Spending character generation currency on complexity

[Celebrim]

Good one. What's your first law?

Celebrim's First Law of RPG's (tm): "Thou shalt not be good at everything."

I'm particularly proud of that one, because its a lot deeper and more subtle than it first appears. I believe that the entire rules structure of RPG's is built to provide for the first law, in as much as the fundamental need in structured imaginative play is to prevent someone from always getting their way. Virtually every rule in every game is simply a special case of the first law.

While I am in total agreement with you about the flawed thesis of the Forge (and I'm glad to hear you say it so succinctly!)... what bearing does that have to Saeviomagy's idea? It seems to me, if anything, having character creation include different complexity dials supports diverse play styles.

I don't know how to say this without being harsh, so I'm just going to risk being harsh.

I'm not entirely sure that Saeviomagy's idea is bad - in fact it may be the kernel of a very good idea - but I think it procedes from several false premises. As such, a lot of were he goes with his ideas grate on me. Also, I don't think that his implementation will actually get him to where he wants to go because not only is the problem he's trying to solve not mostly a system problem, but the system alterations he adopts aren't radically different enough from the system to really push the way you think about play away from the mental model he's trapped in. I think he's showing signs of not having been exposed to enough different rules systems so he's not really aware of how you can change the rules to change the way people think about the game, and hense of not fundamentally understanding Celebrim's second law. (Which essentially implies that you can play D&D using Dogs in the Vineyard as the system, provided you prepare for play like you were going to play D&D and hold the mental model of D&D as the way to game. Of course, Dogs system tries to set up a different model of preparation and play, and usually I would guess succeeds in that.)

But yes, a good character creation system supports diverse play styles. If the character creation system is good, then different people looking at it can see different possibilities for how to play the game with in it. For example, I can tell by how he describes the metagame, that how he plays D20 is rather radically different than how I play it on many points.

The problem RPG's often have is that they - for lack of understanding of the Second Law - are often guilty of not telling you enough about how to think about playing the game. The games are short not only on examples of play, but on examples of preparing for play. (I'm not picking on D&D; it usually does a better job of this than some other games.) D&D is historically good about putting adventures out there to provide examples, but the adventures don't discuss why they were put together with the information that they have in them or at an even higher level, how different sorts of information prepared ahead of time would color how the DM percieves what the game of D&D is. And when they do present this information, for example Pazio is pretty good at it especially in their low level modules, they often seem to not realize that properly this ought to be in the DMG. And for that matter, the module itself because of limitations in the format tends to hide dials that are available to the DM in a way that novices won't see them.

In otherwords, RPG's don't discuss how the players and DM can adjust how they think about the game to achieve the game that they want. Adjusting the rules effects that, but in my opinon the effect is comparitively minor unless the rules change is predicated on an understanding in the group of what the rules change is trying to achieve and that goal is agreed upon. A rules system that pushed you hard enough to not think of playing D&D in the way you've always thought to play it, would have to look nothing like D&D. Minor changes won't cut it, unless they are changes that directly impact that metagame.

 

[Saeviomagy]

But yes, a good character creation system supports diverse play styles. If the character creation system is good, then different people looking at it can see different possibilities for how to play the game with in it. For example, I can tell by how he describes the metagame, that how he plays D20 is rather radically different than how I play it on many points.

A little note here: my descriptions here are deliberately being gamestyle-agnostic, and my selection of a d20 based game system is merely to widen the audience for discussion.

How I actually play d20 (or any other system) is radically different depending on the group I play with, who is DM, what sort of game he's devised and our moods at the time we're playing.

The important thing that a rules set should do is to not get in the way of fun.

It is my opinion that a mismatch between rules complexity and the interest a player has in an area of the game results in the rules being in the way of fun to some degree, and this idea is looking at a potential way that might be addressed.

The idea isn't to have a rules set that pushes people to play the game they will enjoy, or forces them to play in a way that helps others enjoyment. It's to have a game that naturally adjusts to what a player wants to see in the game.

After all, while you can play out Jane Austen novels using the Advanced Squad Leader rules, it seems silly to suggest that finding better rules to do so would be a waste of time.

 

[Quickleaf]

I just had an idea for what these complexity dials might look like at character creation. At the baseline is a check with some modifier, and some way to interpret the result, with a strong set of improv guidelines to handle that. Depending on where a player wants more complexity, they can unpack the improv rules in that area, gaining access to a list of powers/talents.

For example, a rogue's player sets "Exploration" options (skills, resource management, trap-finding, etc) to high complexity but leaves "Combat" and "Roleplaying" at lower complexity.

Thus, his skills are well defined and may even break skills down into various parts or specialties (eg. skill points in Thievery generally or in Pickpockets, Disable Device, and Sleight of Hand). When he rolls a skill check he gets options other PCs don't, like Iron Heroes style skill challenges, Apocalypse World style partial successes, maybe rules for critical hits with skills, and some kind of skill powers. Likewise he gains exploration related resources (eg. trap-building points) which he gets to manage when in exploration mode. And when engaging with traps he unlocks a whole array of options unavailable to rogues with low complexity in "Exploration."

