I have a hard time talking about Magic: the Gathering. It is a fantastic game, and I can say that without reservation. It is one of the best thought out, best designed games out there. I have said on numerous occasions that if you want to understand how to create game mechanics, especially RPG mechanics, M:tG is like a masters class in exception based design. It's fun to play, fast, colorful and fun. I bought into it when it first came out, when it was so novel that we tried to play with the decks we'd bought, and the Craw Wurm was terrifying. I've gotten rid of other CCGs over the years, but my Magic cards hang around [1].
But…
I don't play it these days. Every now and again I am struck by a strong desire to bust it out, but it always withers on the vine as I stop and try to catch up on the state of the art. I'm uncomfortable with the pay-to-play model, and it gets you coming and going. If you follow the rules and limit yourself to current sets, you need to pay to stay current as they come out. If you go with one of the broader rulesets, then you can use more cards, but so can the guy who has spent thousands of dollars on his rares and cheesy combos.
This used to bug me a lot, especially when I was younger and much more broke. I'm less broke these days, and I'm less troubled by the idea of being able to use money to make up for a lack of time[2], but I still can't quite buy into the model. So I end up very torn on the topic[3]. I love the game, but I'm uncomfortable with the product.
Historically, M:tG was the only game that really presented me with this problem. 4e had some elements of it, but once you realize that you really don't need anything but a DDI subscription[4], it becomes entirely manageable.
I should not have been surprised when the problem raised its head again in the shape of WFRP 3e. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3e is a monstrously large box, full of components with the kind of production values that only a company like FFG can bring to the table.
It's a fun game, full of good ideas, lightly using a well loved setting. I enjoyed it a lot as a game, but I'm not yet sure how I feel about it as a product.
The most striking thing about the game is that you need almost nothing except what's in the box. You'll want a pencil and maybe some scratch paper for character creation, but you won't need them once the game starts. Everything in the game, and I mean EVERYTHING is represented by the components. Abilities, wounds and statuses are all cards. Duration, exertion and range are tracked with tokens. There are little cardboard standups for characters representing position. Even the equivalent of skill challenges/skill ladders use tracks you build out of cardboard puzzle pieces. Almost[5] everything else is offloaded to the dice. This is brilliant to behold in action.
But it's also a double-edged sword. Since everything can be done with the components, the components also represent the limit of what you can do. Adding new classes or abilities requires adding new components - even supporting more than 3 characters requires more components than come in the box - at least so long as you play by the rules.[6]
There is absolutely a lock-in element to the game, but there are some benefits to this as well. When new rules or items or whatever get added to the game by an adventure or the like, as long as you include the cards, those get folded into the core rules with a quick shuffle. Compared to needing to reference multiple books, that's pretty sweet.
It's also a pretty decent check against piracy. If the components are necessary to play, it doesn't really matter if illicit PDFs get out on the Internet. Making cards and tokens at home is enough of a pain in the ass to make enthusiasts likely to just decide to suck up the price.[7]
I dig that, and as a business decision I understand where it came from, but it comes with a cost. There are a lot of decisions made in the design of the game that make it very hard to actually reference things. Most notably, if there is information on a card, it is not mirrored anywhere in the text. That's a great protection against piracy, but it also means that there are no lists of talents or class abilities to consult - you need to flip through the cards.
Cards are incredibly useful for certain things, but this is not one of their strengths. It's awkward and clunky, and it's very clearly a decision to trade off ease of use for expandability (generously) and protection against piracy (cynically). That's not a dealbreaker, but it colors perception of the game when you get to fuzzier decisions.
As an example, most everything I needed to reference for play as a GM could easily fit on a single page, maybe two. I'd hope for a summary page, but when I don't get one, I normally wave it off as one of those terrible decision that people make in the name of page count, like excluding an index. Which is to say, I'd be unhappy, but I've got callouses over that spot. But when faced with a game where the business decisions are so apparent, it's hard to shake the feeling that it was left out to help pimp the eventual GM's screen.
Now, don't get me wrong. Having had time to think, I'm quite sure that the lack of a summary really is in the same bucket as a lack of index, but it took a lot of thought and time to reach that conclusion. At the table, as we were sorting through things and I was getting frustrated, it was very easy to reach the uncharitable interpretation. That's no good.
So thus I am back where I started. I really dig the game, but I'm uncertain whether I like the product. I'll be chewing on it for a bit, but I hope to delve a bit more into both sides of that tomorrow, now that I've laid bare my biases.
1 - So do my Shadowfist ones, but that's neither here nor there.
2 - I'm pretty easy-going about it with MMOs, for example. But they're also a different sort of game.
3 - Yes, this could probably be several posts on its own.
4 - And that that subscription is pretty much entirely mandatory. Yes, that's another type of "pay to play", but it's better for two reasons. First, there's no real problem with getting on and off the train - if I stop playing D&D and then come back to it, I have the same resources as anyone else. Second, it's not priced too badly, especially compared to buying a $30-$40 book every month (and in fact, the online subscription model means I don't need to worry that I missed a book during my time away).
5 - And this is definitely an "almost", and one I tripped over once or twice.
6 - It is entirely possible to play the game in a more traditional fashion, but it does require copying a lot of information from cards. I am genuinely uncertain how well the game would hold up under such a change. On one hand, it would lose the elegance of all-components, but on the other hand it might actually improve the experience. The all-component approach works better in some areas than others, so it might be interesting to be selective in its application.
7 - That is, until someone copies the information from the cards and comes up with the aforementioned rules for playing without components. I expect this to happen quickly, so I hope there's not too much weight put on this particular pillar.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Cool Monday: Angie's List
This has been the kind of week that reminds me why I insist on writing about something good on the Internet every Monday. I've got a backlog of ideas - I played the new Warhammer this weekend, and I've been kicking around more dice ideas, but the simple ritual of stopping and thinking about the good things out there is too important to my sanity to stop.
