Where Complexity Belongs

[stonehead]

Yes! I was just thinking that my take on it can be expressed as

The more you use the rule, the more important it is for it to be simple. The less often it is used, the more it should stand out from normal gameplay with a little more complexity.

To push back slightly against this, when I think about the rules that I've ignored at my table, they've been complicated rules that don't come up very often. If it's only going to happen once or twice every dozen sessions, I'm less likely to remember how the rules work, and if it's very complicated, I'm less likely to learn them mid-session.

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@TheAlkaizer already mentioned this, but complexity is the cost of adding things to your game, it generally shouldn't be seen as a goal in and of itself. What are you trying to get out of these sub-systems? Why do you want a ritual to take an entire session?

You listed a half-dozen things that could be components of a ritual, but I haven't seen a justification for why they should be separated. A ressurection spell could cost a hundred gold for special salts plus two hundred gold for a rosary plus three hundred gold of healing potions plus four hundred gold for a holy symbol, but that would be no different than it costing a thousand gold worth of diamond dust. To the players, they'll just see it as 1000g either way.

The "roll a die and add your bonuses" resolution mechanic for social encounters catches some flak sometimes, but I've never seen anything different actually work better at the table. You could add complexity by requiring a roll for your word choice, and another roll for your pronunciation, another roll for your body language. Doing so wouldn't actually add any depth though. Would failing your pronunciation check mean something different for the game than failing your body language check? Basically never.

If you want to keep all these different elements, I think you need to come up with some mechanical or narrative justification for each of them. Is there a meaningful difference between failing the "circle check" compared to failing the "implement check"? Combat is long and complex because there should be meaningful decisions to be made every round. Are there meaningful decisions for the players to make during the "component phase" and the "spell phase"? Or are they just padding?

I hope the tone didn't come across too harsh, if you have answers to all these questions, I'm interested in hearing them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

To push back slightly against this, when I think about the rules that I've ignored at my table, they've been complicated rules that don't come up very often. If it's only going to happen once or twice every dozen sessions, I'm less likely to remember how the rules work, and if it's very complicated, I'm less likely to learn them mid-session.

And my experience is opposite that.

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@TheAlkaizer already mentioned this, but complexity is the cost of adding things to your game, it generally shouldn't be seen as a goal in and of itself.

Generally, perhaps. Not always.

What are you trying to get out of these sub-systems? Why do you want a ritual to take an entire session?

It isnt really a subsystem. And i said rituals could sometimes be a whole scene, not a whole session. Equivelent in scope, importance, consequnces, and complexity, to a conflict scene like a combat or social challenge.

As for why i want that, it is simple. I want some rituals to be that "big" because it makes them feel like tense ritual magic to do something that couldnt be done otherwise. It makes gameplay allign with fiction.

It is also simply more fun and satisfying.

You listed a half-dozen things that could be components of a ritual, but I haven't seen a justification for why they should be separated.

Then please reread my posts, because i provided clear justifications. You may not agree with them, but they are certainly present.

A ressurection spell could cost a hundred gold for special salts plus two hundred gold for a rosary plus three hundred gold of healing potions plus four hundred gold for a holy symbol, but that would be no different than it costing a thousand gold worth of diamond dust. To the players, they'll just see it as 1000g either way.

Not the best comparison, since i havent suggested running rituals like that at all. Each aspect is a skill check in a game based entirely on skill checks. No need for pricing components and being nitty gritty. I prefer not even tracking money in detail.

And IME players are much more invested in skill challenge style ressurection rituals than in just "click paper button get friend back".

The "roll a die and add your bonuses" resolution mechanic for social encounters catches some flak sometimes, but I've never seen anything different actually work better at the table. You could add complexity by requiring a roll for your word choice, and another roll for your pronunciation, another roll for your body language. Doing so wouldn't actually add any depth though. Would failing your pronunciation check mean something different for the game than failing your body language check? Basically never.

You seem to be ignoring literally all details of anything i have suggested in favor of assumptions based on games not being discussed. Please stop doing that.

If you want to keep all these different elements, I think you need to come up with some mechanical or narrative justification for each of them. Is there a meaningful difference between failing the "circle check" compared to failing the "implement check"? Combat is long and complex because there should be meaningful decisions to be made every round. Are there meaningful decisions for the players to make during the "component phase" and the "spell phase"? Or are they just padding?

I literally addressed these questions in the post that you are referencing.

I hope the tone didn't come across too harsh, if you have answers to all these questions, I'm interested in hearing them.

Yesh your tone does not at all suggest genuine desire for a friendly discussion. putting this at the end is a bit like insulting someone and then saying "no offense".

