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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    One of the reasons i'm not a fan of 5th ed is because of bounded accuracy. I like eventually becoming so powerful that goblins, orcs and ogres are below me. That they can't even touch me. It shows a sign of growth and progress that former challenges are now non-issues. 5th ed still has goblins hitting your high level characters, which I know some people love. This isn't so much a bad decision as a stylistic one that not everyone agrees with.

    I would say this is an issue with the designers simply not designing a wide enough variety of some monsters within the given scope of the level system, rather then an issue with the system as a whole. That limiting certain aesthetic challenges to certain tiers of play. A dragon, in D&D terms, is really just a sorcerer in full control of a tank.

    I would say Dungeon & Dragon's Vancian Casting, along with the assumptions thereof. Partially because it doesn't accurately mimic the spellcasting from the books it draws inspiration from, partially because it greatly limits the stories of magic I can tell, mechanically limiting the characters I can make. At low level I'm teetering somewhere between "commoner in a funny hat" and "I can casts the two magics!" while at higher level reality is being told to sit in the corner and suffer a time out. There are weird break points in D&D where the casters gain certain abilities that define play from thereon out, unless they are specifically banned... and these break points aren't called out in an obvious fashion. New GMs aren't warned that "LEVEL 5 = FLIGHT. PREPARE FOR 3D EXPLORATION AND COMBAT." and I've seen some get caught unprepared for this. Teleportation at higher levels also causes this serious jump, where new GMs are caught unaware of the odd guerrilla-like tactics Teleport-in > PEWPEWPEW > Teleport-out can cause.

    Another would be Enemies built like character, followed by the action economy. These are somewhat linked. Enemies built like characters can allow for a certain level of depth... that anything they can do, your character can also eventually amount to. However enemies, monster or not, serve an entirely different narrative and mechanical purpose then characters do in the framework of a TTRPG so they often don't need the same amount of detail and attention in some aspects. It can also force the GM be a bit predictable in that if the players know the system well enough, it's difficult to surprise them without seeming as unfair by making up abilities instead of using the ones the players are familiar with (which they assume you're also using). Limiting your enemies to the same things and scope the characters are capable of can also cause unintended issues, in that if the game is not properly tuned to this type of play...

    Problems with the action economy can take effect. IE "the reason 1 Vs 4 is a bad/good idea (depends on who's side you're on)" and "dogpile tactics" works. Basically if you have one monster and four characters, in a typical round sequence the monster goes once and the PCs each get one go: causing the monster to have 1 standard action while the party has four. If they coordinate these actions using the initiative (or similar) system, your villain can land themselves quickly outgunned. This leads to GMs usually upgrading the villain's HP to ludicrous amount, leading to a slog-fest as you grind down that HP, or simply building the villain as a super-PC, making him often too dangerous to confront since he deals too much damage or has effects he's capable of abusing. An asymmetrical monster/PC system usually considers this when creating monsters build to be "bosses", that they have off-turn actions they can use to punish some PC actions, distance themselves as a reaction or something.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    NecromancerGirl

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by oxybe View Post
    One of the reasons i'm not a fan of 5th ed is because of bounded accuracy. I like eventually becoming so powerful that goblins, orcs and ogres are below me. That they can't even touch me. It shows a sign of growth and progress that former challenges are now non-issues. 5th ed still has goblins hitting your high level characters, which I know some people love. This isn't so much a bad decision as a stylistic one that not everyone agrees with.
    Runescape has (had?) a system where attack and defence roll would both be from one to maximum. And the maximum was calculated by (attack level + C) * (equipment attack bonus + C). So you'd start out with (1 + 8) * (10 + 64) or something, and go all the way up to about (125 + 8) * (350 + 64), but since there was always a chance of rolling really badly and that goblin rolling really well, you could be hit by everything. Not that it helped the goblins any, but there was a fun article about how many chickens it would take to kill Tz-Tok Jad (spoiler: they had to use roosters to overcome natural health regen, and it took 5308).
    Last edited by ExLibrisMortis; 2015-02-09 at 03:50 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Race/Class/Level character design. Makes for an easy shorthand when describing your character, but resulted in 30+ years of stereotypes and cookie-cutter characters.

    Escalating hit points: Ensures a world where mundane threats are effectively meaningless to allegedly 'normal' heroes.
    Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
    Protip: DnD is an incredibly social game played by some of the most socially inept people on the planet - Lev
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  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Mine comes from D&D 3.5.

