D&D General "Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued

[Lanefan]

All of that being given there are a few things that good, simple, elegant rules systems can do for you. The first is that they can provide a UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

And right there you hit the first problem: that having designed that universal language you then have to shoehorn everything into using it even when it's not the best tool for the job. IMO that's bad design.

That is, in a game system like old school classic D&D, like say AD&D 1e, there is a big problem. Every single thing that may come up in the game is represented by some completely different subsystem, which uses different kinds of dice, etc. Nothing can be compared to or integrated with, anything else. There needs to be a rule for every specific thing, like "what happens to my initiative if I'm injured?", or even "what is the benefit to initiative of a high DEX?". This quickly increases complexity and creates both a burden on the GM and uncertainty in the mind of the player as to how the fictional world actually maps onto the resolution system (and thus uncertainty about what their abilities mean).

The drawbacks you list don't outweigh the benefit of this sort of design always either having or being able to have the best system in place for whatever is needed at the time. Further, with less integration it's way easier to change or tweak or add or drop something such that the game works better for you.

D20 was a huge advance in the sense that it unified all of these things. Now I simply know that everything dealing with how quickly and accurately I can move and act is a check modified by DEX, and it is all done on a d20 against a target value, and there are a pretty small number of standardized target values (in 3e it was AC, or a conventional set of difficulties, 4e got even more precise about this, and 5e is equally precise most of the time). If some completely novel situation comes up, the GM and player already have agreement on how it is handled, and the player can evaluate his options with some confidence that the GM won't suddenly require an unmodified d8 roll needing an 8 for success, or something like that.

How boring.

The DM should always be able to rule that situation-x requires an 8 on d8 to succeed (if only because you just can't get an accurate 1/8 chance on a d20) - but she then has to be consistent and do the same again if situation-x ever re-occurs.

Likewise the benefit in complexity budget should be clear. If a player need only learn one core system, then they are ready to play almost right off the bat. Their investment in mastering rules is much reduced, and you're vastly more likely to get people into the game than if it takes 100 hours just to fully understand how combat works. There are going to be a few people who find such simplicity offputting, but in this day and age when people have vast amounts of calls on their time, it is almost surely a winner.

The risk there is medium- to long-term boredom once players (and DMs) figure they've learned all the tricks.

Another advantage is in terms of presentation. While the details of presentation are closely related to the 'content' side of the equation, they are certainly made more tractable if you don't have to present a vast number of different elements simply to cover all the rules system bases (or else simply leave most of it to the GM to slog through). This is the nature of the vaunted GM friendliness of 4e. It is a real thing too, even its fairly simple stat blocks give you a monster that can interact with every rule in the system, as needed.

Presenting lots of different elements isn't a problem in itself provided one can write both clearly and 'interestingly'. The key there is to have a useful index and coherent structure in both the player-side and DM-side rulebooks, which is where 1e-as-written falls down hard.

 

[Dausuul]

It's an opinion, what exactly do you expect? So, you aren't convinced. Okay?

You said the 3E skill system was "designed with meta-aesthetics in mind." That is an assertion of fact; the designers of 3E had reasons (good or bad) for designing the skill system the way they did, and those reasons either line up with OP's concept of "meta-aesthetics" or they don't.

I was looking for something where you take what actual 3E designers said about their goals with the skill system, and compared it to OP's concept of meta-aesthetics to see if that was actually what they had in mind.

(Unless OP's concept of "meta-aesthetics" is an undefined, ever-shifting concept which cannot be pinned down and therefore cannot be compared to actual design intent, which seems increasingly possible.)

 

[Lanefan]

There are other reasons, it isn't all about 'trust' and 'dm power'. It is also about player enablement and creating a participatory story. So, if the player has no idea what will happen (that is from a general perspective of what the costs and benefits are, and likelihood of success) then it isn't possible to establish the 'setting of stakes' and 'taking of risks' which is part of the process used to generate narrative in that way. This creates instead a different sort of process, which isn't objectively better or worse, but is not necessarily what is wanted. Clear rules, such as 4e's rules (assuming they were written well, which they weren't always) means you, as a player, KNOW how a certain move or gambit will play out.

Which is bad. If the character in the fiction doesn't know the odds, and-or doesn't know (all or some of) the possible outcomes, the player at the table shouldn't either.

Certainly you know as well as the GM does. Also, because there is already an agreed-upon mechanism, you aren't 'playing the GM', you're playing your character in the story.

