On Option Visibility

[Lord Raziere]

A Thought Occurs To Me:

One of the things that DnD actually does well is Option Visibility. A concept I just made up now, where all the available options in an RPG have certain levels of visibility to a player. In DnD, these options are very visible- if you want to play an half-orc barbarian, its pretty clear what the procedure for that is: pick the race "Half-Orc" and the class "Barbarian" and your done, because both are Visible Options. With its various splats and such, its even clearer of how to choose weird and out there options such as a dragon or a demon or whatnot. Thus, DnD is very Option Visible.

However, not all RPG's have good Option Visibility. That is not to say, they don't have the option, but its not clear of how to choose that option and make it viable in the system. If you have to ask somebody else of how to make a concept work in a given RPG, that option is an Invisible Option an option that can be taken, but its not immediately clear how that can be done for you at all. Now, Option Visibility can be a bit subjective: some people are better at figuring out and making some concepts work than others. Also, as more splats and books get added over time, the Option Visibility of some RPGs are subject to change, as they expand their options.

The reason why this concept is important, is because technically in all RPG's we have any option we so choose as long as we can imagine it, its just that translating those options into mechanical language that is the problem and its not always clear of how to do that. Thus if an RPG doesn't have an immediate way to translate the idea into something workable, it becomes difficult to make that option viable, because its invisible, its not an expected part of the system because its not built in. and that could affect how people get into RPG's as well as the Character Creation Barrier (another concept about the difficulty of getting through certain RPG's character creation systems) of said systems.

For example:
Fate, while purporting to support any possible character, also leaves a lot up to you to figure out how to make viable. Sure, stating out a normal hero in it is obvious, but what about if you want play a big dragon? Do you just leave its bigness up to an aspect? do you make a stunt for it? most Fate characters are assumed to be human sized or the at least the same size after all, so how am I supposed to make an character thats very much out of proportion in size to the rest of the characters? how does that translate into the system? Sure, technically the system has all the options you could possibly want, far more than DnD, but a vast majority of those options you have to figure out yourself and therefore are not Visible Options, but are at least Semi-Visible Options, options that are not detailed in the book, but you can figure out a way to make it yourself. different from being completely invisible, in that Invisible Options need someone else to tell you how to make that, because you can't figure out a way yourself.

and I like Fate, far more than DnD in fact, but there is still the problem of Option Visibility that needs to be addressed, in that many RPG's seem to assume that the options that you can make are implicit and easily figured out or something, when RPG's could make it more clear of what options are visible and what options are not visible and clear up much confusion. Of course, there is some subjectivity to this, as some options are invisible to me that are Visible or Semi-Visible to others, so I might just be bad at making my options Semi-Visible and thus figuring out how to play things myself. I hope to hear others thoughts on this and how much we need to make options Visible or Semi-Visible, because in a perfect world, all options would be Visible. But we don't live in such a world, so:

How many options should be Visible? (so easily spotted and pointed out in the book that you don't need to figure out anything)
How many options should be Semi-Visible? (not detailed outright, but can be figured out by the person who wants the option without consulting anybody else)
How many options should be Invisible? (not detailed at all to the point where you need to ask somebody else to help you make that a viable option, this includes GMs)
And what should these be true of, to what systems? how do these answers vary depending on the RPG and campaign we're talking about?

[Eisenheim]

I agree with your general point about these categories of option visibility, but I'm going to disagree about your ranking of fate and D&D on this score.

At the moment, D&D 5e gets a very high score on option visibility, because it's pretty much just what's in the core book. But given the vast number of books, combinations, unintended interractions errata and expansive, almost unavoidable house-ruling, I don't think 3.5 has much more option visibility than even fate with only the core book available.

On the subject of fate, yes a huge number of options require home-brewing, negotiation with GM and other players and just becoming familiar with the system before they become fully 'visible', but if you instead look at any of the developed settings/games in the powered by fate category (Eagle Eyes, Aether Sea, Romance in the Air, Tian-jia, Secrets of Cats, Jadepunk, Atomic Robo, etc.), those make the options expected to be available and used in that particular game fully visible. I think a book like that is a better thing to compare a D&D book to, insofar as fate core is intended to be a generic/adaptible system, while both those fate books and a D&D players handbook or setting book present an entire game and setting.

[Cluedrew]

I like the theory. By the way I'm no one.

To me I think all systems should make their options as visible as possible. Just because I don't see any reason anything should be invisible. Oh, and while we're talking about the invisible options your definition of that type seems a little odd to me. If you need someone to point it out to you, how does the first person know about it? I think I get where you are going for, it is obscure and most people will miss it, but that is an odd way to define it.

