[L&L] Balancing the Wizards in D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

but now you are getting into actual technological advances (and I am not convinced by arguments that compare game systems to tech). I was talking about stylistic developments. To me the more appropriate musicial anology is the 80s fusion of baroque and 1950s musical sensibilities and techniques. There is nothing inherently better about using baroque scales and counter point over say the more bluesie pentatonic scales and arrangements that were in vogue in the 70s. You are talking about trends. Many of the things we attribute to modern design (focused concepts, unified mechanics, etc) I wuld label trends, not objective improvements.

I don't think it is as clear-cut as that. It is pretty hard to argue for instance that game designers in 2012 don't have a MUCH richer toolbox than the designers of 1975 did. We know a LOT more about what works, what doesn't work, why and how different game designs do certain things in more generally pleasing ways than others and work better or worse for specific types of game. We know a lot more about the range of possible RPG designs and where the limitations are in the whole genre. There's a LOT of 'tech' and industry knowledge that has evolved over 30+ years of people experimenting.

Nobody can ever say one game or one mechanic is objectively better or worse than another, but it is quite possible in this day and age to be far more thoughtful and systematic about your game designs. The 70's stuff was basically throwing things against a wall to see what stuck. The 80's saw people sorting out the basic concepts and learning to apply them. The 90's saw development of a lot of those concepts, and now we're sort of in a period of consolidation and refinement. Of course this is only a very loose outline. There's a lot of each process still going on and they can't really be segregated chronologically very well, but you get the idea.

I think the best take-home point here is that someone today designing 5e has a LOT more options and potentially a lot more insight into the why's and wherefore's of using those options than Gygax did in 1977 writing AD&D. While it is tempting to try to just reproduce Gygax's formula in a bit cleaned up form that's leaving a LOT of potential that he couldn't have even realized existed back then on the cutting room floor. If a new game is going to be meaningfully new and worthy of a place in the market and on people's shelves and tables then it really is going to be pretty hard to do that while saying "new is just a fad" and trying to ignore 30 years of RPG evolution. A successful 5e IMHO is going to have to take those 30 years into account and really should leverage all that 'tech'. How the game plays and feels is an aesthetic choice, but aesthetics isn't created or improved simply by ignoring possibilities that didn't exist in the past.

As for D&D having 'lost something'. Well, that's a hard thing to say. I run into people who seem to be getting out of 4e what I got out of OD&D back in the day. I'm not sure the divide is all that large. However WE have changed. I know from experience that I will never quite recapture the simple wonder of OD&D, even if I play that system now today. I can have fun with it, and now and then that magic is there, but it is also there just as much in my 4e games. OTOH I can get things out of either of those systems today that I couldn't even have imagined back in the old days. I've changed. We've all changed. Just making a system based closely on say OD&D isn't going to all of a sudden bring back the feel of being 12 and playing in a tent with a Coleman lantern in the middle of the woods.

OTOH I don't think it is incorrect to consider modern RPGs (at least some of them) possibly overthought. I think there's an art to artlessness and it would be well for game designers to learn to practice that. I am however not at all convinced that artlessness has to be mechanical. In fact I'd prefer it not to be. I think it is more something that has its real impact in terms of tone, style, background (settings and whatnot, lore, etc) than in mechanical subsystems. I do think there is a challenge here though, which is to carefully design your system in a way that makes it agile and avoids too many restrictions. 4e kind of DID get part of that right, but missed a bunch on other parts. IMHO a 5e follow-on of 4e could really hit a good spot there. I think people are overthinking their game criticism as much as anyone is overthinking the games themselves, both tend to happen nowadays.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Not quite. Mind you, your other statement:



has an element of truth to it as well. Nevertheless, judgment of quality is not wholly subjective. It is possible to tell when a game system is *getting in your way*.

I had many hours of fun with AD&D, and have a lasting treasure of memories of those hours. I would not willingly part with them.

Nevertheless, when I moved from AD&D to other systems, it became clear that AD&D had serious design flaws. It was, in a word, clunky - it was constantly getting in my way, drawing attention to itself. It had too many fiddly rules that were unnecessary. I got frustrated with it.

