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Stealth technology is Out-of-Scope for Aeronef genre conventions. No flying submarines.
Now, I am glad you mention that escorts have a lot of utility! I tired to add that into Castles in the Sky in the following ways:
1. Escorts can add Point Defense to larger ships within X MU. - Narrativist
2. Escorts give bonuses to Initiative dice rolled, which can lead to earning more special commands. - Gamist
3. Escorts have the most speed and maneuverability, allowing them to choose when and how to engage larger ships. - Simulationist
4. Escorts can be used for establishing LOS for other ships. - Narrativist
I have had previous threads about how to make Escorts useful beyond their ability to shoot stuff or absorb hits, these various ideas were designed to lean into various parts of the triangle.
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Easy E wrote: 1. Escorts can add Point Defense to larger ships within X MU. - Narrativist
2. Escorts give bonuses to Initiative dice rolled, which can lead to earning more special commands. - Gamist
3. Escorts have the most speed and maneuverability, allowing them to choose when and how to engage larger ships. - Simulationist
4. Escorts can be used for establishing LOS for other ships. - Narrativist
This is really highlighting how the triangle doesn't work as a model. Your category assignments here are completely arbitrary and could easily go in different categories. Why is escorts adding point defense bonuses a "narrativist" mechanic while escorts adding initiative bonuses is a "gamist" mechanic? Why is escorts establishing LOS a "narrativist" mechanic when it's a textbook example of a simulationist mechanic that represents exactly how the "real" ships were supposed to work? It really feels like you started with a set of mechanics and then arbitrarily split them up into different categories to justify the triangle model.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Easy E wrote: However, you can't really have a "flying Battleship" game with Submarines.
Why not? Maybe in your specific setting you can't have them for Reasons but I don't see any reason that has to be a genre-wide rule.
So the challenge as a designer is how to make an escort worth taking.... ever!
And again you're conceding the weaknesses of the triangle, or at least your interpretation of it. The simulationist argument is that if escorts aren't wroth taking in the lore then escorts just aren't a major ship class and won't see much use. You're coming up with supposed simulationist mechanics involving escorts but the whole thing is just you taking an exclusively gamist approach and designing for balance and strategy depth rather than narrative or realism.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/07/27 21:08:48
Easy E wrote: Well, sorry it isn't useful for you guys.
Could someone recommend a different model I should be using to think about these issues?
Not a specific model but the general way to frame it is that different player archetypes (and there may be any number of them depending on your specific game/genre) have different needs but those needs are largely independent. A mechanic might benefit A at the expense of B, or A and B at the expense of C, or be a win for everyone, or even be a bad idea for everyone. And you may want a mass-appeal game where you try to keep everyone reasonably happy or a carefully targeted game that appeals to a specific audience as much as possible with no real concern given to other player types.
Easy E wrote: Well, sorry it isn't useful for you guys.
Could someone recommend a different model I should be using to think about these issues?
I think the best place to start is to examine the game as a simulation and ask yourself: "What role am I asking the players to assume?"
Are they fleet commanders? Flotilla leaders? Unitary national commanders?
Once you know that, the decision tree (and scale) starts to take shape. Again, I'm an odd duck - I did tons of wargaming growing up and then found myself in a higher headquarters contending with questions of what a commander actually needs to know.
So if we jump back to the naval example (which is useful), what role is the player assuming? Are they selecting a task force from scratch, or trying to use the assets available to them? A lot of the r/p/s element comes from players wanting to build their own fleets and min-maxing ship designs/tactical options.
There is a built-in bias against all lists looking the same, so designers go to extra efforts to create a variety of lists.
But in the real world, fleets all tend towards a certain mean because it balances all the factors we've discussed, like firepower, protection, speed and situational awareness (scouting).
To put it another way, no one playing a ground-based game would imagine an all-heavy tank force with zero scouts.
So, I think GNS theory and the BIG model are pretty terrible for a lot a reasons.
I could go into how it's creator was a toxic mess who said everyone who didn't agree with it was brain damaged, but that goes down a rabbit hole of issues that don't actually address the theories issues on their own merits. So sticking to the facts of GNS I would say the biggest issue is that the underlying principles on which the whole thing is built are fundamentally flawed.
GNS both proposes that these 3 factors are the 3 major game types AND that those are the 3 major motivators of players. Thus players are Gamists, Narrativists, or Simulationists and that they get the most enjoyment from a game that builds to their type. This idea of both the game types and player motivations were built of the idea of the (completely debunked as psuedo science nonsense) Meyers-Briggs personality types. So from the get go we have an idea built off an inherently flawed idea. But he goes further and builds worse. GNS theory goes on to state that a game that isn't "pure" in it's typing is thus a muddied experience and a inherently inferior game design.
Easy E, you are proposing the idea of you can do 2 but not all 3, and the creator of GNS would tell you you need to get that down to doing 1.
A different proposal of player motivations (that gathered actual data and is more useful though came to bad conclusions) was the Bartel Test. Now the Bartel Test was based on Meyers-Briggs to see % of player motivations in MMOs. So bad. But Bartel broke down player motivations into Killers, Achievers, Explorers, and Socializers. Bartel argued that a game based on PvP would appeal to killers. So on and so forth. But Bartel came to bad conclusions with his data. The one important take away from Bartel's data is that every result, Every. Single. One. had some % in all 4 categories. No player is only 1 thing. No player is 0% in any category.
When you look at GNS and the Bartel test and their failures it's that they tried to put games and players in boxes and build walls where no wall should exist.
In World of Warcraft they have PvP battlegrounds and whatever. And they get you gear. But that gear is only really good for PvP. So they put their Killer/Achievers in a box never considering that those players are ALSO explorers and socializers and that part of their achiever motivation would be served by doing dungeons and raids. Likewise they made raid gear bad for PvP so that players who went down that path felt that they couldn't compete in the BGs fairly so their killer motivation went unsatisfied.
The goal of good design is engagement and elegance in design. Simple mechanics with emergent play that keep players engaged. WH40k is a bad game because it is not engaging. It's long periods of downtime. The actual interaction with your opponent is minimal because you play against a (99%) static field on your turn. You make your moves, you take your shots, your opponent (HAS TO) roll their saves, and then you pass control over to the other guy. Its DREADFUL.
More important than thinking about GNS is thinking about engagement. Whether that engagement comes from gamist or narrativist elements doesn't matter. Dread is a TTRPG that uses a gamist mechanic (a Jenga Tower) as it's only mechanic to tell horror stories (a purely narrativist experience). The creator of GNS would call Dread awful in it's design. But it's SO elegant and SO engaging. With every action a player removes a block and in so doing builds tension over play as the tower becomes more precarious. Knock over the tower and you die. A GREAT game.
I don't think about GNS at all. And nobody should. It's built on a foundation of complete nonsense. The only thing that really matters is getting players engaged. Does this mechanic elegantly feed into the game play experience? Does it keep the player engaged? Are they making interesting choices? That can be a Dread or it can be Tetris. Doesn't matter. Fans of Tetris are not mutually exclusive from fans of Dread. And that should tell you everything you need to know about GNS.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Tyran wrote: Then the question would be what is "elegance"?
Simplicity versus Complexity. (As defined within Game Design)
An elegant design is simple. If you can take the equation of the mechanic and simplify it to it's MOST simple form to get the same effect then it is a elegant rule. When elegant rules interact in ways that create emergent game play, the results of their interactions are greater than the sum of their parts, you have elegant design.
In Dungeons and Dragons you generate your attributes by the following steps.
1) Roll 4d6 2) remove the lowest die and add the other 3 together. 3-12) do this 5 more times 13) assign a total to an attribute 14-18) 5 more times. 19) Perform the equation (((Attribute - 10) / 2) round down) or look up a chart to do the math for you to get a attribute modifier. 20-24) Do it 5 more times.
OR! Your attributes could just be the modifiers. Strength 3 instead of Strength 17 (+3). The complexity doesn't add anything to the game play experience. It's complication and the end result is you only use the modifier anyway.
Forbidden Lands gives you 13-15 attribute points to spend across 4 attributes. Everything needs to be minimum 2. So really 5-7 steps of spending points and then you're done.
This isn't even factoring in how much illusion of choice is in DnDs attributes or how much of a waste it is for a wizards strength score. It doesn't tell you how each attribute in FbL is like a health bar and so there are no "dump stats".
One of those is more elegant and the other is a complex mess.
An elegant design has trimmed all it's fat. In so doing it's as close as it can be to a engine of pure game play. Game Play of course being a series of interesting choices.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A thought I just had to add to that. Elegant Game Design is like elegant programing code.
You can have long complex resource intensive code that eats a lot of resources and takes forever to run and gets the the output. Or you have have this streamlined simple code that ultimately gets you the same result but does so with a fraction of the costs.
Elegant design works. And it works well without waste.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2023/07/28 16:29:23
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
I think the idea of 4 boxes of peoples is pretty old, and yeah no one fits 100% into each box. However, there are preferences that people lean to, and to make it even more complicated people lean into different preferences at different points in time, for different reasons! There is the HBDI model for communication and thinking styles that has Controllers, Networkers, Relationship, and Analytics. Basically, a different version of Killers, Acheivers, Socializers, and Explorers.
