New Legends & Lore: Player vs. Character

[Ariosto]

I remember the impression RuneQuest made on me as the first really systematic RPG I had seen, and then Champions with its points and 'builds'. The latter brought to the fore the kind of game-economy issues that figure prominently in WotC's versions of D&D.

When you've got such a prominent game within the game going on, its due is a bit more than the exemplary/advisory material in the early, wargames-campaign-inspired RPG rules sets. There's a trade-off of role-playing-centric stuff for more strictly defined abstractions.

My regular gaming group prefers to have situational considerations trump strict adherence to going by the book. The idea is that RPG rules are just first-approximation models rather than the whole story.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There was errata in wargames since the earliest (the first board wargame Tactics became Tactics II), in board games when reprinted (many reprints include errata sheets, as I noticed recently in a Zombies box game I have), and even the first printings of (O)D&D included a way to send snail mail in for clarification with a SASE, although it was discouraged, because even Gary knew that the tabletop gaming hobbyist was used to getting rules that were clear or would be cleared up by the designers/authors. It was the opposite of unthinkable and, in fact, quite common.

War and board games are a different animal. The competetive nature of such games makes official rules clarifications more important.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Please reference what you consider to be a "complete overhaul of how things work". The errata for the PHB in 4e, forex, typically only changes a handful of specific skills and has done very little beyond changing some of the base DC's that would affect play beyond that.

I guess stealth and skill challenges don't count.

 

[Hussar]

Again, EW, what complete overhaul are you talking about? The basic mechanics for a skill challenge are unchanged - score X successes before Y failures. The only changes that have been made in errata are the DC's for a given level and the fact that failures are now fixed at 3.

That's what you consider to be a "complete overhaul" of how things work? When the framework is exactly the same, but the details are changed?

What's with the hyperbole?

 

[Hussar]

War and board games are a different animal. The competetive nature of such games makes official rules clarifications more important.

Ignoring for the moment organized play, why would you say this? Just because the game is cooperative, it no longer needs rules clarifications? Really?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have no problem with errata for major mistakes or things that are completely broken. But even in the 3E days the errata releases were usually annoying more than anything else. Not a fan of releasing a stream of eratta to address minor balance issues, loopholes, etc. I like being able to reference the book without consulting a separate document to see if the thing I am referencing was altered.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ignoring for the moment organized play, why would you say this? Just because the game is cooperative, it no longer needs rules clarifications? Really?

If you start with straightforward simple rules few clarifications are needed. Endless balance tweaks are the height of pointlessness because no set of rules can balance your game for you.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think we've entered an area where personal preference matters a great deal and there isn't any single best approach. Some people like rules light, some like rules heavy. Some like easy and simple character creations, others deep character creation. If all games were designed one way, our hobby would be pretty boring.

 

[Ariosto]

As a rule of thumb, I would lean toward making the ratio of dice rolls to real decision points lower rather than higher. How much do gamers really enjoy being spectators while a game system plays itself?


TOWARD A COMPROMISE?

Here's a way to make character skill ratings useful while leaving ample scope for player skill.

First, a skill roll can offer a "second chance" or "last moment save" when players have not taken adequate precautions. Did they not look for a trap? Did they make a too-hasty assumption about the status of a government official? A lucky skill check might mitigate the error. The odds are still better with skillful play on the players' part, but character "stats" are a back-up resource.

Second, skill checks can reveal sooner clues that would otherwise require more investigation to find. Players still have to look in the right places, and it's still up to them to put the clues together and solve the problem, but they can get a head start.

 

[Ariosto]

REALLY PUZZLING

Traps basically fall into two classes.

Some are simply hazards one either notices in time or not. The typical dungeon inconvenience triggered by a pressure plate or tripwire might be revealed either by something like a "spot traps" roll or by taking appropriate precautions. It can probably be avoided or set off safely in several ways. A "disarm traps" roll is called for only in case of an operation requiring finely honed dexterity or expert knowledge.

The other class is essentially a puzzle. Adventure fiction is full of "death traps" that are Rube Goldberg devices giving the victims time to figure out a solution and escape inexorably approaching doom. The challenge for the players in that case ought to be just the same mental one that's posed to the fictional heroes. Reducing it to a matter of dice rolls rob it of the essence that makes it fun -- at least for some of us game players.

Puzzles that depend on player knowledge a character should not have -- modern chemistry or cultural references in a medieval fantasy, for instance -- raise another issue. How seriously do you take your milieu? If verisimilitude is a priority, then some things that were fairly common in early dungeons are probably a poor fit.

Conversely, presenting puns in actual Elvish or Tsolyani is probably an excessive expectation of players knowing things their characters do know.