    Wealth by level guidelines:

    D&D 3.5 is balanced around the idea that all characters will gain a certain amount of money tied up in magical equipment. This is so strong that the DM is forced to “give” the players magical equipment in order for them to keep up with appropriate level monsters. This leads to weird situations where the pcs are getting magical equipment off of non-sentient (say an animal) enemies in order for them to be ready for future encounters against things that require magical weapons to defeat. Or other situation where the sentient beings are not using magical equipment they are “guarding”, for no reason. if they know there’s magical gear, they should be using it.

    Defense<offense
    It’s always boggled my mind how characters have no defenses other than that provided by gear. If we take two fighters, the first is 1st level, the second is 20th level and strip them down of all gear and compare them. Assuming they have the same dexterity modifier, then their defenses are exactly the same. The experienced and highly trained warrior is just as easy to hit as the inexperienced not very well trained warrior. Anyone who’s studied any sort of fighting, say martial arts, knows that the ability to effectively defend yourself is of primal importance. But this isn’t reflected in the rules, instead people must rely upon suits of armor for all their defense and it makes no sense to me.

    Magic is power:
    In dnd 3.5 magic is intrinsically more powerful than any other force in the game. Wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids all gain explicit and powerful advantages whey they level up. Those advantages are as follows: access to more powerful spells, access to new spells, access to more spells, and existing spells increase in power as you level. The warrior types can’t keep up at all, except when they get magic items, and then the casters will also probably have magic items as well.

    Not only do the spellcasters have tremendous pure power, they also have a tremendous amount of versatility, and that’s where a lot of the fun comes into play. Tome of battle sort of band aides this, if you want a fair amount of versatility in combat, play a TOB class, it doesn’t fix the inherent flaw in the system, it just replaces a few classes with others that use a system that gives them a bit more versatility.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Does the refusal of every RPG developer for the last forty years to standardize the language and syntax in their rulebooks count?
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  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4 View Post
    I would like to nominate XP for Killing. This tends to apply most to later D&D and it's derivatives but plenty of RPGs assign XP values to monsters and the natural inclination to the players (and the GM) is to translate this to XP received for killing it. This even carried over to CRPGs as the primary advancement system. Early D&D used XP for gold and other systems like Dungeon World or Mouseguard/Burning Wheel use XP for (failed) actions, and those systems both in my mind encourage a much different and much more interesting game.
    this is big enough that I forgot what I came in here to post. yes. this.

    an interesting aspect of Universal Decay is that gear and powers add to you level for XP purposes for everything but RP, so your indestructible Juggernaut is relying on roleplaying xp for (at least)70% of their xp. this has promoted fantastic player behavior for everyone and works really well overall.
    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    Remember kids: a good thief can steal everything that isn't nailed down, on fire, part of the building, or trying to kill them. Skilled adventurers have been known to leave behind far less that that.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    Does the refusal of every RPG developer for the last forty years to standardize the language and syntax in their rulebooks count?
    Yes. Particularly when rules heavy games using familiar mechanics manage to make you learn a new term for just about all of it. Burning Wheel in particular stands out here, from it's use of the term Obstacle (and Ob.) for difficulty to finding counter-intuitive terms like "Shade" to reflect talent.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    Does the refusal of every RPG developer for the last forty years to standardize the language and syntax in their rulebooks count?
    One of the best things for me when reading through Eclipse Phase was that the term flip-flop was used in the same way as in Unknown Armies, so I can say that when this seems to happen the feeling is wonderful. In fact I think d% systems have the largest amount of shared language, but when I've tried my hand at writing I attempted to use as standard terms as possible (difficulty for the standard target number, 'attributes' instead of abilities or characteristics, criticals instead of exceptional successes, etc.). I heartily recommend an agreement for 'standard' terms for most things, although I'll likely just fall into referring to them as 'attributes, skills, powers and equipment' as the categories again, so it really doesn't effect me.
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    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    PirateWench

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Character Levels

    Seriously. I know, I know, it's cool to go, "ooh, I got some new power today". But really, it's a mess.

    If you want to play a powerful character? You don't get to do so. You have to wade through all the boring low powered stuff before you can become the character you wanted to play all along. And then, as you're slowly handed tidbits of power, if you ever get to a decent power level, if you finally have the character you wanted to play? Congratulations, the game's over. You don't get to play that character anymore. But you can start a new game at level one, if you want.

    And really, the whole, "Well at least I get to feel more powerful now and then" idea is a farce. It's a charade. The DM will constantly upgrade your opponents so that you fight something equal. It's like every time you double the damage you can deal, your opponents get twice as many hit points. When you get +5 to your attack roll, your opponents get +5 to their AC. So what's the point? It's exactly the same thing but with different numbers.

