I actually rather like the MMORPG Star Trek Online, however a cute sig on one of the forum posts reminded me of one of the game's failings. That being the lack of a Tier 5 (i.e the top level of ships in the game) Constitution class ship (either original or movie refit). There are many player who say such a thing would ruin their immersion in the game because according to 'canon' the design wasn't in use in the time frame the game is set in it.
Quoting the sig by thecosmic1:
"STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game."
A perfect summary of the current state of the game. About the only thing I'd add is the fact that it already includes a Tier 5 Original Show Klingon D7 and the T5 Andorian ship from the show Enterprise (set almost a hundred years before the the original show).
The worst thing about anything (MMORPGs, PnP RPG, etc) are the other players. No matter what, there's a vocal group who hate whatever is done.
Which is why I think games are best at the small group level where they can control what is and is not accepted between themselves. For myself, this is the real joy of PnP RPGs over MMORPGs, one owns and controls system and setting. It's the one place you don't have to put up with the greater stupidity of the world and can do your own thing.
Note: There is same claim that the reason for the game lacking a T5 Constitution is that CBS (they owns the IP) will not allow it. I don't know how accurate that statement is.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Can These Really be Called Campaigns?
I wish another company would release marketing information like WotC did back in the day. I imagine that they thought people would take their new version of D&D more seriously if they showed how seriously they were looking at their possible customers. Companies still do this sort of thing, but they keep the results close and don't talk about them in public.
So until one does, one is left with data that's more than a decade old. A lot can change in a decade. Even so, one of the most interesting things in the old WotC release was average time for a campaign reset (i.e. everyone rolls new characters and a new campaign is started).
Players who have gamed longer than five years have the longest campaigns, but they're only 19.6 sessions. And they play *a lot*, an average of 5.9 games per month. So basically a campaign lasts all of 3 months.
This is one of the things that make me feel greatly out of step with the typical gamer. My shortest campaigns tend to be at least 2 years long, but I play around twice a month. Even with the lower frequency, that's still almost five times as long as the average. And I often return to a previous campaign adding a another few years to the same setting and characters.
For myself, that fast turnover would turn me off the hobby. It's takes me that 19.6 sessions just to get a good investment going.
But beyond my reaction there is another interesting question, knowing those values- what kind of game would you design to meet them?
I'm not sure I would have gone the path of 3.x, for such a short experience why use a complex character generation? My first reaction would be that the characters were expendable and short lived. Thus they should be easy to create, and just as fast to get rid of.
Instead WotC went with a very detailed character generation, and they might have been right- assuming that many groups didn't start over with 1st level characters but started at higher level. A major part of the game in that case would be generating the character, testing it for a while, and then trying something new.
It does however seem to explain why they wanted to farm out adventure modules. It would take too much to keep up with that frequency of play and campaign turnover. They needed third parties to keep up.
I'd love to see what the current numbers are after the balkanization of the hobby between 4th edition, 3e edition clones, OSR clones, and the also ran games out there. My guess is that the session number has declined on average.
So until one does, one is left with data that's more than a decade old. A lot can change in a decade. Even so, one of the most interesting things in the old WotC release was average time for a campaign reset (i.e. everyone rolls new characters and a new campaign is started).
Players who have gamed longer than five years have the longest campaigns, but they're only 19.6 sessions. And they play *a lot*, an average of 5.9 games per month. So basically a campaign lasts all of 3 months.
This is one of the things that make me feel greatly out of step with the typical gamer. My shortest campaigns tend to be at least 2 years long, but I play around twice a month. Even with the lower frequency, that's still almost five times as long as the average. And I often return to a previous campaign adding a another few years to the same setting and characters.
For myself, that fast turnover would turn me off the hobby. It's takes me that 19.6 sessions just to get a good investment going.
But beyond my reaction there is another interesting question, knowing those values- what kind of game would you design to meet them?
I'm not sure I would have gone the path of 3.x, for such a short experience why use a complex character generation? My first reaction would be that the characters were expendable and short lived. Thus they should be easy to create, and just as fast to get rid of.
Instead WotC went with a very detailed character generation, and they might have been right- assuming that many groups didn't start over with 1st level characters but started at higher level. A major part of the game in that case would be generating the character, testing it for a while, and then trying something new.
It does however seem to explain why they wanted to farm out adventure modules. It would take too much to keep up with that frequency of play and campaign turnover. They needed third parties to keep up.
