Rules as a Fun Tax

It's helpful to think of game rules as a 'fun tax.' That is, a series off hoops that you need to understand and master before you start having fun. You can even break this down to individual rules subsystems, such as the D&D3/Pathfinder skill system, which I consider a pretty heavy rules subsystem for what it is used for, which is mostly for noncombat and background skills. I will sum up my feelings about the D&D3 skill subsystem with this quote:

"What do you mean I need to buy perform? I am a 17th level bard!"

The 'classes versus free skills conflict' aside, every player needs to understand the skill system in order to create characters and start having fun. Of course, you can always fudge it and have a veteran player pick skills for the player, but that is a kludge, and certainly isn't a good 'new player experience' at all. If you were making a Facebook or other social game, and required players to find a veteran player to understand the game and learn it, you wouldn't get many players. That is a crude analogy, but it is appropriate. RPGs are social games.

What to do about the 'fun taxes' of pen-and-paper games? Well, for one, I am a big fan of simplifying rules down to their base components, and reducing complexity. We need 'green' roleplaying games, built with simplicity and new player friendliness in mind. I like my tower computers, but we live in a tablet world now - RPGs need to lighten up and become more useful and relevant. They need to be approachable without roleplaying being a requirement, in order to broaden their appeal. Most all of the European-style boxed games you can buy at game stores like Arkham Horror, Catan, and others do not require RP (but can be played as RP, or modded to do so). This leads to an interesting point:

You don't need rules to roleplay. Players do it all the time in MMOs without rules, all it takes is an active imagination. RP can be encouraged in the rules, but rules are not needed for the act. It is an interesting 'take' on writing an RP rules set - write the game first, and then worry about RP as an optional add-on component later.

A lot of games shift off complexity on the RP subsystem, as in, "Oh, we don't need rules for that, that will be handled through RP." Without the RP subsystem to shift rules to, all of a sudden, the problems in game design become clearer. How is a door forced or a lock picked? Some games leave it to the group to decide, but this is not ideal from a complexity control perspective, and also from a new player perspective. If European boardgame 'Explore the Dungeon' has a 4 in 6 chance to force a stuck door token, and pen-and-paper 'Dungeon RP Mysteries' leaves the entire 'stuck door' procedure up to the group - the new player is going to feel better with the former, and not the latter.

Wow, that rambled a bit. But I hope you have an appreciation of creating heavy rules subsystems in your games, and see these burdensome systems as a 'tax' on the fun of the game. You should never force a player to be a 'rules compiler' - someone who has to sit there and figure out how everything works together. The rules should present themselves naturally, and be clear and apparent from when they are read. Understand, all 'rules taxes' aren't bad - but they do take away time and reduce clarity, and you need rules to have a game. How many rules you need, and the point when these rules overpower the game - these are both things you need to think about as a game designer.

Blowing Out the Polyhedral Dice

A funny observation about D&D4. In order to create a unique number range for their game, which I suspect has to do with breaking D&D3's OGL number ranges, they increased starting hit points and damages to very high numbers. Starting goblins and other first level creatures have 20-40 hit points, which in previous editions only had 1-8 hit points. Weapon and power damages similarly went up to compensate (but not by the same magnitude).

Now all is well and fine with those ranges, but it begs the question: why use polyhedral dice anymore? If your base hit points are so high, there is no real practical difference between a 1d6 weapon and a 1d8 one. With that many hit points, you might as well rate weapons on the number of d6's or d10's they do, and simplify everything to use d20's and one other dice type.

It is a legacy of the original Chainmail game, where every weapon did 1d6, and the adoption of polyhedral dice, which allowed some weapon variation. Later games (AD&D, etc) tried to balance lighter weapons, such as the dagger (by making it faster), to mixed results. We've house-ruled the lowly 1d4 dagger ourselves as well many times to make it more appealing. But overall, the 1d4 dagger remains a potent weapon against monsters that have little more hit points than it can roll, and combined with a double-damage sneak attack, the weapon becomes quite deadly.

Once hit points reach uber-high levels, the difference between weapon dice fades away, and the hefty ability score damage bonus comes into play (especially with D&D3's multiple attacks per round). It's like this in D&D4 as well, as you start looking for fixed damage adders from feats and other bonuses to raise your damage per round against these giant chunks of hit points.

D&D4 had to bring the monsters down a little in toughness in Essentials, but the hit points still remained high enough to make the unique polyhedral dice wane compared to the character card powers. Keeping the original dice ranges is one thing the OGL and other old-school games do right, they preserve the power of the polyhedral dice, and keep the math down to manageable levels.

In old-school D&D, it was common for a dragon to have 60 hit points, by D&D4 that grew to over 600. Beyond the chore of whittling that huge number down, choosing a 1d8 sword felt a lot better against the old-school dragon than the newer one. Think about blowing out your dice ranges when crafting your own game, and preserving the feel the dice give you with their unmodified rolls.

Missing that High-Level Smell?