Today I want to talk about Angie's List. This has been on my mind as people on various vectors have been talking about buying or repairing their houses, and my thoughts go back to our own very mixed experiences. I only heard of Angie's list because they're an NPR sponsor, but that worked out better for them then buying a radio ad would have. It made me curious enough to check out their website, and I'm glad I did.
Angie's List is one of those ideas that reflects the practical application of the things that technology promises us. It's a review site, but what makes it noteworthy is that it's a review site that focuses on local workers (contractors, repairmen and so on, though they've recently been branching out to things like doctors). The 'local' part means they don't cover every area, but their definitions of metropolitan areas seem suitably flexible.
The model is very simple. You hire a plumber and, after he's done, you can write up a review of your experience on Angie's List. When someone else in your area needs a plumber, they can hit the web site and see all the reviews of local plumbers. Simple as that. It's even a little crude, since user generated data can create weird redundancies or crossovers, but it works, and it works well.
It's been going for a couple of years now, and the amount of information on the site has gained a nice level of depth. Yes, that also means its accrued some false reviews and otherwise been gamed, but it's nothing that a little critical reading can't get you past.
Now, the rub is that it's a paid site. They were smart and had a long free period so they could accrue a lot f data before going paid, but eventually they needed to make money. On it's own, the price is a little high ($60 for a year, $7.50 for a month, with a $15 signup fee to deal with the sane and reasonable folks who would just pay for a month when they need it) but given the cost of most home repairs, it's very small as a percentage of total cost, and especially small compared to the cost of having a bad job done.
In many ways I consider an Angie's List membership as something comparable to a subscription to Consumer Reports online. I don't bother to remember it when I'm not using it, but when the time comes that I do need it, it's a very cost-effective investment.
So, if you're in a position where it will matter that the people who install your windows or fix your plumbing know what they're doing, it's definitely worth your while to check out Angie's List.
Today I want to talk about Angie's List. This has been on my mind as people on various vectors have been talking about buying or repairing their houses, and my thoughts go back to our own very mixed experiences. I only heard of Angie's list because they're an NPR sponsor, but that worked out better for them then buying a radio ad would have. It made me curious enough to check out their website, and I'm glad I did.
Angie's List is one of those ideas that reflects the practical application of the things that technology promises us. It's a review site, but what makes it noteworthy is that it's a review site that focuses on local workers (contractors, repairmen and so on, though they've recently been branching out to things like doctors). The 'local' part means they don't cover every area, but their definitions of metropolitan areas seem suitably flexible.
The model is very simple. You hire a plumber and, after he's done, you can write up a review of your experience on Angie's List. When someone else in your area needs a plumber, they can hit the web site and see all the reviews of local plumbers. Simple as that. It's even a little crude, since user generated data can create weird redundancies or crossovers, but it works, and it works well.
It's been going for a couple of years now, and the amount of information on the site has gained a nice level of depth. Yes, that also means its accrued some false reviews and otherwise been gamed, but it's nothing that a little critical reading can't get you past.
Now, the rub is that it's a paid site. They were smart and had a long free period so they could accrue a lot f data before going paid, but eventually they needed to make money. On it's own, the price is a little high ($60 for a year, $7.50 for a month, with a $15 signup fee to deal with the sane and reasonable folks who would just pay for a month when they need it) but given the cost of most home repairs, it's very small as a percentage of total cost, and especially small compared to the cost of having a bad job done.
In many ways I consider an Angie's List membership as something comparable to a subscription to Consumer Reports online. I don't bother to remember it when I'm not using it, but when the time comes that I do need it, it's a very cost-effective investment.
So, if you're in a position where it will matter that the people who install your windows or fix your plumbing know what they're doing, it's definitely worth your while to check out Angie's List.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Playing at Starbucks
I'll come back to the dice next week, but it's Friday, so I'll swap it up a little.
Malcolm Sheppard had a good post about next generation RPGs and the role of technology. I don't agree with it all, but it's an interesting read, and it came up when I was thinking about something that is almost the polar opposite, but which (as often happens with opposites) reflects on some of the same issues.
I was wondering to myself what the ideal game would be to play at Starbucks. It's a very specific criteria, so let me elaborate on it. Obviously, you could play any game you like at Starbucks, there are tables and everything, but all of the books and papers and other material that accompanies most games would seem powerfully out of place. The aesthetic of the place (to say nothing of noise and space concerns) calls for a certain sparseness rather than the scatter of papers and the clatter of dice.
Certainly, you could just use a minimalistic game, like Risus or PDQ. Since you wouldn't need a rulebook, and character sheets can be as small as an index card, you can get by with very little in the way of supplies. That works, sure, but I found myself wondering if it could go a little deeper. Pencil, paper and dice are well and good, but what can we do without them? What can we do with something purely tactile?[1]
The answer is "A lot", but it depends on the group. I've got many years of the Amber DRPG under my belt, enough so that I'm very comfortable with going diceless with a heavy dose of GM fiat. Within that sort of framework, you could build a powerful and dynamic game with little more than a deck of cards.
This lead to a bunch of design thoughts, some of which might see the light of day eventually, but it also called into question how I was thinking about games. I was focusing on the social element, and also on certain ideas of play that are intensely portable. That portability provides an interesting point of comparison for me between games as we think of them and more established games, like chess. Not in terms of how they're played, but in terms of our production model.
Consider chess's entry point. The rules are a little complex, but can be learned well enough that no rulebook is kept on hand. You can get all the supplies you need for a buck, but you can just as easily get those same supplies for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. The game exists as an idea, and the industry and play surrounds and supports that idea.
