D&D General Rules, Rulings and Second Order Design: D&D and AD&D Examined

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet, it isn't! One can argue that it's subjective (as are most things in design!) but I can tell you something....

If I didn't have fun when I played an RPG, I'm unlikely to play it again. It's not like I'm getting paid to do it. It's why we differentiate work and, um, fun.

But that doesn't tell you diddly-squat about what to do. Hence why it is useless as a design goal. Because it doesn't actually tell you anything about what to do. At absolute best, it only tells you whether you've succeeded in what you intended to do. At worst, it literally doesn't tell you anything, and you're left completely mystified why the thing you attempted didn't work (or, sometimes, did work!)

So I would probably put fun as pretty much the top priority.

Okay. How do you use that for actual design, then? How does it tell you what to do?

Now, if you have a different priority when playing, like pain, then that's cool. I'm not here to kink shame! But most people, when spending free time playing recreational games, are trying to have fun!

It's not about playing. It's about design. I thought that was the point of the thread.

Because first-order design influence second-order design? Otherwise, why bother?

That's like saying we should call porcelain "second-order cuisine" because the food and beverages you serve influence the kinds of dishes you'll use. That one influences the other does not mean they are the same kind of thing. I'm not saying it's not worth bothering about. I'm saying it isn't design. It's a different thing, which is related to design.

It's a lot like saying, "Why do Boeing and the FAA care about how planes are actually flown? They don't need to think about how pilots actually use them. After all, they just design the planes, right?"

No, because...you actually really really do need to think about that, to an enormous degree! (I would also say the analogy is badly-formed because, at the very least, instrumentation only exists in order to inform pilots...and thus you care about how pilots actually fly, if you're going to be making instrumentation for them.) But the problem here is that you are conflating "it is worth caring about" with "it is design." Design is an organized effort to create something, to skillfully or artfully arrange component parts together.

I am not saying that this thing you call "second-order design" is unimportant. It is, in fact, quite important. I am simply saying that calling it "design" makes it seem like something it isn't. It makes it seem like something structured, when it is (pretty much by definition) unstructured. It makes "second-order design" seem intentional, when often (not always, but often) it is accidental, or at least incidental. It makes it seem planned, consistent, and deliberate, as opposed to the much more common state of affairs, namely improvised, irregular, and blasé.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Oh, I could not disagree more here. It is very difficult to discuss design in TTRPGs precisely because there is this divide to begin with. We get trapped in generalities very quickly because we can't settle on the necessary commonplaces for discussion. Routinely, a rule is held up as synecdoche for the concept of rules, "feats are bad, because now you can't take an action with the specific ability allowing you to take it" vs. "the Brachiation feat is bad, because that ability should be better handled via the skill system."

It is very hard to push any discussion of design forward, when you're struggling against "why is there design?" as a question every time. Bad design goes unexamined, either because the rule zero tradition sees no problem pushing, as you put it, first order mistakes out to seek second order solutions, or because some subset of users don't support a particular design goal (or, often, that a game should have design goals).

Yeah. no. I know that we have a few different theory conversations that go on here ... but the vast majority of conversations about any given RPG concern rules, and how to make them better.

Seriously. Look at 99% of conversations about D&D. They will be discussing the rules of the game. They will be discussing how the rules work (or don't work) together. They will be proposing rules modifications. They will be looking at the UA rules and parsing the language with a fine-toothed comb to look at possible issues. People will be arguing, ad infinitum, about how rules should be interpreted - RAW, RAI. Heck, I've probably seen the canons of statutory construction used more for examining rules in D&D than in your typical Supreme Court opinion.

So I absolutely, 100% can't agree with this! "Bad design" (bad rules, for example) not only goes examined, it is examined constantly, over and over and over again. But if people want to discuss .... oh .... FKR .... or talking about something else ... what happens?

Why can't you talk about rules? Do you know what never gets attention in D&D? THE RULES!

If you want to "push design forward," then please (PLEASE!) start a thread where you discuss your thoughts about good rules and bad rules. As I have stated (now, repeatedly, in multiple threads), that's not something I find particularly interesting in terms of this particular issue.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

But that doesn't tell you diddly-squat about what to do. Hence why it is useless as a design goal. Because it doesn't actually tell you anything about what to do. At absolute best, it only tells you whether you've succeeded in what you intended to do. At worst, it literally doesn't tell you anything, and you're left completely mystified why the thing you attempted didn't work (or, sometimes, did work!)

Does it, though?