    And even if you can put up with all of that, the dramatic power level difference in a first level and, say, a 7th level character is so huge, it's hard to believe that it's the same person. And it makes it hard to set up "sandbox" scenarios, because if the PCs choose not to go after the goblin raiders plot thread until they've done a few other things first-- which should be a fine sandboxy way to handle plots-- by the time they get around to that plot thread, they're way too powerful for it to be a meaningful adventure anymore.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    the practice of giving 1 page of general GM advice at the start of a rulebook, and several chapters of system-specific mechanical minutia for GMs. are we trying to make things hard on the kid who picked up a few rulebooks to DM for some friends? a bad/ill-equiped DM kills a game like nothing else in the hobby, and there is almost zero effort made to educate and prepare new GMs. some may be lucky enough to get invited to a group with a good GM, but it took me about 2 years before I found a good GM(once one person is a good GM, it seems to spread to the rest of the group, witch is good).


    [EDIT] I have before me a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition Dungons Master's Guide. a $34.95, 222-page book providing "a wealth of advice to new and experienced dungeon masters".
    the book dedicates 17 pages to GMing fundamentals(counting some of debatable value), 112 pages of system-specific mechanical details such as encounter levels, 25-ish pages on what a campaign is and basic types, 38-ish pages on worldbuilding and a premade town and and adventure.
    we can do better. 17 pages of a 222-page book about GMing is pathetic.

    (numbers come from a quick skim, may not be fully precise. sample was taken from the closest GMing-reladed book to my desk, witch happened to be this one)
    Last edited by the OOD; 2015-02-09 at 05:16 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    Remember kids: a good thief can steal everything that isn't nailed down, on fire, part of the building, or trying to kill them. Skilled adventurers have been known to leave behind far less that that.
    LGBTitP
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    Universal Decay by Deamoneye Publishing
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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    The first RPG book I ever read was the 1e AD&D PHB. In it, there is a discussion about this. The authors (Gygax probably was the one who wrote the passage) had considered renaming "levels (as applied to characters" to "ranks," "levels (as applied to spells)" to "orders" or "circles," and often did use "floors" instead of "levels" for dungeons.

    They chose not to change the first two instances because they noticed that, even when they tried to, others they talked to slipped into the old nomenclature, and they figured that players of AD&D would be smart enough to figure out from context what kind of "level" is meant.
    Or, as a review I read of it said, their justification for not fixing the problem amounted to, "We did it that way before".

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    I would say for me it's: Conflicts are resolved in terms of success vs failure

    There's a huge tendency for system designers to try to boil things down to the 'opposed roll' or 'roll vs DC', maybe with fancier dice mechanics or things to modify the rolls or whatever. We're so used to 'roll to see if you succeed' that people have a blind spot for coming up with alternatives.

    The problem is, boiling things down to random success vs failure is often a really bad way to handle particular types of situations. For example, in situations where retrying the task is logically permitted and has low cost, you get behavior like 'roll until you succeed' or swinginess of attacks in combat. In other situations, projecting a very nuanced situation onto the idea of a single person succeeding or failing destroys that nuance (see pretty much any system with a Diplomacy skill or similar) - if one person 'wins' the Diplomacy situation then that implicitly directs things away from the possibility of some sort of set of compromises where each participant gets some but not all of what they want. Success vs failure also often runs afoul of the issue of the game grinding to a halt or being very swingy: if you fail to pick the lock on the door in the dungeon, do you just go home? So either you succeed, or you fail but keep trying things until one works, or the game grinds to a halt.

    The other issue is, success vs failure mechanics have a tendency to lead to the thought process: 'If I want to make this more complex/nuanced, I should make it into a sequence of checks!'. This particular thought suffers from a failure to understand probabilities - the probability of success decays exponentially with the number of checks in sequence that you require (furthermore, its not more complex since there are no additional decision branches between rolls - you could just calculate this joint probability and roll it directly). So you have things like 'if you want to pull off this special move, do a skill roll followed by an attack roll', which is almost always a bad deal (since you're basically rolling twice and taking the worse of the two rolls).

    So, what I'd like to see is more focus on different types of outcomes than just 'success' or 'failure': resource pools, bidding systems, wager systems, trade-offs, etc. There's all sorts of ideas in these directions which tend to be mostly explored by fringe RPGs, but which I'd like to see used more widely. I'd also like to see a general philosophy shift from 'what is the chance of success?' to 'what are the consequences of action?'.

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    PirateCaptain

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    I would say for me it's: Conflicts are resolved in terms of success vs failure

    There's a huge tendency for system designers to try to boil things down to the 'opposed roll' or 'roll vs DC', maybe with fancier dice mechanics or things to modify the rolls or whatever. We're so used to 'roll to see if you succeed' that people have a blind spot for coming up with alternatives.

