Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Turanil]

I foresee closure of this thread very soon.

 

[fredramsey]

Ditto. See my comment above on most of the distances in 1e being in inches.

Never used minis in 1e. Why? There was no tactical movement rate. None, nada.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

(A)D&D had combat as an important (but not the most important) element

-snip-

Not the most important element?

I suppose having one class explicitly devoted to combat (Fighter) with absolutely no other abilities within the contex of the rules, two variants of that class (Ranger and Paladin), several specific mechanics that applied solely or almost solely to combat (AC, hit points and THAC0), great heaping gobs of spells whose primary purpose was combat (from magic missile on up), clerics who were explicitly warrior-priests, separate and extensive sections for weapons and armor that outweighed the sections for all non-combat gear, NO non-combat skills whatsoever until 2e (and those were optional!), and monsters whose abilities made them unsuitable for anything BUT combat made combat "not the most important element" of AD&D.

:\

 

[radferth]

to me Monopoly is wrong. you are out to be cut throat and screw over your friends and family to achieve a Monopoly.
QUOTE]

Well, I was going to do those things anyway, so why not make a game out of it. Of course, I am speaking theoretically here, as my dad always wins at Monopoly. Every game we all know he is going to get the light orange monopoly and kick us all. Every game we resolve not to let him. Every game "Well, Dan, for St. James Place with 4 houses you owe me...". On second thought, Diaglo is right, Monopoly is wrong.

 

[Desdichado]

Sorry for my bad english, it is not my home language. That is why I suppose I did not explain well my point.

Your English has been perfectly fine; but your arguments have been less than clear.

1) Mr Dancey WROTE that rules light games are "worse" than rules heavy games, and cited taking some measurements and so on. My point was that, SINCE THERE ARE LOTS OF PLAYERS OUT THERE THAT CAN PROVE OTHERWISE, his assertions could not be taken scientifically as they sounded.

WRONG! Dancey said no such thing. Go back and reread what he did say. He AT NO POINT made any claim that even closely resembles that. He also made no great claims for "scientificness" of his claims -- he merely said that based on some observation of his, his opinion was that the stated benefit of rules lite games (saving time; faster pace) is not realized.

2) I HAVE WRITTEN, if you take care to read the posts above, that in MY EXPERIENCE, AND IN THOSE OF MANY OTHERS, CREATING AN HIGH LEVEL CHARACTER can be time consuming. AND I AM NOT EXTRAPOLATING ANYTHING, if you mind reading my post CAREFULLY.

Yes, you did. You didn't clarify that IN YOUR EXPERIENCE stuff until I called you on it, and now you're trying to say that's what you were doing all along. You made statements about 3e that were anecdotal and specific to YOU and YOUR CONDITION, but initially at least, presented them as irrefutable facts. You tried to exclude 3e from being rules lite by a number of criteria, that I disputed, saying that FOR ME, 3e is rules lite by your criteria.

In addition, your WHOLE POINT in bringing up your scientific credentials was to discredit anything Dancey said, by showing that you know more about statistics then he did, and that his "experiment" wasn't scientific. HOWEVER, since Dancey never claimed that it was, and your own experiences, as I pointed out several times, were even less scientific in spite of your claimed expertise, I'm still questioning what the point of bringing that up was supposed to be.

I have simply proof of the contrary of what Mr. Dancey (and you, I suppose) is saying. Which IS NOT extrapolating anything, but simply stating that part of the population does not satisfy certain assumptions. And THESE, I can prove (expected values, confidence tests and so on).

I've never said if I agree with Dancey one way or another for one thing. And that's pretty rich of you to now try and make that point, as that was the WHOLE POINT of my reply; to take you to task for doing EXACTLY what you are now accusing Dancey of doing.

4) Since I always close my posts with greets, just to signify that the discussion can be held on civil tones, and that we are not talking about "serious" topics such as hunger in the world or religion, I would STRONGLY appreciate that you do the same and show a bit of politeness. Otherwise, I will not bother to answer to your posts, since your replies qualify you.

Quite right. And I have not said anything uncivil. If you percieve that to be the case, I can only deduce that you are overly sensitive to having it pointed out that you are wrong. If that's the case, then that's not my problem.

 

[buzz]

Why do you think a GM of a rules light system can't take all these factors & more into account when deciding the difficulty?

