The Stakes of Classifying Games as Rules Lite, Medium, or Heavy?

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, I didn't read all of the middle of this thread... in thinking about the OP though, I am also not really able to come up with a way to classify stuff. Without that, how can we make much in the way of specific judgments?

I mean, I think that RPGers DO respond to 'complexity' in some sense. That is, they might want more or less, and they might weigh that in terms of various measures. They may accept other people's judgment on that, but its likely to be that of friends that HAVE the game, or have played it. Otherwise its likely going to be based on "how heavy is this book?"

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think we have a strong difference of opinion here. I do not view it as the job of game designers to design to the way people are already playing. It's their job to design a compelling game. Not to conform to existing expectations. They may wish to if they want mainstream success, but it is absolutely not essential.

I mean we do not lay this sort of criticism on board game designers.

In that post I'm primarily talking about people doing new editions of extent games, where I'll firmly say that if you're going to change the play style significantly, it is absolutely your job to convey you've done that. Otherwise you're actively designing to failure.

But beyond that, I think its at least perverse to design to group-dynamic assumptions that seem uncommon enough you're asking for bad experiences on a large number of groups trying to engage with your game. That doesn't mean there isn't sometimes some purpose in it, but at that point they should not be at all surprised that people trying out the game frequently have complaints. And its double this when the designers don't explain what sort of group they're aiming at.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, I didn't read all of the middle of this thread... in thinking about the OP though, I am also not really able to come up with a way to classify stuff. Without that, how can we make much in the way of specific judgments?

I mean, I think that RPGers DO respond to 'complexity' in some sense. That is, they might want more or less, and they might weigh that in terms of various measures. They may accept other people's judgment on that, but its likely to be that of friends that HAVE the game, or have played it. Otherwise its likely going to be based on "how heavy is this book?"

It is a very hard row to hoe to get any generally useful definition here. I mean, you can't even get common agreement that complexity-in-play is more of an issue than complexity-in-character-gen, and that's the low hanging fruit.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One of the big secrets to D&D's longevity is that it was in practice playtested more extensively and by more people than any other tabletop RPG I can think of. And, vitally, those players were wargamers who were trying to break the system rather than roleplayers trying to make it succeed. There are things I can say about how clunky D&D was - but the foundational playtesting of oD&D was better than any other RPG I'm aware of.

Yes and, well, no. You're not wrong about raw numbers, but the problem is that because its market is so big, selecting out what part of the market's responses you want to pay attention to was always a thing.

Obviously there's some functionality done by this; things like that godawful weapon-based initiative chart from AD&D1 vanished pretty thoroughly, but it took a pretty long time for design to really thoroughly decide something skill-like was needed. And you've had things like the issues where there's not quite enough weight on changes because of some preference inertia (trying to get fighters just a little more equal to mages has been an uphill fight since forever for reasons I'm sure anyone reading this is familiar with).

And of course there's some first principal issues that are so firmly lodged in the system that whether they're good ideas or not is unlikely to be even examined; people who have problems with them just tend to filter out of the playtesting in the first place (example: D&D is unlikely to ever discard character classes).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In that post I'm primarily talking about people doing new editions of extent games, where I'll firmly say that if you're going to change the play style significantly, it is absolutely your job to convey you've done that. Otherwise you're actively designing to failure.

But beyond that, I think its at least perverse to design to group-dynamic assumptions that seem uncommon enough you're asking for bad experiences on a large number of groups trying to engage with your game. That doesn't mean there isn't sometimes some purpose in it, but at that point they should not be at all surprised that people trying out the game frequently have complaints. And its double this when the designers don't explain what sort of group they're aiming at.

What if my game concept is just niche? I mean, there are people who like certain styles of play. Obviously nobody is suggesting that game designers should only appeal to the whole market broadly regardless of what the impact of that would be. I mean, Blades in the Dark, or lets get more niche, Dogs in the Vineyard, are NOT games that will appeal to everyone, and probably only a select subset, but you simply cannot get that game play out of D&D, no matter how hard you try...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Many designs are compromised on all kinds of levels - but this doesn't mysteriously and miraculously give DMs who frequently have very little background in game design the ability to do things better than professionals can. Some can because they can judge their table - but your average game designer is a better game designer than your average GM.

But this assumes the average GM is particularly prone to doing major redesign. They aren't. And the ones that do, and do so regularly, I remain unconvinced are worse designers than the average designer, because honestly, when viewed as a set, game designers aren't all that damn good at it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What if my game concept is just niche?

Then make good and sure you're entirely clear what you're selling.

I mean, there are people who like certain styles of play. Obviously nobody is suggesting that game designers should only appeal to the whole market broadly regardless of what the impact of that would be. I mean, Blades in the Dark, or lets get more niche, Dogs in the Vineyard, are NOT games that will appeal to everyone, and probably only a select subset, but you simply cannot get that game play out of D&D, no matter how hard you try...

