I've been thinking a lot lately about some of the discussions related to what makes one system better at simulating certain scenarios and types of adventure than other systems, and I have come up with an interesting insight that I would like to share.
The insight is the following: Some rules, in order to work well (or at all), presuppose certain assumptions about the way the game world works or what type of situations are being modeled. For example:
Example 1.
In all editions of D+D (that I know of at least), a natural 20 is an automatic hit. In order for this to work well, it presupposes that the number of combatants is relatively small, so that a natural 20 is a relatively rare occurrence. For instance, consider a battle with 1000 archers one one side, all firing at the enemy commander. No matter how well protected the commander is or how inexperienced the attackers are, as long as they can all legally target the commander they will score about 50 hits.
Example 2.
In 4e D+D, there are many effects which only apply to enemies. (And effects like "all enemies in burst" can't always simply be interpreted as saying you choose who are your "enemies", because there are many effects where treating an ally as an enemy would provide some benefit, like Own the Battlefield or the ranger's Prime Shot.) Also abilities that give you benefits when you hit or kill an opponent only apply when the target is a "realistic threat" - so you can't keep a "bag of rats" around to hit when you need to trigger such a benefit. Rules such as these imply that it's clear who is an enemy and who isn't, and that it's clear who is a threat. It's easy to imagine a scenario (such as a traitor on one side, shifting alliances, or an assassin hiding in a crowd of innocent villagers) where it's not clear who is on whose side or who is a potential threat.
Example 3.
In 3e D+D, there are spells like "Detect Evil" and other effects that key off of someone's alignment. This only works if "evil" and other such terms are well-defined enough that it makes sense to talk about who is "evil" and who isn't in an objective way. In real life, of course, with most moral dilemmas it's not clear what the "evil" choice is and what the "good" choice is - that's why they're called moral dilemmas.
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And as a side note, note that this issue has nothing to do with whether the rules represent how the game "actually works," or are just an "abstraction," etc. For instance, even if you say that Own the Battlefield doesn't "actually" move the opponents - it's just an abstraction of the warlord's ability to lead his forces in a way that controls the territory - you still have the same problem about who can be moved in an unclear-alliance situation.
So, if you're in a campaign and a situation comes up that breaks the assumptions, what do you do? There's a few options.
1. Look the other direction, and don't bring up the issue.
This is of course always a potential solution. For example in one thread I was in a while back that was talking about the anomalies associated with how 4e counts diagonal movement, the following statement was made - "if the PC's asking a certain question breaks the game, then the PC's don't ask that question." Let's see how this applies to the given examples:
Example 1: If the PCs or NPCs are in command of a unit of 1000 archers, they just don't order them all to target the enemy commander. Or to "simulate" the effects of such an order, they declare some of the attacks against the commander and others against targets near to it.
Example 2: The PCs just don't use the abilities described against targets where it's unclear whether they are a threat or it's unclear whose side they are on.
Example 3: The PCs only use Detect Evil and similar abilities for the purposes of, say, determining where a known enemy is hiding or figuring out if they've actually cleared the crypt, and not for the purposes of, say, finding out if the suspect in front of them is actually guilty of the crime.
Pitfalls: The problem with this option is that even if the DM doesn't use these options, the PCs might in order to gain an advantage. So you have to trust your players and set clear boundaries in advance (and said boundaries are essentially like new rules, see Option 2) or you have to have a backup plan in case it comes up.
2. Change the rule in question.
Just change the rule in question to eliminate the potential anomaly.
Example 1: Say that a natrual 20 isn't an automatic hit - for instance say that a natural 20 on the attack roll counts as a 25, so if the number needed to hit is over 25 then it's impossible to hit.
Example 2: Say that a target is only considered to be an enemy or a credible threat if the character knows or honestly believes him to be so. Come up with some way to resolve disputes about whether this is true (say, a perception or insight check).
Example 3: Say that "detect evil" only detects supernatural evil such as undead, or evil auras from evil-enchanted magic items, and not "mundane" evil such as common criminals. (I was in a campaign that had this house rule, for basically this reason.)
Pitfalls: If there is a large class of anomalies, they might all need to be dealt with with house rules, which could increase complexity. Also house rules can have unintended effects, which might mean you need to go back through this list to deal with those effects.)
3. Accept the consequences of the rule, and accept the effects of the rule on the game world.
Accept the rule as written, and accept that the anomaly in question actually occurs in the game world. People will use tactics and strategies to take advantage of the anomaly, and to counter its effects if used against them.
Example 1: Mass fire against key targets will take them out very quickly and reliably, and things that increase AC (like cover, concealment, armor) won't protect them. Armies will have to try other means to protect their commanders, like effects that give DR (very useful against lots of low damage attacks), keeping them out of line of sight of enemies, or preventing the enemies from seeing who the commander is.
Example 2: Abilities like Own the Battlefield actually can be used to determine who is an enemy - just try to move everyone in range three squares to the left, and whoever moves is an enemy. This means that malicious people trying to stay hidden will have to have ways of protecting themselves against such abilities.
Example 3: Yes, Detect Evil works as advertised, and it can be used in many ways. Station a paladin at the city gates with orders to turn away anyone who comes up evil, have a cleric cast Detect Evil on a defendant in court, cast Detect Evil on political candidates, you name it. Depending on the availability and cost of such spells, there's a lot of elements of society that could be radically altered.
Pitfalls: Such drastic changes to the game world may not be what you're after, and it may feel too "metagamey" for some players. Also the adventure might have key goals that could be very easily defeated by exploiting these anomalies.
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So, questions for discussion: Have any of these kind of anomalies come up in play? If so, how have you dealt with them? How would you deal with the examples presented? Are there other options that I haven't considered? And what lessons does this have for how to design better RPG systems?
