Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Garnfellow]

18th level cleric

1 minute per level to pick spells? That sounds about right. I ususally try to figure out the DCs for spells too, which would add another 5 mintures.

And then there's the equipment -- I find that as time consuming as anything else with high level characters, and I use Sean K Reynold's Gear Generator to speed things up.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Average prep time: 1 frantic hour of desperately scraping through books and scribbling on battlemats while blinking away sleep and rushing back and forth to get the session's miniatures spray-varnished.

Average game time: 8 hours.

Average combat time: 6 hours.

Only the last is any kind of a problem, and it has far more to do with having up to 12 players at the table - and the readiness level of those players - at once than the heaviness of the rules. Interestingly, this has held true from 3rd level to 14th in the current campaign, which corrected some of my mistaken notions about d20 combat.

I've never looked up a rule at the table while GMing, and don't allow players to spend time looking up rules on their turns. They are, however, welcome to look up rules during the 30+ minutes other players are taking their turns each round. :\

 

[BluSponge]

I'm not insulted (though I must say, if it were my players you were referring to, it might have been) so much as I think it's a totally bogus cop-out when it comes to defending a game.

Maybe. But if the shoe fits. (As to your players, I don't know them, so for all I know they are super-geniuses who plot world domination between coke breaks.)

[snip]

Psion is running a rip-roaring game of hero, but find that Rob routinely avoids running characters that use magic. I soon discover that Rob does not use magic because he doesn't grok the power system. Well, Rob's a college student, so he should understand the basic math that goes into making a Hero character right?

I thought so, but it occurs to me that whether or not he's capable, that's work to him. It occurs to me that gaming being a leisure activity, it's not my place to make him do things he doesn't like. And by running hero, I was limiting his options.

That's all well and good -- the interests of the players should be taken into consideration when choosing the game. Of course, if I was a big Hero fan, and all my players were happy (even Rob, though he doesn't want to deal with magic), I probably would have kept playing it. But that's neither here nor there.

(And, BTW, YOU weren't limiting his options by playing HERO, ROB was limiting his options because HE didn't want to invest the time to grok the magic rules. Don't take up the blame for the decisions of other people.)

[snip again]

So, I'll own that if D&D accounting is not too your liking, you should probably play something with less accounting, or (at the very least) make efforts to minimize it. But by the same token, if the lack of robustness is limiting the actions your players consider, I'd say that is on the game, not on the players.

I'd say its an apples and oranges argument. Sure, player preference has to be a consideration when choosing the game to play (as does the DM's preference -- I notice you didn't switch to GURPS or Rolemaster when you dropped HERO). however, there is a big difference (IMHO) between players who have difficulty grasping the mechanics of the system and feeling intimidated by wide open spaces.

The original poster said he players never tried to grapple, bull-rush, or trip before 3e. Understandable, since two of these are tactical options with specific sub-system rules. But my point is, they could have done this before -- particularly in a rules lite game -- without need of these subsystems. Here you have a clear example of the playing to the rules as opposed to the situation. It also goes back to the hamstringing example I mentioned. 3e, does not have called shots, so in order to perform a specific action like hamstringing, you need a feat (by the book, anyway). Now, with a game system with less rule-constriction, the players and GM are free to get out of this mindset.

That's what I was getting at with the outside-of-the-box comment. It's not to say they are playing wrong (and I didn't say they had, which was why I was surprised by your earlier post), only that the limits on their actions are completely artifical and that doesn't speak to any strength of DnD, or any other game system for that matter. I would say, however, that it is a weakness of DnD that it encourages that kind of play. My evidence for that is mostly anecdotal, granted, but I've seen it more often than not.

It is easier to change the game you are playing, or to change rules of a game, than it is to change people. Games are dispensible.

So are people.

No, really, you are right. Certainly if the players don't "get" the game, it may be best to switch gears and try something else. I have a couple of games on my shelf I'd love to run, but I just don't have the right crowd of players. However I've also found that the GM sets the example for play in his game. If players are playing to the rules, its a fair bet the GM is too. The best way to get them out of the box is to burn it down, stomp on it, and sell them fragments as souvenirs.

Tom

 

[Psion]

1 minute per level to pick spells? That sounds about right.

I don't think it's linear. You have more spells of each level at high level, and more levels.

I ususally try to figure out the DCs for spells too, which would add another 5 mintures.

Since all spells of the same level use the same DC, it'd take me about 5 seconds.

Again, assuming 19 wis, DC 14+spell level. Perhaps 1-4 more from feats and items.

Most char sheets have a spot for DC per spell level, so I think that's sufficient.

And then there's the equipment -- I find that as time consuming as anything else with high level characters,

I agree. But that's not much different between spellcasting and nonspellcasting characters.

 

[buzz]

The C&C PHB is 128 pages -- 60+ of which are merely spell descriptions.

Spells are probably the primary source of complexity in D&D and its derivatives. Each spell is its own little subset of rules. Saying that C&C has 60 pages of "mere" spell descriptions does nothing to convince me that it is rules-light. That's 60 more pages of rules, and that alone is proably more rule information than is contained in the entire Buffy core book.

A "lite" spell system, IMO, is, e.g., Tri-Stat being able to cover those 60 pages with "Dynamic Magic - Rank 3: PC can create any magical effect with a max power of Rank 3."

So, personally, I don't buy it.