When Dieter Rams provides principles, such as "Good design is aesthetic," should we then say, "HA! You are not a real designer! That is useless as a design goal!"

Or maybe there are more things in heaven and Earth, EzekielRaiden, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Jus' sayin'!

I am not saying that this thing you call "second-order design" is unimportant. It is, in fact, quite important. I am simply saying that calling it "design" makes it seem like something it isn't. It makes it seem like something structured, when it is (pretty much by definition) unstructured. It makes "second-order design" seem intentional, when often (not always, but often) it is accidental, or at least incidental. It makes it seem planned, consistent, and deliberate, as opposed to the much more common state of affairs, namely improvised, irregular, and blasé.

I almost feel like I am not the person who coined this term, and that given I have written on it before, and even cited sources, you are now doing the "arguing for the sake of arguing" thing. Which ... yeah, not into. Conversing? Cool. Arguing? Not so much!

 

[Pedantic]

Yeah. no. I know that we have a few different theory conversations that go on here ... but the vast majority of conversations about any given RPG concern rules, and how to make them better.

Seriously. Look at 99% of conversations about D&D. They will be discussing the rules of the game. They will be discussing how the rules work (or don't work) together. They will be proposing rules modifications. They will be looking at the UA rules and parsing the language with a fine-toothed comb to look at possible issues. People will be arguing, ad infinitum, about how rules should be interpreted - RAW, RAI. Heck, I've probably seen the canons of statutory construction used more for examining rules in D&D than in your typical Supreme Court opinion.

So I absolutely, 100% can't agree with this! "Bad design" (bad rules, for example) not only goes examined, it is examined constantly, over and over and over again. But if people want to discuss .... oh .... FKR .... or talking about something else ... what happens?

Why can't you talk about rules? Do you know what never gets attention in D&D? THE RULES!

I want to say I'm empathetic, because it feels precisely the same in reverse, but really, I think we are both the genesis of each other's problems here. It would be much easier to discuss rules if there wasn't a reductive take on them ready at hand each time it occurs. The very thing you're saying, "that perhaps we should not use a rule to solve every problem" is an explosive thing to throw into a conversation about "how might this rule best solve this problem" (not this conversation, but you know, all those other ones you point to) and it will never go away as long as we're all in the big tent together.

I imagine the inverse is equally true, when a point is raised, a design is offered to resolve a problem, and then discussion moves to critiquing/evaluating that design. I'm bemoaning that conversation is restricted naturally by the environment in a way that will make it inconclusive, and you're presumably frustrated that conversation eats up all the space in the room immediately.

If you want to "push design forward," then please (PLEASE!) start a thread where you discuss your thoughts about good rules and bad rules. As I have stated (now, repeatedly, in multiple threads), that's not something I find particularly interesting in terms of this particular issue.

That's a whole other conversation really and we don't need to have it here of course, I'm just noting that this tension goes both ways, and warps the shared hobby in both directions.

 

[TwoSix]

But that doesn't tell you diddly-squat about what to do. Hence why it is useless as a design goal. Because it doesn't actually tell you anything about what to do. At absolute best, it only tells you whether you've succeeded in what you intended to do. At worst, it literally doesn't tell you anything, and you're left completely mystified why the thing you attempted didn't work (or, sometimes, did work!)

"Fun" is a second-order design goal. A game should pursue its first-order design goals to the best of its ability, and if the participants are in the right mindset to value those goals, then fun should result.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I want to say I'm empathetic, because it feels precisely the same in reverse, but really, I think we are both the genesis of each other's problems here. It would be much easier to discuss rules if there wasn't a reductive take on them ready at hand each time it occurs. The very thing you're saying, "that perhaps we should not use a rule to solve every problem" is an explosive thing to throw into a conversation about "how might this rule best solve this problem" (not this conversation, but you know, all those other ones you point to) and it will never go away as long as we're all in the big tent together.

I imagine the inverse is equally true, when a point is raised, a design is offered to resolve a problem, and then discussion moves to critiquing/evaluating that design. I'm bemoaning that conversation is restricted naturally by the environment in a way that will make it inconclusive, and you're presumably frustrated that conversation eats up all the space in the room immediately.

That's a whole other conversation really and we don't need to have it here of course, I'm just noting that this tension goes both ways, and warps the shared hobby in both directions.

So, I genuinely agree with you on these points. I will only add that, for the most part, I find rules to be a good thing. And, for that matter, the idea of discussing rules qua rules (and what rules, what system of rules, how rules interact with each other) to also be an interesting topic.

