I remember when everything used to be talked about in the terms of "Dungeons and Dragons." Final Fantasy? Oh, that's a roleplaying game on the Nintendo, kinda like D&D. Traveller? That's kinda like D&D in space. Everquest? That's an online Dungeons and Dragons type fantasy game on the computer.
Today, you ask what a RPG is to your average game playing demographic member, and you'll probably get answers like: World of Wacraft, Skyrim, or Mass Effect. Many World of Warcraft players have never even touched or opened a pen-and-paper RPG, ever. To them, the definition of 'fantasy roleplaying' is World of Warcraft - that is the world they grew up in, and that is what they know.
Interesting times, and if I can crib from the greats, I will. Steve Job's Post-PC World comes to mind, and I shall toy around with the term, Post-D&D World. Pen and paper games have not kept up, and 4th Ed made it worse by trying to be like MMOs, from the world to the powers, and especially the progression, you can't compete with MMOs. It's like trying to compete with Apple with the same product and a different OS, sure, if you are a fan of the OS it's great, but most people, average consumer types, will buy the iPad or iPhone and call it a day. Yes, there will be a day that changes, and yes, this is flameworthy, but at the time of this writing, it's the truth for everyone that's tried to compete based on the mantra 'competing with Apple.'
Post-D&D reflects people's perceptions of what fantasy is nowadays. It's not Elminster running around a dungeon with fireball and magic missile anymore, nor are thieves perceived to be the people who are only good for climbing walls and picking locks. Fantasy is more broad nowadays, more ingrained into popular culture. Orcs can be seen as heroic, noble characters; these aren't Tolkien's mindless brood with 1 Hit Die anymore. Elves just aren't happy tree creatures or knock-offs of the residents of Rivendell, they are living breathing spirits of the elements, such as night, magic, or fire. Our view of fantasy has evolved beyond Tolkien-isms, and the Tolkien movies are taking back the things D&D borrowed from them in the first place. I am sure when you say the word Elf, people will say, "Oh, like the Lord of the Rings Elves?" rather than, "Oh, like D&D's Elves?"
D&D4 tried to strike out on its own, culture-wise, and that was cool. The new world construction, the races being a part of things, and the entire vibe was interesting. The rules, a step forward compared to D&D3, but too MMO and heavy for a pen-and-paper game. Now it seems we are back to the Tolkien-borrowed standards, and somehow, I think that's a step backwards. I feel you can't go back to the future here, D&D needs to make its own lore and strike out as something new. Yes, D&D needs to change from its Tolkien-borrowed roots, and let Middle Earth be Middle Earth.
There are a bunch of thoughts here, trying to define what happens after the market has moved on, after technology has replaced you, and that thing that was once cool is searching for a new identity. You can't grow without changing, and you can't change without looking at what you are. The world has moved on, and it's up to D&D and Wizards to prove 'why should I care about D&D?' Yeah, it's a big task, and I enjoy the game, so I hope they can answer that. A big part of the problem with D&D is D&D itself, refusing to move on from the Magic the Gathering styled complicated rules of 3E that are too heavy for new and casual players to grasp.
Lots to think about, and a Post-D&D World is an interesting term to use when thinking about the question, "What is fantasy nowadays?" You can't think along the lines of , "Oh, let's start with D&D." Things have moved on, and your thinking must too.
Showing posts with label Hak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hak. Show all posts
Monday, August 26, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
EQNext: The End of Opposing MMOs?
One fascinating part about Everquest Next is its abandonment of the two-sided MMO model. It seems as if everyone starts out on the same side. The lore is such that one group of survivors of the dragon wars returns to their homeland, and they begin the long, arduous process of reclaiming their lands. Even the Dar kElves have been recreated as a somewhat-friendly faction of elite warriors, so there isn't two sides returning home - there is one.
From the panels we attended, it seems the EQ Next team wants to start everyone out as equals, and let your actions decide your fate. If you want to walk an evil path, you will choose to do that through your actions. You will find the evil factions, ally with them, perform quests for them, attack the good guy factions, and your choices will lead you down that path. It is a fascinating setup, and one eerily similar to SBRPG's sandbox mode of play, although we do assume there are factions in the game world that are both good and bad, we don't say you have to ally with them.
Note up until this point in MMO-land, most games have been bi-factional, when you create a character, they force you to pick a side. World of Warcraft's Horde vs. Alliance, Warhammer Online's Order vs. Chaos, SWKOTOR's Imperials and Rebels, and a bunch of other games where the sides really feel sort of arbitrary and forced upon the story (Rift, Guild Wars, etc). Here, you pick the side your character ends up on based on their actions - it is up to you.
It is an interesting setup, one I wish was used in World of Warcraft and other games, since there are some factions in each of those games that sit between the sides (Goblins, Pandaren, etc). A problem with WoW is that part of the design was to keep the two sides unique, if you saw a Tauren of any type, you could be sure it was Horde. With the new expansion and the Pandaren, that is not true anymore, and by the original design goals, this is a mistake. Wouldn't it be more interesting to let players form up battle lines along ideals they believe in, instead of artificial allegiances to some faction picked for them during character creation? If I want to be a warlike Human-hating Orc, let me join that faction; or if I support Thrall and his Alliance-supporting faction of peace, let me join them. It seems disingenuous to force all Horde down a narrow path just because the (non-existent) world PvP requires forced factioning. It's why the game seems so limiting and cold nowadays as well, there's simply no freedom.
I hope EQ Next forces game designers to think hard about factioning and forcing players into roles. Let me pick a race, and let me decide. If one race trends towards one way of thinking, make that an easier path (Orcs and war), but never limit me from choosing my path, or choosing it for me. This is one of those key design goals we had for SBRPG1, and it is reinforced for SBRPG2. You deserve to pick your character's fate, who they ally with, and what factions they support.
In a way, even games like Pathfinder and D&D4 force you into a role. With Pathfinder, there's an assumed Pathfinder Society membership implied; and with D&D4, the game puts everyone on the side of the good guys. These games were built with the MMO mold in mind, and it's an interesting choice. As a result, the factions trend towards the good guys, and the evil factions are relegated to monster status. You could never join them, nor expect these factions to have anything more than a simple, "bad guys of the next adventure" motivation.
Freedom, it's what makes games epic. Supporting it in the game's design matters a whole lot too.
From the panels we attended, it seems the EQ Next team wants to start everyone out as equals, and let your actions decide your fate. If you want to walk an evil path, you will choose to do that through your actions. You will find the evil factions, ally with them, perform quests for them, attack the good guy factions, and your choices will lead you down that path. It is a fascinating setup, and one eerily similar to SBRPG's sandbox mode of play, although we do assume there are factions in the game world that are both good and bad, we don't say you have to ally with them.
Note up until this point in MMO-land, most games have been bi-factional, when you create a character, they force you to pick a side. World of Warcraft's Horde vs. Alliance, Warhammer Online's Order vs. Chaos, SWKOTOR's Imperials and Rebels, and a bunch of other games where the sides really feel sort of arbitrary and forced upon the story (Rift, Guild Wars, etc). Here, you pick the side your character ends up on based on their actions - it is up to you.
It is an interesting setup, one I wish was used in World of Warcraft and other games, since there are some factions in each of those games that sit between the sides (Goblins, Pandaren, etc). A problem with WoW is that part of the design was to keep the two sides unique, if you saw a Tauren of any type, you could be sure it was Horde. With the new expansion and the Pandaren, that is not true anymore, and by the original design goals, this is a mistake. Wouldn't it be more interesting to let players form up battle lines along ideals they believe in, instead of artificial allegiances to some faction picked for them during character creation? If I want to be a warlike Human-hating Orc, let me join that faction; or if I support Thrall and his Alliance-supporting faction of peace, let me join them. It seems disingenuous to force all Horde down a narrow path just because the (non-existent) world PvP requires forced factioning. It's why the game seems so limiting and cold nowadays as well, there's simply no freedom.
I hope EQ Next forces game designers to think hard about factioning and forcing players into roles. Let me pick a race, and let me decide. If one race trends towards one way of thinking, make that an easier path (Orcs and war), but never limit me from choosing my path, or choosing it for me. This is one of those key design goals we had for SBRPG1, and it is reinforced for SBRPG2. You deserve to pick your character's fate, who they ally with, and what factions they support.
In a way, even games like Pathfinder and D&D4 force you into a role. With Pathfinder, there's an assumed Pathfinder Society membership implied; and with D&D4, the game puts everyone on the side of the good guys. These games were built with the MMO mold in mind, and it's an interesting choice. As a result, the factions trend towards the good guys, and the evil factions are relegated to monster status. You could never join them, nor expect these factions to have anything more than a simple, "bad guys of the next adventure" motivation.
Freedom, it's what makes games epic. Supporting it in the game's design matters a whole lot too.
Monday, August 12, 2013
"Change comes when you want it."
A very wise friend of mine said that to me, and it is one to think about. For many people, this should be followed up by, "Why change?" If you are happy with what you have, fine, don't rock the boat, change would be bad for you. If you are unhappy, then the question of "why change?" is already answered, and you must.
The entire EQNext experience changed me. Sometimes, when you see something new and different, you want that instead of what you have. For MMOs, the same-old static worlds and terrain of EQ2 and World of Warcraft have gotten stale, and yes, I would like to see something new and different for a change. It does not mean EQNext is going to be better, and I think that is where people get defensive and confused. EQNext has to prove itself, and it deserves a fair chance. If you are happy in your current MMO, fine, don't rock the boat, and change would be bad for you. Others may be unhappy with what you are happy with, and that is fine too, I accept that, and you know, it is life. Who knows, the old games may be more comfortable for some, and even me, I don't know, but I am excited by the future and all its possibilities.
Same thing with Pathfinder, D&D4, D&D3.5, and to some extent D&D Next. All of these celebrate the past, and it is a fun, wonderful past, mind you - I enjoy all of these games. Something on the edge of my conscious says, there is something better out there, something wonderful and fantastic with new worlds never seen before. There comes a time when I don't want to live in the past, I want to explore the possibilities of new games, so I head out and try new things. I design too, game design is my hobby, and I enjoy it to no end. However, the twentieth time through Keep on the Borderlands and the Tomb of Horrors gets the same after a while, and yes, there are the Pathfinder adventure paths, but those are still in the same D&D Normal worlds where you know what to expect.
Part of me wants to head out into the unknown, and experience worlds never seen before. It's part of the original spirit behind SBRPG1.0, to cut players and groups loose with a full set of world creation tools, and let them come up with the world. This spirit is back in EQNext, where players shape the world, players create it, and the shared "live" experience is more important than the written module. It's part of why the game calls to me, and why we are recreating SBRPG in a new and exciting form. To adventure in games where magic does not work the way you are used to, you can never expect what's down that deep hole, and the dangers lurking out there you have no idea what they are capable of - that is a truly dangerous and exciting world, and ones people love playing in.
There will come a time when the pen-and-paper world wants change, something new, something cool. It's a natural cycle and renewal and rebirth. It only comes, however, to those who want it.
Wise words indeed.
The entire EQNext experience changed me. Sometimes, when you see something new and different, you want that instead of what you have. For MMOs, the same-old static worlds and terrain of EQ2 and World of Warcraft have gotten stale, and yes, I would like to see something new and different for a change. It does not mean EQNext is going to be better, and I think that is where people get defensive and confused. EQNext has to prove itself, and it deserves a fair chance. If you are happy in your current MMO, fine, don't rock the boat, and change would be bad for you. Others may be unhappy with what you are happy with, and that is fine too, I accept that, and you know, it is life. Who knows, the old games may be more comfortable for some, and even me, I don't know, but I am excited by the future and all its possibilities.
Same thing with Pathfinder, D&D4, D&D3.5, and to some extent D&D Next. All of these celebrate the past, and it is a fun, wonderful past, mind you - I enjoy all of these games. Something on the edge of my conscious says, there is something better out there, something wonderful and fantastic with new worlds never seen before. There comes a time when I don't want to live in the past, I want to explore the possibilities of new games, so I head out and try new things. I design too, game design is my hobby, and I enjoy it to no end. However, the twentieth time through Keep on the Borderlands and the Tomb of Horrors gets the same after a while, and yes, there are the Pathfinder adventure paths, but those are still in the same D&D Normal worlds where you know what to expect.
Part of me wants to head out into the unknown, and experience worlds never seen before. It's part of the original spirit behind SBRPG1.0, to cut players and groups loose with a full set of world creation tools, and let them come up with the world. This spirit is back in EQNext, where players shape the world, players create it, and the shared "live" experience is more important than the written module. It's part of why the game calls to me, and why we are recreating SBRPG in a new and exciting form. To adventure in games where magic does not work the way you are used to, you can never expect what's down that deep hole, and the dangers lurking out there you have no idea what they are capable of - that is a truly dangerous and exciting world, and ones people love playing in.
There will come a time when the pen-and-paper world wants change, something new, something cool. It's a natural cycle and renewal and rebirth. It only comes, however, to those who want it.
Wise words indeed.
Monday, August 5, 2013
SBRPG2 and 7dRPG Plans
Now that SOE Live is over with, we are finalizing plans in regards to SBRPG2 and 7dRPG. 7dRPG will become the core-engine of SBRPG2, and the steampunk elements will be moved off into a steampunk world book. We envision 7dRPG as being the licensed part of the game, just like anyother roleplaying system license. People will be able to build world books and other fun stuff off the 7dRPG core. More on this later.
SBRPG2 will be its old 'create a world and play' self again, although using 7dRPG as the core of the game. This will be a showcase game with support for lots of cool stuff, with a more generic focus, but still supporting all the crazy and fun stuff we had in the original SBRPG way back when.
We have a number of worldbooks in the works too for specific games and worlds we would like to see, with a lot of this coming from our playtesting and other work.
Expect the events of the previous four days to have a huge impact on how both 7dRPG and SBRPG2 will look, the pen-and-paper world is shifting, and we have to stay ahead of the curve. Oh yes, nothing is staying the same, we need to push the envelope to compete with what we just saw, and yes, we plan on competing with all that. Very cool stuff, and an exciing time to be a RPG designer, either PnP or MMO.
SBRPG2 will be its old 'create a world and play' self again, although using 7dRPG as the core of the game. This will be a showcase game with support for lots of cool stuff, with a more generic focus, but still supporting all the crazy and fun stuff we had in the original SBRPG way back when.
