Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4430725" data-attributes="member: 18280">One of the best things (for me) to come about with 4e is all the discussion of game design.  The following isn't rules; it's an intro describing what I want to achieve with my house rules, and why.  My ultimate aim is to make a d20 varient ruleset for my own use, that allows quick conversion of materials (esp. adventure setting materials) from any edition.I am also trying to solve the major problems I see with 3e, without throwing out the baby with the bath water.  In effect, I am working on my "perfect game".One of the things that I found useful with the pre-4e discussion was trying to determine what caused problems in 3e in the first place, and whether/how WotC's proposed solutions would actually be solutions.  I was pretty critical of some of 4e's solutions, and noted that others on these message boards provided (IMHO) better solutions than we were being presented.So, in order to better facilitate my own "D&D with shark teeth ON FIRE!" (something that has the strengths of both the 3e an 4e rulesets, without the weaknesses of either), I am presenting my "Introduction" analysis to the community at large, to be torn apart.Help me find the flaws in my reasoning, so that my final house rules document will be stronger.IntroductionThe Dungeons & Dragons game has gone through many incarnations since its first appearance in 1974.  From its inception, D&D has had an easy to understand ruleset that has allowed for speedy game preparation coupled with fast and flexible play.  However, earlier versions of the game were somewhat limited as to what aspects of a game world could be given meaningful statistics.  The 2nd Edition of the game took long strides towards rectifying this, but was ultimately unsuccessful.  Wizards of the Coast bought the D&D brand in 1997, and introduced the incredibly flexible 3rd Edition ruleset in 2000.  However, like previous editions, 3rd Edition had flaws, leading to version 3.5 in 2003, and more recently, 4th Edition in 2008.  3.5 seemed to be focused on further rules codification, and 4e on rules simplification at the cost of flexibility.  From 3rd Edition on, the game has developed an ever more “Wahoo!” style, similar to westernized wǔxiá fantasy, bringing the game farther and farther from its root sources.This ruleset is designed to simulate a lower-magic, “Sword & Sorcery” style world, while retaining both the flexibility of the d20 ruleset and the ease of use/preparation of previous editions.  It does this by building on the 3rd Edition and 3.5 version System Reference Documents and incorporating the best of “third party publisher” materials (made possible by the Open Gaming License that the 3rd Edition and 3.5 versions were published under).  Because some of the best materials were not designated Open Content under that license, this is essentially a “house rules” version of the game, and is not published for profit.It was also necessary to identify and solve the major problems existing under the 3rd Edition ruleset.  These problems are actually interrelated, and solving them requires a shift in design philosophy away from Wizard of the Coast’s “modern” design philosophy and back toward TSR’s initial design philosophy under Gary Gygax.  Of course, to avoid losing the flexibility of the 3rd Edition ruleset, it is necessary to maintain a fusion of “modern” and “old school” design philosophies.  A brief summary of the problems involved is provided below:1.    Preparation Time:  The largest bugaboo created by the 3rd Edition ruleset is that the preparation time for the Dungeon Master is out of keeping with the game time spent in actual play.  Preparation should be relatively simple, with more time spent developing setting (including both background and adventure setting), plots, and NPC personalities/motivations than is spent on crunching numbers and doing general math.2.    Rapid Exponential Growth Curve:  In the 3rd Edition ruleset, gaining levels increases the power of player characters exponentially.  Worse, this exponential growth is coupled with an accelerated speed at which levels are gained.  Together, these factors damage the game in several ways:a.    Characters frequently level before they have fully explored their abilities at any given level.  As a result, “character mastery” becomes an artefact of “system mastery” – as levels increase, players cannot deal with them effectively unless they master the system itself.  In older editions, slower rates of progression meant that a character remained at a given level long enough for the player to master that character at that level before moving on.  Mastering a character is easy; mastering the system (especially when the system is complex) can be overwhelming. b.    This exacerbates the problem with DM preparation time, as encounters not used by characters at one level become exponentially less challenging.  This, in turn, causes two problems (outlined below), both of which reward the DM for railroading his players into specific encounters: i.    Loss of Preparation:   Until and unless the DM plays with characters of that level again, prepared and unused encounters are worthless.  They can neither challenge higher-level characters, nor can lower-level characters be expected to survive them.  