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Kicking the tires vs. puncturing the tires; being effective vs. breaking the game
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9112786" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>My hot take, based on about half that experience: TTRPGs are often badly designed by the standards of other kinds of games, and the culture of play surrounding them has made this normative. When they break, it tends not to be because of the oft-discussed "absurd combinatorial" but because of simple iterated probability. Failure states are generally obvious, and don't require extensive play time at the table, so much as a solid math review.</p><p></p><p>The kinds of errors that crop up in TTRPGs simply wouldn't make it into a published board game, and we're very quick to jump to "this is a unique medium" to explain away why that happens. I'm certain there is a limit of design perfection that's possible, but I'm equally convinced we are not even close and not really trying. I want hours of logged same game tests, I want to hear about iterations across 5 play groups monitored for monthly campaign play, I want game designers coding simulations of monster fights and likely town interactions and glumly staring at spreadsheets, and, given the existing culture of play that so readily encourages tables to modify the rules, I want the second half of the DMG to be design notes on the impact of various likely to be considered house rules.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9112786, member: 6690965"] My hot take, based on about half that experience: TTRPGs are often badly designed by the standards of other kinds of games, and the culture of play surrounding them has made this normative. When they break, it tends not to be because of the oft-discussed "absurd combinatorial" but because of simple iterated probability. Failure states are generally obvious, and don't require extensive play time at the table, so much as a solid math review. The kinds of errors that crop up in TTRPGs simply wouldn't make it into a published board game, and we're very quick to jump to "this is a unique medium" to explain away why that happens. I'm certain there is a limit of design perfection that's possible, but I'm equally convinced we are not even close and not really trying. I want hours of logged same game tests, I want to hear about iterations across 5 play groups monitored for monthly campaign play, I want game designers coding simulations of monster fights and likely town interactions and glumly staring at spreadsheets, and, given the existing culture of play that so readily encourages tables to modify the rules, I want the second half of the DMG to be design notes on the impact of various likely to be considered house rules. [/QUOTE]
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Kicking the tires vs. puncturing the tires; being effective vs. breaking the game
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