We have a number of worldbooks in the works too for specific games and worlds we would like to see, with a lot of this coming from our playtesting and other work.
Expect the events of the previous four days to have a huge impact on how both 7dRPG and SBRPG2 will look, the pen-and-paper world is shifting, and we have to stay ahead of the curve. Oh yes, nothing is staying the same, we need to push the envelope to compete with what we just saw, and yes, we plan on competing with all that. Very cool stuff, and an exciing time to be a RPG designer, either PnP or MMO.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
SOE Live: Final Day
Wow. What an incredible trip. Our final day of coverage begins as I think back at everything we have done and saw here at SOE Live.
We have breakfast with the director of the SOE game Dragon's Prophet, and got to give him feedback on the game. It is a fun game, worthy of holding us over until EQNext comes out, and looks to be a fun experience. He has been with SOE for about 12 years, and worked on everything from Clone Wars to Everquest Online Adventures, so he had a great pedigree of titles. It was fun just being able to sit down with him, share ideas, talk about games, and different ideas we had about MMOs and gameplay. I will keep what we talked about with him a secret, since it is a very cool thing, and we would love for him to run with the ball and get it implemented. Regardless to say, the gameplay idea we shared with him would change the game with MMOs forever, and truly bring these games to the next level.
We share because we're cool guys, and who knows, maybe SOE wants to work with cool guys like us someday. Yeah, we're like that.
EQNext is just 50 Shades of Awesome. It won't be out for another year or two, but the creator toolset portion will be out this winter. This is a smart strategy, the days of building gigabytes of pre-chewed content and stories and delivering them at launch died with the Star Wars Old Republic MMO, and Sony recognizes that. You can never build enough story and one-shot content to satisfy your players, they will burn through it in a couple months, and leave. That model does not work anymore. Instead, they are going the route of player-generated content, both before the game launches (with the toolset), and after launch with a changing, dynamic world.
It's a sound strategy, and exciting to support. There will always be games now to play and experience, plenty of stuff to do in Planetside 2, Dragon's Prophet, and the Everquest franchise. I support this because the focus here is clearly on the players, and not the company's story lines and canned experiences. The players here will be the ones creating the cool places in the world, creating the history together, and changing the game to be what they want it to be. George and I have always been about 'rolling your own experiences' in pen-and-paper games, and really, it is a great-great thing to see a company embrace player-created content, and be open to totally changing the history of the world based on what happens on the game's servers (yesterday, discussion panel). For this openness and welcoming of player-content, EQNext is our game.
There's a ton of other things happening here as well, and games from Everquest, EQ2, Planetside 2, and DC Heroes Online are getting small ways to incorporate player content. It's a sea change over here, and a welcome one to see. There's tons of expansion packs, new stuff to do, and cool little changes they are making in each game to improve things. Keep in mind, making changes in these games is a big project, and the company does the best with what it has to keep stuff cool and fun, even in games coming on 15 years old. We appreciate the support, and it is a great thing to support a company that doesn't abandon its games. Yeah, I know, SOE had some it shut down too, but for the ones still played by many people, it is a cool thing.
Nothing changes on the pen-and-paper front, and in fact, as we see more and more games move towards virtual dungeon masters and player-created content, PnP games are going to increasingly become obsolete. Think of the benefits of pen-and-paper games as being a series of goals that MMOs need to reach, and there still are a number of them out there that have not been reached yet, such as a referee, user-created adventures, user-created worlds, referee-controlled NPCs, referee-spawned monsters, adventures that can change mid-stream based on party actions, and a bunch of others. EQNext is knocking some of these milestones down, and I expect MMOs in general to start seeing these technical challenges as features to implement.
Think of that. We are now moving in a direction with MMOs that is towards replacing the human-referee entirely. I know there will still be things a human referee can do, but with advancement after advancement, the human referee will become obsolete, and in fact indistinguishable from a computer AI. This isn't far-fetched, it is just a normal progression of artificial intelligence, and in fact, expected. EQNext's user-generated content may start with structures, terrains, and props - but what's next? Monsters? World factions? Adventures? AI referees? There will be a time when the computer does a better job than a human referee, and that day is coming quicker than we think.
There are cool opportunities in here as well for the human referees, and SOE sees that too. We are getting tools for human referees to generate adventures in these games, and that is only the beginning. Someday, it may be possible for a player to 'jump out of body' and become a temporary referee in the game world for a group of players, spawning monsters, creating goals, and speaking as the NPCs We are heading towards that world too, with even more chances for creative people that want to tell stories to be able to do so through the game's tools. The combination of AI referees and human-created and managed MMO content is coming, and again, probably faster than we think.
Exciting stuff, and I do feel SOE Live this year was a glimpse into the future of gaming, both pen-and-paper and MMO. It was a special honor to attend, and also give the developers and execs here a taste of the SBRPG magic. What a fun, cool couple days this has been; I hope we could share with you a little look into this, and give you a glimpse into the crystal ball as well.
We have breakfast with the director of the SOE game Dragon's Prophet, and got to give him feedback on the game. It is a fun game, worthy of holding us over until EQNext comes out, and looks to be a fun experience. He has been with SOE for about 12 years, and worked on everything from Clone Wars to Everquest Online Adventures, so he had a great pedigree of titles. It was fun just being able to sit down with him, share ideas, talk about games, and different ideas we had about MMOs and gameplay. I will keep what we talked about with him a secret, since it is a very cool thing, and we would love for him to run with the ball and get it implemented. Regardless to say, the gameplay idea we shared with him would change the game with MMOs forever, and truly bring these games to the next level.
We share because we're cool guys, and who knows, maybe SOE wants to work with cool guys like us someday. Yeah, we're like that.
EQNext is just 50 Shades of Awesome. It won't be out for another year or two, but the creator toolset portion will be out this winter. This is a smart strategy, the days of building gigabytes of pre-chewed content and stories and delivering them at launch died with the Star Wars Old Republic MMO, and Sony recognizes that. You can never build enough story and one-shot content to satisfy your players, they will burn through it in a couple months, and leave. That model does not work anymore. Instead, they are going the route of player-generated content, both before the game launches (with the toolset), and after launch with a changing, dynamic world.
It's a sound strategy, and exciting to support. There will always be games now to play and experience, plenty of stuff to do in Planetside 2, Dragon's Prophet, and the Everquest franchise. I support this because the focus here is clearly on the players, and not the company's story lines and canned experiences. The players here will be the ones creating the cool places in the world, creating the history together, and changing the game to be what they want it to be. George and I have always been about 'rolling your own experiences' in pen-and-paper games, and really, it is a great-great thing to see a company embrace player-created content, and be open to totally changing the history of the world based on what happens on the game's servers (yesterday, discussion panel). For this openness and welcoming of player-content, EQNext is our game.
There's a ton of other things happening here as well, and games from Everquest, EQ2, Planetside 2, and DC Heroes Online are getting small ways to incorporate player content. It's a sea change over here, and a welcome one to see. There's tons of expansion packs, new stuff to do, and cool little changes they are making in each game to improve things. Keep in mind, making changes in these games is a big project, and the company does the best with what it has to keep stuff cool and fun, even in games coming on 15 years old. We appreciate the support, and it is a great thing to support a company that doesn't abandon its games. Yeah, I know, SOE had some it shut down too, but for the ones still played by many people, it is a cool thing.
Nothing changes on the pen-and-paper front, and in fact, as we see more and more games move towards virtual dungeon masters and player-created content, PnP games are going to increasingly become obsolete. Think of the benefits of pen-and-paper games as being a series of goals that MMOs need to reach, and there still are a number of them out there that have not been reached yet, such as a referee, user-created adventures, user-created worlds, referee-controlled NPCs, referee-spawned monsters, adventures that can change mid-stream based on party actions, and a bunch of others. EQNext is knocking some of these milestones down, and I expect MMOs in general to start seeing these technical challenges as features to implement.
Think of that. We are now moving in a direction with MMOs that is towards replacing the human-referee entirely. I know there will still be things a human referee can do, but with advancement after advancement, the human referee will become obsolete, and in fact indistinguishable from a computer AI. This isn't far-fetched, it is just a normal progression of artificial intelligence, and in fact, expected. EQNext's user-generated content may start with structures, terrains, and props - but what's next? Monsters? World factions? Adventures? AI referees? There will be a time when the computer does a better job than a human referee, and that day is coming quicker than we think.
There are cool opportunities in here as well for the human referees, and SOE sees that too. We are getting tools for human referees to generate adventures in these games, and that is only the beginning. Someday, it may be possible for a player to 'jump out of body' and become a temporary referee in the game world for a group of players, spawning monsters, creating goals, and speaking as the NPCs We are heading towards that world too, with even more chances for creative people that want to tell stories to be able to do so through the game's tools. The combination of AI referees and human-created and managed MMO content is coming, and again, probably faster than we think.
Exciting stuff, and I do feel SOE Live this year was a glimpse into the future of gaming, both pen-and-paper and MMO. It was a special honor to attend, and also give the developers and execs here a taste of the SBRPG magic. What a fun, cool couple days this has been; I hope we could share with you a little look into this, and give you a glimpse into the crystal ball as well.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
SOE Live: Day 3, part 2
...and then everything changes. Oh yes, another post today since so much is going on here.
Levels and the holy trinity are gone. EQNext is moving towards a more Minecraft or Terraria system of character power. Your crafted gear determines your stats and character power, levels are gone. Also, you collect and possibly tier-up your classes to increase and accumulate powers. It looks like character level in EQNext is gone. Spec-ing a character to be a tank or healer is gone. Everyone is DPS. What determines victory is likely gear power, the tier of your class powers, and a majority of it is player skill.
You will be able to re-spec your classes, and change yourself up. It is a dynamic system, and yes, while radically different, I suppose their answer to people that miss the old class-level combo is go play the infinite number of games that use that system. It is a radical, incredible departure from the norm, and they even brought the old AD&D Player's Handbook up on the screen to illustrate 'these are the old ways.'
Your character power is determined by what you collect, what you craft, and the time you put into yourself. They mentioned that a new player could tag along on a high-level raid on day 1 and still contribute. It is a flatter system for participation, but I suspect an incredibly deep one for the amount of time you can put into it and what you get out of it. I do suspect, like in Terraria, that an un-geared character will absolutely get one-shotted in the high-level areas. But like in Terraria, a twinked character with good gear, low ability power, and no player skill will suck just as hard.
Wow. Again, this is a team trying for a moon-shot of gaming. Minecraft and Terraria and their linear systems are the clear model here, along with the unique lore and faction systems that Everquest brings to the table. The emphasis on crafting for power is very cool, starting everyone off similar and keeping them there is also very cool - it is a radial departure from over 35+ years of level-based fantasy gaming.
How it works is you will have 4 primary abilities from your primary class, and then any 4 from your collected classes. There was some mention of tier-ing a class up, so I guess that is how the power of an ability works. How hit points are gained wasn't also revealed, but I suppose it could be almost entirely gear-based, since there are no character levels. I wouldn't mind playing a game like this, since it puts starting people on the sam ground, and makes crafting and collecting good gear a premium goal.
There clearly is a heavy emphasis of pen-and-paper games in the room. They want to create a MMO equivalent of the essential D&D experience, without the limitations of the D&D rules. Artificial numeric character qualities, such as level, seem to be purposefully being gotten rid of; in favor of the real, experience and collection based qualities. How this all works out remains to be seen, but it is an incredible goal if they can pull it off.
More coverage? Coming up:
http://www.destructoid.com/soe-live-everquest-next-shocker-two-eq-games-cometh-259254.phtml
Another fun note from today, the topic of roleplaying came up, and a player asked if their character could follow a deity. The designers said, 'that is up to you.' In essence, you, as a player make choices in the world, to steal or be honest; be trusting or untrustworthy, or any other number of hidden virtues the game tracks for your character. If your character's values align with the deity's values, or any other number of NPC groups - that group will be act favorable to you. In essence, you have to play the game according to the values your character holds dear. You can't brazenly steal from the villagers in game for loot and giggles, and then go 'roleplay' a kind and gentle follower of the love goddess. The love goddess' NPC will hate you, and you won't be welcome in the village. It's put up or shut up time for roleplayers, and that is a very cool thing.
This is getting closer and closer to the goal of having an invisible dungeon master working behind the scenes of the game to make it different, interactive, and a unique experience for every player - given the individual player's actions. They keep talking about some sort of AI story engine working behind the scenes that alters play depending on what is going on in the world, based on the actions of the population. Also, your individual reputation is tracked, and your actions have consequences - you can become the enemy to groups in the world, and your character can become kill-on-sight to any of the factions in the game. This is really, really close to a DM - and I suspect the designers are programming the game with this invisible DM in mind and working behind the scenes.
If the players do not help a village, and let it fall to the Orcs - a bunch of cool stuff happens. Villagers stop tending fields, and stop going out onto the streets. The level of fear increases, and shops could close. The village could become an abandoned ruins. All this can happen anywhere in the world, and the outcome is unique to every server. A truely dynamic game world run by an electronic DM? I think this team is very, very close. This game just may well be the first serious AI DM the world sees.
We had some great technical sessions today about the voxel engine, being able to flood caves by tunneling under a lake, the destructibility and physics of the world, how the voxels smooth out, particle effects, constructing walls and buildings realistically (dirt inside of a stone wall), and a heck of a lot of other stuff. The world is more real than any other MMO world I have seen, it's not just a shell of textured static polygons.
Again, so much comes to mind when you think about pen-and-paper games, it's going to take me a few days to sort my thoughts out. Level-less fantasy gaming? Gear-based power? Freely-respec-able characters? Collect-a-classes? Powering-up-classes? Just wow, this SOELive is a game designer's tour-De-force, just so many ideas coming out of this team it is just insane. For the EQNext team to put all of them in one game is remarkable, and I hope they are able to deliver.
If they can, it is not only a game-changer, but a world-changer for fantasy gamers.
Levels and the holy trinity are gone. EQNext is moving towards a more Minecraft or Terraria system of character power. Your crafted gear determines your stats and character power, levels are gone. Also, you collect and possibly tier-up your classes to increase and accumulate powers. It looks like character level in EQNext is gone. Spec-ing a character to be a tank or healer is gone. Everyone is DPS. What determines victory is likely gear power, the tier of your class powers, and a majority of it is player skill.
