Mercurius
Legend
This is a spinoff from this mega-thread, inspired by a conversation between [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION], [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], and others.
It came to me while writing a response to innerdude and pemerton that there are different phases with regards to "rules mastery" and different games and editions have different learning curves. This gave me the idea to apply the old crafts guild model to systems mastery, with four relatively distinct phases:
Novice - This is the phase between first exposure to the game and basic proficiency. Rules are opaque.
Apprentice - Someone who has basic proficiency and is working towards deeper understanding.
Journeyman - Someone with a high degree of, or "true," proficiency in the game.
Master - Beyond just a high level of proficiency, the master phase implies the ability to really "fly with it" - to innovate, use the rules in creative ways, perhaps even ways not explicated in the rulebook. To the Master the rules are not just easy and relatively transparent, they are second-nature.
We could apply this basic structure to just about any activity. To some degree the dynamics are the same, but I would argue that different activities - and different editions of D&D - require different amounts of time within each phase, adjustable by natural aptitude and time dedication.
Now while an activity (including D&D) can be enjoyed within any phase, it doesn't really "fly" until you get to Journeyman - which means not only do you have the basic proficiency and orientation of the Apprentice, but you have a higher degree of proficiency that allows you to operate autonomously within the context of the activity.
To put this into a concrete example that we can all relate with, let's apply this to bicycle riding. The Novice phase is becoming acquainted with the bike itself - sitting on it and balancing, using training wheels to get a sense of what it feels like. When one is able to ride without training wheels, Apprentice phase begins. One might be wobbly and fall off, but basic proficiency has been attained. One becomes a journeyman when one feels quite proficient - can ride without falling off frequently, can start doing little tricks like riding with one or no hands, doing basic "wheelies," etc. Mastery is a high degree of proficiency in which the bicycle has become an extension of the rider's body.
With bicycle riding, the Novice phase is usually quite long, but once you become an Apprentice you move through it quite quickly and become a Journeyman, a stage in which most bicycle riders never leave.
Or we could look at musical instruments and how each require different amounts of time in different phases, even if the end result - Mastery - is similar. For instance, the Novice phase is longer with, say, a saxophone then it is with a hand drum, although Mastery of the hand drum is no "lesser" than that of saxophone.
Which brings me (back) to D&D. I think one of the biggest problems with 4E, in light of the above structure, is that while the Novice phase is similar to all forms of D&D - learning the d20 mechanic, the basics of play and how to navigate the character sheet - the Apprentice phase is quite long - it takes awhile to get to true proficiency. You either need a strong tactical mind and/or a lot of time - and it has to be frequent time. In the game I ran for a few years, we played either every two weeks or once a month, and sometimes missed sessions. For the first year or more each session felt like "two steps forward, one back" - or even three forward, two back. After three plus years, most of us had attained Journeyman status, but one player in particular was still struggling in the Apprentice phase (and the most proficient player, who was also quite choleric, would get exceedingly frustrated because the "Apprentice player" would stall up every combat, unsure what power to use no matter how I tried to encourage him to plan ahead).
Related but not synonymous with these phases is a scale which I will dub Rules Opacity-Transparency Spectrum (ROTS). By "opaque" I mean the rules are solid and impossible to ignore within the game experience. By "transparent" I mean just about invisible to the play experience, or so well known that they flow naturally and easily. They don't get in the way of immersion.
Due to the nature of 4E, in particular the reliance on the battlemat and the AEDU power structure, full transparency of the rules doesn't occur until Mastery has been achieved and for most, myself included, Mastery was never achieved - probably because we didn't play frequently enough.
This, to me, is the problem with 4E - and something they tried to address with Essentials, but went about it in the wrong way. The problem was not as much the ease or difficulty of entry point, that is the length of the Novice phase, but more two-fold:
1) The time it takes to move from basic to true proficiency, that is to move through the Apprentice phase
2) The requirement of full mastery to really get the game to fly
I found that prior editions of D&D didn't require full mastery to "fly." Even 3E, which required more master than 1E and 2E, really only required Journeyman status (although 3E had its own issues with systems mastery, which we're all aware of).
All of this, in my opinion, points to the importance of a two-tier (at least) bifurcation of "basic" and "advanced" games. A simple, core rule set that is complete in and of itself, and modular options that can bring greater complexity and detail for those that want it.
I would suggest that a simple game is not necessarily easier to "master" than a complex game. But the key difference is implied in the 2nd point above - the requirement of a game to achieve mastery to be fully transparent, to really fly. This is a problem that arises in all fields at high levels. There are jazz musicians, for instance, that have attained such a high degree of mastery and have little interest in bringing it "down to earth," so to speak. Steve Coleman comes to mind, or late John Coltrane. Compare that to, say, the best of James Brown - music that required a high degree of technical proficiency from the players, but that was accessible to all.
In my opinion the ideal is the two-tier basic core with advanced options - it really is the best of both worlds. I think Mearls & Company are in agreement with this, although whether they can pull it off remains to be seen.
