What big problems remain after the Tomes?

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:08 am

the problem is that an edition built on another edition isn't a new edition; hence the name 3.5 and the very appropriate nickname of 3.75 for Pathfinder. if you really want to move the game forward you need to actually change the system, not just modify it slightly. 4e does this, of course imperfectly, but at least it tries to change the system rather than keep trying to modify a flawed system to be not flawed. similar to how you can mod the everliving shit out of Oblivion but at the core it will still just be a game about maxxing out relevant skills and winning the game by skipping around the forest and picking flowers while murdering the fuck out of wolves.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:04 am

I do find the ... Tomes to be adequate. Further, by adequate I mean to say the best version of 3.X anywhere.
There was just too much to not like about 4.0 in general. TNE was just somewhere I wasn't following cause of the color set up. I read the aWoD thread and Acrobat file yesterday and today. Doing so I realized..
1. I wouldn't mind learning a new system if the sytem was good, but moreso allowed me to play the characters I want. aWoD Transhumans Etherkids seems right up my alley, but I don't know shit aobut the WoD system.
K. said 900 pages would be a lot for a system you don't own.
Frank said no good without pictures.
Everyone says... Why don't you guy just own a gaming company? Srsly.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:14 am

One thing I'd like is a set of sane illusion rules. I've been in a few games where illusions were used so creatively/exploitively/MC-infuriatingly/encounter-endingly that the MCs just ruled that "interacting" includes even seeing the image, and this house rule carried on to other games.

A good fix would be nice, but I haven't seen one that works as well as I'd like.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:36 am

Ghostwheel wrote:One thing I'd like is a set of sane illusion rules. I've been in a few games where illusions were used so creatively/exploitively/MC-infuriatingly/encounter-endingly that the MCs just ruled that "interacting" includes even seeing the image, and this house rule carried on to other games.

A good fix would be nice, but I haven't seen one that works as well as I'd like.

It seems like thats an either or thing. If you can make realistic looking illusions you should be able to genuinle screw people up.
If not, well you're illusions don't work to do really anything. Creative people are going to be able to use open ended abilites to nifty things no matter what, I think. You could say... no open ended things I guess?

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:44 am

Eh, I get the feeling that there's a way--I just haven't been able to find it yet.

An example of a "fix" that's probably unsatisfactory - what if out-of-combat someone has to actually either be *looking* for an illusion to get a will save for just seeing it or has to interact with it physically in order to get a will save, while in combat everyone automatically gets will saves against an illusion because they're "on edge" or whatever, and thus stops it from dominating combats as easily?

Again, a pretty bad fix, but I think having only the screw/fail ends up with a false dichotomy. There's sure to be some middle ground there. Like I said, I just haven't found something that "feels" completely right.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:23 pm

Hicks wrote:the only salient differences between writing a new edition from scratch as opposed to eventually revising every word of the 900+ pages of 3.x is that the former achieves a whole game faster than the latter, and the latter would be able to be played while it progressed inexorably through its revision.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, because people like eight people haven't been working on a new edition for years on this forum and have basically nothing to show for it.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 3:16 pm

Tossing ideas around is fun, but it's not work.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:16 pm

Making a "game" can be done in less than 24 hours, It is the whole premise of a 24 hour RPG challenge; some are quite good. But a whole edition? I've done the lions share of "Avatar", "Chimera" and finished "Dungeon Master". Ignoring human frailties like eating and sleeping, it takes me about a week to solidify the system down, a week to generate a template for monsters and adversaries and procedurally write them up, and a week of play-testing and fine tuning; so to actually get something playable it takes me about 500 man hours. For a whole system, by myself, with no one to delegate to or have edit.

What paralyzed the Den's New Edition was the lack of any real and enforced leadership in its development; design decisions needed to be made and nobody had the authority to do so, causing the design threads to sink into non-productivity with the twin millstones of bickering and posturing.

The truth of the matter is that actual people have actual things to do on their to do list: Frank is in Med School, K is in Law School, Koumei has whatever the hell she does, I have a family and a sick father... And game design is a hobby that does not pay our bills, study our coursework, or care for our family.

WITH THAT SAID: Why don't we just form a corporation with the intent to design quality RPG and other games? It would provide a chain of command so that design decisions could be made by project managers, provide easier access and legitimacy to investors and other financing, pay the designers who are using their time designing games in lieu of being a wage-slave, and, should the corporation fail to generate profit, its associates would be protected from financial fallout.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:24 pm

I toss ideas around all the time. Since starting medical school, I only make one gaming product a year.

Last year it was aWoD. The year before that it was LA Horror. The year before that it was Ends of the Matrix. But yes, it takes me one year to crack my knuckles and make a real whole playable game from scratch (while still passing Pathology). It takes me one real whole year to make a supplement that largely fixes a subsystem for an existing game with a bunch of expansion materials (while passing Anatomy).