You will be able to re-spec your classes, and change yourself up. It is a dynamic system, and yes, while radically different, I suppose their answer to people that miss the old class-level combo is go play the infinite number of games that use that system. It is a radical, incredible departure from the norm, and they even brought the old AD&D Player's Handbook up on the screen to illustrate 'these are the old ways.'
Your character power is determined by what you collect, what you craft, and the time you put into yourself. They mentioned that a new player could tag along on a high-level raid on day 1 and still contribute. It is a flatter system for participation, but I suspect an incredibly deep one for the amount of time you can put into it and what you get out of it. I do suspect, like in Terraria, that an un-geared character will absolutely get one-shotted in the high-level areas. But like in Terraria, a twinked character with good gear, low ability power, and no player skill will suck just as hard.
Wow. Again, this is a team trying for a moon-shot of gaming. Minecraft and Terraria and their linear systems are the clear model here, along with the unique lore and faction systems that Everquest brings to the table. The emphasis on crafting for power is very cool, starting everyone off similar and keeping them there is also very cool - it is a radial departure from over 35+ years of level-based fantasy gaming.
How it works is you will have 4 primary abilities from your primary class, and then any 4 from your collected classes. There was some mention of tier-ing a class up, so I guess that is how the power of an ability works. How hit points are gained wasn't also revealed, but I suppose it could be almost entirely gear-based, since there are no character levels. I wouldn't mind playing a game like this, since it puts starting people on the sam ground, and makes crafting and collecting good gear a premium goal.
There clearly is a heavy emphasis of pen-and-paper games in the room. They want to create a MMO equivalent of the essential D&D experience, without the limitations of the D&D rules. Artificial numeric character qualities, such as level, seem to be purposefully being gotten rid of; in favor of the real, experience and collection based qualities. How this all works out remains to be seen, but it is an incredible goal if they can pull it off.
More coverage? Coming up:
http://www.destructoid.com/soe-live-everquest-next-shocker-two-eq-games-cometh-259254.phtml
Another fun note from today, the topic of roleplaying came up, and a player asked if their character could follow a deity. The designers said, 'that is up to you.' In essence, you, as a player make choices in the world, to steal or be honest; be trusting or untrustworthy, or any other number of hidden virtues the game tracks for your character. If your character's values align with the deity's values, or any other number of NPC groups - that group will be act favorable to you. In essence, you have to play the game according to the values your character holds dear. You can't brazenly steal from the villagers in game for loot and giggles, and then go 'roleplay' a kind and gentle follower of the love goddess. The love goddess' NPC will hate you, and you won't be welcome in the village. It's put up or shut up time for roleplayers, and that is a very cool thing.
This is getting closer and closer to the goal of having an invisible dungeon master working behind the scenes of the game to make it different, interactive, and a unique experience for every player - given the individual player's actions. They keep talking about some sort of AI story engine working behind the scenes that alters play depending on what is going on in the world, based on the actions of the population. Also, your individual reputation is tracked, and your actions have consequences - you can become the enemy to groups in the world, and your character can become kill-on-sight to any of the factions in the game. This is really, really close to a DM - and I suspect the designers are programming the game with this invisible DM in mind and working behind the scenes.
If the players do not help a village, and let it fall to the Orcs - a bunch of cool stuff happens. Villagers stop tending fields, and stop going out onto the streets. The level of fear increases, and shops could close. The village could become an abandoned ruins. All this can happen anywhere in the world, and the outcome is unique to every server. A truely dynamic game world run by an electronic DM? I think this team is very, very close. This game just may well be the first serious AI DM the world sees.
We had some great technical sessions today about the voxel engine, being able to flood caves by tunneling under a lake, the destructibility and physics of the world, how the voxels smooth out, particle effects, constructing walls and buildings realistically (dirt inside of a stone wall), and a heck of a lot of other stuff. The world is more real than any other MMO world I have seen, it's not just a shell of textured static polygons.
Again, so much comes to mind when you think about pen-and-paper games, it's going to take me a few days to sort my thoughts out. Level-less fantasy gaming? Gear-based power? Freely-respec-able characters? Collect-a-classes? Powering-up-classes? Just wow, this SOELive is a game designer's tour-De-force, just so many ideas coming out of this team it is just insane. For the EQNext team to put all of them in one game is remarkable, and I hope they are able to deliver.
If they can, it is not only a game-changer, but a world-changer for fantasy gamers.
SOE Live: Day 3, part 1
Wow, more incredible stuff today, discussions about the world, classes, lore, fiction, and the world reboot. Yes, Everquest is getting a lore-reboot. It is sort of a reboot-plus, where the designers can use the now-invalid future history to pull the storyline of the world from. They are not beholden to it, but it is there to serve as the backdrop, characters, factions, and content from which the future history will be written.
Of course, the history of each server will depend on what happens within the community, but major world events injected into the world will come from the new line of lore. I like this style of reboot, it doesn't throw too much away, while keeping things open enough that anything could happen. We still have the familiar, but what happens with this material could remain the same, change dramatically, or new stuff could be added to the world and things become fresh again.
We went to a writer's panel today featuring Maxwell Alexander Drake, a writer SOE contracted with to help write the lore and fiction for this new world. What's cool is that he is working directly with this developers and creating the written record of the game as development continues. Very cool stuff, and there will be a new line of novels and fiction to go along with the reboot. Yeah, this is a reboot done right.
This reminds me of the D&D4 '100 years later' relaunch of the Forgotten Realms, and how many gamers just hated it. I have always thought a reboot+ is what the world needed, not an advancement into the bolted-on D&D4 timeline and content. Really, the world of Faerun is defined by its cosmology, to wrench-in Eladrin and Dragonborn as party-crashers, and then rip out the planar cosmology and say "Faewild and Shadowfell are here!" just seems incredibly sloppy to me, and shows a lack of care for the creation. It hurts, since now Faerun seems like the old world with a coat of D&D4 on it, and I feel something needs to be done to fix this, honestly.
There is also more on the feedback SOE is getting from gamers, and a lot of MMO-players used to the old ways of doing things are coming out and saying negative things about the fragments of EQNext that they see. The freedom the game gives you, if they deliver on what they are promising, is immense - I mean really immense. Groups of players can change the world, and also work against each other. Every world, and its history, is different, since this is all a constructable/deconstructable sandbox. A lot of what's being said negatively seems like players wanting to go back to the safety and familiarity of the old ways, or back into the cave, as they say.
I have nothing wrong with the traditional MMO or pen-and-paper game, they are great, there are some that are well-designed and cool, but there seems to be a real desire to walk out of the light and back to the way things were done. I mean, EQNext's classes were talked about today, and they are a combination of class abilities, equipment abilities, and weapon abilties. You can multiclass two out of 40 collectible classes, and furthermore, the weapon you use and the gear you equip gives you further special abilities. You can be a paladin-mage type class, have air waking boots, and a sweep-attack halberd. You pick the abilities you want, get some through gear, and others through weapons. It is an innovative system, very cool, and something I wish we could see more of in pen-and-paper games.
Of course, the history of each server will depend on what happens within the community, but major world events injected into the world will come from the new line of lore. I like this style of reboot, it doesn't throw too much away, while keeping things open enough that anything could happen. We still have the familiar, but what happens with this material could remain the same, change dramatically, or new stuff could be added to the world and things become fresh again.
We went to a writer's panel today featuring Maxwell Alexander Drake, a writer SOE contracted with to help write the lore and fiction for this new world. What's cool is that he is working directly with this developers and creating the written record of the game as development continues. Very cool stuff, and there will be a new line of novels and fiction to go along with the reboot. Yeah, this is a reboot done right.
This reminds me of the D&D4 '100 years later' relaunch of the Forgotten Realms, and how many gamers just hated it. I have always thought a reboot+ is what the world needed, not an advancement into the bolted-on D&D4 timeline and content. Really, the world of Faerun is defined by its cosmology, to wrench-in Eladrin and Dragonborn as party-crashers, and then rip out the planar cosmology and say "Faewild and Shadowfell are here!" just seems incredibly sloppy to me, and shows a lack of care for the creation. It hurts, since now Faerun seems like the old world with a coat of D&D4 on it, and I feel something needs to be done to fix this, honestly.
There is also more on the feedback SOE is getting from gamers, and a lot of MMO-players used to the old ways of doing things are coming out and saying negative things about the fragments of EQNext that they see. The freedom the game gives you, if they deliver on what they are promising, is immense - I mean really immense. Groups of players can change the world, and also work against each other. Every world, and its history, is different, since this is all a constructable/deconstructable sandbox. A lot of what's being said negatively seems like players wanting to go back to the safety and familiarity of the old ways, or back into the cave, as they say.
I have nothing wrong with the traditional MMO or pen-and-paper game, they are great, there are some that are well-designed and cool, but there seems to be a real desire to walk out of the light and back to the way things were done. I mean, EQNext's classes were talked about today, and they are a combination of class abilities, equipment abilities, and weapon abilties. You can multiclass two out of 40 collectible classes, and furthermore, the weapon you use and the gear you equip gives you further special abilities. You can be a paladin-mage type class, have air waking boots, and a sweep-attack halberd. You pick the abilities you want, get some through gear, and others through weapons. It is an innovative system, very cool, and something I wish we could see more of in pen-and-paper games.
SOE Live: Day 2
Emergent game play is the big buzzword this year. SOE is taking the position that content created by the company is not going to sustain player interest. What SOE hopes takes its place is player-generated content, which are experiences players create inside the world, between each other.
But seriously wow. Yeah, this is the type of thinking pen-and-paper designers need to think of, getting on that whole next level of fun. Otherwise, we will be sitting here talking about the minor changes to D&D 3.752 or D&D 4.65. Worlds need to be shaken up over this, designers need to be pulled in and asked 'how do we compete?' Seriously. A shot has been fired across the bow of both MMOs and pen-and-paper games today. Nothing out there or in development in the PnP world answers this.
Pen-and-paper - step up. Otherwise, it's horse meet the automobile. Given the last 10 years of MMOs and how they have decimated PnP player bases, that statement is not far from the truth already.
Oh yeah, we got to meet Larry Elmore today too. Damn it, what an awesome day.
A good example of this is PvP, player-built houses and castles, player run events, and a world system that encourages players to compete and cooperate socially on various goals and quests. Another part of this is player submitted adventures and modules, and even 3d models and other assets.
...and then, everything changes in a moment. Check:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing
http://kotaku.com/everquest-next-could-fix-everything-wrong-with-mmorpgs-1003801733
Yeah, we were there at the reveal. Let me get the negative side out of the way first, they are promising a heck of a lot. We all know how well that went for D&D4, but something gives me a little more faith in SoE this time.
They are leveraging the power of their fans, the die-hards, the players. The players are going to do a huge amount of work on this coming this winter, actually using the same tools the developers use, ones that will ship with the game, to create the world. The best-of-the-best will be vetted, voted, and added to the world - and I expect this to continue post-launch. There are content creation tools shipping with the game, that creators can use to build content, get it approved, and creators actually get income from sales. There is even a method if someone uses something you created to build something else, you get a royalty based on the percentage of what's yours.
Wow, this game is a mix of Minecraft, Everquest, Second Life, and something else that hasn't been invented yet. The world is never the same, it changes, cities rise and fall, the Orcs shift attention to different places, what was once a settled area is now a ruins - it kills every other static MMO in one fell swoop. The scope of what they are talking about has never been done before, but being here, up close to them, asking questions to them in panels, it seems like they know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what they can deliver. The game was running on PCs at the show, by the Devs, behind the curtains. It is live and it is real.
Okay, I am sure if you want to know more, hit the links and use the Google. Pen-and-paper wise, here was a fun swipe at D&D (and I suppose knocking the crown off D&D Next's similarly named head) of "we have all been playing something like Dungeons & Dragons for the past 35 years" - and then proceeded to cast D&D in that typical MMO light of static adventures, class-based-play, and so on. To an extent, it is true, D&D has become static and stale. The premier version of the game, Pathfinder, is based off a game system that's 13 years old. Yes, I know, tried and true; but been there, played that applies as well.
Things need to be shaken up, as game designers, watching the EQNext creative team play with their giant box of cool paints is mind-blowing, and makes you think of the possibilities you could build if you just broke yourself free from the tried-and-true D&D tropes. To an extent, D&D4 did not go far enough, and the motivation and execution lacked severely. It fell under a shelf of expansions and errata that made the game a mess. What this creative team did today was 'change the game' and yes, it applies and hits pen-and-paper games squarely in the jaw. I can't think of a reason why I would consider investing in a new pen-and-paper game compared to playing this. This isn't a game, it's participating in a shared history with thousands of players in a world that will never stay the same.
Yes, agreed, it sounds like a dream, and concerns duly noted. Half the criticisms I have read online are flat-out wrong, and we talked about these on the panels today. You will see them in the comments of the above stories, and yeah, many of those are misunderstandings due to a lack of knowledge. This is a skilled team and something cool, don't worry, they have thought of that too. The players in the panel have too.
...and then, everything changes in a moment. Check:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing
http://kotaku.com/everquest-next-could-fix-everything-wrong-with-mmorpgs-1003801733
Yeah, we were there at the reveal. Let me get the negative side out of the way first, they are promising a heck of a lot. We all know how well that went for D&D4, but something gives me a little more faith in SoE this time.
They are leveraging the power of their fans, the die-hards, the players. The players are going to do a huge amount of work on this coming this winter, actually using the same tools the developers use, ones that will ship with the game, to create the world. The best-of-the-best will be vetted, voted, and added to the world - and I expect this to continue post-launch. There are content creation tools shipping with the game, that creators can use to build content, get it approved, and creators actually get income from sales. There is even a method if someone uses something you created to build something else, you get a royalty based on the percentage of what's yours.
Wow, this game is a mix of Minecraft, Everquest, Second Life, and something else that hasn't been invented yet. The world is never the same, it changes, cities rise and fall, the Orcs shift attention to different places, what was once a settled area is now a ruins - it kills every other static MMO in one fell swoop. The scope of what they are talking about has never been done before, but being here, up close to them, asking questions to them in panels, it seems like they know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what they can deliver. The game was running on PCs at the show, by the Devs, behind the curtains. It is live and it is real.
Okay, I am sure if you want to know more, hit the links and use the Google. Pen-and-paper wise, here was a fun swipe at D&D (and I suppose knocking the crown off D&D Next's similarly named head) of "we have all been playing something like Dungeons & Dragons for the past 35 years" - and then proceeded to cast D&D in that typical MMO light of static adventures, class-based-play, and so on. To an extent, it is true, D&D has become static and stale. The premier version of the game, Pathfinder, is based off a game system that's 13 years old. Yes, I know, tried and true; but been there, played that applies as well.