    The problem is, boiling things down to random success vs failure is often a really bad way to handle particular types of situations. For example, in situations where retrying the task is logically permitted and has low cost, you get behavior like 'roll until you succeed' or swinginess of attacks in combat. In other situations, projecting a very nuanced situation onto the idea of a single person succeeding or failing destroys that nuance (see pretty much any system with a Diplomacy skill or similar) - if one person 'wins' the Diplomacy situation then that implicitly directs things away from the possibility of some sort of set of compromises where each participant gets some but not all of what they want. Success vs failure also often runs afoul of the issue of the game grinding to a halt or being very swingy: if you fail to pick the lock on the door in the dungeon, do you just go home? So either you succeed, or you fail but keep trying things until one works, or the game grinds to a halt.

    The other issue is, success vs failure mechanics have a tendency to lead to the thought process: 'If I want to make this more complex/nuanced, I should make it into a sequence of checks!'. This particular thought suffers from a failure to understand probabilities - the probability of success decays exponentially with the number of checks in sequence that you require (furthermore, its not more complex since there are no additional decision branches between rolls - you could just calculate this joint probability and roll it directly). So you have things like 'if you want to pull off this special move, do a skill roll followed by an attack roll', which is almost always a bad deal (since you're basically rolling twice and taking the worse of the two rolls).

    So, what I'd like to see is more focus on different types of outcomes than just 'success' or 'failure': resource pools, bidding systems, wager systems, trade-offs, etc. There's all sorts of ideas in these directions which tend to be mostly explored by fringe RPGs, but which I'd like to see used more widely. I'd also like to see a general philosophy shift from 'what is the chance of success?' to 'what are the consequences of action?'.
    the Star Wars: Edge of Empire RPG had an interesting mechanic on this front. It required special dice, but basically Advantage and Disadvantage were calculated seperatly from Success and Failure. (Your dice had "Sucess" and "Advantage" sides, while the DM's dice had "Failure" and "Disadvantage" Sides). So you might hit with your attack (Success) but lose your weapon in the process (Disadvantage), or miss with your attack (Failure), but force your enemy to drop their weapon (Advantage).
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  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Yes. Particularly when rules heavy games using familiar mechanics manage to make you learn a new term for just about all of it. Burning Wheel in particular stands out here, from it's use of the term Obstacle (and Ob.) for difficulty to finding counter-intuitive terms like "Shade" to reflect talent.
    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    One of the best things for me when reading through Eclipse Phase was that the term flip-flop was used in the same way as in Unknown Armies, so I can say that when this seems to happen the feeling is wonderful. In fact I think d% systems have the largest amount of shared language, but when I've tried my hand at writing I attempted to use as standard terms as possible (difficulty for the standard target number, 'attributes' instead of abilities or characteristics, criticals instead of exceptional successes, etc.). I heartily recommend an agreement for 'standard' terms for most things, although I'll likely just fall into referring to them as 'attributes, skills, powers and equipment' as the categories again, so it really doesn't effect me.
    I guess I should clarify what I did and didn't mean by "standardized:"

    I'm not talking about consistency of language between different games, or about some games coming up with their own "unique" terms for things. Different developers can do things as differently from each other as they want for all I care, and that second bit is actually one of the easier ways to ameliorate the problem that am talking about.

    The "problem I am talking about" being the insistence of every RPG writer in the history of the industry on using conversational language to describe rules, mechanics, and effects. At least for rules-heavy games, these things should not be written in conversational style, they should be written in a rigid fashion making as much use as possible of specific words and syntaxes that have been specifically defined in the context of the game. All rules text that can't or is better off not using such terms and syntaxes should be written in a single, consistent style throughout all books that are part of that game system, and that style should be as clear and unambiguous as possible.

    Magic: The Gathering is a perfect example of how RPGs should be written:

    1. Read the basic rulebook and/or quick-start guide, you know everything you'll need to know in 95% percent of games you'll ever play, with no room for misinterpretation.

    2. Open the comprehensive rulebook during one of those other 5% of games, and you'll find it to be a numbered, well-organized document written in such a way as to be completely airtight yet still readable without difficulty (if incredibly dry).

    3. Any time you see the word "trample," "flying," "destroy," "sacrifice," or one of countless others, you immediately know what it means and precisely how it does and doesn't work. Any time you see a colon in the text of an ability, you immediately know that it's an activated ability, that everything before the colon is the activation cost (which can't be responded to), and that everything after the colon is the effect of the ability (which goes on the stack and can therefore be responded to). And so on.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cirrylius View Post
    That's how wizards beta test their new animals. If it survives Australia, it's a go. Which in hindsight explains a LOT about Australia.