Also how does this interact with... I'll call it Ease of Execution. So Fate, GURPS and other broad systems are well known to be widely applicable. But it can take a lot of energy/practice to implement an idea, even if you know off the bat you can do it. I suppose this is the other half of the character creation barrier.

... Actually I can think of one other part of the character creation barrier, analysis paralysis. Having too many options, especially when you can't properly differentiate between them properly. This may actually be an advantage of semi-visible options that hide themselves until the player's system mastery increases enough do differentiate them.

Also how this apply outside of character creation? For instance in D&D the fighter's ability to do anything more than attack is sometimes overlooked, such as improvising with the terrain. Would you count this as a semi-visible/invisible option or is that outside of what this is talking about? I think you could extend it into "level-ups" and regular game play as well.

[Maglubiyet]

I'm wrestling with this issue myself in wondering which system to use to introduce RPG's to a group of children who have some learning disabilities.

The more free-form systems are harder to grasp than the roll-and-go types of games. I think it'll be too much to add the complexity of building any possible character vs picking from a list of options. Fewer options are definitely better for beginners.

One of the problems with high Option Visibility is that options risk become dogma with no flexibility to diversify into other areas not specifically written into the rules. That's why I also favor games slanted more towards Invisible Options. However, I agree that there needs to be some way to bridge between the two. Good ways to do this include: plenty of examples in the rulebooks, sourcebooks with lots of pre-made builds, and official publications with user-submitted content.

[erikun]

I would probably call it Option Opacity vs. Option Clarity, but perhaps that's just me. Visibility or invisibility seems to imply that the option or rule is difficult to find. Then again, perhaps I am just thinking something slightly different... or just don't see much difference between my idea and the one you present.

I would consider not just the availability of the option, but the viability of the option, to be a significant part of its visibility. If an option is highly visibile and clear what it does (i.e. D&D3e Toughness) but considerably bad at what it does (i.e. D&D3e Toughness) then I would consider the option rather opaque; even though you can clearly see the option, it isn't quite what it seems to be. D&D3e Truenamers and most Fighter feat trees (to pick out some more low-hanging fruit) are further examples of how an option can be visible while still not being clear - you might call then invisible "catches" attached to the options.

A significantly clear/visible option is one which is presented, and which acts as it is presented. Despite the examples above, I'd consider most D&D classes to be very visible in this regard; you can clearly get an idea of what they do, and probably an idea of how well they do it. Most D&D spell lists are quite opaque/invisibile, though, because they have tons of options with no clear guide on how to work through them easily. Sorcerer was actually a small step in the right direction for this, although that class did have its own major problems with lack of visibility. Fate is actually fairly visible, although only with the small bits. That is, if you want a character who is good at fighting, then you'd clearly want to take Fight and/or Shoot skills - but trying to get more detailed or involved than that is when things begin to get murky.

[Lord Raziere]

I like the theory. By the way I'm no one.

To me I think all systems should make their options as visible as possible. Just because I don't see any reason anything should be invisible. Oh, and while we're talking about the invisible options your definition of that type seems a little odd to me. If you need someone to point it out to you, how does the first person know about it? I think I get where you are going for, it is obscure and most people will miss it, but that is an odd way to define it.

Also how does this interact with... I'll call it Ease of Execution. So Fate, GURPS and other broad systems are well known to be widely applicable. But it can take a lot of energy/practice to implement an idea, even if you know off the bat you can do it. I suppose this is the other half of the character creation barrier.

... Actually I can think of one other part of the character creation barrier, analysis paralysis. Having too many options, especially when you can't properly differentiate between them properly. This may actually be an advantage of semi-visible options that hide themselves until the player's system mastery increases enough do differentiate them.

Also how this apply outside of character creation? For instance in D&D the fighter's ability to do anything more than attack is sometimes overlooked, such as improvising with the terrain. Would you count this as a semi-visible/invisible option or is that outside of what this is talking about? I think you could extend it into "level-ups" and regular game play as well.

ok, lets break this down:

1. The first person doesn't know that its option while wanting it to be an option, for example, someone wants to be a cowboy complete with two six-shooters in DnD, but thinks that this is not an option because core DnD doesn't contain rules for six-shooters in its ruleset by default- this is an Invisible Option to them. A more experienced player more used to refluffing and using the rules however they want will just take the ranger class and two hand crossbows and refluff it as a cowboy and think Cowboy is a Semi-Visible Option. like I said, whether an option is Invisible or Semi-Visible is subjective.