I'd love to see what the current numbers are after the balkanization of the hobby between 4th edition, 3e edition clones, OSR clones, and the also ran games out there. My guess is that the session number has declined on average.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Do Settings need Custom Systems?
It was a long standing 'common wisdom' (i.e. not really common, but still accepted by a good number of people) that universal rules such as HERO or GURPS did not serve a setting as well as a set of rules designed specifically for it.
Like many things online, few if any actually backed up this assertion with real examples, and when they did- they often were little more than Chrome style rules and had little to do with the core mechanics themselves. As a result I was always doubtful and I think the passage of time has basically disproved the concept.
Let's talk about a few often quoted examples.
Let's take Call of Cthulhu. This one was a bad example out of the gate as the original system was that from the earlier game (by three years) Runequest which was about fantasy adventure- not 1920s dark investigations. It did introduce the insanity tracking mechanic- but that was just a bit of Chrome easily added to any game. And the monsters were powerful, but that was just powerful monsters. Rules wise, there's really little there really related to the setting and there have been a number of very successful conversions to other game systems including (in the judgement of some people) D20.
The original Deadlands is a better example, sort of. Here you have the use of playing cards and poker chips, which reflects... well a bit of the Old West if your version of the Old West happens the Old TV show Maverick. Actually, it doesn't provide much of even that to be honest. Beyond the cards and the chips, it's just a handful of dice game paired with a magic system offering a high fumble rate. We can see how important all the system flavor was when it was dropped in the newer editions of the game for a universal system with some setting related Chrome.
All in all, I'm at a loss to point out a real example where the rules really reflect and invoke the setting. The actually work is done by setting fluff, renaming common concepts and using them, constructing NPCs to the proper power level, or a bit of Chrome here and there. I'll be interested if anyone can point out a true example.
Thus I've sided with the Universal Systems that I can learn once, take off the shelf and add a bit to. The final result is every bit as good as anything a custom rule set has ever offered- but with additional expandability built right in.
Like many things online, few if any actually backed up this assertion with real examples, and when they did- they often were little more than Chrome style rules and had little to do with the core mechanics themselves. As a result I was always doubtful and I think the passage of time has basically disproved the concept.
Let's talk about a few often quoted examples.
Let's take Call of Cthulhu. This one was a bad example out of the gate as the original system was that from the earlier game (by three years) Runequest which was about fantasy adventure- not 1920s dark investigations. It did introduce the insanity tracking mechanic- but that was just a bit of Chrome easily added to any game. And the monsters were powerful, but that was just powerful monsters. Rules wise, there's really little there really related to the setting and there have been a number of very successful conversions to other game systems including (in the judgement of some people) D20.
The original Deadlands is a better example, sort of. Here you have the use of playing cards and poker chips, which reflects... well a bit of the Old West if your version of the Old West happens the Old TV show Maverick. Actually, it doesn't provide much of even that to be honest. Beyond the cards and the chips, it's just a handful of dice game paired with a magic system offering a high fumble rate. We can see how important all the system flavor was when it was dropped in the newer editions of the game for a universal system with some setting related Chrome.
All in all, I'm at a loss to point out a real example where the rules really reflect and invoke the setting. The actually work is done by setting fluff, renaming common concepts and using them, constructing NPCs to the proper power level, or a bit of Chrome here and there. I'll be interested if anyone can point out a true example.
Thus I've sided with the Universal Systems that I can learn once, take off the shelf and add a bit to. The final result is every bit as good as anything a custom rule set has ever offered- but with additional expandability built right in.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Game Design by Exception
Many RPGs work in a somewhat confused way- they have a small set of core mechanical rules that are applied generally, and then a whole bunch of exceptions to those rules.This is a long standing tradition in RPGs dating back to original D&D and before that to wargames where you had the basic mechanics of the game and then 'Chrome' rules added on top for flavor.
In the days of wargames, designers were careful to keep the amount of Chrome limited. Chrome was to be little highlights to make the core more interesting, i.e. basically the same purpose chrome on a car design served (and hence the name). It wasn't suppose to be key to the game,as the game was to fun and involving itself. The law was simple: Thou shall not use Chrome to support function.
RPGs changed this, basically making Chrome the game itself. Some of this is unavoidable, if you're to have a extensive list of spells for example (as opposed to a spell design system) you end up with more pages describing that 'Chrome' than you do core mechanics. Besides, the very birth of D&D was in Chrome added to the end of a wargame (Chainmail by many accounts).
