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Kicking the tires vs. puncturing the tires; being effective vs. breaking the game
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9112438" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>This is a false dichotomy smuggling in an unstated premise: "The only way for a game to be interesting is for it to be breakable." That's why [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] brought up very popular games like chess; if having too little control <em>guaranteed</em> an uninteresting experience, people wouldn't play these games.</p><p></p><p>Instead, it seems your issue is excessive focus on the basic/easy way to make a game "unbreakable": make it <em>trivial</em>. But that means presuming that the correlation works both ways, that the only way to make a game "unbreakable" is to make it trivial. That's simply not true, as games like chess and go attest. The problem with tic-tac-toe isn't that it is unbreakable (though it is); it is not that it has few rules and few moves (though it does); it is the plain and simple fact that it is boring. Minimal skilled play from both players makes every game end the same way, a draw.</p><p></p><p>Of course making a non-trivial "unbreakable" game is much more difficult than making a trivial one. Even go, for all its beautiful simplicity, still has one small opening for issues, which is where the <em>ko</em> rule comes into play (some variation of "you cannot make a move which would return the board to a previous state.") There are also different rules regarding how points should be awarded, with some groups giving handicap points to white since it goes second, usually either 6.5 or 0.5 points. (The latter simply means that, in the event of an exact tie, white always wins; since this is difficult to achieve in go, this is a relatively small bonus.)</p><p></p><p>For something as sprawling, complicated, and open-ended as a TTRPG, the difficulty of creating a non-trivial "unbreakable" is yet higher. But "difficult" is not "impossible." It may be <em>impractical</em>, but that's a far lower bar. Hence why, above, I spoke of allowing a slightly looser range for "unbreakable," e.g. mostly or nearly unbreakable. With that extra leeway, quite a bit becomes entirely viable and the corner cases can be <em>relatively</em> isolated and dealt with as exceptions, rather than the constant refrain.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9112438, member: 6790260"] This is a false dichotomy smuggling in an unstated premise: "The only way for a game to be interesting is for it to be breakable." That's why [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] brought up very popular games like chess; if having too little control [I]guaranteed[/I] an uninteresting experience, people wouldn't play these games. Instead, it seems your issue is excessive focus on the basic/easy way to make a game "unbreakable": make it [I]trivial[/I]. But that means presuming that the correlation works both ways, that the only way to make a game "unbreakable" is to make it trivial. That's simply not true, as games like chess and go attest. The problem with tic-tac-toe isn't that it is unbreakable (though it is); it is not that it has few rules and few moves (though it does); it is the plain and simple fact that it is boring. Minimal skilled play from both players makes every game end the same way, a draw. Of course making a non-trivial "unbreakable" game is much more difficult than making a trivial one. Even go, for all its beautiful simplicity, still has one small opening for issues, which is where the [I]ko[/I] rule comes into play (some variation of "you cannot make a move which would return the board to a previous state.") There are also different rules regarding how points should be awarded, with some groups giving handicap points to white since it goes second, usually either 6.5 or 0.5 points. (The latter simply means that, in the event of an exact tie, white always wins; since this is difficult to achieve in go, this is a relatively small bonus.) For something as sprawling, complicated, and open-ended as a TTRPG, the difficulty of creating a non-trivial "unbreakable" is yet higher. But "difficult" is not "impossible." It may be [I]impractical[/I], but that's a far lower bar. Hence why, above, I spoke of allowing a slightly looser range for "unbreakable," e.g. mostly or nearly unbreakable. With that extra leeway, quite a bit becomes entirely viable and the corner cases can be [I]relatively[/I] isolated and dealt with as exceptions, rather than the constant refrain. [/QUOTE]
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Kicking the tires vs. puncturing the tires; being effective vs. breaking the game
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