Hiatus? Already?

Ok, I'm not happy with the quality of writing here, so I'm gonna take a beak. If you need a fix (all 0 of you) i recommend checking out kill the wizard first for a bit, both the articles and the more comprehensive collection of links to other gaming places.

I'll be back eventually...

Best Game Company?

So, most every major TTRPG that companies have come out with has serious balance issues:

• DnD 3.x: does mages vs. fighters really need a link?
• Pathfinder: the lowdown
• DnD 4e: a "good character" (the responses, not neccesarily the first post)
• nWoD: I can't speak to this as much, but for reasons below (and new mage's "lol atlantis" fluff) I don't have much faith in WW
• Exalted: Anatomy of failure
• Aberrant: various views (this is by no means a major system, but I like fiddling with it occasionally. Also both the bits where 1) claws power vs. str enhancement, where one option is both cheaper and better in every way and 2) the default character creation that allows for characters that would be 306-1198xp if bought with that, makes me giggle)
• Scion: anything past Hero level. Dex is already the god stat, so how do you even fight without maxing out epic Dex? and why are the aesir dex-screwed? What does 10 successes even look like and why doesn't that do half the things dex knacks do?

Yeah, this is entirely about the mechanics, but thats what the systems are for. Obligatory proabably repetitive disclaimer; yes, you can run a good game in any system. But that means your GM is great, not the system is. The measure of the system how much less work it is for the GM and players to get what they want than the alternatives. And for most parties, balance is a concern, which is a sizable part of why you use a system rather than freeform.

In some games these are starting characters,

in some they are balanced with each other,

in some they are both

Basically it seems game companies just suck at playtesting. Like really suck. And economics and demand say they aren't gonna fix it, cause theres enough other stuff in their products that unbalanced mechanics don't nix the deal...mostly. The bigger issue is that they have limited time even when they do playtest, so they won't find everything the rabid masses of obsessed fans will. Charop boards thrive on this fact.

So if the only way to truly stress test a system is to give it to hoards of powergaming fans; in a perfect world (or at least one where 1) companies didn't care about giving away product for free or 2) people would still buy the finished product after having the drafts of the system) we'd just do that. I mean homebrews start as small things or houserules to something established, but if a group put its mind to it theres no reason the people that brought you Crystal Keep and all the "The 3.5 X class handbook" threads that reviewed every option from every splatbook couldn't turn their efforts to actually balancing things, instead of noting the problems and moving on. And this does occur sometimes, but what i'm saying is this writ large accross a whole game, including its fundamentals.

Wikis and boards and such allow input from all sides, and the real issue is everyone having the same goal; a clear statement of purpose outlining direction and philosophy is essential here. So many design calls come down to preference and style, so having a cohesive idea of what the game is for and whats most valued (cinematic vs. gritty, ease of use, flexibililty, etc.) saves allot of repetitive arguments later.

I guess I'm saying gamers, properly motivated and organized, would form their best group of suppliers. If theres any group that would voluntarily put in the time both figuring out fair dice mechanics and fluffing out new setting to go with them it'd be the people in this hobby.

(Those drawn to the mechanics, anyway; I know allot of people play socially or only care about story and often handwave mechanics, which is great for them and their groups. The arcane (not in the magic sense) structure of say dnd 3.5e can attracts a type of person who is great for this, though.)

Why play?

Why do we play rpgs? I mean theres tons of reasons and they'll be different for everyone, but it feels like theres some common core. So much that lots have tried to voice it (and left pictures), but I found a part recently that often gets left out.

...on 4chan of all places. Yet another diamond in the shitpile. It was a thread about 3 wishes, but the genie was bored with wishes for "power in the most uncreative ways possible", more wishes, the best at X, etc., and wanted to be entertained. The question was what do you wish for to deal with those limitations?

One response was of course:

1. Wish for her to be entertained by my wishes
2. "I want huge amounts of power in the least creative ways possible"
3. Wish for more wishes

Problem solving at its best.
 

The interesting one though was:

I wish to be placed in a world that needs active, obvious heroes, rather than the subtle evils and horrible repercussions of my homeland, and to have all the knowledge of such a hero when I get there. if possible, I ask for her to stay with me, freed from the bottle, as my guide and possible ally.

If this is impossible, she's clearly worthless, so I wish for her to be unable to get bored with granting wishes.

which really struck a cord with me, why I play, and particularly the types of characters and games I like to play. I mean it seems like allot of problems in the world are intwined in these complex systems, that are hard to grasp and require some kind of systemic change...

This isn't quite the problem, but close.

And not only is it so much simpler if you could directly fix something, like kill the dragon terrorizing people or overthrow the evil king, but then you have the sense of achievement of having done something. Eternal vigilance may be more realistic or a fitting resolution for certain characters to end on, but there's something satisfying about "And they shall trouble your lands no more!"

