Necro: Design: Too Much In The Kitchen?

[Foxwarrior]

I've played quite a lot of extreme kitchen sink D&D: dnd-wiki, everything from one balance point is allowed without explicit approval (either H or VH), final destination. The noticeable lack of clarity and theme one gets with all that random content is one of the driving reasons that I decided to make a Fantasy Heartbreaker of my own (which I'm still not showing to you yet).

However, as one who has perused that wiki may find, I am one of the most prolific content authors in the world. I've tried to cut down by willfully restraining myself when a new idea I have overlaps too much with existing ones, but I still managed to end up with six colors of magic. I know for certain that only four colors is more than enough for a setting in which to run a year-long campaign. That's why I instituted a rule that each setting can only contain four of the colors (it's not like every campaign in this game needs to be in a world with teleportation or time travel anyways).

My play"test"ers act very skeptical about the need for this rule. The space-opera fanatic who loves the idea of knowing every spell said something to the effect of "if I were to DM this game, I'd houserule that away". A second argued that the potential problems with lack of clarity and theme, and the potential to buy or research a specific magical solution to every puzzle, were more of a DMing issue (he's very much a believer in the "You can't fix bad DMing school of thought"). And a third just gave a facial expression which probably meant "I'm unconvinced".

Am I wrong?

[Username17]

The more colors of magic there are, the less powerful each master of one color is. If there is Black and White magic, then a Black Mage will have access to half the best spells. If you introduce Red mage, then a Black mage will only have access to a third of the best spells. If you introduce Green magic, the Black mage will have access to a quarter of the best spells.

Given that in most fantasy worlds the magic users of all types typically have what most people would describe as too much power and versatility compared to other character types, having more colors of magic seems like an unalloyed good. Adding Purple magic to the pot is an excuse for there to be more things that magic could do that individual magic using characters can't do. That's an important balancing tool, and you'd be a fool to throw it away.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

The more colors of magic there are, the less powerful each master of one color is.

This is only true as long as you take the view that Magic can do anything, then you divide the effects up between the colours. If instead each colour has their own, non overlapping spheres of influence, then how many you have has no bearing on the power of any individual colour (up to an eventual theoretical limit where you need to restrict one colour to make room for another to have any effects I guess). Instead what you are doing by adding new colours is expanding the things magic is capable of in the world.

Look at your example:

If there is Black and White magic, then a Black Mage will have access to half the best spells. If you introduce Red mage, then a Black mage will only have access to a third of the best spells.

Introducing the Red mage didn't suddenly make the Black mage have less spells, or make the spells she has less powerful, unless you take some of the Black spells and make them Red. If Red gets its own unique set of effects all you have done is expand the things that it's possible for magic to do.

Foxwarrior, restricting the colours as you have described it is effectively a worldbuilding tool. Take the difference between Shadowrun magic and D&D magic. Shadowrun has a whole metaphysics chapter where it explains how magic works, how it manifests effects in the world, and how this restricts what is possible in the setting. D&D just says "like, whatever, it's magic dude!". As a result there is literally nothing you could imagine in D&D that a spell couldn't do. By restricting the colours of magic you are effectively setting limits on what magic is capable of. If your setting has no White or Green magic, you are laying down that healing and the natural world are all but impossible to affect with magic, which says some interesting things about how magic works in your setting.

What is your motivation for restricting magic in this way? Forcing people to make interesting campaign worlds? Cut down on the overwhelming amount of player options? Make the DM's life easier by limiting what players can do? Your post states that 4 colours is "more than enough" but more than enough for what?

[Username17]

Introducing the Red mage didn't suddenly make the Black mage have less spells, or make the spells she has less powerful, unless you take some of the Black spells and make them Red. If Red gets its own unique set of effects all you have done is expand the things that it's possible for magic to do.

People do not normally write Geist. They normally write games with an extremely finite number of spells in them. If you introduce Red Magic, some of your page count will go to making Red magic spells, and that will be instead of Black magic spells. Even if you don't consciously hand spells that you would have made Black to Red, you're still going to give writing time and wordcount that you would have given to Black to Red, which is the same fucking thing. If there is Red Magic getting powers written for it, Black magic will be less versatile and powerful automatically.

-Username17

[hogarth]

I've tried to cut down by willfully restraining myself when a new idea I have overlaps too much with existing ones, but I still managed to end up with six colors of magic. I know for certain that only four colors is more than enough for a setting in which to run a year-long campaign. That's why I instituted a rule that each setting can only contain four of the colors (it's not like every campaign in this game needs to be in a world with teleportation or time travel anyways).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the idea of having a lot of content and letting the GM restrict the game to a medium-sized amount of content is an idea that GMs like more than players. At least in my experience, it is.

[Krusk]

How does that apply in a 3.X game. Meaning we have divine/arcane type magic. Plane Shift is both arcane and divine.

