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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6155837" data-attributes="member: 22779">Ok, waded through that.  Gonna take one more stab at the cat, just because.  I do believe that good game design is not "well someone likes this, therefore it's good game design."   That's just lazy justification.  There are objective points you can look at to decide whether something is good game design or not.  Otherwise, RIFTS becomes the epitome of good game design since it has remained largely unchanged for far longer than any other system.  I've heard a lot of things about RIFTS, but, very few people laud its game design.Why Hussar Believes that SOD is Poor Game Design in a Game with HP Mechanics.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SOD completely bypasses the mechanics for measuring character survivability.  Everything else goes into your hit points.  Hit by a sword?  Swimming in lava?  Falling off a cliff?  Everything.  But, for some reason, we make this differentiation between one kind of damage and another and it's entirely arbitrary.  Why is it SOD when you get bitten by a snake, but, not SOD when you get enveloped in a ball of fire? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SOD makes the game very unpredictable.  Actually, that's not true.  It makes the game very predictable in some cases.  Area of effect SOD effects are almost guaranteed to kill at least one PC.  Even single attack SOD effects are going to kill your PC.  Exposed to four or five SOD effects, it's virtually guaranteed that your PC will die.  With HP ablation, you can withstand dozens, if not hundreds of attacks over the course of the character's career, and not die.  But, about five SOD effects is almost certainly going to kill your PC.  It breaks game math.  It's too powerful. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SOD effects are impossible to judge from a rewards standpoint.  How much xp should a creature be worth that has about a 95% chance of killing one PC?  Any area of effect SOD has about that chance.  Creatures that do HP ablation certainly don't have those kinds of odds.  Not against reasonable leveled PC's.  A troll does not have a 95% chance of whacking a PC.  But a Medusa does.  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Related to the above.  SoD monsters become one trick ponies.  Not always, but, frequently.  Above was mentioned a Bodak.  Ok.  But, a single 3rd level cleric spell and the bodak is now doing a d8+1 damage per round.  You can send in the wizard with a club to beat it to death if you want.  It's binary.  Either it kills a PC or it's a waste of table time. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Even the game designers have realized that SoD was a bad idea.  Look at how poison changed from AD&D to 3e.  In AD&D, with a few exceptions, if you failed a poison save you died.  Every snake, spider and whatnot was a SoD creature.  In 3e, it went to stat damage.  Why did they change this if SoD was such a great idea? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SoD ignores existing mechanics.  We have always had different damage types.  From AD&D onward, we've had fire damage and lightning damage, at the very least.  Various effects were typed and then shunted into the HP mechanics.  But, for some reason, we give special treatment to poisons and other effects.  Why?  Why not simply go with typed damage?  A snake does XdY points of poison damage.  If the PC dies, then he was poisoned to death. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SoD is genre breaking.  Our heroes bravely square off with dragons, demons and giants.  But throw a couple of spiders at them and they turn and run away.  The risk/reward is nowhere near high enough to engage the spiders.  And it's not like spiders are going to become a non-combat encounter all that often.  Sneaking past is a joke when you have a skill system that pretty much tells any armored character that he is not sneaking anywhere.  So, our brave heroes hear about a giant ransacking the countryside and gear up, but a single medusa means that they are seriously considering a new line of work. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">SoD forces arms races.  Typically, but not always, the casters have the counter for the SoD effect - protection from poison/silence spells/whatever.  So, whenever SoD critters come up, it's over to the casters to save the day and then the encounter goes from being interesting to being a speed bump. </li> </ul>So, no.  I do not believe that good game design is reliant on whether or not someone happens to like it.  If you cannot justify why something is good game design with anything other than, "Well, it's fun for me", that doesn't make it well designed.  Good game design actually means something beyond, "I like it".  It means that given mechanics are robust and streamlined.  That given mechanics fit with overall mechanics.  That given mechanics are not completely arbitrary after thoughts tacked on to Spackle over other systems.  SoD is a mechanic that adds lethality to a system (AD&D) where the PC's very quickly outstrip the HP damage mechanics of monsters.  Since monsters in AD&D largely cannot actually kill PC's with straight up damage, they added in SoD to make the game more lethal.</blockquote>

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