Now, this isn't to say I only like hack and slash, or think campaigns should be that simple; to the contrary I really like mystery plots, where you have to piece things together and figure them out. If I had to pick the best source inspirational material for a campaign, right now I'd say Planetary hands down, but there even if the overarcing direction is unclear, there is stuff to do each issue, and behind it is eventually an opponent to "fight" ...rather than something like societal issues being behind the problem, or "the apathy of the common man".

 

There are of course MANY other reasons, like hanging out with friends and exploring characters/settings/ideas, too:

Red Alert 3 Sucks..for me

Gah! I hadn't really played a good RTS in a while and wanted to like RA3 for wacky units and fun action. And I enjoyed the feel of the Japanese mechs right up until it became blindingly obvious it punished my playstyle and rewarded more effort than I wanted to put in to playing it.

It has insectoid walkers with tesla turrets
and I still don't like it now! (It took allot of work, but RA3 managed it)

 

Mainly, it seems to heavily punish massing units and favors lots of hit and run raids. Not only do others use general powers to knockout any sizable force you mass and aren't moving, but a superweapon and general power seems to take out your base in one strike, even if you're otherwise doing fine.

Ok, maybe I just suck and to be fair that late in the game I should've had a second construction yard instead of just outposts, but still. I don't want like 2 tanks and stuff knocking things over and running off. I want a grand army of many mighty tanks rolling forward for an epic battle...

Worked in RA2; in RA3 satelites fall and crush all of them

...but if you try that here they get sucked into space or planes crash into them or whatever as the game laughs at you for having more than 4 of the same unit in a group in the same place as you wait to build more. That is, even rallying them in my well defended base they still get fragged. Also rocket angels are the only units that don't need others to protect them =P

If I wanted tactical strikes I'd do something squad based; why make a game about armies and not let you use an army rather than a strike force?

(tl;dr: RA 3 doesn't fit my playstyle)
Credit: 1st pic from westwood website video, 2nd from RA2

Classes and Races...again

(tl;dr: fluff and mechanics should support each other & vice versa)

So recently I started lurking over at The Gaming Den. Normally I peruse RPG.net, but the other night I was actually reading /tg/ rather than just saving pictures and they linked to the Sins of 4e thread. I hadn't kept up with 4e after it was released, so hearing its "ending" was news, but the list of its flaws was more interesting.

Especially the "Racial Determinism". This one stuck not because its any more valid or problematic than the others, like the narrow classes say, but because its some friends have been dealing with in their derivative of dnd 3.x. Its almost too extensive to be called a rewrite, with rebalancing everything core, to the point fighters are competitive with casters (madness, I know). But having settled on the core classes and leveled out the +0 LA races, they too were looking at what races were best as what classes.

For background, this is power gamers trying to balance a system; one tenet of their design philosophy is "if option X is mechanically weaker than Y, then players don't really have a choice", which is their way of saying a choice between "playing my concept" and "being effective" means your design has failed since concepts should be equally valid, i.e. one isn't mechanically penalized over another.

With this view, the analysis had results ranging from:

• Everyone with +(X stat) is good for this class; do we want to narrow this?
• Only (Y race) is good for this class; do they need a nerf so other options are competitive?
• (Z race) is only good at one class, but on par with others for it right now; how do we make them decent for others while not making them so good to be the only choice for this one?

If the system favors this, is it design failure or design aweseomeness?

 

And this may smack of obviousness, but the common point to me is that racial determinism isn't a bad thing, but inherent to these kinds of rules; Frank Trollman, these friends, and anyone who can do math are in total agreement here. The issue is if the optimized builds support the setting and genre tropes. you don't even have to make it so everyone is good at everything, just so the people who should be are (and labeling who's good at what clearly and correctly goes along way to not trapping newbies).

My friends' goal was to have a few core races for each class, and a few classes for each race, so there were options. But ones that made sense, as there were comments like "dwarves are good fighters, but they should be decent paladins and clerics...ok even with this buff they're not wizards, but I don't think anyone cares" or "elf barbarians are good now; is this a problems or ok?"

Restrictions can help define the setting; in allot of specific games like DnD, the issue is not being able to do things that you can in the source material, but in general games like HERO system, not regulating things can destroy the feel of the world too. In summary, as always, fluff and crunch need to match or things get wonky.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only ...Rainbows!
(Though if thats the feel you're going for, go for it ;)

Episode IV: A New Hope

...but that leaves out RPGs and other games. Which brings us to here. More to come.

As to the name: Cognitive Dissonance + Metacognition = something interesting to consider and suitably unique for a blog name.