Hack Or Heartbreaker?

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How best to structure your own RPG? It’s not a new dilemma. Back in the day games publishers always sought to innovate, whether that be a relatively small change, like adding spell points to a D&D chassis, or something more fundamental, like dispensing with class and level entirely, making skills more central to the game. Turning over the box or book of a game in the 80s you would usually see an excited description of the unique innovations within; no alignment! Personalised magic! Just d6s! Play an animal! Be evil!

Later, publishers hit upon the notion of a core system that could power multiple games. The next step was to open up that system for others to play with, in the hope that eventually there might be one game system to rule them all. D20 looked like it might actually achieve that at one point, but soon enough other companies followed suit. Now there are dozens of open games systems that the nascent publisher can use to boost their ideas into reality.

As a first step for me and my homebrewed game, I had to decide which route to take. Early on it became clear to me that my best system ideas were built on the shoulders of games I’d played over the years. Like many gamers I have binders full of house rules and other things I had done to tinker with my engine of choice. I had fewer ideas about systems built from the ground up. My decision was clear; I was going to work with an open gaming template.

Perhaps the most appealing thing about pre-existing mechanics is the mental space it gives you to apply your creativity to the things outside of the rules. The story, the flavour, the setting and the presentation. These are the parts of the game where the adjectives come to life. The rule themselves are merely the nuts and bolts, that’s why they call them mechanics.

Having made that decision, the harder decision presented itself; which licence to go with? Wizards of the Coast supplied the hobby with the OGL back in 200O, and that’s powered so many other options. In the end I wanted to stay close to fantasy, and my favourite relation in the D&D family has long been 13th Age. This game has its own SRD, called the Archmage Engine, and it’s one I'm more than passingly familiar with. So, that has become the skeleton of my system.

Staying true to that choice hasn’t always been easy. Every time I pick up a new game I find something interesting that I want to paste into my work. I love the downtime activities in Blades in the Dark. I love the equipment packages in Into the Odd. It’s easy to get distracted and end up with a game burdened like the mule in Buckaroo. Must resist!

So with the SRD in one window, and a blank doc in another, it was time to bring it all to life.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I am speaking of games as a whole. The d20 mechanic, roll vs DC is fine and dandy. Its everything built around it that is the problem. Star Wars is a perfect example. Jammed into the D20 house system, 3 versions and all three are horrible at simulating the property. Both WEG and FFG were designed specifically to model the Star Wars movies and it shows.

Between WEG, FFG, and d20, it was the d20 SAGA system I purchased and played. There is a cost associated with learning a new system, and it's a cost I am not interested in paying. I no longer have the time available to learn and understand a new system. If a designer presents me with Star Wars based on the d20 system or Stars Wars based on its own unique system, I'll take the former. While the unique system may be better at simulating the Star Wars universe, the increase of "better" from d20 may not be worth the cost of learning it.

 

[JeffB]

Between WEG, FFG, and d20, it was the d20 SAGA system I purchased and played. There is a cost associated with learning a new system, and it's a cost I am not interested in paying. I no longer have the time available to learn and understand a new system. If a designer presents me with Star Wars based on the d20 system or Stars Wars based on its own unique system, I'll take the former. While the unique system may be better at simulating the Star Wars universe, the increase of "better" from d20 may not be worth the cost of learning it.

I am not sure how this is relevant to my post. "Convenience" has nothing to do with anything I am stating.

 

[VengerSatanis]

New systems are a shot in the dark while familiar systems usually lack the creativity of inventing your own.

I wouldn't call older RPGs obsolete, but I've personally evolved beyond class/level AND skill based systems. That's why I created Kort'thalis Publishing.

___________

My gaming blog: http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/

 

[Jacob Marley]

I am not sure how this is relevant to my post. "Convenience" has nothing to do with anything I am stating.

