Legends & Lore 3/12

[Tony Vargas]

Disagree. I didn't pull from the article that Mearls likes complexity at all,

I have a vague sense that he has some sort of agenda, though. His baby, Essentials, accepts some additional systemic complexity in order to deliver 'simpler' choices (like the braindead fighter the last poll rejected), so he's maybe trying get some zietgiest going in support of it...?
Or, maybe he's just musing out loud. :shrug:

it was simply a discussion of an inescapable fact . . . as D&D has evolved over the years, it has become more complex.

Has it really, though?

Compare grappling in AD&D, 3.5, and 4e, for instance:

AD&D: You initiate a grapple. The grapple goes to segmented combat, so each round, you resolve 10 rounds of the grapple. No, I'm not kidding. You resolve the grapple using percentile dice, not d20 attack rolls. There's a chart in the DMG for it. The chart heavily weights strength, size, and being outnumbered, and barely weights level at all, so you can quite easilly be grappled, pinned, and slain by ogres or a small horde of orcs, if they'd only throw away their weapons and 'overbear' and 'grapple' you. No, I'm really not making this up. I may not be remembering it all exactly right, but it was that wierd and inconsistent.

3.5: You make a touch attack that provokes an AoO unless you have Improved Grab, followed by a strength check, then move into the targets space. From then on, you make various attack rolls to harm, pin, or otherwise deal with the enemy, while he makes contested checks to escape. These checks are modified by your relative sizes. A series of success on the attacker's part can render the grappled character helpless (pinned). There are special rules for attacking into the grapple or joining the grapple. A caster can make a concentration check to cast while grappling.

4e: You attack STR vs FORT. On a hit, the trarget is 'grabbed' and can't move from his square. He can escape using Athletics vs FORT or Accrobatics vs REF. He also escapes if one of you is forced away from the other.

 

[Odhanan]

Also of interest to this discussion:

The magical number seven.

 

[pemerton]

So a more streamlined 4e would be pretty great in my eyes. Essentials isn't quite enough.

The idea that Essentials is not a complex game I find too ludicrous for words.

When I started playing RPGs I first had black box Traveller and then had red box Moldvay D&D. I couldn't make head or tail of Traveller until after I'd played D&D. But with Moldvay Basic - a complete game in 64 pages - I was up and playing in no time. That's a great example of a pretty simple game.

Essentials, on the other hand, is 3 to 5 books (at least a players' book plus GM's book or RC plus MV), each of over 300 pages. (Maybe the GM's book is a bit shorter - I don't have it ready-to-hand.) That's something like 1000 pages all up. That's a very complicated game.

Now in my view it does offer more depth than Moldvay Basic. But I'm not sure it offer 16 times as much depth. Unless you're someone to whom complexity has an intrinsic appeal - and this is true of me and my gaming group - I'm not sure 4e, Essentials or otherwise, is the game for you!

I am not at all convinced that RPGs inevitably evolve to be more complex either. There are plenty of examples of newer and more simple RPGs replacing more complex ones. There are examples of games which started out monstrously complex (Rollmaster anyone).

As a Rolemaster partisan, I have to step in and say that its reputation for complexity is somewhat exaggerated. Played without the supplements, it has more complex character build than 3E - but less complicated than 3E + supplements, I would guess - and action resolution of comparable complexity to mid-to-high level 3E.

But your broader point still stands. For an example of a rather simple yet elegant modern game, I would suggest Robin Laws' HeroQuest second edition.

Of course, one feature of HeroQuest is that it doesn't have the tactical aspect that 3E OR 4E D&D has. My feeling is that it's hard to introduce tactical play while keeping complexity out.

If you're playing a roleplaying game, you generally only need methods for resolution and the combinations and interesting situations are infinite based on your imagination.

<snip>

Do we need a list of 100 L337 powerz for each level for each class? Does that make the game more interesting/less boring? Hell no.

Well, I don't think we need them. On the other hand, WotC certainly wants us to buy them.

When I look at 4e, one thing that I see is a game a little like HeroQuest - players are expected to build PCs that will help construct and then engage the thematic content of the fiction - but that unlike HQ's freeform character creation, WotC has realised it can make money by selling those little thematic elements of a PC build one sourcebook at a time.