If I decided to make another Tome for D&D, it would tackle some finite set of subsystems. It would probably have a playable Bard, a revamped set of Armors, a bunch of Skill Feats, a mulligan on Illusions, and maybe some other stuff. But it would be done over the period of a school year in whatever free time I had. On the other hand, in a roughly equal amount of time, I could make Doubt, Fantastic, or Black Forest from my scratch notes into a fully playable game.

That's the difference. Writing a new game is faster than patch fixing a large sprawling existing game.

-Username17

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:53 pm

Hicks. 2 things. 1- Finish avatar. It looks sweet, and I want to play it. 2- A "corperation" is a great idea and the enforced leadership would really make it happen. If there is anything I can do to help on that front let me know. (Obviously you see my RPG design experience/internet creds, but whatever you trust/want me to do is offered).

Writing an RPG as a "Whoever helps whenever" thing is bound to fail. Writing it as a project with design goals, specified designers, play-testers, artists, editors, ect has a much better shot. Plus it breaks down some of that 900 pages. When you have one person in charge it gives a unified vision, so even if you don't think its the best idea you know what "the idea" is and where to take it with your design. Heck you could even be so mad that you storm off and don't finish it. Well then the project lead takes your submitted notes, and gives it to the new guy. He then picks up where you left off. This whole corporation idea works great so long as the head guy doesn't let it die.

Frank. Next year my votes go to 5e or Generic Star Wars. (star wars without any obvious IP) Because this is up to votes and totally not just whatever you feel like doing.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 10:12 pm

If a corp is set up, I'll throw in my hat for editing/typesetting.

But my "what frank should work on" vote is for Doubt.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:02 pm

If you actually want to design a new RPG system as a group, you're going to run into a lot of problems. Namely, how the hell do you hold people to deadlines? Having worked with a similar group before, I'm willing to call it all but impossible unless you have some physical, tangible to hold above people's head with a "You said you'd do this, so do this NOW or else". You also need someone to call the shots, who has experience, guaranteed motivation, etc. And decide what kind of system you're going to write; good luck getting everyone to agree on that.

Group projects just don't work well, especially with open recruiting.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:14 pm

DragonChild wrote:If you actually want to design a new RPG system as a group, you're going to run into a lot of problems. Namely, how the hell do you hold people to deadlines?

With regards to a corporation, traditionally this is done with money; e.g. if you miss the deadline you do not get paid or suffer a contractual monetary penalty to the total payment you would have received. What can I say? Money moves people.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:15 pm

Yeah, right. Now who's going to supply that?

Exactly.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sun May 01, 2011 2:26 pm

Krusk wrote: Frank. Next year my votes go to 5e or Generic Star Wars. (star wars without any obvious IP) Because this is up to votes and totally not just whatever you feel like doing.

Although do like the sound of something like Doubt, my vote would be squarely on 5th edition. High time we got a suitable, high quality (super) heroic Fantasy RPG going. I can't really seem to stand D&D, due to it's problems, lack of system mastery of the game on my part. Although do like the idea of Mutants & Masterminds, just seems the overall game to be rather boring quick (like 4th edition is to Frank).

It would be really awesome to get a corporation going, combining likes of Frank, K, Lago Paranoia, Caedrus, Koumei, and so forth, if it was possible. Just a bummer we get companies like Paizo, or Wizards, still shelling out crap, where the "good" RPG designers are scattered about all too busy with life concerns to show them up, and bring something monumental to the shoddy history of Fantasy RPG's.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Sun May 01, 2011 4:53 pm

1) Finishing your work is hard. I bet most, if not all of us, have a couple of unfinished pet projects lying around. But you can count the number of people on this board who have finished, polished and posted anything bigger than a prestige class on your fingers.
2) Designing good games is hard. It takes brains and dedication.
3) Game designers don't get paid well.
4) People who are smart and dedicated tend to be valued employees in professions that actually pay decent money.

So of course we get mostly shit gaming products. Good game designers are few and far between, and get snatched up by both non-tabletop-gaming companies and non-gaming companies. As a result we are left with mostly amateurs, hobbyists and flat-out bad designers. And they in turn get paid badly, and by volume, in a market that mostly sells products mostly by virtue of being useable with already existing products and having cool flavor text. All the incentives are in favor of turning out metric craptons of poorly designed flavor-of-the-month supplements. If anything you should be wondering why we get anything decent at all.

And remember, weo do get decent games every now and then. Shadowrun 4E, DnD 3E, oWoD, Feng Shui and countless other games are quite good. Not without issues - far from it - but plenty good enough to play and enjoy. But I doubt we can expect anything better than the high points of those games. What we can do though, is to buy good games and refuse to buy crap. I picked up Feng Shui on a whim, mainly because it was very cheap at my local store. Turns out it is actually quite good. There must be at least a dozen good RPGs out there like it. Games I never even heard of before. At least a third of them will be fantasy games. Perhaps one of them would be a better bet than hoping for a DnD fix - because in my opinion that game is already overloaded beyond hope.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun May 01, 2011 7:02 pm

How about using max dice results on damage rolls for something ... say a temporary CAN penalty? Would that reduce the feeling of futility in rolling damage to begin with?

