Jon Peterson: Does System Matter?

D&D historian Jon Peterson asks the question on his blog as he does a deep dive into how early tabletop RPG enthusiasts wrestled with the same thing.

Based around the concept that 'D&D can do anything, so why learn a new system?', the conversation examines whether the system itself affects the playstyle of those playing it. Some systems are custom-designed to create a certain atmosphere (see Dread's suspenseful Jenga-tower narrative game), and Call of Cthulhu certainly discourages the D&D style of play, despite a d20 version in early 2000s.

Does System Matter?

Dungeons & Dragons started out as a game with such an adaptable and open-ended set of rules that early adopters questioned whether any fur...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think system matters was an unfortunate choice of words. I think something like game design matters gets the point across more effectively because we are talking about games, not just systems. Games have objectives, procedures, reward systems, mechanics, and defined player roles. System implies that only dice mechanics and things on character sheets are provided by the game. That's like just looking at the surface of the iceberg.

Yeah, it’s not just the rules. It’s the premise that sells me more than anything. I can forgive messy rules to a degree, if the core idea of what the game is about is compelling in itself.

 

[TheSword]

Is there any evidence at all to suggest a player is conditioned by the first set of rules they learn to play with? Or is that just one game designers opinion as I suspect it is.

 

[MGibster]

Is there any evidence at all to suggest a player is conditioned by the first set of rules they learn to play with? Or is that just one game designers opinion as I suspect it is.

In my experience it's often difficult to get players out of a D&D mindset but I expect a lot of that just has to do with player expectation inculcated through their experience with little to do with the actual rules. (And I wish to make it clear that I'm not bashing D&D here. I've been playing and running D&D for many years now and it's a game I like.) Some of it has to do with the rules, I remember one non-D&D fantasy I ran and when I mentioned a giant was approaching the player shut out my description of it thinking it was just like a regular 18-25 foot tall giant when it towered over 100 feet. But a lot of it just has to do with their expectations for how an adventure works in D&D versus how it might work in another setting. I find the desire to loot to be near universal among gamers for example.

 

[pemerton]

I've yet to see a rule set with detailed social interaction mechanics that didn't feel like its purpose was to restrict what options I had in social situations rather than accommodate what I might want to do in them.

Which RPGs do you have in mind with this comment?

 

[turnip_farmer]

While the focus here is of course on OG games, I was amused by the idea of D&D being predicated on “the seeking” and combat as something to be gotten past as quickly as possible, similar to ways I’ve heard OD&D and AD&D described as being basically puzzle-boxes where combat was an obstacle to be avoided. Yet (and I don’t mean this as a judgment for or against), the main discussion particularly online over the past twenty years of the d20 era has been combat and combat optimization. Even within D&D, system matters!

Indeed. I got my 5e players to try out an OSR game, and while they enjoyed it, it ended in a TPK. 5e had strongly conditioned them to the approach that any monster can be overcome by just hitting it over and over.

 

[TheSword]

Indeed. I got my 5e players to try out an OSR game, and while they enjoyed it, it ended in a TPK. 5e had strongly conditioned them to the approach that any monster can be overcome by just hitting it over and over.

Does 5e really teach people that everything can be killed/overcome? Or is that more of a case of adventure design?

Or perhaps even game design. Most people are familiar with computer games that have a level/area capped with a boss you need to proceed. They aren’t avoidable... they’re the end level boss.

If adventures are designed where all threats are CR +/-3 and have natural choke points that require defeating a powerful enemy, of course people are going to think they need to keep fighting that enemy and take increased risks to do so.

Games like Witcher or Skyrim with optional bosses and open exploration buck this trend, but usually make enemy power explicit with red skull symbols etc. However, DM telegraphing usually isn’t as obvious as a red skull symbol hovering over the creature’s name and I can understand how players get confused.

It seems to me, that 5e can have level appropriate challenges and particularly difficult challenges just like any other system. It’s adventure writers and DMs that decide difficulty level.

[Edit] I’ll also add that with the intention of making level appropriate threats scary and atmospheric we often use the same telegraphing that you would use for a more powerful threat. This has the effect of muddying the water and smokecreening the non-CR Appropriate challenge. Also PCs are used to doing things that other folks can’t do, that’s why they’re adventurers. Finally, all too often identifying challenges outside of your threat relies on meta game knowledge (Oh my god guys, it’s a beholder, run) rather than knowledge their character would have.

 

[Aldarc]

Does 5e really teach people that everything can be killed/overcome? Or is that more of a case of adventure design?

Why can't it be both? It's not exactly a secret that the OSR crowd was not super thrilled with 5e D&D despite WotC attempting to woe them over,* and one of the reasons was "combat as sport vs. combat as war."

* ...and then promptly abandoned them once WotC discovered they had a massive hit on their hands and didn't need the OSR crowd.

It seems to me, that 5e can have level appropriate challenges and particularly difficult challenges just like any other system. It’s adventure writers and DMs that decide difficulty level.

Can? Sure. But that doesn't mean that 5e doesn't tend to overwhelmingly treat combat more as sport rather than war and design things accordingly.

 

[Morrus]

Does 5e really teach people that everything can be killed/overcome? Or is that more of a case of adventure design?

It's both. The system is vastly more survival than, say, Call of Cthulhu, where getting into a fight is a dangerous endeavour. CoC teaches you the hard way not to wade into combat at the drop of a hat.

 

[TheSword]

It's both. The system is vastly more survival than, say, Call of Cthulhu, where getting into a fight is a dangerous endeavour. CoC teaches you the hard way not to wade into combat at the drop of a hat.

Sure combat is more deadly. Of the two ‘combat-is-dangerous’ systems I’ve played Cthulhu and WFRP, both still had plenty of combat encounters though. Less than typical d&d adventure sure, but is that because d&d adventures are traditionally designed that way because of XP system that’s partly phased out.

Sure in those two games in theory you’re less likely to start a random fight and find peaceful solutions instead, yet often in published adventures and homebrew the fights are meant to be fought, and are telegraphed that way. I can’t think the last time my D&D Frostmaiden group picked a fight with a random. I can think of plenty of times they tried to avoid a combat because of low resources.

Im not convinced that deadly combat systems stop players trying to hit things... they just make the consequences of not hitting hard enough, much worse.

 

[Campbell]

Is there any evidence at all to suggest a player is conditioned by the first set of rules they learn to play with? Or is that just one game designers opinion as I suspect it is.

It's evident in conversations I have had here and elsewhere that there are large swathe of folks who define what a roleplaying game is or can be in relation to the culture of play engendered by games like AD&D Second Edition/ Fifth Edition D&D. That when encountering a new game they think they already know how to play/run it.

I have personally experienced this phenomenon at live tables numerous times.