This is all well and good but once again those are subjective measures. You value something more streamlined and minimalist than ad&d tries to offer. For example you mention "unnecessary and fiddly" as bad elements of design. But this is just an aesthetic choice. There are valid reasons to have a more fiddly systen that doesn't strive to eliminate unnecessary mechanics. Every approach has down sides and upsides. Right now streamlined and minimalist is in, but that doesn't mean this will be the case in twenty years.

Take dialogue in movies, by the late 89s screenwriters were told to be succinct and only use dialogue that advances the plot without "uneccesary" words. By the early 90s dialogue was so tight it had no life. It took guys like Tarentino to smash through that by lingering on dialogue and raw bits of conversation. Because they realized characterization is just as critical as plot. It all comes down to what you want the game to do. If you want minimalist and non fiddly, yes AD&D isn't your game. That doesn't mean it is objectively poorly designed.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

2) A better analogy would be musical instruments - for example lets take violins. Using the train of thought running through this thread - A modern violin has the advantage of centuries of "improvements" in manufacturing techniques, materials, and tools - so must be better designed and therefore be better than one made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù. Except, the consensus among violinists seems to be that a Stradivari is better and sets the standard modern violin makers try to emulate.

As a saxophone player, I can tell you right now that newer is "not" better. A 1950's Selmer Mark VI is considered the best saxophone ever made. I can tell you right now that the consensus is right.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think it is as clear-cut as that. It is pretty hard to argue for instance that game designers in 2012 don't have a MUCH richer toolbox than the designers of 1975 did. We know a LOT more about what works, what doesn't work, why and how different game designs do certain things in more generally pleasing ways than others and work better or worse for specific types of game. We know a lot more about the range of possible RPG designs and where the limitations are in the whole genre. There's a LOT of 'tech' and industry knowledge that has evolved over 30+ years of people experimenting.

Nobody can ever say one game or one mechanic is objectively better or worse than another, but it is quite possible in this day and age to be far more thoughtful and systematic about your game designs. The 70's stuff was basically throwing things against a wall to see what stuck. The 80's saw people sorting out the basic concepts and learning to apply them. The 90's saw development of a lot of those concepts, and now we're sort of in a period of consolidation and refinement. Of course this is only a very loose outline. There's a lot of each process still going on and they can't really be segregated chronologically very well, but you get the idea.

I think the best take-home point here is that someone today designing 5e has a LOT more options and potentially a lot more insight into the why's and wherefore's of using those options than Gygax did in 1977 writing AD&D. While it is tempting to try to just reproduce Gygax's formula in a bit cleaned up form that's leaving a LOT of potential that he couldn't have even realized existed back then on the cutting room floor. If a new game is going to be meaningfully new and worthy of a place in the market and on people's shelves and tables then it really is going to be pretty hard to do that while saying "new is just a fad" and trying to ignore 30 years of RPG evolution. A successful 5e IMHO is going to have to take those 30 years into account and really should leverage all that 'tech'. How the game plays and feels is an aesthetic choice, but aesthetics isn't created or improved simply by ignoring possibilities that didn't exist in the past.

As for D&D having 'lost something'. Well, that's a hard thing to say. I run into people who seem to be getting out of 4e what I got out of OD&D back in the day. I'm not sure the divide is all that large. However WE have changed. I know from experience that I will never quite recapture the simple wonder of OD&D, even if I play that system now today. I can have fun with it, and now and then that magic is there, but it is also there just as much in my 4e games. OTOH I can get things out of either of those systems today that I couldn't even have imagined back in the old days. I've changed. We've all changed. Just making a system based closely on say OD&D isn't going to all of a sudden bring back the feel of being 12 and playing in a tent with a Coleman lantern in the middle of the woods.

OTOH I don't think it is incorrect to consider modern RPGs (at least some of them) possibly overthought. I think there's an art to artlessness and it would be well for game designers to learn to practice that. I am however not at all convinced that artlessness has to be mechanical. In fact I'd prefer it not to be. I think it is more something that has its real impact in terms of tone, style, background (settings and whatnot, lore, etc) than in mechanical subsystems. I do think there is a challenge here though, which is to carefully design your system in a way that makes it agile and avoids too many restrictions. 4e kind of DID get part of that right, but missed a bunch on other parts. IMHO a 5e follow-on of 4e could really hit a good spot there. I think people are overthinking their game criticism as much as anyone is overthinking the games themselves, both tend to happen nowadays.