I'm building off your Star Wars example to make my point. That is, even though WEG and FFG made games that better simulated the Star Wars movies, they failed to capture me as a customer. The d20 system you referred to as "horrible," I found to be good enough.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

Levels create awkward mechanics, like how a master alchemist/smith/flower decorator has to be able to withstand large amounts of damage in order to get their skill levels high enough to qualify as a master at their trade. And the corollary where being a master warrior lets you be a better carpenter/brewer/hair stylist than someone who has actually dedicated themselves to it. d20 tried to solve that by making non-adventuring classes like expert and commoner, but it didn't actually fix anything. They were still assumed to advance by gaining XP (the 3e DMG said so) more or less the same way as adventurers, even if it was in the background. There are these walls set up between what makes sense in the setting, and what the rules allow. It also, for me, has a psychological effect of implying characters with higher levels are more "important." Who wants to get into a love affair with a 0th level NPC, much less take them outside where a strong wind could kill them? The game treats them as a nobody. On the other hand, even if they are rather squishy, if those NPCs are better than any adventurer ever would be at their field(s) of expertise, and have interesting capabilities that have no bearing on combat prowess, the game has taken away that automatic assessment of their value as a character. Now the mechanics support a more nuanced and believable fiction.

Classes are less of a problem, but it's the same kind of problem. Being stuck in a class generally means you must have certain capabilities and cannot have others--even if that only manifests in what is harder or easier for you to train. Inevitably I find myself wanting to make a character with features from more than one class, but I can't do it well because the system doesn't have a class for that. Templates providing some pre-chosen packages are a much better system, because they give you everything a class does, but are optional.

Just chopping a piece out of your much longer post here, obviously, to make a couple of observations:

First, you're calling out d20 as a class&level based system which makes it hard to pick an choose abilities that let you build the character you want to play? Now granted, I'm not a d20 guy, but as I see it, the entire d20 SYSTEM, refined from 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder, is designed very specifically to let you do just that. A gazillion races, classes, subclasses, prestige classes and so on that you freely multiclass between to cherry pick abilities. It's the C&L answer to skill-based systems like GURPS. If you are looking back at AD&D 1E or early 2E, then I can more understand your argument here.

Second, I'd have to question the need for mechanics that let you be an expert at being a master alchemist/smith/flower decorator, or carpenter/brewer/hair stylist. How often is a player going to be one of those things? I think most games are going to focus on the players taking a more active role in the world. They are the adventurers, shadowrunners, or Rebel operatives of the world. Your NPC expert craftsmen can be that without need of actual game mechanics or levels in anything 99% of the time. Granted, there are sure to be certain games or genres - niche products, I'd expect - that you DO want to be those people. In those cases sure, d20 C&L type systems are a horrible fit.

Again, I just think that a vast majority of gamers just need a system that will meet their needs for the most part, and if a d20 (or whatever comfortable, known system) version is available, they'll choose that over a more specialized, different and arguable "better" system more often than not, as [MENTION=98644]Jacob[/MENTION]Marley has with his Star Wars example. For the potential game designer, you have to look at your end goal. Build a game from the ground up that may be "perfect" for your setting, with new and unknown mechanics being a hurdle for many potential buyers, versus hacking a known system to "good enough" to get your ideas across, but will be more accessible to those potential buyers.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I was writing a long post when you posted so just got to this. Could you provide some examples of what sorts of things you're talking about? Bonus points if you want to analyze what they bring to the experience that is inherent to the class+level framework.

The biggest strength of a class-based system is that it tells us (at least in part) how the world works. If you have a class that is Vindalan Pirate, and it grants certain abilities and skills and whatnot, then we know what Vindalan Pirates are and what they can do in the world. It helps the player to engage with the setting, and hopefully there's at least one class that grabs the player and makes them more excited to play the game.

While you could theoretically get much of that benefit in a point-based game, by defining a class-template which includes those particular aspects, it tends to not work in practice. If a point-based class-template is just a pile of aspects, then a player can usually just take those aspects by paying the points for them, without actually joining whatever group those aspects are supposed to represent - instead of being a Vindalan Pirate, they're just a freelance pirate, and they aren't engaged with the setting anymore - and in practice, that's almost always going to be the route they take, because it lets the player focus on the specific aspects they want instead of taking the whole package. If Vindalan Pirates have a fearsome reputation that grants them a bonus in certain social situations, then a player who doesn't take the template will instead have more points to spend on swinging a sword or piloting a boat; in fact, a player might even want to take that class-template because they would enjoy that minor social perk, but they may not be able to justify it if they haven't also invested heavily in Charisma or whatever. Leave the social bonuses to the social character, because your job is to swing a sword and pilot the boat, is the common wisdom.

