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Hero
Let’s begin with a basic, fundamental question, one so simple, it’s often dismissed as self-evident.
Is 3E (or 3.5E, which is basically the same animal) a simpler system than 1st or 2nd edition?
Certainly, at its core, it would appear so. Everything uses the same basic mechanic: d20 + modifier. Attacks, skills, ability checks, saving throws, all of it. Roll a d20, add your modifier(s), see if the result is high enough.
1st or 2nd? Roll a d20 for most skill checks, but percentile dice for some. Roll high for combat, but find the result by subtracting this from that. Saving throws, check the chart. Ability checks? You want to roll low on those, not high. Oh, and no, you can’t be a fighter/cleric; you’re a halfling. And you’re limited to 9th level. And...
You get the idea. I don’t think most people would argue that, boiled down to the bare bones, 3E is certainly a simpler system.
And yet...
Attacks of opportunity. Threatened areas. Counterspells. Full attack versus partial versus move equivalent. Charges and bull rushes. Sunder. Feats. Stuff that simply didn’t exist in earlier editions and requires a great many rules to adjudicate now.
(Let me note, at this point, that I never got into the Options and Powers in 2nd edition, so if some of this stuff appeared there, color me embarrassed.)
It’s a simple and unarguable fact that using attacks of opportunity makes for more complex rules than not using AOOs. This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, and I’m not saying they’re too complex; just that with them is more complicated than without them. Same for a great many other rules of 3E combat that didn’t occur earlier. Again, this isn’t good or bad in and of itself; it just is.
Stack on enough of these rules, though, and suddenly it’s no longer so crystal clear that 3E is a simpler system than 2E or 1E. It’s still a more streamlined system, and I believe, personally, that it’s a better system. But I don’t know if I’d agree any longer that it’s simpler.
So why did 3E become this complex, when 2E didn’t? Why didn’t concepts like AOO and the like appear in 2E? It isn’t as though they couldn’t have been worked in.
(Another note. A lot of this is, of course, supposition. Obviously, I wasn’t on either the 2E or 3E design teams. If someone who was wants to jump in, feel free.)
Sure, one could just say “Well, they didn’t think of it until 3E.” And to an extent, I’m sure that’s true. But why? It’s not like the idea of an AOO suddenly makes more sense now than it used to. It is because 3E, as written, focuses more on battlemaps? Well, maybe to an extent, but AOOs do not require grids. Leaving aside the question of whether you can keep track of threatened areas without them (I’ve never had any trouble, but some people seem to), it’s still pretty clear that if you stop in the middle of combat to draw a potion, you’re going to get thumped. What about rules for sundering a weapon, or bull rushing?
I’d suggest that it’s the very simplicity of 3E that allowed 3E to become so complex.
(Please feel free to go back and reread that sentence if you have to; I wrote the damn thing and it’s giving me a headache.
)
See, both as a gamer and as a game designer (and I don’t just refer to the RPG companies I’ve worked for, but also several games I developed to a greater or lesser extent in my own RPG group), I honestly believe that having a simple system inspires a certain sort of thinking. It’s a natural reaction to assume that, because a system is simple, it should be able to handle anything you want to include. 1st and 2nd edition were complex, and adding rules for AOOs would have probably resulted in at least eight pages of rules and three charts. (Okay, I’m exaggerating--a little--but you know it’s basically true.) I’d suggest that, because of the assumed level of complexity required, it never occurred to anyone to try to make it work.
In a “simple” system like 3E, however, the natural reaction is going to be, “Hey, it’s a simple system. We can make it work!” And of course, by the time it becomes clear that making it work requires a whole new rules subset, people already have their hearts set on including it, and go ahead and add that new rules subset--thus complicating a no-longer-simple system.
(Again, I want to be clear that I’m not being judgmental when I use “simple” or “complex” or what have you. I like AOOs, just for instance; I’m just describing what I believe are the reasons and rationales.)
The same holds true of other aspects. We can clarify how movement works and how it interacts with attacks and other actions cuz, hey, it’s a simple system, and it can do stuff like that. And attacking weapons. And check penalties. And so on, and so on. Thus, a “simple” system like 3E becomes as complex as 2nd edition, and becomes more rules-heavy, even though its core mechanic can be described in a single sentence--because simple systems inspire people to create more rules, under the assumption that a simple system can handle more stuff without breaking.
Or, in simpler terms, my postulate is this: An inherently simple system inspires people to try to include more than they would in a more complex one, precisely because the system is so simple and seems capable of supporting more material, and therefore wind up complicating the system well beyond its original level of complexity.
What’s the point to all this? I dunno; there probably isn’t one. This is what happens when I get philosophical (yes, RPGs are a philosophy for me) and 2:50 am. Since it’s all written down, though, I’d love to know what you all think of the notion, assuming you can actually find what I was trying to say buried in all this claptrap.