Finally, I think it would be interesting if someone (but not me, because PLEASE!) wanted to explore the issue of how game designers use first-order design (the rules or the formal design of the game system) to solve the actual design problem that they are designing for- the second-order design issue, which is to say, the experiential game that emerges as an indirect outcome from the rules.

All that said, those issues are not what I'm focusing on right now, which is to really hold up the question of the tension between rules and "not-rules" as they have evolved over time in RPGs and D&D.

 

[el-remmen]

It's why we differentiate work and, um, fun.

Not to get too much in the weeds and turn this thread into a version of some grad seminars I've been in, but while "fun" and "work" are often positionally opposed they are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to have "fun" doing work. In fact, much of the role of DM (and what separates those who are happily the "Fovever DM" and those who complain about it endlessly) is defined by doing work (away from the actual table where the game part take place) for fun. And things that can be fun at sometimes aren't at others and then are again!

 

[Bedrockgames]

I definitely agree on the pendulum swing between desire for more rules and desire for less. I see this both in my own wants as a gamer over time and in my own design. It is like you get saturated with more rules or more thorough and intrusive systems, and desire a return to simplicity, but the simplicity can wear thin after a time and you want greater rules clarity. For me this has been a constant thing that you could almost set to a clock. I find it especially so with D&D. For example I recall 3E really feeling like this answer, bur getting burned out on the complexity and suddenly finding the white box, with all its lack of clarity but room for imagination around things like spell descriptions enthralling. I could point to a similar experience with D&D and basic. I also find in design I tend to make my lightest games following the heavier ones. It is like there is an inbuilt need to strip things down to the basics after a while.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm jealous of what board games have done over the last 20 years, when comparatively what we've seen in TTRPGs is deeply stagnant from a design perspective, precisely because a chunk of the audience is hostile to the very idea.

We do have to respect that Board Games live in a different space. By their nature, board games are meant to be limited experiences, they prescribe a preset list of actions, with the expectation that the players follow the rules to the letter.

Dnd is by its nature designed in the opposite direction. It provides a baseline of rules with the expectation that players will routinely go outside the lines, that they will have situations the rules don't account for. That is in many ways THE reason people Dnd instead of a video or board game.

Take Gloomhaven for example, one of the most popular boardgames in recent years (and commonly called the "Dnd of board game"). I have played Gloomhaven, being a board game addict myself. I love the mechanics of the game, I appreciate some of its intricacies, and I think for players that have never played dnd or its equivalent, its a neat "stepping stone" into that world.

But personally I would never play Gloomhaven over dnd. When you are used to a more imagination based freeform game for your roleplaying, going to a completely codified constraint game is very.....well.....constraining.


The second piece is the nature of tools. Board games have become adapt at providing ways for players to run the rules without "running the rules", using the elegance of the board and various pieces to track a lot of the nuances, so they can get away with certain complexities. Dnd still assumes most players only have some dice, pen, and paper.... and that limits the amount of complexity you can reasonably have in a game and expect it to run efficiently. Now this is an area Dnd could change in....with the advent of electronic tools of all shapes and sizes (many that work well on your phone), perhaps this is an area Dnd could embrace more. By shifting some of the load to electronic tools, you could have much more complex rules that are still fast and efficient due to the "helpers" you have at your disposal.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing I do echo on the rules front, is I think at this point, the designers of dnd have enough samples and players polls that they should have a pretty solid understanding of some of the "core elements" of dnd. And for those areas that are very common across a number of tables....I think its worth investing time in strong rules.

Take the evening watch as an example. The classic party is going to sleep, and needs to setup a watch. How many watches are needed, who should go when, etc. Do the awake players have to roll to stay awake, what does the ambush look like, how quickly can the guard rouse the other players when they see danger, etc. You see it a dozen times across a dozen tables, so many groups have their own version of this. To me it makes sense to have some rules (or at least some guidelines) to provide a good solid experience. And of course some tables will ignore that rule (as is the nature of dnd), but I think those areas are ones that really should get some solid codification.

And there are a number of these:

• Stealth
• Finding Traps
• The group having to get over a large chasm
• The group searching a room for treasure and secret doors.
• The group chasing after someone

etc

There are many "common" dnd experiences that so many of us share, and it would be good to put some solid rules and/or guidelines around them. But beyond that, I don't expect the rules to outline every possible answer, 3e went too far in this approach and it paid the price. I think 5e's more rulings based design is superior in the long run, and would wish for it to remain.