Adding divine didn't remove any power from the arcane guy, they just both now have power.

Does this make an assumption of non-overlapping spell systems that I just didn't know about? EX Arcane/Psionic/Blue?

[Username17]

Arcane and Divine aren't really different colors of magic. There are just multiple classes that use the same color of magic and have different spell lists. Psionicists and Magic of Blue and TruNamers and shit all have different colors of magic.

-Username17

[Koumei]

And ideally, you'd sit down and work that shit out before making the game - as it is, any new Mage class obviously can't have a little note of "By the way, these spells are now removed from the Sorc/Wiz and Cleric lists" so can only have a neutral effect at best. Adding Blue when they did, all they did was say "And here's an alternative to the massive existing magic system. By the way, this alternative sucks balls."

Had it been written as an alternative back when they were making the game, then there are all sorts of things that theoretically could have been kept out of reach of the Sorc/Wiz list.

[spongeknight]

Also, keep in mind that the more colors you have the harder it is to balance them. "Mastery of time and space" is a bit crazier than "Mastery of fire" or somesuch. So the less colors you have, the more time and effort you can spend to balance them against each other, which should certainly be a consideration.

[Foxwarrior]

I've tried to cut down by willfully restraining myself when a new idea I have overlaps too much with existing ones, but I still managed to end up with six colors of magic. I know for certain that only four colors is more than enough for a setting in which to run a year-long campaign. That's why I instituted a rule that each setting can only contain four of the colors (it's not like every campaign in this game needs to be in a world with teleportation or time travel anyways).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the idea of having a lot of content and letting the GM restrict the game to a medium-sized amount of content is an idea that GMs like more than players. At least in my experience, it is.

I won't really disagree with you there. I vaguely tested the waters for player interest in reducing the kitchen sink level of my dnd-wiki campaign once or twice, and the idea was dismissed rapidly there as well.

It's just that many of the cool settings I can think of are tighter and more restricted than even my game with only three colors. Avatar elements are significantly less broad than the colors I've got. Dishonored only provides six spells (per player).

Perhaps part of the problem is just that players like to have freedom to make interesting characters? Would suggesting that the DM should let the players choose which four colors to use in the campaign help at all?

[radthemad4]

I suggest doing the thing Ancient History did for his 3.5 pbp, Crypts of Chaos:

Any book/magazine/source you use, I get to use as Mister Cavern. Any book/magazine/source you don't use, I don't get to use either.

Let the players pick whatever and let those be within the limits of the setting, plus maybe a few things that you want to include in addition.

[hyzmarca]

That's less letting the players decide and more making a veiled threat.

[OgreBattle]

Figure out the challenges players will be facing first, it will make it a lot easier to give players powers to overcome them.

So if your end boss is a being from another dimension that flies and shoots death lasers, max level PC's need ways to overcome dimensions, flying, and death lasers. So you can say your fire mage has the fire of life burning in him and an ice mage can create ice mirrors that reflect other dimensions and a swordsman can slice through rays, and anyone with a high enough jump skill is able to boost jump through the air like a Gundam.

[Red_Rob]

Perhaps part of the problem is just that players like to have freedom to make interesting characters? Would suggesting that the DM should let the players choose which four colors to use in the campaign help at all?

I think the problem is the players knowing there are other options that they aren't being allowed to pick.

A setting with 4 flavours of magic would be fine, but because they are aware there are other options all they see is the things they aren't allowed to do. No-one bitches that their mage can't stop time or teleport in Shadowrun, because it's never been an option. Have the option and take it away and you get bitching, just like when 4e shipped without half the classes people "expected" from the 3e PHB.

[Foxwarrior]

Red Rob: That's extremely inconvenient. Is there some way to get people to somehow not know about these flavors for the duration of one campaign, and then discover those flavors and forget some of the other flavors for the next campaign?

Or perhaps, make them hold some other opinion instead of the one you described?

I don't think combining the game with a brainwashing session would be affordable (or ethical).

Should I package each setting I can imagine as its own game, even though they're obviously and completely compatible with each other, and would have about 50% identical content?

[name_here]

I'd just drop it as an official restriction altogether. Write up a setting with four of the colors, and then say that if the players really want to make a mage of another color they can come from an isolationist monastery way the hell away from any other relevant point.

[Avoraciopoctules]

That's less letting the players decide and more making a veiled threat.

And after the first wave of character attrition, things spiraled into "everything" pretty fast. I know I had fun playing my superpowered aztec basketball mummy, but I don't think you should put that offer on the table if you aren't ready for people to start adding really crazy stuff to your conceptual space.

[ishy]

What is the reason you're banning some of the colours?

In my experience people react badly if you take out content, because you feel there already is enough content.

If you ban for other reasons (say, you ban time travel, because it doesn't fit the campaign) people will accept it.

