Legends & Lore 3/12

[Riastlin]

I would be hesitant in the least to say that the kinect is less complex than the standard controller. There are far more possible inputs with the kinect than with the controller (even if there are not many, if any, games out that actually take advantage of this). Pretty much everything your body does is mapped by the system and translated to your avatar (unlike the Wii -- not sure about PS Move). If for example, you spread your legs when you jump, your avatar will also spread its legs. What kinect is though, is far more intuitive despite its greater number of options. Want to jump? Then jump rather than hit A. Want to throw an uppercut? Then throw an uppercut rather than hitting X + Y while pulling the left trigger, etc.

If D&D could achieve this mix of complexity and intuitiveness, I think it would make for a huge success. Different options are great in my opinion, but taking 5 minutes to figure out exactly what just happened when the die roll said 12 is not. I personally love being able to make a character that doesn't feel exactly like every other member of its class but you'll always need some sort of degree of options or depth in order to do that. I'm not sure exactly how to make one fighter feel different than another without providing options.

I agree that the biggest problem with 4e is the fiddly bits but I'm also not certain how to distinguish one build from another without some degree of fiddlyness. After all, the different conditions (dazed, stun, weakened, slowed, etc.) are a big part of what makes different powers feel different. If there were no fiddly bits, then its just a question of damage, which doesn't really make for a choice imho. I mean sure, you could choose to deal less damage, but how many players really would if there wasn't some other trade off involved? I love the fact that I've played in three different games with bards now, and each bard felt truly different from the others. Back in the day though, the only real question for fighters (frex) was sword and board or two hander? Oh I suppose you could choose axe or hammer instead of sword, but it still didn't really feel any different.

Of course, I also think that they should continue to provide simpler choices as well for those who prefer that style. Perhaps that's the way to make them feel different. As it stands though, one sentinel is likely to feel the same as the next. It doesn't make it a bad class, it just makes it a class short on options. Sure, p. 42 can be used to cover things not in the rules -- and it should -- but I think the game kind of fails (imho) if players are forced to think outside the box, and to act based on p. 42, in order to make their character feel different.

 

[P1NBACK]

I'm not sure exactly how to make one fighter feel different than another without providing options.

In play, through roleplaying, adventure, and interaction - not at character creation, or level-ups.

 

[Riastlin]

In play, through roleplaying, adventure, and interaction - not at character creation, or level-ups.

Well, based on my experience, that will give you different characters but not different fighters. Sure, you might play the smarmy aristocrat one game, then the dumb but strong mule the next, then the flamboyant swashbuckler, etc. but it will still come down to "You swing your weapon and deal X damage." If all you care about is character, then you really don't need any rules at all. Of course, publishing a system with no rules isn't likely to be particularly succesful -- especially when it comes to profits.

Obviously I realize that every group is different. Different groups might even have different house rules, etc. But in the two campaigns that I currently run (one at 11th level the other at 7th) which cover 16 levels of play between them, I don't think I've had a "p. 42" issue come up yet (i.e. a situation where a PC tried to do something not specifically covered by the rules). Yet, both campaigns feel very different even with a sizable overlap in character classes. They aren't doing this through roleplay either as by and large, my players are not heavy roleplayers (in fact, some of them will even shut down during roleplay scenes).

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against roleplaying. In fact, I wish my players did it more. But there are a sizable number of roleplayers out there who don't engage in heavy roleplay and I also tend to doubt that new players to the genre will start out as heavy roleplayers either. My wife for instance, is starting to get a little roleplay-curious. She's not ready to actually try it yet, though she's started down the path. That being said, if she sat down at a table and every started in on heavy roleplay, she'd be running for the door. For people like her, having those different options spelled out for you, with different effects for different powers etc., would be a huge boon for her and make it much more likely that she'd be able to play the character she really wants to play.

 

[TerraDave]

...

In other words 1e -> 2e -> 3e -> 3.5e -> 4e is the main direction taken by TSR/WotC in which the game has generally grown more complex with a pruning back and reformulation now and then to make greater options etc more manageable but generally at least reaching a plateau of complexity with late 2e and arguably somewhat increasing after that. The audience for this game is obviously the people whom that was satisfactory to. That doesn't mean complexity always grows or that it is somehow a desirable end in and of itself.

The part I put in bold is a good summary.

Mearls has a picture of PO:C&T, a book a I know too well. It introduced, for example, attacks of opertunity. And it was complicated! 3E (and through 3E 4E) drew on it, but each iteration was, thank the gods, a simplification.

