Balance and Choice Where Balance and Choice Shouldn't Exist

Been spending some time playing Star Trek Online of late. Over its three year life, they've done some interesting things. Perhaps the most worthwhile was creating a number of different play modes- you can do nothing but ground missions (typical MMO stuff), or nothing but Space Missions (fly a starship), or nothing but order your crew around in Duty Officer Missions (compared to a type of farmsville by some players).

Or do a mix. And while doing any of the above, you can help your guild (called a Fleet in this game) build their Starbase and other things. For an MMORPG, the ability to play in so many different ways is a welcome change from everyone doing the same thing.

One of the downsides is that it's a textbook case of 'game balance', 'assumed advancement' and 'player choice' destroying the realism of the setting.

-Everyone gets to be a vice-admiral. And vice-admirals still command single ships, just like captains, or Lieutenants for that matter. You can't swing a cat without hitting a dozen vice-admirals.

-At the top end, all the ships have to be roughly equal. No matter what they should actually be. This becomes more strange when (due to the need for player choice), you have ships in play with service dates that are hundreds of years apart according to the official timeline. Small ships, medium ships, huge ships, old ships, new ships, future ships- all the same.

-It's very common for Federation Captains to use non-Federation Ships. They might be Breen, Ferengi, or Jem'hadar. Whatever the case, they make up half the Fleet. But no Klingon ships... because... well... it beats me why that is now that I think about it. It's likely to make sure that there is some difference in PvP... yes, the PvP that most agree doesn't work well (IMO it's because the Klingons just flatly have better ships so there's no reason for a Federation player to go in there- unless of course he's flying a non-Federation ship).

-While everything is roughly equal, the truth is that small advantages are big deals for many players. So the 'uber' players chase those small advantages. Oddly enough for a Federation centric TV show and game, those small advantages are found on the non-Federation ships. The fact that those ships can only be gained by buying 'keys' for random content 'lockboxes' is perhaps the biggest money maker for the makers of the game. And the reason so many Federation players fly ships that don't belong to the Federation.

All the above is frankly silly at best. Downright stupid in fact when matched against any standard of simulation and realism.

But in the end I think it's unavoidable. It's driven both by the needs of a MMORPG and by the sheer size of the setting that it's attempting to model. How does the game attract players like me who liked the TOS but not the latter stuff? Simple, by having some of TOS stuff in the game that's playable (this needs more work actually as they really don't have anything outside the uniforms and ship interiors). And the reverse applies.

In a real sense, the game can't ever make sense due to the requirement to appeal to too wide of a user base with multiple subgroups thereof having serious expectation differences. Add in the need for MMO 'balance', and realism/simulation is not just dead- it's been buried, dug up by ghouls, and eaten.

But that's been the case with Star Trek for decades now. One just ignores it and plays the game.

There's a advantage and lesson here for players of table top PnP RPGs.

The advantage is that their settings can be alter to make sense to the players that make up the group, they are not bound by the concerns that bind an MMO- and for that reason they are very different hobby.

The lesson is to be careful of the holy concepts of balance and choice- it is often little more than deciding to be dumb.

A Stream of Thought...

Been spending some time with the new Rohan expansion for Lord of the Rings Online (mounted combat is nicely done) and with Star Trek Online (liking their changes, which seem mostly to benefit small groups like mine). In general I enjoyed the time spent, but as always I find how other people react and certain elements of the game designs to be... interesting.

So a stream of thought post, that while spawned by MMORPGs tend to also apply to PnP RPGs as well:

- There is a odd belief among players that playing until you get a random drop indicates more player skill than grinding until you get a fixed price item. Unlike the case of Santa, I've never figured out the basis for this belief or any use for it.

- Game designers like to hit people coming and going. Not only does it cost more to level up something in obvious terms- like more Starbase XP for the higher Fleet Base tiers in STO online, it also costs more at each tier to get the same amount of Starbase XP. It like saying the next level costs $5, but each $1 costs you $3 now. Very odd, it's like designers are trying to hide something- and end up doing it very poorly.

- Game designers like large numbers. In Lord of the Rings Online you earn a certain token in batches of 5, and spend them in batches of 5. Why not earn them as single items and spend them as single items? After all *everything* is in groups of 5. When did inflation become game feature? Silly question, it was that way from the beginning of the hobby. I think they are just trying to look impressive, and (for me) failing.

- Speaking of player skill, generally it isn't. Most players are just spending their time and using the gear and abilities that gains them in simple ways. A small bit of the content is memorizing fixed tactics that haven't changed since that content was introduced. Skill has about as much to do with it as the weather. The same is true of PnP RPGs, for after all the GM in one way or the other will conform his game to his players (and yes that includes the so-called Sandbox GMs). The truth is that the player will naturally play at the level that interests him, and no other- thus he's always doing skilled play, but only by his own definition.