I think if you really read and play the early games, there is a lot less throwing stuff at the aall to see what sticks than you might think (Gygax lays out some clear principles of design in the DMG and 2E also was quite aware of what it was doing---they knew thac0 was akward for exampke but opted for it to maintain backwards compatability and contained math---the idea of rolling a die and adding a number was not invented in 1999).

But even if everything you say is correct, despite all this knowledge the current designers are struggling to make an edition as popular as 1E was, and are having clear problems identifying what makes D&D, D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Now take it the next step. The evolution of techniques is often:

1. Learn new technique. Use it for the sake of the technique itself and/or over use it for things it isn't designed for.
2. Learn the proper balance of the technique in the whole. Integrate it into the craft.
3. Now, with the fully integrated new technique, see that something is still missing. Start looking for the next technique.

Repeat the cycle ad infinitium. Meanwhile, the art of the thing is using whatever techniques you have, best you can, and recognizing that somethings don't have a technique (either yet or ever--it really doesn't matter much which when you don't have it right now).

There was no humanly possible way, for example, that we would ever get thoughtful, balanced use of CGI special effects in film until a bunch of people had pushed the envelope so hard that CGI became "the thing" in their projects. It's theoretically possible to do it, but humans aren't wired that way. I'm sure the same principle applies in any field that is part art, part evolving techniques.

Yeah, you managed to say pretty much what I was trying to say, but in many fewer words, lol. The state of the art continues to evolve. While old movies may be really excellent their producers only had limited choices. We have more choices now. Does that automatically mean newer techniques = better movies? No. OTOH if you really understand the field you would have a bigger pallete to draw from when you go to make your movie. It is the same with RPGs today. You MIGHT choose to make a black and white film today, but only for a very specific effect. Likewise you might choose to make a B/X like retroclone with old-fashioned mechanics, but only for a very specific effect.

 

[The Shadow]

This is all well and good but once again those are subjective measures. You value something more streamlined and minimalist than ad&d tries to offer. For example you mention "unnecessary and fiddly" as bad elements of design. But this is just an aesthetic choice. There are valid reasons to have a more fiddly systen that doesn't strive to eliminate unnecessary mechanics. Every approach has down sides and upsides. Right now streamlined and minimalist is in, but that doesn't mean this will be the case in twenty years.

Wow. Condescending, much?

First off, I said nothing about 'minimalist'. 'Streamlined' you could have gotten from my post, I agree, but not that.

Second, you dismiss my point as being trendy. Excuse me, I started seeing problems with AD&D that I articulated in my previous post in the mid-80's. That is to say, over 25 years ago. So I hardly think I was being moved by current trends, given that I unfortunately don't have way-cool time-viewing powers.

No, I am not the slave of fashion. I actually am capable of independent thought. Imagine!

If you want minimalist and non fiddly, yes AD&D isn't your game. That doesn't mean it is objectively poorly designed.

When the game is constantly drawing attention to itself rather than the imagined events, that is by my lights objectively poor design. It's also why Champions doesn't work as well as M&M. M&M is a better tool for the job - having fun with superhero gaming.

'Streamlining' is good design in cars, and it's good design in games as well - it avoids turbulence that holds things back and saps energy from the system. That's not to say every design decision made in the name of 'streamlining' is a good one, of course - that's as may be. But as a design goal it has a lot going for it - the bad 'streamlining' decisions are the ones that cause problems elsewhere in the structure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Wow. Condescending, much?

I did not intend to come off as condescending. I am sorry if my post seemed that way.

First off, I said nothing about 'minimalist'. 'Streamlined' you could have gotten from my post, I agree, but not that.

This is a fair point. I may have read too much into your statement about removing unecessary elements.

Second, you dismiss my point as being trendy. Excuse me, I started seeing problems with AD&D that I articulated in my previous post in the mid-80's. That is to say, over 25 years ago. So I hardly think I was being moved by current trends, given that I unfortunately don't have way-cool time-viewing powers.

I am not accusing your point of view of being trendy, I am saying there is currently a trend in game design toward streamlined and unified. RIght now the preference you developed 25 years ago is experiencing a good deal of popularity and that is what I was talking about. My point is in five years we may all be talking about fiddly and non-unified systems again. Because these are aesthetic design trends.

No, I am not the slave of fashion. I actually am capable of independent thought. Imagine!

Again, not my intention to suggest this.