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by oxybe View Post

    Problems with the action economy can take effect. IE "the reason 1 Vs 4 is a bad/good idea (depends on who's side you're on)" and "dogpile tactics" works. Basically if you have one monster and four characters, in a typical round sequence the monster goes once and the PCs each get one go: causing the monster to have 1 standard action while the party has four. If they coordinate these actions using the initiative (or similar) system, your villain can land themselves quickly outgunned. This leads to GMs usually upgrading the villain's HP to ludicrous amount, leading to a slog-fest as you grind down that HP, or simply building the villain as a super-PC, making him often too dangerous to confront since he deals too much damage or has effects he's capable of abusing. An asymmetrical monster/PC system usually considers this when creating monsters build to be "bosses", that they have off-turn actions they can use to punish some PC actions, distance themselves as a reaction or something.
    there are a few things I have learned to always keep in mind, especially when designing single foes. "how do I think the fight/encounter will play out" "how/in what ways can the enemy threaten the players" and "what stops the players from ganging up and overwhelming the foe"

    solutions to the third one can include an illusionist making copies of themselves, flying foes, a sniper with mooks to contain the PC's, superfast regeneration, absurdly high AC(stun/blind before attacking), foes who stun/blind you before attacking, phaseing/incomporal foes, and outright immunity to damage(ended up getting thrown out the airlock), and foes suited for low visibility/zero gravity combat.
    and mind control. any NPC who uses mind control becomes the players most hated foe, so be warned. (and try not to frustrate players *to* much by keeping durations short and switching targets)
    just don't use these to often, and save them for big NPCs, and you should be golden.

    [EDIT] lots of these are good for keeping combat fresh and interesting to, adding different and varied challenges to basic combats is always fantastic!
    other ideas:
    fight in a crashing ship, need to keep it in the air/escape, but also fight.
    fighting in any kind of restrictive terrain, be it a narrow beam o a skyscraper, dark wherehouse(who holds the flashlight?(good target)), near anything important+fragile/explosive
    any kind of fight where they need the foe alive afterwards, be it for info, passcodes, or something else.
    Last edited by the OOD; 2015-02-09 at 06:33 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    Remember kids: a good thief can steal everything that isn't nailed down, on fire, part of the building, or trying to kill them. Skilled adventurers have been known to leave behind far less that that.
    LGBTitP
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    I guess I should clarify what I did and didn't mean by "standardized:"

    I'm not talking about consistency of language between different games, or about some games coming up with their own "unique" terms for things. Different developers can do things as differently from each other as they want for all I care, and that second bit is actually one of the easier ways to ameliorate the problem that am talking about.

    The "problem I am talking about" being the insistence of every RPG writer in the history of the industry on using conversational language to describe rules, mechanics, and effects. At least for rules-heavy games, these things should not be written in conversational style, they should be written in a rigid fashion making as much use as possible of specific words and syntaxes that have been specifically defined in the context of the game. All rules text that can't or is better off not using such terms and syntaxes should be written in a single, consistent style throughout all books that are part of that game system, and that style should be as clear and unambiguous as possible.

    Magic: The Gathering is a perfect example of how RPGs should be written:

    1. Read the basic rulebook and/or quick-start guide, you know everything you'll need to know in 95% percent of games you'll ever play, with no room for misinterpretation.

    2. Open the comprehensive rulebook during one of those other 5% of games, and you'll find it to be a numbered, well-organized document written in such a way as to be completely airtight yet still readable without difficulty (if incredibly dry).

    3. Any time you see the word "trample," "flying," "destroy," "sacrifice," or one of countless others, you immediately know what it means and precisely how it does and doesn't work. Any time you see a colon in the text of an ability, you immediately know that it's an activated ability, that everything before the colon is the activation cost (which can't be responded to), and that everything after the colon is the effect of the ability (which goes on the stack and can therefore be responded to). And so on.
    Your definition - or experience - of M:tG's rules document as 'completely airtight and yet still readable without difficulty' does not happen to mesh with mine, or a few tournaments I've seen.
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Hit points. Undefined and increasing hit points.

    This has wreaked more boredom and blandness on RPGs, CRPGs, MMOs, and many others. Your special attack is more damage, or damaging more people. Your best roll does more damage, your worst roll does no damage. DPS or DPR becomes a thing.

    I want kneecapping, nut shots, and slit throats. Hit points are boring and stupid.

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    For the internet only, the Tier System, D&D.

