Reinventing the Wheel

[Thomas Shey]

What year did you start? Do you think being exclusively d20 that long is a common experience?

Its an interesting question; none of the long-time players I know have spent most of their time in the D20 sphere, but I know of long time people who have.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I feel like it is pretty common for folks to come up with solutions to known problem in TTRPGs that have already been not just thought of but implemented, sometimes for years or decades. it seems more common in the years following a spike in D&D's popularity in particular, and these days the very online nature of D&D fans and "influencers" makes this reinventing of the wheel all the more visible.

Why do you think this happens? Why do people end up solving already solved problem in TTRPGs so much, as opposed to seeking out existing solutions? Is it simply the DIY nature of TTRPGs, or is there something more driving it? Is it happening more today, or is it more visible?

What do you think?

People don't always agree on known problems, and even when they do, they often don't agree about why it's a problem.

Some house rules are very common and well known (and often become "official" rules in later editions). But most are obscure and hard to find, even with the internet and on-line searching. It really can be quicker and easier to "reinvent the wheel" than to spend the time and effort required to track down where someone has done it before.

Rules from other systems require adaptation. House rules from the same system also generally require adaption. House rules I use in MY games are going to be custom fitted to my games - and this means any found rules will be modified, more often than not. This shifts the balance toward it being more efficient to invent rather than to search for rule fixes.

I do search for what others have done before, as part of my process for creating a problem-fixing new rule, but I've found those search results to be generally unsatisfactory. Useful ideas are out there, but ideas that can be used with little modification are rare, and solutions that can be dropped in unchanged are extremely rare.

I'd love to see easy-to-search collections of other people's house rules, even if I find, say, 100 house rules for initiative and then go on to create a 101st. I understand that the enworld forums here once had a forum for house rules, but it got shut down

 

[Aldarc]

What year did you start? Do you think being exclusively d20 that long is a common experience?

I started playing tabletop RPGs in high school in the USA when 3e D&D released in 2000. I mostly stayed in the d20 OGL (and GSL) sphere my first 10+ years because that's either what my friends were playing or what I mostly saw in local book or game stores: 3e/3.5 D&D, d20 Modern/Future/Urban Arcana, Star Wars (Saga), Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, Blue Rose and True20, 4e D&D, and PF1.

I only started getting into non-d20 games shortly before or around the release of 5e D&D: i.e., Dragon Age RPG, Numenera, and Fate. I moved to Europe in 2015, and I have been here ever since. Most of my American friends who I gamed with prior to this point have basically only played D&D/Pathfinder, and those who still play TTRPGs really only seem to play D&D 5e.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I remember reading a comment from someone who was working at WotC when they first released the OGL. To paraphrase, they thought the OGL would create an environment where thousands of developers built upon each on others' contributions. Instead, the OGL created an environment where developers in silos built upon material found in primary sources and ignored other developers' innovations. The WotC staffer was surprised by this development.

I was not surprised at all. If I want to contribute to an open software project, I can view the end result of all the work other developers have contributed to that open software for free. If I want to design OGL content, I have no idea what exists, because there's no free, central repository of all OGL content. Sure, the OGL allows people to use open content, but nothing in the license encourages anyone to create a central library of open content.

So one reason for reinventing the wheel is purely economic. Why pay for someone else's preexisting wheel, which may of may not fit your vehicle, when you can just invent your own wheel for free? Obviously, this isn't as big a concern to people who can afford to stock a personal library with dozens or hundreds of games, but it's certainly a limiting factor for folks on tight budgets.

 

[J.M]

I also think people who buy games are overly concerned with novelty for novelty's sake, and so people who create games are tempted invent original mechanics, or pass things off as original even if they aren't, rather than build on other people's work. Whereas I think most players just want a game that works and is fun to play regardless of the novelty factor. I prefer game designers who understand how other games work, build on past best practices and use players' existing knowledge.

(and I know this is a bit petty and tangential to the topic, but....I roll my eyes when games use new words for things like Game Master, XP, Level, PC, NPC and other things that there's already a common word for).

 

[Committed Hero]

Probably because they had a session in which their PC performed poorly.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

Same thing happens in software dev, and the answer is simple: It's often easier to implement your own solution than search for and integrate an existing one. And to be fair many 'frameworks' are bloated and overdesigned.

 

[John Dallman]

To paraphrase, they thought the OGL would create an environment where thousands of developers built upon each on others' contributions.

That would have required everyone who published anything to produce an SRD, and someone to enforce that rule.

 

[Reynard]

That would have required everyone who published anything to produce an SRD, and someone to enforce that rule.

No it wouldn't. It would require a community nd/or industry group effort.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If a person did want to become well rounded and knowledgeable about all aspects of TTRPGs by playing different ones,what would I recommend???

What should be recommended???