The insight is the following: Some rules, in order to work well (or at all), presuppose certain assumptions about the way the game world works or what type of situations are being modeled. For example:
Example 1.
In all editions of D+D (that I know of at least), a natural 20 is an automatic hit. In order for this to work well, it presupposes that the number of combatants is relatively small, so that a natural 20 is a relatively rare occurrence. For instance, consider a battle with 1000 archers one one side, all firing at the enemy commander. No matter how well protected the commander is or how inexperienced the attackers are, as long as they can all legally target the commander they will score about 50 hits.
Example 2.
In 4e D+D, there are many effects which only apply to enemies. (And effects like "all enemies in burst" can't always simply be interpreted as saying you choose who are your "enemies", because there are many effects where treating an ally as an enemy would provide some benefit, like Own the Battlefield or the ranger's Prime Shot.) Also abilities that give you benefits when you hit or kill an opponent only apply when the target is a "realistic threat" - so you can't keep a "bag of rats" around to hit when you need to trigger such a benefit. Rules such as these imply that it's clear who is an enemy and who isn't, and that it's clear who is a threat. It's easy to imagine a scenario (such as a traitor on one side, shifting alliances, or an assassin hiding in a crowd of innocent villagers) where it's not clear who is on whose side or who is a potential threat.
Example 3.
In 3e D+D, there are spells like "Detect Evil" and other effects that key off of someone's alignment. This only works if "evil" and other such terms are well-defined enough that it makes sense to talk about who is "evil" and who isn't in an objective way. In real life, of course, with most moral dilemmas it's not clear what the "evil" choice is and what the "good" choice is - that's why they're called moral dilemmas.
---
And as a side note, note that this issue has nothing to do with whether the rules represent how the game "actually works," or are just an "abstraction," etc. For instance, even if you say that Own the Battlefield doesn't "actually" move the opponents - it's just an abstraction of the warlord's ability to lead his forces in a way that controls the territory - you still have the same problem about who can be moved in an unclear-alliance situation.
So, if you're in a campaign and a situation comes up that breaks the assumptions, what do you do? There's a few options.
1. Look the other direction, and don't bring up the issue.
This is of course always a potential solution. For example in one thread I was in a while back that was talking about the anomalies associated with how 4e counts diagonal movement, the following statement was made - "if the PC's asking a certain question breaks the game, then the PC's don't ask that question." Let's see how this applies to the given examples:
Example 1: If the PCs or NPCs are in command of a unit of 1000 archers, they just don't order them all to target the enemy commander. Or to "simulate" the effects of such an order, they declare some of the attacks against the commander and others against targets near to it.
Example 2: The PCs just don't use the abilities described against targets where it's unclear whether they are a threat or it's unclear whose side they are on.
Example 3: The PCs only use Detect Evil and similar abilities for the purposes of, say, determining where a known enemy is hiding or figuring out if they've actually cleared the crypt, and not for the purposes of, say, finding out if the suspect in front of them is actually guilty of the crime.
Pitfalls: The problem with this option is that even if the DM doesn't use these options, the PCs might in order to gain an advantage. So you have to trust your players and set clear boundaries in advance (and said boundaries are essentially like new rules, see Option 2) or you have to have a backup plan in case it comes up.
2. Change the rule in question.
Just change the rule in question to eliminate the potential anomaly.
Example 1: Say that a natrual 20 isn't an automatic hit - for instance say that a natural 20 on the attack roll counts as a 25, so if the number needed to hit is over 25 then it's impossible to hit.
Example 2: Say that a target is only considered to be an enemy or a credible threat if the character knows or honestly believes him to be so. Come up with some way to resolve disputes about whether this is true (say, a perception or insight check).
Example 3: Say that "detect evil" only detects supernatural evil such as undead, or evil auras from evil-enchanted magic items, and not "mundane" evil such as common criminals. (I was in a campaign that had this house rule, for basically this reason.)
Pitfalls: If there is a large class of anomalies, they might all need to be dealt with with house rules, which could increase complexity. Also house rules can have unintended effects, which might mean you need to go back through this list to deal with those effects.)
3. Accept the consequences of the rule, and accept the effects of the rule on the game world.
Accept the rule as written, and accept that the anomaly in question actually occurs in the game world. People will use tactics and strategies to take advantage of the anomaly, and to counter its effects if used against them.
Example 1: Mass fire against key targets will take them out very quickly and reliably, and things that increase AC (like cover, concealment, armor) won't protect them. Armies will have to try other means to protect their commanders, like effects that give DR (very useful against lots of low damage attacks), keeping them out of line of sight of enemies, or preventing the enemies from seeing who the commander is.
Example 2: Abilities like Own the Battlefield actually can be used to determine who is an enemy - just try to move everyone in range three squares to the left, and whoever moves is an enemy. This means that malicious people trying to stay hidden will have to have ways of protecting themselves against such abilities.
Example 3: Yes, Detect Evil works as advertised, and it can be used in many ways. Station a paladin at the city gates with orders to turn away anyone who comes up evil, have a cleric cast Detect Evil on a defendant in court, cast Detect Evil on political candidates, you name it. Depending on the availability and cost of such spells, there's a lot of elements of society that could be radically altered.
Pitfalls: Such drastic changes to the game world may not be what you're after, and it may feel too "metagamey" for some players. Also the adventure might have key goals that could be very easily defeated by exploiting these anomalies.
------
So, questions for discussion: Have any of these kind of anomalies come up in play? If so, how have you dealt with them? How would you deal with the examples presented? Are there other options that I haven't considered? And what lessons does this have for how to design better RPG systems?
