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

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm the one who asked for a specific example, so we could look at the specific example, and see what the idea really meant. And then I was told that we won't be discussing the specific example. That, sir, is what isn't helpful. We cannot increase shared understanding if we aren't going to discuss the thing. And this is, like, a discussion board, you know?



Yeah, so, taking one thing you know about me personally, as if you actually know me, and using that to make the discussion personal? That's crud. Thank you for making an excellent example of why we tell people to not make discussions about the speaker.

If you don't like it, do remember that nobody forces you to read it. The only time you need to give me any heed is when I post in red text, which I'm not doing here. So, just keep scrolling next time, and maybe you'll have a better experience.

This is a misleading representation of what I said.

As for specific examples, the person you replied to with a paraphrasing of “DEBATE ME!!!1” made a perfectly reasonable point about the trouble with trying to argue specific examples in such a discussion, and you proceeded to basically just prove them right.

 

[Undrave]

So, to add a slightly different perspective from outside games as food for thought....

In mathematics and theoretical physics, there's a word for much of what seems to be intended by the "meta-aesthetics". For us, the word is "elegance".

As you may imagine, a lot of the math in these areas can be really, really hairy and complicated. But, it turns out that most of the time, the general statements that turn out to be true are... elegant. Simple to state. They have symmetries, are smooth, and often fit in just a few lines. Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity. Newton's equations of motion. Maxwell's Equations. Schrodinger's equation. The Laws of Thermodynamics. The basic statements of all these things are painfully simple. They only get hairy when you then layer them into the real world, where there are sharp corners and small details that make math hard. But the concepts? Elegant.

Elegance is part of the sniff-test for being true. It isn't sufficient, but inelegance is a thing that suggests that you don't have it all quite right yet.

For us in games, of course there's going to be a very reasonable press towards practicality. Maxwell's equations, and Einstein's, are elegant, but aren't practical for day-to-day use at home. However, there's perhaps a thing to be said for looking at the elegance of a design, looking at that meta-aesthetic, and seeing if maybe it is an indication of some true thing about play that you can then look to preserve as you find a practical implementation.

To add to this, when it comes to game design... adding rules is EASY. Adding more and more systems for various stuff like in 1e because it's 'realistic' or whatever? That's EASY. Complications? That's EASY. I mean... FATAL exists after all.

Paring your system down to less rules but keeping the feel, the theme and the excitement? In other words, making them elegant? That's where the GOOD designers shine.

Of course, when it comes to RPG you can go too far for certain people's tastes... but the games are still there and still playable. Just look at Lasers & Feelings for exemple.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, to add a slightly different perspective from outside games as food for thought....

In mathematics and theoretical physics, there's a word for much of what seems to be intended by the "meta-aesthetics". For us, the word is "elegance".

As you may imagine, a lot of the math in these areas can be really, really hairy and complicated. But, it turns out that most of the time, the general statements that turn out to be true are... elegant. Simple to state. They have symmetries, are smooth, and often fit in just a few lines. Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity. Newton's equations of motion. Maxwell's Equations. Schrodinger's equation. The Laws of Thermodynamics. The basic statements of all these things are painfully simple. They only get hairy when you then layer them into the real world, where there are sharp corners and small details that make math hard. But the concepts? Elegant.

Elegance is part of the sniff-test for being true. It isn't sufficient, but inelegance is a thing that suggests that you don't have it all quite right yet.

For us in games, of course there's going to be a very reasonable press towards practicality. Maxwell's equations, and Einstein's, are elegant, but aren't practical for day-to-day use at home. However, there's perhaps a thing to be said for looking at the elegance of a design, looking at that meta-aesthetic, and seeing if maybe it is an indication of some true thing about play that you can then look to preserve as you find a practical implementation.

And if I were saying that elegance were inherently bad, this would be a great argument against my position.

But I'm not saying that. I have repeatedly and explicitly said that I'm not saying that. I have repeatedly said that "elegance" (using my own terms, of course) is a perfectly valid consideration and one that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

What I am saying is that "elegance" has been elevated above empirical adequacy (as van Fraassen would put it). That equations which have nice properties like smoothness or absence of singularities or infinite differentiability, but which sacrifice some amount of ability to accurately and precisely predict empirical data, are being prioritized over equations which do accurately and precisely predict the empirical data. And, specifically, that this priority is being assigned because the former equations are more elegant than the latter, and treating any challenge to that as self-evidently ridiculous.