I will give benefit of tbe doubt and assume you arent intentionally using a aggro and condescending tone.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

I've really only resonated high complexity when I want a tactical combat sub-system that is full of meaningful, balanced choices in both building the character and in choosing your actions in the combat (and I'd probably prefer a computer RPG doing the brunt of the effort). Pathfinder 2e stands out time and again as I try other 4e-Successor games like Lancer, Icon and Gubat Banwa. The 3 Action economy with the penalty to just spam Attacks is pretty huge. Though I think PF2e should sell itself as a grittier premise when you get knocked unconscious and brought up, your next turn may look like picking up your weapon, standing up and getting Reactive Strike'd in the face - it doesn't always match that heroic style it often sells. A lot of spells don't have that show-stopping presence of Icon, 4e or Draw Steel, but instead every round of combat, I feel like I can looking through my options.

And on the other side is giving the GM tools to understand and create interesting encounters. GMs don't really have the bandwidth to properly playtest things, so having a good understanding is pretty important.

I could imagine games that focus on Chases and Space Combats doing a similar complexity, but I don't see this in practice. Often I see kinda complicated sub-systems that aren't very fun to play. Chase Systems with like 3 choices and way more rolling than the drama is worth. Often, I turn to a more open-ended Clock and GM rulings for a lot of things as my personal preference over systems that are either boring to play or easy to optimize (looking at Night Black Agent's Chase system and 5e's combat)

Less on topic, but I am running it, so its on my mind - Mythic Bastionland combat shows where a system can be open decisions but not too complex and very fast. This has been a huge innovation to find that middle ground that a lot of games have left sour for me like FFG Star Wars or Savage World trying to be fast but I didn't feel like I had meaningful decisions in combat.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

The juice needs to be worth the squeeze, not just for the GM, but for the players as well, and not just the first time but after 10 or 100 repetitions.

If the complexity involves busywork and jumping through hoops "Because jumping through hoops is fun!" then I'll ask "Fun for who?" Players are a lot less likely to find fun in having to jump through hoops than GMs are in making players jump through hoops or game rule designers are in designing those hoops for the players to jump through.

Sometimes a spot of complexity is desired, but only sometimes. There was a discussion a while back about playing out combats even when the outcome was a foregone conclusion. I came down on the side of always playing them out - unless the players asked not to. Which in my experience they very rarely do.

With other activities, it's much more often a matter of "gloss over the details and just give the results." Now sometimes adding in some of the details is good for the sense of the player-as-his-PC performing the task, as opposed to the player watching an npc-ified character performing the task or the player performing the task with the PC as a mere catspaw. But that can be hard to pull off successfully, and it's easy to over-egg and over-season the task with a bunch of petty details.

Worse, there is the trap of giving the players a sense that grinding through the details is a Test, with the GM poised to pounce on any mistakes. When I play, and when I GM for players like me, it's for the sake of the PCs feeling competent and even super-competent, and being constantly forced into scenarios of feeling incompetent is No Fun At All.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Definitely. A sliding scale is required, for the same reason that in the game somwtimes you can deal with some mooks with a single skill check rather than a whole conflict scene.

Having combat sometimes be resolvable with a single die roll certainly can be interesting. The classic movie scene where someone sneaks up on a guard and knocks them out (and they wake up safe and sound with a bit of a head-ache later) is hard to pull off if enemies have 20+ hit points and you have a 30 % chance of missing and deal only 18 points on a good hit unless you crit with a 5 % chance. But you also don't want the BBEG guy to be knocked out like that... unless you do. Most games only seem to pull off the one or the other, not both. (though unlike in a computer game, you always can have the GM rule a scenario be the knock-out type independet of the rules, but GM fiat is never quite as satisfying).

 

[Tigris]

The juice needs to be worth the squeeze, not just for the GM, but for the players as well, and not just the first time but after 10 or 100 repetitions.

If the complexity involves busywork and jumping through hoops "Because jumping through hoops is fun!" then I'll ask "Fun for who?" Players are a lot less likely to find fun in having to jump through hoops than GMs are in making players jump through hoops or game rule designers are in designing those hoops for the players to jump through.

I feel way too many games are designed by GMs... Many inconvenient things often feel its just thete because some GMs like it.

This is a bit sad especially since normally GMs only are like 1/5 of the players playing a game.


