Are any RPGs actually good?

[Occluded Sun]

The real problem is that a roleplaying game with a solid rules base is almost always unplayable and almost always unfun.

War gaming, with or without miniatures, can potentially be rigorously balanced yet offer an entertaining experience... if you're into strategic war gaming, which in absolute numbers has always been a rare and extreme minority taste.

Ambiguous rules make people complete the game experience themselves, which likely results in their liking the outcome far, far more.

[JesterZero]

The real problem is that a roleplaying game with a solid rules base is almost always unplayable and almost always unfun.

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

If you want to argue that you enjoy ambiguity, ok...fine...that's subjective. Hard to argue with your feelings. But to say that the very thing that creates a playable experience reduces playability seems incoherent.

[Mechalich]

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

Not entirely, it depends on how you make your rules more solid. The easiest way to solidify you rules base is to limit the potential inputs and outputs those rules produce.

For example, you can massively increase the balance quotient of D&D by simply eliminating everything above level ten (including all CR 10+ monsters). That won't eliminate all balance issues, but it will make the game more balanced by a lot because you've removed a lot of game-breaking powers and combos, and there's a whole set of game variants that people run that manage D&D according to this principle.

The problem is, you've just made the game a lot smaller and have absolutely removed things from the game that people find fun, like plane shift. At some point, if you take this approach to its logical conclusion, you've cut out so much game that there's nothing left.

Now, I don't agree with Occluded Sun's suggestion that a solid rules base makes a game unplayable and unfun, but it is certainly possible for rigorous rules to remove things from the game that people find fun but the base game system is simply unable to model effectively. You could remove all forms of flight from D&D for example, and that would almost certainly make the underlying system stand more solidly, but it would also be pretty lame (nobody wants dragons that can't fly).

[Zinegata]

The real problem is that a roleplaying game with a solid rules base is almost always unplayable and almost always unfun.

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

If you want to argue that you enjoy ambiguity, ok...fine...that's subjective. Hard to argue with your feelings. But to say that the very thing that creates a playable experience reduces playability seems incoherent.

Ocluded is confusing a "solid" rules base with "focused" one.

A major reason why many new generation war games are so much more playable is due to improved rules writing and understanding how to design for effect. "Sword of Rome" for instance is a game about Rome and its wars against Phyrrus (he of Phyrric victory fame) so the game includes ways of winning a battle despite suffering shattering losses. In any other wargame that would be annoying, but if you're a fan of this period in history then this is precisely the outcome you'd want to see from time to time.

RPGs can't be so focused however, because its not about reliving an existing narrative. Its about writing your own.

[OgreBattle]

Hmmm, would a card game like Mafia count as an RPG of sorts? You have a role to play.

[Zinegata]

Hmmm, would a card game like Mafia count as an RPG of sorts? You have a role to play.

RPGs generally imply a persistent campaign in addition to playing a role. That said even boardgames are getting into this, particularly with its first breakout success in the form of Pandemic Legacy.

[Korwin]

The real problem is that a roleplaying game with a solid rules base is almost always unplayable and almost always unfun.

I first wanted to agree. Most games I enjoy aren't balanced by far.
If by solid you mean balanced.

Then I remembered After Sundown, which I think I would enjoy, if I got around playing it.
(In my defense, my printed copy has annoyingly missprinted letters...)

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

Witch Girl Adventures.

That isn't universally hated so much as universally ignored. Has anyone here ever heard of Witch Girl Adventures before? Positively or negatively?

Secondary answer: Shadowrun 5e.

I'm currently playing a Shadowrun 5e game and enjoying it. The trick is to not play a hacker.

Interesting that you mention Witch Girls. I went on a big binge recently for material for high school, college and other learning institution rpg material and bought witch girls rpg. I have not fully read the rules and mainly focused on reading the setting material. In a thread about something else someone mentioned running a fantastic game for 2 years with their group. I'll have to give it a second look some time.

[Occluded Sun]

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

Nope. People tend to be happier with the rules they come up with themselves, and such rules are generally more functional in that they deliver what the individual / small group wants out of the game.

Lots of games, when played as written, are less entertaining and interesting than people's misunderstandings of the rules.

And sufficiently bad rules tend to be wallpapered over, in the same way that our brains fill in our optical blind spot.

[Kaelik]

I like that dimfuck just made two posts in two threads, and in one said that that people being too stupid to figure out the rules created better games, and then in the other said that D&D alignments are totally objective and the only reasons that not everyone loves them like he does is because they are idiots who misunderstand the game and thus ruin it.

[Gnorman]

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

Nope. People tend to be happier with the rules they come up with themselves, and such rules are generally more functional in that they deliver what the individual / small group wants out of the game.

Lots of games, when played as written, are less entertaining and interesting than people's misunderstandings of the rules.

And sufficiently bad rules tend to be wallpapered over, in the same way that our brains fill in our optical blind spot.

