librarius_arcana
First Post
ColonelHardisson said:
What?, you don't believe me?,
Then go ask someone else with exp of over 100 rpg's and see what they say
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The Elegance of d20 and D&D
- Thread starter SWAT
- Start date
What?, you don't believe me?,
Then go ask someone else with exp of over 100 rpg's and see what they say
Herremann the Wise
First Post
librarius_arcana said:What?, you don't believe me?,
Then go ask someone else with exp of over 100 rpg's and see what they say
I've noticed this seems to be a trait of yours in several threads I've seen, one that I believe ColonelHardisson was trying to highlight. It's true because you say it's true or just go ask someone else and they'll agree with you. This is fine as an interesting exercise in ego management, but I'd still like to see you explain why you have an opinion rather than telling the audience here that your opinion is in fact... fact.
As for the OP, I believe D&D has a lot of elegant rules but several messy ones as well - I don't think you can be black or white on this issue. The comments from Mike Mearls above illustrate this well.
However, I'm not too sure that a purely elegant game is in fact as much fun as a mostly elegant game with several additional complexities. Just as long as the complexities are not suffered too often, to the detriment of the game, I believe some of those strange abilities that you have to look up or spells that are just plain weird following a totally obtuse path are in fact good for a game. As they are unexpected and different, the players (and DM) are exposed to unusual conditions that hopefully result in a whirl of excitement. Rather than a predictability that is automatically recognized by the PCs, we have a situation that forces the PCs to think and not be in a knowing position of expectation.
For what it's worth, I think D&D accomplishes most of what it sets out to do. I know that our group has had many decades of fun following its evolution.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Gez
First Post
d20 is an elegant system, because it is a modular framework. Like a good Object-Oriented programme code, or a CCG, there's a set of common rules -- metarules, one could say -- and then a virtual infinity of components which you can add, remove, or keep out, and they'll plug with each other very well because they each contain their own rule.
This component-oriented approach is extremely elegant, as it lets people make their own new components easily, and integrate them with the others, and mix and match as they want.
This, my friend, is why a clunky mess of disparate elements such as spells, feat, or monsters, each with their own rules, is in fact the summum of elegance.
Translation: don't bother about elegance, bother about fun.
This component-oriented approach is extremely elegant, as it lets people make their own new components easily, and integrate them with the others, and mix and match as they want.
This, my friend, is why a clunky mess of disparate elements such as spells, feat, or monsters, each with their own rules, is in fact the summum of elegance.
Translation: don't bother about elegance, bother about fun.
Tinker Gnome
Adventurer
I think the D20 System is fairly easy to use and not too hard to get used to. 
Psion
Adventurer
librarius_arcana said:What?, you don't believe me?,
Then go ask someone else with exp of over 100 rpg's and see what they say
Okay.
It's not fact.
I'll do you one better: I'll add in the take of one of the most well respected game authors and theorists in the industry:
"The tendency to confuse personal taste with objective quality is nearly universal." - Robin D. Laws
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Psion
Adventurer
bento said:
The only thing we "pull out the book" for is spells. And then, only for divine casters with access to third party books. Most arcane casters IMC has a limited enough selection that they generally know their spells.
And that's a fine choice. For you and your group.
But as Philotomy so wisely notes above "different people are going to have different opinions on where the "sweet spot" is."
Nightchilde-2
First Post
My benchmark for determining if a rule system is "elegant" or not consists of two parts.
1. How often do I, as GM, have to reference the rulebook (I'm counting GM screens in this).
And...
2. How many houserules are necessary to get it to where I want it to be. Not that I always USE said house rules (I'm very much a RAW kind of GM), but if I were to design it, how much would I change from what is in the book?
A third category, should the first two be fairly even, would be "how quickly can I explain to people how to play this game if they don't own the rulebook?"
Therefore....by those definitions (and YMMV, certainly, as not all people play the same)
Inelegant systems include d20, Champions, GURPS, Ars Magica and Earthdawn.
Elegant systems include World of Darkness (et all), Exalted, Savage Worlds, Shadowrun 4th edition and Deadlands (Classic).
It should also be noted that I really can grok "dice pool" mechanics better than "roll and add" mechanics for some reason. I'm sure there's a deep-seated psychological reason for it.
That's not to say that I don't enjoy the inelegant systems...I loves me some Earthdawn (if only I could get my online group to play it..le sigh) and Mutants & Masterminds.
My point? Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. :-D What oen person might find elegant, another might find clunky and unuseable. So the "elegant vs. not" argument is somewhat of a personal issue.
(Note: Edited for clarity)
1. How often do I, as GM, have to reference the rulebook (I'm counting GM screens in this).
And...