Therefore, to use Bartel's categories of Killers, Achievers, Socializers, and Explorers a game needs to try to create spaces that appeal to all 4 groups within the framework of the game IF they want to appeal to a broad group of players.
However, it is still pretty obvious to me that the more you lean into one of the categories above for part of your game, the further you go from the other part. As a Designer, just know what parts you are leaning into when, and more importantly why. it really doesn't matter how you label the poles per se.
Really, it is a model for making design choices that fit your design goals..... no matter what the model or the goals are of the game.
I would also argue that there is no "right" goals for a game. Lance says it is elegance and emergent game play. I say it is meaningful choices. Some people say it is balance. Some say it is appealing to a broad base of players. The important thing is that the game does what the designer intended it to do. Different mechanics lead to different outcomes, the tough part is aligning those outcomes to the goals of the game.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/07/28 18:58:13
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Easy E wrote: I think the idea of 4 boxes of peoples is pretty old, and yeah no one fits 100% into each box. However, there are preferences that people lean to, and to make it even more complicated people lean into different preferences at different points in time, for different reasons! There is the HBDI model for communication and thinking styles that has Controllers, Networkers, Relationship, and Analytics. Basically, a different version of Killers, Acheivers, Socializers, and Explorers.
Therefore, to use Bartel's categories of Killers, Achievers, Socializers, and Explorers a game needs to try to create spaces that appeal to all 4 groups within the framework of the game IF they want to appeal to a broad group of players.
I think there is value in understanding player motivations. Understanding what motivates players is important for creating engagement. Placing players into distinct boxes of motivations and saying this guy over here is only ever motivated by that boxes criteria is where there is a problem.
The GNS model attempts to categorize not just player motivations but games by those distinct boxes. That isn't useful for anyone.
I would also argue that there is no "right" goals for a game. Lance says it is elegance and emergent game play. I say it is meaningful choices. Some people say it is balance. Some say it is appealing to a broad base of players. The important thing is that the game does what the designer intended it to do. Different mechanics lead to different outcomes, the tough part is aligning those outcomes to the goals of the game.
Small correction,
The goals is -Engagement- and elegant design. Meaningful choices are engaging choices. We are in agreement on the player facing side of design. I want the players to be making choices and for those choice to be engaging meaningful choices. That is the very definition of game play. But the fact that the choices are meaningful and engaging isn't enough if each choice is accompanied by massive downtime (See 40k). The whole game play experience needs to be engaging. From what happens within a decision point to the time between decision points. As much as is possible.
On MY side of the equation I want my mechanics to be elegant. If I can accomplish this engaging series of meaningful choice with the simplest set of rules possible then I have created a engine for fun to be proud of.
However, it is still pretty obvious to me that the more you lean into one of the categories above for part of your game, the further you go from the other part. As a Designer, just know what parts you are leaning into when, and more importantly why. it really doesn't matter how you label the poles per se.
Really, it is a model for making design choices that fit your design goals..... no matter what the model or the goals are of the game.
To address this, I am going to discuss Pokemon.
Pokemon is a game that hits all 4 categories of player motivations without losing anything.
The explorers are given a new region in every game and these new regions include a bunch of locations with nooks and crannies to explore. Items can be found by going off the beaten path and little rewards await everyone for literally spending their time exploring. Some of these items help evolve pokemon or teach them moves, or do other things that feed into other player motivations. Each section of the region (usually roads called routes) include a list of potential pokemon that can be caught there. Part of that exploration is seeing under what conditions you can find what things. Some pokemon only come out at night. Some need to be fished for. etc etc... Exploring the world they put you in is a key component of the game.
The achievers are given a large list of pokemon to capture (currently breaking 1000) with shiny versions on top of that. "Gotta Catch Em' All!", right? Pokemon have sizes so you can hunt or attempt to breed abnormally large or small ones. All kinds of stuff. If your goal is to accomplish gak, Pokemon gives you gak to accomplish. But it's not just completeing the pokedex. It's also finding all the TMs and HMs that teach pokemon moves. It's getting all the badges. It's finding all the items that give pokemon unique features (changing forms, adjusting types, mega evolutions, etc etc... (honestly this part of the game is exhausting to me at this point.)).
The socializers are an in built feature of the 2 versions of the games since the beginning. Social interaction and trading is the bread and butter of the series. In addition, some pokemon only evolve when traded, making social aspects a component of meeting achievement aspects. It's not just a social aspect online. There is a in person social aspect to playing a pokemon game.
And finally the Killers. Now killers are not simply PvP according to Bartel. Killers want to face and overcome challenges. And mostly the best challenges come from other players. Defeating the elite 4 and becoming the Pokemon champion is a goal within the game that appeals to the killers. It also appeals to the achievers. But the game goes a step further. it allows you to take that 1000+ pokemon, trade for pokemon you want, breed them for stats, training them with the skills of your choosing, and develop a team to compete against other players (building a social aspect into the Killer game as well). The COMPETITION is the motivation of the killer.
Pokemon is a game built from it's core to give avenues of appeasing all 4 player motivations as proposed by Bartel. You don't loose anything from any of them when the game builds for another. In fact, they all work synergistically together. A individual player can partake in all, some, or only 1 of those avenues if thats what they enjoy and it doesn't stop them or tell them they need to turn around and do something else. The game is simply designed in such a way that player motivations are accounted for.
Games don't need to pick 1 or 2 or risk loosing something by spreading too thin. Games need to be built to incorporate elegantly so that the players are engaged.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2023/07/28 20:30:29
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Lance845 wrote: The goal of good design is engagement and elegance in design. Simple mechanics with emergent play that keep players engaged. WH40k is a bad game because it is not engaging. It's long periods of downtime.
I completely disagree with this assessment. There are lots of games that use alternating turns and these can have a high engagement if done right. What you call "downtime" is actually space for the player to watch the play space evolve and begin to develop counters when it is his turn.
There is a wide space for "beer and pretzel" wargames like Risk, Axis and Allies, the old MB "Gamemaster" series that are primarily social and don't require massive amounts of mental investment.
I'm also going to rise to defend D&D (especially it's early iteration which seems to have returned in new garb) because the archetypal approach to character generation is very intuitive and results in quick entry into the game. This is why it endures.
In all cases, there is a tendency for rules creep to set in, and expansions and optional rules to slowly strangle what was once an elegant design.
I do agree that "personality tests" are hot garbage. It's not even that people are a blend of them, it's that in gaming people can seek one experience with one game and something else with another. I love the social aspect of games like AH's Civilization, but I also enjoy immersive and detailed simulations, and I'm not alone in this. The diversity of forums on this site is testimony that people will play multiple games in multiple genres.
Gamers gotta game, and while different features appeal to different subsets, there are clear examples of games that hit that sweet spot and became mass-market successes because of it.
Easy E wrote: However, it is still pretty obvious to me that the more you lean into one of the categories above for part of your game, the further you go from the other part.
Hard disagree. For some mechanics favoring one player type will come at the expense of another but that's far from a general rule. Take balance as an easy example. The common (but incorrect IMO) perception is that balance is most important for tournament players and "casual" players don't really care about it. But improving balance for competitive play doesn't come at the expense of anyone else. Casual/social/narrative/etc players don't require overpowered or underpowered options to enjoy the game. In fact, improving balance benefits them by removing the tension between "what is best within the game mechanics" and "what does the story/my best painted models/etc dictate". Improving balance is a win/win for everyone.
(Except, I suppose, the tiny minority of virtue signallers who celebrate balance problems as proof that the designer loves "casual" play and hates competitive players as much as they do, but you don't want to target those TFGs anyway.)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: What you call "downtime" is actually space for the player to watch the play space evolve and begin to develop counters when it is his turn.
Maybe in theory. In practice the game is so shallow and the turns are so long that developing counters is maybe 5% at most of the downtime, the rest is pure waiting. And a big part of that is how the IGOUGO structure makes the game shallow.
I'm also going to rise to defend D&D (especially it's early iteration which seems to have returned in new garb) because the archetypal approach to character generation is very intuitive and results in quick entry into the game. This is why it endures.
I don't see it. RNG stat generation is unrealistic, frustrating, and not intuitive. Derived modifiers are unintuitive and only exist because the system has to use D6s for generation. Point buy systems with direct stats are simpler, more intuitive, and far more satisfying for most players.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/07/28 22:29:34
Lance845 wrote: The goal of good design is engagement and elegance in design. Simple mechanics with emergent play that keep players engaged. WH40k is a bad game because it is not engaging. It's long periods of downtime.
I completely disagree with this assessment. There are lots of games that use alternating turns and these can have a high engagement if done right. What you call "downtime" is actually space for the player to watch the play space evolve and begin to develop counters when it is his turn.
Look, you can try and talk up what that down time is "meant" to he used for all you want. Here is the facts. There is no way for you to plan your next turn until you know how many models in what units you have left and what state they are in. Until wounds have been dealt and MAYBE this new battle shock phase does it's thing nothing you "plan" matters. Once the other players turn starts and they begin moving models you can go make a sandwich or take a gak and it doesn't make any actual difference.
Regardless of how you feel that dead space is meant to be used it is in fact unengaging. That is why players regularly end up staring at their phone, chatting with others around them, and generally doing anything but paying attention to how the other guy is moving his 50 bits of plastic.
