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Rules, too much or too little? YOU DECIDE!
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7569134" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>The point of mechanics is that they tell us what's going on, and while the amount of detail you want is going to be a matter of preference, the metric which I use for judging systems is in terms of efficiency. If I need to put in twice as much work in order to resolve an action, then I want at least twice as much detail when I'm done with it.</p><p></p><p>For example, consider an attack roll in D&D. You roll one die, and at the end of it, we know whether or not you hit. That's fairly efficient, in terms of information-conveyed-for-work-performed.</p><p></p><p>Now consider the damage roll, which follows a successful attack in D&D. You roll anywhere between one and thirty dice, compare that sum to their HP total, and that tells you how badly they were hurt by the attack. The amount of information added, relative to taking the average damage, is very low. It's difficult enough to describe the difference between 8 damage and 9 damage, so it's hard to justify spending (at least) 100% more effort to gain such a minute difference in the description.</p><p></p><p>On a side note, this is one reason why I refuse to play any game where a successful attack roll can be interpreted as not actually connecting. When you roll a bunch of dice, and the narrative outcome is that you didn't make contact regardless of what the dice show, then the mechanic is sitting at 0% efficiency.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7569134, member: 6775031"] The point of mechanics is that they tell us what's going on, and while the amount of detail you want is going to be a matter of preference, the metric which I use for judging systems is in terms of efficiency. If I need to put in twice as much work in order to resolve an action, then I want at least twice as much detail when I'm done with it. For example, consider an attack roll in D&D. You roll one die, and at the end of it, we know whether or not you hit. That's fairly efficient, in terms of information-conveyed-for-work-performed. Now consider the damage roll, which follows a successful attack in D&D. You roll anywhere between one and thirty dice, compare that sum to their HP total, and that tells you how badly they were hurt by the attack. The amount of information added, relative to taking the average damage, is very low. It's difficult enough to describe the difference between 8 damage and 9 damage, so it's hard to justify spending (at least) 100% more effort to gain such a minute difference in the description. On a side note, this is one reason why I refuse to play any game where a successful attack roll can be interpreted as not actually connecting. When you roll a bunch of dice, and the narrative outcome is that you didn't make contact regardless of what the dice show, then the mechanic is sitting at 0% efficiency. [/QUOTE]
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