I'm not saying they can't. I'm saying that I can see a disconnect when playing a "lite" RPG that takes these factors into account by relying mostly on GM fiat. When you point to real-world justifications, it emphasizes that you're really just playing "Mother, may I". The GM is suddenly deciding how strong a PC is, or how a slick surface would affect their footing, whether it's reasonable that the character could make the jump, etc. I.e., you're in territory where players could potentially be pulling out their sports almanacs and Guiness' Book of Records to prove what could or couldn't be done.

If the deciding factor is wholly narrative then it makes more sense, IMO. Less of a disconnect. You're not asking anyone to have a degree in physics or anatomy, you're just asking them to adjudicate what works best for the story. E.g., a Mook might not make the jump, but a Hero would, becasue that's what Heroes do. Or, the Hero might fail, becasue that would make for good drama.

Personally, I'm more comfortable leaving the latter to fiat than I am the former.

 

[buzz]

Never used minis in 1e. Why? There was no tactical movement rate. None, nada.

Does the number of inches a PC could move in a combat round not count all of a sudden?

 

[diaglo]

Never used minis in 1e. Why? There was no tactical movement rate. None, nada.

huh?

you forget ranged weapons. a carry over from Chainmail's rules.

 

[Andre]

In RPGs, the interface is the "mental space" that exists between the player and the game. So, miniatures and battlemats are an element of the interface. It's easier for me to make a decision and apply the rules if I can see where my sorcerer is in relation to the terrain, monsters, and the rest of the party.

I think there are a lot of issues with the interface in D&D. To extend the above example, I can see where my character is but can I easily "see" and understand all his options - cast a spell, make an attack, try to trip a foe, and so forth. By the same token, when making a character can I "see" and understand the feats, spells, skills, and so forth that I can choose from to build my PC?

That step, that act of recognizing, understanding, and using the options within the rules deals wtih the game's interface. I'm increasingly convinced that the interface is the most important part of an RPG, because the act of choosing and employing an option is the act of playing the game.

Ok, this makes sense. I saw the same thing when board games were first transferred to the computer. The computer screen generally could not show much of the board, which dramatically affected a player's ability to see the situation at a glance. Add in a bad interface for actual gameplay and many a good boardgame became unplayable on the computer - even when the rules were identical.


If I understand you, you're also saying that the rules themselves can enhance/detract from rules mastery and, therefore, the interface between the game and the players. A core mechanic can, if properly designed, make it easier to apply the rules when playing the game and, hence, to assess the odds of success of a given action. Interestingly, I think this is one of the most commonly praised elements of C&C - it's relatively simple task resolution system.

I think this is related to the false light v. heavy dichotomy in that when people say, "I want a system that creates a 20th-level NPC in 20 minutes" that has nothing to do with the number of rules present, but rather the time and effort it takes to interface with a particular set of rules.

[Rant on ] And this is the crux of my personal dislike for 3.x. There are very few rules I specifically dislike, but many that - in play - are not worth the effort. Too situational modifiers ("Don't forget my character's bonus to saves when confronted by chickens at night when there's a full moon and..."). Too many types of bonuses. A few rules sub-systems which use significantly different mechanics than the core. Too many spells that "break" the normal rules in some way which must be adjudicated. Figuring AoO's for movement. Each of these add something to the game, but at too high a cost in fun for my particular group. I don't necessarily want fewer rules, but I do want simpler ones. [Rant off]

I'd like to posit a different question: if different groups have different thresholds for rules/interface complexity, why not design the rules to be somewhat modular? For instance, D&D could have basic rules, with AoO's being optional. A simple core mechanic could be used for special attacks, such as grapple, trip, etc., with a more complex mechanic available as an option. It seems to me that such a system, properly designed, would appeal to a broader market than the current system, which constantly warns against making changes because of "balance" (which IMO is another red herring).

 

[fredramsey]

Does the number of inches a PC could move in a combat round not count all of a sudden?

Yes, you could walk x amount of inches (at 10' per inch) per round. That came out to almost all the way across any battle mat of reasonable size.

And what did moving do for you? Where was the rules for using movement in combat? Could you split your movment and move attack move?

There were none. I will admit I lied, however. We put miniatures on the battle mat because they looked cool. We used them to say, "You have this orc on you, and you have this other orc on you." And they never moved during the battle.

I still have my 1st Edition monster manual where I had written in a new stat: Tactical Movement Rate, or TMR. I was in the process of actually adding movement rules to combat.

Movement in 1e? Yes, how far you could walk in a minute. Not at all useful in combat, and bears no resemblence to current movement rules.

So I stand by my statement.