Because of the exponential growth curve, this statement becomes truer as levels progress.  As levels progress, there is more math involved in designing encounters.  Thus, the more intense the need for preparation, the greater the likelihood that the work will be rendered worthless. ii.    Requirement to Prepare in Arcs:  The rapid progression of levels in 3rd Edition means that characters are likely to end an adventure 1-2 levels higher than they began it.  Exponential power growth requires exponentially growing challenges to keep the game exciting.  It is very important that 3rd level characters do not meet encounters designed to be challenging for 5th level characters, or the party is likely to be wiped out.  As a result, the DM is encouraged to prepare adventure locations in arcs, where the characters can only encounter level-appropriate challenges wherever they go.  By the time they encounter higher-level challenges, they will (in theory) have grown to the requisite level. c.    Ye Olde Magic Shoppe:  If one intends to use magic items as a reward, it is desirable for any given magic item to remain interesting for a reasonably long period of time within a campaign.  However, rapid exponential power growth rapidly renders any given item “obsolete”.  One result of this is a constant need to exchange or improve items.  The 3rd Edition ruleset attempted to deal with this problem in three ways:  allowing characters to buy items, allowing characters to create items, and (later) with the concept of “legacy” items that grow with the characters. d.    Difficulty in Gauging Encounter Design:  The 3rd Edition ruleset introduced “challenge ratings” and “encounter levels” to help the DM gauge the difficulty characters would face in any given encounter.  However, this proved quite a bit more difficult in practice than it did in theory.  First off, the emphasis on system mastery over character mastery meant that, depending upon how they were using the system, characters of the same level might vary widely in terms of actual power.  “Optimal and sub-optimal builds” had to be taken into account by the DM.  (The DM also had this problem with gauging monster powers – optimal or sub-optimal use of those powers potentially resulted in radically different encounters!)  Secondly, the exponential power curve meant that even a fairly small deviation in build could make an encounter either far too easy or far too difficult for the characters facing it.  These factors in turn led to three problems: i.    The Christmas Tree Effect:  Whereas in previous editions a party of adventurers might stock up on mundane equipment to ensure “the right tool for the right job”, the 3rd Edition party often stocked up on various magical items for the same reason.  A world where this is possible, and where the difficulties of encounters cannot easily be judged, is a world where carrying a golf bag of various magical items is a winning strategy.  To make matters worse, the way Damage Resistance works in 3rd Edition could also lead to carrying a golf bag of various non-magical weapons. ii.    My Endless Buffs:  Buff spells and items can dramatically increase a character’s power level, and there was little reason not to use them in 3rd Edition.  Although keeping track of buffs was a headache, and rounds of casting buff spells (by both the PCs and the monsters) damaged the feel of the game, this was a winning strategy.  Worse, once either DM or players succumbed to its lure, those on the other side of the screen would have to jump on the buffing bandwagon in order to keep up.  And all that buffing made it even more difficult to accurately judge challenge ratings or encounter levels. iii.    Going Nuclear and the 15-Minute Adventuring Day:  Especially in games where wandering encounters were not used/encouraged, there was little to prevent the characters from using all of their resources in any given encounter, and then resting until they “reset”.  Doing so encourages the DM to design encounters that challenge all of a party’s resources, which in turn reinforces “going nuclear” followed by resting as a winning – if not very heroic – tactic. 3.    Twenty at Twenty:  For many people, the rapid exponential power curve led to the unsatisfying result of having characters push into epic levels by the time they are emerging from their teens.4.    The Illusion of Balance:  Both the 3rd Edition and the 4th Edition rulesets are focused on a concept of “balance” that is largely illusory.  This arose out of complaints that earlier editions were “unbalanced” – an equally illusory concern.  However, focusing on that illusion has a number of deleterious effects:a.    Numbers Bloat and Tons of Math:  In order to achieve “balance”, everything becomes tied into level, and an expectation arises that the numbers will “be correct”, like sums on a balanced spreadsheet.  Combine this with exponential power growth, and the numbers that players and DMs are juggling becoming ever higher, until what seemed like an elegant system becomes too cumbersome to enjoy using. b.    Crunch Before Flavour:  Focusing on balance requires focusing on “crunch”.  Instead of saying “How do I make X work within the game system?”, designers (including individual DMs) are encouraged to create interesting rules and then try to kludge them into existing game worlds.  