Not quite, as you-as-player are transmitting info to the character (the odds of success, and possible outcomes) that it often otherwise wouldn't fully know...which means in these situations you're playing your character as a game-piece rather than as itself in the fiction.

So, while some people might see rules precision as some sort of "Munchkin Repellent" or shield against jerks, I don't see it that way at all, and I don't think that is what game designers in general see in that approach.

Perhaps a better question here might be whether one prefers an open-ended approach (you can try anything in the game unless a rule says you cannot) or a closed-ended approach (you cannot try anything in the game unless a rule says you can).

0e-1e-2e were open-ended in design and philosophy. Video games are always closed-ended in that if the programming doesn't support what you're trying you can't try it, and 3e-4e seemed to want to go this way as well. 5e, to its credit, seems to want to go open-ended but its 3e-4e DNA keeps getting in the way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There is an easy solution to this.

The player can simply ask the DM. "If I use Charm Person in <whatever situation> how would it work/what would happen?".

The DM can then take in the situation and the context and provide possibilities to the player that can be used to make a decision.

This does not at all inhibit the player from wagering stakes or reduce their agency. It instead allows the DM to handle corner cases that depend on specific situations in order to present the stakes and agency to the player. It increases the versatility and applicability of the spell by allowing the DM to judge cases not covered by the rules.

If this were to be hardcoded then you end up with two situations (neither of which are positive, in my opinion).

1. You have very clear but limiting rules that state what you can and can't use the spell on. The player can ONLY do those things with the spell and anything applications outside of those rules are verboten, thus limiting player creativity.
2. You have the official rules expand to further cover more and more corner cases and more and more specific details. Situations that come up in-game that don't have rules need to be presented to the designers and the players have to wait for an update or a ruling from the designer.

The statement that 5e means that you "MUST leave things open-ended, and then you're always putting the GM in the spot of deciding if a given use is "OK" or not." is the game rules working as intended. It is one of the duties of the GM of making calls whether or not a given use of a spell, power, rules element is OK or not.

It is part of the job description of being a GM.

This is, by far, not the only way to play, and is FUNDAMENTALLY at its core, a sort of 'Gygaxian' construct in which the GM's role is to inhibit the player's attempts to 'win' by exploiting the open-ended nature of the game. This can be contrasted with playing in a more 'narrative' fashion in which the players and the GM are working towards the same goal, ala Dungeon World or other more collaborative games. They are STILL open-ended, and in a sense even more so, but the 'moves' which each side can take are significantly codified. This isn't an attempt, as some have stated, to "make a rule for everything", that is in fact applying the oppositional framework of "GM rulings" play (where this would at least hypothetically be beneficial) to the collaborative/narrative driven project.
I'm sure if I were to summon @pemerton and Co. to this thread, they will go on to describe framing and related mechanisms and concerns which apply to that mode of play. So, when we played 4e, for example, in this mode, we DID elaborate on things, but the basis was understanding the functioning of things in the game system. So, if it seemed like I might use 'page 42' and sacrifice my artifact to achieve a goal, there was a pretty clear cost/benefit there, including what I get out of having said artifact, as well as what sorts of checks and things I will need to pass in order to do something new and not covered by the existing rules material with it.
That situation would be possible to handle in 5e, but it becomes more 'political' and the player is somewhat at the mercy of the DM, and the DM is somewhat under pressure to limit what they can do, or make sure they don't get "too good a deal." Whereas in our model of play the GM would be seen as a partner in coming up with an interesting story about how the Page 42 mechanics are narrated and what their story significance is.
It is just a different approach to play, but not one that is overall that compatible with 5e as a game where everything is open to interpretation at a mechanical level.

 

[Don Durito]

With universal resolution mechanics, I find rules systems attempting to shoehorn everything into the mechanic, even if it makes little sense. A great example is the optional Morale rules in the 5E DMG. The rules shoehorn Morale into a standard Wisdom ability check mechanic. But what does that really mean, contextually? The default is that a higher Wisdom creature will more likely remain in battle. But in context, it may be wiser to flee. It may also depend on some other factor, a creature can be wise but cowardly. The mechanic fails to model the situation effectively.

Some elements of play are better expressed with different mechanics, mechanics that better model the desired effect. Sometimes you want a linear randomizer, but other times a bell curve makes better sense.

I found that the exhaustion system is similiar. I found it worked muched easier if I just give a -1 to everything per level of exhaustion. At first I wanted to avoid this because 5E doesn't give minus or bonuses (mostly - there are exceptions). But then I decided why not - it works here precisely because almost nothing else gets in the way.