Consider, for instance, the theories of light that held before Michelson–Morley. Based on common sense and comparison to all other waves of which we had knowledge (all mechanical waves) required a medium. It was, originally, shockingly inelegant to suggest that there was some second, "new" kind of wave that didn't need a medium (but could still pass through one), hence the long-term sticking power of the aether models despite continual concerns and problems. The adherence to the "luminiferous aether" until all possible avenues of escape had been eliminated was not driven by the empirical adequacy of such theories, which stumbled repeatedly and required multiple ad-hoc modifications to fix, but rather by the desire to avoid the loss of elegance. It resulted in quite a lot of wasted time and, frankly, dodgy science--something that even its late-stage proponents (like Sir Oliver Lodge) had to admit looked bad.

That is what I am arguing against. Stridently advocating for a structure regardless of any practical design consequences it has, on the basis that its aesthetics, whatever those aesthetics may be, are superior. My concerns would apply just as much to a stridently pro-keyword approach, if anyone were actually advocating that, as it does to a stridently pro-centralization approach, which is commonly advocated both here and elsewhere. (Seriously, every single thread anyone ever starts about making a 4e heartbreaker, you're gonna get a third or more of the responses advocating for either all powers from a given source being condensed into a single pile, or all powers in the whole game condensed into a single pile, not because that would be more effective to play nor because it would be easier to design, but because single piles are presumed to be self-evidently "better" than separate piles. When one naturally points out that build differences would become extremely difficult to implement in such a system--e.g. every power could easily have 4 or more build-specific clauses in it, making them incredibly bloated--these concerns are flatly dismissed as unimportant compared to the importance of collecting all plausibly-similar options together in a single list.)

Elegance may be a useful heuristic--or it may be a stumbling block to admitting that we really DO have more to learn about a subject. Pretending that it is always a useful heuristic--or, as I'm asserting people are doing, pretending that it is not only useful but more important than any other considerations unless they are unequivocally overwhelming--is not better than pretending it is totally useless and should always be ignored.

Elegance is good to have. All else being equal, it should be pursued. We should never forget that all else is often NOT equal.

 

[Lanefan]

That's still a jargon that you have to learn. If you say to someone "Roll a Dexterity Saving Throw" and they never played or learned the rules to DnD they're not gonna know what the heck you're on about.

Which is true of almost any game; however some games (like Magic) take it to a rather outlandish extreme.

I could see that working if turns were more granular... let's say a turn gives you 6 'Action Points'. Moving X feet is 1 action point, taking a bonus action is 1 or 2 action point and taking a proper action is 2 or 3 action point... but DnD isn't that granular. In 4e you could 'trade down' your move for a Minor Action if I recall, and trade down your standard action for extra move, so there was a kind of timing element similar to what you mention but for some reason they nixed that in 5e (though the Dash action is still the same as trading your standard for move).

I think people just don't like the idea of casting time longer than a turn in combat. Like you could have multiple rounds but then you're just open to attack and those spells would be judge extremely suboptimal in combat and nobody would ever use them. DMs would 'nerf' wizards by playing 'Whack the Caster' to disrupt them (because you know someone would cry fowl if you can't disrupt casting if it takes longer than an action...).

In 1e each round had a number of 'segments' in it, and each spell took a certain number of these segments to cast. While casting, you could be interrupted by all kinds of things including jostling not even strong enough to cause damage. Casting in melee was impossible, as IMO it should be.

The world didn't end. People still played casters.

But casting times and interruptibility certainly reined casters in and made them/their players more cautious about what they were doing; and removing these constraints in 3e is largely what let casters get out of control in that edition. Instead of putting those constraints back in, 4e instead went the dull-and-boring route and nerfed a lot of spells; and 5e has largely kept the 4e approach.

Of course an intelligent opponent is going to try and interrupt casting, just like the PCs are going to try to interrupt any enemy casters they're fighting.

Oh, and it's also trivially easy to make D&D that much more granular.

I don't think a character who learned how to use 'Charm Person' would be as oblivious to how it actually WORKS than a player who is wondering if he should pick it or not for the first time. There's probably tons of info about spells that we as players don't know.

