Power Creep

I was reading about the level cap increasing from 60 to 70 in an online game, with many new possibilities/abilities. "How do people keep track of so many abilities at such high levels?" I thought. Then I realized yet another reason why I prefer simple games: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Another version, about Japanese gardening, is "Your garden is not complete until there is nothing else that you can remove."

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Games are sets of artificial (separated from the real world) constraints, even games as "loosey-goosey" in rules as RPGs. Players agree to use and abide by these constraints. The best players are usually those who cope best with those constraints.

"Power Creep virtually always leads to a Broken Base, with the most ‘conservative’ players stating that the new unbalanced content is an insult to the original game (which might be true or not, depending on the case)." --TV Tropes

Good play comes not from having lots of things you can do, many of them really “OP” (overpowered), but from making good use of what you've got. Another case of creativity benefitting from constraints.

Power creep is a common online (video) game problem that we can see in tabletop RPGs. The cause isn't online play, it's the frequent changes and additions to rules and to "content". New "stuff" is more attractive when it's better than the old stuff (duh!), so that's what the makers produce, and over time the entire game sees an increase in power, in what the players can do. (See “The Dilemma of the Simple RPG.”) This must be matched by an increase in the power of the opposition (more dangerous monsters) or the game becomes too easy. Some games handle the escalation better than others, but if the game was well-designed to begin with, power creep is likely to hurt the design.

Make no mistake, I like blowing things up with tac nukes - well, fireballs anyway - and megawatt lasers (lightning bolts). But when you get up into Timestops and other Immense Godlike Powers, I think the GAME suffers in favor of the POWER TRIP. And at the same time it becomes less skillful, less clever, and harder to GM.

I’ve often said, about 1e D&D, that the “sweet spot” for play was 3rd-9^th level. Early on players were too fragile (not a problem in recent editions), and later on the game couldn’t cope well with double-figure levels. It got to the point that (as in WW II armored battles) whoever fired first usually won, because the attack capabilities were so strong. This is especially obvious where surprise is involved. If a game then “power creeps” to where 9^th levels are as strong as 11^th used to be, the situation worsens.

Of course, many players and GMs don't care about skill or cleverness, they care about other things (among them, power trips). What I’ve said is descriptive, not prescriptive. I don't care how you run or play your game (unless I'm involved!).

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If every other weapon in the game had it's current stats, but the longsword did d4 damage instead, so that it was obvious to everyone that the longsword was subpar, then it would not be power creep to change the d4 to a d8. Suppose the designer of the game made a statement, "We're sorry but the d4 on the longsword was a misprint. There was an error introduced in the printing process that changed the d8 we had intended to a d4. We apologize. As official errata, the longsword should use a d8." That would not be "power creep" because it did not unbalance a game by the introduction of new content.

There's a difference between typos and actual changes. Don't conflate the two.

If the longsword actually and intentionally had a d4 for damage, such that everyone would ignore it in favor of battleaxes and rapiers, then introducing a broadsword which was exactly like the longsword except it had d8 damage... I'm not sure what to make of that. It's hard to imagine a game which is poorly balanced to such a degree. Usually, there's some sort of trade off - there's some reason to use the weapon which is otherwise generally inferior.

I suppose you're suggesting that the game, itself, has an over-all balance of gameplay. And that obviously inferior elements don't factor into that balance at all, because each element is weighted by its representation, and elements which are never chosen would have zero weight (e.g. it doesn't matter how much damage a chakram does as long as nobody ever uses a chakram). I think we can agree that altering an unused element of the game wouldn't actually change how anything plays out at the table, and wouldn't likely incite a negative reaction from anyone, in the manner typically associated with the concept of Power Creep.

My biggest issue with your definition is that it doesn't describe the term as it is commonly known and used. Magic: The Gathering is the biggest and most obvious case of Power Creep of all games that we're both familiar with. That the new balance of gameplay may be more interesting or more fun than the old balance of gameplay - that the cards, themselves, may be more balanced against each other than they used to be - does not change the fact that Raging Goblin is strictly better than Mons's Goblin Raiders. My old deck from twenty years ago can't hope to match up against any new deck from last year, even in a regular casual match around the lunch table, and if your definition doesn't cite the problem as Power Creep then there's something wrong with your definition.

 

[Aenghus]

The simplest sort of power creep is new stuff rendering old stuff potentially obsolete.

More complex power creep involves combining stuff for unexpected power.Some abilities combo to be more powerful than the sum of the parts. Sometimes there are otherwiise decent abilities that come with a terrible drawback that makes them all but unplayable. But a new feature that removes or mitigates the drawback suddenly can make the ability very playable. Spellcasters find this easier as many of them can change spell loadouts, and learn shiny new spells, whereas non-spellcasters tend be stuck with what they've got in most editions.

 

[Celebrim]

Hurloon minotaur saw plenty of use at my table, because they could protect me from benalish hero and couldn't be picked off by prodigal sorcerer. I could play my red deck against any of my friends, or anyone on the playground, and I wouldn't feel like my minotaurs were holding me back. To contrast, if I take that same red deck and pit it against any random deck of modern cards, I would fail miserably, due to Power Creep.

I don't know that a random deck of older cards would not also defeat your hurloon minotaur deck as well, simply on average quality. And certainly, any modern deck you come across would be constructed, just as older decks were and no one still in magic is playing the meta of those first few days or months after the game was introduced, when packs were hard to find and people were talking about how $20 for a black lotus was ridiculous. The first and only time I deployed Hurloon Minotaurs on purpose, was when I had but two starter decks of Revised era cards. "Power Creep" in those terms, is best defined as me simply buying more cards since, even at the time I could have replaced what I had with things that were strictly or practically better since as a point of fact, the uncommon and rare creatures of the time (much less those of some distant future) were also better than those early common cards. The truth is your hurloon minotaur decks, with your benalish heros and prodigal sorcerers would have lost in a hurry to an real deck back then as well, and the limited meta you observed on the playground and the childish strategies employed there doesn't change that.