I'd also that, despite seeming less elegant, Shadow of a Demon Lord's boons and banes system is actually better than Advantage/Disadvantage, because it's able to be more universal and cover a whole of lot areas where Ad/Dis, don't really apply - such as spell effects like, Guidance, Bless, Bane etc. But people look at Advantage/Disadvantage, and they see simple and elegant because they don't think of the opportunity costs.

 

[Lanefan]

Keywords can be pretty important if something happens all the time.

And if that something is always to exactly the same effect when it happens, yes. (excluding die-rolled numbers)

I think Yu-gi-oh! might actually be a good exemple because it's 'keywords' system was developed over multiple sets as rule concepts became more and more prevalent. For exemple, early cards would say something like "target 1 card in your opponent's graveyard and remove it from play". These cards were very rare in the early days but became more and more common (and more and more important as the graveyard became like a second hand) until eventually "remove from play" was shortened to "banish".

M:tG did the same thing, changing "remove from the game" to "exile". I far prefer "remove from the game", personally; it keeps the same flavour but also tells you exactly what to do.

Another one is the concept of piercing damage where older cards would say "During battle between (???) and a Defense Position monster whose DEF is lower than the ATK of this card, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent." which was eventually shortened to "If (???) attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage to your opponent.".

Piercing or 'trample' had been a fairly common jargon amongst fans to begin with.

They also developed problem solving text which made this much more uniformed. For exemple, the cost to activate a card is ALWAYS placed before a colon, and effect of the card afterward. Costs and effect have different timing and interaction with rules so that these are always worded and presented the same way avoids complication.

Consistency in presentation (e.g. the cost : effect formula) is very useful in card games.

In D&D, though, where timing can be all over the place? Perhaps not so much, as IMO the timing needs to be defined almost case by case. (to clarify, I'm not at all a fan of the timing of everything in combat being shoehorned into action, reaction, or bonus - fine for melee but awful for spells; I also want combat movement to use up time in getting from A to B rather than it being like a micro-teleport)

Also, while D&D has always had the concept of slash-pierce-bludgeon as damage types there no need at all to force every possible damage source into one of those categories. Ditto for spell damage: while fire, cold and acid are obvious and agree (one hopes!) with what's being narrated, things like necrotic and radiant are to me just damage - it hurts for no obvious reason. Why bother with these types?

D&D already has keywords, such as 'saving throw' and 'ability check' and 'melee attack' or 'grapple' or 'fire damage'.

Saving throw, yes; though it means many different things depending on situation (is it referring to a character saving vs dragon breath, or an item saving vs destruction, or what?). Replace 'ability' with the name of the specific ability e.g. Strength check and I'll agree on this one. Melee attack and grapple aren't so much keywords to me as they are simple descriptors of what someone's doing (or trying!) in the fiction.

Further, other than 'saving throw' all of those are very clear as to what they're referring to, which to me somewhat takes them away from keyword status and more toward simple common use of language.

 

[cbwjm]

In my experience the only people who have problems with it have a problem with it because of baggage from previous editions. I honestly don't know how much clearer it could be if you don't have any pre-conceived notions.

Besides, just because I think it's clear doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Just that different styles and systems work better for some people than others. The natural language, for the most part, works for me. YMMV.

This was definitely my problem when I started playing 5e, the 5e rules are fine, I was just getting mixed up with earlier edition information that was/is still floating around in my head. Probably still do it from time to time.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a good point.

I'm personally not a fan of keywords for this reason. It is better to have Charm Person spell just describe the effect. You don't have to reference another part of the book to understand how to use the spell.

And I LOVE keywords for exactly the reason you dislike them! They provide an instant language, an idiom in which the mechanics of the game can speak.

Here's a very simple example. In the 1e DMG there is an item, Flametongue, a sword which burns. It gains a significant bonus against ... (LONG list of specific creatures) plus several general categories of creature. This list was of course obsolete, probably as soon as the game was published. It would have been vastly better to just have had a "vulnerable to fire" trait connected to a fire damage keyword. This is future-proof and it is abundantly clear what you mean. You can STILL have exceptions to this general rule, either by simply not specifying that THIS creature is vulnerable to fire, or by calling out the specific exception in its description.

I think what you will find is that games like 5e simply 'hide' their keywords. They still exist, albeit inconsistently and incompletely, but now they are there beneath the surface. 4e was much stronger for having them be explicit.