Things need to be shaken up, as game designers, watching the EQNext creative team play with their giant box of cool paints is mind-blowing, and makes you think of the possibilities you could build if you just broke yourself free from the tried-and-true D&D tropes. To an extent, D&D4 did not go far enough, and the motivation and execution lacked severely. It fell under a shelf of expansions and errata that made the game a mess. What this creative team did today was 'change the game' and yes, it applies and hits pen-and-paper games squarely in the jaw. I can't think of a reason why I would consider investing in a new pen-and-paper game compared to playing this. This isn't a game, it's participating in a shared history with thousands of players in a world that will never stay the same.
Yes, agreed, it sounds like a dream, and concerns duly noted. Half the criticisms I have read online are flat-out wrong, and we talked about these on the panels today. You will see them in the comments of the above stories, and yeah, many of those are misunderstandings due to a lack of knowledge. This is a skilled team and something cool, don't worry, they have thought of that too. The players in the panel have too.
But seriously wow. Yeah, this is the type of thinking pen-and-paper designers need to think of, getting on that whole next level of fun. Otherwise, we will be sitting here talking about the minor changes to D&D 3.752 or D&D 4.65. Worlds need to be shaken up over this, designers need to be pulled in and asked 'how do we compete?' Seriously. A shot has been fired across the bow of both MMOs and pen-and-paper games today. Nothing out there or in development in the PnP world answers this.
Pen-and-paper - step up. Otherwise, it's horse meet the automobile. Given the last 10 years of MMOs and how they have decimated PnP player bases, that statement is not far from the truth already.
Oh yeah, we got to meet Larry Elmore today too. Damn it, what an awesome day.
Friday, August 2, 2013
SOE Live: Day 1
Planetside 2 sure is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, this convention is about 50% Planetside interest, with players from all over the world attending. By the time the keynote had rolled around to EQ1 and EQ2, we lost a good portion to the room to the PS2 tournaments and lack of interest. It is a strange shift I bet for those used to coming to the SOE conventions and having the MMO crowds be the focus of attention. Clearly, this year seems to be about Sony's mega-hit sci-fi shooter, and it feels like it is dominating the show.
EQ1 and EQ2 seem to be on longer-term support, with the focus being on recycling older content for the current high-level player base. We had a shocking moment where the air went out of the room when the EQ2 director said basically 'every player will be able to have a fully-geared level 85 character in the next expansion' - for free. No applause, and more of a stunned reaction it felt like. MMO players love their characters and cherish the investment of time put into them, so giving everybody a pocket high-level twink does a couple things: it introduces a population of low-skill players to high-level content, it devalues leveling a character the old fashioned way (since traditional character will not be raid equipped when they hit 85), and it puts a focus on new content only. Of all of those, people seem concerned about traditional leveling, and the mid-level zones may become wastelands without people to level through them.
Regarding EQ1, they introduced a dynamic mission-builder that auto-tunes a special zone to your party size and character level. This is only for the new expansion zones, and how much it auto-tunes is still undetermined. I doubt you could level from 1 to MAXLEVEL on auto-tuned content, this is still unclear. A lot of stuff comes into consideration, the needed level and gear to play these, level and challenge appropriate rewards, solo-ing, and a bunch of other stuff. It does seem, like EQ2, that most of the new content seems to be focused around maintaining the current high-level crowd than encouraging new and mid-level players to get up there and enjoy it. I wonder why a pocket-85 wasn't introduced in EQ1 when it was in EQ2.
Okay, let's consider pen-and-paper games. One thing Sony gets right is developing a game and supporting it. EQ1 is going on 15 years old, which in pen-and-paper years, comes out to a RPG like 45 years old. D&D has had this annoying history of throwing everything away, especially true in 3rd Ed, and EQ1 proves you can support a game as long as there is interest in it. Monopoly has been around a lot longer, and D&D culd be the same 'evergreen' game. If you have new ideas, build a new world with a new game.
Building a glorious persistent with lore and history is something Pathfinder gets right, and D&D fails at. D&D's rebooted 4th Ed. worlds were bitter pills to swallow and not well received (maybe Dark Sun was best out of all of them), and the 'roll your own' was a welcome change, but it seems we left Grayhawk and Faerun behind, or wallowing in unpopular changes. SOE and Everquest get this right, with a lore, current story lines, and history stretching as far back as the game itself. With pen-and-paper games, it's typical we reboot the worlds every time we get a new version, or alter them so badly they are unrecognizable or too heavy.
A fun thing said by the EQ2 director was 'we polled players and asked them, what parts of the game are annoying or not fun?' Man, I wish more pen-and-paper game designers asked that question. D&D Next has a great opportunity here to make things better, though I fear the gut reaction away from 4E may force the game back into the 2E/3E cave. Pathfinder fares even worse, because to hold the mantle of the spiritual successor to 3.5E, they have to adopt some of its worst rules, such as the skill system and complicated character stats. Innovation? Most pen-and-paper games fall way short here, and the things we saw today with some of the next-gen MMO games should put them to shame.
Really. MMOs are the enemy pen-and-paper game designers, since they play for the same crowd and attention. You tried to ape them with 4E with mixed results, and now the safe course is to hold onto 3E or go back to the tried-and-true class roles and rules (which I fear with D&DN). Where is our innovation? Where is the pen-and-paper game community's answer to Planetside 2? (Don't say Magic: The Gathering, although you could make a case there - more on this later.) Where is the long-term support for older games? Why do we need to throw so much away? Where are the new rules systems with exciting features, or will we be stuck with 3E derivatives for the next 10 years? Where is our long-term world support, with continuing stories?
Pen-and-paper companies throw to much away, and it's sad to say that MMO companies actually have better plans for support and retention. Product development too, you'd think with all that MMO companies have working against them, because PnP companies don't have to code game engines, make 3d models, build tons of content - that innovation would actually be on the PnP game side. It's not. We are stuck trying to repeat the success D&D had during it's golden years, and I am not sure if that can ever be replicated again. Computer game companies actually seem to be more innovative and willing to take risks, which is shocking, to say the least.
Maybe we are stuck to selling to the same crowd of D&D fans, it is shocking to see a ton of Planetside 2 fans here at SOE Live - but these fans are the new blood, important people to get into your world if you want your fantasy titles to thrive and survive. SOE has another game called Dragon's Prophet that looks geared towards new players as well, new rules, new goals, action-oriented combat - just cool new stuff. D&D doesn't have those new fans, it seems we are just selling the same thing to a dwindling group of players. Where are the PnP games that pull people in? Again, computer game companies are the ones attracting new players. PnP game companies need to figure out how to do that before they shrink to niche markets of older-and-older players.
Of course, you need to update your premiere franchise every-so-often, and tomorrow we get to see EQ Next. Will they innovate? Can they pull back the dwindling fantasy MMO interest with something exciting and fun? Can EQNext compete with Planetside 2? From the hardcore innovation and support I saw here, I am wondering if the pen-and-paper vs. MMO fight isn't just a one-sided affair. The most troubling part about all this is most of PnP's wounds are self-inflicted, and could be at least stemmed with proper support of existing editions and worlds, creating new games for new worlds, and marketing everything better.
There is a lot to think about, not all of it good news for PnP games; but really, I believe we need to change the PnP game for PnP RPGs to not only survive, but thrive.
EQ1 and EQ2 seem to be on longer-term support, with the focus being on recycling older content for the current high-level player base. We had a shocking moment where the air went out of the room when the EQ2 director said basically 'every player will be able to have a fully-geared level 85 character in the next expansion' - for free. No applause, and more of a stunned reaction it felt like. MMO players love their characters and cherish the investment of time put into them, so giving everybody a pocket high-level twink does a couple things: it introduces a population of low-skill players to high-level content, it devalues leveling a character the old fashioned way (since traditional character will not be raid equipped when they hit 85), and it puts a focus on new content only. Of all of those, people seem concerned about traditional leveling, and the mid-level zones may become wastelands without people to level through them.
Regarding EQ1, they introduced a dynamic mission-builder that auto-tunes a special zone to your party size and character level. This is only for the new expansion zones, and how much it auto-tunes is still undetermined. I doubt you could level from 1 to MAXLEVEL on auto-tuned content, this is still unclear. A lot of stuff comes into consideration, the needed level and gear to play these, level and challenge appropriate rewards, solo-ing, and a bunch of other stuff. It does seem, like EQ2, that most of the new content seems to be focused around maintaining the current high-level crowd than encouraging new and mid-level players to get up there and enjoy it. I wonder why a pocket-85 wasn't introduced in EQ1 when it was in EQ2.
Okay, let's consider pen-and-paper games. One thing Sony gets right is developing a game and supporting it. EQ1 is going on 15 years old, which in pen-and-paper years, comes out to a RPG like 45 years old. D&D has had this annoying history of throwing everything away, especially true in 3rd Ed, and EQ1 proves you can support a game as long as there is interest in it. Monopoly has been around a lot longer, and D&D culd be the same 'evergreen' game. If you have new ideas, build a new world with a new game.
Building a glorious persistent with lore and history is something Pathfinder gets right, and D&D fails at. D&D's rebooted 4th Ed. worlds were bitter pills to swallow and not well received (maybe Dark Sun was best out of all of them), and the 'roll your own' was a welcome change, but it seems we left Grayhawk and Faerun behind, or wallowing in unpopular changes. SOE and Everquest get this right, with a lore, current story lines, and history stretching as far back as the game itself. With pen-and-paper games, it's typical we reboot the worlds every time we get a new version, or alter them so badly they are unrecognizable or too heavy.
A fun thing said by the EQ2 director was 'we polled players and asked them, what parts of the game are annoying or not fun?' Man, I wish more pen-and-paper game designers asked that question. D&D Next has a great opportunity here to make things better, though I fear the gut reaction away from 4E may force the game back into the 2E/3E cave. Pathfinder fares even worse, because to hold the mantle of the spiritual successor to 3.5E, they have to adopt some of its worst rules, such as the skill system and complicated character stats. Innovation? Most pen-and-paper games fall way short here, and the things we saw today with some of the next-gen MMO games should put them to shame.
Really. MMOs are the enemy pen-and-paper game designers, since they play for the same crowd and attention. You tried to ape them with 4E with mixed results, and now the safe course is to hold onto 3E or go back to the tried-and-true class roles and rules (which I fear with D&DN). Where is our innovation? Where is the pen-and-paper game community's answer to Planetside 2? (Don't say Magic: The Gathering, although you could make a case there - more on this later.) Where is the long-term support for older games? Why do we need to throw so much away? Where are the new rules systems with exciting features, or will we be stuck with 3E derivatives for the next 10 years? Where is our long-term world support, with continuing stories?
Pen-and-paper companies throw to much away, and it's sad to say that MMO companies actually have better plans for support and retention. Product development too, you'd think with all that MMO companies have working against them, because PnP companies don't have to code game engines, make 3d models, build tons of content - that innovation would actually be on the PnP game side. It's not. We are stuck trying to repeat the success D&D had during it's golden years, and I am not sure if that can ever be replicated again. Computer game companies actually seem to be more innovative and willing to take risks, which is shocking, to say the least.
Maybe we are stuck to selling to the same crowd of D&D fans, it is shocking to see a ton of Planetside 2 fans here at SOE Live - but these fans are the new blood, important people to get into your world if you want your fantasy titles to thrive and survive. SOE has another game called Dragon's Prophet that looks geared towards new players as well, new rules, new goals, action-oriented combat - just cool new stuff. D&D doesn't have those new fans, it seems we are just selling the same thing to a dwindling group of players. Where are the PnP games that pull people in? Again, computer game companies are the ones attracting new players. PnP game companies need to figure out how to do that before they shrink to niche markets of older-and-older players.
Of course, you need to update your premiere franchise every-so-often, and tomorrow we get to see EQ Next. Will they innovate? Can they pull back the dwindling fantasy MMO interest with something exciting and fun? Can EQNext compete with Planetside 2? From the hardcore innovation and support I saw here, I am wondering if the pen-and-paper vs. MMO fight isn't just a one-sided affair. The most troubling part about all this is most of PnP's wounds are self-inflicted, and could be at least stemmed with proper support of existing editions and worlds, creating new games for new worlds, and marketing everything better.
There is a lot to think about, not all of it good news for PnP games; but really, I believe we need to change the PnP game for PnP RPGs to not only survive, but thrive.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
SOE Live: Day 0
Oh yeah, George and myself are down here at SoELive 2013, where we are having a blast, and tired from the trip. Getting together with gamers, either pen-and-paper or MMO is always a cool thing, and sharing ideas and creativity is always cool. You can feel the excitement rising here, with Friday's EQNext premiere and a whole host of seminars coming up that will take us through the weekend. There is a ton the experience and learn, everything from how to manage an MMO to setting up a successful Youtube channel, creating MMO quests, and a bunch of other very cool stuff that has lots of applications to the pen-and-paper world.
Come back for daily reports on what we did and saw, and we may fill you in on some very cool stuff. Tonight, it was all about chasing SoE peeps on Facebook around Planet Hollywood, getting a bite to eat, and getting some rest for the big days coming up. Oh, and yeah, getting the luggage into the room. I swear this hotel has the longest walk from your car to your room, and carrying 50 pounds of luggage is not fun at all. Especially when you are walking through a mall, and you don't want to drag your suitcase through a crowd, or clock some guy with a Samsonite when you turn a corner. The things we do for you guys I swear....
Come back for daily reports on what we did and saw, and we may fill you in on some very cool stuff. Tonight, it was all about chasing SoE peeps on Facebook around Planet Hollywood, getting a bite to eat, and getting some rest for the big days coming up. Oh, and yeah, getting the luggage into the room. I swear this hotel has the longest walk from your car to your room, and carrying 50 pounds of luggage is not fun at all. Especially when you are walking through a mall, and you don't want to drag your suitcase through a crowd, or clock some guy with a Samsonite when you turn a corner. The things we do for you guys I swear....
Thursday, July 25, 2013
A Couple Pages Beyond "The End"
We had a game fly off into the abyss last night. We were playtesting 7dRPG's "Classic Fantasy" rule set, and the sesion before had concluded a storyline where George escapes from an evil kingdom which basically enslaved the player's group and forced them to do their dungeoning for them. Really fun stuff, the escape was classic, evasion, sneaking around town, and getting the heck out of Dodge. Well, last night's session picked up right after the party escaped the final checkpoint, and arrived in the new lands. And then....