George and I had a fun discussion this morning about the 'power level' of PCs in different games, especially as they level. Some games rocket the PCs into 'The Avengers' like superpowers, such as Exalted, many superhero games, and also MMOs like World of Warcraft. Many other games take things more slowly, and never really end up with more than stacked incremental buffs on multi-attacks (D&D3), where a +5 sword is as good as it gets. In WoW, characters typically start with 30-100 hit points, and end up with 100,000+ by the end of their career - with weapons and armor to match.

D&D4 takes it differently, with power level (relative to challenges) capping out about level 10, and then a lower advancement curve on up to 30 (with monster power creeping ahead of the characters steadily). There are some serious play testing and balance problems with D&D4 post level 10, with stun combos and other tactics making blowing out monsters easier than it should be. Some of this was rectified in D&D Essentials, but really too little too late for many of the groups we played with.

It's important for the players to feel powerful, but on the other hand, it is important for them to feel challenged. The system needs to supply the fantasy-fulfillment of that power curve, without totally blowing up and turning into a numbers game, aka Zynga's Mafia Wars (or yes, even WoW), where the numbers, attack values, and AP values don't mean anything after a while. If the game plays the same at level X as it did at level 1, with the same balance and feel, you have a game designed on a spreadsheet, with no real change in character power.

The key is changing how the game is played every so often, and letting players get better at the new set of rules and challenges at these change-points. The game should change every so often, and players will have to get better at these new systems, adapt, equip, and excel. Games need to build in this play-style progression and change in order to keep interesting and make the high levels feel truly different than the low levels.

Disney buys Hasbro and D&D?

According to rumors, Disney may buy Hasbro, and by extension D&D. Check the link, and I stress, these are just rumors; but they are loud enough to be covered on several sources, Google it for yourself and dive into the speculation.

Wow. If true, this would be the biggest shocker since Disney bought Star Wars, at least in our little corner of the hobby. Good or bad? I have no idea, it all depends on how open the company is with the fans and third parties. If good, it could lead to a new era of openness and roleplaying; if bad, it could be a failed resurrection saving throw. If true, I hope someone is put in charge that understands the 'RPGs as social' angle, and supports the community. Like Star Wars, there is incredible potential for coll stuff here, but also a real chance at a company locking up IP and doing it wrong.

What could it mean for the game? It could mean D&D's demons and devils could be exorcised from the game again, aka 2nd Ed D&D. Sorry guys, you just don't fit in with 'brand management' anymore, and any chance of seeing Orcus Prince of Undeath walk around at a theme park has just been squashed. There are serious ramifications and corporate decisions like this that may fall out from such a deal, or in fact, anyone who buys the D&D brand.

Another thought is that the IP in D&D has been pulled from so many sources, it's not really locking much up at all - Pathfinder has done much without much of the core D&D product identity. In fact, if the D&D IP were locked up, it may force real alternatives to emerge and blossom. If the game is opened up and established as the 'game of the community' this may not happen; if D&D is locked up it may force alternatives to appear. Even with locked up IP, good things may come of a Disney acquisition, it all depends on how it is handled.

As a sidebar, this is another reason we banned copyrighted IP from SBRPG. In D&D, if your big-bad is a beholder, that creation is owned by the parent company of D&D, and thus subject to support and branding decisions from the home office. Of course, real roleplayers will say, 'so what it's my campaign anyways' and play with the beholder, and even port them to different systems. New players in the next generation would most likely start playing with Disney:D&D, and miss out on the old stuff that was removed from the game, for good or bad.

With us and SBRPG, it's a principle thing, and we wanted you to create your own IP, create your own big-bads, and own everything in your game. Therefore, if some day you wanted to write a book about your game world, it would be a lot easier, since you started with everything that you created yourself. If we banned copyrighted IP, it got the creative juices flowing, and got you off to the right start. This was our choice, and in light of buy-outs and the pitfalls of playing with other people's IP, something I am proud we went with.

Back on the subject, the business of gaming just makes my head spin....

TSR Returns? Or is that, TSR Returns!

Check out this link for the new Gygax magazine, and kudos to James' Grognardia for pointing this out. This is being published by a notable crew of TSR and old Dragon alumni. It looks like there is going to be a new hobby magazine covering Pathfinder, OSR games, and a bunch of other RPGs. It sounds cool, and I am seriously checking it out.

If there is one thing I would love to see is a new version of Gangbusters by the new TSR crew. I have heard in several places that the rights to the original Gangbusters game have reverted back to Rick Krebs from Wizards/old TSR. If those groups could get together, we would have one of the TSR classics back in print and action again. I can dream, can't I?

The D&D/Pathfinder/Star Wars/etc Formula

It's helpful to study the 'formulas' behind games in order to understand them better. I was reading this very insightful post about monsters over on Jeff's Gameblog, and also reading the intro to the D&D4 Essentials DM Guide on 'what D&D is.' In essence, D&D is a traditional fantasy agglomeration, with a couple D&D 'staples' added to it to create the D&D 'feel'. Let's consider what these staples are, and try to break things down a little.

It is probably easy to see most of D&D's 'staples' are mostly items not covered under the OGL (trademarked and product-identity), and a couple that are loosely, but strongly identified with D&D. The drow, beholders, carrion crawlers, color-wheel dragons, Lovecraft-borrowed mind-flayers, Grayhawk gods, Faerun, fireball/sleep/wish spells, vanician magic, and a bunch of other staples come to mind. Toss in D&D4, and you get world-specific creations such as the Shadowfell, Faewild, along with a bunch of other races, places, and things.

This is similar to Microsoft's software strategy of 'embrace and extend' although applied to a fantasy-fiction setting. D&D likes to be the everygame, "Yeah, we've got that too." The next thing that usually happens is, "Oh, and have you seen this new D&D specific baddie? It sure is cool!" The same happens with Paizo's Pathfinder, it has all the traditional fantasy staples, then teases with world-specific bad guys, modules, organizations, or other content not under the OGL. With Microsoft software, they will take an open standard, and then enhance it to the point where the Microsoft solution is the de-facto standard.

It is not a bad strategy, and it presents players with a lot of value-added content in terms of product support and player familiarity. Where it falls short is in longevity and openness. When the D&D4 books are resigned to the shelf of history, and D&D8 is out and the hot new thing, all that content is versioned away, unsupported, and locked into books that will most likely never be printed or used much again. The supported proprietary content that made the game 'cool' is no longer supported, old, and locked up behind a license that makes it unsupportable by third parties, even under fair-use in many cases.

The OGL helps, and is a good thing for the most part (but falls woefully short in terms of electronic fair-use, etc). At least items under the OGL can be resurrected and used in new forms, bet then again, the OGL is a printed text-only license, and this limitation restricts games and other interactive entertainment. It is a good solution, but only goes halfway. We simply don't know how RPGs will evolve, how they will be played, and how creators will share content in the future; and supporting a license that restricts distribution holds the evolution of RPGs back in a way. The current OGL games are fun, cool, well-done, and craetive - but they don't advance the evolution of how RPGs are played, so they are holding back innovation.

In SBRPG, we banned using copyrighted content for a reason - we wanted you to create your own IP, and license it any way you wanted. If you wanted everything to be free and open, so be it, hop on over to Creative Commons and grab a license for your stuff, and create away. The SBRPG game itself was closed-source, it's the best we could do at the time when we wrote it. The ideas you create with it are yours however, and you could share them in any way you wish.

Expansions: The Car Wars Story

I am always wary of expansions, especially for role playing games. Too often than not, at least in my group's experience, an expansion for a role playing game has completely changed what made the original game special and cool. New rules will be introduced, new equipment, new magic items, monsters, starships, worlds - all of this stuff changes the game world when introduced after you get going. Let me cite a one example, the legendary game Car Wars:

Car Wars: We started playing this game a long time ago when it was just a pocket box. All that existed in this world were poorly armored cars, with nothing larger than a van being able to navigate the roads of a distopic USA, a Mad Max like future of no gas, limited energy, and brutal gangs that ruled the roads. Couriers had to make due wit hshoving cargo in station wagons, and you had to keep some room and weight in your vehicle for salvaged tires, ammo, and the car parts you looted from your 'kills.' There was really no weapon more powerful than a high-tech laser, and even the one-shot heavy rocket was a deal breaker. Cool stuff, and it made you think.

Along comes the expansions, and all of a sudden, 18-wheelers took the road, capable of carrying 20 tons of cargo, a house, and several of the cars in the garage all at ones. These behemoths had armor as thick as tanks, and could mount an arsenal of high-tech weaponry. Helicopters took to the air, and even giant cargo choppers could haul cargo to the far-flung fortress towns without navigating the hostile highways. Autoduel arenas made the sport of dueling popular, and what was once necessary road survival became commercialized and commonplace - even celebrated.

The original idea was lost, and the game became less fun - for us, at least. there were plenty of hobby-shop groups running commercial duels for prizes and fame, and granted, that is an easier setup for a hobby shop to run and sell games with. For us, our original idea was survival in a hostile world, where fast cars ruled the roads, and motorcycle gangs stalked the dangerous zones. If a VIP needed to get to the next fortress town, they needed to hire a fast car - with an expert driver. No helicopter could fly them there, and they couldn't hop in a land behemoth armored bus to take them there either. Later on, blimps, boats, and even tanks took to the battlefield, the shark had been jumped, and the game just became a wreck. The focus of the original game was on the cars, and that's where we liked it.

Later expansions almost entirely were devoted to autodueling sports, or new vehicle types. We can't complain, since George and I did one of the original submissions for aircraft rules back in the day, and still have the original rejection letter from Steve Jackson himself. But for us, there was a feeling that something was lost, that the game was moving away from what we liked about it, and we grew apart from the world and the game. The game was changed by the direction of the expansions, and the world was changed.

It is an important thing to think about when you introduce an expansion to the game, and I can relate some of this with out current Arkham Horror play through (see an earlier post). More on the effect of expansions on that game in a later post, but for now, think about the above experience we had, and how your game design could better prepare players for what you may have in mind in the future. How would you handle an expansion to your game? How would you design it to not shock players with new material? Would you design your original world any differently? Think, prepare, and then expand - but try to keep what players love about your creation intact.