be used for. I agree with monte cook, that there is something to be said for games and settings that allow for many different kinds of adventures rather than just one.

 

[Bluenose]

What has happened is new designers have adopted different compromises that more appropriately match the experience they are looking for and better reflect the material they use for inspiration as opposed to the material used compared to the original designs.

I think there's a lot more games being made where the first consideration is the type of game they're intended to produce - sometimes, though not always, because of the setting that they're designed for. I do not think that many early RPGs took the same sort of care to make a game that does "what it says on the tin". Some seem to be define themselves as "D&D, but better!" or "Not D&D." It's perhaps also worth noting that a fair number of early RPGs were done by people who already designed games for a living - either tabletop or board wargames, usually. The influence shows. More recent designers are usually people who grew up with RPGs, and have both a better understanding of their strengths and pre-existing assumptions about them too. And often, lack knowledge of how other types of games resolve things they are trying to make work in their RPGs.

 

[innerdude]

The points of saying that something is well designed or poorly designed isn't so much to say that X is good or bad, but, it's a much more specific criticism, generally based on what's actually in context with the game. The Forest Oracle is a poorly designed adventure. It really is. We can objectively say that, yup, it's bad.

A game that requires cube roots might not be bad, depending on context, but, by and large, I'd say that any game that requires that level of math is probably trending into the "poorly designed" category. At least for that element.

Good comment, and I think this is also very much tied into the concept of genre expectations. The Forest Oracle isn't merely "poorly designed" because of its numerous mathematical and contextual errors -- it's poorly designed because we have certain expectations about the genre and format an adventure is supposed to follow, and the general utility, usability, and production experience of that format.

This is a critical distinction in RPGs, because few people would realistically make the claim that AD&D 1e makes for a fantastic superheroes game rules-as-written.

 

[Umbran]

But, that's not what game design improvements really mean. It's not that one game is better than another game. That's too hard to argue. Again, as you say, it's like trying to say that Picasso is better than Rembrandt.

Yes - this applies to any engineering or design to a large degree. We can say, pretty conclusively, that a 2013 Toyota Prius uses more advanced technology than a Model T Ford. There's more advanced science behind the Prius, no question at all.

That does *not* say you must like the Prius more. That's an aesthetic matter, and not one we get to argue with.

 

[3catcircus]

Yes - this applies to any engineering or design to a large degree. We can say, pretty conclusively, that a 2013 Toyota Prius uses more advanced technology than a Model T Ford. There's more advanced science behind the Prius, no question at all.

That does *not* say you must like the Prius more. That's an aesthetic matter, and not one we get to argue with.

But more advanced does not inherently equal "better," aesthetics aside. You could also argue that a car built in the 1950s or 1960s is "better" than a 2013 car because when the 1950s/1960s car gets in a fender-bender with the 2013 car, it requires $20 worth of body work to knock out a dent (if the dent occurs at all) while the 2013 car needs $1000 worth of repairs to replace the bumper - even though you may find the styling of the 2013 car more aesthetically-pleasing.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

"Better" or "worse" are very poor terms for RPG comparisons -- or for comparisons of any complex system, for that matter (and most RPGs are systems-of-systems, when it comes to it). Better in what respect?

To use the car example, the '60s car might be better than the '00s car in terms of post-collision repairability, but it would be neither as safe in a crash for the passengers nor as reliable. What defines "better" over all, then?

For D&D, for example ... if find B/X to be a "better" game from a simplicity choice and flexibility standpoint than 3E, but find 3E to be a better game from the standpoint of mechanical consistency. Which one is "better" for your game table is an exercise best left to the reader.

That said, I'd say today's RPGs by and large are better engineered than those in the past, in terms of the development effort and process put into them. That *doesn't* necessarily produce "better" games, though, since again "better" depends on what yardstick you use to measure.