 

[WizarDru]

A "lite" spell system, IMO, is, e.g., Tri-Stat being able to cover those 60 pages with "Dynamic Magic - Rank 3: PC can create any magical effect with a max power of Rank 3."

So, personally, I don't buy it.

Random Thought: GURPS Lite is 6 printed-pages. Does that make it 'rules-light'? Discuss.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Near as I can figure, he means that game designers are responsible for balance and realism, and all that stuff needs to be figured out ahead of time by experts. Which I think is bunk.

Example: A character is trying to jump a ravine to grab a rope, in the rain. If you can't look in the book to find out what the right modifiers are, then it's on the head of the GM to come up with a target number, and maybe the players will argue, or it'll be too high or too low, or whatever.

To which I go, what the heck game are people playing that this would be worth an argument? If it's dramatic to have a chance of failure, have one, if it's not, don't. Does it really matter if this fictional character is better at grabbing a wet rope than someone would be in real life? Considering that the GM invented the rope, the ravine, and the rain, is there any advantage to measuring the distance and cross-referencing the guy's Jump skill, versus picking a DC that represents how hard you want it to be?

I have friends who would argue about this sort of thing until their face was blue. They want to be the hero, they want to succeed. They only accept failure if they know it was judged without any bias.

I think what he is refering to is closer to the situation where a player wants to trip an enemy but the rules only describe how to attack someone. How do you trip someone? How difficult is it? What rolls should you make? Will you remember what rolls to make next time someone tries to trip an enemy? Will you as a DM say "you are jumping down on someone to knock them over, that's totally different than tripping, it needs a different roll"?

Now, someone tries to disarm someone, but there are no rules for that. What do you roll for it? How hard is it? Will your players start arguing about what roll they have to make once you make one up? i.e. "Disarming should be a STRENGTH based check, I'm hitting his weapon hard, I'm not trying to finesse it out of his hands. Like that guy in that movie, do you think he had high dex? No, but he disarmed many people!" Will the rule you come up with be so complicated in a pursuit of realism that each time someone tries the move the game slows to a crawl?

So, the key in this situation is that the DM of a rules light game needs to have the skill to make up these sorts of things on the fly, be accurate enough to "realism" that their players at least accept their ruling without it ruining their disbelief of the setting, if not outright arguing (trust me, there are players who won't argue out of respect for their DM, but it will make the session less fun for them).

Since most of us are not experts on combat with swords or quite a few other things we do in RPGs, our rules may make sense to us but there is someone in our group who knows more about the subject matter than we do. I prefer to let game designers spending the time researching "realism", striking a balance between fun and function. I'll let them argue for weeks or months about a rule and its fairness and balance and come to an answer. That allows me as a DM to say "You need to make a roll as decribed on page 56, if you have a problem with it, complain to WotC." I can shift the blame, quell arguements and move on with telling the story without the hassle.

As for what Ryan said. I agree. When we used to play 2nd Edition AD&D, our arguements were twice as long and much more annoying and as a DM, I hated it. 2nd Ed can be considered "rules light" compared to 3E. Even more rules light systems...they had even more problems.

 

[Rasyr]

Wow, Rasyr. That's a heaping lot of conspiracy theory you're propogating there.

Actually, not. My perception of Dancey's motivations come from watching his past actions and statements, nothing more. Such as his attempting to revise the Origins Awards so that if would be severely biased towards large companies (i.e. WotC, since it is the largest) by his wanting to include that one of the criteria for selecting products to go on the ballot be the number of units sold. And that this would bypass the panel of judges who are performing much the same task as the ENnies judges are doing.

I also have access to information and emails (legal access mind you, not like the former Treasurer of GAMA who was, IMO illegally, spying on the BoD before he got elected) from a number of sources which corroborate this. Although, I no longer have access to his fixgama website since he locked it down.

As to the connection I speculated about between Dancey and Mearls, that comes from seeing Dancey post and support what Mearls is saying, when Mearls isn't doing so himself, and from noting that what Mearls is saying is pretty doggone close to Dancey's viewpoints. Too close in some instances....

Well, in any case, believe what you want about this, but personally, if Dancey told me that it was daytime, I would look out a window....

 

[buzz]

The question I would like to hear answered some time is this: would d20 have been as successful in terms of sales if it didn't come with the D&D brand name attached to the flagship product?

Do any of the d20-derived products count? None of them are allowed to have "D&D" on the product.

The problem ith this question is that no RPG in the history of earth has been as "successful" in terms of sales as those tied to D&D. You're asking wether d20 would have taken over 60% of the market had it not been tied to D&D, and that's unlikely. It is, however, entirely likely that it would have competed well with the other fish in the pond.

The more appropriate question to ask if you're questioning the power of branding over quality is whether the D&D brand is so much more important that it can save a crappy product. As we saw with 2e (leaving room for the poor business practices of TSR), the brand was not enough. We've also seen many examples of systems tied to popular brands, and the brands didn't help. E.g., Superman and Batman are probably as recognizeable as Mickey Mouse globally, but that didn't keep the DC Universe RPG from being a flop.

The brand has power, but it doesn't have ALL the power. If WotC had released AD&D2.5 instead of D&D/d20, I doubt ENWorld would even exist.

 

[fredramsey]

I have friends who would argue about this sort of thing until their face was blue.

I had a player like that once.

We kicked his ass to the curb.

Been having loads of fun since then.