Class-based systems force players to engage with character archetypes in an all-or-nothing manner. If you don't want to be a Vindalan Pirate, or maybe a Corsani Pirate, then you're not going to be a pirate or anything like a pirate. You must be something that holds significance within the setting. And that character archetype probably will include some features that you wouldn't have otherwise chosen (or been able to justify spending the points on), which you now gain the full benefit from. You may not get to carefully pick which ribbons you get, but neither will you be penalized by taking abilities outside of your party role.

 

[Hussar]

I am not sure how this is relevant to my post. "Convenience" has nothing to do with anything I am stating.

Well, there is a point there though. You could write the most fantastic, bestest, wonderful system in the world and it doesn't really matter if no one is willing to learn it.

Part of design does have to take that into account.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The benefit of a level-based system is mostly just mechanical balance. By sticking the good abilities at high levels, you prevent anyone from starting out with them. As the saying goes, if all it takes is character points to start with Celerity 5, then someone is going to start with Celerity 5. If Celerity 5 is something that you can only get by reaching level 20, then it's not going to disrupt the game until you're level 20, and you only need to balance it against other level 20 abilities. For that reason alone, levels are useful in a system even if it doesn't have classes.

Combined, the class+level framework helps you to maintain mechanical relevance between different characters. Looking at 3E for a second, a level 20 wizard has BAB +10... not because they're likely to be making many attack rolls, but because that ensures the character is at least minimally competent against the enemies that the fighter will be trying to hit at that level, just in case they do need to make an attack roll. (To be fair, 5E does an even better job at this.) With a point-based character, the wizard is discouraged from investing in combat skills, because those points would provide greater benefit elsewhere; in a point-based system, it's very rarely worth investing anything outside of your particular character niche. As with the general benefit of classes, the combination of class+level allows a character to have situationally-useful abilities that they might not be able to justify in a pure-points system.

 

[Brodie]

Hmm. That brings up a point right there. Levels allow for a more objective measurement of relative power, which is primarily a game consideration. I don't think role-playing games are actually (intrinsically) games at all. I think they can be games. I think they often include games. I definitely think you play with them. But I don't think they are always properly categorized as games. That's an aside, and I haven't written up my article on it yet, so I'll move on.

I would definitely read that article.

I'd point out that it's not a case of hating on level based systems (although, I do understand where you're coming from @Brodie - it's certainly a thing). It's that level based systems don't accomplish some things very well. Again, if you're coming from a heavily Sim based play game, levels don't work.

Fair enough and a point I won't argue. I've enough personal experience with a multitude of systems to have gained an idea of what works and doesn't work in a given system.

We ran a GURPS space game years ago based on the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy. Basically we were the colonizers of Mars and a lot of the features of the campaign were pulled straight from the books - the politics involved, the creation of a new society, etc. It wouldn't make much sense to have a level based system there. We were all accomplished professionals hand picked to go to Mars. Making me a level 1 scientist wouldn't make sense. Jacking me up to level 10 only means now I've got all these combat abilities that also don't make sense, including things like extra hit points, higher saving throw bonuses, etc.

Agreed on that. Also, I LOVE that someone has gone and played/run a game based on that series. Those were great books and the perfect example for a setting focusing more on social interactions and scientific discoveries than combat.

But, in GURPS, the is less impetus towards the idea of play being about gaining levels. Your character probably isn't going to change a whole lot (except maybe from alive to dead ) in GURPS. You are what you are and that's not going to change much. It's a very different approach to play.