Nothing.
The game fell off into the abyss. It felt like trying to continue a story off in the blank pages beyond "the end" in a novel. Yes, I had done a little prep work, but I knew of the place they were going to, I had a rough idea of the map, some general ideas of the difficulties of getting there, along with some adventure hooks they could pick up. But the overwhelming feeling of 'you've escaped, now what?' hit the both of us, and there was no compelling reason to play. You've won, you've escaped, you did it - roll credits and play the cool music.
Now if the story was like some of our earlier play thoughs, it would have been different. In earlier games, we had larger meta-games we ran on top of the rules, where how you ran your group of adventurers mattered, and you actually had to go out and recruit to meet your party's needs. This game was purely story, and once that was accomplished, anything else felt like it couldn't compare. We thought we were setting up a larger system to play something beyond the roles, but in the end, it didn't work out, and we ended up completing a one-shot.
Did we have support for the larger meta-game? To be honest, no, we didn't. We envisioned the captured players to be a part of a Game of Thrones sort of conflict, with noble houses, lands under siege, infighting with royals and villains, and all sorts of other cool stuff going on. We don't have the meta-game rules for that sort of conflict, and honestly, this sort of thing seems better suited for a dedicated world-book where you can take the time, design a world around it, and do it right.
It is an interesting problem, and one with our background of SBRPG, one we are better suited at to solve. Many pen-and-paper games are happy with providing a set of generic dungeon or conflict resolution rules, and it typically takes them 600+ pages to get that done. Yes, we did that as well with SBRPG1, a RPG the size of a phone-book.
The new thinking is a thin-and-light game 'client' and then support the game with dedicated world-books that have larger meta-games to play with the rules. Manage a kingdom, play a private eye, be a space merchant - the world-books are the place this happens and where the meta-game is laid out. SBRPG's meta-game was the faction system, and this is a core piece of the base game we want to preserve and enhance. However, the world-specific meta-games is where the fun and addiction happens; and with a referee involved, things become unpredictable and insanely fun.
Many pen-and-paper games fall off the abyss because they don't do anything beyond just 'replay a story' like a DVD player. Try and go outside that box, or off of that DVD, and the referee has to start improvising more and more. Pretty soon, you run out of improvisation, especially if your source material was limited. If you have rich source material, such as the entire Star Wars galaxy, you can possibly never run out of improvisational material (Hollywood does not apply to this, they reboot far too frequently). Start with just an idea, such as 'escape from the evil kingdom' and you will run out quickly. Hence the abyss.
What do you do when your game goes into the abyss? You re-tool, figure out 'what is this game about?' and focus the game back onto the core idea. For ours, it was escaped nobles and the revenge upon the bad guys. We will probably have to shelve this game and get back to it when we have a world-book and meta-game to support this. Otherwise, it will be 100% improvised content, with no real 'game' behind the action to say 'what comes next?' Of course, the referee is always there to say 'what happens next' but the referee shouldn't have to do everything - there needs to be that game behind the game that makes things interesting, that surprises even the referee, and that players can become good at and focus on, no matter what is happening on the roleplaying side of things at the moment.
Nothing.
The game fell off into the abyss. It felt like trying to continue a story off in the blank pages beyond "the end" in a novel. Yes, I had done a little prep work, but I knew of the place they were going to, I had a rough idea of the map, some general ideas of the difficulties of getting there, along with some adventure hooks they could pick up. But the overwhelming feeling of 'you've escaped, now what?' hit the both of us, and there was no compelling reason to play. You've won, you've escaped, you did it - roll credits and play the cool music.
Now if the story was like some of our earlier play thoughs, it would have been different. In earlier games, we had larger meta-games we ran on top of the rules, where how you ran your group of adventurers mattered, and you actually had to go out and recruit to meet your party's needs. This game was purely story, and once that was accomplished, anything else felt like it couldn't compare. We thought we were setting up a larger system to play something beyond the roles, but in the end, it didn't work out, and we ended up completing a one-shot.
Did we have support for the larger meta-game? To be honest, no, we didn't. We envisioned the captured players to be a part of a Game of Thrones sort of conflict, with noble houses, lands under siege, infighting with royals and villains, and all sorts of other cool stuff going on. We don't have the meta-game rules for that sort of conflict, and honestly, this sort of thing seems better suited for a dedicated world-book where you can take the time, design a world around it, and do it right.
It is an interesting problem, and one with our background of SBRPG, one we are better suited at to solve. Many pen-and-paper games are happy with providing a set of generic dungeon or conflict resolution rules, and it typically takes them 600+ pages to get that done. Yes, we did that as well with SBRPG1, a RPG the size of a phone-book.
The new thinking is a thin-and-light game 'client' and then support the game with dedicated world-books that have larger meta-games to play with the rules. Manage a kingdom, play a private eye, be a space merchant - the world-books are the place this happens and where the meta-game is laid out. SBRPG's meta-game was the faction system, and this is a core piece of the base game we want to preserve and enhance. However, the world-specific meta-games is where the fun and addiction happens; and with a referee involved, things become unpredictable and insanely fun.
Many pen-and-paper games fall off the abyss because they don't do anything beyond just 'replay a story' like a DVD player. Try and go outside that box, or off of that DVD, and the referee has to start improvising more and more. Pretty soon, you run out of improvisation, especially if your source material was limited. If you have rich source material, such as the entire Star Wars galaxy, you can possibly never run out of improvisational material (Hollywood does not apply to this, they reboot far too frequently). Start with just an idea, such as 'escape from the evil kingdom' and you will run out quickly. Hence the abyss.
What do you do when your game goes into the abyss? You re-tool, figure out 'what is this game about?' and focus the game back onto the core idea. For ours, it was escaped nobles and the revenge upon the bad guys. We will probably have to shelve this game and get back to it when we have a world-book and meta-game to support this. Otherwise, it will be 100% improvised content, with no real 'game' behind the action to say 'what comes next?' Of course, the referee is always there to say 'what happens next' but the referee shouldn't have to do everything - there needs to be that game behind the game that makes things interesting, that surprises even the referee, and that players can become good at and focus on, no matter what is happening on the roleplaying side of things at the moment.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Epic Characters are Broken Characters
One of the areas of most roleplaying games that makes we wonder is the design of epic-level characters. These are typically high-level characters in the last 25% of the game's progression path. These are the earth-shaking superheroes of the world, iconic characters in their own right, and ideally, what players strive for their characters to become. Too often, game designers are content to just let high-level characters to be broken, the rules not tested or designed for high-level play, or they let the game's math drift off into this area where the number ranges are so high the original dice mean little. What's the point of rolling 1d20+30, when most tasks in the game are 'beat a 20-25'?
D&D4 was notoriously playtested less than it should have at the higher levels, the game fell victim to multiple cheats, stun locks, and other cheeseball tactics that spawned endless errata. Our group hit multiple issues with high-level balance, some classes falling off the power curve, and changes invalidating builds far too often, and it hurt our group's interest in the game. To be fair, the game was designed to have high-level play, the rules and monsters support it - it just wasn't playtested that well. The fact they needed to re-balance monsters constantly tells you something, they never found that sweet spot in play until the game's end.
Most of the 3.x D&D games, including Pathfinder, cease to be fun after level 7-8 or so, and a lot of players in our groups shared that view. The games devolve into abstract high-level math, and around this point, wizards and other spell casters take over the game, so the pure fighting class players lose interest first, followed by the caster players later on. The game just wasn't designed for high-level play, and extending the system just leads to an escalation of numbers to the point of absurdity. The old D&D 3.x Epic Level Handbook has skills and modifiers shooting all the way up to 1d20+100, and at that point, you are so far out of your original dice range things get silly.
Some of the old percentile games never scaled well either, games like Top Secret and Star Frontiers had percentile ability scores that were hard to figure out when they got into epic ranges. In Star Frontiers, if a robot has a strength of 500%, his melee skills would be something like 250% + 10% times skill level of 1 to 6. How does rolling a 205% chance to hit work? Similarly, characters could have scores of 110%, 130%, or more with some experience expenditure focused on one area.
MMOs hit this problem with no end in sight. In World of Warcraft, you could have a 60th level character doing hundreds of points of damage per hit, and then a 90th level character doing tens of thousands of points of damage in a single hit. Compare this to a first level character doing 1-10 points per hit and you'll get a good sense of scale. Some day, we will have DPS ratings being calculated in the millions of points of damage in a single hit. There comes a point where everything becomes relative, and the numbers matter little. In a way, this hasn't changed much from the old SNES RPG days where a character takes 9999 damage, the maximum they support, and dies - although the numbers have gotten much larger.
Okay, yeah, complaining is nice, but what do you do about it? A lot of these games do not understand that high level play should be different than low level play - and not just by the size of the numbers. There comes a point in every game where the game needs to change, and the game could change again at another point. World of Warcraft used to understand this, and in some games like Everquest, it still applies. In these games, certain classes have game-changing powers unlocked at certain levels, and the class' role changes. Where MMOs fail in this is that the gameplay does not change. typically, it is another dungeon with slightly more powerful monsters - maybe some new special powers are used on your group.
A game needs to know the breakpoints where the game changes, and support this. D&D4 tried to do this with tiers of play, where they tried to set expectations of what characters at different tiers of play should be doing and going. It led to a strange situation where 10th level characters were out plane-hopping, and this hurt the dedicated worlds, such as Eberron, Dark Sun, and Faerun. The game did set expectations well, but in reality, it didn't really do too much more than offer some special tier classes and more powerful monsters.
The math has to work too, and you have to set caps you can live with. If you have a game based on a 2d6 skill roll, what does it mean to have a +10 modifier? Epic doesn't have to mean broken math, especially when you take the time to design that high level experience. It is a different thing if you intend your game to break at high levels, that is a different thing, and also something we used for SBRPG1. An open-ended game where the math will break is a different beast than a close-ended game where the math breaks at the high levels. In the latter, the designers should have tweaked that high-level play experience to b fun without broken and strange math.
A lot to think about today, and also issues we are hitting in the design of 7dRPG.
D&D4 was notoriously playtested less than it should have at the higher levels, the game fell victim to multiple cheats, stun locks, and other cheeseball tactics that spawned endless errata. Our group hit multiple issues with high-level balance, some classes falling off the power curve, and changes invalidating builds far too often, and it hurt our group's interest in the game. To be fair, the game was designed to have high-level play, the rules and monsters support it - it just wasn't playtested that well. The fact they needed to re-balance monsters constantly tells you something, they never found that sweet spot in play until the game's end.
Most of the 3.x D&D games, including Pathfinder, cease to be fun after level 7-8 or so, and a lot of players in our groups shared that view. The games devolve into abstract high-level math, and around this point, wizards and other spell casters take over the game, so the pure fighting class players lose interest first, followed by the caster players later on. The game just wasn't designed for high-level play, and extending the system just leads to an escalation of numbers to the point of absurdity. The old D&D 3.x Epic Level Handbook has skills and modifiers shooting all the way up to 1d20+100, and at that point, you are so far out of your original dice range things get silly.
Some of the old percentile games never scaled well either, games like Top Secret and Star Frontiers had percentile ability scores that were hard to figure out when they got into epic ranges. In Star Frontiers, if a robot has a strength of 500%, his melee skills would be something like 250% + 10% times skill level of 1 to 6. How does rolling a 205% chance to hit work? Similarly, characters could have scores of 110%, 130%, or more with some experience expenditure focused on one area.
MMOs hit this problem with no end in sight. In World of Warcraft, you could have a 60th level character doing hundreds of points of damage per hit, and then a 90th level character doing tens of thousands of points of damage in a single hit. Compare this to a first level character doing 1-10 points per hit and you'll get a good sense of scale. Some day, we will have DPS ratings being calculated in the millions of points of damage in a single hit. There comes a point where everything becomes relative, and the numbers matter little. In a way, this hasn't changed much from the old SNES RPG days where a character takes 9999 damage, the maximum they support, and dies - although the numbers have gotten much larger.
Okay, yeah, complaining is nice, but what do you do about it? A lot of these games do not understand that high level play should be different than low level play - and not just by the size of the numbers. There comes a point in every game where the game needs to change, and the game could change again at another point. World of Warcraft used to understand this, and in some games like Everquest, it still applies. In these games, certain classes have game-changing powers unlocked at certain levels, and the class' role changes. Where MMOs fail in this is that the gameplay does not change. typically, it is another dungeon with slightly more powerful monsters - maybe some new special powers are used on your group.
A game needs to know the breakpoints where the game changes, and support this. D&D4 tried to do this with tiers of play, where they tried to set expectations of what characters at different tiers of play should be doing and going. It led to a strange situation where 10th level characters were out plane-hopping, and this hurt the dedicated worlds, such as Eberron, Dark Sun, and Faerun. The game did set expectations well, but in reality, it didn't really do too much more than offer some special tier classes and more powerful monsters.
The math has to work too, and you have to set caps you can live with. If you have a game based on a 2d6 skill roll, what does it mean to have a +10 modifier? Epic doesn't have to mean broken math, especially when you take the time to design that high level experience. It is a different thing if you intend your game to break at high levels, that is a different thing, and also something we used for SBRPG1. An open-ended game where the math will break is a different beast than a close-ended game where the math breaks at the high levels. In the latter, the designers should have tweaked that high-level play experience to b fun without broken and strange math.
A lot to think about today, and also issues we are hitting in the design of 7dRPG.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Will D&D Ever be Anything More?
Whoa, what? Yeah, big question time. George and I were sitting there over coffee, and the thought came up, 'what is D&D?' Well, if you look at the what makes the game the game, D&D looks like this:
Some people may say Pathfinder or Labyrinth Lord looks more like D&D to them, yet others think World of Warcraft fits their idea of D&D, and more power to them. In these cases D&D becomes synonymous with 'fantasy gaming' and you get a butter/margarine replacement system going on. People that are immersed in World of Warcraft don't care that there are no drow or beholders in the game, there is plenty of other cool stuff to replace those iconic monsters and races.
So the central question comes up, will D&D be anything more? Well, a big part of this depends on why you are asking the question. If you are happy with whatever your idea of D&D is, great, the question does not need to be asked. It's like having a slightly older smartphone that still works great, and you feel no need to upgrade to the newest thing. To you, that old smartphone fits your definition of what a phone should be, and you are happy. Of course, the phone companies and manufacturers probably dislike you for not spending money and upgrading, but that is another question entirely.