And Calvinball sure is fun but I'm not paying you for a Calvinball rulebook.

[Occluded Sun]

Aren't you? Isn't that what you've done time after time?

(Well, you didn't pay me, but the principle is sound.)

[MGuy]

I like that dimfuck just made two posts in two threads, and in one said that that people being too stupid to figure out the rules created better games, and then in the other said that D&D alignments are totally objective and the only reasons that not everyone loves them like he does is because they are idiots who misunderstand the game and thus ruin it.

Makes sense for OS. He is clearly part of the rulings > rules crowd. Since alignment is such a clusterfuck that it takes a good bit of mind caulk to get it to work of 'course' he's in favor of it and not in favor of solid rules. If a rule is solid he can't misinterpret it properly and would then be less happy because people might actually be able to know what a given rule means for the game without him.

[Zinegata]

How do solid rules make something less playable? Isn't that literally a contradiction?

Nope. People tend to be happier with the rules they come up with themselves, and such rules are generally more functional in that they deliver what the individual / small group wants out of the game.

They're not necessarily more functional but there's certainly much more sense of ownership with rules that you created for your own particular campaign.

Lots of games, when played as written, are less entertaining and interesting than people's misunderstandings of the rules.

And sufficiently bad rules tend to be wallpapered over, in the same way that our brains fill in our optical blind spot.

For boardgames when the rules are bad it's a very simple matter to blame the designer. When the rules are good however the designer gets credits and we tend to be more willing to buy his next game.

For RPGs blame is a more complicated matter because the finger can be pointed at the DM.

You're confusing gamer and group psychology blame games with good rules writing.

[Occluded Sun]

You're confusing gamer and group psychology blame games with good rules writing.

Perhaps, but I don't think so. Board games also tend to have simpler goals that can be analyzed objectively and clearly. RPG mechanics are rather subtler, and harder to evaluate.

Well-defined rules, then, tend not to satisfy players in RPGs because the systems they describe tend to be simple. Settlers of Catan's rules are pretty brilliant, but your options in the game are very restricted, which is why it's possible to write computer programs that can play the game reasonably well. Programs routinely beat humans in chess, etc.

Nobody's ever made a program that can play a RPG with any skill.

[cthulhu]

Name them. I'll bet you I can point to a poster who enjoys whatever game you point at.

4e D&D (Yes, I know its not a real RPG, Skill-Challenges never worked, It's "Kill Orcs" for 30 levels, Padded Sumo, and Item Wishlists are required BS. If can past that and the railroad mentality, I enjoyed DMing for it, it had a simple enough XP/encounter system and lot of its more common monsters were more interesting to run.)

I quite like 4e, but the comparison point to my mind is Descent not D&D. It's a lot better than Descent because it's a lot more tactically interesting. It is a shame the skill rules suck quite a bit, but it's fairly seamless just to do whatever you want with skill checks.

Having played a shit-ton of 3.5e, pathfinder, 4e and 5e at this point, I probably like 3.5e more with people with high system mastery and if everyone agrees not to play Wizards/Druids/Clerics, but otherwise I like 4e more.

[Zinegata]

Perhaps, but I don't think so. Board games also tend to have simpler goals that can be analyzed objectively and clearly. RPG mechanics are rather subtler, and harder to evaluate.

And the reason for that is that boardgame objectives are defined clearly by the designer, hence if the goals are stupid the designer can be easily blamed.

RPGs have no specific goals except those set by the players, hence if the RPG session falls apart then it's just as easy to blame the players.

It is therefore ultimately a blame game exercise.

Well-defined rules, then, tend not to satisfy players in RPGs because the systems they describe tend to be simple. Settlers of Catan's rules are pretty brilliant, but your options in the game are very restricted, which is why it's possible to write computer programs that can play the game reasonably well. Programs routinely beat humans in chess, etc.

You're confusing "simple" with focused. You can't play a hero in Catan because there are no heroes, no fighting, and no dragons in Catan. But that's the point, because Catan isn't about fighting dragons. It's about building settlements and doing the math to make the most efficient ones.

RPGs must be very broad by contrast because the point of an RPG is to let players make their own narrative. If you force RPG players into building settlements because the rules don't allow anything else then they obviously will just find a different game.

And the issue, which has consumed the The Den's energies since forever, is that a broad and unfocused rule set is harder to balance; especially with the increasingly unprofitable economics of RPG testing. Which is why most RPG products that come out are simply full of glaring balance issues.

[magnuskn]

Even to this day, where the hell else in the insular and highly anti-criticism/anti-rules-analysis online RPG fan community CAN you find forums with the freedom to say "That shit rule that does shit things? Yeah it's shit."?

If you don't fall into the trap of swearing up a storm and insulting other people (which I know is like asking denners to stop breathing), the Paizo forums actually are pretty tolerant of that.

