I've found that people in the D&D-o-sphere tend to think I am older than I am. Considering I'm not quite 30 yet, I am definitely not of the "old guard" generation of D&D gamers but people I talk with generally think that I am a good 15 or 20 years older. They immediately think I am part of that older or original D&D generation. Why? Not sure but I have my theories.
Anyway, I started playing D&D with AD&D 2nd Ed, right around the end of it's lifespan. I only played about two games under this edition and did so under two older DMs that had started with that edition. When my friends and I moved onto our own games (typically with me as DM) we did so using the brand-new 3rd edition and then 3.5. Since then I've played many other games, went to school for game design, came back home, played more games and returned to D&D with the current Pathfinder game I'm running. In running that game for my group that includes three players that are new to D&D (any edition) all-together, I've started to notice a major flaw in the design...an insidious, annoying little flaw.
The crunch is crippling. Stifling. Overwhelming. It is poorly designed in it's thorough design.
Now, I don't think I am necessarily saying anything radical here. Quite a few people feel that the later editions have become far too rules heavy. Too crunchy. Understanding that something is a problem and examining why it is a problem, however, are too different things. After all, I said it was insidious, didn't I?
You see the intentions are all good. Options are given to the players to make their characters in every edition. This worked well so we give them more options. More options must equal more fun. So we get classes and feats and skills that all tie into each other. Then we get a new book with classes and feats. Then we get a new book with classes and feats. Then then then then...
More options! More fun! Right?
Not really. You see, not all options are made the same. Anyone that's paid attention in the later editions knows that not all feats are created equal. Some are garbage. Some are mechanically unsound. Some are functionally useless. And a percentage of those are required to get the "good" feats later on. Again, we've all heard that issue before, right? So just avoid the bad ones. Oops while we were compiling a list of bad options, new options just got published. Crap.
Still, if you're a studious player you can recognize good or bad options right? Nope, not really. Not unless they're glaring. And even then...they might look good at first. Even then, we're assuming a studious player...one that understands the full in's and out's of the game and what would be good or bad. Isn't that a bit much? Isn't it a bit much to expect players (many of whom may be new) to look at dozens of classes and class variants to decide what they want to be? Then ask them to look at hundreds of feats and separate the wheat from the chaff to make a "good" character? And they do have to make a good character, don't they? Because the game is designed along a certain power curve. Oops.
So now we're in a situation where players are potentially constantly shooting themselves in the foot and putting themselves behind the power curve designed into the game. The game is making vast assumptions about the players decision-making processes and capability to make wise decisions in regards to the game itself. And all of this has nothing to do with agency because we haven't even gotten into a session yet. So we are forcing players to make potentially vastly important decisions just to have a character that the game deems viable. Geez, anyone notice the system itself is kind of acting like a bad DM?
What's more, all this doesn't go away after character creation. Nor does it only appear during level-up. Instead, it can come up in every single moment of the game where a player has to reference their character sheet. Class abilities, feats, skills, magic item abilities...options options options. Math math math. These are all things a player has to consider with countless actions in the game. When they rolled to hit did they choose the best feat to use? Did they do their math right? Should they double check? Should they cleave? Power attack? Defensive attack? And on and on and on. Tell me, how much of this results in the players looking down at their sheet during the game instead of up at their other players, you, or even the dice or play-mat. How much time is spent thinking about the system of the game instead of the game itself?
You see, at some point the system became a fat, complicated Prima Donna that started thinking IT was the focus of the table. Want proof? How much time was spent agonizing over "builds" in previous editions? You can't! It's functionally impossible! Sure there are options to be had but those options were almost entirely related to the class itself and well...beyond that your character was just your character and how you defined and developed them. Of course this system wasn't perfect...I'm not claiming that. All I'm saying is that the system didn't get in the way. It didn't make as many crazy demands on the players. It wasn't needy. Now do yourself a favor and go peek at the WOTC Character Optimization boards. I'll give you some time. ...
...do do-do do...
...mahna mahna...
You back? Yeah sorry for subjecting you to that.
Understand that I'm a numbers guy myself. I'm a design guy. I look at what can be output on the CharOps boards and I say "Wow. Impressive use of the mechanics". After all, that looks like playing to win and I'm all about playing to win, right? Except...not a single one of those optimizations has anything to do about playing the game. It is about playing the system. And the system is NOT the game! All the CharOps board does is continue flattering the system. It continues feeding the ego of the beast. And it continues warping peoples perceptions about the game. It feeds back into itself. Something overpowered? Nerf it. Something too weak? Give it more options (oh god, more options...) and hope they're good! Etc etc. The game gets stuck in the video game development cycle and we still haven't gotten down to playing the actual game yet. Nope, we're still wanking the system.
I don't want my players constantly stumbling over the system. I want them excelling as players. And you know what that means? Making good in-game decisions...and that should generally have very little to do with the system and everything to do with their agency, the world and their characters. Stop sweating the system.
Oh...that requires a system that isn't a whiny, attention-seeking diva doesn't it?