If you aren't happy with any idea of what D&D is currently, then the question becomes important. If your shelf is sagging under Pathfinder books, your 4th Edition D&D books are under-supported and errata-ed up, and there isn't interesting in playing a retro-clone; the question probably doesn't even matter to you anymore. You can literally walk away, play a fantasy MMO, and find people to play with a lot easier and without the constant stream of books and rules systems you have to learn, support, and store. In the smartphone market, it's like saying 'I don't need a smartphone' and just going back to a cheaper flip phone, saving your money, and opting out of the ecosystem. again, not a place the phone industry wants you to be, but at least it is still a valid choice.
D&D ultimately depends on what the creators put into it, and how they can make the game seem compelling again. I say 'seem' because what D&D is probably won't change much from it's roots, and by all signs, the 4E experiment is over. D&D needs to overcome 'I've played with that stuff already' and make itself fresh and relevant again. From the current set of releases, rehashing the old modules and patching them to play with D&D Next, I feel it's a lot like emulating classic C64 and Atari 2600 games, and expecting them to set the world on fire. It's great that the old stuff is available again, but it doesn't answer the question of 'why this is relevant?' In a world looking for the next World of Warcraft, why is Atari 2600 Asteroids cool again, other than for nostalgia?
Yeah, a big question today, but one worth asking if you love the game. The game, in its heart, is all the cool stuff that lives and breathes in the D&D universe. Less so the rules, as 4E proved, although somewhat messily. Bringing the cool stuff together is way more important than rules, and creating that shared experience is what I am a fan of. To make D&D something more, it has to breathe again and live. World of Warcraft should not be good enough to replace the core experience of D&D. How will that play out with D&D Next? I have no idea, honestly.
Is the question important to me? Honestly, yes, but there is a big but in there. I can get my D&D-like hit from other games and rules systems; and the stuff you can't replace, the D&D iconic things, aren't as important to my gaming life as much as they used to be. Pathfinder proved you can be D&D without most of the D&D iconic things. The challenge for WoTC is make these things unique to the core D&D experience mean something again.
All this comes up as I sit her looking at my old smartphone, wondering if it's worth upgrading it, or falling back to an old one. Good enough, do I need a new one, or fall back? Which choice enriches my life the most? The question is half my choice, and half of what the smartphone companies can offer me. If nothing new can be offered, staying put is a valid and wise choice. Flashy ads don't cut it, either, a new phone has to bring something new and exciting to the table - just like a new roleplaying game.
- Iconic Monsters (drow, mind flayers, beholders, orcs, goblins, etc)
- Classic Spells (sleep, fireball, magic missile)
- Traditional Classes (thief, wizard, fighter, cleric, etc)
- Mathematical Magic Items (+1 sword, +2 chain, +3 shield, etc)
- Wondrous Magic Items (elven boots, gauntlets of ogre power, bag of holding, etc)
- The rules (polyhedral dice, classes, levels, hp, AC, etc)
Some people may say Pathfinder or Labyrinth Lord looks more like D&D to them, yet others think World of Warcraft fits their idea of D&D, and more power to them. In these cases D&D becomes synonymous with 'fantasy gaming' and you get a butter/margarine replacement system going on. People that are immersed in World of Warcraft don't care that there are no drow or beholders in the game, there is plenty of other cool stuff to replace those iconic monsters and races.
So the central question comes up, will D&D be anything more? Well, a big part of this depends on why you are asking the question. If you are happy with whatever your idea of D&D is, great, the question does not need to be asked. It's like having a slightly older smartphone that still works great, and you feel no need to upgrade to the newest thing. To you, that old smartphone fits your definition of what a phone should be, and you are happy. Of course, the phone companies and manufacturers probably dislike you for not spending money and upgrading, but that is another question entirely.
If you aren't happy with any idea of what D&D is currently, then the question becomes important. If your shelf is sagging under Pathfinder books, your 4th Edition D&D books are under-supported and errata-ed up, and there isn't interesting in playing a retro-clone; the question probably doesn't even matter to you anymore. You can literally walk away, play a fantasy MMO, and find people to play with a lot easier and without the constant stream of books and rules systems you have to learn, support, and store. In the smartphone market, it's like saying 'I don't need a smartphone' and just going back to a cheaper flip phone, saving your money, and opting out of the ecosystem. again, not a place the phone industry wants you to be, but at least it is still a valid choice.
D&D ultimately depends on what the creators put into it, and how they can make the game seem compelling again. I say 'seem' because what D&D is probably won't change much from it's roots, and by all signs, the 4E experiment is over. D&D needs to overcome 'I've played with that stuff already' and make itself fresh and relevant again. From the current set of releases, rehashing the old modules and patching them to play with D&D Next, I feel it's a lot like emulating classic C64 and Atari 2600 games, and expecting them to set the world on fire. It's great that the old stuff is available again, but it doesn't answer the question of 'why this is relevant?' In a world looking for the next World of Warcraft, why is Atari 2600 Asteroids cool again, other than for nostalgia?
Yeah, a big question today, but one worth asking if you love the game. The game, in its heart, is all the cool stuff that lives and breathes in the D&D universe. Less so the rules, as 4E proved, although somewhat messily. Bringing the cool stuff together is way more important than rules, and creating that shared experience is what I am a fan of. To make D&D something more, it has to breathe again and live. World of Warcraft should not be good enough to replace the core experience of D&D. How will that play out with D&D Next? I have no idea, honestly.
Is the question important to me? Honestly, yes, but there is a big but in there. I can get my D&D-like hit from other games and rules systems; and the stuff you can't replace, the D&D iconic things, aren't as important to my gaming life as much as they used to be. Pathfinder proved you can be D&D without most of the D&D iconic things. The challenge for WoTC is make these things unique to the core D&D experience mean something again.
All this comes up as I sit her looking at my old smartphone, wondering if it's worth upgrading it, or falling back to an old one. Good enough, do I need a new one, or fall back? Which choice enriches my life the most? The question is half my choice, and half of what the smartphone companies can offer me. If nothing new can be offered, staying put is a valid and wise choice. Flashy ads don't cut it, either, a new phone has to bring something new and exciting to the table - just like a new roleplaying game.
Monday, July 15, 2013
I Search for X....
I was writing through the search rules of 7dRPG the other day, and wondered about the role of searching in role playing games. Now searching is such a common activity, I think it's second only to combat, that is deserves a little attention and thought. First off, what does searching do?
It Slows Up the Game
Haha, yes, I am being sarcastic here. Searching, and the declaration of search takes up a huge amount of time in roleplaying games. This covers the 'golden oldies' of searching, such as:
Take a 20
Two rules were specifically developed in d20 games with this obsessive compulsive disorder in mind, the banal 'take a 20' rule, and 4th Ed's 'passive search' rule. First rule first. 'Take a 20' says 'I take so long at this that I roll every possible result, including a 20' - yes, that says what it means, I sit here rolling again and again until I do it. The Ta20 rule is fundamentally flawed in the following ways:
Binary failure is important! That d20 roll is 'your chance at making it' in the universe, and the roll you make is 'your one shot' - it is that way in combat. Roll bad, and fate does not smile upon you, and you miss the blow, fail the task, and blow it. It's this way in games like Arkham Horror, if your investigator fails a skill check called for on a card, it fails, and you take the negative result and move on. If the skill check is to get past a door that you must absolutely get through, well, either the referee must wing it, the adventure was poorly designed, or the party needs to think of another course of action.
Passive Search
Back to search. D&D4's 'passive search' comes in play now, basically, this is an 'always on' rule that assumes characters are walking along an always 'taking a 10' at every moment of their existence. Any search task with a DC below a character's passive search rating is auto-found without a roll. This eliminates the need for always rolling search rolls every step of the way, and in d20's search paranoid world, is a huge improvement and time saver. The origins of this rule are the same as Ta20, because it assumes characters are forever alert and in a Ta10 state.
Why do we assume the natural state of things is an 'average roll' of 10? Can I assume this in combat? Again, humans love to put order on chaos, and assuming an average roll as the natural state attempts to put some order on the nasty flat-distribution of the d20 die. There always has to be that wild chance of failure, that chance to roll a "1" and totally miss the obvious, and the elimination of the mathematical statistical ruination of the game.
This is not a statistics course, this is a RPG, and your scores and skills matter the 'moment they are called upon.' If your Dwarf in that moment of need rolls a "4" and blows it, he blows it, let's handle the negative consequences and move on. Besides, there is no such thing as an "average roll" with a sample size of one on a flat distribution. Ta10 on a single event, like a search roll of spotting something, is a statistical fallacy, since there would be no average roll on that single event.
Back to Rolling Everything Again?
Without Ta20 and passive search, where are we? Obviously, back to rolling everything again. Yes, searching uncovers huge design flaws in roleplaying games, and especially in classic 'dungeon crawl' fantasy. But I can say paranoid searching in dungeon crawls is part of the fun, and in earlier D&D games, there was no search skill - if you as the player were smart enough to say what you were looking for and where, you found it. The thief's "find traps" skill was always a bit of a genre-break for old-school games anyways, since realistically, everyone searched using the verbal method.
The answer I feel is to eliminate the need for endless searches in these games, and make searching one of those 'special events' again. With a search skill, you will need to aggregate things a lot, one roll to search a room or group of monsters for loot, and then say what you found based on success. One roll on an entire hallway for the party's scout to see if traps or ambushes are found. One roll to check out a room to check for hidden items, secret doors, or other concealed loot. Do not roll for the obvious, and only require a roll for the special. If it has a chance of forking the plot, revealing a danger, or giving out a reward - roll.
While you're at it, support the old-school 'investigative play' method whenever you can. If a character pulls the drawer out, and the player is smart enough to have the character check the bottom of the drawer for an envelope taped to it - give it to them without a roll! That experimentation and creative play should be encouraged, and the dice left on the table to be used for the important stuff.
Lots of game design goodness today, and a whole lot of thoughts to put in the game when the search rules are written out. You will see these come up in the game when we put out the beta, so you shall see these subjects again. In a way, these thoughts apply to many of the skill rolls in the game, so this is quite an important discussion, and gives the game a unique flavor (based on design). Hopefully, this makes you think about when you (as a a referee) call for a search roll, and supporting creative play.
It Slows Up the Game
Haha, yes, I am being sarcastic here. Searching, and the declaration of search takes up a huge amount of time in roleplaying games. This covers the 'golden oldies' of searching, such as:
- "I search the hall ahead for traps."
- "I search the treasure for traps."
- "I search the door for traps."
- "I search the room for traps."
- "We search the monsters for treasure."
- "We search the room for treasure."
- "I look ahead for ambushers."
- "I search the [object] for [thing]."
Take a 20
Two rules were specifically developed in d20 games with this obsessive compulsive disorder in mind, the banal 'take a 20' rule, and 4th Ed's 'passive search' rule. First rule first. 'Take a 20' says 'I take so long at this that I roll every possible result, including a 20' - yes, that says what it means, I sit here rolling again and again until I do it. The Ta20 rule is fundamentally flawed in the following ways:
- It assumes you allow repeated rolls for a task
- It eliminates the possibility of critical failure and triggering the trap (I know this has been ruled out of Ta20, but in reality, it's application is scant)
- It encourages mathematical play instead of creative play
- It ruins pacing
Binary failure is important! That d20 roll is 'your chance at making it' in the universe, and the roll you make is 'your one shot' - it is that way in combat. Roll bad, and fate does not smile upon you, and you miss the blow, fail the task, and blow it. It's this way in games like Arkham Horror, if your investigator fails a skill check called for on a card, it fails, and you take the negative result and move on. If the skill check is to get past a door that you must absolutely get through, well, either the referee must wing it, the adventure was poorly designed, or the party needs to think of another course of action.
Passive Search
Back to search. D&D4's 'passive search' comes in play now, basically, this is an 'always on' rule that assumes characters are walking along an always 'taking a 10' at every moment of their existence. Any search task with a DC below a character's passive search rating is auto-found without a roll. This eliminates the need for always rolling search rolls every step of the way, and in d20's search paranoid world, is a huge improvement and time saver. The origins of this rule are the same as Ta20, because it assumes characters are forever alert and in a Ta10 state.
Why do we assume the natural state of things is an 'average roll' of 10? Can I assume this in combat? Again, humans love to put order on chaos, and assuming an average roll as the natural state attempts to put some order on the nasty flat-distribution of the d20 die. There always has to be that wild chance of failure, that chance to roll a "1" and totally miss the obvious, and the elimination of the mathematical statistical ruination of the game.
This is not a statistics course, this is a RPG, and your scores and skills matter the 'moment they are called upon.' If your Dwarf in that moment of need rolls a "4" and blows it, he blows it, let's handle the negative consequences and move on. Besides, there is no such thing as an "average roll" with a sample size of one on a flat distribution. Ta10 on a single event, like a search roll of spotting something, is a statistical fallacy, since there would be no average roll on that single event.
Back to Rolling Everything Again?
Without Ta20 and passive search, where are we? Obviously, back to rolling everything again. Yes, searching uncovers huge design flaws in roleplaying games, and especially in classic 'dungeon crawl' fantasy. But I can say paranoid searching in dungeon crawls is part of the fun, and in earlier D&D games, there was no search skill - if you as the player were smart enough to say what you were looking for and where, you found it. The thief's "find traps" skill was always a bit of a genre-break for old-school games anyways, since realistically, everyone searched using the verbal method.
The answer I feel is to eliminate the need for endless searches in these games, and make searching one of those 'special events' again. With a search skill, you will need to aggregate things a lot, one roll to search a room or group of monsters for loot, and then say what you found based on success. One roll on an entire hallway for the party's scout to see if traps or ambushes are found. One roll to check out a room to check for hidden items, secret doors, or other concealed loot. Do not roll for the obvious, and only require a roll for the special. If it has a chance of forking the plot, revealing a danger, or giving out a reward - roll.
While you're at it, support the old-school 'investigative play' method whenever you can. If a character pulls the drawer out, and the player is smart enough to have the character check the bottom of the drawer for an envelope taped to it - give it to them without a roll! That experimentation and creative play should be encouraged, and the dice left on the table to be used for the important stuff.
