Worlds of Design: The Simplicity Solution

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” --Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Frenchman, airmail pioneer, World War II pilot, and author of The Little Prince.

Simplify, Don’t Add​

When I'm referencing "simple games" I'm specifically discussing games that are simple, but have some depth to them. I prefer to design simple games - games that are fundamentally simple in rules, though not in strategies.

That said, simple doesn't meant the rules are transparent; that is, games that are easy to see how to play well. A simple game can be deep, and gameplay depth is what I want in most games. Simplification of rules also makes it easier for players to deal with the mechanics, and is usually desirable. But here I’m focused on simplification to solve design problems.

The Complexity Problem​

It's common for designers to start with something simple but keep adding things to it, until (we hope) they realize that they have weighed the game down too much and need to go back to being simpler. When I see a problem in my design, I try to find a simple solution rather than add something to the game, but too many designers end up adding more and more to "fix" a problem. Those additions can eventually make a system rules heavy. You've often heard of the acronym KISS (“Keep it Simple, Stupid!”) and that applies here, though I prefer not to imply designers are stupid for not making things simple.

In role-playing games, a game master has to know the rules often better than the players, and thus complexity means more cognitive load for the GM. The more rules there are, the more the GM has to learn and remember, the more room for “rules lawyers” and squabbles over rules. Mastery of the game becomes much more challenging.

Consider combat in Dungeons & Dragons. What started out as combat highly complicated by weapon modifiers (there was an entire chart dedicated to Speed Factor for each weapon, potentially changing turn order), was gradually changed to a much simpler system: hit points, a to hit roll, and a damage roll. Other systems had even more complicated combat, including hit locations, armor absorption, even defenders rolling to block an attack.

This is not to say that D&D combats are necessarily simple. But the game has streamlined the core mechanics to allow complexity during the game itself, both on behalf of the GM and players with their multitude of options. This spreads out decision-making so a player's proficiency in the game is not solely reliant on understanding the rules; a fighter can just swing to hit, while a wizard can use a mechanically complex spell, and both players hopefully have fun in the same game despite their different understanding of the rules. Core simplicity allows layers of gameplay for players with levels of experience with the rules.

How to Simplify​

So how do you simplify a game? I discuss this at length in my book Game Design.

First you must prioritize the elements of the game in order to decide what’s least important. Make a list of the prominent elements of the game, say about 20 things. By the time you’ve done that, you may realize that there are elements you can leave out, thus simplifying the game. If not, then you need to break them into four priority groups, from top to bottom.

If you have active playtesters you can ask them to do this, or even to make the list of elements in the first place, so that you can see what they think is important. When you finish, you’ll know that the fourth group of rules are the targets for elimination, while the other groups can be considered for simplification less urgently.

If there’s a specific problem to fix, the groupings can help you decide how much or how little you want to change a particular element of the game. Presumably the most important elements are the ones you should be wary about changing, if the game is otherwise in good shape. In any case, harmony should to be one of your guides.

In the next article we’ll discuss some ways of achieving simplicity.

Your Turn: How simple do you prefer your role-playing game systems?

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

My thoughts

My own druthers lean toward crunchy rules. In particular I want crunch that supports fluff descriptions and distinctions between characters. (And hat-tip to Theory of Games, above, rules that support genre and genre conventions.)

Some complications are more inherently appealing to GMs than to players. Those are prime candidates for simplification.

Certain fussy distinctions are prime candidates for simplification. E.g. different chances for an arrow being broken/lost if it hits vs if it misses, or a requirement that multiclass characters account for the skill points of their different classes separately, rather than putting those points in a single pool.

I dislike critical hits, and rules for roll results that automatically hit or automatically miss. And I loath 'fumble' systems of any sort. Those are prime candidates for elimination in my house rules and homebrew systems. Especially fumbles.

On the other hand, I do like 'called shot' systems, and am happy to incorporate that extra complication.

One place where annoying complications come in is when it seems like a good idea to make a certain aspect more detailed and less abstracted than the rest of the system. (Detailed material components for spells rules ["You must have a white chicken feather and a black glass marble to cast this particular spell"] fall both under this and under "more inherently appealing to GMs.")

Some situations are inherent tar pits for complexity. Grappling, for example. There's even a Trope in TVTropes: "Grappling With Grappling Rules."

I find it useful to stress-test rules to make sure they work in extreme cases. It's better if the rule is elegant and works as desired at the extreme end without sudden breakpoints and special-case complications being needed.

It's important to decide on and define just what effect you want a rule to produce in play. If what you want is complicated and hair-splittingly dependent on the situation, you're going to be hard pressed to devise a simple, elegant crunch rule for that. If you decided to go with something simple you (and your players) have to be willing to accept the harsh and unpleasant aspects of that simplicity. (OK, you want werewolves to take more damage from silver and less from non-silver weapons. Just exactly how do you want to have that work in play? Werewolves are easy to kill with silver? Hard to kill with non-silver weapons? Impossible to kill with non-silver weapons? Impossible to kill unless the non-silver weapon does bodacious base damage? Something else?)

