Richard Garfield on Luck

[Joshua Randall]

Is D&D getting better for experts, but worse for new or part-time players?

No.

As has already been pointed out, D&D is not a competitive game like chess or Magic: the Gathering, in which one side directly opposes the other side. D&D has elements of competition in it, such as the PCs vs. monsters, but most of those elements retain heavy doses of luck in the form of dice rolls. (It's called the d20 system, after all.)

Some aspects of the game may be harder or easier to grasp, but that is no different than in any other game. Chess has its en passant rules that beginners don't get; MtG has all sorts of crazy rules that break the normal mechanism of the game, and these sometimes confound beginners. But in both those cases, as well as in the case of D&D, what we're talking about is rules complexity, not luck.

Luck is rolling a die or drawing a card. Luck has nothing to do with understanding how Improved Trip or Necropotence works.

 

[Delta]

Luck is rolling a die or drawing a card. Luck has nothing to do with understanding how Improved Trip or Necropotence works.

Part of Garfield's argument is that less luck increases the importance of understanding how Improved Trip or Necropotence work.

 

[2WS-Steve]

There are certainly a lot more decisions for players to make now. In AD&D 1e you'd roll dice, assign stats, choose a race, then choose a class. Often that'd be all you need to do.

However, that also just shoved a bunch of the number-crunching off the character sheet and onto various tables -- which meant that time saved up front was paid for with time lost referring to the tables.

Regarding skill versus luck -- there's more balance in the core books now so it's easier for an inexperienced player to simply make choices that seem appealing and wind up with a decent character, without having to know the rules in depth. At the same time, there are plenty of opportunities for experienced players to squeeze the most out of the game, if that's what they want to do.

And I think that points to one of the key difficulties the D&D designers have to face. Since they have to write for a massive market with a wide variety of player types, they somehow have to come up with a set of rules that not only satisfies the grognards, but also the casual players. Other RPGs can tailor themselves to suit one type of player.

 

[BlackMoria]

Is D&D getting better for experts, but worse for new or part-time players?

Yes but not for the reasons stated. Any sport or game favors those who are intimately familiar with the rules and tropes of that game and new players or dabblers are at a disadvantage because of unfamiliarity.

Take Magic the Gathering. I can give a tournament level deck that wins most of the time to a new player and even after some familiarity with the rules (the new player), I can win against that player most of the time when I am playing a inferior deck that I just cogged together. It is not about the random luck of the card draws. It is about the level of knowledge about the rules and the decision making dependencies based on that level of knowledge.

So, no....randomness isn't the issue. It is the knowledge base of the player in question. An 'expert' can play in such a way to minimize the impact of random outcomes while a person without that breadth of knowledge is at the mercy of such random outcomes

 

[maggot]

It's why our gaming group stopped playing TORG.

TORG used a single d20 for combat resolution, but the d20 roll was then compared to a chart. Most "average" rolls (in the 7-15 or so range) were "average" results, but the kicker was, if you rolled a 10 or a 20, the die "exploded", and you rolled it again, adding the results together. In that way, it's possible to get a *very* high result, if you get very lucky.

And, as we found out, when you're dealing with non-grunt opponents, you *need* those very lucky results in order to succeed. Combats became an exercise in dice rolling, as you waited and waited for that one magic die-roll (or, more accurately, waited for two or more 20s in a row).

To be fair, Torg had multiple other ways to get rerolls (off the top of my head, there were possibility points, drama cards, and the up condition). These rerolls we so common that they were expected against the tough guys. If you tried to using rolling alone to defeat them, you could be in for a long fight (probably one you were going to lose).

With all these factors to control your dice rolls, Torg felt a lot less random to me than D&D.

Now back to the rest of the thread. Go team random!

 

[kenobi65]

To be fair, Torg had multiple other ways to get rerolls (off the top of my head, there were possibility points, drama cards, and the up condition). These rerolls we so common that they were expected against the tough guys. If you tried to using rolling alone to defeat them, you could be in for a long fight (probably one you were going to lose).

With all these factors to control your dice rolls, Torg felt a lot less random to me than D&D.

True, you had all those factors (though, drama cards, too, were random, and you might not have the right ones in your hand at the big fight). But, even with those, you are still not going to succeed until you get a freakishly good set of dice rolls...those other factors just influence how often you get to roll, or re-roll. And, if you find yourself in a run of bad (or even just mediocre) die rolls, you are totally stuck, even more so than in any other RPG I've ever played.

 

[Stalker0]

I agree that experts can use the rules to create stronger characters. However, unless your playing a pure combat fest dnd isn't about strong character, its about cool characters. There's lots of ways to create cool characters, some of it is dominating in combat, but often its how you look doing it.

I've found many times that new players are a little intimidated at first, with the "what do I do?" question lingering. However, once they understand that they can literally do whatever they want (which is a big enlightenment to the video game generation) they go nuts. They try new things, they will come up with crazy backgrounds. And that's part of the fun, and the reason I don't think experts have much of an advantage in the long run.

 

[Huw]

Historically, games usually evolved in such a way as to reduce the amount of luck in them. Even chess at one time had dice. The people who are in a position to modify a game are likely to be very good at it, and the sort of modifications they will be drawn toward are the ones that showcase their talents and their friends' talents - although they, of course, are all top players.

In other words, as games evolve, they tend to become better for the experts, but not necessarily better for new or non-dedicated players.

Unfortunately, I disagree with everything Garfield says here, though I can understand how he's drawn his conclusions.

First, the people who are good at a game are not going necessarily going to be good at modifying. I'm a huge fan of chess variants, and there have been numerous "improvements" suggested by Grandmasters throughout chess' history, yet last big change to chess rules (i.e. not counting en-passant or modern drawing conventions - which Garfield probably was thinking of, as they do improve the game for experts) was the boost to the queen's power. Similarly, changgi, or Korean chess, made several changes to xiangqi, or Chinese chess, but most people familiar with both will say that xiangqi is the better game. Changgi, with numerous long range pieces and highly mobile pawns, is "munchkinned", and encourages defensive, slow play.

Secondly, many games have becoming more accessible to casual players. Garfield's own Magic: the Gathering is one of them, and I think D&D is another. Simple example: when I was DM'ing 1e and 2e, I had new, casual players who weren't interested in learning the rules. They kept asking "is high or low good?" (and in pre-3e D&D, ICYDNK, some numbers went up, some went down). When I DM such players in 3e, it's easy - the higher the better. The result is they get more into the game, rather than just rolling the dice when asked.

For a traditional game which has got more accessible and increased the role of luck, compare pachisi with it's modern variants ludo, parcheesi, sorry, frustration, etc.

 

[Swordsage]

Let me highlight the second part of the Garfield quote:



Is D&D getting better for experts, but worse for new or part-time players?

Hard to say, but the mathematicians are certainly having a field day.

The Swordsage

 

[Graf]

Unfortunately, I disagree with everything Garfield says here, though I can understand how he's drawn his conclusions.

Really?

First, the people who are good at a game are not going necessarily going to be good at modifying.

Comments about chess aside, which were informative, it is fairly apparent you've missed Garfields key point. Specifically he wasn't saying "people who are good at a game are good at modifying it" he was saying "people who are good at a competitive game will want to modify it to remove luck, so they can win more often."