Lots of game design goodness today, and a whole lot of thoughts to put in the game when the search rules are written out. You will see these come up in the game when we put out the beta, so you shall see these subjects again. In a way, these thoughts apply to many of the skill rolls in the game, so this is quite an important discussion, and gives the game a unique flavor (based on design). Hopefully, this makes you think about when you (as a a referee) call for a search roll, and supporting creative play.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
The Whiff Factor
In D&D, with an AC system that directly ties into to-hits, this is very pronounced. D&D4 had a system where level directly ties into the to-hit system; and it was very difficult to get hits in, especially if your equipment was not up to the level you were at, or if the monsters were 4 or more levels above you.
We struck a middle ground, keeping whiffs high, but you can mitigate this and get a better to-hit through positioning. They aren't as high as beginning D&D, an average low level character has a closer to 40-55% chance to hit, which feels right. Armor does not subtract from to-hits, but there is a chance a blow that lands will cause little or no damage if the target's armor is high enough.
An important note, and one we found is a necessity. All spells and powers require a to-hit, even beneficial party spells such as buffs and heals. Players used to modern MMOs and RPGs may find this strange, since beneficial spells are assumed to auto-hit. This is controversial, but needed for two reasons.
- This raises the importance of a character's casting skill
- This prevents deadlocks in combat
Monsters that have healing powers also need to roll for them, in play testing, we found a goblin healer in the back ranks could tie up the combat for a long time by spamming heals. Putting an uncertain factor if the heal would land made the combats more fluid, and eliminated the chance for deadlocks and long combats. This is that chaos factor coming into play, and it raises the importance of high-skill healers and casters.
Of course, the chance to cast is affected by referee-set difficulty modifiers, so if you are in the field with no monsters around, a referee could always apply a simple or trivial modifier to the casting roll, since there is no pressure to cast the spell quickly and without someone trying to kill your character. In combat, things change, and caster skill becomes an important factor. Highly skilled mages and healers are important allies, and also formidable foes.
Monday, June 24, 2013
7dRPG Core: Dungeon Playtest I
You do find a lot of little things you forget to write down in these tests, little things you assume but don't write down, and you go through the rules making notes, adding sections, and clarifying rules to be how they were used on the board. Play-tests like these are a cleansing exercise, and they help tighten the game experience. We cleaned up a lot of little strange rules last night, and I will be making changes to the core document today.
One thing we discovered is the importance of non-generic monster designs. We have this concept of 'generic monsters' where you can ballpark a monster based on a generic toughness level. Here, we spun our monsters up as generic characters, and they suffered two problems, being too tough and being too easy. These monsters were very bland as well, with no special skills, powers, or special attacks. Having a system where you can ballpark monsters to get them into a general toughness area is important, but you need to have a power list for them, and also a list of specific designs so you can have monsters with fun attacks and defenses to play with.
We did nearly have a TPK party-wipe on the first play through, our group of three generic spiders were way too strong for our initial 3-person group. We adjusted things a little, but kept the strong monsters because we like the lower-level challenge to be high. If you start out a superhero, you never get that feeling of dramatic improvement when you start getting powers unlocked, and you become a capable fighting machine. In this session, only one character had magic, and the healer did not have any, relying on units of bandages and medical skill to keep the front line fighters alive. Cool stuff, and it gives you a really good benchmark to start from once your healing magic kicks in.
Some of the assumptions you make in your initial design will be 100% wrong when you play it on the board, and we encountered this as well for some of the minor fiddly rules. You will sit there and write one thing, play it, and the obvious answer will be right there. You can't be too attached to a special rule, and you always need to be willing to throw rules overboard if they just slow down or confuse play.
Oh yes, those are D&D Dungeon Command tiles with Pathfinder minis on them, along with some of our painted metal ones. Those dice are just incredible too, George's set of clears he just loves because they sparkle under the light. We throw together bits of random games to make ours, we do follow a BYOB styles of mash-up when it comes to tabletop gaming, and believe the tabletop game you play should support whatever random figures and bits you have at your house.
If you have a party of 4 metal figures, a pack of skeletons, and a container of plastic spiders and ants, you should be able to play games with those pieces, make things up, and enjoy yourself without needing hundreds of dollars of 'official' figures and playing pieces. You should be able to mod those pieces to higher-level or specialized units, should your characters get experience and level-up. It's part of the reason our games have such a strong design and creation element to them, we are 100% believers in supporting your creativity and the playing pieces you have.
Friday, June 21, 2013
A Character Sheet with 288 Boxes
Let's take a look at the official Pathfinder character sheet today, shall we? Let's start with the basic six ability scores:
This reminds me of the days where personal computers needed several different types of ports interfaces, cable adapters, disk drive sizes, and video standards. The world standardized on USB and the CD/DVD standard, and life got a lot simpler. To be honest, the bloat of boxes on character sheets is due to the complexity AD&D2 and D&D introduced with non-weapon proficiencies and then skills, and then all of the little fiddly modifiers that stuck to the game like lint along the way. I remember the days where a supposedly complex game like the classic Aftermath got absolutely panned for being too complex, and that only has 100 boxes on its character sheet to fill out.
It always surprises me that through the years, the game has got simpler in the OGL clones, and more complex in the versions put out by the big players. Does the world want more complexity? Whatever happened to a game becoming simpler and easier to play in the next version? Good design means throwing out all the junk you don't need, simplifying things, and making the product easier to use.
Apple gets it, it's why you don't see a RJ-232 serial port on an iPad, and worrying about hardware drivers for the thing. It just works, and you don't need to configure nearly 300 settings to get the thing to work. Where is that design theory in roleplaying games? Are we doomed to keep using machines and games that increase in difficulty with every revision, or is there a better way?
- 6 scores x 4 boxes (base score, ability modifier, temp adjust, temp modifier)
- 4 boxes for HP, DR, current HP, and nonlethal damage
- 3 boxes for Initiative
- 8 boxes for AC
- 3 more boxes for AC, touch flat footed, and modifiers
- 18 boxes for save calculations
- 1 more box for save modifiers
- 2 boxes for BAB and Spell Resistance
- 10 boxes for CMB and CMD
- 7 boxes for Speed and Movement
- 5 Blocks for Weapons, each with 7 boxes, for 35
- 39 Skills x 4 boxes each, for 156 entries
- 7 'pick a' skill slots
- 5 empty lines for conditional modifiers and languages
- Let's add 2 boxes for Level and XP, they are on the back of the sheet, but they are needed
- 3 more boxes for name, class, and alignment
- 16 boxes for vitals
- 4 boxes for Initative
- 18 for ability scores
- 32 for saves
- 5 for movement
- 4 for senses
- 16 for the attack workspace
- 12 for the damage workspace
- 16 for basic attacks
- 14 for action points and hit points
- 85 for skills
- 17 other boxes for powers, feats, languages, rituals, powers, etc
- 4 boxes for name, class, alignment, and level
- 2 boxes for HP and AC
- 6 boxes for ability scores, with an extra box each for modifier, for 12
- 5 boxes for saves
- 10 boxes for to-hits
- A box for xp
- 2 boxes for other abilties and spells
- A box for weapons and gear
- A box for notes
- A box for name
- 2 boxes for Level and XP
- The standard 6 x 2 rack for ability scores, for a total of 12
- 3 boxes for AC, HP, and Attack bonus
- 5 boxes for saves
- A box for gear and spells
This reminds me of the days where personal computers needed several different types of ports interfaces, cable adapters, disk drive sizes, and video standards. The world standardized on USB and the CD/DVD standard, and life got a lot simpler. To be honest, the bloat of boxes on character sheets is due to the complexity AD&D2 and D&D introduced with non-weapon proficiencies and then skills, and then all of the little fiddly modifiers that stuck to the game like lint along the way. I remember the days where a supposedly complex game like the classic Aftermath got absolutely panned for being too complex, and that only has 100 boxes on its character sheet to fill out.
It always surprises me that through the years, the game has got simpler in the OGL clones, and more complex in the versions put out by the big players. Does the world want more complexity? Whatever happened to a game becoming simpler and easier to play in the next version? Good design means throwing out all the junk you don't need, simplifying things, and making the product easier to use.
Apple gets it, it's why you don't see a RJ-232 serial port on an iPad, and worrying about hardware drivers for the thing. It just works, and you don't need to configure nearly 300 settings to get the thing to work. Where is that design theory in roleplaying games? Are we doomed to keep using machines and games that increase in difficulty with every revision, or is there a better way?
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Distaster Control: Sanity Wins, But Then What?
Well, Microsoft pulled back their crazy whiteboard idea of limiting XBox1 game resales, sharing games, and even the always-on Internet connectivity thing. Expect the Kinect 2.0 requirement to fall soon as the retreat continues. Once a company starts pulling back, it usually pulls back a great deal. You know I couldn't stay quiet about this, since it plays into my theory of 'stupid whiteboard decisions' that should not have escaped into the wild. It happens to every company, including some I am familiar with.
Did I say familiar with? Oh yes, I have been here too. After the pullback, when everyone is picking up the pieces from a disastrous series of decisions, and everyone is trying to make things right again. Trust me, there are a lot of people in Microsoft right now wondering what the hell just happened, worried about the future, and looking to make things right. We have to let those forces win, the gamers, QA people, engineers, and others who probably wanted no part of those crazy decisions, who are still excited about the XBox1, and want to make things good again. Am I actually pulling for them? Is this a ray of hope?
Not totally. The decision getting out of the building is troubling, and it does signal troubled waters in the whole effort. This was a bad decision, and yes, this is why people get thrown under the bus. Rightfully so too, because the public needs to be told 'things are under control' and 'this is where things went wrong.' Oh yes, we need more here, a public admission of why this happened, and why it will not happen again. Bad things happen to good companies all the time, but the great ones are transparent, and let their customers know 'we screwed up' and how they are going to put in a permanent fix for it.
I am looking for this shoe to drop from Microsoft, this will signal a change, and frankly I have been waiting for it to drop with some pen-and-paper companies. D&D Next's transparency and playtesting is a good thing, although it is going to take a while for me to put my trust in the D&D brand after the mess that was made of 4th Edition. Too many books, too much reliance on D&DI, a mess made with the errata, revising powers to the point where they broke character builds, and a lot more. I'd like to see some 'what we did wrong' articles from Wizards, I would find them fascinating; and also that goes towards the whole transparency thing that I love about great companies. It's also how I work, and who I like to work for.
The XBox1 could be an awesome system, and consumers are very forgiving - but, and this is a big BUT, Microsoft needs to be honest with us. Lay out why they made those decisions, why they thought they were cool, what they would have done for us - and then admit they were wrong, things weren't focus grouped, and opinions were ignored. We need to hear it all. This begins the healing process, and helps us forgive. BUT, and yeah, that was a big but, we need that admission and that openness for us NOW to be able to put our trust in them again. Lay it out, do it now, don't hide things, and let's get this behind us. The longer it goes on, the more people will think this is just another half-step to make things right.
Fixing a problem and not admitting you were wrong never truly fixes things.
Did I say familiar with? Oh yes, I have been here too. After the pullback, when everyone is picking up the pieces from a disastrous series of decisions, and everyone is trying to make things right again. Trust me, there are a lot of people in Microsoft right now wondering what the hell just happened, worried about the future, and looking to make things right. We have to let those forces win, the gamers, QA people, engineers, and others who probably wanted no part of those crazy decisions, who are still excited about the XBox1, and want to make things good again. Am I actually pulling for them? Is this a ray of hope?
Not totally. The decision getting out of the building is troubling, and it does signal troubled waters in the whole effort. This was a bad decision, and yes, this is why people get thrown under the bus. Rightfully so too, because the public needs to be told 'things are under control' and 'this is where things went wrong.' Oh yes, we need more here, a public admission of why this happened, and why it will not happen again. Bad things happen to good companies all the time, but the great ones are transparent, and let their customers know 'we screwed up' and how they are going to put in a permanent fix for it.
I am looking for this shoe to drop from Microsoft, this will signal a change, and frankly I have been waiting for it to drop with some pen-and-paper companies. D&D Next's transparency and playtesting is a good thing, although it is going to take a while for me to put my trust in the D&D brand after the mess that was made of 4th Edition. Too many books, too much reliance on D&DI, a mess made with the errata, revising powers to the point where they broke character builds, and a lot more. I'd like to see some 'what we did wrong' articles from Wizards, I would find them fascinating; and also that goes towards the whole transparency thing that I love about great companies. It's also how I work, and who I like to work for.
The XBox1 could be an awesome system, and consumers are very forgiving - but, and this is a big BUT, Microsoft needs to be honest with us. Lay out why they made those decisions, why they thought they were cool, what they would have done for us - and then admit they were wrong, things weren't focus grouped, and opinions were ignored. We need to hear it all. This begins the healing process, and helps us forgive. BUT, and yeah, that was a big but, we need that admission and that openness for us NOW to be able to put our trust in them again. Lay it out, do it now, don't hide things, and let's get this behind us. The longer it goes on, the more people will think this is just another half-step to make things right.
Fixing a problem and not admitting you were wrong never truly fixes things.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
D&D 4E Character Builds: Pay to Win?
This is not an article about D&D4 when you play by the first three books (DMG, PH, MM), this is an article about playing D&D4 as it was intended, with all books and options on the table. The game has expanded to include thousands of powers, feats, and equipment choices for each class, so complicated it practically requires the D&D Insider computer program to get a character design correct and ready for play. Add in the tsunami of rules errata for each and every book, and approximately a quarter of the powers and items, and there's no way to generate a 'legal' character without the program.
Of course, you can still play the game without using the program, and hobble along from book-to-book picking powers and building a character. For many of the groups we played with, the time needed to get six players together, through all the books, questions answered, and characters built took an entire session, and even then most players made huge mistakes in creating their characters mostly due to the volume of material involved. We started out with the by-hand method, we enjoyed the tone and flavor of the first three books, and also built a lot of characters by hand. Of course, with just three books to worry about (and one PH), it was simple.
Wizards built D&D4 with powers, feats, and items to exactly mirror the Magic Card format. Each power, item, and feat is its own self-contained card of rules, and there are literally thousands of them, with many revised. In the end, you ended up dealing with something like a huge box of Magic Cards in complexity, and in-play, it introduced a certain type of choice paralysis among our groups. Similarly, many of the powers were slight variations of each other, meant to ensure a certain power type could be used more than once per encounter (all the melee-shift-rogue powers come to mind, plus many others). There are too many powers that are too similar to each other, but that is for another day, another discussion.