However when it comes to "Combat" he is flying by the seat of his pants and doesn't have many (if any) built-in options. Instead he uses the combat improv rules. He doesn't grant combat advantage nor does he gain it, he can't set up flanks or be flanked, and the entire way he relates to a battlemap is abstract compared to PCs with high complexity in "Combat."

Likewise he has low complexity in "Roleplaying" which probably means he wants to talk with NPCs organically without relying in rules much, or he just isn't into talky scenes. I'll assume it's the former for this example, which means when that maybe the player gets to decide when to make a social skill check rather than the DM or when a number value is needed there's simply a baseline passive social skill check assumption.

 

[Wik]

I'm sorry, but isn't this already the design basis for FATE?

Basically, you choose a few attributes/etc, but then you write open-ended sentences about what your character "is". "Joe the barbarian is really strong". "Joe the Barbarian is allergic to peanuts". "Joe the Barbarian hates wizards". "Joe the Barbarian is very skilled with a sword".

You are writing these facts down about your character so that, during play, you can "tag" these traits to gain in-game bonuses. Essentially, what you're doing is setting the game up so that you'll succeed at those areas you want to succeed in - but also directing the game towards those areas (and since the GM can ALSO tag your character's attributes, it's setting the game up so you can tell the GM what your preferences happen to be).

As for the "Combat machine winds up seeing less combat because he's so much better at it" argument, I'm not sure it's valid. At least, in my experience, I haven't seen that to be the case. Or the diplomacy auto-success problem, but then, I get where the argument is coming from. Namely, if you like the thrill of grapples or negotiating with NPCs, and you dedicate towards that, you risk auto-success which detracts from the fun. HOWEVER, this can be fixed at a game design level simply by keeping the numbers low (a la Savage Worlds).

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Forgive me [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] for the slow response, I didn't see you had asked me a direct question. I will do my best to explain how the tactics vs complexity scale works in OMEN.

At the baseline, a character picks a species which has several advantages and disadvantages, some of which apply a tactical advantage (for instance, one race is especially skilled at long-range combat, and therefore suffer less for shooting at longer ranges.)

After that, the baseline attributes within OMEN are selected with a point-buy system. There are only four attributes, and a low amount of points to buy into them. The amount bought is the direct modifier onto a roll. This allows a character to become more or less optimized in combat, but because of the way attributes work in OMEN, every skill is modified by TWO separate modifiers, which actually encourages spreading out more than having a single super high attribute.

This immediately does two things: removes some of the complexity in attribute buying from other systems (many point-buy systems as well as the six attributes of d20) and still allows for tactical decisions of which attributes to get to certain numbers to allow for synergy between them. You can simply spread out the points as you want your character to have, or be a highly focused individual.

After the attributes have been bought, the selection of various Skills are selected. There are eight Skills, and similarly to attributes, are bought in with a small amount of points. The points apply a direct modifier on to activities that fall into that skill.

Once a skill has been purchased, it unlocks three Specialties. Specialties are more specific actions within a Skill, for example, for the Influence skill, there is Charm, Intimidate, and Convince. Each one can be invested into separately, or simply left alone, even if the Skill has been purchased.

This creates a waterfall of increasing specialization. If a character wants to buy a very small amount of skills and is highly focused, he is literally opting in to different options or specializations in-game. This does not preclude a character who doesn't purchase into the same skills, but the character's capability in that action is more than likely less than that of the focused character.

The combination of all of the Attributes, Skills, and Specialties with further options (including Assets and Powers) can add a good dose of tactical complexity. But, a character who wishes to move tactically (can roll for that) followed by assessing his opponent's weak points (can roll for that) followed by "focusing" on his attack (not a roll, but considered an action) and then making an attack with a Power (which there are only a handful of different powers) the character has made a great deal of tactical decisions.

Similarly, a different character can simply "Aid" his ally, and then "Attack" his enemy. Done in about 5 seconds. This second character is still very useful, and could potentially even have more effect on the combat than the first one, even though his tactical decisions were minimal.

Similarly in any form of what OMEN calls an "Obstacle," which would be any encounter that the characters must make decisions/actions/rolls to overcome, the player's cleverness and choices and abilities are used in synergy with the character's in order to accomplish a task. For example, the GM will set the difficulty of accomplishing an action, and if the player describes certain logical elements of completing the action, the difficulty gets progressively lower. This encourages logical decision making; but if the player doesn't want to think, and has a highly skilled and focused character, he can just say "I climb the wall" or "I disarm the explosives" and roll. If he rolls high enough, he succeeds.

The amount of involvement therefore is elegant and easy to manipulate from the GM's standpoint due to the relatively flat math in OMEN.

So, in summary: characters can be built simply or with optimization; combat has enough tactical choices for the tactical gamer while remaining simple enough for the indifferent gamer; and all other forms of obstacles can be resolved with as much in-character RP or gamist rolling as the group/GM/player desires.

I hope this answered your question thoroughly enough. As a related note, the official OMEN RPG preview will be released very soon, more than likely in the next upcoming weeks.