I like what GURPS tries to do. I say 'tries' because I don't like the system's mechanics. When I sit down at a table for an RPG, I don't want to think about math. At least, not too much. Math in D20 games is relatively quite simple. Then there's the wonkiness (to me) of rolling UNDER your skill number. That may seem weird to me having started gaming with D20, though. But going back to the subject of math, that's the thing I absolutely HATE about Champions. In my group, the guy that's running that system switched from Hackmaster (a game I was quite thankful to actually get to play) to that. He wasn't the greatest at explaining the rules of the system, much less the math involved in character creation, and half the group was getting frustrated during that process. I personally got to the point where I told him what I wanted and let him make the character for me since he ended up telling us if it was too hard he would make the characters we wanted for us. We haven't voted for him to run very often and when he does, we have no idea what we're supposed to be doing. But... that's not what this thread is about so I'll put that aside and move on.

The benefit of a level-based system is mostly just mechanical balance. By sticking the good abilities at high levels, you prevent anyone from starting out with them. As the saying goes, if all it takes is character points to start with Celerity 5, then someone is going to start with Celerity 5. If Celerity 5 is something that you can only get by reaching level 20, then it's not going to disrupt the game until you're level 20, and you only need to balance it against other level 20 abilities. For that reason alone, levels are useful in a system even if it doesn't have classes.

Rules should also limit that. And oWoD rules generally do in character creation. Requiring a character to reach a certain plateau before being able to use a certain ability makes sense. Like Izuku Midoriya in My Hero Academia. He can't use his power without hurting himself in the process, but the whole thing is about he 'became the world's greatest hero.' He'll obviously reach that plateau at some point where his power won't hurt his body when he uses it. (At least I hope that happens.)

Back to the idea of levels being unrealistic, life is full of 'levels' if you close enough. Martial arts are prime example. A 5th degree black belt is going to be better than a brown belt. Ranks in the military is another example. A general has more abilities at their disposal than a private. With gaming, levels are only unrealistic when it's just 'I just leveled up, now I've got all these supercool powers I didn't have last level!' Maybe it's more that sudden shift that some people don't like about a level-based system? Life is all about gradual progression. This is more the reason why I like L5R so much; you spend your xp to raise a trait or a skill and eventually you rank up. Sure, you get a new ability at that rank but you worked towards it and you had an idea when it was just around the corner. That said, I do like the level-less progression of FFG's Star Wars games as they show a character gradually increasing in power/capability.

 

[Hussar]

But, by the same token, being a general doesn't make you a marksman. That private very well might be a much better shot than that general. And, by and large, that private is going to be a quite a bit better shape than that general (simply because he's twenty years younger if nothing else). But, level systems don't really work like that. In a level system, that general is going to be a better shot, have more HP and higher overall stats than that private.

OTOH, framing this as a realism issue doesn't really address the point. It's not really a realism issue, but, more, an issue with what the games are about. In a d20 game, because d20 is based heavily on D&D, you are really focused on a sort of Campbellian cycle of zero to hero. It's hero's journey stuff. And, let's be honest, it's popular because the Hero's Journey stuff works really, really well. It hits all the right buttons in play - reward for play, stuff to look forward to, all that. There's a reason that many MMO's use this model. It's a really good model.

But, it doesn't work for everything. Take First Person Shooter games. It doesn't matter how many nasty ghouls I mow down as Gordon Freeman in Half Life. My character doesn't change at all from the first time I sit down to the point where I complete the game. Play isn't about advancing my character, but rather challenging me, the player. It's simply a different style of game. And a level system wouldn't really make much sense in games like that. Imagine playing Half Life or some other multiplayer FPS where head shotting your opponent doesn't really do anything because he's been grinding levels for the past month and he has so many HP that he can eat a head shot from your sniper rifle and giggle. It would not be a very fun experience.

The same applies to RPG's. The d20 model of zero to hero works for certain kinds of games and not so well for others. I don't think d20 is particularly suited to super hero games, for example. Now, I understand why you would hesitate to play Hero. Fair enough. I have zero interest in a character sheet that's more complicated than figuring out my income taxes. Totally get that. But, you don't have to go that route. You can go simple as well. FATE, for example, is a pretty rules light (or at least light ish) game where leveling is meaningless. Spy genre games also don't work well with the d20 model. We don't play some rookie straight out of Spy Camp. We want to play 007. And, if we're going to play 00 level agents, it doesn't make much sense if we're first level. So, the old 007 game was skill based and didn't have levels at all.