I am the only one that has actually quoted a textbook definition of Power Creep.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't know that a random deck of older cards would not also defeat your hurloon minotaur deck as well, simply on average quality. And certainly, any modern deck you come across would be constructed, just as older decks were and no one still in magic is playing the meta of those first few days or months after the game was introduced, when packs were hard to find and people were talking about how $20 for a black lotus was ridiculous.

Nobody cares about pointless meta. The theoretical metagame is not the actual game itself. The actual game that was actually played was the one based around cards that real people actually owned, and that game included hurloon minotaurs. That is the previous state of cards, to which the current state of cards are actually compared, and from which Power Creep can easily be observed.

I am the only one that has actually quoted a textbook definition of Power Creep.

TV Tropes is the recognized source around these parts, as has been established many times throughout this thread, and it disagrees with you.

 

[Celebrim]

TV Tropes is the recognized source around these parts, as has been established many times throughout this thread, and it disagrees with you.

We've already established that that is not true, and it's there for anyone to see. Moreover, as I pointed out then, you cannot even accept or affirm the import very words you quoted in your defense without conceding to me the point. Power creep would be printing a better lightning bolt, or a better ancestral recall, or a better black vice, or a better dark ritual, or (as they eventually did) a better 'Serra Angel'. It would not be printing a better Hurloon Minotaur, since they'd already printed that in the first printing.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

We've already established that that is not true, and it's there for anyone to see. Moreover, as I pointed out then, you cannot even accept or affirm the import very words you quoted in your defense without conceding to me the point.

I have no idea what you're saying here. TV Tropes agrees with me, and not you. People look to TV Tropes as the reference point on such matters.

Power creep would be printing a better lightning bolt, or a better ancestral recall, or a better black vice, or a better dark ritual, or (as they eventually did) a better 'Serra Angel'. It would not be printing a better Hurloon Minotaur, since they'd already printed that in the first printing.

Sedge Troll and Granite Gargoyle are not strictly better than Hurloon Minotaur. First of all, they have lower base toughness, which makes them inferior in at least some situations. More importantly, neither of those are common, which makes those cards entirely a non-factor at most tables; a good reason to include Hurloon Minotaur in a deck instead of Granite Gargoyle is that you don't own Granite Gargoyle.

To contrast, Brazen Wolves and Kenra Scrapper and Kragma Butcher are all strictly better than Hurloon Minotaur. They all have the same attack and toughness and mana cost and rarity, except those three have extra abilities that let them hit twice as hard under common circumstances. I'm sure there are better examples somewhere.

 

[Jhaelen]

The discussion has moved on quite a bit, but I still wanted to comment this:

D&D has always encouraged monsters to be of a predictable difficulty. The lower level of the dungeon either has more zombies, or it has ghasts, or it has hill giant zomies. It doesn't just have ordinary zombies scaled up to threaten you.

You're mostly right about the treatment of dungeons in D&D, but not regarding the treatment of wilderness areas. Wilderness encounters used a wide range of monster levels, although often encounters with very low level or very high level mosters were less likely.

And regarding the issue of 'scaling monsters': This is something that is a thing in D&D 3e (and thus in Pathfinder): Monsters were given hit dice ranges (often accompanied by an increase in size), could have class levels, and have templates applied to them. This allows you to e.g. create challenging goblins (or zombies) for every party level.
But it's definitely an outlier, 4e already moved away from this and I think 5e also doesn't have this.

 

[Imaculata]

We've already established that that is not true, and it's there for anyone to see. Moreover, as I pointed out then, you cannot even accept or affirm the import very words you quoted in your defense without conceding to me the point. Power creep would be printing a better lightning bolt, or a better ancestral recall, or a better black vice, or a better dark ritual, or (as they eventually did) a better 'Serra Angel'. It would not be printing a better Hurloon Minotaur, since they'd already printed that in the first printing.

Celebrim is right. Power creep only occurs if the older game element was actually viable and in use before the introduction of the element that is now objectively better, thus invalidating the older content. There has to be something to invalidate... the older content has to be viable first.

 

[Celebrim]

The discussion has moved on quite a bit, but I still wanted to comment this: You're mostly right about the treatment of dungeons in D&D, but not regarding the treatment of wilderness areas. Wilderness encounters used a wide range of monster levels, although often encounters with very low level or very high level mosters were less likely.

The wide range of monster levels common in encounters or wilderness maps or on random encounter tables for outdoor areas is just more evidence that D&D didn't really see itself as having 'zones' in the sense World of Warcraft has them.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

And regarding the issue of 'scaling monsters': This is something that is a thing in D&D 3e (and thus in Pathfinder): Monsters were given hit dice ranges (often accompanied by an increase in size), could have class levels, and have templates applied to them. This allows you to e.g. create challenging goblins (or zombies) for every party level.
But it's definitely an outlier, 4e already moved away from this and I think 5e also doesn't have this.

4E had a lot of scaling of monsters by a different means. There were a number of monsters that scaled up by getting new monsters within a given type. So there were "Paragon Tier" orc foes who were scaled up. They weren't "orcs" anymore, though, they would be "orc champions" or whatever. It wasn't done in a consistent fashion, though, so some monster types had no scaling at all while others got it a lot.

5E has very little of this... it is something that having a robust set of templates would be very helpful for.