Since the very begining, RPGs have been made more complicated through the addition of various systems and subsystems, often featuring various tables, and roles, and rules, and corner cases, and unintended consequences. There has been a lot of this over the years.

Each edition of D&D has generally taken up some of this and refined it, while rejecting much of the rest. Each edition has also through some new complexity into the mix.

The thing is that complexity is easy. Trying to achieve the same thing, ie the same choices, same play, same simulation, etc, with simpler, more elegant rules, is hard. The goal of the D&D (or any game) designer is to give players and DMs the right number and mix of options, choices, interactions, and outcomes, with the right feel and style, as simply as possible.

 

[Dire Bare]

Mearls calls us all geniuses and then asks us how complex we like things.

I'm getting the impression that Mearls has a bias. Mearls likes complexity. Mearls likes options. Mearls would love to give everyone 20 options of things to do on their turn.

Disagree. I didn't pull from the article that Mearls likes complexity at all, it was simply a discussion of an inescapable fact . . . as D&D has evolved over the years, it has become more complex. There may be groups of gamers out there who buck that trend in their home games, and there may be other RPGs out there that buck the trend also . . . but Mearls is talking about D&D and D&D only. He's not equating increased complexity to a universal trend (although that could be argued) and his reference to the XBOX controller is an analogy, not a proof. 'Sides, I wouldn't call the Wii remote simpler, just different. And Kinect vs standard controller is an apples to pears comparison.

I did get that Mearls feels that this increased complexity has both pros and cons, and that he is both opening a discussion as well as trying to get a feel for how the fans view the complexity vs. simplicity balance in D&D.

EDIT: Oh, and no, neither Mearls nor WotC is doing any real marketing research with this article. The claim that this is poor marketing disguised as a column is just silly. Like all of his L&L columns, it's an exploration of one aspect of D&D's development from Mearls POV and an opener for discussion. WotC does real marketing research all the time, and they're quite good at it.

 

[kaomera]

I don't think you should get hung up on the video game thing--I really believe it was used as an example of a trend from complexity to simplicity because of its familiarity to gamers, not to make any comparisons between RPGs and computer games whatsoever.

That's my point, though - it's a simplistic, throwaway example. More specifically it's a simplistic, throwaway example that Mr. Mearls should have known people where going to get hung up on. (And it was used as an example of the trend from simplicity to complexity, not the other way around.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Have to massively disagree with you on this.

The Wii/Move/Kinect era was a way to engage non-videogamers and get them playing games. But if you look at those games for the most part they have little if any depth. Neither are they designed for persistent play. Instead they are throwaway games you'll play once or twice at a party until the novelty wears off.

There's two things at work here.

The first is the assumption that "these games have no depth." Which is bizarre to me on the face of it. Halo doesn't have any more "depth" than the Kinect Dance Party. All the wang jokes in Killzone or Duke Nukem Forever don't make it deeper than Kirby's Epic Yarn.

There's certainly a divide between casual and "hardcore" games, and casual games are more likely to make use of wacky add-ons early as a way to test the adoption of a new wacky add-on, but that doesn't speak to anything inherent in the interface. Dead Space is pretty hardcore, but I've heard nothing but praises for it's iPad flavor, touchscreen and all.

The next thing is that "depth" is somehow desirable. Which I can understand if you're hardcore about it -- as I'm sure almost everyone here is. But a casual experience that delivers on its humble promises well is worth its weight in gold. It's a different experience, but that doesn't make it inherently inferior.

And I do not think a game about pretending to be magical gumdrop elves benefits from taking itself very seriously as a generator of depth. Especially since aspects of D&D like -- length of time to play a campaign, cost and upfront reading, detailed minis combats rules -- all serve as barriers to entry for anyone who doesn't have the free time of a teenager to invest in it any more.

The rest of the stuff I basically agree with.

 

[Incenjucar]

I believe you may be confusing story depth and rules depth.

An example of a deep game would be Poke`mon. Not because of the story, but because of the complexity of interactions of the rules of the game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

An example of a deep game would be Poke`mon. Not because of the story, but because of the complexity of interactions of the rules of the game.

Depth = complexity?

In that case, saying a complex game is deep is a tautology.

Complicated thing is complicated. Simple thing is simple.

Since my point was that complexity doesn't necessarily increase as a thing develops, I guess by "massively disagree", UK meant "totally agree, but re-phrased."

 

[Incenjucar]

Complexity and depth are not the same.

2E had a lot of complexity that added no depth to the game. Depth is achieved by interaction of the rules, not individual rules that require thirty steps to use.