    One person's personal opinion of the classes has morphed into a gospel resulting in some players judging all decisions they make to seek approval of Tier System Advocates. They overanalyze trying to remake the game to change classes into a preferred Tier. Just being in a particular Tier causes DMs to blindly ban classes. DMs and players cannot make up their own minds as to what is fun for them, instead relying on the Tier System to make all their decisions.
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    I guess I should clarify what I did and didn't mean by "standardized:"

    I'm not talking about consistency of language between different games, or about some games coming up with their own "unique" terms for things. Different developers can do things as differently from each other as they want for all I care, and that second bit is actually one of the easier ways to ameliorate the problem that am talking about.

    The "problem I am talking about" being the insistence of every RPG writer in the history of the industry on using conversational language to describe rules, mechanics, and effects. At least for rules-heavy games, these things should not be written in conversational style, they should be written in a rigid fashion making as much use as possible of specific words and syntaxes that have been specifically defined in the context of the game. All rules text that can't or is better off not using such terms and syntaxes should be written in a single, consistent style throughout all books that are part of that game system, and that style should be as clear and unambiguous as possible.
    I had this great reply before my browser crashed and I lost it, so let me just say, what style do you want? It sounds to me that you want a dry style where everything is made perfectly clear and explained perfectly, but in that case, at least I will never read your rulebook.

    Magic: The Gathering is a perfect example of how RPGs should be written:

    1. Read the basic rulebook and/or quick-start guide, you know everything you'll need to know in 95% percent of games you'll ever play, with no room for misinterpretation.

    2. Open the comprehensive rulebook during one of those other 5% of games, and you'll find it to be a numbered, well-organized document written in such a way as to be completely airtight yet still readable without difficulty (if incredibly dry).

    3. Any time you see the word "trample," "flying," "destroy," "sacrifice," or one of countless others, you immediately know what it means and precisely how it does and doesn't work. Any time you see a colon in the text of an ability, you immediately know that it's an activated ability, that everything before the colon is the activation cost (which can't be responded to), and that everything after the colon is the effect of the ability (which goes on the stack and can therefore be responded to). And so on.
    So you've never had an in-game argument. I've been caught out by damage not going on the stack many time since I took it up again, and will often respond to abilities at the 'wrong' point. I also never read the rulebook or quick start guide but learned from another person, which means that I can't comment on them. Also, if the activation of an activated ability does not go on the stack, but the effect of the ability does, then what if my activated ability is to deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Damage is not put on the stack, so can I respond to the activation of the ability (apparently, nope), the ability itself (again nope, as damage does not go on the stack), or the targeting of the ability (in which case the 'damage does not go on the stack' rule is pointless, as all damage must target something and I can respond to that). Bare in mind that I've also seen better players than me respond to people paying activation costs (mainly for spells, but occasionally for activated abilities no matter if the cost is 'X mana' or 'tap this card'). The rules just make no sense once you go beyond the basic and set abilities and what is printed on each card. Also can I react to the resolving of an effect, i.e. an effect leaving the stack. I'm sure the rulebook says this, but I'm also sure that my query can be met in a way that'll keep me entertained and will suffice if I don't wish to search the index for 'rules relating to the stack'.
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    Quote Originally Posted by dps View Post
    Or, as a review I read of it said, their justification for not fixing the problem amounted to, "We did it that way before".
    That's pretty much the explanation for EVERYTHING in D&D.
    AD&D was not so much 'designed' as 'accumulated'.

    Vancian Casting's already been mentioned, so I'll mention D&D's general insistence that magic is always superior to mundane effort, and 3.5's insistence that if you want to do anything more interesting in a fight than sword your opponent in the hitpoints, you'd better cast a spell, spend a feat, have a magic item, or be prepared to suck a Attack of Opportunity.
    Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Amphetryon View Post
    Your definition - or experience - of M:tG's rules document as 'completely airtight and yet still readable without difficulty' does not happen to mesh with mine, or a few tournaments I've seen.
    I guess I am good at reading things.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    So you've never had an in-game argument.
    Not a full-on argument, no. Disagreements sure, confusion definitely, but stopping for a few minutes to find the right part of the comprehensive rules has always cleared such things up completely and immediately.

    Also, if the activation of an activated ability does not go on the stack, but the effect of the ability does, then what if my activated ability is to deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Damage is not put on the stack, so can I respond to the activation of the ability (apparently, nope), the ability itself (again nope, as damage does not go on the stack), or the targeting of the ability (in which case the 'damage does not go on the stack' rule is pointless, as all damage must target something and I can respond to that).
    I just meant "effect" as "what the ability will do if allowed to resolve," which can be responded to in the sense of it being the part that responding to the ability can potentially do anything about. As contrasted to the ability's cost, the payment of which is already too late to do anything about by the time anyone has a chance to respond.