At raw 1st level both the character (via training) and the player (via the rulebook) have learned the theory of how the spell works. How it works in practice they can both learn by trial and error in the field, the same way pretty much any classroom training has to be translated into actual practice.

 

[Don Durito]

I wish D&D still had some form of interruption of casters. It makes the need for teamwork that much stronger.

5e characers are somewhat too independent.

 

[Monayuris]

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 reject your assertion that this style of play is as you state in the bold text.

This style of play supports a core construct where the GM is a fair and neutral arbiter of the rules. In the early days of D&D and in some modern clones the GM is often referred to as a referee or judge. This implies an impartial approach. Listen to the intentions of the player and make a fair ruling based on the context of the situation in the game.

There are of course bad referees and even more awful judges out there, but that is an individual issue, not a condemnation of the construct as a whole.

This approach supports the idea of "a more 'narrative' fashion" where the player presents an idea based on the narrative of the game and the GM presents a choice (sets the stakes of a potential action, if you will) based more on the narrative situation in the game as opposed to the direction of a hard-coded rule.

Your assertion that 'GM rulings' is tantamount to oppositional play is false.

I will grant that GM rulings may result in situations where the ruling overrides the rules of the game. But there is a clear direction in this case as every role-playing game I have ever read or played (including 4e) clearly puts overriding the rules within the scope of duties of the GM.

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.

I don't understand the issue with framing and related mechanisms.

The player asks "Can I attempt an action?"
The GM responds "Yes, but if you succeed <some 'thing' will happen> but if you fail <some other 'thing' will happen>. What do you want to do?"
The player then considers the options and if needed asks more questions.

This is a very clear framing mechanism and is one that is utilized in many modern 'story-based' games and concepts (the concept of "Yes, and" or "Yes, but", etc). This is a perfectly valid method of framing game-play as an alternative to a more heavily ruled / qualified system.

If you feel that leads to 'political' gaming of the DM or mercy of the DM or pressure to limit players by the DM, that is more of a personal bias than an objective fact. It is fine if that is your bias, but it should be framed as such.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Late to the party, but:

I find most issues I've seen with rules in 5e come at least as much from reading the text as if it were technical writing than from the way the rules are actually written. If you treat them as being vague on purpose, a lot of arguments shift from "why did they pick this exact word?" to "What makes sense here?" - which is usually a lot clearer.

 

[pemerton]

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

<snip>

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.

It's not just that there are other ways to play. The claim you end up with two situations is simply not true.

Here's a third situation, and one which (in my opinion and experience) can make for pretty good RPGing:

• You have a clear statement of what the spell does - eg it makes someone inclined to be friendly towards you; and
• You have a clear set of resolution mechanics which (i) require player-side "moves" to be supported by the PCs fictional positioning, and which (ii) tell you who wins or loses once the dice are thrown.

Now the spell has a clear function: it establishes the fictional positioning "this person is inclined to be my friend", and hence permits making moves in the resolution system that otherwise wouldn't be possible. And success or failure in those moves tells us what actually happens.

4e works like this - both p 42 and skill challenges. Burning Wheel works like this. Cortex+ Heroic/Marvel Heroic RP works like this. Apocalypse World works broadly like this. Each of these systems differs in the details of its resolution mechanics, sometimes pretty importantly. But the basis are the same: action declarations hang upon fictional positioning, and players have resources or devices they can deploy to establish that fictional positioning.

In this respect I can cast Charm Person doesn't need any more (or less) GM adjudication than I've got some rope in my backpack.

(You can combine this third situation with more granular rules for particular spells: 4e does, especially in the combat context; so does Burning Wheel. But that doesn't affect the possibility, and reality, of the third situation.)

 

[NotAYakk]

I don't see why these goals need to be in conflict. This is like saying that a video game has to appeal to new players at the expense of giving old players nothing to do; if you neglect either end, you have a bad game that will do poorly. FFXIV, a personal favorite, struggled with cumbersome slow-burn introduction to a story that got good with the first expansion and has only gone up from there; it has since taken steps to address this problem, and is (almost surely) seeing sustained growth even as the pandemic wanes because of these efforts.