D&D however took things much farther, with individual rules for individual classes. And then things got worse with various skill or weapon packages that modified things even further. And then on to Feats. As of today, the list of exceptions far outweigh both in number and importance any core values such as stats or basic resolution mechanics.
The reason for this is rather simple, the basic game is... boring. Always has been. So lacking any real interest in themselves, the rules needed Chrome to inspire at all. And over time, it just plied higher and deeper. It becomes increasing difficult to know how any combination of Chrome will react to another combination. Both the GM and Players ability to judge and thus control results are degraded.
Attempts to avoid this include the OSR method of burying one's head in the sand, i.e. go back to an old edition (with less Chrome) and spend as little time as possible in combat because it's now boring. I suppose a victory dance of some type helps one deal with this self-defeating option.
Another example of this type of design can be found in the 40K RPG products like Only War and Dark Heresey. Limited to a closed ended d100 system, things are only vaguely interesting when effective chances for success hover around the middle of the random number span- say 30-70 percent chances.
This results in a game that represents the mighty genetically enhanced superhuman Space Marines with stats only 10 points higher than normal men... so maybe a base 58% to hit instead of 48%. The mind is underwhelmed by such power. Instead it's 'Talents" (i.e. special abilities, i.e. Chrome) that's suppose to make up the difference. There are more Talents in the game than all the core rules (stats and skills) combined. And once again, the core rules are by themselves, rather boring to play.
I believe that Design by Exception is by its nature poor design. Instead the core mechanics themselves should scale from the lowest creature to the mightiest. Chrome should be just that, little things that makes those core mechanics pop just a bit more, not be something that buries them.
To pull this off those core mechanics need to be interesting of and by themselves. A fact that is basically impossible individually, but quite obtainable in combination. Consider the individual chess pieces, by themselves their movement rules are simple and boring, but in combination against the board the result is vastly more engaging.
I don't see any modern designer attempting such outcomes. Raised on endless D&D editions, they are only recycling failed concepts while wondering why their market is shrinking. They have only themselves to blame.
In the days of wargames, designers were careful to keep the amount of Chrome limited. Chrome was to be little highlights to make the core more interesting, i.e. basically the same purpose chrome on a car design served (and hence the name). It wasn't suppose to be key to the game,as the game was to fun and involving itself. The law was simple: Thou shall not use Chrome to support function.
RPGs changed this, basically making Chrome the game itself. Some of this is unavoidable, if you're to have a extensive list of spells for example (as opposed to a spell design system) you end up with more pages describing that 'Chrome' than you do core mechanics. Besides, the very birth of D&D was in Chrome added to the end of a wargame (Chainmail by many accounts).
D&D however took things much farther, with individual rules for individual classes. And then things got worse with various skill or weapon packages that modified things even further. And then on to Feats. As of today, the list of exceptions far outweigh both in number and importance any core values such as stats or basic resolution mechanics.
The reason for this is rather simple, the basic game is... boring. Always has been. So lacking any real interest in themselves, the rules needed Chrome to inspire at all. And over time, it just plied higher and deeper. It becomes increasing difficult to know how any combination of Chrome will react to another combination. Both the GM and Players ability to judge and thus control results are degraded.
Attempts to avoid this include the OSR method of burying one's head in the sand, i.e. go back to an old edition (with less Chrome) and spend as little time as possible in combat because it's now boring. I suppose a victory dance of some type helps one deal with this self-defeating option.
Another example of this type of design can be found in the 40K RPG products like Only War and Dark Heresey. Limited to a closed ended d100 system, things are only vaguely interesting when effective chances for success hover around the middle of the random number span- say 30-70 percent chances.
This results in a game that represents the mighty genetically enhanced superhuman Space Marines with stats only 10 points higher than normal men... so maybe a base 58% to hit instead of 48%. The mind is underwhelmed by such power. Instead it's 'Talents" (i.e. special abilities, i.e. Chrome) that's suppose to make up the difference. There are more Talents in the game than all the core rules (stats and skills) combined. And once again, the core rules are by themselves, rather boring to play.
I believe that Design by Exception is by its nature poor design. Instead the core mechanics themselves should scale from the lowest creature to the mightiest. Chrome should be just that, little things that makes those core mechanics pop just a bit more, not be something that buries them.
To pull this off those core mechanics need to be interesting of and by themselves. A fact that is basically impossible individually, but quite obtainable in combination. Consider the individual chess pieces, by themselves their movement rules are simple and boring, but in combination against the board the result is vastly more engaging.