Is 3E (or 3.5E, which is basically the same animal) a simpler system than 1st or 2nd edition?
Certainly, at its core, it would appear so. Everything uses the same basic mechanic: d20 + modifier. Attacks, skills, ability checks, saving throws, all of it. Roll a d20, add your modifier(s), see if the result is high enough.
1st or 2nd? Roll a d20 for most skill checks, but percentile dice for some. Roll high for combat, but find the result by subtracting this from that. Saving throws, check the chart. Ability checks? You want to roll low on those, not high. Oh, and no, you can’t be a fighter/cleric; you’re a halfling. And you’re limited to 9th level. And...
You get the idea. I don’t think most people would argue that, boiled down to the bare bones, 3E is certainly a simpler system.
And yet...
Attacks of opportunity. Threatened areas. Counterspells. Full attack versus partial versus move equivalent. Charges and bull rushes. Sunder. Feats. Stuff that simply didn’t exist in earlier editions and requires a great many rules to adjudicate now.
(Let me note, at this point, that I never got into the Options and Powers in 2nd edition, so if some of this stuff appeared there, color me embarrassed.)
It’s a simple and unarguable fact that using attacks of opportunity makes for more complex rules than not using AOOs. This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, and I’m not saying they’re too complex; just that with them is more complicated than without them. Same for a great many other rules of 3E combat that didn’t occur earlier. Again, this isn’t good or bad in and of itself; it just is.
Stack on enough of these rules, though, and suddenly it’s no longer so crystal clear that 3E is a simpler system than 2E or 1E. It’s still a more streamlined system, and I believe, personally, that it’s a better system. But I don’t know if I’d agree any longer that it’s simpler.
So why did 3E become this complex, when 2E didn’t? Why didn’t concepts like AOO and the like appear in 2E? It isn’t as though they couldn’t have been worked in.
(Another note. A lot of this is, of course, supposition. Obviously, I wasn’t on either the 2E or 3E design teams. If someone who was wants to jump in, feel free.)
Sure, one could just say “Well, they didn’t think of it until 3E.” And to an extent, I’m sure that’s true. But why? It’s not like the idea of an AOO suddenly makes more sense now than it used to. It is because 3E, as written, focuses more on battlemaps? Well, maybe to an extent, but AOOs do not require grids. Leaving aside the question of whether you can keep track of threatened areas without them (I’ve never had any trouble, but some people seem to), it’s still pretty clear that if you stop in the middle of combat to draw a potion, you’re going to get thumped. What about rules for sundering a weapon, or bull rushing?
I’d suggest that it’s the very simplicity of 3E that allowed 3E to become so complex.
(Please feel free to go back and reread that sentence if you have to; I wrote the damn thing and it’s giving me a headache.
)See, both as a gamer and as a game designer (and I don’t just refer to the RPG companies I’ve worked for, but also several games I developed to a greater or lesser extent in my own RPG group), I honestly believe that having a simple system inspires a certain sort of thinking. It’s a natural reaction to assume that, because a system is simple, it should be able to handle anything you want to include. 1st and 2nd edition were complex, and adding rules for AOOs would have probably resulted in at least eight pages of rules and three charts. (Okay, I’m exaggerating--a little--but you know it’s basically true.) I’d suggest that, because of the assumed level of complexity required, it never occurred to anyone to try to make it work.
In a “simple” system like 3E, however, the natural reaction is going to be, “Hey, it’s a simple system. We can make it work!” And of course, by the time it becomes clear that making it work requires a whole new rules subset, people already have their hearts set on including it, and go ahead and add that new rules subset--thus complicating a no-longer-simple system.
(Again, I want to be clear that I’m not being judgmental when I use “simple” or “complex” or what have you. I like AOOs, just for instance; I’m just describing what I believe are the reasons and rationales.)
The same holds true of other aspects. We can clarify how movement works and how it interacts with attacks and other actions cuz, hey, it’s a simple system, and it can do stuff like that. And attacking weapons. And check penalties. And so on, and so on. Thus, a “simple” system like 3E becomes as complex as 2nd edition, and becomes more rules-heavy, even though its core mechanic can be described in a single sentence--because simple systems inspire people to create more rules, under the assumption that a simple system can handle more stuff without breaking.
Or, in simpler terms, my postulate is this: An inherently simple system inspires people to try to include more than they would in a more complex one, precisely because the system is so simple and seems capable of supporting more material, and therefore wind up complicating the system well beyond its original level of complexity.
What’s the point to all this? I dunno; there probably isn’t one. This is what happens when I get philosophical (yes, RPGs are a philosophy for me) and 2:50 am. Since it’s all written down, though, I’d love to know what you all think of the notion, assuming you can actually find what I was trying to say buried in all this claptrap.
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