Along comes the D&D Insider program, which became the de-facto way to generate a character. It's a great service, and keeps you organized, your characters in one place, and all your rules up-to-date. It also became the only way to play for our groups. Creating characters by hand took too long, and the mistakes made brought the game to a halt when a player discovered their character wasn't right. It was a negative experience for the player, since the player wanted to do the right thing, but preferred the by-hand system. After a while, players didn't like the online generator, because they felt it was the only way to go, and they liked using the books. We also ran into the online program taking longer and longer to use, since the options increased as you leveled up.
For play time, the online character generator was the only way to go - maintaining characters by hand simply took away all of our play time and was too error-prone to even consider (especially for new players). Clearly, the game is to blame here, and this is one of the major mistakes in D&D4. The designers wanted that 'Magic Card' vibe when it came to selecting powers and gear, and they even printed 'power cards' intended to make this easier (and those got outmoded with errata to an extent). This created a necessity to use the program to save time for play, players that used it were happier, did better, and had a more enjoyable play experience at the table.
If that sounds like a pay-to-win game, it sort of does. You are paying for the premium experience, of course, but players who didn't pay ended up with a net negative experience with the game. In most pay-to-win games, you can at least stumble along with the freebies, but your experience is still marginally positive. Here it seems like that, or a little worse off for non-paying players, especially when you get a mix of paying and non-paying at the same table. The differences between the two types of players were striking, and there were issues between paying players who had correct designs, and those who did it by the books and were playing with incorrect and sometimes characters with errata issues. A paying player saying 'oh, it doesn't work that way now' to a non-paying one was the kiss of death to about a half-hour of play-time every time it happened.
Now yes, the service helped, so it had value and was worth paying for. Something in the back of my mind wonders what would happen if the game was easier to play, easier to build characters with, and didn't require such a huge character generator to begin with? The game design of D&D4 in respect to character builds made the D&D Insider service a necessity, and in a way, it fostered the complexity of the game. You could have had the same D&D4 experience with less complexity, but of course, there wouldn't be a need to pay for D&D Insider either. Yes, it's totally within Wizard's right to get subscription fees for a value-add service, but part of me wonders if this was the right way of going about that.
The problem was, you didn't need the books, they were errata'ed away, all you needed was D&D Insider. If you didn't like the program, or you lapsed from playing and cancelled your D&D Insider subscription - you were out. There wasn't a great way to get back into playing without reactivating your account, and it felt like your characters were locked away behind a paywall. It was easier to play another game without the onerous character generation requirements than it was to get back into the program, find out most of your character designs were changed by errata and had to be redesigned, and deal with the constant attention a D&D4 character required.
For many, Pathfinder or the OGR clones provided an escape to a simpler time where you could design a character by hand, and many went that way. Of course, Pathfinder is less simple nowadays for other reasons, and that is another topic for another day. Many other RPGs provide that simple experience, and the interest in D&D4 faded away in our group. People just wanted to show up and have fun, and the stacks of Magic Card like powers and gear got in the way, the character designer becoming the focus of the negative experience.
If it were up to me, character generation would be free and open - anyone should be able to log in and use the service. After all, you want people to create all sorts of fun character designs and dream about the possibilities. What I would pay a subscription fee for is a place to meet up and play, for a RPG-focused social network with virtual tabletops, hangouts, adventure creation and tracking, and yes, a place to share characters, stories, and achievements. I would pay to unlock maps of worlds, party tracking, wikis, and adventures to play online. It seems Wizards went in the wrong direction, locking up characters behind the paywall. To me, it would have made a lot more sense keeping the characters simple, and making the value-add proposition the place to come and play the game with fans around the world.
Of course, you can still play the game without using the program, and hobble along from book-to-book picking powers and building a character. For many of the groups we played with, the time needed to get six players together, through all the books, questions answered, and characters built took an entire session, and even then most players made huge mistakes in creating their characters mostly due to the volume of material involved. We started out with the by-hand method, we enjoyed the tone and flavor of the first three books, and also built a lot of characters by hand. Of course, with just three books to worry about (and one PH), it was simple.
Wizards built D&D4 with powers, feats, and items to exactly mirror the Magic Card format. Each power, item, and feat is its own self-contained card of rules, and there are literally thousands of them, with many revised. In the end, you ended up dealing with something like a huge box of Magic Cards in complexity, and in-play, it introduced a certain type of choice paralysis among our groups. Similarly, many of the powers were slight variations of each other, meant to ensure a certain power type could be used more than once per encounter (all the melee-shift-rogue powers come to mind, plus many others). There are too many powers that are too similar to each other, but that is for another day, another discussion.
Along comes the D&D Insider program, which became the de-facto way to generate a character. It's a great service, and keeps you organized, your characters in one place, and all your rules up-to-date. It also became the only way to play for our groups. Creating characters by hand took too long, and the mistakes made brought the game to a halt when a player discovered their character wasn't right. It was a negative experience for the player, since the player wanted to do the right thing, but preferred the by-hand system. After a while, players didn't like the online generator, because they felt it was the only way to go, and they liked using the books. We also ran into the online program taking longer and longer to use, since the options increased as you leveled up.
For play time, the online character generator was the only way to go - maintaining characters by hand simply took away all of our play time and was too error-prone to even consider (especially for new players). Clearly, the game is to blame here, and this is one of the major mistakes in D&D4. The designers wanted that 'Magic Card' vibe when it came to selecting powers and gear, and they even printed 'power cards' intended to make this easier (and those got outmoded with errata to an extent). This created a necessity to use the program to save time for play, players that used it were happier, did better, and had a more enjoyable play experience at the table.
If that sounds like a pay-to-win game, it sort of does. You are paying for the premium experience, of course, but players who didn't pay ended up with a net negative experience with the game. In most pay-to-win games, you can at least stumble along with the freebies, but your experience is still marginally positive. Here it seems like that, or a little worse off for non-paying players, especially when you get a mix of paying and non-paying at the same table. The differences between the two types of players were striking, and there were issues between paying players who had correct designs, and those who did it by the books and were playing with incorrect and sometimes characters with errata issues. A paying player saying 'oh, it doesn't work that way now' to a non-paying one was the kiss of death to about a half-hour of play-time every time it happened.
Now yes, the service helped, so it had value and was worth paying for. Something in the back of my mind wonders what would happen if the game was easier to play, easier to build characters with, and didn't require such a huge character generator to begin with? The game design of D&D4 in respect to character builds made the D&D Insider service a necessity, and in a way, it fostered the complexity of the game. You could have had the same D&D4 experience with less complexity, but of course, there wouldn't be a need to pay for D&D Insider either. Yes, it's totally within Wizard's right to get subscription fees for a value-add service, but part of me wonders if this was the right way of going about that.
The problem was, you didn't need the books, they were errata'ed away, all you needed was D&D Insider. If you didn't like the program, or you lapsed from playing and cancelled your D&D Insider subscription - you were out. There wasn't a great way to get back into playing without reactivating your account, and it felt like your characters were locked away behind a paywall. It was easier to play another game without the onerous character generation requirements than it was to get back into the program, find out most of your character designs were changed by errata and had to be redesigned, and deal with the constant attention a D&D4 character required.
For many, Pathfinder or the OGR clones provided an escape to a simpler time where you could design a character by hand, and many went that way. Of course, Pathfinder is less simple nowadays for other reasons, and that is another topic for another day. Many other RPGs provide that simple experience, and the interest in D&D4 faded away in our group. People just wanted to show up and have fun, and the stacks of Magic Card like powers and gear got in the way, the character designer becoming the focus of the negative experience.
If it were up to me, character generation would be free and open - anyone should be able to log in and use the service. After all, you want people to create all sorts of fun character designs and dream about the possibilities. What I would pay a subscription fee for is a place to meet up and play, for a RPG-focused social network with virtual tabletops, hangouts, adventure creation and tracking, and yes, a place to share characters, stories, and achievements. I would pay to unlock maps of worlds, party tracking, wikis, and adventures to play online. It seems Wizards went in the wrong direction, locking up characters behind the paywall. To me, it would have made a lot more sense keeping the characters simple, and making the value-add proposition the place to come and play the game with fans around the world.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The Tyranny of the Whiteboard
The latest spat between the XBox1 and the Playstation 4 got me thinking, especially under the topic of used games. Now yes, I know this doesn't have much to do with pen-and-paper, but stick with me, it will in a moment. I'm not looking to start a flame war between PS4 and XB1 fans, just make a point.
Microsoft seems like they lost touch. Clearly, their odd restrictions on used games with publishers being allowed to allow or disallow this, and the further limit on 'who' gets to sell used games is just strange beyond belief. Then add the strange 'games can only be traded once' deal, the Internet requirement anywhere from a day to each hour depending on where you are, and all of a sudden, your users have it worse off than the game pirates. Yes, the restrictions are like Steam, but Steam is even freer than this, and plus Steam wins on price every time.
With the PS4, it's easy, Trade your game, sell it to anyone, rent them (a huge casualty in the XB1, no Redbox or Gamefly), but pre-owned, trade them in for the next year's big thing - whatever. Oh yeah, I expect publishers to continue the practice of downloadable pay-per extra content and online passes, but that's their choice and not forced on us as gamers. The system is kept simple, free from online activation, some sort of trading scheme, or any other artificial limit - things work like they always did.
I've been in this place before, it's called a corporate meeting room with a giant whiteboard where managers try to one-up each other with crazy ideas, pet projects, power blocks, and tons of other hair brained schemes that should never make it out of the building. That's okay though, a business needs free thought and to be able to try new things internally, along with come up with new ways of doing things. With guidance, the best ideas will rise to the top, and the company presents a unified plan that works for everybody.
With Microsoft, I can't help but think that some of these crazy ideas escaped from the board room, and the company hasn't lost its way a little bit. Games and consoles are still part toy, something Nintendo and Sony still get, and you need to trust your users and not make them worry about licensing and other restrictions when they pick up one of your system's games from the shelf. It's like making gamers worry about 24-chracter activation codes, holographic stickers of authenticity, and the other little things companies do that essentially say 'we don't trust you.'
Pivot now, and think about pen-and-paper RPGs. There are plenty of strange whiteboard craziness that escaped pen-and-paper meeting rooms in the last few years, the pullback of the OGL to GSL being one of them, the elimination of electronic rights from the SRD/OGL, the Pathfinder Basic Box not being licensed as a base product to expand upon, and a whole bunch of others. Put some trust in your users if you want them to play your games, aka the PS4.
As a creator of games, yes, you do want to worry about sustaining your product; but you also need to make your entire ecosystem friendly and open. The D&D 3.0 to 3.5 OGL was a remarkable achievement, but it did not go far enough. As pen-and-paper game creators, your #1 job is creating a healthy ecosystem where everybody can join in, be creative, and play. With games like Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and the other OGL clones, you can even write and sell your works as a third party for those games - without the publisher's approval. You can even do that with Pathfinder (paper and PDF products only), provided you follow the SRD's restrictions.
In an open system, freedom is celebrated, and people that want to participate in the 'game economy' can do so without restriction. With video games this means we support rental services, used game sellers, swap meets, and even friends that want to trade games with each other. With roleplaying games, it means creating a great base system, and then opening it up for everyone to play, buy your stuff, make money from, and enjoy. The great success stories in technology have always been from open systems with wide support (Android, iOS applications, Windows/Mac applications, etc). Where are our great open systems in roleplaying games? What will the next great success story be?
Microsoft seems like they lost touch. Clearly, their odd restrictions on used games with publishers being allowed to allow or disallow this, and the further limit on 'who' gets to sell used games is just strange beyond belief. Then add the strange 'games can only be traded once' deal, the Internet requirement anywhere from a day to each hour depending on where you are, and all of a sudden, your users have it worse off than the game pirates. Yes, the restrictions are like Steam, but Steam is even freer than this, and plus Steam wins on price every time.
With the PS4, it's easy, Trade your game, sell it to anyone, rent them (a huge casualty in the XB1, no Redbox or Gamefly), but pre-owned, trade them in for the next year's big thing - whatever. Oh yeah, I expect publishers to continue the practice of downloadable pay-per extra content and online passes, but that's their choice and not forced on us as gamers. The system is kept simple, free from online activation, some sort of trading scheme, or any other artificial limit - things work like they always did.
I've been in this place before, it's called a corporate meeting room with a giant whiteboard where managers try to one-up each other with crazy ideas, pet projects, power blocks, and tons of other hair brained schemes that should never make it out of the building. That's okay though, a business needs free thought and to be able to try new things internally, along with come up with new ways of doing things. With guidance, the best ideas will rise to the top, and the company presents a unified plan that works for everybody.
With Microsoft, I can't help but think that some of these crazy ideas escaped from the board room, and the company hasn't lost its way a little bit. Games and consoles are still part toy, something Nintendo and Sony still get, and you need to trust your users and not make them worry about licensing and other restrictions when they pick up one of your system's games from the shelf. It's like making gamers worry about 24-chracter activation codes, holographic stickers of authenticity, and the other little things companies do that essentially say 'we don't trust you.'
Pivot now, and think about pen-and-paper RPGs. There are plenty of strange whiteboard craziness that escaped pen-and-paper meeting rooms in the last few years, the pullback of the OGL to GSL being one of them, the elimination of electronic rights from the SRD/OGL, the Pathfinder Basic Box not being licensed as a base product to expand upon, and a whole bunch of others. Put some trust in your users if you want them to play your games, aka the PS4.
As a creator of games, yes, you do want to worry about sustaining your product; but you also need to make your entire ecosystem friendly and open. The D&D 3.0 to 3.5 OGL was a remarkable achievement, but it did not go far enough. As pen-and-paper game creators, your #1 job is creating a healthy ecosystem where everybody can join in, be creative, and play. With games like Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and the other OGL clones, you can even write and sell your works as a third party for those games - without the publisher's approval. You can even do that with Pathfinder (paper and PDF products only), provided you follow the SRD's restrictions.
In an open system, freedom is celebrated, and people that want to participate in the 'game economy' can do so without restriction. With video games this means we support rental services, used game sellers, swap meets, and even friends that want to trade games with each other. With roleplaying games, it means creating a great base system, and then opening it up for everyone to play, buy your stuff, make money from, and enjoy. The great success stories in technology have always been from open systems with wide support (Android, iOS applications, Windows/Mac applications, etc). Where are our great open systems in roleplaying games? What will the next great success story be?
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