In contrast, RPGs have something of a vicious ecosystem, where there is an idea, but lots of people are looking to carve off their own piece and lay claim to it. There are precious few products that exist to support the idea as a whole (mostly a handful of GMing advice books).
This is not a criticism - Chess is a single game, albeit one with a rich history, and there's no reason to expect any RPG to occupy a similar niche at this point in time. But I think this gets very interesting when you think about some of Malcolm's points, and look at the progress of technology. Technology is going to change RPGS, possibly quite drastically, but that leaves bare the question of what technology can't or won't change.
This really seems to cast bare the division in games about the role of the GM. A lot of games move to minimize the role, usually in response to abuses at the hands of bad GMs in the past. Others do it to take work off the GM's hands. One way or another, these rules are the ones that I suspect will take most strongly to automation, and at that point it will be impossible not to start talking and thinking about the actual art of GMing.
This is an uncomfortable topic. Bring up the point that a good GM can make a crappy game fun, and watch how quickly the howling begins. Talk about GMs taking ownership of the rules and bending them to suit their table, and prepare for offended looks. Gamers, as a sub-tribe of geeks, have a strong egalitarian streak, and we're not always comfortable with the idea that some GMs are better than others[2] and that keeps us from talking about why that is so, and what influences it besides natural talent.
It's a conversation that I think people have always had personally, but it dies on the Internet. But as technology marches on, there may be no way to escape it.[3]
I'm pretty psyched for that.
1- On some primal, emotional level I would love to play an RPG someday where i can get the same pure joy out of handling well crafted components that you can get from a well made chess set or dominoes.
2 - In the abstract at least. Our GMs are obviously excellent, and we all have stories of crappy GMs we've dealt with.
3 - Before we get there, we'll probably have a movement where setting design is as exalted as system design currently is. It will focus on how setting design can organically drive play, and it will take many lessons from MMOs.
Malcolm Sheppard had a good post about next generation RPGs and the role of technology. I don't agree with it all, but it's an interesting read, and it came up when I was thinking about something that is almost the polar opposite, but which (as often happens with opposites) reflects on some of the same issues.
I was wondering to myself what the ideal game would be to play at Starbucks. It's a very specific criteria, so let me elaborate on it. Obviously, you could play any game you like at Starbucks, there are tables and everything, but all of the books and papers and other material that accompanies most games would seem powerfully out of place. The aesthetic of the place (to say nothing of noise and space concerns) calls for a certain sparseness rather than the scatter of papers and the clatter of dice.
Certainly, you could just use a minimalistic game, like Risus or PDQ. Since you wouldn't need a rulebook, and character sheets can be as small as an index card, you can get by with very little in the way of supplies. That works, sure, but I found myself wondering if it could go a little deeper. Pencil, paper and dice are well and good, but what can we do without them? What can we do with something purely tactile?[1]
The answer is "A lot", but it depends on the group. I've got many years of the Amber DRPG under my belt, enough so that I'm very comfortable with going diceless with a heavy dose of GM fiat. Within that sort of framework, you could build a powerful and dynamic game with little more than a deck of cards.
This lead to a bunch of design thoughts, some of which might see the light of day eventually, but it also called into question how I was thinking about games. I was focusing on the social element, and also on certain ideas of play that are intensely portable. That portability provides an interesting point of comparison for me between games as we think of them and more established games, like chess. Not in terms of how they're played, but in terms of our production model.
Consider chess's entry point. The rules are a little complex, but can be learned well enough that no rulebook is kept on hand. You can get all the supplies you need for a buck, but you can just as easily get those same supplies for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. The game exists as an idea, and the industry and play surrounds and supports that idea.
In contrast, RPGs have something of a vicious ecosystem, where there is an idea, but lots of people are looking to carve off their own piece and lay claim to it. There are precious few products that exist to support the idea as a whole (mostly a handful of GMing advice books).
This is not a criticism - Chess is a single game, albeit one with a rich history, and there's no reason to expect any RPG to occupy a similar niche at this point in time. But I think this gets very interesting when you think about some of Malcolm's points, and look at the progress of technology. Technology is going to change RPGS, possibly quite drastically, but that leaves bare the question of what technology can't or won't change.
This really seems to cast bare the division in games about the role of the GM. A lot of games move to minimize the role, usually in response to abuses at the hands of bad GMs in the past. Others do it to take work off the GM's hands. One way or another, these rules are the ones that I suspect will take most strongly to automation, and at that point it will be impossible not to start talking and thinking about the actual art of GMing.
This is an uncomfortable topic. Bring up the point that a good GM can make a crappy game fun, and watch how quickly the howling begins. Talk about GMs taking ownership of the rules and bending them to suit their table, and prepare for offended looks. Gamers, as a sub-tribe of geeks, have a strong egalitarian streak, and we're not always comfortable with the idea that some GMs are better than others[2] and that keeps us from talking about why that is so, and what influences it besides natural talent.
It's a conversation that I think people have always had personally, but it dies on the Internet. But as technology marches on, there may be no way to escape it.[3]
I'm pretty psyched for that.
1- On some primal, emotional level I would love to play an RPG someday where i can get the same pure joy out of handling well crafted components that you can get from a well made chess set or dominoes.
2 - In the abstract at least. Our GMs are obviously excellent, and we all have stories of crappy GMs we've dealt with.
3 - Before we get there, we'll probably have a movement where setting design is as exalted as system design currently is. It will focus on how setting design can organically drive play, and it will take many lessons from MMOs.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
FFF: After the Roll
We've already discussed the idea of "dominance", that after the dice are rolled, the highest die type is considered dominant, and it colors the outcome. If it's Force, the action is forceful, and so on. The effect of this can be limited entirely to color and description, but today we're going to kick around a few ways to give it some mechanical punch.