There is a wide space for "beer and pretzel" wargames like Risk, Axis and Allies, the old MB "Gamemaster" series that are primarily social and don't require massive amounts of mental investment.
There is! I agree with this. That wide space for those kinds of games doesn't make the bad design decisions in them any less bad. And as designers we should be assessing the good and the bad and trying to learn from them.
I'm also going to rise to defend D&D (especially it's early iteration which seems to have returned in new garb) because the archetypal approach to character generation is very intuitive and results in quick entry into the game. This is why it endures.
I am calling full bs on this. Dnds mechanics are anything but intutive or quick. Its complex and draconian. I can make a character in forbidden lands with life path character generation out of the box within 5 minutes. Equipment and everything. DnD is popular because of brand recognition and a parade of podcasts constantly promoting it despite its rules, not because of them. You might notice the complete lack of episodes dedicated to character creation.
In all cases, there is a tendency for rules creep to set in, and expansions and optional rules to slowly strangle what was once an elegant design.
I do agree that "personality tests" are hot garbage. It's not even that people are a blend of them, it's that in gaming people can seek one experience with one game and something else with another. I love the social aspect of games like AH's Civilization, but I also enjoy immersive and detailed simulations, and I'm not alone in this. The diversity of forums on this site is testimony that people will play multiple games in multiple genres.
Gamers gotta game, and while different features appeal to different subsets, there are clear examples of games that hit that sweet spot and became mass-market successes because of it.
Agree here.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Lance845 wrote: Look, you can try and talk up what that down time is "meant" to he used for all you want. Here is the facts. There is no way for you to plan your next turn until you know how many models in what units you have left and what state they are in. Until wounds have been dealt and MAYBE this new battle shock phase does it's thing nothing you "plan" matters. Once the other players turn starts and they begin moving models you can go make a sandwich or take a gak and it doesn't make any actual difference.
I think in terms of 40k, we're clearly talking past each other. I only play a streamlined version of 2nd, and it's very much possible to note your opponent's moves and then begin to think of what you will do next.
Regardless of how you feel that dead space is meant to be used it is in fact unengaging. That is why players regularly end up staring at their phone, chatting with others around them, and generally doing anything but paying attention to how the other guy is moving his 50 bits of plastic.
The phone thing is annoying, and reflects the collapse of social conventions. Conversation, however, is part of the social experience of gaming and in my experience it's often running commentary on what is going on.
Breaking out of the GW frame, there are quite demanding board games where you really do need the opponent's turn to go and check your supply logs, prepare new orders for the next turn and yes, go to bathroom or get a snack. Having pauses built in is a feature, not a bug.
And I personally hate the inability to make coordinated sweeps in an alternating activation game.
There is! I agree with this. That wide space for those kinds of games doesn't make the bad design decisions in them any less bad. And as designers we should be assessing the good and the bad and trying to learn from them.
Of course not, no one is saying that IGO-UGO is the ne plus ultra of gaming design, I'm merely pointing out that it has its place and purpose. GW's flagrant abuse of it should not condemn the format across the board.
I am calling full bs on this. Dnds mechanics are anything but intutive or quick. Its complex and draconian. I can make a character in forbidden lands with life path character generation out of the box within 5 minutes. Equipment and everything. DnD is popular because of brand recognition and a parade of podcasts constantly promoting it despite its rules, not because of them. You might notice the complete lack of episodes dedicated to character creation.
D&D is the Sherman tank of RPGs. It's old, and if you go trait by trait it is outclassed by multiple rivals, but the thing just keeps trundling on. The quick-start rules get you up and running.
But people can disagree. I think the design was destroyed by decades of clutter, but the core rules are fun and pretty easy.
Lance845 wrote: Look, you can try and talk up what that down time is "meant" to he used for all you want. Here is the facts. There is no way for you to plan your next turn until you know how many models in what units you have left and what state they are in. Until wounds have been dealt and MAYBE this new battle shock phase does it's thing nothing you "plan" matters. Once the other players turn starts and they begin moving models you can go make a sandwich or take a gak and it doesn't make any actual difference.
I think in terms of 40k, we're clearly talking past each other. I only play a streamlined version of 2nd, and it's very much possible to note your opponent's moves and then begin to think of what you will do next.
Well, generally speaking when i bring up a game as an example i think its fair to assume i am not talking about the version that is 8 editions old and house ruled that you play. The fact that the only 40k you do play is houseruled to hell says everything about how bad the game is. I think it goes without saying that we could all house rule 40k until it's completely unrecognizable mechanically and get a different game play experience.
Regardless of how you feel that dead space is meant to be used it is in fact unengaging. That is why players regularly end up staring at their phone, chatting with others around them, and generally doing anything but paying attention to how the other guy is moving his 50 bits of plastic.
The phone thing is annoying, and reflects the collapse of social conventions. Conversation, however, is part of the social experience of gaming and in my experience it's often running commentary on what is going on.
No it doesn't. The game itself should be engaging. If its not engaging people fill their downtime with distractions. Don't make up some "back in my day, we sucked it up!" To excuse the negative space that exists in the game play experience. 40ks gameplay is so shallow that there really isn't much to say. Oh, did you go for an objective? No gak. Did you point the anti tank guns at the tank? Shock and awe.
Breaking out of the GW frame, there are quite demanding board games where you really do need the opponent's turn to go and check your supply logs, prepare new orders for the next turn and yes, go to bathroom or get a snack. Having pauses built in is a feature, not a bug.
No its not. Any game can be paused by ending a turn, noting whats happening, and the players deciding to take a break. The game doesn't need that built into the game play experience to force people who have nothing to do to find something to do. If its not a bug its fething AWFUL design and the designer should feel bad.
And I personally hate the inability to make coordinated sweeps in an alternating activation game.
Great. Never mind that AA doesn't preclude the ability to make coordinated sweeps. Nobody here is discussing a secondary option. This whole bit started with what 40k is. I don't know or have any interest in debating your house rules when the discussion is actually about the major principles of design and what designers should be considering when making a game (any game).
There is! I agree with this. That wide space for those kinds of games doesn't make the bad design decisions in them any less bad. And as designers we should be assessing the good and the bad and trying to learn from them.
Of course not, no one is saying that IGO-UGO is the ne plus ultra of gaming design, I'm merely pointing out that it has its place and purpose. GW's flagrant abuse of it should not condemn the format across the board.
My specific example was GWs use of it. I never actually mentioned the turn structure specifically. I mentioned the games in built downtime which you seem to want to defend for some reason as good design?
I am calling full bs on this. Dnds mechanics are anything but intutive or quick. Its complex and draconian. I can make a character in forbidden lands with life path character generation out of the box within 5 minutes. Equipment and everything. DnD is popular because of brand recognition and a parade of podcasts constantly promoting it despite its rules, not because of them. You might notice the complete lack of episodes dedicated to character creation.
D&D is the Sherman tank of RPGs. It's old, and if you go trait by trait it is outclassed by multiple rivals, but the thing just keeps trundling on. The quick-start rules get you up and running.
But people can disagree. I think the design was destroyed by decades of clutter, but the core rules are fun and pretty easy.
And i think the core rules. The real basic nutts and bolts of dnd. (Roll d20 vs DC), the completely passive no decisions defending yourself, the HP is meaningless until its 0, the prevasive almost oppresive illusion of choice at every mechanical decision point, the down time, is awful design. Like... Its 50+ years old. Time to learn to be better.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/29 13:44:40
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Lance845 wrote: Well, generally speaking when i bring up a game as an example i think its fair to assume i am not talking about the version that is 8 editions old and house ruled that you play. I think it goes without saying that we could all house rule 40k you til it's completely unrecognizable mechanically and get a different game play experience.
It's in my signature and if you click, you'll see that the house rules don't touch the core mechanics, it's all about dialing down fiddly weapon rules and simplifying dice rolling.
No its not. Any game can be paused by ending a turn, noting whats happening, and the players deciding to take a break. The game doesn't need that built into the game play experience to force people who have nothing to do to find something to do. If its not a bug its fething AWFUL design and the designer should feel bad.
Well alrighty then. Thanks for sharing that.
Great. Never mind that AA doesn't preclude the ability to make coordinated sweeps. Nobody here is discussing a secondary option. This whole bit started with what 40k is. I don't know or have any interest in debating your house rules when the discussion is actually about the major principles of design and what designers should be considering when making a game (any game).
If each player can only activate a fraction of its forces before the opponent moves, it's becomes impossible to launch concentric attacks. If you have an option to "hold" then you're creating IGO-UGO in reverse.
They both have their place, but one is not inherently better than the other in all applications.
There is also an option for an integrated IGO-UGO system or one with reactions.
My specific example was GWs use of it. I never actually mentioned the turn structure specifically. I mentioned the games in built downtime which you seem to want to defend for some reason as good design?
Because it is good game design for certain things, and I mentioned Axis and Allies, Risk, and other designs. GW has made a hash of it, but other systems use it well.
Like... Its 50+ years old. Time to learn to be better.
Age alone is not a disqualifier for game design and I would argue that its longevity and prevalence indicates that it does have some virtues.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/29 14:02:23
The goal is engagement and elegant design. Building your game to give players nothing to do isn't engaging. The things they do to fill that space are not the game. Its just people making up gak to entertain themselves.