And I'm not using D&D as the standard. But as an example, going in with a game design that assumes a strongly cooperative bent on the player group without emphasizing how important that is for this design, or one that's going to blow up a group that isn't extremely mature in their approach to some subjects (Monsterhearts comes to mind here) is bad design no matter how sound the mechanics are for their intended purposes.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

things like that godawful weapon-based initiative chart from AD&D1 vanished pretty thoroughly, but it took a pretty long time for design to really thoroughly decide something skill-like was needed.

This is an interesting statement, because my group, which has played fantasy games using AD&D2, 3E, 3.5, 4E, PF2, PF2, 13A, Fate, and Savage Worlds fairly recently played an old-school style game where we used weapon-based initiative modifiers from AD&D1 and no skills. We use the following AD&D options:

1. Group rolls a d10; GM rolls d10 for opposition
2. Each player adds their weapon speed modifier (or spell time modifier) to the roll
3. Go in order from first to last

We actually liked this quite a lot. It added incentive to use fast weapons like daggers over 2-H weapons; it meant that the order the party went in was usually pretty fixed, so players could be quite tactical -- also sped up decision-making. Ditto for the GM who could line up monsters in order before even rolling.

At the other end of the age scale is Fate, where in one game we do use skill-based rolling. In my game though, I use the GUMSHOE approach where your rank with whatever skill you are using determines initiate (so the +4 provoke attack beats the +3 ranged attack every time). That also works nicely for us.

So it is possible that the (optional) weapon-based initiative from AD&D was removed because it was "godawful" and the reason it took so long is that the designers were a bunch of idiots compared to the average GM (which is your stated position). It is also possible that as an optional rule, some people liked it and it was only removed when the game started being more complicated and people started wanting more complex rules-heavy systems which combined initiate rolling with feats and so on and that combining both these new rules and the old optional rules was simply too much even for rules-heavy systems. The fact that optional initiative systems are so popular (popcorn initiative, e.g.) and that modern systems like GUMSHOE are embracing simpler systems seems to me a pretty good indication that for rules-light and rules-medium games, per-character initiate rolls are not, as you believe "needed", but are instead increasingly seen as unnecessary.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Then make good and sure you're entirely clear what you're selling.



And I'm not using D&D as the standard. But as an example, going in with a game design that assumes a strongly cooperative bent on the player group without emphasizing how important that is for this design, or one that's going to blow up a group that isn't extremely mature in their approach to some subjects (Monsterhearts comes to mind here) is bad design no matter how sound the mechanics are for their intended purposes.

Yeah, I didn't mean D&D IS, or should be, the 'standard', it is just considered an example of a fairly 'main-stream' game, most of which typically cast the GM as 'keeper of story', etc. I agree that it behooves people wanting to distribute a game (sell it or whatever) to let people know what they're getting into. I think even mainstream games should do that. Probably most game designers/publishers agree, though there might be some shades there of opinion on exactly what that should entail. Your earlier post COULD have been interpreted as "niche games are a bad idea", but I didn't seriously think you meant it to be taken that way .

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is an interesting statement, because my group, which has played fantasy games using AD&D2, 3E, 3.5, 4E, PF2, PF2, 13A, Fate, and Savage Worlds fairly recently played an old-school style game where we used weapon-based initiative modifiers from AD&D1 and no skills. We use the following AD&D options:

1. Group rolls a d10; GM rolls d10 for opposition
2. Each player adds their weapon speed modifier (or spell time modifier) to the roll
3. Go in order from first to last

We actually liked this quite a lot. It added incentive to use fast weapons like daggers over 2-H weapons; it meant that the order the party went in was usually pretty fixed, so players could be quite tactical -- also sped up decision-making. Ditto for the GM who could line up monsters in order before even rolling.

At the other end of the age scale is Fate, where in one game we do use skill-based rolling. In my game though, I use the GUMSHOE approach where your rank with whatever skill you are using determines initiate (so the +4 provoke attack beats the +3 ranged attack every time). That also works nicely for us.

So it is possible that the (optional) weapon-based initiative from AD&D was removed because it was "godawful" and the reason it took so long is that the designers were a bunch of idiots compared to the average GM (which is your stated position). It is also possible that as an optional rule, some people liked it and it was only removed when the game started being more complicated and people started wanting more complex rules-heavy systems which combined initiate rolling with feats and so on and that combining both these new rules and the old optional rules was simply too much even for rules-heavy systems. The fact that optional initiative systems are so popular (popcorn initiative, e.g.) and that modern systems like GUMSHOE are embracing simpler systems seems to me a pretty good indication that for rules-light and rules-medium games, per-character initiate rolls are not, as you believe "needed", but are instead increasingly seen as unnecessary.

Well, that was definitely not 'stock' AD&D (either edition). Weapon Speed was really a very obtuse and poorly explained rule, as-written, and frankly added very little to the game (in either 1e or 2e, it worked a bit differently in each one). While it might IN THEORY favor faster weapons, it didn't actually come into play enough to matter much. I think the way you describe using it, or variations on that, were QUITE common though! Probably a lot more playable than the original too (1e in particular has a pretty crap combat system IMHO, mostly in terms of how it is explained more than how it plays though).