How many Tools do you Need?

[Imban]

Is this a good way to design games though? Do we really need mechanics that cover 99% of the situations, when we can design simpler mechanics that cover 90% of the situations? How much more complexity do we add in order to cover that last 9%?

What do you think?

I'm of the opinion that it is, but I've never had to deal with the realities of word count and much prefer online media where it's not a big deal that something is 10 lines long as opposed to 14. For print media, the realities of word count often cause that last 9% to be sacrificed - for White Wolf, they frequently choose to forfeit closing rules loopholes that lead to stupidly broken things, and for 4e D&D, they seem to be choosing to forfeit closing rules loopholes that lead to outcomes that seem absurd in the game world.

(Which is part of why I plan on creating my own unholy hybrid of 3e and 4e for my group's personal use, because I don't have to be enslaved to word count and can cover 8 of that last 9%, hopefully making the game better suited to what my group expects out of an RPG without ratcheting up the complexity too much.

For an example, I think 3e Dispel Magic was an abomination, but 4e's is so narrow as to not be worthy of the term Dispel Magic as it stands. The new Mirror Image is likewise greatly simplified, but also comes across as incredibly dumb.)

 

[Lanefan]

The above, BTW, is why I consider Worlds and Monsters a solid and worthwhile purchase, even though it doesn't preview a single mechanic. The descriptions of the planes, combined with the artwork, inspired a veritable flood of campaign and plot ideas.

Agreed, and that's exactly why I bought it.

That said, I've found that spending the last 25+ years turning the basic hammer-and-saw of 1e into a well-rounded toolkit has taught me one thing: sooner or later, you're gonna need every tool you've ever heard of and a few you haven't, so might as well have 'em handy for when that day comes; the only thing better than a full toolbox is a bigger full toolbox. That's the main reason I don't want to switch editions to 3e or 4e or any other e: they don't provide the tools I need to build the game I'd want to run, and I don't have the patience to start the process of refilling my toolbox all over again.

Lanefan

 

[med stud]

If your choice is between 10 tools that can handle 90% of all situations or 50 tools that can handle 100% of all situations, I go with 10 tools. To take the analogy further, moving around all the 40 extra tools is more cumbersome than what you may get from them.

To move back to RPG books: If you have a book that is 300 pages long, you can use 100 pages for rules and 200 pages for fluff and powers, the 100 pages of rules covering 90% of all situations. You could also have 200 pages of rules that covers 99% of all situations, with 100 pages for fluff and powers. I consider that a waste of space and it puts a workload on me, as a DM, to come up with powers that otherwise could be described.

Since no rules, no matter how big, can cover every situation that comes up, you need the frameworks for making on the spot rulings anyway, no matter how detailed the rules are. So in both my examples, you need to dedicate pages for improvised rules. In that case, I'm OK with more corner cases since it frees up pages for interesting applications of the rules from the ones who made them, since they are better at it than almost everyone else anyway.

 

[Frostmarrow]

For an example, I think 3e Dispel Magic was an abomination, but 4e's is so narrow as to not be worthy of the term Dispel Magic as it stands. The new Mirror Image is likewise greatly simplified, but also comes across as incredibly dumb.)

Somehow we will have to learn to read the data first and apply fantastic imagination to it, before describing it to our players. Instead of the other way around; trying to come up with mechanics on the fly isn't all that easy either.

 

[FireLance]

If your choice is between 10 tools that can handle 90% of all situations or 50 tools that can handle 100% of all situations, I go with 10 tools. To take the analogy further, moving around all the 40 extra tools is more cumbersome than what you may get from them.

I get where you're coming from, but I'd take a slightly different approach. In 4e terms, I want those 10 tools to be my at-will and encounter powers, good guidelines on winging it as my dailies, and the other 40 tools as my rituals. In other words, I want to be able to handle 90% of situations without consulting the books, good guidelines on how to handle the situations that the 10 rules don't cover if they crop up unexpectedly and I don't want to check the books, and good rules for how to handle the situations if I do manage to anticipate them and am able to prepare beforehand.

 

[Imban]

Somehow we will have to learn to read the data first and apply fantastic imagination to it, before describing it to our players. Instead of the other way around; trying to come up with mechanics on the fly isn't all that easy either.

Er, what? I read the data on what the ability does, had no real need to apply imagination as it was obvious what it did and did not do, and presented it to my players. It was obvious what it did and didn't do from a quick glance at the rules. It was more obvious, if that was necessary to absolutely anyone, after what it didn't do was laboriously pounded out as a new, glorious design intent in the article it was posted in. A potential bug with it, which I didn't immediately consider when I read the power and which I'll have to see the rules to verify, was expounded as a feature by the article.

So, uh, yeah. What?

 

[Imban]

If your choice is between 10 tools that can handle 90% of all situations or 50 tools that can handle 100% of all situations, I go with 10 tools. To take the analogy further, moving around all the 40 extra tools is more cumbersome than what you may get from them.

I looked at the questions more this way.

In a normal situation, 4e Cleave's wording is absolutely fine. This covers 90% of all situations.

There are still 10% of situations where Fighters are using Cleave, as written, to attack through impenetrable barriers (cleaving to the opposite side of a Gelatinous Cube, for instance) or across impassable terrain. It would take another line or two of text to fix that, which can be significant when one is publishing a book but is essentially insignificant in terms of added complexity (heck, I imagine I'll have a far harder time figuring out a proper phrasing for a rule that stops that than the difficulty it'll add in play) and when one's rules modifications are being written for online use.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Better analogies are programming languages, because that is what a gaming ruleset *is*

Do you want a tool that you can build other tools with? Or do you want a toolset that is complex, internally interlinked, and very difficult to modify, but covers 98% of the possibilities?

DOWN WITH COMMON LISP!!!

 

[med stud]

I looked at the questions more this way.

In a normal situation, 4e Cleave's wording is absolutely fine. This covers 90% of all situations.

There are still 10% of situations where Fighters are using Cleave, as written, to attack through impenetrable barriers (cleaving to the opposite side of a Gelatinous Cube, for instance) or across impassable terrain. It would take another line or two of text to fix that, which can be significant when one is publishing a book but is essentially insignificant in terms of added complexity (heck, I imagine I'll have a far harder time figuring out a proper phrasing for a rule that stops that than the difficulty it'll add in play) and when one's rules modifications are being written for online use.

I agree to a certain extent; I agree with a clarification that you can't cleave at someone that is outside of your reach, but I don't want clarifications that you can't attack the rats you brought along when cleaving or something like that. I would like the rules to trust that the reader has some common sense.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm with BRP or Unisystem Lite on this.

Good to see some love for my favorite system, Buffy (aka. Unisystem Lite 1.0)