    Bare in mind that I've also seen better players than me respond to people paying activation costs (mainly for spells, but occasionally for activated abilities no matter if the cost is 'X mana' or 'tap this card').
    People forget things, the point is that if someone tries to remind you of a rule you don't remember correctly (or at all) and you don't believe them, there should be some bit of text somewhere that unambiguously settles which if either of you is right.

    Also can I react to the resolving of an effect, i.e. an effect leaving the stack. I'm sure the rulebook says this, but I'm also sure that my query can be met in a way that'll keep me entertained and will suffice if I don't wish to search the index for 'rules relating to the stack'.
    Sort of. Removing the spell or ability from the stack is part of the process of resolving it, but after that happens you have the chance to do things before the next spell or ability down starts to resolve.
    Last edited by Sith_Happens; 2015-02-09 at 08:05 PM.
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
    Vancian Casting's already been mentioned, so I'll mention D&D's general insistence that magic is always superior to mundane effort, and 3.5's insistence that if you want to do anything more interesting in a fight than sword your opponent in the hitpoints, you'd better cast a spell, spend a feat, have a magic item, or be prepared to suck a Attack of Opportunity.
    That's mostly 3e+ in my experience. I remember AD&D fighters who did things like pin vampires to the ceiling with tridents and pile drive medusa into chamber pots. It was rather more fun than the guy who said "I cast shield, I cast slow, I cast flaming sphere, I'm out of spell so I give up."

    In all D&D up through the 3.x editions I've found that playing an interesting and fun character to be more effective than playing a cardboard cut out with super powers. Mostly, I think, because being invested in the character and the session causes you to think and react more appropriately than just having buttons to push. People who listen when the npc says "invisible demons and fire trolls live there" do better than casters who assume that their current set of spells can fix anything.

    I'm not saying that more options aren't better options, just that players can make more options if they try and tend to choose worse options when they assume one thing is always better than anything else.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
    Race/Class/Level character design. Makes for an easy shorthand when describing your character, but resulted in 30+ years of stereotypes and cookie-cutter characters.
    ...I would like an example of a system that doesn't do this, please

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Within palladium, dead reign, revised recon, and ninjas and superspies pretty much assume you're a human...

    So 'race' is negligible... Then you pick an occ... which might be called a 'class' but is more tacitly a 'job'

    And heroes unlimited for the most part presumes you're 'a human' with the only alternatives being mutants, mutant animals, robots, cyborgs, and aliens... Aliens being the only opportunity really to create other 'races'... but in doing so you're kind of choosing your characters capabilities as a function of 'what they are' more than 'what they do'... less 'my class is about my training/job/class' and more about 'my skillset is training in my powers.'

    I'd call that 3 and a half systems worth of not usign the Race Class Level design... Most of palladiums systems put you in the situation where you're either choosing a job, or you're choosing a race that chooses your job for you... By and large, even in Rifts, for the most part you're either choosing 'human' with the occasional dog boy as long as the campaign is on earth itself... You only dip into aliens a bit when you start dealing more directly with atlantis or the 3 galaxies or the naruni and such... At the end of the day an 'atlantean' is, for the most part, still a human.

    I also don't see much diversity in terms of racial options when you look at games like 'cyberpunk 2020' or shadowrun... By and large wall to wall humans all around...
    Last edited by VincentTakeda; 2015-02-09 at 08:48 PM.

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Excessive use of Binaries.

    Different portions of this have been mentioned in various ways, but it sums up a lot of things I think are wrong with a lot of things in game design. Simply put, having too many options where something is only in a small amount of states. Some of the things I view as subsets of this problem:

    1.Binary success/failure. You missed or hit, you saved or failed. Kinda versimilutude breaking, as looking around me provides all kind of evidence of "this works, but there are some issues" and "this doesn't work, but you might be able to salvage this". A simple fail/success fails to emulate this.

    2. Usage limits on power. Simply put, saying 'its O.k. if this power is more useful than average, because it can't be used as often'. This seems like a good way to balance at first, but its actually a horrible way to do things. Because it creates two situations that are both kinda unfun: either you have uses, and you can just steamroll things, or you don't and you have significantly less ability to contribute relative to your teammates. D&D vancian magic is an excellent example of what's wrong with this idea, as the proliferation lead to spellcasting being world-breakingly powerful under the idea "they can only do it a couple times per day!"

    3.Binary prerequisites. Similar to the above, making something gated behind some other thing, and then using that to justify it being more powerful. This is especially true if the opposite, something that is weaker than normal, but has value derived from serving as a prerequisite, exists. It makes larger disparities between those who are just dipping their feet into the hobby and those who don't, punishes builds that need to originally waste time on the lower side of the power curve building up prerequisites for things on the later, and encourages characters to be 'pre-planned' instead of being derived organically.
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    ...I would like an example of a system that doesn't do this, please
    Point-buy games like GURPS and HERO system spring instantly to mind. Also more free-form games like Over the Edge, RISUS and FATE. (Unknown Armies kinda-sorta has 'classes' in that there's a strong distinction between Adepts, Godwalkers, and Normals.) Skill-based systems like RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu, though in RQ your species, culture and religion are fairly important.