Well I'm working on it. In fact, that's what I've decided to use this blog for. I'm going to collect and develop my ideas on D&D game design here while I work on a cleaner version of the game for myself and my players. Every step of the way I'm going to explain my decisions from a game stand-point...a design stand-point. When I make a decision it will not be "because"...it will be for reasons I will make clear. For reasons that will make sense. For reasons that will reinforce the point of the game and better it.
If you find that interesting...feel free to follow along and put in your two-cents. I welcome feedback and input. Just realize I'm more than willing to tell you when you're wrong. It'll be fun. Trust me, I'm a DM.
Design Master that is.
I'd estimated your age at somewhere around 35. You write like someone who is familiar with older editions, but wasn't quite around to see them come out. I'm still in my teens, but I try to write like I'm much older so people will take me more seriously. Maybe a lot of people do this, and the OSR is really a lot less about nostalgia than people think it is.
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying about crunch. I moved away from 3rd and 4th edition because everything was just to complicated, and all the "cool powers" made every character the same, except sometimes accidentally much worse. What I hate in particular is the current style of skill systems, where you have two points in baking and four in sword and one in Elvish. It just leads to players regretting their builds. If there's a skill system at all, it should be largely binary, and largely dependent on the character's upbringing, I think. Stuff that you can either do pretty well, or not do at all. It creates a more dynamic game.
My current system is a lot like that though, actually. It's a modified D20 system with around 20 classes, with different bonuses and abilities. The players who enjoy min maxing find ways to do a lot more damage than everyone else and the players who don't like rules get confused and take half and hour to make their characters.
The system has its perks, but I'm getting sick of it. For my next campaign, I'm planning on either making some revisions or just switching to Labyrinth Lord or another retroclone. Like you said, I want more focus on the world and character actions, and less on the rules and character builds. I want to see what you'll come up with.
Your assessment of my edition experience is really accurate.
ReplyDeleteI too am learning to really dislike skills. Especially situations where the DCs and various bonuses make it so there are targets that are simultaneously impossible for some players to make and impossible for other players to fail. That is just stupid.
I am adapting a mostly binary system for what I am working on now. There is a bit of range to it but very little. I'll have some work up soon.
I came up with a system where there are only three ranks in each skill, that only give +1 each to the roll. It's easy to master a skill, but it doesn't actually help that much. Anyone with any rank can perform the skill well under typical circumstances. The need for a check only comes up when something goes wrong, like if you're sailing in a storm.
DeleteA character with rank zero can only do the skill either under the guidance of someone more skilled than them, or while constantly making stat checks to do simple things, like an intelligence check to figure out how to unfurl a ship's sails.
This system is meant to make horizontal skill distribution more valuable than vertical, so even someone with a single rank in something can be proud of it. It's basically the same as a typical system, only it eliminates the useless low ranks in a skill and the ridiculous high ranks where no other player can hope to catch up. It's an imperfect fix, but I don't want to completely give up on character customization without giving it a solid try.
I wrote a post about the system is you want a bit more detail:
http://alonzocredanzo.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/compulsion/
What do you think of it? Does it have anything in common with what you're working on?
That is actually fairly close. Here I'll give you a sneak-peek of what I've been working on.
ReplyDeleteTalent - Talent Proficiencies are tied to Ability Scores. Using a Talent for a non-mundane use of the Talent requires a roll against the characters Ability Score (mundane uses automatically succeed for proficient characters). It is likely this roll may be adjusted by a modifier depending on the ease or difficulty of the task. The character succeeds if they roll is less than the characters Ability Score after all modifiers are calculated in. Talents have three levels of Proficiency. One Proficiency spent towards a Talent gives a character the ability to use that Talent without an Unfamiliar Talent Modifier penalty to the roll. A character can improve their ability with a Talent further by spending an additional Talent Proficiency. This is called Talent Specialization and it has two levels, Focus and Mastery. A second Proficiency spent towards a Talent means the character has Focus in that Talent and receives a +2 bonus towards their relevant stat versus all rolls for that Talent. The third level of expertise in a Talent requires 2 Proficiencies spent towards the Talent (making a total of 4 Proficiencies spent) and represents Mastery of a Talent, resulting in the character receiving a +4 bonus towards their relevant stat versus all rolls for that Talent and, once per day, they can re-roll a roll for that Talent. If the player does not know whether or not the first roll would succeed or fail they must make the decision to re-roll before being told the outcome by the DM.
I'll have more details regarding Talents in my system coming up in a future post. I think you'll find even from this bit that we're thinking along similar lines.
I'll be very interested in your project. I'm not a game designer, but I've played D&D, its variants, and homebrew systems for over 30 years. (Which, I admit, could be as much a hindrance as a claim to any expertise.)
ReplyDeleteMy latest iteration of house rules is class-free, skill-focused, and intended to provide a framework for players to build the character they imagine. It incorporates game mechanics from 4e, RuneQuest, and Skyrim.
Based on this post you've written, I may be in the same trap that D&D is in, but I've tried to keep options simple, flexible, and to leave room for character development through play rather than builds.
Hehe... wanking the system...
ReplyDelete