Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

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Lago PARANOIA
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Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Because I was in the mood for killing my soul, after finally getting a reprieve from the midterm week of hell (three in a row, yay) I went over to rpg.net to read one of those Essentials vs. 4E threads.

One of the things that stood out to me are people praising the game for its increased opaqueness. They don't like Essentials because it's a better balanced game or introduces more tactical complexity, but because it's less obvious as to what's going on. The game hides its game nature behind enough fluff so that people don't feel like they're playing a 'Striker' but a 'Slayer'. If this doesn't happen, their willing suspension of disbelief is violated and they rebel against the game. This is probably where all of the '4E is WoW!' complaints come from. Not from the level treadmill or the emasculation of magic--people love that shit. People just didn't like being told that was going on.

But then again, there are a lot of people out there who are genuinely offended when you tell them why a rainbow sparkles or how a magnet works. And a lot of these people have money. So I think that some effort should be spent on massaging peoples' WSOD. It could end up being very profitable. The question is, how much should you baby peoples' WSoD? Obviously a game that went out of its way to hide mechanics from the players as much as possible (like 1E D&D) is the best way to accomplish that, but aside from the fact that you will alienate people who appreciate transparency it's also really ripe for abuse. A lot of people don't like being told that there's a fairly strict range of possible hit points for 5th-level monsters, but on the other hand they have insurance against the DM accidentally doin things rong.

I'm sorry if this post comes across as overly patronizing, but I think that there's something very feeble and contemptuous about someone who can't appreciate a magic trick or special effect after being told how it's done.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Well here is over patronizing, not only do I agree about the magic trick thing, I also think the people praising the opaqueness are just so stupid they don't actually know WHAT they want, or at least what things actually lead to what they want.

Because...
so that people don't feel like they're playing a 'Striker' but a 'Knight'
... isn't about Opaqueness. Its about options and style. And I'll be damned if I know if Essentials delivers those things better or worse, but it certainly doesn't and I think CAN'T have delivered more "knight-ness" and less "striker-ness" by virtue of painting both of them black and turning the lights off.

Because that's just fucking stupid.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Sun Nov 14, 2010 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

PhoneLobster wrote:... isn't about Opaqueness. Its about options and style.
It's moreso than you think. A lot of people were offended by the idea of 4E straight-up telling you that the Fighter occupied the 'defender' role and that their powers were specifically designed to aid this. However, the Slayer class corrals people into being a 'striker' without actually telling folks what's going on. I mean if you're aware of 4E's design philosophy it's pretty easy to tell why the class is designed in such a way, but if you're not it just feels like you're playing a Fighter Classic.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Re: Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

Post by Severian »

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I'm sorry if this post comes across as overly patronizing, but I think that there's something very feeble and contemptuous about someone who can't appreciate a magic trick or special effect after being told how it's done.
They're told how it's done before they even see the trick in action, that's understandably off putting imo.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Why? It's not like it was a mystery based trick, it's not a rabbit out of a hat, it's a career out of your career advisor.

And it's not like 4E didn't have plenty of mystery since there was, or so I'm informed, enough lack of design discipline that the class roles WERE obfuscatory information.

If someone is offended by the fact the 4E fighter had Striker attached to it then seriously they AREN'T offended at the lack of "mystery" they are offended at... something... and too stupid, or cowardly, to identify it.

I mean seriously if you have a blurb at the front of your Monk class mechanics saying "FYI this guy punches stuff as his schtick" that is really not a bad thing in and of itself. It IS bad if you are lying, it is bad if the monk is bad at his schtick, the last thing in the world that would be bad is if that information is accurate. Because at some damn point you need to pick Monk as a class and you need to know what the hell it is. Obfuscation of what it is IS offensive. Unless you are playing some sort of out there edge case game where every character's own powers come as a surprise during weird ass acid flash backs or horrendous predestined but until now secret mutations or something. And really that isn't at all what these suckers are talking about so... WTF?

Seriously these guys just didn't like the roles like Striker, and who can blame them. But they are too dumb to tell if the roles are there or not or what they are, so the second people stop talking about the thing they found annoying they all say "Yays! The annoying thing is surely gone! Forever!". I bet apples to oranges that these guys are the SAME guys who basically believe every stated "feature" or "design goal" of the system the grand holy designers tell them it has regardless of the actual factual features of the system.

In a nut shell these are the same sorts of guys who thing the d20modern wealth system is excellent and works and streamlines things because the guys selling it to them told them so. (edit number 1 million: these are the same people who think that Skill Challenges work and are fixed... because after all a thing called a "fix" was released... so... it's fixed right?)

These people are, simple put, SUCKERS.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:03 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

Post by Wumpus »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:But then again, there are a lot of people out there who are genuinely offended when you tell them why a rainbow sparkles or how a magnet works. And a lot of these people have money. So I think that some effort should be spent on massaging peoples' WSOD. It could end up being very profitable.
Unless you want to design ICP the RPG, I would advise against trying picking juggalos as your target market.

I mean, I would read and laugh at a game set in the Dark Carnival. But in the same way people regard FATAL.

Yes, you don't necessarily need to explain why the crunchy bits work to the players. But it is helpful to explain at least from a design doc perspective (and possibly to the GM, to keep him from assing it up) why things are the way they are. And if that means explaining as "the Knight is a flavor of Striker" then meh, I guess that works.
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Post by mean_liar »

To me, this "mechanics v WSoD" is another way of saying "roleplaying v rollplaying". Its barking up the wrong tree with a false dichotomy.