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sun May 01, 2011 7:04 pm

Problems like rocket launcher tag are too ingrained in the system to remove without totally rewriting a new rules set. You're much better off starting with 4E than you are 3E if you want to make combat less deadly, or just starting a scratch built system.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun May 01, 2011 7:40 pm

Swordslinger wrote:Problems like rocket launcher tag are too ingrained in the system to remove without totally rewriting a new rules set.

The way 3e actually plays is an entirely accidental and unintended by-product of the design, ingrained wouldn't be the word I'd use.

You're much better off starting with 4E than you are 3E if you want to make combat less deadly

Sure, if you don't loathe 4e.

or just starting a scratch built system.

Perhaps, but that's not what the thread is about.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Sun May 01, 2011 7:58 pm

MfA wrote:
Swordslinger wrote:or just starting a scratch built system.
Perhaps, but that's not what the thread is about.

He does have a point though. DnD is vast, both in the stories it covers and the amount of stuff that has been written for it. Now, looking at 3E + Tome, it seems entirely reasonable to say that a large part of the game is incredibly deadly, and that this means that fights are too short. But how do you get fights to last longer? Increase hit points? Great, now save-or-dies are too good. Give people extra lives? Now battlefield control is too good. Give them save rerolls? No no-save-spells are too good.

Basically it is possible that, after applying the tomes, there are parts of the game that should be fixed, but can not be fixed, because the entire game, including all the fixes applied to it, was written with different assumptions in mind. Whether this was intentional or not is beside the point. And "ingrained in the system" seems like a fitting description of the issue to me.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sun May 01, 2011 7:59 pm

MfA wrote: The way 3e actually plays is an entirely accidental and unintended by-product of the design, ingrained wouldn't be the word I'd use.

In 3E, it's commonplace to kill enemies with one attack, sometimes multiple enemies. It's loaded with save or die spells. You cannot have spells that behave like color spray, web or baleful polymorph without inherently playing a rocket launcher tag system.

If the rules system makes it likely that you can kill challenges of your level with a single attack, you're playing in a rocket launcher tag system.

And if you add Tomes to that, the Tomes only further added to the RLT concept, indeed taking it to even more ridiculous levels.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun May 01, 2011 8:57 pm

Swordslinger wrote:You cannot have spells that behave like color spray, web or baleful polymorph without inherently playing a rocket launcher tag system.

That just depends on how likely you are to save.

Just because the spells are there doesn't mean they always have to be a viable method of offence ... you just have to make these spells mook annihilators or finishers, and ensure that at the start of combat the targets either save or suffer diminished effects. That's the point of CAN ... making you increasingly vulnerable as you are hit more or are lower level than the attacker.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun May 01, 2011 9:01 pm

MfA wrote:The way 3e actually plays is an entirely accidental and unintended by-product of the design, ingrained wouldn't be the word I'd use.

Well, just nit-picking your nit-picking, but accidental and ingrained aren't mutually exclusive. It may not be the word you would use, but it's certainly one of many right words to use. It's stuck in there pretty damn good, even if it was accidental.

Swordslinger wrote:And if you add Tomes to that, the Tomes only further added to the RLT concept, indeed taking it to even more ridiculous levels.

Now that's just flat out wrong. Tomes is not 'more ridiculous,' it's less ridiculous. What's ridiculous is when only spellcasters can play RLT. If you think it's ridiculous to give fighters weaker versions of the rocket launchers wizards had two levels ago, all you're saying is, "fuck you fighters, you can't have nice things." And that's ridiculous.

If you mean playing RLT itself is a little ridiculous, yes. But letting everyone play the game high-level wizards already are is not more ridiculous, it is less ridiculous and more balanced.

I would prefer a less RLT-y game, but that's impossible with 3.5 as a base. And 4e is the shittiest thing since shit, and it 'fixed' RLT by making everyone boring, homogenized cookie-cutter versions of eachother, and no one has rocket launchers and everyone has tons of hitpoints that makes them an effort to kill (including generic kobold A).

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun May 01, 2011 9:08 pm

3e used AD&D as a base ... just because something is evolutionary doesn't mean it can't make big changes.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:40 pm

What I liked about 3.X

Feats: I wanted more cool, interesting feats, and more feat chains, and I wanted the classes to get more feats. Less specific powers, more fun feat options.

Skill Points: not far enough, I wanted more skill points, and more skills, in order to specialize more. To allow for niche character building.

A straight forward d20+bonus vs DC or opposed roll system.
I like that I want to roll high in all cases. Not High for these, but low for these, and that saves/attacks/skill checks all work the same way. This speeds up game play.

What I didn't like about D20:
Some Classes just aren't worth playing
The game starts to break down around level 12
The Munchkin builds of doom.