I don't see any modern designer attempting such outcomes. Raised on endless D&D editions, they are only recycling failed concepts while wondering why their market is shrinking. They have only themselves to blame.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Sandboxes are to be Outgrown
Sandbox campaigns are so... boring.
We played in that concept back in the mid-70s after wandering around pointlessly in a dungeon crawl exploring and looting- all to no real end except imaginary fame and imaginary fortune.
A bit before Judge's Guild started producing their products, we wandered out of the dungeon into a huge map, and basically treated it like another dungeon bounded by hex lines instead of the interior D&D grid. We wandered and explored, and looted. I suppose the imaginary fame and fortune was greater.
I liken the experience to most of Arthur C. Clark's books. We went interesting places, met interesting people, and (unlike Clark's books) may or may not have killed them and took their stuff- but really nothing special happened. With ultimate freedom comes ultimate meaninglessness.
And certainly nothing happened that matched the epic fantasy works that had captured our imagination and caused us to play these silly games in the first place. The hopes of recreating them died with every roll of a d20.
We wanted Lord of the Rings, and what we got was Conan (in Platemail because you needed the AC in those days)- who's age of 'adventure' is in the source materials rightly forgotten, for in the end he didn't matter.
Sandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox. They are without exception small minded, for to add an epic overarching story to is to destroy the sandbox. They are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.
As the decade closed, we burned all the old material, never to return. The past was wasted and it was time to move on to better things.
We traded large random hexmaps for for larger worlds with many stories on different but yet interrelated levels. Like an extensive web, they will ensnare those who pass by and they will deal or not according to their talents. We traded useless freedoms for purpose searched for and found. We put pointed questions to the adventurers, and didn't meekly respond to their base passions.
You couldn't pay me to play in a sandbox. The mere talk of them, and the old school play example threads that I encounter on the web confirm our decisions to toss it all into the fire. If that was the whole of gaming, I'd stay home to watch NCIS repeats.
These days I don't think people can outgrow D&D and sandboxes on their own. The hobby doesn't have the experimental air that resulted in other options back in the 70s and 80s, and the internet wars have hardened people to cling thoughtlessly to what they used to do as if that's was all there is. The OSR buried themselves in the trenches they dug defending against change, be it from the Forge or WotC, or well- anything.
Look at the hobby, its corpse is fossilizing.
We played in that concept back in the mid-70s after wandering around pointlessly in a dungeon crawl exploring and looting- all to no real end except imaginary fame and imaginary fortune.
A bit before Judge's Guild started producing their products, we wandered out of the dungeon into a huge map, and basically treated it like another dungeon bounded by hex lines instead of the interior D&D grid. We wandered and explored, and looted. I suppose the imaginary fame and fortune was greater.
I liken the experience to most of Arthur C. Clark's books. We went interesting places, met interesting people, and (unlike Clark's books) may or may not have killed them and took their stuff- but really nothing special happened. With ultimate freedom comes ultimate meaninglessness.
And certainly nothing happened that matched the epic fantasy works that had captured our imagination and caused us to play these silly games in the first place. The hopes of recreating them died with every roll of a d20.
We wanted Lord of the Rings, and what we got was Conan (in Platemail because you needed the AC in those days)- who's age of 'adventure' is in the source materials rightly forgotten, for in the end he didn't matter.
Sandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox. They are without exception small minded, for to add an epic overarching story to is to destroy the sandbox. They are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.
As the decade closed, we burned all the old material, never to return. The past was wasted and it was time to move on to better things.
We traded large random hexmaps for for larger worlds with many stories on different but yet interrelated levels. Like an extensive web, they will ensnare those who pass by and they will deal or not according to their talents. We traded useless freedoms for purpose searched for and found. We put pointed questions to the adventurers, and didn't meekly respond to their base passions.
You couldn't pay me to play in a sandbox. The mere talk of them, and the old school play example threads that I encounter on the web confirm our decisions to toss it all into the fire. If that was the whole of gaming, I'd stay home to watch NCIS repeats.
These days I don't think people can outgrow D&D and sandboxes on their own. The hobby doesn't have the experimental air that resulted in other options back in the 70s and 80s, and the internet wars have hardened people to cling thoughtlessly to what they used to do as if that's was all there is. The OSR buried themselves in the trenches they dug defending against change, be it from the Forge or WotC, or well- anything.
Look at the hobby, its corpse is fossilizing.
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