This is a problem because it is generally the power of the flavour, not the elegance of the ruleset, that sustains willing suspension of disbelief. c.    No Baseline:  All earlier editions of the game had a baseline “average man” against which everything could be judged.  Beginning with the 3rd Edition ruleset, players and DMs alike were cut adrift of that baseline.  In addition to making it difficult for players to be satisfied with how cool their characters are right now, having no baseline makes it difficult for the DM to determine what a reasonable and appropriate challenge (specifically a challenge Difficulty Class) is for the game world.  Should the DCs of various tasks simply rise as the player characters rise in level, so that eventually it becomes impossible for a 1st-level commoner to walk across his field in safety?  Or should certain things simply become easier for characters as they gain levels, to demonstrate how much they have grown?  Having a baseline makes answering these questions – and setting these values – far easier.  But it also makes the illusion of balance far more transparent, and the exponential power curve far less satisfying. d.    Over-Codification of Systems:  In the desire to maintain balance, some systems (particularly spell descriptions) were over-codified, effectively removing a great deal of the fun that clever usage of spells, equipment, and/or skills could have had. e.    Everything Must Be Built in the Same Way:  The focus on balance required that everything, from traps to monsters, from magic items to NPCs, be built following explicit rules and numeric values.  This was a primary cause of increased DM preparation time, and ultimately served little purpose as far as actual game play went.5.    Sub-Systems:  Although one of the goals of the 3rd Edition ruleset was to provide a unified system to resolve all major rules questions, in reality that broke down in two areas:a.    Sub-Systems that Should Deviate from the Norm:  By making every major action the result of a d20 roll, the 3rd Edition created a ruleset in which chance is equally important in all things.  Previous rulesets used different types of dice to resolve different issues.  The idea that the speed of a striking cobra is less important than random chance in determining initiative order, for example, is unsatisfying. b.    Overly Complex Subsystems:  Subsystems, such as the rules for grappling, attacks of opportunity, sundering, etc., are overly complex for the value they bring to the table.  Simpler systems can provide for the same types of action, without having to remove these options altogether.6.    Lengthy Combats:  A combination of numbers bloat, focus on miniatures, and parsing tactics based on overly complex subsystems could cause combat rounds to drag to a near-standstill.  For many players and DMs, coming from games that focused on exploration or role-playing as much as combat, the amount of time required to resolve a 3rd Edition combat – especially a high-level combat – was simply too great.The solutions that this ruleset applies to these problems are, in brief, as follows:1.    Provide a baseline.  Specifically, 90% of all characters belong to NPC classes.  80% of all characters, regardless of class, fall into a range of 1-3rd level.  Of the remaining 20%, 80% are of 4-6th level.  Etc.  This creates a measure for character progression that allows players to chart their growth against a stable campaign setting.2.    Reduce the rate of character levelling.  Characters move from 1st to 2nd level as quickly as in 3rd Edition, but thereafter the rate at which levels are gained slows exponentially.  This allows established game elements to remain challenging for a longer period of time, removes the “Twenty at Twenty” problem entirely, and makes challenge levels far easier to determine.  It also increases the amount of time that magic items remain interesting.  It also extends the “sweet spot” of the game while allowing for the power levels needed to explain ancient magic items, etc.3.    Decouple feats and skills from level.  Although on the surface this seems to increase the difficulty of defining challenges, it makes DM preparation far easier by reducing the math involved, and allows characters to experience regular growth despite reduced levelling.4.    Fix subsystems.  Opening up overly codified systems, changing subsystems from using 1d20 where appropriate, and utilizing less complex subsystems where appropriate encourages more imaginative play and speeds combat.  Included in this is fixing the problem created by buffing.5.    Reduce dependence on miniatures:  By increase tactical options that are not dependant upon position on a grid, the game can be made just as fun when not using minis.  As a result, miniatures can be reserved for “set piece” battles.6.    Encourage sandbox play and resource management:  Removing the expectation that the party can rest unmolested, and removing the expectation that all encounters will be balanced based upon the party at its full resource level, discourages characters from “going nuclear” and having 15-minute adventuring day.7.    Use variant Vitality and Wound Points instead of hit points:  Vitality is a renewable resource with a short rest, allowing characters to continue adventuring even without a healer.  Actual wounds are more serious, though, so that any battle might be important at any level.</blockquote>

Verification