- Speaking of Sandboxes, they aren't. At best, they're just the offloading from the GM the work of determining the adventure to the players determining the adventure- or they're random encounters. Neither one impresses a person playing attention. Most Sandbox fans don't pay attention.

- Much of the hobby (MMORPGs and PnP RPGs) is an illusion, little lies we tell ourselves. But like watching TV or Movies (to name a couple of other things that aren't real), such things are fun. But we should keep it in mine that it's smoke and mirrors and not take it too seriously. And at the same time, we shouldn't do it poorly, but should strive to do it well. A bit of tightrope that.

Do Rewards Matter?

Something of an observation.
 
Every now and then I see someone make a claim about how in-game rewards drive player behavior in RPGs. One example is the thought that giving out XP for treasure and killing monsters provides a different play experience than giving the XP only for killing monsters. The concept of 'reward what you want players to do' was one of the holy revelations of Forge gaming theory... and like they were right about so much else (Not!).

I have to admit, it does sound reasonable. Incentives are powerful motivators in many fields.

But I have my doubts. In my own gaming history we went from XP for treasure and monsters, to XP only for monsters, to XP for playing that evening. At no time did our actual play experience or gaming methods change.

I think the reason why there was no link for us, is that we really weren't playing to advance our characters. Not directly anyway. We were playing to have the adventure, and while I don't think we stopped to think about it- we realized that XP just raised the bar on what we'd be with dealing next time. In a real sense, it didn't matter. Sure having new spells or more HP is nice, but nicer was having a good time in the adventure currently being played.

Since we had a different goal, the in-game incentive didn't alter our play. And we ended up changing things only because we grew tired of calculating what the XP was.

So the advice of 'reward what you want' in game design doesn't really apply to me. And it doesn't appear in my game designs as a result. And I'm happy that way, and upon reflection realize that I likely wouldn't be happy in a group that really cared about the offered rewards.

A Gamer's Manifesto

1. I reject the fallacy that holding to a “One True Way” in gaming is an evil. Not all methods are equal, and we should strive not for the mediocrity that ‘everything is just taste’- but instead reach for and only accept the best.
2. I reject that assertion that all game designs are broken. They may not be a perfect one, but it's not difficult to get close enough for practical purposes
3. I reject the assertion that realism and simulation is impossible in game design. Again, it’s not difficult to get close enough to meet one’s needs.
4. I reject the assertion that the GM owes the players anything other than an impartial campaign that offers mysteries and excitement. Success and Failure is dependent entirely upon their skill in play, or its lack.
5. I reject the idea that GMs or RPG Design should seek to tell stories, they are games and should in themselves be fun and exciting enough that stories naturally result from play.
6. I reject rules that make decisions for the characters. Players should make decisions for their characters.
7. I reject the idea that RPGs cannot be played completely by the rules (or at worse the rules plus a reasonable amount of house rules) as written.
8. I reject the idea that playing by the Rules as Written is not role-playing. Rules are physics, Role-playing is decisions and expressions.
9. I reject the idea that GM judgment is the equal or superior of objective resolution in key areas such as combat and skill resolution.
10. The GM powers are restricted to creating the world, and ends both at the mind of the player character and the boundary of the physics engines presented by rules.
11. I reject the concept of play without the equal of a map and miniatures together with solid rules covering the elements of range, line of sight, and terrain. Any other style of play is lazy and nothing more than dependence upon GM handouts.
12. I reject the concept of 'rules getting out of the way'. RPGs are games, and the rules should engage and interest the players.

Returning to Middle Earth

We completed our trip back to Shadowrun, completing what was in effect a completely reworked adventure loosely based upon the original Shadow Run module Harlequin's Back- with no Harlequin (one of the worst NPCs in gaming history IMO), completely changed up meta-planes (after the first two) and so many other differences that really very little of he original remained. Consider the conversion to HERO System and all the other background changes I made, par for the course with SR. I really should come up with a different name for it as there's very little indeed of the original game in anything we do.

It all worked out nicely, and the SR campaign is back in the holding Parking Lot.

In its place we've turned to a period in Middle Earth of interest to one of my players. The island of Númenor at the beginning of the second millennium of the Second Age. The players want to explore the far reaches of Middle Earth as members of the greatest empire the world has ever seen. The setting presents a number of challenges as it's more magic rich than later eras and very little official background exists.

I'm expecting it to be a blast. Assuming that they don't all die, which judging from the last couple of adventures is all too likely. And assuming that the minor (and less capable actually) characters of the ship's crew don't keep showing them up like they have been.

Ah the joys of gaming.