Legends and Lore 11/22/2011 - A Different Way to Slice the Pie

[M.L. Martin]

What's the prima facie rationale for saying 'yep, at epic or immortal level, the rules should be more complex'? I understand that the rules should be about something different than level 1 play, but why should they be more complex and detailled?

Prima facie rationale? Simple. Gamers who've reached higher levels have enough experience to have mastered the basic options and can thus include more extensive rules.

Contraindicating this is that groups may be experienced players starting new games at low levels, or new gamers who want to play in the deep end for a change, or experienced gamers who don't want that many complex rules (a large portion of the original BECMI market, apparently) or gamers who find a sweet spot of complexity and want to find a way to keep their campaigns going without either moving out of that sweet spot or stagnating.

Thus, I think the modular option that's been floated should be combined with ways to turn those options on and off at different points. Something like the following:

"The default game assumes Skill Powers will become available at 5th level, after players have a change to get used to the basic combat and powers rules and have a handle on what their skills can do normally. Groups with more experience can make them accessible from 1st level, while those who want to keep the rules stripped-down do not have to include them.
"Similarly, the Dominion rules typically come into play in early or mid-paragon tier. However, groups that don't wish to settle down can ignore them, while a group that wants to start out as rulers and nobles (in the tradition of the BIRTHRIGHT campaign setting) can make them available at 1st level."

The rules, of course, would have to be designed carefully to allow this sort of modularity.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I can understand exactly what you mean here - I enjoyed playing a 19th level Wizard but needed 11 different predetermined spell lists depending upon what would be expected on any particular day. The thing is how do you stop the expected accumulation of information and rules as your character achieves higher and higher level?

It's the difference between vertical and horizontal growth. With vertical growth, you get more power: you can swing a sword at level 1, and you can swing a sword BETTER at level 20. One magic missile at level 1, 5 magic missiles at level 20. Etc. With horizontal growth, you get different powers: swing a sword, use Tide of Iron, gain a feat. Or learn magic missile, fireball, lightning bolt, and read magic.

Growth in both ways to some small degree is probably desirable. But horizontal growth increases complexity by its very nature, while vertical growth can more easily preserve simplicity.

We already have a game system where we can determine how much vertical growth we want: the DM sets the XP, so the DM sets the pace at how fast your attack bonus increases. What we want, I think, is a system where we can determine how much horizontal growth we want.

Oddly, my spitball idea of a system wherein all of your class abilities are treasure, not automatic class abilities, makes a lot of sense for that. Admittedly, it's a bit of an extreme edge, but if a wizard isn't automatically going to learn fireball, and a fighter isn't automatically going to learn Come and Get It, but they must discover these elements through play, the DM can control the level of horizontal growth within the constraints that the group's happy with.

Of course, it's more than just growth. A lot of groups are going to want to define their games as complex from the outset: tracking arrows, rations, encumbrance, hexes, etc. at especially low levels is really important to some groups. It's even one of the rewards of high level: you get to ignore complexity! High level becomes simpler in some styles!

The upthrust of this is just that tying complexity to level isn't entirely smart. Groups need to determine their own complexity style (some people love minis combat! Others think it is too much effort for too little reward!), and not have the game tell them what complexity they "should" be having at any point.