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Power Creep
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7724899" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>'Power creep' - or 'power inflation' as I used to call it, apparently it didn't catch on - is common in some sorts of games as a design shortcut to cool, as the OP pointed out. It's also all but inevitable with certain sorts of designs, and here's another couple terms that haven't caught on...</p><p></p><p>Lots of RPGs, like D&D, are what I call 'list based.' What can your character do? Well, choose from the lists. Choose a race, choose a class, pick a weapon for the table (yeah, they're mostly pole-arms, don't worry about it), choose some spells to learn, a few to memorize, and one to cast. Each thing gets it's own write-up, often it's own rules. Want to do something you couldn't do before? Someone has to add it to the list, preferably the publisher, so it's "official." </p><p>Thing is, each time you add to those lists, you create unexpected synergies among their elements. Choose 1 from column A and 1 from column B is 9 choices when you have 3 in each column, a hundred if you have 10. Even if the design keeps each individual new item in line, those synergies can be game-breaking, once a killer combo crops up, it crowds out everything else. </p><p>Power creep.</p><p></p><p>The alternative to list-based designs is 'effects based,' design, where the character's ability is defined by a finite set of things that can be accomplished, not an open-ended list of ways to accomplish them. "Kill an enemy" is an effect, but there's near-infinite ways to do it - swords to lasers to telepathic embolisms to poison to voodoo dolls to dim mak. The effect-based system has one sub-system to accomplish the effect, so if you want to add axes and phasers to the above list, you don't add to the system, just use the existing sub-system. No power creep. </p><p>Not so many supplements to sell, either. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7724899, member: 996"] 'Power creep' - or 'power inflation' as I used to call it, apparently it didn't catch on - is common in some sorts of games as a design shortcut to cool, as the OP pointed out. It's also all but inevitable with certain sorts of designs, and here's another couple terms that haven't caught on... Lots of RPGs, like D&D, are what I call 'list based.' What can your character do? Well, choose from the lists. Choose a race, choose a class, pick a weapon for the table (yeah, they're mostly pole-arms, don't worry about it), choose some spells to learn, a few to memorize, and one to cast. Each thing gets it's own write-up, often it's own rules. Want to do something you couldn't do before? Someone has to add it to the list, preferably the publisher, so it's "official." Thing is, each time you add to those lists, you create unexpected synergies among their elements. Choose 1 from column A and 1 from column B is 9 choices when you have 3 in each column, a hundred if you have 10. Even if the design keeps each individual new item in line, those synergies can be game-breaking, once a killer combo crops up, it crowds out everything else. Power creep. The alternative to list-based designs is 'effects based,' design, where the character's ability is defined by a finite set of things that can be accomplished, not an open-ended list of ways to accomplish them. "Kill an enemy" is an effect, but there's near-infinite ways to do it - swords to lasers to telepathic embolisms to poison to voodoo dolls to dim mak. The effect-based system has one sub-system to accomplish the effect, so if you want to add axes and phasers to the above list, you don't add to the system, just use the existing sub-system. No power creep. Not so many supplements to sell, either. ;) [/QUOTE]
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