I also tend to adhere to a 'so what' kind of opinion about a lot of objections. Like your complaint about push and turning undead. So what? When this corner case comes up, a few undead take a bit of damage plus or minus, it isn't going to break the game. In fact, it might be interesting to think about what it means. As an example, in my own '4e hack' armor absorbs damage. It provides this function against ALL damage. This is both a rules simplification and a way of avoiding balance issues, but if you think about it, why wouldn't a guy clad in metal plates be less likely to suffer psychic damage? He is just that much more confident! Or maybe 'psychic waves' don't go through metal very well, there's plenty of ways to parse that, but I have no problem with it. It has been little remarked on in play either.

 

[Lanefan]

But that is exactly the issue many of us have, which is that this is a resource which is of unknown value to a given PC. The player can only try to guess what sort of thing the GM will decide it is. They can't chose to select it vs something else, they can't decide to use it vs something else, they won't ride any stakes on it, because it could be worthless for all they know.

Exactly - the player's knowledge is just the same as the character's. Strong feature, no bug here.

This kind of thing inhibits players from deciding to wager stakes and take risks. Instead they tend to just fall back on a small repertoire of well-understood tactics instead. Or more likely they 'play the DM' trying to measure just how much the DM is vested in a given outcome or scenario, or perhaps just using social engineering on them in some cases.

Using tried-and-true tactics, given that most characters in the fiction are going to have some sense of self-preservation, only makes sense.

'Playing the DM' only works until the DM catches on, after which you have an argument followed maybe by one less player at the table.

And what really is gained? The NUT of the motive was to let the GM, in a Gygaxian fashion, squelch 'abuse', which is really just a code word for "I don't like how easy this is to use." The 4e (at least) solution was to simply put things in a fairly narrow context, so 'Charm Person' generates a condition, and that has specific in-game effects. It can't really be abused because that's all it does! Now, that doesn't preclude other uses, but it puts them into things like 4e's 'page 42' (the rules for attempting things that are not already defined as powers or similar). Page 42 is pretty clear about what the expectations are there. In other situations you have SC rules, which are again pretty clear and give a good indication of the relative value of using a power as a resource cost in an SC.

This gets right into closed-ended territory: you can only do (or try) something if a rule says you can.

The whole beauty of TTRPGs, as opposed to computer games etc., is that you-as-player are only limited by your imagination. It's the DM's job to keep up.

One of the issues with 5e is it lacks analogs to both of these, meaning you MUST leave things open-ended, and then you're always putting the GM in the spot of deciding if a given use is "OK" or not.

Adjudication is the DM's bloody job!

If you don't trust your DM to adjudicate fairly, find another one.

If you don't trust any DM to adjudiacte fairly then sorry, I can't help you there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Which is bad. If the character in the fiction doesn't know the odds, and-or doesn't know (all or some of) the possible outcomes, the player at the table shouldn't either.

Not quite, as you-as-player are transmitting info to the character (the odds of success, and possible outcomes) that it often otherwise wouldn't fully know...which means in these situations you're playing your character as a game-piece rather than as itself in the fiction.

Perhaps a better question here might be whether one prefers an open-ended approach (you can try anything in the game unless a rule says you cannot) or a closed-ended approach (you cannot try anything in the game unless a rule says you can).

0e-1e-2e were open-ended in design and philosophy. Video games are always closed-ended in that if the programming doesn't support what you're trying you can't try it, and 3e-4e seemed to want to go this way as well. 5e, to its credit, seems to want to go open-ended but its 3e-4e DNA keeps getting in the way.

Yeah, I don't personally feel this way at all, on any of these points. Player =/= character. Fundamentally the dichotomy between them is quite vast. A character wading into battle is entering a life-threatening situation filled with mayhem and uncertainty, the player is having chips and dip while rolling some dice with her buds and enjoying a beer. Its hard to imagine that there's much greater gulf which could exist... More to the point, if the goal is to imagine what the PC would do, then knowing the odds cannot make that more difficult. I'm OK with the experience is different for other people though
I am quite sure though that 4e was no less open-ended than 0e, 1e, or 2e. Specific things were more thoroughly covered in rules, but only in the sense that the rules could be objectively applied to them without extrapolation or mechanical interpretation. If you did something novel, there was a rule which could be applied, allowing you to "play to see what happens" (a phrase from Dungeon World). That didn't limit what you could do. 4e and video games have nothing in common here. In 4e the GM can frame a scene, and the players will be able to reason about it in game-mechanical terms, but they will still have to solve it, may have limited information, will achieve different results based on what they are willing to risk/spend (IE do I burn a daily here or not) etc. Luck also plays a part, in the same way it does in other D&Ds as a way to 'stir the pot' so to speak.