2. Ease of Execution, yes ease of which you can execute often increases the more visible an option is- its incredibly easy to make an elf wizard because its right there, its very hard to make however say....a race you make yourself in a universal system because you have to build it from various parts and such and therefore is at least Semi-Visible- technically almost any character concept in a universal system is a Semi-Visible one, because for all of them you need to figure out exactly how to put the whole thing together even if the concept isn't all the strange or out of place, and therefore the execution of such concepts are harder, therefore taking more energy.

3. and analysis paralysis could be a downside of too many Visible options- there are so many Visible that you get overload, at the same time, you have to be mindful about not making anything too Invisible.

4. I was talking about character creation yes, but I think you do have a good point that this could extend into play and further character development as well. but this is where the Semi/Invisible thing might break down, because if you really want to be technical, all options that aren't visible are Semi-Visible, because they can be figured out, its just that some ideas just never occur to somebody because its their own view that keeps them from figuring it out themselves and thus makes it an Invisible Option, thus needing someone else to point it out. like for example, I would never use DnD 3.5 for anime and think it would be a bad idea to do that, yet on the 3.5 boards there is a thread dedicated to proving that it can emulate anime characters, meaning using DnD for anime is/was an Invisible Option for me because I didn't even consider it possible to use it that way. but getting back to the point: technically yes fighters using the terrain is a Semi-Visible Option, at least for you.

I'm wrestling with this issue myself in wondering which system to use to introduce RPG's to a group of children who have some learning disabilities.

The more free-form systems are harder to grasp than the roll-and-go types of games. I think it'll be too much to add the complexity of building any possible character vs picking from a list of options. Fewer options are definitely better for beginners.

One of the problems with high Option Visibility is that options risk become dogma with no flexibility to diversify into other areas not specifically written into the rules. That's why I also favor games slanted more towards Invisible Options. However, I agree that there needs to be some way to bridge between the two. Good ways to do this include: plenty of examples in the rulebooks, sourcebooks with lots of pre-made builds, and official publications with user-submitted content.

Well yes thats a problem, more open systems tend to involve more Semi-Visible Options that need your brain to figure out, and leave some things so open they can be considered Invisible Options because of their omission- I still have no clue of how to make a big dragon character in Fate, even though I want to and its technically up to me, because I don't want to screw it up, therefore since I'm incapable of figuring out how to make a big dragon character in Fate- I'm using that as an example, but at the same time, I really do don't know how to do that.

No no no, what your describing in that last paragraph is self-creating Invisible Options- no flexibility to diversity into areas not written into the rules is a person thinking that Visible Options are the only viable options and that anything outside of that is an Invisible Option because they don't even think the option is viable, they don't see it and therefore its invisible to them, what you want is Semi-Visible Options, because it allows people to flexibly make their own options- an Invisible Option, is by definition, not an option a person can take because they think its not viable at all, the only viable options are Visible or Semi-Visible Options.

[kyoryu]

It's a matter of menus vs. freeform. Some people like picking from menus. Some people like picking one from Column A, one from Column B (what I call "cafeteria creativity").

There's also a fundamental difference there between assuming a default of "I can do it, unless I'm explicitly told I can't" and "I can't do it, unless I'm explicitly told I can."

As far as modeling... that's just a matter of system familiarity. I'd certainly argue that most concepts are, for someone familiar with the system, easier to model in Fate than D&D 3.x (unless the 'concept' is a combination of D&Disms inherently).

I certainly think that even in a more 'wide open' system, it's a good idea to have a set of selections available for people that don't have enough genre familiarity to really come up with something from a blank slate.

[veti]

I would consider not just the availability of the option, but the viability of the option, to be a significant part of its visibility. If an option is highly visibile and clear what it does (i.e. D&D3e Toughness) but considerably bad at what it does (i.e. D&D3e Toughness) then I would consider the option rather opaque; even though you can clearly see the option, it isn't quite what it seems to be. D&D3e Truenamers and most Fighter feat trees (to pick out some more low-hanging fruit) are further examples of how an option can be visible while still not being clear - you might call then invisible "catches" attached to the options.

This, exactly. I think D&D 3e is actually very bad at "option visibility", because even though the headline effects are clear and precisely spelled out, there are so many interrelated effects - published in so many different books, many of which you very likely don't even have access to at any given time - that it takes significant rules expertise to understand the true effects of given options. You can't just pick up a handbook and build a viable character. You can't even build "the character you want to play", unless they fit one of the very limited range of archetypes.

The flip side of "visible options" is "restriction". If I toss a coin, it can come down heads or tails - that's very visible, but also very limiting. If I want it to come down "lemon", I'm out of luck - there's no way to do that with a coin, unless maybe you've got an exotic coin from somewhere lemons are a major export - and if we introduce that kind of variability, suddenly the "visibility" of the options turns out to be not nearly as clear as we thought.