Would love to see some games made purely by players. Then maybe more players might even want to be GM because then thr GM role is made to be less antifun for people who normally dont want to GM.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Having combat sometimes be resolvable with a single die roll certainly can be interesting. The classic movie scene where someone sneaks up on a guard and knocks them out (and they wake up safe and sound with a bit of a head-ache later) is hard to pull off if enemies have 20+ hit points and you have a 30 % chance of missing and deal only 18 points on a good hit unless you crit with a 5 % chance. But you also don't want the BBEG guy to be knocked out like that... unless you do. Most games only seem to pull off the one or the other, not both. (though unlike in a computer game, you always can have the GM rule a scenario be the knock-out type independet of the rules, but GM fiat is never quite as satisfying).

The solution a number of games have is to make the guard whatever they call "mooks", so they're easily taken out by one hit. This doesn't entirely deal with the "Took the surprise swing and missed" situation, but that's not the only case where that can come up, and there are mechanical solutions for minimizing that, too.

 

[stonehead]

Then please reread my posts, because i provided clear justifications. You may not agree with them, but they are certainly present.

Not the best comparison, since i havent suggested running rituals like that at all. Each aspect is a skill check in a game based entirely on skill checks. No need for pricing components and being nitty gritty. I prefer not even tracking money in detail.

And IME players are much more invested in skill challenge style ressurection rituals than in just "click paper button get friend back".

You seem to be ignoring literally all details of anything i have suggested in favor of assumptions based on games not being discussed. Please stop doing that.

I literally addressed these questions in the post that you are referencing.

Yesh your tone does not at all suggest genuine desire for a friendly discussion. putting this at the end is a bit like insulting someone and then saying "no offense".

I will give benefit of tbe doubt and assume you arent intentionally using a aggro and condescending tone.

Maybe I missed something, but all I saw was

I like your ideas here

My current thoughts/how i have run it improvised so far, is thst you need certain "aspects" of the ritual to be good enough, and the better they are/the more that are good/right, the better the outcome.

So you need:

The Circle - Contains magic and allows caster to keep everything in place for the right moment.
Components - Anything consumed or that channels the power via sympathic linking, like gems or rare herbs or whatever. help aim the magic at the correct effect and keep the spell from draining the user
Tools/Implements- Blade, Bowl, Candle, Bell, etc. Used to control the magic and to invoke power
The Spell - the actual words, gesticulations, etc.

And

Each aspect makes the ritual safer and more successful, and can scale from just 2 or 3 checks (circle, implement, spell) to a whole scene-long ritual that requires multiple checks for each aspect. PCs declare which aspect they are doing (circle is always first and spell always last), and any consequences for a specific check depend on that. Eg, failing the circle means that the spell is now more dangerous and the GM can basically create minir hazards every round or an immediate bigger hazard as a result.

Then you see how many (and which) checks succeeded and use the number to determine if the goal of the ritual is a failure, mixed result, or success.

Which seems like a dice pool system, except that you have to roll them one at a time. It seems to me like the process is
1) Decide how many steps you want to take
2) Roll for each step in order
3) Any failures add danger
4) Count the number of successes, if it's higher than the difficulty, then you succeed.

So each step adds a success and successes are commensurate. Failing a step adds some kind of danger. If there's some distinction between the different aspects, then I've missed it. Maybe explaining in detail would make it clearer.

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More importantly, what are your goals with this homebrew system? If it's just something you want to use with your friends, then you can ignore the feedback from strangers on the internet. Although, if that's the case, you probably don't need to solicit feedback from strangers on the internet. You do your thing with your group. If you all like it, then this forum's opinions are essentially meaningless.

If it's something you're planning on publishing, then it's not good to be defensive or sentimental about design decisions. People giving detailed feedback aren't trying to attack your game, they're trying to help fix its flaws so that it can be the best game possible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Having combat sometimes be resolvable with a single die roll certainly can be interesting. The classic movie scene where someone sneaks up on a guard and knocks them out (and they wake up safe and sound with a bit of a head-ache later) is hard to pull off if enemies have 20+ hit points and you have a 30 % chance of missing and deal only 18 points on a good hit unless you crit with a 5 % chance. But you also don't want the BBEG guy to be knocked out like that... unless you do. Most games only seem to pull off the one or the other, not both. (though unlike in a computer game, you always can have the GM rule a scenario be the knock-out type independet of the rules, but GM fiat is never quite as satisfying).

Its pretty easy. Just look at taking out the guard as one moment in an infiltration challenge rather than as a combat challenge.

I do it in dnd sometimes, and it is at most three rolls with a sliding scale of results, while other times it is one check. Usually they can use athletics, stealth, sleight of hand, or just a proficient ability check using thier main attack ability modifier.

In a game built to handle stuff like this more fluidly and where everything is a skill check, taking out the guard is a skill check during an infiltration scene.