I find it desirable to eliminate complications based on the order in which a character advances or a magic item is enchanted. Rules should

If a system has complicated character-creation, it's good to have a simplified version for monsters and minor, unnamed NPC types.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am sort of the opposite, I want rules for everything. Then I can use what I want and abandon the rest. My group enjoys crunchy games with rules and options.

Agreed. I don't see simplicity as a virtue to always be strives for in and of itself. My preference is to have the rules cover as much as is practical to use at the table or in prep. Obviously, that line varies for different players, but I'm a simulationist and can handle a lot of rules.

 

[CF07]

Some not totally connected thoughts about this.

There's a good bit of a balancing act going on. A game that's only supposed to be run one or a few times should be simple to get into and pick up. However, if you want to run over the course of a campaign there needs to be some room for growth and that's often best represented by power growth.

I've followed (and played in the case of Star Trek Adventures) Modiphius' various incarnations of the 2D20 system. It started pretty complicated/crunchy with games like Infinity or Conan, simplified with STA, got even more simple in games like John Carter or Dishonored, and then equilibrated back on the medium complexity level with games like Achtung Cthulhu, which is where it sits best IMO. That said, it really does benefit from an experienced GM who's comfortable making judgment calls about what difficulties are, what are good advantages and disadvantages, etc. STA doesn't really have any notable power growth for the characters, which can be quite disconcerting for players used to having power growth be equivalent to character growth. The players need to embrace the fact that growth will mostly be via RP. With a good GM and bought in players STA nails the feel of the TV show, though.

One thing to note is that simpler RPGs leave room for more player creativity but are, IMO, much more demanding of the GM. In a lot of ways I see what WotC was trying to do with 3.X and 4E was to "DM proof" the game by providing lots of rules. This was attempting to rectify the common complaints about DMs being arbitrary. But a side effect of that was developing a ton of feats, powers, etc., to represent things that might well have just been DM judgment calls in prior editions.

 

[CF07]

It's important to decide on and define just what effect you want a rule to produce in play. If what you want is complicated and hair-splittingly dependent on the situation, you're going to be hard pressed to devise a simple, elegant crunch rule for that. If you decided to go with something simple you (and your players) have to be willing to accept the harsh and unpleasant aspects of that simplicity. (OK, you want werewolves to take more damage from silver and less from non-silver weapons. Just exactly how do you want to have that work in play? Werewolves are easy to kill with silver? Hard to kill with non-silver weapons? Impossible to kill with non-silver weapons? Impossible to kill unless the non-silver weapon does bodacious base damage? Something else?)

This is a good point. In my 5E-ized Desert of Desolation campaign, I made undead and certain other foes vulnerable to Radiant. However, the divine-touched characters are vulnerable to Necrotic. This means that against certain foe types, the PCs both fear AND clean up against them, whereas more unaligned characters are less affected either way. I did this because Necrotic damage is representing the curse on the land that the PCs are trying to eliminate while Radiant damage is the divine world fighting back, through the PCs.

In a lot of ways, though, unless you want something pretty drastic, a good way is to have some extra damage show up from more "blessed" weapons against their favored targets, I dunno say an extra +D6 damage or something like that. That means the PCs will feel better using silvered weapons on weres but it won't totally unbalance the game. I picked the +D6 because slaying weapons usually do an extra +2D6 against their favored targets. (Adapt to different game systems accordingly.)

 

[Koloth]

One question a designer should ask is does a mechanic make the game more fun, just add complexity or worse, sideline one or more players during an encounter? Example is the Damage Reduction system in D&D type games. Early versions had a few monsters that needed silver or magic to hit. But those were rare encounters and could often be prepared for. The 3.X and Pathfinder games grew the DR system to an overly complex thing that unless you had the Mystical Caddy of Infinite Weapon Types, a character and its player were often largely relegated to the sidelines for an encounter. Don't have a Silver Flaming Scimitar? Then your first 10 points of each hit go away. Your max damage per hit is 1d8+1? Too bad. Next monster. Oh that scimitar is so wrong, now you need the Cold Iron Mace of Great Smashing. Next monster. Now you need the Poking Rapier of Acid Injection. When a frequently encountered game mechanic has the effect of sidelining players, probably need to rethink the thing.

 

[CF07]

One question a designer should ask is does a mechanic make the game more fun, just add complexity or worse, sideline one or more players during an encounter? Example is the Damage Reduction system in D&D type games. Early versions had a few monsters that needed silver or magic to hit. But those were rare encounters and could often be prepared for. The 3.X and Pathfinder games grew the DR system to an overly complex thing that unless you had the Mystical Caddy of Infinite Weapon Types, a character and its player were often largely relegated to the sidelines for an encounter. Don't have a Silver Flaming Scimitar? Then your first 10 points of each hit go away. Your max damage per hit is 1d8+1? Too bad. Next monster. Oh that scimitar is so wrong, now you need the Cold Iron Mace of Great Smashing. Next monster. Now you need the Poking Rapier of Acid Injection. When a frequently encountered game mechanic has the effect of sidelining players, probably need to rethink the thing.

I agree that 3.X's damage reduction got silly, but what frequently happens is that players just use the exact same weapon over and over without incentive to change it up. So there's a balance that can be tricky to strike.