When dnds turn structure means in a 5 player versus 5 monster fight a player only has a decision to make 1/10th of the time AND those decisions are riddled with illusion of choice making them non-meaningful, non-engaging (what does the fighter do? Swing his sword. What does the warlock do? Eldritch blast.) You have a disengaging experience. Both 40k and d20 are prone to players checking out. That isn't the players fault. It's the designs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/29 14:42:31
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
The goal is engagement and elegant design. Building your game to give players nothing to do isn't engaging. The things they do to fill that space are not the game. Its just people making up gak to entertain themselves.
Or it's a "beer and pretzels" system to bring people together socially, which is why these are so popular.
In more involved settings (with multiple phases and bookkeeping), it actually prevents downtime because by the time the first player has finished, the second has his orders put in and is ready to roll. I'm talking specifically about the Brigade Series and operational/strategic games here, not GW nonsense.
When dnds turn structure means in a 5 player versus 5 monster fight a player only has a decision to make 1/10th of the time AND those decisions are riddled with illusion of choice making them non-meaningful, non-engaging (what does the fighter do? Swing his sword. What does the warlock do? Eldritch blast.) You have a dise gaging experience. Both 40k and d20 are prone to players checking out. That isn't the players fault. It's the designs.
You're treating it as a squad-level combat simulation, not as a roleplaying game. Yes, the player swings his sword, but how does he describe swinging it? How does the DM describe its result?
Also, in the encounter you describe, the DM will run the five monsters, so it's 1/6, but even that ignores the cross talk of instructing a moving player to fall back for healing on someone else's impulse.
And of course there's the fact that some people don't want to make that many decisions. I'd say roughly half of the people I played D&D with were only marginally attached to the system or its mechanics. Rolling a few dice here or there was about as much detail as they wanted.
You may not care for it, but it has stood the test of time. As a combat simulator, it was long ago rendered obsolete, but as a social activity, people seem to like it.
Which brings us back to the triangle discussion, and how different players want different things. You clearly want an immersive system that commands the complete attention of the players.
I do like very complex systems, specifically boardgames with dozens of charts, tables and a turn sequence that runs two pages.
But I can also appreciate the virtues of a system that is less mentally demanding. I like 2nd ed. 40k because of the odd bits of detail that generate stories about tank turrets flying off and killing someone important. It was also fun because there were fewer factions, fewer weapons and the system did not try to do too much (no aircraft!).
I think it comes down to a case-by-case situation. Alternating activation works for some games, but if you're doing certain eras (linear warfare), it's not a good choice. My preference is a hybrid system that includes interrupts or includes a reaction phase - not necessarily to engage the other player, but to reflect the reality that troops should not cross open ground under enemy observation without drawing fire, or march 100,000 men 50 miles while the other player remains inert.
In all cases the elegance of the design is determined by how well it meets the intended function, not an arbitrary one-size-fits-all matrix.
The goal is engagement and elegant design. Building your game to give players nothing to do isn't engaging. The things they do to fill that space are not the game. Its just people making up gak to entertain themselves.
Or it's a "beer and pretzels" system to bring people together socially, which is why these are so popular.
In more involved settings (with multiple phases and bookkeeping), it actually prevents downtime because by the time the first player has finished, the second has his orders put in and is ready to roll. I'm talking specifically about the Brigade Series and operational/strategic games here, not GW nonsense.
These are not "so popular". The games you are discussing and the genre you are discussing is at best niche. The entire marketshare of minature war games is niche before you start dividing it into individual systems. Nevermind that "popularity" is an entirely different thing from good. Marvel movies are some of the most popular cinema in the last decade. You would be hard pressed to call even 5 of them really great cinema.
Again, i don't want to get into discussing your favorite house ruled miniature war game specifically. When i argued that 40k had downtime it was an example of the unengaging bad design that it is. If you think players should have so little to do or what they have to do is so boring that they check out of the game all together then, hey, go design that game. Best of luck to you.
When dnds turn structure means in a 5 player versus 5 monster fight a player only has a decision to make 1/10th of the time AND those decisions are riddled with illusion of choice making them non-meaningful, non-engaging (what does the fighter do? Swing his sword. What does the warlock do? Eldritch blast.) You have a dise gaging experience. Both 40k and d20 are prone to players checking out. That isn't the players fault. It's the designs.
You're treating it as a squad-level combat simulation, not as a roleplaying game. Yes, the player swings his sword, but how does he describe swinging it? How does the DM describe its result?
Not a mechanic of the game. Placing the burden of making boring mechanics interesting on the player and gm doesn't make the mechanic any less boring. We have all seen a slog of a fight degrade into "i swing my swird again". We all share that experience because the game is built to deliver it.
Also, in the encounter you describe, the DM will run the five monsters, so it's 1/6, but even that ignores the cross talk of instructing a moving player to fall back for healing on someone else's impulse.
All 5 monsters get actions. If all actors in the scene have the same amount of actions then the 5 players will watch the GM roll dice 5 times and wait to be told if they took damage or not. 1/10th.
Ah yes, the cross talk of other players telling one player how to make their decisions on their turn. I am failing to see how that makes that players decision point any more interesting, engaging, or meaningful.
And of course there's the fact that some people don't want to make that many decisions. I'd say roughly half of the people I played D&D with were only marginally attached to the system or its mechanics. Rolling a few dice here or there was about as much detail as they wanted.
Or, just throwing this out there, the system you were playing with was so dull that they never got interested in doing the uninteresting thing.
You may not care for it, but it has stood the test of time. As a combat simulator, it was long ago rendered obsolete, but as a social activity, people seem to like it.
Ttrpgs are a great social activity. Agreed. D20 is just a bad version of one.
Which brings us back to the triangle discussion, and how different players want different things. You clearly want an immersive system that commands the complete attention of the players.
I am not discussing my personal preferences. This is an academic discussion on fundamental principles of design. What is game play? What makes games good? What makes games bad? What do you need to keep in mind when designing a game? As I said GNS doesn't help because it's principles are flawed. Being aware more of how your mechanics keep players engaged in the game play is a better metric.
I do like very complex systems, specifically boardgames with dozens of charts, tables and a turn sequence that runs two pages.
I very specifically vouched for simplicity. Not complexity. Complexity is not engaging game play. Its work.
But I can also appreciate the virtues of a system that is less mentally demanding. I like 2nd ed. 40k because of the odd bits of detail that generate stories about tank turrets flying off and killing someone important. It was also fun because there were fewer factions, fewer weapons and the system did not try to do too much (no aircraft!).
I think it comes down to a case-by-case situation. Alternating activation works for some games, but if you're doing certain eras (linear warfare), it's not a good choice. My preference is a hybrid system that includes interrupts or includes a reaction phase - not necessarily to engage the other player, but to reflect the reality that troops should not cross open ground under enemy observation without drawing fire, or march 100,000 men 50 miles while the other player remains inert.
In all cases the elegance of the design is determined by how well it meets the intended function, not an arbitrary one-size-fits-all matrix.
i never said there was a one size fits all. You don't seem to understand what i am saying. I am not arguing for mental load and complexity. I am arguing for meaningful, engaging decisions. Decisions that matter. Players should be in the game, playing the game. You can get bigger more complex games that are engaging (but they should never be more complex than they need to be) and you can get small incredibly simplistic games. But if they are not engaging there is a problem.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/29 15:13:04
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
These are not "so popular". The games you are discussing and the genre you are discussing is at best niche.
Risk and Axis and Allies are not niche, they are mass-market brands that reach far beyond the tiny miniatures community.
You can turn your nose up them, but there is a huge market for games with this level of complexity - and engagement.
Again, i don't want to get into discussing your favorite house ruled miniature war game specifically. When i argued that 40k had downtime it was an example of the unengaging bad design that it is. If you think players should have so little to do or what they have to do is so boring that they check out of the game all together then, hey, go design that game. Best of luck to you.
Can we just agree to throw 40k overboard? It's clearly a distraction.
The point is that games should have varying levels of engagement to suit the needs of players.
Not a mechanic of the game. Placing the burden of making boring mechanics interesting on the player and gm doesn't make the mechanic any less boring. We have all seen a slog of a fight degrade into "i swing my swird again". We all share that experience because the game is built to deliver it.
It's a role-playing game. A system for collective storytelling. People assume identities and talk in character. Some even dress up. That's a huge part of its draw. It is not a squad-based tactical combat system.
That's not a design defect, it is tailoring the design to the intended purpose. If people do not want to move in 2-second increments, going back in forth on specific parries, sword maneuvers, etc., they will be drawn to a "roll a die, see what happens, we assume you're trying not to get hit."
Ah yes, the cross talk of other players telling one player how to make their decisions on their turn. I am failing to see how that makes that players decision point any more interesting, engaging, or meaningful.
How do you make decisions in your RPG play, then? It sounds like you regard the whole social interaction thing as a bother.
Or, just throwing this out there, the system you were playing with was so dull that they never got interested in doing the uninteresting thing.
They were very interested in it, they just didn't want lots of complexity.
I am not discussing my personal preferences. This is an academic discussion on fundamental principles of design. What is game play? What makes games good? What makes games bad? What do you need to keep in mind when designing a game? As I said GNS doesn't help because it's principles are flawed. Being aware more of how your mechanics keep players engaged in the game play is a better metric.