[PhoneLobster]

In the mean time. It's combinations of terms like game design and kit chen sinks that explain why we keep getting kitchen design advertising bots posting on this forum. This thread. I BLAME YOU!

[Drolyt]

Let me get straight what it is you want. You want a system with a lot of options, but you don't want the setting to be kitchen sink. Is that correct? Your proposed solution is to include a rule that not all options are available in all campaigns/settings. Is this also correct?

How exactly is magic split up along class lines? Do you have to be an X mage to cast X magic, or can anybody learn any spell except for those that don't exist in this particular campaign?

Anyways, players like options. Assuming you intend for this system to be used for long running games the options the players select are going to have a huge impact on the game. Given this I think the best solution would be to let the players pick whatever they want and then whittle away at the parts of the game the players didn't pick so you can focus on the stuff that matters to their characters, plus whatever other things you want to throw in. To use D&D as an example, if no one wants to play a gnome then it would fine to axe gnomes from the setting, but if someone does want to play a gnome that should be accommodated. More work for mister cavern, but I think it is the best solution.

[hogarth]

What is the reason you're banning some of the colours?

In my experience people react badly if you take out content, because you feel there already is enough content.

If you ban for other reasons (say, you ban time travel, because it doesn't fit the campaign) people will accept it.

Indeed. I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting a bunch of options with the expectation that a GM will disallow some options that are inappropriate for his campaign. But to insist that a GM must disallow X% of the available options in a given campaign seems bizarre.

[erik]

In the mean time. It's combinations of terms like game design and kitchen sinks that explain why we keep getting (This post is most likely SPAM. Please report it, but do not reply.) advertising bots posting on this forum. This thread. I BLAME YOU!

Don't forget they also have 'complaints' and 'reviews' as keywords.

And yeah, I nearly flagged this thread even after noticing it was legit, for much the same reason.

It would be interesting to Word-Cloud The Gaming Den tho.

[Foxwarrior]

I'm pretty sure that "bot"'s already found this website, and there's nothing to be done except make jokes about it.

Hogarth: Yeah, it is a little bit bizarre I guess. But the first time people play a new RPG, there's a decent chance that they'll try to play it "vanilla", and I'm pretty sure my game is more interesting when there are few enough elements that you can try to figure out how all the pieces interact.

Drolyt: Yes; yes; and it's quite easy to have a caster who knows some spells of each color.

Gnomes are one thing, and whether or not one can set up a portal network spanning continents or not is a slightly different thing. I'm not entirely sure identical approaches are appropriate for both cases.

[tussock]

and I'm pretty sure my game is more interesting when there are few enough elements that you can try to figure out how all the pieces interact.

No it isn't.

I mean, if there's 5 options, and players can have 2 each, that's 10 character types to theoretically interact, or 45 interaction pairs ignoring multi-character synergy in teamplay. That you can calculate. That also isn't interesting in the slightest.

But if you've got 10 options and players can have 4 each, there's 210 character types and over twenty thousand simple interaction pairs. With 100 options, 6 picks, it becomes borderline incalculable. There's a billion unique characters and billion billion interactions. And most people will still find it impossibly limiting. 100 options? Ever?

But then, you see, there's 4 characters per team, and the numbers just explode. And all you can really say is that millions of people working together will take years to find even a tiny fraction of the potential problems. Certainly no one will ever figure out how all the pieces interact.


You say people can pick and choose from different lists? Forget it. It's incalculable for most purposes. Six lists will be completely indistinguishable from four. Most people can't even work out that Fighter feats are never as good as Wizard spells, let alone what combining them can do.

[Drolyt]

Hogarth: Yeah, it is a little bit bizarre I guess. But the first time people play a new RPG, there's a decent chance that they'll try to play it "vanilla", and I'm pretty sure my game is more interesting when there are few enough elements that you can try to figure out how all the pieces interact.

I can't say for sure without seeing more of your game, but it probably isn't. Basically you have two options if you don't want kitchen sink, you either keep your setting tight to begin with or you have mister cavern take an axe to the splats. The later is a viable option, but I really think this should boil down to a suggestion along the lines of "just because something is in the rulebooks doesn't mean it is in every setting" rather than an actual rule to that effect. Another thing you could do is create a great example/default setting that shows what such a world could look like.

Drolyt: Yes; yes; and it's quite easy to have a caster who knows some spells of each color.

Gnomes are one thing, and whether or not one can set up a portal network spanning continents or not is a slightly different thing. I'm not entirely sure identical approaches are appropriate for both cases.

I'm not sure they are all that different. If teleportation is part of my character vision then it is a problem if the MC disallows it, just like it would be a problem if he told me I couldn't play a gnome when I really wanted to. I'm not saying this is never warranted, but in general the MC should be more accommodating than the players. If, in the final analysis, the MC thinks outright banning an option is the best decision for a game then that is on him, I don't think the rules should require this.