It came to me while writing a response to innerdude and pemerton that there are different phases with regards to "rules mastery" and different games and editions have different learning curves. This gave me the idea to apply the old crafts guild model to systems mastery, with four relatively distinct phases:
Novice - This is the phase between first exposure to the game and basic proficiency. Rules are opaque.
Apprentice - Someone who has basic proficiency and is working towards deeper understanding.
Journeyman - Someone with a high degree of, or "true," proficiency in the game.
Master - Beyond just a high level of proficiency, the master phase implies the ability to really "fly with it" - to innovate, use the rules in creative ways, perhaps even ways not explicated in the rulebook. To the Master the rules are not just easy and relatively transparent, they are second-nature.
We could apply this basic structure to just about any activity. To some degree the dynamics are the same, but I would argue that different activities - and different editions of D&D - require different amounts of time within each phase, adjustable by natural aptitude and time dedication.
Now while an activity (including D&D) can be enjoyed within any phase, it doesn't really "fly" until you get to Journeyman - which means not only do you have the basic proficiency and orientation of the Apprentice, but you have a higher degree of proficiency that allows you to operate autonomously within the context of the activity.
To put this into a concrete example that we can all relate with, let's apply this to bicycle riding. The Novice phase is becoming acquainted with the bike itself - sitting on it and balancing, using training wheels to get a sense of what it feels like. When one is able to ride without training wheels, Apprentice phase begins. One might be wobbly and fall off, but basic proficiency has been attained. One becomes a journeyman when one feels quite proficient - can ride without falling off frequently, can start doing little tricks like riding with one or no hands, doing basic "wheelies," etc. Mastery is a high degree of proficiency in which the bicycle has become an extension of the rider's body.
With bicycle riding, the Novice phase is usually quite long, but once you become an Apprentice you move through it quite quickly and become a Journeyman, a stage in which most bicycle riders never leave.
Or we could look at musical instruments and how each require different amounts of time in different phases, even if the end result - Mastery - is similar. For instance, the Novice phase is longer with, say, a saxophone then it is with a hand drum, although Mastery of the hand drum is no "lesser" than that of saxophone.
Which brings me (back) to D&D. I think one of the biggest problems with 4E, in light of the above structure, is that while the Novice phase is similar to all forms of D&D - learning the d20 mechanic, the basics of play and how to navigate the character sheet - the Apprentice phase is quite long - it takes awhile to get to true proficiency. You either need a strong tactical mind and/or a lot of time - and it has to be frequent time. In the game I ran for a few years, we played either every two weeks or once a month, and sometimes missed sessions. For the first year or more each session felt like "two steps forward, one back" - or even three forward, two back. After three plus years, most of us had attained Journeyman status, but one player in particular was still struggling in the Apprentice phase (and the most proficient player, who was also quite choleric, would get exceedingly frustrated because the "Apprentice player" would stall up every combat, unsure what power to use no matter how I tried to encourage him to plan ahead).
Related but not synonymous with these phases is a scale which I will dub Rules Opacity-Transparency Spectrum (ROTS). By "opaque" I mean the rules are solid and impossible to ignore within the game experience. By "transparent" I mean just about invisible to the play experience, or so well known that they flow naturally and easily. They don't get in the way of immersion.
Due to the nature of 4E, in particular the reliance on the battlemat and the AEDU power structure, full transparency of the rules doesn't occur until Mastery has been achieved and for most, myself included, Mastery was never achieved - probably because we didn't play frequently enough.
This, to me, is the problem with 4E - and something they tried to address with Essentials, but went about it in the wrong way. The problem was not as much the ease or difficulty of entry point, that is the length of the Novice phase, but more two-fold:
1) The time it takes to move from basic to true proficiency, that is to move through the Apprentice phase
2) The requirement of full mastery to really get the game to fly
I found that prior editions of D&D didn't require full mastery to "fly." Even 3E, which required more master than 1E and 2E, really only required Journeyman status (although 3E had its own issues with systems mastery, which we're all aware of).
All of this, in my opinion, points to the importance of a two-tier (at least) bifurcation of "basic" and "advanced" games. A simple, core rule set that is complete in and of itself, and modular options that can bring greater complexity and detail for those that want it.
I would suggest that a simple game is not necessarily easier to "master" than a complex game. But the key difference is implied in the 2nd point above - the requirement of a game to achieve mastery to be fully transparent, to really fly. This is a problem that arises in all fields at high levels. There are jazz musicians, for instance, that have attained such a high degree of mastery and have little interest in bringing it "down to earth," so to speak. Steve Coleman comes to mind, or late John Coltrane. Compare that to, say, the best of James Brown - music that required a high degree of technical proficiency from the players, but that was accessible to all.
In my opinion the ideal is the two-tier basic core with advanced options - it really is the best of both worlds. I think Mearls & Company are in agreement with this, although whether they can pull it off remains to be seen.