Use of Keywords make the text less inviting.
Use of Keywords make the rules more clear.
They are in conflict right there.

There is almost always conflict between one way to make things better and another way to make things better, because resources are fungible, and only so much can be done.

If we don't solve for both things--games that play well once they're familiar AND that feel welcoming before they're familiar--we're not making great games. We're making either great games no one will play, or bad games lots of people will play.

Bad games that people will play is the goal.

Great games that people will play is a waste of money on the maker of the game.

Ok games that people will play is probably the hot spot.

Of course, the issue here is that your metric -- "great ok bad" -- is centered on the experience of someone who has played the game and mastered much of the system and is running into jagged corners. This makes sense, that is often what I am as well.

But the real metric for a social game is "can I find fun people to play with". A "bad" (full of rules that aren't clear), yet popular RPG is way, way better for finding fun people to play with than a mechanically tight game that isn't popular.

Do the rules get in the way of having fun playing the game? If not, then the rules are good. Do the rules make it inviting to get more people to play? Then the rules are good.

Do the rules have issues where someone casting magic missile multiclassed with hexblade cause instant death to an elder dragon? Actually not that important to if the rules are good, by this metric.

Besides all that? Stuff like "we should make a single list of all A5E Knacks that each class gets to take a few from" is...entirely orthogonal to being "inviting" or not and to being "experienced-friendly" or not. Only an experienced player could be doing the playtesting to make that request!

Sure. So throw that out.

I'm just saying that you should embrace that games

I should bloody well hope it results in "a game you can play." A game that isn't playable should never be printed. "It's playable!" is tied for the most pointless defense of any game, TTRPG or otherwise, alongside "you can still have fun with it!" (Because if the game isn't even playable or somehow manages to prevent even the possibility of having fun, it should never even be printed!)

No, it being playable and being able to have fun is the primary important criteria that matters to the gameplay of the rules.

The other criteria is if it is inviting and enticing to play.

Everything else is fancy decoration on that foundation.

It really doesn't matter if the rules have a fundamental ambiguity about unarmed strikes and paladin smites. By the time you are having that argument, you are already a player of the game having fun.

The goal shouldn't be "an ideal blissful play experience", because that isn't (a) something the rules can actually do, (b) as important as getting people to start playing the game.

I don't think I understand your point here. These three sentences seem unrelated.

What more, people making the game want there to be plenty of groups that form. They care less how long the groups last, because 10 sessions is long enough to buy a PHB. The "rare" Whale who buys every book is great, but not key.

People making D&D want plenty of groups playing D&D to form.

When a group forms and lasts 10 sessions, the players in that group are reasonably likely to buy some D&D material.

The game lasting longer has a marginal increase in the amount of D&D material sold.

"Whale" players, who buy every D&D supplement, are relatively rare. Converting a D&D player into a Whale has value (say, by getting them into a 4 year epic storyline and the like), but getting more players has more value.

If you double the number of new players and halve the chance each player becomes a whale, you win hard. You get the same number of Whales and you get far more "casual" players, each with a decent chance to buy a PHB or something like it.

What more, the large number of "casual" players increases the brand value more than the number of whales does. A D&D movie will have an audience base based more on how many "casual" players of D&D than it will on the number of Whales, for example.

5e is a game aimed not at Whales, but at mass recruiting players. View the rules through that light.

Now, as it happens, mass recruiting players also improves my gameplay experience. Right now it is far easier to find a D&D game with fun people than it has basically ever in any time in the past. And that has more value than almost any other feature of the game rules.

 

[Campbell]

I disagree that mainstream appeal is an inherent good when discussing the quality of any given game. Personally ease of recruitment is not something I need to solve for. Particularly if it is indiscriminate. What I am looking for are games that contribute to play rather than just get out of the way. Ease of recruitment only matters so far as finding the right players to play a given game. If a given game is attractive to a mass of people who want to play in ways I do not wish to than I have a selection rather than a recruitment issue. Even worse if it does not appeal to the players I wish to play with.

My critiques will always be creative critiques rather than ones based on appeal, but I think you can aim for both quality and appeal at the same time to a certain degree. I think you can have clear rules that are still evocative by more directly calling out where GM judgement is required. There are many ways to write rules. Arcane natural language and dry technical manual are not the only choices.