    There's a fair number of games where race/class/level isn't really a 'thing', aside from D&D & derivatives.

    Quote Originally Posted by VincentTakeda View Post
    I also don't see much diversity in terms of racial options when you look at games like 'cyberpunk 2020' or shadowrun... By and large wall to wall humans all around...
    I suppose you could play an AI or a genemodded animal in Cyberpunk, but that would be reaaaallly unusual. Shadowrun has all the usual Tolkien races, plus trolls.
    Last edited by Arbane; 2015-02-09 at 08:50 PM.
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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    ...I would like an example of a system that doesn't do this, please
    Honestly, there are probably more systems that don't than there are that do. I can mostly think of D&D, Star Wars systems and a lot of stuff from the 80s.

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    How would you homebrew/houserule/change DnD to not use that Race/Level/Class system?

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
    Shadowrun has all the usual Tolkien races, plus trolls.
    Ah thats true... I kind of surprised myself here because when I think about/reminisce about shadowrun games, we dont really much talk about them in terms of what your race contributed to how things went down unless, of course, we're talking about trolls. On the face of it, at the end of the day, the differences between core tolkein races like an elf and a human and a dwarf is pretty negligible even in systems like d&d... a few stat points, seeing in low light... Different races dont mechanically do a hell of a lot for ya and its only when people start choosing whackadoo races because what they offer is more than just a tick or two on a stat that you start to feel like 'ugh'...

    But I know the opposite is true... When people start choosing Kitsune, sure, it can as easily be about the crunch bonuses as it can be about the 'spirit' of the racee. When people start choosing Kender and Gnomes and Drow... Its rarely about the crunch at that point and more about either justifying a degree of suave or an excuse to do annoying things/be annoying. Its not like Kender/Gnomes/Drow are an order of magnitude more powerful than their cohorts... Aasimar and Tieflings on the other hand seem to, at least at my tables, be the choices of the 'crunch hunters' than the 'stylish'...

    Maybe I'm biased. Maybe I just think that way because their 'style' of playing aasimar and tieflings feels a little grating...

    Its like the difference between a trope and a cliché... They're pretty much the same thing, but I tend to use the word trope when I'm referring to things we all recognize that are reasons I like a certain thing... Cliché is the word I use when referring to things that make me sigh and roll my eyes because I don't feel like its being done in a clever imaginitive way or that it adds to the character arc or story meaningfully or because I feel like its only being done for crunch purposes and the player could care less about exploring the nuance or style of the race in any way...

    Shadowrun races 'feel' to me like palladium races... Either when you choose a troll, you're mostly choosing your job at the same time, or the fact that you chose a tolkien race within that system has produced characters that could have just as easily been humans in my mind... Thats more my players than the system maybe.

    Probably a better thread for musings of this nature, but at the very least I think there are plenty of systems out there where race is either unified, or an afterthought/amazingly minor difference at the end of the day crunchwise and it takes effort from the player for the race to stand out as being particularly different.

    The number of times I've said at the table 'Oh that's right! You're an elf! I forgot.' means the player themselves has gone a little too long without doing anything I particularly consider elfy... Our dwarf player on the other hand goes out of his way to be xenophobic and gruff. Dont wanna run much further down that rabbit hole since it could go off topic a bit to pursue this stuff to much analytical depth...
    Last edited by VincentTakeda; 2015-02-09 at 09:40 PM.

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    Default Re: The most far-reaching bad descisions in RPG design?

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    ...I would like an example of a system that doesn't do this, please
    As has been said before, more games don't do it. Going just by the games I've played:

    D&D: classes, races and levels. Uses a race/class/level system.

    Dark Heresy: homeworlds are races, careers are classes, and ranks are levels. Uses a race/class/level system.

    Call of Cthulhu: Occupations are similar to classes in theory. Uses a class system.

    Shadowrun: Has races, but despite featuring common archetypes is practically classless. Uses a race system.

    Unknown Armies: you have four classes in the main book: normal, adept, thaumaturge and avatar. Uses a class system.

    Vampire: clans are races. Uses a race system.

    Savage Worlds: has races, uses a race system.

    All flesh must be eaten: Are there races/classes? I'm not actually sure

    I suppose you could say that races=backgrounds from a crunch perspective, but I like to separate them because they imply different things fluff-wise.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
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