When the game is constantly drawing attention to itself rather than the imagined events, that is by my lights objectively poor design. It's also why Champions doesn't work as well as M&M. M&M is a better tool for the job - having fun with superhero gaming.

I agree that a system should meets its design goals. I think AD&D had very broad goals though. Your criticism of it appears to be the fiddly bits, which for some is going to be a distraction from the game, for others is going to enhance it.

'Streamlining' is good design in cars, and it's good design in games as well - it avoids turbulence that holds things back and saps energy from the system. That's not to say every design decision made in the name of 'streamlining' is a good one, of course - that's as may be. But as a design goal it has a lot going for it - the bad 'streamlining' decisions are the ones that cause problems elsewhere in the structure.

I just don't think this analogy holds. Mind you I like streamlined design and strive for it in most of my own games. But I also know it has shortcomings. Streamlining can be good, because it makes the game more intuitive and easy to understand. The downside is it is harder to rig the numbers in the system and harder to achieve granularity. I point to the intiiative system in 2E as an example. It isn't streamlined, but it arguably achieves its function better than moving initiative to the d20 mechanic. Not everyone will agree with that assesment. But streamlining isn't neccessarily better than a more "clunky" system. With clunky you tend to get a lot more texture. It all depends on what you want at the end of the day. Right now I think most people want streamlined. But there are times, when I am designing I wish I didn't have to worry about streamlining at all because it would give me a lot more freedom to design individual mechanics int he game exactly as I want them.

 

[innerdude]

You make a number of general points I largely agree with. I think you are overstating the likely naivete of the 3e designers.

I would say their effort here was quite successful in extending play into the higher levels, however they were under pressure to preserve the feel of these classic spells close to their the original text. To have even partially accomplished that feat was perhaps even evidence of the outright superiority of 3e to its predecessors.

In hindsight, I would vehemently argue that half those spells should have been rewritten completely from scratch, for the reasons you stated. But at the time, such a choice would have been rated a strike against, evidence 3e was "not really D&D".

IMHO the majority of the 3.0 design problems stem from adhering too closely to the original material. 3.5 put a band-aid on a number of them, but I think it is Arcana Unearthed that shows us the real potential of a 3e-style system. It was easier for Monte because there were no expectations other than fun.

Having now been exposed to Fantasy Craft, this is absolutely right. 3e is a fantastic core "engine," on which to build a highly "coherent" simulationist game that provides lots of "gamist" drift.

In hindsight, D&D 3e and 3.5e simply aren't super-fantastic implementations of that core. They're good, solid, functional implementations for the first 12 levels, but don't particularly play to OGL d20's real strengths (i.e., really focusing on making the simulationism and gamism as naturally congruent as possible). Because 3e was really beholden to 1e and 2e's history, some of the more "incoherent" stuff just got hand-waved in to the rules, because it had to be that way to maintain fan appeal.

 

[billd91]

When the game is constantly drawing attention to itself rather than the imagined events, that is by my lights objectively poor design. It's also why Champions doesn't work as well as M&M. M&M is a better tool for the job - having fun with superhero gaming.

I like M&M better than Champions, but is it really a better tool for the job? Champions has the ability to model some extremely subtle elements of super hero comic books. I don't think I've seen a better rendition of Cyclops and the way he operates like a solar battery than I've seen done with Champions. I don't think M&M would do it as well, in part, because it uses different mechanics.

If modeling subtle differences in powers is your bag, I don't think there's a better tool than Champions. If generating heroes quickly and playing with a lighter rules system is your thing, Villains and Vigilantes beats the hell out of either Mutants and Masterminds or Champions.

Again, better depends entirely upon criteria. How is it better? And the importance of any particular criteria is certainly going to be subjective.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Look, there's no escaping that a new car is better than an old car. It just is. In every single measurable way, a 2012 car is better than a car produced in 1965.

I disagree vehemently. I have both an 87 and a 2006 4wd pickup truck, same model. The 87 has more undercarriage clearance, it was one of the last models when they still made them out of metal. I've ran over trees in that thing. I've been in creek bottoms and across muddy fields. I've been in places where I both legally and sensibly should have never been. I've driven across roads covered in 3 inch thick sheets of ice. I've pulled diesel trucks up mountains in it. The 2006 model? It gets better gas mileage and has power windows. And gets stuck backing the boat in at the river. Sometimes, they really DON'T make 'em like they used to.