For paragon paths and epic destinies, I don't think this is a big problem. I'm not sure it's such a big problem for powers either. In all these cases, class plus build plus theme quickly narrow the range of options, and choosing can be fun.

But feats are (in my view) a bit of a disaster at the moment. If I was going to try and root out complexity while still leaving the basic architecture of the game intact, I'd start there.

 

[Ryujin]

I have a vague sense that he has some sort of agenda, though. His baby, Essentials, accepts some additional systemic complexity in order to deliver 'simpler' choices (like the braindead fighter the last poll rejected), so he's maybe trying get some zietgiest going in support of it...?
Or, maybe he's just musing out loud. :shrug:

Has it really, though?

Compare grappling in AD&D, 3.5, and 4e, for instance:

AD&D: You initiate a grapple. The grapple goes to segmented combat, so each round, you resolve 10 rounds of the grapple. No, I'm not kidding. You resolve the grapple using percentile dice, not d20 attack rolls. There's a chart in the DMG for it. The chart heavily weights strength, size, and being outnumbered, and barely weights level at all, so you can quite easilly be grappled, pinned, and slain by ogres or a small horde of orcs, if they'd only throw away their weapons and 'overbear' and 'grapple' you. No, I'm really not making this up. I may not be remembering it all exactly right, but it was that wierd and inconsistent.

3.5: You make a touch attack that provokes an AoO unless you have Improved Grab, followed by a strength check, then move into the targets space. From then on, you make various attack rolls to harm, pin, or otherwise deal with the enemy, while he makes contested checks to escape. These checks are modified by your relative sizes. A series of success on the attacker's part can render the grappled character helpless (pinned). There are special rules for attacking into the grapple or joining the grapple. A caster can make a concentration check to cast while grappling.

4e: You attack STR vs FORT. On a hit, the trarget is 'grabbed' and can't move from his square. He can escape using Athletics vs FORT or Accrobatics vs REF. He also escapes if one of you is forced away from the other.

As I recall with AD&D, there was a simple reason why a higher level character wasn't likely to fall prey to a bunch of lower level creatures; attacking an armed foe, with an unarmed attack, automatically provoked a weapon attack. If the weapon attack was successful, then the unarmed attack didn't happen. This was difinitely true for pummelling attacks and, IIRC, for all unarmed attacks.

If you wanted broken in AD&D then you would arm a high STR/DEX fighter with a couple of daggers or hand axes, then send him off in search of two-handed sword wielders to slice and dice. Weapon speeds meant that you would get something like two attacks before your opponent got a swing, one simultaneously, then one after. Of course no one bothered with weapon speeds back then though, right?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a Rolemaster partisan, I have to step in and say that its reputation for complexity is somewhat exaggerated. Played without the supplements, it has more complex character build than 3E - but less complicated than 3E + supplements, I would guess - and action resolution of comparable complexity to mid-to-high level 3E.

Yeah, I guess I left it unsaid that RM was a fairly early system, contemporary with 1e basically (even earlier if you count the various * Law 'add on' books, though they weren't quite a whole system). [/quote]

But your broader point still stands. For an example of a rather simple yet elegant modern game, I would suggest Robin Laws' HeroQuest second edition.[/quote]

Right, a much later system chronologically, but moving in the direction of greater
simplicity.

Of course, one feature of HeroQuest is that it doesn't have the tactical aspect that 3E OR 4E D&D has. My feeling is that it's hard to introduce tactical play while keeping complexity out.

Hmmm, interesting question. There do need to be some details represented, which does require rules. OTOH I don't think you need to get very complex to have a good tactical game. A system of the complexity of Basic D&D could be tactically rich. Older D&D (even 2e) really wasn't, but that was more due to poor choices of how the rules worked than anything else. Movement rates were too high compared to attack rates for instance, and none of the pre-3e rules systems actually explained how or even IF you could move once melee was engaged. The overwhelming effectiveness of spells didn't help either. Notice too that while 1e and 2e were vastly more complicated than Basic they added nothing to the game's tactical depth as they contained the same fundamental flaws in the combat system that existed is Basic/OD&D.