The most obvious solution, of course, is to simply have some sort of triggered effect based on the dominant die. If Force dominates, it might mean extra damage and such. This is a bit system specific - damage and armor penetration bonuses don't make sense for all systems - but the idea is pretty generally applicable. Fred also floated an interesting idea of looking at the ties as meaningful as well. That is to say, if Force and Finesse both dominate, that is akin to a critical success, using both outcomes, and if all three dice match, that's Super Effective (cuz all the cool kids love Pokemon terminology).
This does raise an interesting question of how dominance plays out in the case of a failure. Presumably, bonuses would only apply on a success, and dominance is now more about how you failed. Three 1s would really indicate that everything imaginable went wrong.
Another possibility is to use dominance as the trigger for player abilities. To use martial arts as an example, a character might be able to do a "whirlwind strike" only if the hit with finesse dominant. Or perhaps the power itself is written so that it has different effects based on what factor is dominant. That certainly opens up a broad range of possibilities, especially because every power need not have a special effect for every outcome.
This sort of mechanic gets very interesting when you start combining it with some of the tricks we were discussing yesterday. By shifting around bonuses, die sizes or die numbers, you can increase the tendency towards certain dominance outcomes, which in turn would let you get the feel for a specific martial art.
To give an example, imagine if we used a system of stances - pre-set dice combinations that come to 18 faces - that can be learned as skills. The "balanced" stance is 3d6, but the Resplendent Wing school stance is Force d4, Fortune d4 and Finesse d10. If you take that stance, you'd want to use attacks which do cool things when finesse dominates.
Of course, since it's martial arts you'd want some interplay. One other thing you can do with Dominance is a little rock-paper-scissors. Force beats Fortune beats Finesse beats Force (or whatever sequence appeals) - if two players both roll, the stronger dominance may grant some moderate to strong advantage, so the benefits of your stance's focus could also be a weakness.[1]
In the less abstract realm, you could set secondary target numbers for the dominant die to restrict triggering effects. If something only happens when the dominant die is Force and it's over 4, then that calls for a bit more bookkeeping, but it also keeps the special results feeling a little bit more earned. This also introduces an interesting corollary to the question of dominance in a failure: if the secondary effect's threshold is still met, then perhaps it still happens.
And once you open that door, you also point to the realm of possibilities beyond dominance. Looking at the other dice also tells a story (If Finesse dominated, Fortune was almost as high, but Force was very low, that suggests a different sort of explanation than one where Force is high and Fortune is low) and you could even have other triggers in the roll for the non-dominant dice. To use and example of a race, suppose that even if you lose (fail the overall roll), you at least show so long as Finesse is above 3. A great number of factors could be determined by a single throw of the dice.
That said, this definitely suggests some synchronicity with the rules for weighting your pool. If the pool is balanced (a straight 3d6) then you're really just depending on luck for these secondary goals. If it's weighted (such as with bonuses, differing die sizes, or roll & keep) then you can steer the result towards different outcomes. This gets all the more interesting when it becomes a genuine choice. Suppose there's something good for each potential focus. Do you tilt towards one to risk the others?
I dig that kind of meaningful tactical choice, but it also reveals a danger - choices like that can really bog things down as the player sits and calculates his optimal action set, waffling between possibilities. Unless you like that, it means you need to make the choices either very simple, or have them already be made (in the case of choosing stats).
This is the real curse of any zero-sum system. Players want to cover their bases as best they can, and will optimize for that, but if things are truly zero sum (or at least look that way) it can be paralyzing. The upside of this is that it can be fuel for a group dynamic. Few things make a group tick better than knowing your buddy is good at the thing you're weak at, at east so long as you're both in play. But that's the tip of a very big iceberg.
Anyway, I don't think I've milked it all yet, but that's a good start, and I'm tired, so let's let that percolate.
1 - If I was really going to use this model for martial arts (and I think it could do it quite well) I admit I'd be inclined to swap over to a 5d6 model and go for elemental dominance.
The most obvious solution, of course, is to simply have some sort of triggered effect based on the dominant die. If Force dominates, it might mean extra damage and such. This is a bit system specific - damage and armor penetration bonuses don't make sense for all systems - but the idea is pretty generally applicable. Fred also floated an interesting idea of looking at the ties as meaningful as well. That is to say, if Force and Finesse both dominate, that is akin to a critical success, using both outcomes, and if all three dice match, that's Super Effective (cuz all the cool kids love Pokemon terminology).
This does raise an interesting question of how dominance plays out in the case of a failure. Presumably, bonuses would only apply on a success, and dominance is now more about how you failed. Three 1s would really indicate that everything imaginable went wrong.
Another possibility is to use dominance as the trigger for player abilities. To use martial arts as an example, a character might be able to do a "whirlwind strike" only if the hit with finesse dominant. Or perhaps the power itself is written so that it has different effects based on what factor is dominant. That certainly opens up a broad range of possibilities, especially because every power need not have a special effect for every outcome.
This sort of mechanic gets very interesting when you start combining it with some of the tricks we were discussing yesterday. By shifting around bonuses, die sizes or die numbers, you can increase the tendency towards certain dominance outcomes, which in turn would let you get the feel for a specific martial art.
To give an example, imagine if we used a system of stances - pre-set dice combinations that come to 18 faces - that can be learned as skills. The "balanced" stance is 3d6, but the Resplendent Wing school stance is Force d4, Fortune d4 and Finesse d10. If you take that stance, you'd want to use attacks which do cool things when finesse dominates.
