Unpopular opinions go here

[Guest 85555]

That's what I said, though; that only works if spells are largely written to a common metric and do not vary much in things such as range, duration, casting time and so on, nor have particularly complex effects. That doesn't describe many magic systems. Even most effect-based systems (which I think are much easier to remember than exception based ones) usually have more variance than that.

If all those things can fit on an easy to spot stat block, I would disagree. It doesn’t slow the game down to see one spell has 15 foot range and another 40. Same with stuff like casting time. The spell entries don’t need to be similar, just short, easy to deploy and ideally following whatever the core casting mechanic is

 

[Guest 85555]

I would like to note that many arguments for spells not making a game rule heavy can also apply to 4E powers.

I don’t think those make 4E heavy. There is an argument to be made they could lighten play. But they are why I didn’t like 4E

 

[MGibster]

Unpopular opinion. “The DM can fix it at the table” is not the awesome defense people seem to think it is. It admits that yes, the design is bad and that yes, the game does need fixing by the punter who is stuck running the thing. In no way is it saying the design is good actually.

Oh, my stars & garters! Yes! One of the difficult things about critiquing a system to its fans, especially its long term fans, is that they've already figured out how to mitigate any flaws and may no longer even see those flaws. When I first started playing Call of Cthulhu, one of the problems I ran into was watching Investigators bottleneck when they failed skill rolls. These failed skill rolls sometimes made it difficult for the PCs to know what to do next while other times they just missed out on a significant chunk of the story having no idea why something was going on. Pointing this out to long time players of CoC often reasulted in, " That's not a flaw in the game, I just give the PCs the clues they need regardless of how they roll." Which is no bad advice, but it wasn't the advice given to Keepers in some of the earlier edition of the games nor was that how introductory scenarios like "The Haunting" played out in the main book.

 

[MGibster]

On what planet is D&D a rules light game? Even in 1e, if you took that 10th level wizard, wrote down every rules bit applicable to casting - spells know, chance to learn, combat rules for casting in combat, plus the actual text of the spellbook, that character sheet would be fifteen pages long.

On the planet Zeist, where all those immortals who were sent to Earth came from.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh, my stars & garters! Yes! One of the difficult things about critiquing a system to its fans, especially its long term fans, is that they've already figured out how to mitigate any flaws and may no longer even see those flaws. When I first started playing Call of Cthulhu, one of the problems I ran into was watching Investigators bottleneck when they failed skill rolls. These failed skill rolls sometimes made it difficult for the PCs to know what to do next while other times they just missed out on a significant chunk of the story having no idea why something was going on. Pointing this out to long time players of CoC often reasulted in, " That's not a flaw in the game, I just give the PCs the clues they need regardless of how they roll." Which is no bad advice, but it wasn't the advice given to Keepers in some of the earlier edition of the games nor was that how introductory scenarios like "The Haunting" played out in the main book.

I'm a long time Call of Cthulhu Keeper and player. We've never run it any differently than the "new" version where "if you need the clue to continue, you just get the clue." It seemed utterly dumb to run it any other way. I've heard horror stories of Keepers legit stopping games after a failed roll for a bottleneck clue. It's both a design flaw in the game's mechanics and a RAW or nothing flaw in the Keepers when they run it that way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If all those things can fit on an easy to spot stat block, I would disagree. It doesn’t slow the game down to see one spell has 15 foot range and another 40. Same with stuff like casting time. The spell entries don’t need to be similar, just short, easy to deploy and ideally following whatever the core casting mechanic is

And how many do you need to remember? 20? 30? Are the effects made to a common metric, or do you need to describe the effect with each one?

Again, I think you're seriously underestimating how much this bloats up. OD&D spells were abbreviated to the point of being cryptic, and they still sucked up a lot of space.

 

[Guest 85555]

And how many do you need to remember? 20? 30? Are the effects made to a common metric, or do you need to describe the effect with each one?

You don’t need to remember any of them. You refer to the stat block and if you need more info read the entry. Again for me it is about whether this slows play down or not. I find if abilities like this use enough brevity and are fit onto a simple enough core system, it is a fast and light experience

Again, I think you're seriously underestimating how much this bloats up. OD&D spells were abbreviated to the point of being cryptic, and they still sucked up a lot of space.

I think the cryptic nature was a plus for me. I wouldn’t use that word myself but I get what you are referring to. Your mileage may vary. For me that is a perfectly light system.

Sucking up space isn’t the issue for me here. like I said I don’t really tend to count monster or spell entries towards heaviness (at least in terms of quantity)

 

[Emberashh]

And how many do you need to remember? 20? 30? Are the effects made to a common metric, or do you need to describe the effect with each one?

Again, I think you're seriously underestimating how much this bloats up. OD&D spells were abbreviated to the point of being cryptic, and they still sucked up a lot of space.

The single biggest unforced error with playing games that prewrite umpteen billion spells is the idea that you need to memorize any of them. Spell cards are a staple accessory item for a reason.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't actually like that kind of magic design. My games magic is largely improvised, with you writing your own combat spells to reference later. Kind of impossible to not know what your stuff does when you wrote it, and GMs only need to know when a spell isn't legal, which they'd know when they have the player confirm the spell, and everything else is all guided improv so there's no need to memorize more than how that mechanic works.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the cryptic nature was a plus for me. I wouldn’t use that word myself but I get what you are referring to. Your mileage may vary. For me that is a perfectly light system.

If we're hitting the "Making up important elements of commonly used spells is a virtue" I'm very much done here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The single biggest unforced error with playing games that prewrite umpteen billion spells is the idea that you need to memorize any of them. Spell cards are a staple accessory item for a reason.

I think needing to have that is, in and of itself, a sign of complexity.