But feats are (in my view) a bit of a disaster at the moment. If I was going to try and root out complexity while still leaving the basic architecture of the game intact, I'd start there.

I have to agree on this. Feats are a royal mess. Beyond that they have large but rather obtuse impacts on the character's combat effectiveness. My players don't read about 4e, they know nothing about the various ways to stack things up using feats. They just pick feats as they go, taking whatever strikes their fancy at any given moment. They have many of the standard expertise etc bread-n-butter feats, but a lot of what they pick is really not the best choices and they don't usually build on what they have. It is just too hard to figure out or at least the better choices are lost in the noise. Honestly I think the number of feats in 4e is about 5x too large at this point.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.

I am not so on board.

I do dispute the conclusion that complexity is a tendency of a gaming community.

He compares the controller for the Atari 2600 to the controller for the Xbox 360, and makes the case that there is a "tendency toward complexity."

He neglects the system that won the most recent console wars (the Wii) and the newest control scheme that fascinates players (the Kinect) and the expanding market for touchscreen games and devices for gaming.

All these things have a feature in common: They are simpler.

Are they?

Now you have all the ways you can move and shake your hands as an option!

Isn't this the difference between complex and complicated? Having to keep in mind 12 different abstract buttons doing something is both complex and complicated.

Hand gesturing can be quite complex - but it's not necessarily complicated.

So a goal as a game designer would be - increase complexity, but avoid complicated.

Warhammer 4E is pretty complex, but they try to "hide" the complexity by using visual and physical aids.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again!

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.

Actually, yes they do have more depth because they offer a FAR greater degree of control. In fact they require you to have a much greater skillset.

Not to be confused with depth of storyline, I am specifically addressing the depth of control.

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.

I think you are kidding yourself.

Heres a video review of iphone Dead Space so we can see it in action...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAXOpAyPiX8]YouTube - Dead Space: iPhone/iPod Touch App Review![/ame]

Note #1. The left side of the screen acts like a thumbstick.
Note #2. The right side of the screen acts like another thumstick.
Note #3. Tapping the left side of the screen acts like a button.
Note #4. Tapping the right side of the screen acts like a button.
Note #5. Tapping the top left side of the screen acts like a button.
Note #6. Tapping the top right side of the screen acts like a button.
Note #7. Tilting the screen acts like a button.
etc.

I don't think I need to go on, you get the picture. This game has a large amount of controls that basically duplicate about 90% of what a joypad would do. The reason being because that amount of control is necessary in such a game.

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.

The problem is that without depth, you won't go back time and time again, because you'll have seen everything the game has to offer.

No one I know with a Wii/Move/Kinect is still playing "Dance Like a Buffoon #6" (or whatever) after 2-3 weeks, because the novelty quickly wears off.

Contrast that with games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft and you can invest months if not years of your life in that one game.

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.

You might be confusing depth of control with depth of storyline.

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.

If you read my original post in this thread, I outline that D&D, much like (hardcore) videogames, have a level of complexity that is off-putting to casual players. Thats why I was advocating the boardgame approach as a simple introduction to the game.

The rest of the stuff I basically agree with.

Hopefully this time you'll agree with everything.

 

[Keldryn]

The idea that Essentials is not a complex game I find too ludicrous for words.

I agree. It's still got way too many fiddly bits for those two players. And too many fiddly bits for my liking as well. I was hoping that Essentials would dump the "until the end of your/ally's/opponent's next turn" effects, but they're still there. And one of the big problems with those effects is that a leader's most effective use of his powers is to grant those bonuses to temporary hit points, attack rolls, damage, or defences to the party's strikers. And of course, the players who really don't want to have to deal with a different set of buffs each round are the ones playing the strikers, because they are simpler characters. The slayer is a simple class (by 4e standards), yet he's the one who is having to apply all of these modifiers each round, unless the more experienced players are willing to make less tactically sound decisions.