2. How many houserules are necessary to get it to where I want it to be. Not that I always USE said house rules (I'm very much a RAW kind of GM), but if I were to design it, how much would I change from what is in the book?
A third category, should the first two be fairly even, would be "how quickly can I explain to people how to play this game if they don't own the rulebook?"
Therefore....by those definitions (and YMMV, certainly, as not all people play the same)
Inelegant systems include d20, Champions, GURPS, Ars Magica and Earthdawn.
Elegant systems include World of Darkness (et all), Exalted, Savage Worlds, Shadowrun 4th edition and Deadlands (Classic).
It should also be noted that I really can grok "dice pool" mechanics better than "roll and add" mechanics for some reason. I'm sure there's a deep-seated psychological reason for it.
That's not to say that I don't enjoy the inelegant systems...I loves me some Earthdawn (if only I could get my online group to play it..le sigh) and Mutants & Masterminds.
My point? Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. :-D What oen person might find elegant, another might find clunky and unuseable. So the "elegant vs. not" argument is somewhat of a personal issue.
(Note: Edited for clarity)
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ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
librarius_arcana said:What?, you don't believe me?,
Then go ask someone else with exp of over 100 rpg's and see what they say
Just a hundred? Over the past 26 years, I've owned well over 200 RPGs. I say it is elegant. So I win.
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Herremann the Wise said:
Yeah, it is a weak way to argue. Especially when the argument is supposedly bolstered by "go ask someone else with experience with more than 100 RPGs." Well, I have experience with a lot more than that, and I disagree. So the argument was blown out of the water before it even got wet. That's why it's always better to actually have some substance to one's posts beyond "because I said so."
Hey there everyone. I'm the guy spoken of in the opening post, and the discussion has been very interesting so far. I thought I'd clarify a few things - hopefully giving people an idea of where I'm coming from.
A - What is elegant?
Elegance, what is it? I design games for a living (which doesn't make my opinion any better or worse than anyone else's - just letting you know where I come from) so I think about game rules a lot. All day, most days. When I'm not thinking about them, I'm explaining them to other people - and trying to ensure they make sense. To me, the easiest rules to explain to other people are those that are elegant.
Some characteristics of elegance in rule systems :
The rule is evident - which is to say, it's easily understood and intuitively grasped
It is consistent - it shares behaviour with other rules inside the system (you wouldn't usually mix die-pools and percentage rolls and additive damage inside the same system - at least not elegantly)
It is simple - the rule outcome is achieved in the simplest possible fashion. Think of this as an Occams Razor for game mechanics.
It avoids special cases - rules that invoke other special case exemptions and extensions in specific circumstances simply make everyone's jobs harder. You always have to be aware of these special cases, which is hard if you don't know the system inside out.
I'm inherently biased towards elegant rule systems - I'm not saying that inelegant systems are broken or wrong : it's simply that I prefer elegance. Personal choice, not for everyone.
B - What the Fudge?
If D&D isn't elegant, what is? Chosing Fudge during my discussion w/ Swat was a bad call. As a counter-example, it fails to provide any clear indication as to what about D&D isn't elegant. This lead the conversation down the lines of comparing rules-light verus rules-heavy. My fault entirely, and not what I intended.
Instead lets say that Savage Worlds is rules heavy AND elegant (mostly). D20 is rules heavy AND inelegant (mostly). These give far better potential for comparison, because they're similar games serving similar functions. You simply wouldn't run most D20 games with Fudge, nor most Fudge games with D20. On the other hand, most D20 scenarios could reasonably be run with SW, and vice versa.
To put this in Psion's terms - they're both "robust".
C - Fun.
Damn straight. If you're having fun, who cares? If the system does the job, why change?
I run D20 (or at least I have in the past) - in fact, I've run almost every system under the sun at one point or another. It's fine, in it's place. With a group of players who are familiar with the conventions[1] it runs smooth. On the other hand, with players who aren't it's not very easy to get into. There are *so many* special cases which you won't know about until you fall into them. This is another reason I don't consider it "elegant" - in an elegant system, you should know your options in most circumstances pretty clearly. In D20 that's often not so.
Even so, there are times and places for D20 - and one of those is when the people you're playing with all know D20 already.
D - Joe Mucchiello has some good points.
While this is true, I think the benefits of elegance do make for far better sessions. These are some things I think make sessions run slowly and generally less fun.
Arguments over rules.
Needing to look up rules mid-game. (It breaks the flow of things, doesn't it?)
Both of these issues arise much less frequently if the rule system is elegant. So while no-one ever looks at the elegance of the system as the reason for having more fun, it often contributes. However instead of noticing that players will comment on how smoothly everything was resolved, how much roleplaying they got to do, how many combats they ran through and how much action they packed in.
Hear hear! If you're at all interested in the mechanics of RPG's (and there's no reason you should be - but I am!) then you owe it to yourself to check out as many different ways of approaching them as possible.
E - The Deal
Fair enough. Once we get this milestone out of the way I'll run a set of weekly one-offs (provided SWAT's down with it) demonstrating "What I think is worth thinking about in RPG design"
We'll cover Savage Worlds (Robust and Elegant), Fudge (Light and Elegant), Deadlands Classic (inelegant and flavour filled) just for starters.
F - Pause for breath
Okay. There's a whole lot of other points here I think are worth engaging with and responding to. I don't have unlimted time however - so I'll take a break here and let the show continue. Thanks for all the feedback so far.
[1] Which is, lets face it, 90% of P&P gamers. It's the grandaddy of them all.
A - What is elegant?
Elegance, what is it? I design games for a living (which doesn't make my opinion any better or worse than anyone else's - just letting you know where I come from) so I think about game rules a lot. All day, most days. When I'm not thinking about them, I'm explaining them to other people - and trying to ensure they make sense. To me, the easiest rules to explain to other people are those that are elegant.
Some characteristics of elegance in rule systems :
The rule is evident - which is to say, it's easily understood and intuitively grasped
It is consistent - it shares behaviour with other rules inside the system (you wouldn't usually mix die-pools and percentage rolls and additive damage inside the same system - at least not elegantly)
It is simple - the rule outcome is achieved in the simplest possible fashion. Think of this as an Occams Razor for game mechanics.
It avoids special cases - rules that invoke other special case exemptions and extensions in specific circumstances simply make everyone's jobs harder. You always have to be aware of these special cases, which is hard if you don't know the system inside out.
I'm inherently biased towards elegant rule systems - I'm not saying that inelegant systems are broken or wrong : it's simply that I prefer elegance. Personal choice, not for everyone.
B - What the Fudge?
If D&D isn't elegant, what is? Chosing Fudge during my discussion w/ Swat was a bad call. As a counter-example, it fails to provide any clear indication as to what about D&D isn't elegant. This lead the conversation down the lines of comparing rules-light verus rules-heavy. My fault entirely, and not what I intended.
Instead lets say that Savage Worlds is rules heavy AND elegant (mostly). D20 is rules heavy AND inelegant (mostly). These give far better potential for comparison, because they're similar games serving similar functions. You simply wouldn't run most D20 games with Fudge, nor most Fudge games with D20. On the other hand, most D20 scenarios could reasonably be run with SW, and vice versa.
To put this in Psion's terms - they're both "robust".
C - Fun.
Damn straight. If you're having fun, who cares? If the system does the job, why change?
I run D20 (or at least I have in the past) - in fact, I've run almost every system under the sun at one point or another. It's fine, in it's place. With a group of players who are familiar with the conventions[1] it runs smooth. On the other hand, with players who aren't it's not very easy to get into. There are *so many* special cases which you won't know about until you fall into them. This is another reason I don't consider it "elegant" - in an elegant system, you should know your options in most circumstances pretty clearly. In D20 that's often not so.
Even so, there are times and places for D20 - and one of those is when the people you're playing with all know D20 already.
D - Joe Mucchiello has some good points.
jmucchiello said:
While this is true, I think the benefits of elegance do make for far better sessions. These are some things I think make sessions run slowly and generally less fun.
Arguments over rules.
Needing to look up rules mid-game. (It breaks the flow of things, doesn't it?)
Both of these issues arise much less frequently if the rule system is elegant. So while no-one ever looks at the elegance of the system as the reason for having more fun, it often contributes. However instead of noticing that players will comment on how smoothly everything was resolved, how much roleplaying they got to do, how many combats they ran through and how much action they packed in.
jmucchiello said:
Hear hear! If you're at all interested in the mechanics of RPG's (and there's no reason you should be - but I am!) then you owe it to yourself to check out as many different ways of approaching them as possible.
E - The Deal
spacemonkey said:
Fair enough. Once we get this milestone out of the way I'll run a set of weekly one-offs (provided SWAT's down with it) demonstrating "What I think is worth thinking about in RPG design"
We'll cover Savage Worlds (Robust and Elegant), Fudge (Light and Elegant), Deadlands Classic (inelegant and flavour filled) just for starters.
F - Pause for breath
Okay. There's a whole lot of other points here I think are worth engaging with and responding to. I don't have unlimted time however - so I'll take a break here and let the show continue. Thanks for all the feedback so far.
[1] Which is, lets face it, 90% of P&P gamers. It's the grandaddy of them all.
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