I took a big crap on the Mythic Adventures rules for months while and after GM'ing the Wrath of the Righteous adventure path and while of course there were the people who defended Paizo no matter how much math and logic I presented, a lot of people who actually used those rules agreed and I don't remember posts being deleted by the moderators. I seem to have permanently upset James Jacobs, though, he has seemed a bit salty for no otherwise apparent reason in responses to the few posts I have made since then on their messageboard.

[Username17]

If you don't fall into the trap of swearing up a storm and insulting other people (which I know is like asking denners to stop breathing), the Paizo forums actually are pretty tolerant of that.

Didn't used to be. Both K and I were banned from those forums for being controversial. We advocated systematic playtests, people insulted us and the banhammer came down on... us. Because systematic playtesting was seen as a threat.

-Username17

[magnuskn]

If you don't fall into the trap of swearing up a storm and insulting other people (which I know is like asking denners to stop breathing), the Paizo forums actually are pretty tolerant of that.

Didn't used to be. Both K and I were banned from those forums for being controversial. We advocated systematic playtests, people insulted us and the banhammer came down on... us. Because systematic playtesting was seen as a threat.

-Username17

Look, man, I am pretty sure that you and K brought the systematic analysis, because that is what you are good at. However, I also know that you get upset quite easily and then you are, um, not careful in how you express your frustration. I would put the chance at 60% that the latter is the cause why you ultimately got banned. Not that I begrudge you getting upset, because there are some people there who are incapable of acknowledging that math or just design problems exist.

For whatever ungodly reason, mathematical analysis is seen by Paizo developers as much less useful than playtests during actual play. Which is why BS like mythic got through their playtest the way it was ultimately published. From the way a mythic campaign played out after you reached tier three, I am pretty sure that nobody at Paizo ever actually ran a game with those rules.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Frank's posts before he was banned are archived here: http://paizo.com/people/FrankTrollman

They are remarkably restrained, especially when you look at the threads as a whole and see how people were responding to them.

[magnuskn]

Frank's posts before he was banned are archived here: http://paizo.com/people/FrankTrollman

They are remarkably restrained, especially when you look at the threads as a whole and see how people were responding to them.

He called two people bad persons because they disagreed with him on just the last page of posts under that link. I know that is incredibly restrained for him, but at Paizo they frown about personal attacks of that kind. That is not to say that him showing up the designers with better mathematical analysis isn't one of the causes of him getting banned, but I'm pretty sure that the personality factor was important, too.

Since a lot of people from the Den have posted and still do post on the Paizo messageboard and their style is often much worse than how Frank expressed himself in those old threads, I presume that Paizo has gotten more tolerant of differing opinions than back when they were actually designing their system. Their moderators are much more enthusiastic on the "delete post(s)" button, though, I can tell you that.

I myself got only banned once temporarily and that was when Sean Reynolds flipped out after people started getting really upset with the editing of the Advanced Class Guide, IIRC. He left the company shortly thereafter.

[Username17]

Paizo would certainly be on laughably shaky grounds claiming that "if you do X, you are a bad person" constitutes a ban worthy offense of personal insult. Considering that their own moderators say worse shit like that all the time. But they didn't. They actually told me why they were banning me, and it was because I was stirring up controversy, "personal attacks" wasn't on the list at all.

At the time, people were spamming the board with insult threads directed at me. And the people who were doing that didn't get banned. And of course, K also got banned despite him always being less confrontational than me.

We kept the moral high ground the entire time we were there, with K keeping the moral high ground over me. And we both got temp bans because our ideas were dangerous, not because we were cited as having broken any particular rule. And the people who did break the rules, repeatedly, did not get bans because they were directing their ire and their rule breaking at the people with dangerous ideas.

The end.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

He called two people bad persons because they disagreed with him on just the last page of posts under that link. I know that is incredibly restrained for him, but at Paizo they frown about personal attacks of that kind.

That's obviously not true. Frank was subject to by-name personal attacks far more direct and vicious than his fairly abstract insults (directed chiefly at a fallacious argument), and the people who attacked him were subjected to no discipline of any kind. So the ban can't have been for 'making personal attacks.' That's clearly a fig leaf for whatever the actual motivation was, whether it was personal bias, simple disagreement, fear of statistics, or whatever.

edit:ninja'd

[Kaelik]

I think my favorite part is where random paizil guy (in this thread, I refuse to remember his name) says:

1) Frank got banned for X.
2) Tons of TGD posters said and say much worse things than X all the time without getting banned.
3) Therefore Piazo must have gotten less upset about personal attacks (in a way that retroactively applies backwards to have never banned people saying worse things than Frank at the time the banned Frank, but not applying to Frank).

Or you know, in the alternative:

1) Frank got banned.
2) Other people didn't get banned for making much more venemous and specific personal attacks.
Therefore: Piazo didn't ban him for personal attacks.

A fact which is born out by what everyone else said at the time, including the people who actually banned Frank.