Of course, since it's martial arts you'd want some interplay. One other thing you can do with Dominance is a little rock-paper-scissors. Force beats Fortune beats Finesse beats Force (or whatever sequence appeals) - if two players both roll, the stronger dominance may grant some moderate to strong advantage, so the benefits of your stance's focus could also be a weakness.[1]
In the less abstract realm, you could set secondary target numbers for the dominant die to restrict triggering effects. If something only happens when the dominant die is Force and it's over 4, then that calls for a bit more bookkeeping, but it also keeps the special results feeling a little bit more earned. This also introduces an interesting corollary to the question of dominance in a failure: if the secondary effect's threshold is still met, then perhaps it still happens.
And once you open that door, you also point to the realm of possibilities beyond dominance. Looking at the other dice also tells a story (If Finesse dominated, Fortune was almost as high, but Force was very low, that suggests a different sort of explanation than one where Force is high and Fortune is low) and you could even have other triggers in the roll for the non-dominant dice. To use and example of a race, suppose that even if you lose (fail the overall roll), you at least show so long as Finesse is above 3. A great number of factors could be determined by a single throw of the dice.
That said, this definitely suggests some synchronicity with the rules for weighting your pool. If the pool is balanced (a straight 3d6) then you're really just depending on luck for these secondary goals. If it's weighted (such as with bonuses, differing die sizes, or roll & keep) then you can steer the result towards different outcomes. This gets all the more interesting when it becomes a genuine choice. Suppose there's something good for each potential focus. Do you tilt towards one to risk the others?
I dig that kind of meaningful tactical choice, but it also reveals a danger - choices like that can really bog things down as the player sits and calculates his optimal action set, waffling between possibilities. Unless you like that, it means you need to make the choices either very simple, or have them already be made (in the case of choosing stats).
This is the real curse of any zero-sum system. Players want to cover their bases as best they can, and will optimize for that, but if things are truly zero sum (or at least look that way) it can be paralyzing. The upside of this is that it can be fuel for a group dynamic. Few things make a group tick better than knowing your buddy is good at the thing you're weak at, at east so long as you're both in play. But that's the tip of a very big iceberg.
Anyway, I don't think I've milked it all yet, but that's a good start, and I'm tired, so let's let that percolate.
1 - If I was really going to use this model for martial arts (and I think it could do it quite well) I admit I'd be inclined to swap over to a 5d6 model and go for elemental dominance.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
FFF: Before the Roll
Another post about a hypothetical resolution system of 3d6 (maybe +bonus) vs target number, with rich dice (dice that convey extra information). The dice respectively represent force, finesse and fortune.
As I was writing this, I refined the idea of the fork a little bit, and realized the more practical division, for discussion purposes, is between things that happen before the dice roll and things that happen afterward. This is the split between things which impact the outcome (fixed things like stats, or dynamic choices like tactics) and different ways the outcome is expressed (much more system specific, but generally breaks down to choices made after the roll, like how damage is distributed).[1] Today I'll look at some options for how to manipulate the system before the roll.
We can have modifiers that exists before the roll, based on the type of die (I need a cooler name for the die categories, to better discuss this idea generally). Presumably this calls for very small values, otherwise they kind of overwhelm the dice. Suppose, for example, that you have stats that correspond to the dice, say Force: 2, Finesse 3, Fortune 1. While you could just total them up and use that as base modifier, that's pretty uninteresting. If, on the other hand, you choose one of them before you roll the dice, that gets interesting. Sure, if all else is equal, you'll just pick your highest value, but that gets complicated when your best is not appropriate to the challenge on hand. Since the bonus not only improves the total roll, but it also increases the likelihood that that die will dominate. If you're running a race, using your force bonus (and thus making force dominate) might well make you lose to someone who has finesse dominate.
That also hints at the reasonthe bonuses need to stay low: bonuses over 3 are going to make it very hard for that die to NOT dominate.
An interesting twist on this is to change die size. One of the joys of dealing with dice from d4 to d12 is that each bump in die size is basically equivalent to adding a +1 (modulo some fiddliness with range). The bonuses could just as easily be handled as die bumps: Instead of rolling 3d6 all the time, maybe I'm Fortune d4, Force d8 and Finesse d6. On the upside, this is kind of neat, especially if the dice can be shifted around dynamically[2] - it's got a very organic feel without adding math. The downside is that I've just complicated my life.
One of the big benefits of 3d6 is that it is demonstrably easy to learn by rote. D&D exposure means a lot of us can roll up stats in our sleep[3], and it's still pretty easy for those who haven't. Mixing up die sizes turns it into an actual mathematical exercise, removing some of the benefits of going to a dice model. It also increases the number of supplies needed. This is not a huge factor, but it's nice to know you have all the necessary dice needs covered with a handful of D6s rather than a bag full of D-everythings.
But for all that logic, I still really just dig the idea of trading dice values, especially on the fly. It triggers that gambling part of the brain I guess. That's a good reason to keep this one in mind - sometimes unreasonable fun can point to the right choice when mere logic fails.
One other option is to mess with the dice pool directly. The player could choose which 3 dice he rolled (3 fortune, two force and a finesse and so on). There's a little play there, but there are probably not enough choices to be interesting. But suppose we add more dice: make it a roll of multiple dice, perhaps 1 per "point" of the stat, then tally the best 3.[4] Basically it's a roll and keep model, but the number of kept dice is fixed at 3. Since the best 3 dice might be of any category, you are more likely to dominate with your high stat, but not guaranteed.
There's definitely some added complexity there - sorting dice is a mental process, much as adding them is, but it's not an overly complicated one, and at least it means you can stick to d6s. It may seem a trivial thing, but if you can only have 1 die type, the fact that d6s pack so compactly that you can buy them in bricks is a pretty big deal.