My wife calls Power Grid, "Resource Management: the Game", and she's right. Similarly, we love Reiner Knizia (a famous and skilled board game designer) as a mechanical game designer, but some of his games' total lack of flavor or thin and obviously pasted-on flavor are straight turn-offs. Meanwhile, I don't like Puerto Rico because while for some its obfuscatory mechanics encourage a more-fun experience, for me it only means that I win often because I see through the haze to the few "best" strategies (including not being first or last in the first round, thanks to Monte Carlo simulations).

The point is that getting mechanics right on their own is insufficient for a great game - you need to be able to tie those mechanics into a coherent and engaging worldview, which is where I believe 4e's troubles are: they stripped out the flavor to the point where it was almost non-existent, with the satirical "War Meta-Warrior" character writeup that appeared on these forums was deadly hilarious for being so spot-on. If Essentials is garnering praise for obfuscation, I would say its only because they're attempting to inject some flavor back into what was a largely flavorless endeavor and achieving a better balance between mechanics and WSoD as a result, as opposed to simply favoring WSoD over mechanics.

From my perspective the primary lesson is not that mechanics should be hidden, but rather that serious effort should be put into encouraging WSoD through flavor's integration with mechanics.

I feel 4e in particular shot itself in the foot with its attempt to flavor-up its mechanics, since they're so clearly the same half-dozen effects slowly amped up over time. They ought to have had only a few powers that grow stronger, rather than attempting to rehash the same power over and over again and pretending that it was different and awesome. In some sense I feel like the class powers reflected some of the same insulting scaling inherent in the skill DCs - numbers go up for no discernible reason because (I believe) the designers realized the abstract level of challenge is supposed to remain the same while not realizing that even though challenge should be roughly constant, the nature of the challenges should change.
Last edited by mean_liar on Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Saxony »

I think WSOD doesn't mean white screen of death for this thread. What does it mean?

Google isn't helping.
Last edited by Saxony on Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JonSetanta »

I think White Screen of Death is it.
Last edited by JonSetanta on Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

He's talking about Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

The problem here is that the obfuscation of mechanics or lack thereof is not what offends people about 4e. People are offended about 4e because stuff happens for no reason, not because they can see how the numbers work. People aren't angry that they know what the DC is to climb a wall, they are angry that there is no in-world explanation for why a wall's Climb DC is what it is.

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Post by Saxony »

FrankTrollman wrote:He's talking about Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
Ah, thanks. Makes much more sense :)
Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

FT wrote: The problem here is that the obfuscation of mechanics or lack thereof is not what offends people about 4e.
I'm not just blowing smoke up your asses. I'd link to the thread in question, but I hate that kind of thread raid shit. Just look around on rpg.net in the appropriate section. You'll find it.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Re: Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

Post by TheFlatline »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:This is probably where all of the '4E is WoW!' complaints come from. Not from the level treadmill or the emasculation of magic--people love that shit. People just didn't like being told that was going on.
For me, my moment of "Jesus guys... we're playing an MMO" occurred when a group of us were sitting around the table and we were in a fight. Someone asked someone else to use one of their daily powers, but referred to it as their "2-hour" (as in 2 hour cooldown from MMOs). We laughed, and then I looked around the table. Each of us had a macro bar underneath our charactersheet, full of powers that were all on timers. I said "Jesus, we really *are* playing an MMO", and that's where that trope came from, for me at lest.
But then again, there are a lot of people out there who are genuinely offended when you tell them why a rainbow sparkles or how a magnet works.
Fuckin Essentials... How do they work?
Last edited by TheFlatline on Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Too much emphasis on mechanics, not enough on WSOD.

Post by JonSetanta »

TheFlatline wrote: For me, my moment of "Jesus guys... we're playing an MMO" occurred when a group of us were sitting around the table and we were in a fight. Someone asked someone else to use one of their daily powers, but referred to it as their "2-hour" (as in 2 hour cooldown from MMOs). We laughed, and then I looked around the table. Each of us had a macro bar underneath our charactersheet, full of powers that were all on timers. I said "Jesus, we really *are* playing an MMO", and that's where that trope came from, for me at lest.
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Post by Zinegata »

mean_liar wrote:My wife calls Power Grid, "Resource Management: the Game", and she's right.
Your wife plays Power Grid?

Why can't we find any girls around here who want to play Power Grid. :cries:

Seriously though...
Similarly, we love Reiner Knizia (a famous and skilled board game designer) as a mechanical game designer, but some of his games' total lack of flavor or thin and obviously pasted-on flavor are straight turn-offs.
Yeah, pretty much. Knizia is infamous for his tacked-on themes, but at least the games are often mechanically sound.

4E doesn't even have "mechanically sound" going for it, so at least by putting a layer of flavoring over the system it becomes easier to swallow.
From my perspective the primary lesson is not that mechanics should be hidden, but rather that serious effort should be put into encouraging WSoD through flavor's integration with mechanics.
In short, people should they like how they designed Chaos in the Old World, or maybe even the original AH Dune.

Hell, even Republic of Rome gets brownie points with me despite how convoluted the game gets.
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Post by Ferret »

OT: anybody got a link to War Meta-Warrior writeup?
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Post by Username17 »

Ferret wrote:OT: anybody got a link to War Meta-Warrior writeup?
I don't think it was ever really finished

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Post by TheFlatline »

Zinegata wrote: Yeah, pretty much. Knizia is infamous for his tacked-on themes, but at least the games are often mechanically sound.
Balancing my checkbook uses simple "rules" and is mechanically sound, but it's hardly something I sit down to with glee in my heart.
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