Now we come to the heart of it.
What counts as engagement? You seem to think it consists entirely of moving pieces and rolling dice. It could also be other interactions, like negotiating commodity trades in a merchant game, or planning the next move for the RPG campaign.
Many people use gaming as an excuse to get together and they therefore want a game that does not reduce social interaction to terse statements of combat results.
I very specifically vouched for simplicity. Not complexity. Complexity is not engaging game play. Its work.
But earlier you said that simply declaring an action to be swinging a sword and rolling a die to see if it worked wasn't enough for you. You said there had to be a more complex process, and that players had to do things like declare active defenses.
Every example you give of engagement carries with it more design complexity. You have repeatedly said that IGU-UGO is terrible because one side gets a break from "engagement," but they can still be very much engaged, looking up their rules, planning various counters, doing some bookkeeping. What they are not doing is moving things and throwing dice, which seems to be your definition of engagement.
i never said there was a one size fits all. You don't seem to understand what i am saying. I am not arguing for mental load and complexity. I am arguing for meaningful, engaging decisions. Decisions that matter. Players should be in the game, playing the game. You can get bigger more complex games that are engaging (but they should never be more complex than they need to be) and you can get small incredibly simplistic games. But if they are not engaging there is a problem.
More decisions necessarily require a higher mental load. Conversely, games with few decisions allow for less complexity and more space for social interaction.
Consider Uno. You have two actions, play or draw. You cannot interrupt a player, but must wait your turn. You may even lose your turn, sometimes repeatedly. Are you unengaged when someone plays a "skip" card on you? It is an immensely popular game because of its simple, elegant design.
Indeed, most card games follow the same limited options (draw, play, pass) and they are highly engaging.
That's what I'm talking about. You can have a game that is engaging - that is, keeps players interested - without requiring their constant intervention and participation. Many people aren't interested in expending the mental effort for that sort of thing, they want a break between decisions and there are systems that thoughtfully build that "recharge" right into the game. They sweat out the plan for their move and then sit back and chill as other players do their thing.
I am firmly on the side of that approach, and the older I've gotten, the more appreciate games that provide that space for social interaction and break between decision points.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/29 21:15:12
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: That's not a design defect, it is tailoring the design to the intended purpose. If people do not want to move in 2-second increments, going back in forth on specific parries, sword maneuvers, etc., they will be drawn to a "roll a die, see what happens, we assume you're trying not to get hit."
The problem with D&D is that it's not a simple game like that. Combat bogs down in a bunch of sequencing, tracking and calculating modifiers, trying to figure out how to get modifiers, etc. And most of the time the result is that you roll a D20 and on a 17+ you do D6+4 damage. There's a whole bunch of false depth created by how the system obscures everything with layers of rules bloat but in the end the fighter and the monster are still standing next to each other trading attacks while the rogue stabs for 2D6+1 damage (same average as the fighter) on a 17+ and the cleric heals D6+4 damage per turn for the fighter.
Consider Uno. You have two actions, play or draw. You cannot interrupt a player, but must wait your turn. You may even lose your turn, sometimes repeatedly. Are you unengaged when someone plays a "skip" card on you? It is an immensely popular game because of its simple, elegant design.
Key difference: an Uno turn takes a matter of seconds. A bad string of "skip" cards is a minute or two of sitting idle at most and then you're back in the action. A typical IGOUGO wargame has you sitting idle for an extended period of time, and with a bad wargame like 40k you can go get lunch while you wait for your opponent to finish calculating how many models you need to remove.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: The problem with D&D is that it's not a simple game like that. Combat bogs down in a bunch of sequencing, tracking and calculating modifiers, trying to figure out how to get modifiers, etc. And most of the time the result is that you roll a D20 and on a 17+ you do D6+4 damage. There's a whole bunch of false depth created by how the system obscures everything with layers of rules bloat but in the end the fighter and the monster are still standing next to each other trading attacks while the rogue stabs for 2D6+1 damage (same average as the fighter) on a 17+ and the cleric heals D6+4 damage per turn for the fighter.
It very much depends on the specific edition and the type of game one is playing.
You can have problems with other systems bogging down in minutae or poor game management. In many ways, it is so open-ended as to be relevant only as a cautionary example of rules bloat. It's like Star Fleet Battles - your rule books can also serve as your seat.
Key difference: an Uno turn takes a matter of seconds. A bad string of "skip" cards is a minute or two of sitting idle at most and then you're back in the action. A typical IGOUGO wargame has you sitting idle for an extended period of time, and with a bad wargame like 40k you can go get lunch while you wait for your opponent to finish calculating how many models you need to remove.
The scope of the game matters a lot in this respect and again we have to determine what one means by "idle." I know people who really enjoy watching other people game. Back when we had a local shop with open gaming, people would gather around the tables and offer commentary. They weren't players, but they were very much "engaged."
I get that 40k comes up a lot because there are so many crappy elements of design in it, one of which is the model count. Simply the tedium of moving all those individual figures, checking for cohesion, etc. is a royal pain. It is a terrible design.
But that's an indictment of GW, not IGO-UGO. They could break any system you give them.
I will say I'm getting a sense that you and Lance are the kind of players who get antsy if they aren't actually doing something they think meaningful or productive. You like to be heavily involved the entire time. I had some friends like that, chafing at the speed with which RPG players made up their minds, fuming at their opponent taking forever to measure something and disdaining sidebar chatter and small talk because they wanted to finish THE GAME.
But not all players want that intensity. They see the game as primarily a social activity, and having to devote constant attention to it wears them out.
This is another example of why the triangle model doesn't work - people can like the same type of game format (narrative, simulation or whatever) while having very different ideas how much effort they are willing to put into it.
Neither approach is better than the other because they are geared to different player needs.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/07/29 23:20:10
I'll grant I'm less familiar with the earliest editions but pretty much every D&D game I've played has had combat involving a whole bunch of extra rules to get to the same end result. The fighter hits on a 17+ on the D20, the rogue has a lower base attack bonus but has stealth bonuses such that once you add up everything the rogue hits on a 17+ on the D20. And then you progress a few levels and get better to-hit stats, the monsters get higher AC, and the end result is at level 20 you still need that same 17+ on the D20 to hit except now you have to add up more modifiers to get to that target number.
Same thing with the stat thing. Even though the raw number is never (almost never?) used you still have to calculate a modifier from a base stat because the obsolete 3D6 method for character generation produced numbers from 3 to 18 and you need a modifier in the +/- 5 range. If you dump support for the obsolete RNG stat generation method and use a modern point buy system instead you can just have attribute values in the +/- 5 range and use them directly.
The scope of the game matters a lot in this respect and again we have to determine what one means by "idle." I know people who really enjoy watching other people game. Back when we had a local shop with open gaming, people would gather around the tables and offer commentary. They weren't players, but they were very much "engaged."
I suppose that's true but now you're limiting the game to being played in a context where, in addition to the two players for the actual game, you need some additional non-players hanging around to entertain the inactive player. If you only have the two people playing the game you aren't going to have an enjoyable experience. If the bystanders decide to go play a game of their own you aren't going to have an enjoyable experience. And to me it sounds like pretty poor design to have a "two player" game that needs 3-5 people to play.
And that's just addressing the engagement issues with IGOUGO, not even considering the realism issues where your whole army stands there helplessly doing nothing while the enemy attacks. Alternating systems give much more fluid gameplay where you're reacting immediately in something closer to real time.
This is another example of why the triangle model doesn't work - people can like the same type of game format (narrative, simulation or whatever) while having very different ideas how much effort they are willing to put into it.
This though, is very true. A limited triangle/two axis grid/etc will never capture the nuances between player archetypes and those differences can be very important.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: I'll grant I'm less familiar with the earliest editions but pretty much every D&D game I've played has had combat involving a whole bunch of extra rules to get to the same end result. The fighter hits on a 17+ on the D20, the rogue has a lower base attack bonus but has stealth bonuses such that once you add up everything the rogue hits on a 17+ on the D20. And then you progress a few levels and get better to-hit stats, the monsters get higher AC, and the end result is at level 20 you still need that same 17+ on the D20 to hit except now you have to add up more modifiers to get to that target number.
Same thing with the stat thing. Even though the raw number is never (almost never?) used you still have to calculate a modifier from a base stat because the obsolete 3D6 method for character generation produced numbers from 3 to 18 and you need a modifier in the +/- 5 range. If you dump support for the obsolete RNG stat generation method and use a modern point buy system instead you can just have attribute values in the +/- 5 range and use them directly.
The first big push (the Basic and Expert boxed sets) were very simple and early on the concept of the "THAC0" was created ("To Hit Armor Class Zero") so that all the mods were worked out in advance. There was none of the subsequent nonsense about bludgeoning vs piercing, or speed factor, and initiative, actions, etc., were very loosely defined. In my group, I think the party rolled as a whole against the DM, and then we just went around the circle talking about what we wanted to do, the DM ruled on it, and so on.
Very conversational, very open. No figures, no grids, sketch maps when needed, and we had fun. I'd say those games were some of the most enjoyable I played because there were so few rules to lawyer up about.
RPGs really depend on player interaction more than the system because ultimately the system itself is optional.
My understanding is that D&D has reverted to a simpler style of play, more in line with what was used 40 years ago. This appeals to players who want less in the way of mechanics and who don't want to have to declare defensive actions, just get on with the story.
There are better systems, though. I think the Storyteller (Vampire, Werewolf) system is superb. It is not as tactical, so not suitable for a dungeon crawl, but in terms of actual role-playing, it's hard to beat.
And that's just addressing the engagement issues with IGOUGO, not even considering the realism issues where your whole army stands there helplessly doing nothing while the enemy attacks. Alternating systems give much more fluid gameplay where you're reacting immediately in something closer to real time.
Again, GW is not the only game that uses IGO-UGO, it just does so in a uniquely terrible way. It's the perfect storm of bad design choices - you have massive amounts of figures that must be individually moved, endless amount of special rules to be deconflicted, a constantly-expanding universe and reboots every three years to ensure no one ever truly understands the game.
Even with activations it would still be terrible, just terrible in a different way.
However, that does not indict IGO-UGO as a whole. It is easy and intuitive, and in certain types of games, works very well. It can also be modified to allow opposing player interaction, either through specific reactions or an integrated turn sequence. This is where the active player's turn contains actions for the opponent. Conqueror takes this approach by having both players participate in the shooting phase. I didn't do it to foster engagement, but to provide for "reaction fire" without creating a special set of rules for it. Elegant design and all that.
The broader point is that sometimes what is seen as an inferior mechanic is the best one for the job. For example, a few years back I was demonstrating a wargame to the Air University wargaming cell. One of them questioned my use of point-to-point movement, which he felt was unduly restrictive. Surely a hex grid overlay would provide more options.
I replied that part of the wargame's purpose was to educate the players on the lines of communication in the theater of operations, which were extremely restrictive. A hex overlay might tempt participants to do things like drag mechanized divisions through swamps or something, thinking that movement point penalties were acceptable. This way, they'd get that the only way to effectively move stuff was along discrete routes. My questioner agreed that in this application, point-to-point was a better choice.
That being said, one mechanic that I really hate is the re-roll. I'll tolerate it for an RPG when losing a PC would be really upsetting, but as a standard mechanism to shift probabilities, I hate it. Do the math and just adjust the scores!
This though, is very true. A limited triangle/two axis grid/etc will never capture the nuances between player archetypes and those differences can be very important.
Yes, and the fact is that different levels of engagement are fine so long as all the people involved share them. Upthread it was remarked that crosstalk and people checking their phones is a symptom of bad game design. I disagree; it's clearly someone for whom gaming simply isn't that serious a task. They're playing a game, chatting with friends but also keeping tabs on a dinner date or whatever. That's perfectly acceptable so long as you don't slight your opponent.
That's why I bring up games like Axis and Allies because that market segment is huge. People who want to have a beer and talk while moving pieces across a map and rolling dice are just as valid as focused tacticians who see only the tabletop.
So in addition to mechanics, designers must also consider how much is being asked of the players. Currently, GW's asking an awful lot - money for books, money for figures, paints, modeling glue, time to paint and glue and then slogging through endless cycles of rules.
Gamers gotta game, and while different features appeal to different subsets, there are clear examples of games that hit that sweet spot and became mass-market successes because of it.
.... and there are just as many or more that DON"T hit the sweet spot and still become mass market successes.
So, what is that special OTHER secret sauce? It is clearly not mechanics alone.
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Gamers gotta game, and while different features appeal to different subsets, there are clear examples of games that hit that sweet spot and became mass-market successes because of it.
.... and there are just as many or more that DON"T hit the sweet spot and still become mass market successes.
So, what is that special OTHER secret sauce? It is clearly not mechanics alone.
They key is knowing the kind of game you want to make, and making it so that the intent and rules blend together seamlessly.
If you set out to make a "beer and pretzels" game, make just that. Don't add layers of special rules, super-detailed expansions, etc.
Each element has to be subjected to a "why do I have this?" test. Whether doing designs for the military or for fun, I find that I routinely end up deleting half the rulebook once playtesting gets underway.
Axis and Allies and Risk work because they don't try to be realistic, just fun, with enough of a gloss to make people feel like they're playing an actual wargame.
People who get hung up on mechanics are ignoring that they are but a means to an end.
Much of our discussion has focused on the crimes of IGO-UGU in creating downtime. But does it? As we've seen, Uno has that system and has negligible downtime. Why? Well, the decisions and physical movement are limited.
This tells us that IGO-UGO can work where the decision matrix is simple and there is little physical manipulation of the components (i.e., you don't have to advance 100 individual models across a tabletop each turn).
There is also the possibility of including reactions or using an integrated turn sequence where one side moves their entire force, and then the opponent gets to take reaction moves or shoot. You still have one player doing most of the work, but it is not without the opponent having the say.
Consider an American Civil War game. The one side marches forward during their turn, moving all of their units. The other now gets to fire volleys and artillery. The phasing player tests for morale, and then conducts its own fires or close assaults. No one is going to be swept away on turn one, and both sides are going to be watching to see how the volleys impact each side.
But it is still largely an IGO-UGO system - there is a Union turn and a Confederate turn.
I think there is some confusion in the conversation due to certain terminology being used in different ways. So I am going to start this post with some definition of terms to get us on the same page here.
Game Play: A series of interesting choices.
What makes a choice interesting has some debate but is generally considered to be consequences. Or at the very least non-obvious or non-solvable solutions.(which eliminates Illusion of Choice) There is ALSO some debate about what makes for Non-Solvable solutions. About the only thing everyone can agree upon is hidden information always creates Non-solvable solutions and thus some measure of risk/reward when presented with good options at a decision point, which in turn makes for interesting choices. Can you have non-solvable solutions without hidden information? Still debated. No clear answer. You can have solvable solutions that are so complex that they are meaningfully non-solvable (The game Go).
Complexity: Technically this is 2 things. It is both the mental load needed to calculate a decision at a given decision point and the number of steps necessary to complete actions to reach decision points.
Some refer to the second bit as "house keeping" to differentiate it. Both a deck of cards and a dice roll can be used to generate a random number. A deck of cards that needs to be reshuffled and cut each time is a more complex operation (it has more steps) or involves more house keeping. The mental load can be alleviated with player facing tools. UI elements (character sheets, cheat sheets, unit cards, etc...) so that with quick reference the mental load becomes manageable.
Depth: The number of viable choices at a decision point.
When you reach your decision point the more viable choices you have that then shape and change the game state for the next decision point the more deep the decision point is and the more interesting the choice. DEEP game play is a desirable outcome.
Mechanics: The rules as written. RAW.
Mechanics structure the Game Play. Without Mechanics there are no consequences. Decision points become so abstract as to be meaningless. You set the rules of play through mechanics, they create decision points which, when designed well, have depth, that shape the game play.
Elegance: Simplicity of Design.
When mechanics are elegantly designed they function well with the rest of the machine and produce without needless complexity or waste. Every attribute serves a purpose. That purpose is impactful to the Game Play Experience.
Emergent Game Play: The result of mechanics interacting to produce a Game Play outside of the scope of rules as written.
Super simple example. No rule in poker tells you to lie. The rules tell you you CAN up the bid. It defines how everyone can do it. It provides ways for players to bow out of the round by folding. The mechanical structure of the game poker provides an emergent Game Play (series of interesting choices) in which players bluff each other or don't in attempts to win the pot. Emergent Game Play is the result to mechanics interacting in ways beyond the scope of RAW. Emergent Game Play in a positive light is almost always the result of Elegantly written rules. Simple mechanics interacting in emergent ways to produce interesting choices. In a negative light it undermines planned depth and creates shallow experiences. You might design a level to be interacted with in a specific way to create a specific experience. But X ability allows players to by pass that. The emergent Game Play is that (Players gravitating towards paths of least resistance) the majority of your level is simply skipped. Wasted design. Complexity without purpose.
The Game Play Experience: The net output of the machine that is the game.
What the player experiences by playing. The depth. The Shallows. The complexity. The elegance. The game play experience is a complex output that requires a competent designer to both understand how their mechanics interact with each other AND what kind of psychological impact those mechanics have on the player to influence their Game Play. It doesn't matter if you design a vast complex skill tree with many player abilities. If one of those abilities is clearly "the best" and solves all the problems, then psychologically players will gravitate towards that ability and while you hoped your design would have deep decision making it will in fact be riddled with illusion of choice and be shallow.
Engagement: The way in which the Game Play experience captures the attention of the players and invests them in the game.
Uninterested players check out. They get bored. They do things that are not the game. I played a MMORPG which had players gather resources to build cities. You needed a LOT of stone and wood. You also raised attributes and skills by doing things. Swimming was great for raising a bunch of attributes at once. The Emergent Game Play of this way watching friends sit at their desk reading a book while they clicked on a tree every couple minutes. Or finding a dock where they could toggle on a auto run script swimming into a post while they did ANYTHING else. The game had a ton of people logged on at any given time. But SO MANY of them were not PLAYING the game. If players are not engaged with the game they are not playing the game. And the Game Play Experience suffers.
Again, i don't want to get into discussing your favorite house ruled miniature war game specifically. When i argued that 40k had downtime it was an example of the unengaging bad design that it is. If you think players should have so little to do or what they have to do is so boring that they check out of the game all together then, hey, go design that game. Best of luck to you.
Can we just agree to throw 40k overboard? It's clearly a distraction.
The point is that games should have varying levels of engagement to suit the needs of players.
I don't think throwing out 40k all together is productive on a forum about 40k more than anything else. We have shared experience there that makes the conversation easy.
See the definitions above. No. Engagement should be as high as possible at all times. You may have varying degrees of pacing. But even a slower paced game needs to have things going on that keep players engaged. If players want to play a game casually, they can. But the game shouldn't be designed to be an afterthought or distraction to a social gathering.
Not a mechanic of the game. Placing the burden of making boring mechanics interesting on the player and gm doesn't make the mechanic any less boring. We have all seen a slog of a fight degrade into "i swing my sword again". We all share that experience because the game is built to deliver it.
It's a role-playing game. A system for collective storytelling. People assume identities and talk in character. Some even dress up. That's a huge part of its draw. It is not a squad-based tactical combat system.
That's not a design defect, it is tailoring the design to the intended purpose. If people do not want to move in 2-second increments, going back in forth on specific parries, sword maneuvers, etc., they will be drawn to a "roll a die, see what happens, we assume you're trying not to get hit."
Okay, so first, we are talking about D20 here. Not RPGs in general. D20, mechanically, is very specifically a squad based tactical combat system that has the ability to role play laid over top of it. It's mechanical roots are chainmail. A miniature war game. The grid based movement and positioning, the way combat occurs, the central focus on combat, the way characters progress not as people but as engines for combat, all of that is because it is, in fact, a squad based tactical combat system. That is a FAILING of it being a RPG. It's rooted in it's 50 year old design.
Part of that is either the complete lack or near complete lack of Role Play based mechanics or emergent game play. Outside of things like Backgrounds giving you some skill proficiency in 5th edition DnD has basically no mechanical support for role play. And it gets worse, not better, the older the edition. Yes, players CAN role play and in that role play there are interesting choices (starting fights, diplomacy, etc) but Murder Hobos is the Emergent Game play of DnDs design. You are built to fight. When you progress you fight better. So you DO fight. And in fighting you gain both experience and loot and progress to your next milestones. Murder Hobos is not a phenomena experiences in most other RPG systems. It is the result of the mechanical interactions of D20.
Contrast, I talked with Easy E about a Highlander game he wanted to run with a meta currency of Quickening. I suggested tying quickening generation to character driven traits. Ties, Bonds, and Goals. Acting in pursuit of the characters own agendas would generate the meta currency to fuel abilities. Players were incentivized to role play mechanically. It was quick and simple. It was elegant. And it made the Role Play ENGAGING. The fact that some of these things were negatives, things that could be used against them or would cause the player to have the character act against the group or their own interest, made the decisions they had to make, the Game Play, interesting choices.
D20 doesn't have that. D20 has understanding action economy and understanding probability on dice rolls to determine what is the best ability to use against what target to tip action economy into our favor.
Ah yes, the cross talk of other players telling one player how to make their decisions on their turn. I am failing to see how that makes that players decision point any more interesting, engaging, or meaningful.
How do you make decisions in your RPG play, then? It sounds like you regard the whole social interaction thing as a bother.
I don't find social interaction a bother. I think shallow game play that results in backseat drivers, Alpha Gamers that dictate decisions to other players, bad game play. Yes, that one guy is gong to tell the healer to go heal that guy that needs it. What else was the healer ever going to do? And if that decision point is so obvious, so solved, then that social interaction isn't a conversation and that decision point isn't interesting. It's just drudgery. It's dull. The healer heals the guy who needs it and then they check out until their next turn when they heal the guy who needs it then.
Have you heard of 5th eds rubber banding? Players go down. Healer gives them 1 HP so they get back up. They attack. They go down again. Repeat.
That immortal bouncing up and down until a fight ends is the result of the mechanics of Death Saving Throws, infinitely castable small heal spells, and the fact that injury doesn't matter and recovery is the statement "I take a long rest". The end result is a goofy ass game play experience. Not intentional. Paranoia has goofy ass game play on purpose. It's great. DnDs game play is the result of bad design.
Or, just throwing this out there, the system you were playing with was so dull that they never got interested in doing the uninteresting thing.
They were very interested in it, they just didn't want lots of complexity.
This is part of the reason I wrote out the definitions. Depth is not complexity. Interesting choices are not complex choices. Engagement is not the result of complexity. According to your story these people were uninterested in the mechanics of the game. They just did the thing that had no mechanical support what so ever. You could have not played DnD and just taken an improv class together and it would have been just as if not more engaging. Again, that is a failure of the games design.
I am not discussing my personal preferences. This is an academic discussion on fundamental principles of design. What is game play? What makes games good? What makes games bad? What do you need to keep in mind when designing a game? As I said GNS doesn't help because it's principles are flawed. Being aware more of how your mechanics keep players engaged in the game play is a better metric.
Now we come to the heart of it.
What counts as engagement? You seem to think it consists entirely of moving pieces and rolling dice.
I never said that. In fact thats just the complexity/book keeping necessary to play the game. Read the definitions.
It could also be other interactions, like negotiating commodity trades in a merchant game, or planning the next move for the RPG campaign.
Many people use gaming as an excuse to get together and they therefore want a game that does not reduce social interaction to terse statements of combat results.
Agreed! 100%. They should play ANYTHING other than D20 then. Because literally ANY other system provides at least some support for anything else.
I very specifically vouched for simplicity. Not complexity. Complexity is not engaging game play. Its work.
But earlier you said that simply declaring an action to be swinging a sword and rolling a die to see if it worked wasn't enough for you. You said there had to be a more complex process, and that players had to do things like declare active defenses.
No I didn't. I said the decision should be more interesting. Active defenses, when built well, provide more decision points with more interesting choices. The enemy attacking you is ALSO game play for you. Thats not complexity. It's depth and engagement.
Every example you give of engagement carries with it more design complexity. You have repeatedly said that IGU-UGO is terrible because one side gets a break from "engagement," but they can still be very much engaged, looking up their rules, planning various counters, doing some bookkeeping. What they are not doing is moving things and throwing dice, which seems to be your definition of engagement.
Looking up rules is not game play. It's a testament to the complexity of the game that you need to do that. There are no counters in 40k. 40ks tactical depth involves throwing weight of numbers at problems according to a flow chart dictated by your strategy and list building to tip fire power into your favor. You shoot the gun that has the best probability of removing as many models as possible at the target it is best against. And you do that over and over. Being good at 40k is about understanding the complexities of the equation in a very complex game and then solving that equation accurately when it's your turn to swing the club that is your army at the other player. 40ks game play is unbelievably complex for it's incredible lack of depth. But, despite that incredible complexity.... it's so simple. Are those desirable targets in range? Then shoot them. Would charging and tying them up in combat be favorable? Do it. Would grabbing that objective score me a VP? Then move to it. You get good at 40k by setting your priorities to a flow chart and just following the steps. Good players have better flow charts and can read the board on their turn to understand how to read their flow chart properly.
i never said there was a one size fits all. You don't seem to understand what i am saying. I am not arguing for mental load and complexity. I am arguing for meaningful, engaging decisions. Decisions that matter. Players should be in the game, playing the game. You can get bigger more complex games that are engaging (but they should never be more complex than they need to be) and you can get small incredibly simplistic games. But if they are not engaging there is a problem.
More decisions necessarily require a higher mental load. Conversely, games with few decisions allow for less complexity and more space for social interaction.
No they don't. Many decisions can each have incredibly small mental loads. You make decisions every single second of play in a FPS. The mental load of those decisions is very light and eased greatly by UI elements. Which guns do you have, where are you going, how much ammo do you have. Where can you find your next weapon. Etc etc...
Mental Load is what you need to keep track of for a SINGLE decision point. It's what you are paying attention to at any one moment. Not the accumulative mass of every thing you paid attention to for the entire game.
Consider Uno. You have two actions, play or draw. You cannot interrupt a player, but must wait your turn. You may even lose your turn, sometimes repeatedly. Are you unengaged when someone plays a "skip" card on you? It is an immensely popular game because of its simple, elegant design.
You are never disengaged in UNO. The actions of every other player impacts you directly and indirectly. You need to be counting how many cards the other players have and pay attention to the what color/card is on top of the stack. If you see there is a Green 4 on the deck and that player is drawing cards you know he doesn't have greens or 4s. That is information you can use. It's important. And it's engaging. When someone plays a draw 4 on another player that card effects YOU because it reshapes your priorities, who is a threat, and what your next action can/should be. Uno is a great example of an engaging game. You should study it more and understand it better.
Indeed, most card games follow the same limited options (draw, play, pass) and they are highly engaging.
That's what I'm talking about. You can have a game that is engaging - that is, keeps players interested - without requiring their constant intervention and participation. Many people aren't interested in expending the mental effort for that sort of thing, they want a break between decisions and there are systems that thoughtfully build that "recharge" right into the game. They sweat out the plan for their move and then sit back and chill as other players do their thing.
I am firmly on the side of that approach, and the older I've gotten, the more appreciate games that provide that space for social interaction and break between decision points.
I am going to repeat something from before. You are talking about the pace, the tempo, of the game. That is a different thing from what I was talking about. And it doesn't apply to the examples I gave.
Gamers gotta game, and while different features appeal to different subsets, there are clear examples of games that hit that sweet spot and became mass-market successes because of it.
.... and there are just as many or more that DON"T hit the sweet spot and still become mass market successes.
So, what is that special OTHER secret sauce? It is clearly not mechanics alone.
Marketing. Art. Promotion. Brand Recognition. There is a lot to be said about the business side of selling a product that has nothing to do with the quality of it's construction.
This message was edited 10 times. Last update was at 2023/08/01 16:22:18
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Lance845 wrote: I don't think throwing out 40k all together is productive on a forum about 40k more than anything else. We have shared experience there that makes the conversation easy.
Actually, I don't think we do. I last played "current" 40k about 20 years ago, so I'm not able to comment on what it does wrong or right. I just know that I enjoy 2nd, and don't care about whatever they're doing now.
Okay, so first, we are talking about D20 here. Not RPGs in general. D20, mechanically, is very specifically a squad based tactical combat system that has the ability to role play laid over top of it. It's mechanical roots are chainmail.
Yeah, I know the origin story and even had a copy of Chainmail at one point (sold it when I was unemployed). The D&D Basic rules were anything but "tactical." Only three types of armor, and variable weapon damage was an optional rule. The combat system was...elastic, as was just about everything else.
Part of that is either the complete lack or near complete lack of Role Play based mechanics or emergent game play.
So are you saying role-playing didn't happen? I'm pretty sure that it did, it just was less hemmed in by mechanics. Instead of rolling a die and consulting your "Persuade" skill, you made a case to the DM, who decided if it worked. Dice were for tie-breakers or points where things were uncertain.
It was only later that dice became the final decision-makers on everything.
One of the funny side-effects was players with zero Charisma playing high Charisma characters, throwing dice with lots of plusses and insisting that their asinine arguments were accepted. This happened a lot with the Storyteller system.
I don't find social interaction a bother. I think shallow game play that results in backseat drivers, Alpha Gamers that dictate decisions to other players, bad game play. Yes, that one guy is gong to tell the healer to go heal that guy that needs it. What else was the healer ever going to do? And if that decision point is so obvious, so solved, then that social interaction isn't a conversation and that decision point isn't interesting. It's just drudgery. It's dull. The healer heals the guy who needs it and then they check out until their next turn when they heal the guy who needs it then.
Please, share this amazing system that makes unpleasant players charming. Seriously.
Have you heard of 5th eds rubber banding? Players go down. Healer gives them 1 HP so they get back up. They attack. They go down again. Repeat.
And the DM sits motionless, rooted to his chair, helpless to stop this rules exploit.
You could have not played DnD and just taken an improv class together and it would have been just as if not more engaging.
Really? I was in middle school.
I never said that. In fact thats just the complexity/book keeping necessary to play the game. Read the definitions.
I couldn't do that until you gave them to me.
Agreed! 100%. They should play ANYTHING other than D20 then. Because literally ANY other system provides at least some support for anything else.
Again, your hatred of the system is duly noted.
No they don't. Many decisions can each have incredibly small mental loads.
But they do add up.
Mental Load is what you need to keep track of for a SINGLE decision point. It's what you are paying attention to at any one moment. Not the accumulative mass of every thing you paid attention to for the entire game.
Wait, so mental load magically refreshes without any fatigue? I find the opposite to be the case: the more decisions, the faster players get tired.
Okay, after reading all of that, my point still stands - there are a large number of players who regarding games as primarily a social activity, an excuse to get together with friends and talk over rolling dice and moving pieces.
How does one cater to such people? By keeping it simple. Create a design that has a minimal mental load so that they can play and also socialize.
IGO-UGO is the most intuitive mechanic available. I move. You move. He moves. She moves. Everybody gets a turn.
Depending on the scope and purpose of the game, other mechanics may be preferable. Battletech has a low model count and considerable detail devoted to each machine, so individual activations make sense. Some games use a variable activation, or activations that can be hoarded. This can be because of balance, but also because of the nature of the combat being simulated.
The key point is keeping these factors in harmony. Another way of putting it is: know your audience. You seem to like a very well-defined system where there is little ambiguity and players focus solely on the gaming experience.
Cross-talk about kids, gossip and jokes are anathema to this, evidence of design failure.
For me, they are a major part of the gaming experience and I therefore choose systems that facilitate this behavior.
So my question for you is: where does this fit in your design matrix?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/01 23:00:43
Part of that is either the complete lack or near complete lack of Role Play based mechanics or emergent game play.
So are you saying role-playing didn't happen? I'm pretty sure that it did, it just was less hemmed in by mechanics. Instead of rolling a die and consulting your "Persuade" skill, you made a case to the DM, who decided if it worked. Dice were for tie-breakers or points where things were uncertain.
No. I am saying that the way D20 supports role play is telling you to do whatever you want. Which is something you can do without D20. You and I can go out to a field, point fingers and each other and make Pew Pew noises with the exact same amount of rules governing our role play. The GAME of DnD tells you to play pretend without providing mechanics to incentivize playing pretend. All the RP that comes out of DnD is a result of the players, not the game.
I don't find social interaction a bother. I think shallow game play that results in backseat drivers, Alpha Gamers that dictate decisions to other players, bad game play. Yes, that one guy is gong to tell the healer to go heal that guy that needs it. What else was the healer ever going to do? And if that decision point is so obvious, so solved, then that social interaction isn't a conversation and that decision point isn't interesting. It's just drudgery. It's dull. The healer heals the guy who needs it and then they check out until their next turn when they heal the guy who needs it then.
Please, share this amazing system that makes unpleasant players charming. Seriously.
I am not talking about unpleasant players. I am talking about the mechanics of the game.
Have you heard of 5th eds rubber banding? Players go down. Healer gives them 1 HP so they get back up. They attack. They go down again. Repeat.
And the DM sits motionless, rooted to his chair, helpless to stop this rules exploit.
These are the rules of the game as written. I called D20 a bad game. You are defending it. Is your defense that the GM should house rule the game? In what way does that defend the game?
You could have not played DnD and just taken an improv class together and it would have been just as if not more engaging.
Really? I was in middle school.
I never said that. In fact thats just the complexity/book keeping necessary to play the game. Read the definitions.
I couldn't do that until you gave them to me.
Agreed! 100%. They should play ANYTHING other than D20 then. Because literally ANY other system provides at least some support for anything else.
Again, your hatred of the system is duly noted.
I am critically analyzing the system for what it is. Or would you like me to turn it around and comment on your nostalgia fueled fanboyism? Is that getting us anywhere?
No they don't. Many decisions can each have incredibly small mental loads.
But they do add up.
Mental Load is what you need to keep track of for a SINGLE decision point. It's what you are paying attention to at any one moment. Not the accumulative mass of every thing you paid attention to for the entire game.
Wait, so mental load magically refreshes without any fatigue? I find the opposite to be the case: the more decisions, the faster players get tired.
Okay, after reading all of that, my point still stands - there are a large number of players who regarding games as primarily a social activity, an excuse to get together with friends and talk over rolling dice and moving pieces
How does one cater to such people? By keeping it simple. Create a design that has a minimal mental load so that they can play and also socialize.
Yes. Many "social" games are incredibly simple. Pictionary for example.
IGO-UGO is the most intuitive mechanic available. I move. You move. He moves. She moves. Everybody gets a turn.
Depending on the scope and purpose of the game, other mechanics may be preferable. Battletech has a low model count and considerable detail devoted to each machine, so individual activations make sense. Some games use a variable activation, or activations that can be hoarded. This can be because of balance, but also because of the nature of the combat being simulated.
The key point is keeping these factors in harmony. Another way of putting it is: know your audience. You seem to like a very well-defined system where there is little ambiguity and players focus solely on the gaming experience.
Cross-talk about kids, gossip and jokes are anathema to this, evidence of design failure.
For me, they are a major part of the gaming experience and I therefore choose systems that facilitate this behavior.
So my question for you is: where does this fit in your design matrix?
Again, you are misunderstanding what I am saying. I don't care if players cross talk, joke, gossip, whatever. People hanging out will hang out. I bs with my friends while playing my games as well. You don't DESIGN peoples friendships in games. And you don't need to DESIGN space for them to do it. People just do it. 40ks downtime is, to you, a feature that allows space for this. Space that you don't need to be given. If there was no downtime in 40k you would still do it and nothing would change in your socializing.
But the Game Play Experience suffers because it is there. Not as some design choice where the designers wanted to hand it to you. The designers who initially did this moved on and made other games that actively eliminated it (Bolt Action, Beyond the Gates of Antares). This, like D20s attributes and dull, full of illusion of choice combat, are hold overs of ancient game designs that should have evolved and learned to be better and don't because either the designers or more likely the corporations won't change them.
The design IS bad. The Game Play Experience DOES suffer.
And hey, if you like it good. Like what you like. Like it to whatever extent you like it. Even if it's terrible. I like bad movies. Liking bad movies doesn't make the movies good. You enjoying an old game with outdated terrible design doesn't make it not outdated or terrible. You're just liking what you like. More power to you.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/01 23:42:50
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