Now, for the most part I've been focusing on the dice and not giving much thought to the modifier to the roll. This is intentional because, to be frank, that's the easy bit. A skill list (pre-defined or user defined) plus an anticipated numeric range is all you need. Not to say there aren't mechanically interesting things you can do in that space, but rather that it's a very familiar space, and one that would be a whole other topic on its own.
Anyway, that seems like a good start for things we might do before the dice hit the table. Tomorrow, let's start looking at the different ways we can read them and what we can do with that information.
1 - As I was thinking of examples, I realized there are very few systems that call for post-roll choices normally, but it's fairly common in subsystems like specific powers. For example, if you have a power in 4e that lets you move the target, that's a post-success decision to make.
2 - For example, imagine a default 3d6 system. If I need to focus on finesse, I can bump my Force or Fortune die down to a d4, and my finesse up to a d8. If I really focus, I drop both Force and Fortune to d4s, and bump Finesse to a d10. I probably have some other mechanical control to determine how far I can focus any one particular die.
3 - This is, by the way, why I think the easiest way to do something like fudge dice is 3d6, use D&D stat modifiers. It's totally illogical, but if you've played enough 3rd ed, it's second nature to read the dice and convert it into a bonus or penalty.
4 - It would also be possible to roll X, tally the 3 of your choice. This gives the player control over what factor dominates, provided he's willing to choose a non-optimal roll. I'll probably come back to this one when we get to post-roll mechanics.
As I was writing this, I refined the idea of the fork a little bit, and realized the more practical division, for discussion purposes, is between things that happen before the dice roll and things that happen afterward. This is the split between things which impact the outcome (fixed things like stats, or dynamic choices like tactics) and different ways the outcome is expressed (much more system specific, but generally breaks down to choices made after the roll, like how damage is distributed).[1] Today I'll look at some options for how to manipulate the system before the roll.
We can have modifiers that exists before the roll, based on the type of die (I need a cooler name for the die categories, to better discuss this idea generally). Presumably this calls for very small values, otherwise they kind of overwhelm the dice. Suppose, for example, that you have stats that correspond to the dice, say Force: 2, Finesse 3, Fortune 1. While you could just total them up and use that as base modifier, that's pretty uninteresting. If, on the other hand, you choose one of them before you roll the dice, that gets interesting. Sure, if all else is equal, you'll just pick your highest value, but that gets complicated when your best is not appropriate to the challenge on hand. Since the bonus not only improves the total roll, but it also increases the likelihood that that die will dominate. If you're running a race, using your force bonus (and thus making force dominate) might well make you lose to someone who has finesse dominate.
That also hints at the reasonthe bonuses need to stay low: bonuses over 3 are going to make it very hard for that die to NOT dominate.
An interesting twist on this is to change die size. One of the joys of dealing with dice from d4 to d12 is that each bump in die size is basically equivalent to adding a +1 (modulo some fiddliness with range). The bonuses could just as easily be handled as die bumps: Instead of rolling 3d6 all the time, maybe I'm Fortune d4, Force d8 and Finesse d6. On the upside, this is kind of neat, especially if the dice can be shifted around dynamically[2] - it's got a very organic feel without adding math. The downside is that I've just complicated my life.
One of the big benefits of 3d6 is that it is demonstrably easy to learn by rote. D&D exposure means a lot of us can roll up stats in our sleep[3], and it's still pretty easy for those who haven't. Mixing up die sizes turns it into an actual mathematical exercise, removing some of the benefits of going to a dice model. It also increases the number of supplies needed. This is not a huge factor, but it's nice to know you have all the necessary dice needs covered with a handful of D6s rather than a bag full of D-everythings.
But for all that logic, I still really just dig the idea of trading dice values, especially on the fly. It triggers that gambling part of the brain I guess. That's a good reason to keep this one in mind - sometimes unreasonable fun can point to the right choice when mere logic fails.
One other option is to mess with the dice pool directly. The player could choose which 3 dice he rolled (3 fortune, two force and a finesse and so on). There's a little play there, but there are probably not enough choices to be interesting. But suppose we add more dice: make it a roll of multiple dice, perhaps 1 per "point" of the stat, then tally the best 3.[4] Basically it's a roll and keep model, but the number of kept dice is fixed at 3. Since the best 3 dice might be of any category, you are more likely to dominate with your high stat, but not guaranteed.
There's definitely some added complexity there - sorting dice is a mental process, much as adding them is, but it's not an overly complicated one, and at least it means you can stick to d6s. It may seem a trivial thing, but if you can only have 1 die type, the fact that d6s pack so compactly that you can buy them in bricks is a pretty big deal.
Now, for the most part I've been focusing on the dice and not giving much thought to the modifier to the roll. This is intentional because, to be frank, that's the easy bit. A skill list (pre-defined or user defined) plus an anticipated numeric range is all you need. Not to say there aren't mechanically interesting things you can do in that space, but rather that it's a very familiar space, and one that would be a whole other topic on its own.
Anyway, that seems like a good start for things we might do before the dice hit the table. Tomorrow, let's start looking at the different ways we can read them and what we can do with that information.
1 - As I was thinking of examples, I realized there are very few systems that call for post-roll choices normally, but it's fairly common in subsystems like specific powers. For example, if you have a power in 4e that lets you move the target, that's a post-success decision to make.
2 - For example, imagine a default 3d6 system. If I need to focus on finesse, I can bump my Force or Fortune die down to a d4, and my finesse up to a d8. If I really focus, I drop both Force and Fortune to d4s, and bump Finesse to a d10. I probably have some other mechanical control to determine how far I can focus any one particular die.
3 - This is, by the way, why I think the easiest way to do something like fudge dice is 3d6, use D&D stat modifiers. It's totally illogical, but if you've played enough 3rd ed, it's second nature to read the dice and convert it into a bonus or penalty.
4 - It would also be possible to roll X, tally the 3 of your choice. This gives the player control over what factor dominates, provided he's willing to choose a non-optimal roll. I'll probably come back to this one when we get to post-roll mechanics.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
FFF: First Thoughts
For those just coming in, this is going to be built on a previous post on a hypothetical resolution system of 3d6 (maybe +bonus) vs target number, with rich dice (dice that convey extra information). the dice respectively represent force, finesse and fortune.
The first thing to address is what this looks like in play. Even in the absence of mechanics, the dice can be useful for narrating an outcome. Just look at the highest die and use that to set the tone of the outcome. If the highest die is Force (representing strength and power) then that's easy: you land a hammer blow, you overwhelm the guard with your presence and you generally stomp on the problem. If it's Finesse (representing speed and precision) then t's equally easy: You find a gap in the armor, you subtly convey your point or you otherwise solve the problem with grace.
Those two are so clearly easy to envision that it's easy to not stop and think about Fortune. Because it's the most transparent concept (luck), and we know what luck looks like, we don't worry about it. But there's a danger there: describing luck is surprisingly hard. I mean, yes, it's easy to do a few times, but it gets very silly very quickly. The temptation, of course, is to describe luck in terms of coincidences. The guard just happens to slip on that puddle; the terrier just happens to fall on that guys head and so on. The more this happens the more it comes to resemble slapstick, and that's not terribly helpful for most games.
As such, the way to think about Fortune (and by extension, luck mechanics in most games) is in terms of opportunity. This has a number of advantages. First, it's much more tied to the situation at hand (falling terriers tend to be situation-independent) so it uses the color of the scene. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it makes the character proactive and keeps them at center stage. It's a small difference, but it's the difference between "The guard slips on a puddle" and "You drive him two steps back until his left foot is in the puddle, then take advantage of his bad footing to knock him down". The net result is the same (guard is on the floor) but the second sounds much more adventurous, and that's important.
I'm aware that this may seem like a sidetrack when compared to the mechanical possibilities of the system, but it's an important one. Coming up with a clever mechanic is all well and good, but if there is no clear way to turn it into the language of the table then it's never going to be anything more than awkward.[1]
Ok, so with that aside, let's start looking at ways to start this idea some mechanical purchase.
The simplest model is to have some sort of bonus trigger based on which die dominates (which is to say, which is the highest)[2]. This could be expressed generically: If Force dominates you get a bonus to damage (or damage equivalent), if Finesse dominates you get a bonus to this (or maybe the next) roll and if fortune dominates, you can maneuver. That works, and it strongly supports the color of the dice[3] but it offers very little in the way of player interface. This works roughly the same way whether my character is brawny or scrawny, and there's no way for me to make choices that impact this.
So here we have the first big fork: one way or another we want the impact of this to be responsive to player choice, but do we want it to be choices made during character creation (stats, skills), choices made in preparation (equipment, possibly spells), choices made in situation (tactics) or some combination of these?
Sounds like a good point to pick up tomorrow.
1 - This is actually a big factor, for good or ill, with 4e. By insisting on play with minis and maps, it changes the language of the table from one of description to one of 5 foot squares and numbers. In that second language, everything is very well written, coming together beautifully. The problem comes when you try to translate from the tactical language to the descriptive one: the guidelines for doing so are quite faint indeed.
2 - The term "dominates" is from Don't Rest Your Head, so it's very natural to me, but it could easily be changed to suit the tone of whatever the final game is. If you're feeling really nerdy this is a great place to put in one of those made up words that makes a game sound EVEN MORE dorky.
3 - Fortune might merit a switch to something more setting or situation specific, but that's easy. It's a wild card, and there's usually an obvious use for such a thing.
The first thing to address is what this looks like in play. Even in the absence of mechanics, the dice can be useful for narrating an outcome. Just look at the highest die and use that to set the tone of the outcome. If the highest die is Force (representing strength and power) then that's easy: you land a hammer blow, you overwhelm the guard with your presence and you generally stomp on the problem. If it's Finesse (representing speed and precision) then t's equally easy: You find a gap in the armor, you subtly convey your point or you otherwise solve the problem with grace.
Those two are so clearly easy to envision that it's easy to not stop and think about Fortune. Because it's the most transparent concept (luck), and we know what luck looks like, we don't worry about it. But there's a danger there: describing luck is surprisingly hard. I mean, yes, it's easy to do a few times, but it gets very silly very quickly. The temptation, of course, is to describe luck in terms of coincidences. The guard just happens to slip on that puddle; the terrier just happens to fall on that guys head and so on. The more this happens the more it comes to resemble slapstick, and that's not terribly helpful for most games.
As such, the way to think about Fortune (and by extension, luck mechanics in most games) is in terms of opportunity. This has a number of advantages. First, it's much more tied to the situation at hand (falling terriers tend to be situation-independent) so it uses the color of the scene. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it makes the character proactive and keeps them at center stage. It's a small difference, but it's the difference between "The guard slips on a puddle" and "You drive him two steps back until his left foot is in the puddle, then take advantage of his bad footing to knock him down". The net result is the same (guard is on the floor) but the second sounds much more adventurous, and that's important.
I'm aware that this may seem like a sidetrack when compared to the mechanical possibilities of the system, but it's an important one. Coming up with a clever mechanic is all well and good, but if there is no clear way to turn it into the language of the table then it's never going to be anything more than awkward.[1]
Ok, so with that aside, let's start looking at ways to start this idea some mechanical purchase.