As ridiculous as it might sound at first, I actually find 3.x to be less complicated to deal with than 4e (including Essentials). Now, taken as a whole (even with just the core rules), 3.x is a more complicated game. However, players are much more able to choose the level of complexity that they want to deal with. My more casual players can be fighters and can select feats that simply give static bonuses that can be pre-calculated. They never have to worry about attempting to disarm, trip, grapple, or anything other than just hitting the bad guy with a sword unless they decide they want to try. The more experienced players can have fun with the character build mini-game if they so choose. Sure, you may run into theoretical problems with optimized vs non-optimized characters, but if the casual players are having fun and aren't complaining about it, then there isn't actually a problem.

When I look at 4e, one thing that I see is a game a little like HeroQuest - players are expected to build PCs that will help construct and then engage the thematic content of the fiction - but that unlike HQ's freeform character creation, WotC has realised it can make money by selling those little thematic elements of a PC build one sourcebook at a time.

For paragon paths and epic destinies, I don't think this is a big problem. I'm not sure it's such a big problem for powers either. In all these cases, class plus build plus theme quickly narrow the range of options, and choosing can be fun.

I don't really have a problem with the paradigm of AD&D (1e). If you want to create a skilled archer, you make a fighter, put a high score in Dexterity, and stay out of melee range. Take a longbow proficiency to reflect the fact that he has dedicated some time to learning that specific weapon. If you want your fighter to be really good with a sword, then don't spend weapon proficiencies on axes or bows. While it's nice to have some of a character's traits reflected mechanically, it isn't strictly necessary.

A set of "talent trees" for each class that focus on certain themes or techniques would be a nice way to allow for some player choice and mechanical customization without opening up a Pandora's Box of ever-expanding options. I much prefer a more limited set of very meaningful options over a wide array of less significant options. If you want your fighter to be a skilled archer, then take the Archer talent, rather than having to select an array of feats to accomplish the same thing: Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Point Blank Shot, etc. This could be applied to a core system as simple as B/X D&D and still give a good range of character options.

But feats are (in my view) a bit of a disaster at the moment. If I was going to try and root out complexity while still leaving the basic architecture of the game intact, I'd start there.

I agree. There are way too many (this applies to 3.x and 4e). There are also a lot of feats which are way too situational (if you are a ranger fighting with two weapons and you critically hit the target of your quarry...) that I can't imagine anybody taking. Even if those type of feats are retained, I would rather see all class-specific feats either in write-ups of their respective classes or in a sub-section for each class at the end of the Feats chapter. If I'm selecting a feat for my human fighter, then wading through all of the feats for elf wizards, half-elf clerics, and tiefling warlocks just make it more difficult to find what I'm looking for. It's also overwhelming for beginners.

 

[grapplethetroll]

Oops. Meant to comment on a post, not reply to the thread. Disregard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As ridiculous as it might sound at first, I actually find 3.x to be less complicated to deal with than 4e (including Essentials).

You're right, that does sound rediculous.

Now, taken as a whole (even with just the core rules), 3.x is a more complicated game. However, players are much more able to choose the level of complexity that they want to deal with. My more casual players can be fighters and can select feats that simply give static bonuses that can be pre-calculated.

Well, they'd probably be happier with a Barbarian. There were no small number of feats to sort through to find a couple of good ones that give static bonuses (and once you dug 'em up, they were kinda underwhelming). With a barbarian, your casual player has an easy personality to RP, gets to 'rage' and hit stuff hard, and can survive making a few mistakes (including completely wasting his feat choices), as long as he starts with a nice, high STR, and a nice big weapon, he'll be fine. With a Fighter, to just be 'viable' alongside the barbarians and casters and humungous monsters, you have to have a really good build, planned from 1-20, and you had to try to get the most out of every little combat option there was, or you're just a tin can for the monsters to kick around. It was a lot of fun to build/play a 3.5, fighter, actually, but it wasn't for the 'casual' set.

Similarly, the 4e fighter isn't really the ideal beginner character. Archer-Ranger is more straightforward to play, and other PCs can run a little interference for him. Every 4e class is easier to build & play than a 3.5 fighter or caster, though. And everyone of them is harder to build/play than a 3.5 barbarian. :shrug: