Unreasonable Goals: Single Combat in RPGs

I remember the days when game designers were looking for really good kick-backside single combat systems. The one vs. one duel, the first attempt noticed I noticed was En_Garde! back in 1975, a game about duellists.

It wasn't very successful at meeting it goals. No one has been.

There are a number of problems that stand in the way. The most important one is the requirement is to come up with a system that involves the player to the same (or greater) degree as all the complexities of group combat- and do so in a why the presents meaningful choices that aren't effectively random (historical most attempts in this area present the player with random choices).

I consider this problem to be unresolvable, for if it was actually solved- the game becomes too complex to play with groups. An group play is really what the rpg is all about.

My own game (Age of Heroes) like many works acceptably with one-on-one combats in that it resolves them. But group battles are far more interesting tactically. They are also much safer, a single PC can easily be undone by a short series of bad rolls or decisions- groups spread these around and allow allies to aid stricken players.

A result that nicely mirrors the needs of table top gaming if you ask me.

Why does D&D hold the Market

And by D&D, I mean all its favors- OSR, 3.x and its copies, and now to a lesser extent the 4th edition version. Add together these make up most of the game sales and nearly all the online discussion one sees on forums and blogs (unless they are dedicated specifically to something else).

It's a difficult question, likely with a number of different answers. It would be fun to actually dig into it in a solid investigative fashion and determine what those answers are. But I don't have the time, money or contacts. And I doubt anyone else does (that would be willing to do so, and then willing to release the information). But that doesn't mean we can't make a good guess.

We know from previous WotC information that it isn't driven by play style as such. So that can be dismissed.

Other possible answers:

Market Penetration

D&D was the first to market, made the biggest splash, and from there on has the largest production budget and the largest amount of supporting materials on the gaming shelves (or in online catalogs).

The power of this simple fact cannot be underestimated. The same basic factors resulted in VHS winning over Beta, Windows over MAC, etc. The examples are nearly endless. You don't have to offer the best product, just the widest selection for use with your product.


Appeals to our Worst Nature

D&D combat is meant to be predictive, safe and lengthy (something clear in the writings and statements of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, such as this one to pick one example). So safe adventure with controlled danger that the player can still pat themselves on the back for. That's a easy draw, nice reward for little risk.

Add to this simple greed. The very act of leveling, and the fact that D&D offers a lot of levels to level through. The endless search for money and magic items. MMORPGs based their entire business model upon these things, but D&D was the first to offer it.

We see this in passing statements by D&D GMs and Players, such as Jeff Rients' comment here:

"The abstract concept of treasure appeals directly to the players, by tickling their normal greedy impulses.  This goes back to my thinking that D&D is about providing an acceptable venue for expressing one's less civilized urges.  I.e. if a scenario doesn't invoke at least one of the Seven Deadly Sins, you may need to rework the premise.  Greed is one of the easiest ones to work with in D&D thanks to all the gold pieces lying about the dungeons."

We see these concepts often expressed in reviews of non-D&D products, where any that offer dangerous combat are seen as 'unheroic' for some reason or those without treasure and extreme ranges for advancement are said to be boring or incomplete.


Return to Childhood

This is most telling in the OSR movement, but really works with version of D&D. It's all still going home, it's fun to go back and do those things you enjoyed as a kid. Even if you've actually forgotten what you did, or have covered it up with the rose glasses of middle age.

It's safe, it avoids the disappointment and effort of dealing unknown game designs. And it carries with the advantages of the above two points as well. What's not to like?



All the above have resulted in stagnation in the larger hobby. It feeds upon itself in a nearly endless loop,

- D&D has the largest supporting material meaning it has more players, and the OGL allows even more material which in turn attracts even more players.

- Old timers returning to old games means new players are likely to get introduced to the hobby with these old games, meaning that no one ever looks for something different or better.

- And appeals to greed and reward without cost? That almost goes without saying. Such things never end, they only ask for more.


And thus here we are. And here the hobby is likely to stay. It wouldn't be changed by a better product. It would take a change in the moral character of gamers themselves, but IMO the influence is working the other direction.

There will be other games, but they will have little hold or influence. On the bright side, if this hobby should die (be it from more sophisticated MMORPGs or other means), it would likely be a good thing.

The Age of Heroes Proof Copy Is Here

Just a bit more than 31 years after I first wrote down the core combat rules, I finally have a hardbound copy of the Age of Heroes rules.

We're considering this a playtest copy, a final shakedown of the rules to spot any last typos, remaining page layouts I can do better on, and one last pass to make the written rules match what we actually play.

This last point is more difficult than one might think. About a week after I put in the order I caught one rule concerning Huge Creatures and their parries that was missing- and a rather key one it was at that. It's far from easy to capture what's become second nature to us over the years. It's like writing an book on how to walk or breathe.

Oh well. That's what this copy is for. On the other hand it's close enough that I could stop here, once I put up what will hopefully be a short errata webpage. Others however want an even more perfect copy, and want it posted to Lulu for sale.

Using Lulu for the first time was quite the experience.

The book looks quite good and more professional than I am. The only compliant I've gotten so far is that the color of the cover is bland (that suits a playtest copy IMO) and they want it changed for the final version.

Lulu's printing and shipping times vary greatly. One copy I sent to KC arrived within a week, while my own took twice as long to reach me. The price was acceptable for a 260 page hardback, at least for me.

I wonder how the binding will hold up, only time will tell. If anyone has experience in such things, I'd be interesting in hearing it.

From here we'll spend the next couple of months doing playtest and final proof readings with my group, and with the much larger one in KC.

October 2011 Random Thoughts

Noticed  this little coming product, basically a mini-supplement for a Black Witch. It sparked off a few thoughts...

• A class per supplement, at $5. I wonder how that will work as a business model. More expensive per class than the traditional supplement idea
• Looks like all he's doing is evil classes. Not all that useful to me even if I was running some flavor of D&D
• Does D&D have a official non-evil witch version this days?

Little questions in passing.
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Meanwhile the proof reading is done, the order is in for a proof and play test copy of Age of Heroes. One going to KC and one to me. Should be about a week or so. Exciting times.
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Speaking of Age of Heroes, put together a little six page GM screen for version 5.0. Using it with this wonderful Customizable GM Screen. Expensive but worth it.
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Are GameScience dice really more random? They certainly are ugly and more expensive. I bought one set to try them out. Right off the bat, the 5 sided dice is worthless, as is the 3 sided one. But I have use for the d14.
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I must finish the Claymore Supplement before we finish our Claymore campaign. It will be a nice race.

Book Review: The New Death and Others

I don’t often review books although I’ve mentioned some that I like, mostly to point out inspirational sources for gaming. But I don’t consider it a strong suit of mine, what with lacking any formal training in the subject and no talent of my own. So a book review by me isn’t really worth all that much.

So it was quite the bit of surprised to be asked to review The New Death and Others by its author James Hutchings. But having written articles and the like, I can understand the desire for reviews and comments. It doesn’t even matter if the reviewer likes it, the feedback is worthwhile and both drive interest to the author.  It’s not easy to write a book, and doing so- no matter how badly, is to my mind something to respect.

Besided, maybe I'd get a idea or two for my games.

So it was in that mindset that I agreed, and promptly received (free I might add) the book formatted for the Kindle. I love my Kindle.

The New Death and Others is available for the Kindle or from Smashwords. It consists of a series of fantasy related short stories with some poems scattered through the book.  The Kindle version didn’t come with a page count, but it isn’t long- I was able to read it through in about four hours containing some significant breaks.

And now to the review, let’s start off with something positive… well… there’s… I sort of like the stories with cats.

Sigh, I want and can do better than that (if only by a bit). So let’s give it a go and I’ll put what I’ll hope is some constructive suggestions at the bottom.

First off, I don’t think I’m the type of reader this book is aimed at.  A number of the stories are left-wing politics at their worst, with a number of shots at Afghanistan, free enterprise, religion, etc. These are done with all the subtlety of an internet flame war due to the short length of the stories and the writing style.  For someone like me, things like that make it hard to judge the rest of the work. For a reader on the Left, it may be more enjoyable.

Stepping back from that, I think the collection suffers from a number of other problems.

The first is that there is no unifying theme to the works. There are the outright political comments, some fable like myths, some are intended to be pure parody, and others are just a pun fest.  The strongest repeating thread (besides the politics) is a common fantasy city used as a backdrop in the fable style stories. And Death, the author likes Death.

There are only two reasons to read a collection of short stories: because their common subject, theme, or setting appeals to you; or because you know and like the author’s writings. The New Death and Others doesn’t provide the former, and James Hutchings doesn’t have a body of work to provide the latter.


As to the individual stories…

The short story format is demanding as it gives little room for development of character and that in turn means that you have pull the reader in quickly in order to invest him in what you’re trying to say.  Not easy, and so IMO the short story can be short- but it can’t be too short.

Most of these are too short.  Some are little more than the plot idea with basically nothing else. This is most felt in the fable like stories, some of which I almost liked. But the shifts were too sudden, the pace too quick, the ending too pat.

Many of the stories indicate to me that the author is trying to mirror one of two styles. The HP Lovecraft descriptive near verse or the Twilight Zone style twist ending. I love both, but the former should be kept to an occasional appearance instead of battering the reader every sentence. And the latter needs to be built up to. It’s ok to twist the ending, even if it’s a predictable twist- IF we care about the characters being twisted. Here, we don’t.

He may also be going for Grimm Fairy tales style, a bunch of short ‘fables’ lumped together. But that can’t really work because the author isn’t the Brothers Grimm. He hasn’t had generations of parents making his tales live for children- he has to make do on his own and he’s not aiming this at children (I hope). That takes more work.

A good example is How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name.  I like cats; I like mystical cats even more. I should have loved this story. But we didn’t get to know any of the cats. And we didn’t get to know the villain Abi-simti.
We know she wants to learn all the magic there is, and after a bit we find out that she’s willing to do anything to do so. But we never find out why. Magic is a tool (especially to gamers, but it’s also the case in the genre), and what we’re being asked to take as the primary mover of a story is a lady who in practical terms wants the complete set of Craftsman Wrenches. Somehow that’s supposed to result in evil interesting enough to make a fable of.

A longer version of this story with a better goal for the villain (even the classic ‘quest for immortality through magic’), together with cats with real personalities that one would root for, would have worked much better.

Lastly, this book was a downer.  Except for the cats, the world of these stories is a dark place with only tears for company. Some people like that, so I won’t fault it other than to say it’s not my taste and thus may have colored some of my comments above.

Suggestions for the author:

Characters- make them more alive. I can’t write as well as you do, so I can’t make suggestions as to how to do this. But do it.

Patience- you have good ideas. Take time to build up to them. The trip is always worth more than the destination.

Subtlety- you can get away with being political, if the reader doesn’t notice. The best works are often those that both sides end up thinking reflects their views.

Theme or Setting- pick one or both, and use it for all the stories in your next attempt.

Oh, almost forgot. Did get any ideas for my games?  Not really, I already knew I wanted to do something with cats and this did reinforce that.

I also picked up a good Sherlock Holmes pun for the next time I want my players to throw dice at me.

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Note: I was hoping I'd find more that I'd like. I'm quite straight forward on game theory and other subjects and normally not shy about tearing into something. But tastes in fiction are very subjective.

I was inclined as a result to not post this review and offered to let James off the hook for it. But his word was to go ahead. Rather impressive. Here's hoping he keeps at it and that his writing skills grow. It's a field that one can only learn by doing, taking the lumps along the way. I couldn't do it.