The simplest model is to have some sort of bonus trigger based on which die dominates (which is to say, which is the highest)[2]. This could be expressed generically: If Force dominates you get a bonus to damage (or damage equivalent), if Finesse dominates you get a bonus to this (or maybe the next) roll and if fortune dominates, you can maneuver. That works, and it strongly supports the color of the dice[3] but it offers very little in the way of player interface. This works roughly the same way whether my character is brawny or scrawny, and there's no way for me to make choices that impact this.
So here we have the first big fork: one way or another we want the impact of this to be responsive to player choice, but do we want it to be choices made during character creation (stats, skills), choices made in preparation (equipment, possibly spells), choices made in situation (tactics) or some combination of these?
Sounds like a good point to pick up tomorrow.
1 - This is actually a big factor, for good or ill, with 4e. By insisting on play with minis and maps, it changes the language of the table from one of description to one of 5 foot squares and numbers. In that second language, everything is very well written, coming together beautifully. The problem comes when you try to translate from the tactical language to the descriptive one: the guidelines for doing so are quite faint indeed.
2 - The term "dominates" is from Don't Rest Your Head, so it's very natural to me, but it could easily be changed to suit the tone of whatever the final game is. If you're feeling really nerdy this is a great place to put in one of those made up words that makes a game sound EVEN MORE dorky.
3 - Fortune might merit a switch to something more setting or situation specific, but that's easy. It's a wild card, and there's usually an obvious use for such a thing.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Cool Monday: Instapaper
As excited as I am to get onto dice variants and Warhammer 3e, I need to maintain discipline. Monday posts exist primarily to remind myself that the internet has cool and wonderful things within its bounds. This offsets the other 6 days of the week when I face reminders of the cesspit parts.
There's a lot of good stuff to read on the Internet, but the simple reality is that it's a pain to keep track of it all. An RSS aggregator, like Google News or NetNewsWire goes a long way towards making the good stuff easier to keep track of, but it doesn't give me any extra time to read. That becomes a problem on those occasions when something very long and very thoughtful merits reading.
Historically, my solution was to see if they had a print view (because nothing says fun like clicking through 6 times to get through a piece) and either bookmark that or print it out in hopes of getting back to it later. Sometimes it worked, but even when it did it tended to result in a pile of stuff. That's not terrible, but it's lossy.
I've been much happier about these things since I found Instapaper.
So, Instapaper is sort of a clipping service, a lightweight and smartly designed one. It works like this: I find an article I'd like to read later, and I click on the Instapaper bookmarklet.[1] I get a little popup, and that's that. Later on, if I go to the Instapaper site, they've got the article archived for me, either in its original format or with much of the formatting stripped out (which makes it much easier for screen reading).
So far that's nice and convenient, but where it really shines is in how it works with other technology. First and foremost, you can export bundles of the articles you're reading into a variety of ebook formats. I have a fat batch of articles stores on my kindle to make for random reading anytime I need.[2]
Perhaps even better, there's an iphone/ipod touch app (both a free and paid version) which syncs with your account and keeps the articles on your device. As a touch owner, this has been a godsend. Because it archives them locally, I can read my articles while I'm offline.
Instapaper is the brainchild of Marco Arment, a name that might be familiar to folks who pay attention to Tumblr development. He is my current nerd rockstar, because so far as I'm concerned, that's a fantastic 1-2 punch.
Anyway, if you have a lot of stuff online you want to read, and you want to make you're life easier, then check out Instapaper. You'll know pretty quickly if it's the thing for you or not.
1 - That's nerdy term for a bookmark that does something. It's nothing technical that calls for installation or anything weird. It's just like any other bookmark in your browser.
2- It won't mail directly to the kindle, but that's more a function of Amazon's policies than a technical limitation.
There's a lot of good stuff to read on the Internet, but the simple reality is that it's a pain to keep track of it all. An RSS aggregator, like Google News or NetNewsWire goes a long way towards making the good stuff easier to keep track of, but it doesn't give me any extra time to read. That becomes a problem on those occasions when something very long and very thoughtful merits reading.
Historically, my solution was to see if they had a print view (because nothing says fun like clicking through 6 times to get through a piece) and either bookmark that or print it out in hopes of getting back to it later. Sometimes it worked, but even when it did it tended to result in a pile of stuff. That's not terrible, but it's lossy.
I've been much happier about these things since I found Instapaper.
So, Instapaper is sort of a clipping service, a lightweight and smartly designed one. It works like this: I find an article I'd like to read later, and I click on the Instapaper bookmarklet.[1] I get a little popup, and that's that. Later on, if I go to the Instapaper site, they've got the article archived for me, either in its original format or with much of the formatting stripped out (which makes it much easier for screen reading).
So far that's nice and convenient, but where it really shines is in how it works with other technology. First and foremost, you can export bundles of the articles you're reading into a variety of ebook formats. I have a fat batch of articles stores on my kindle to make for random reading anytime I need.[2]
Perhaps even better, there's an iphone/ipod touch app (both a free and paid version) which syncs with your account and keeps the articles on your device. As a touch owner, this has been a godsend. Because it archives them locally, I can read my articles while I'm offline.
Instapaper is the brainchild of Marco Arment, a name that might be familiar to folks who pay attention to Tumblr development. He is my current nerd rockstar, because so far as I'm concerned, that's a fantastic 1-2 punch.
Anyway, if you have a lot of stuff online you want to read, and you want to make you're life easier, then check out Instapaper. You'll know pretty quickly if it's the thing for you or not.
1 - That's nerdy term for a bookmark that does something. It's nothing technical that calls for installation or anything weird. It's just like any other bookmark in your browser.
2- It won't mail directly to the kindle, but that's more a function of Amazon's policies than a technical limitation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)