[jaydubs]

This is going to be a bit of a drive-by response, because this thread is going to get really complicated and really abstract. Apologies in advance. Here goes.

How many options should be Visible? (so easily spotted and pointed out in the book that you don't need to figure out anything)

Ideally, all of them. The problem is, for any complex system, it's impossible to fit all that information in the book. As has been demonstrated from unintentional consequences, even the designers rarely see all the possible options.

We accept the fact that not all options will be Visible, because the alternative option is to have extremely simple games. For instance, you flip a coin to determine if you succeed at any given task.

The rise of the internet, and consequently forums such as this one, is that Invisible options became available to many more players. That's both good and bad. It's good, because players have a lot more options available, and therefore are able to realize many more character concepts. It's bad, because Invisible options often hide things that cause problems, because the designers weren't aware of them before the game was released. Problems that previously only arose in 1 in 20 games, might now show up in 1 in 5 games.

I still think the internet has been good for TTRPGs overall, for a number of reasons unrelated to option visibility.

[pasko77]

This is interesting. I'll read and try to answer more carefully later, as now I'm kinda busy.

I have one question though: is this theory yours, or are you building from other sources? How did it catch your attention?

[NichG]

I wonder if there's a bit of a lightning-rod effect of visible options. That is, if a given situation has a visible option and an invisible option of equal efficacy/quality/interest, the visible option will tend to be chosen far more frequently. So visible options and their consequences will tend to focus the way people think about the game to be phrased in terms of those visible options, rather than the invisible options that surround them. That is even true if the game is very explicit about the presence of those invisible options (by saying 'they exist' without specifying them).

E.g. if you have a rule that says 'when the player does X, then the GM should have something happen. For example, Y' then over time people may remember that section as if it had said 'when the player does X, then the GM should have Y happen'.

But it seems like maybe that would change when the number of visible options gets large enough that people feel like they are qualified to generalize. E.g. if you have 10 feats that are all +2 to one skill, then people are pretty comfortable with 'hey, can I have a feat that gives +2 to (skill omitted from the list for some reason)?'.

So it means that if you want a particular choice or dynamic to be very open-ended, you probably need to make every option within a radius of it invisible or make a very large number of visible options that roughly bound the space of possibilities. Whereas if you have only a few visible options, that will tend to be what happens even if you have a 'or something else...' clause.

[Maglubiyet]

No no no, what your describing in that last paragraph is self-creating Invisible Options- no flexibility to diversity into areas not written into the rules is a person thinking that Visible Options are the only viable options and that anything outside of that is an Invisible Option because they don't even think the option is viable, they don't see it and therefore its invisible to them, what you want is Semi-Visible Options, because it allows people to flexibly make their own options- an Invisible Option, is by definition, not an option a person can take because they think its not viable at all, the only viable options are Visible or Semi-Visible Options.

Ah, okay, I think I understand your terminology now. Yes, I mean Semi-Visible Options.

On the flipside, the Visible Options tend to be the most vetted and "balanced", whatever that means to a particular system.

(btw, I have a system for making dragons in Fate if you're interested! )

[pasko77]

Ok, I'll add my 2 coins:

- A well written ruleset should give a player the means to create everything that is coherent with its premises. I would not be bothered not to be able to create a gunslinger in D&D because it is not coherent with the theme.
- The complexity of the topic (it's an RPG, not a board game), makes it inevitable the birth of non-obvious combinations.

Another question: How do you categorize the special kind of invisibility given by having too much information spread in too many sources? Is it invisible because I cannot be expected to own all the books?

[Lord Raziere]

This is interesting. I'll read and try to answer more carefully later, as now I'm kinda busy.

I have one question though: is this theory yours, or are you building from other sources? How did it catch your attention?

I just made it up. I've just been observing a lot of things in RPGs I've read over time and finally found words to express what I saw, and tried to define them as best I could.

Ok, I'll add my 2 coins:

- A well written ruleset should give a player the means to create everything that is coherent with its premises. I would not be bothered not to be able to create a gunslinger in D&D because it is not coherent with the theme.
- The complexity of the topic (it's an RPG, not a board game), makes it inevitable the birth of non-obvious combinations.

Another question: How do you categorize the special kind of invisibility given by having too much information spread in too many sources? Is it invisible because I cannot be expected to own all the books?

That is a Visible Option, but not an available one I guess. this theory doesn't say anything about whether the Visible Option is available to you, just whether or not you can see it in an RPG. do you consider that a flaw?

Ah, okay, I think I understand your terminology now. Yes, I mean Semi-Visible Options.

On the flipside, the Visible Options tend to be the most vetted and "balanced", whatever that means to a particular system.

(btw, I have a system for making dragons in Fate if you're interested! )

Yes, that is the unfortunate truth: what is Visible is often the most balanced, while less visible ones tend to be more unexamined and contain more risk.

(and yes I would like that, please share it with me.)

[pasko77]

I just made it up. I've just been observing a lot of things in RPGs I've read over time and finally found words to express what I saw, and tried to define them as best I could.

That's nice. An interesting insight.

That is a Visible Option, but not an available one I guess. this theory doesn't say anything about whether the Visible Option is available to you, just whether or not you can see it in an RPG. do you consider that a flaw?

Not a flaw, if the concept is marginal and you can do without. It starts to bother me when it becomes sort of mandatory (a big instance may be a whole book of spells. It changes the way a whole set of characters can be played.)

It has always annoyed me that the way you play "magic the gathering" directly depends on how much you are willing to spend on it. If I could classify a game as "needs countless splatbooks" I would avoid it.
(I hate gurps for instance, it "says" it is a universal ruleset, but it isn't, it is an interconnected set of splats).

[Lord Raziere]

then do you think a slight amendment for this theory to refer to a single given RPG book, rather than an RPG in general, is in order?

after all, if we are only say, using the DnD 3.5 corebook, a lot of options in other splat books become Invisible, and only become Visible when added? could be more useful than referring to the entire RPG, especially since a lot of RPG's are only one book.

[Milo v3]

then do you think a slight amendment for this theory to refer to a single given RPG book, rather than an RPG in general, is in order?

after all, if we are only say, using the DnD 3.5 corebook, a lot of options in other splat books become Invisible, and only become Visible when added? could be more useful than referring to the entire RPG, especially since a lot of RPG's are only one book.

It does add some complexity to deciding if something is visible or invisible, especially with something like Pathfinder where it has Core, PRD material, and then tonnes of splats, all at different levels of visibility.

[pasko77]

then do you think a slight amendment for this theory to refer to a single given RPG book, rather than an RPG in general, is in order?

after all, if we are only say, using the DnD 3.5 corebook, a lot of options in other splat books become Invisible, and only become Visible when added? could be more useful than referring to the entire RPG, especially since a lot of RPG's are only one book.

Yes, I think that, if you need to be formal about it, then a good piece of data should be "you must be that rich to play this game with all its intended options" :)
I usually think of a RPG as the whole corpus of books needed for it.

Examples:
Dnd 3rd: 3 books + book of planes + Tome of battle. I don't care about the remaining splats.
Warhammer Fantasy 2nd edition: ruleset + sorcery + herbalism + chaos + skaven + bretonnia (ok maybe bretonnia is not important)

(edit: added book of planes in the example)

[Lord Raziere]

It does add some complexity to deciding if something is visible or invisible, especially with something like Pathfinder where it has Core, PRD material, and then tonnes of splats, all at different levels of visibility.

but it is more accurate: pasko does have a point in that not everyone has the time or the money to get all the possible options. I think its a good factor to consider that I didn't see at first. economics can very well determine how visible many things are to you, and thus affect how you play your games.

[Cluedrew]

I don't have much time but I would like throw in some ideas for particular types of semi-visible options. (Most of these have been mentioned by other people in the thread, I'm just labelling them.)

Silhouette Options: Options that are technically specified, but through some barrier such as an advanced application of a "build your own" system. I use silhouette because you can see the "shape" of the build your own system, but filling in the details to get exactly what you want might be hard.

Hidden Options: Options hidden behind something, as in another source book, whether that includes a pay-wall or not. So includes anything not in the main body of rules. Things that come from more obscure sources are more hidden.

[erikun]

Having thought about the topic some more, I think it best when the options more geared towards new players are the most visible, while options geared towards players more familiar with the system are fine being a little more invisible. For example, having a selection of classes available is fine, and having a create-your-own-spellcaster with create-your-own-spells is also fine as a more obscure option that is more challenging to put together. Oh, you could certainly put the create-your-own-spellcaster in with the other base classes as an option, but then you would likely have new players attempting to use it and getting completely lost. It might be better to just have more general spellcasters with pre-set spells as the base classes for newer players, to prevent such confusion when just starting with the game.

There is also limiting the visual options as a way to avoid overwhelming a player. Compare GURPS, with skills and abilities for nearly everything, with Mutants & Masterminds, which has several dozen abilities which are quite clearly themed to do something. My experience has been that M&M is quite a bit more welcoming to new players, because the "stuff you want to be able to do" section is perhaps 50 pages or so, not most of the book. It lets players much more easily choose how they want to build a character.