Sources of Tactical Depth

[Swordslinger]

I think everyone understands that you can not have rules for everything. But rules are better that guidelines. Guidelines are a cop-out. They are necessary, not wanted. The only reasons to use guidelines instead of rules, is because the designers don't have enough time to write solid rules or because you don't want your rule book to reach encyclopedial lengths.

The point I was making is that:

Well-written hard rules > guidelines > no rules at all > poorly written abusable rules.

[icyshadowlord]

Now that we know what is good and what is bad...which D&D editions actually have the most "well-written hard rules"? Also, to balance that, what edition has the largest amount of crappy, abusable rules? (Why do I get the feeling that the answer to the latter is 3.0/3.5?)

[Murtak]

Excluding 4E since it's not actually the same game as previous DnD editions: 3E has by far the best rules. It also has by far the fewest abuseable rules. What it does have is a large amount of abuseable content. For example, Divine Favor is bad content, but the rules are not the issue, they are neither unclear nor abuseable. The general rules for shapechanging on the other hand are a mess - both unclear and abuseable.

[wotmaniac]

You are basically proposing to slowly shift from playing soldiers and sergeants mucking around on the battlefield to captains and generals merely observing it or even to emperors and gods who get to read a summary of the battle results.

Yes. This is just the way I've always interpreted the game -- I've always simply taken this for granted, and never realized that there was even a different take on things.
And you seem to be proposing to play the exact same game from start to finish through 20+ levels of play. To me, this just seems one-dimensional -- i.e., flat and boring. To me, this kind of gaming just doesn't seem like it would ever give any sense of real development or progression.
Besides, now matter how removed you become from the grunt work, you're still gonna be having your face-to-face showdown with the BBEG; these elements never completely go away.

But this will only work if everyone you play with enjoys each of these different aspects. And I'd wager that most only enjoy one of them.

*individual results may vary

[Almaz]

Besides, now matter how removed you become from the grunt work, you're still gonna be having your face-to-face showdown with the BBEG; these elements never completely go away.

If that showdown itself is a terrible anticlimax, I'd rather just remove it from the game entirely. So if there is going to be any combat that you are assumed to play at high levels, let's either keep it interesting or ditch it.

[wotmaniac]

If that showdown itself is a terrible anticlimax, I'd rather just remove it from the game entirely. So if there is going to be any combat that you are assumed to play at high levels, let's either keep it interesting or ditch it.

Well, duh.
But that's a complete non-argument, because the same can be said for literally any game element. And that's gonna depend on 2 things:
1) DM presentation
2) player reception
and, as I can attest to, neither of these 2 things are necessarily dependent upon the other.

[Almaz]

If that showdown itself is a terrible anticlimax, I'd rather just remove it from the game entirely. So if there is going to be any combat that you are assumed to play at high levels, let's either keep it interesting or ditch it.

Well, duh.
But that's a complete non-argument, because the same can be said for literally any game element. And that's gonna depend on 2 things:
1) DM presentation
2) player reception
and, as I can attest to, neither of these 2 things are necessarily dependent upon the other.

Given that your system design seems to be suggesting that all high-level fights become completely scripted affairs, and any unscripted events happen well outside of it, I am not sure what you are arguing for here.

[wotmaniac]

Given that your system design seems to be suggesting that all high-level fights become completely scripted affairs, and any unscripted events happen well outside of it, I am not sure what you are arguing for here.

well, first, it's not my design -- I'm just reading what's already there.

What has allowed the BBEG to achieve such heights is his ability to break the scripts; otherwise, he would have never made it past being a mook.
If MC is having BBEG just allow scripts to go unchecked, he might want to go back to the drawing board.

[Almaz]

Given that your system design seems to be suggesting that all high-level fights become completely scripted affairs, and any unscripted events happen well outside of it, I am not sure what you are arguing for here.

well, first, it's not my design -- I'm just reading what's already there.

What has allowed the BBEG to achieve such heights is his ability to break the scripts; otherwise, he would have never made it past being a mook.
If MC is having BBEG just allow scripts to go unchecked, he might want to go back to the drawing board.

For one, an enemy "breaking" scripts shouldn't really happen, because the point of a script is that it outputs a predictable set of results and thus you can always follow it. However, if you do succeed, an enemy breaking scripts just results in defaulting. If you cannot predict how well your complete script performs, you abridge it to the basic actions that "always" work.

[wotmaniac]

For one, an enemy "breaking" scripts shouldn't really happen, because the point of a script is that it outputs a predictable set of results and thus you can always follow it. However, if you do succeed, an enemy breaking scripts just results in defaulting. If you cannot predict how well your complete script performs, you abridge it to the basic actions that "always" work.

If MC is having BBEG just allow scripts to go unchecked, he might want to go back to the drawing board.

[Almaz]

For one, an enemy "breaking" scripts shouldn't really happen, because the point of a script is that it outputs a predictable set of results and thus you can always follow it. However, if you do succeed, an enemy breaking scripts just results in defaulting. If you cannot predict how well your complete script performs, you abridge it to the basic actions that "always" work.

If MC is having BBEG just allow scripts to go unchecked, he might want to go back to the drawing board.

Defaulting is a one-line script.

You can't stop defaulting from happening. Your suggestion, that Big Bads can stop scripts from happening - essentially, that people cannot know that their abilities will be useful from round to round... will induce defaulting. Or flailing, which can actually (and I have seen this happen) cause other people to tell the player who is flailing to go back to defaulting. Which is hilarious, but sad at the same time.

[Swordslinger]

Excluding 4E since it's not actually the same game as previous DnD editions: 3E has by far the best rules. It also has by far the fewest abuseable rules. What it does have is a large amount of abuseable content. For example, Divine Favor is bad content, but the rules are not the issue, they are neither unclear nor abuseable. The general rules for shapechanging on the other hand are a mess - both unclear and abuseable.

That's a copout saying 4E "isn't the same game". IF you remove all the content from 3E, it would be unrecognizable as D&D, given that the d20 system was used to make Star Wars.

And actually, I would say the rules for Divine favor are bad, namely in that the rules allow for too many bonus types. Buffing is abusable because you can stack too many buffs. Having a divine favor (especially the errated version) isn't that big of a deal. It's only when you stack it with 4 other buffs that things get crazy.

[tzor]

Excluding 4E since it's not actually the same game as previous DnD editions

That's a copout saying 4E "isn't the same game".

I've got to agree here. You can apply that argument to all editions of D&D / AD&D. Still it is hard to look at rules in the absence of content. 4E might (note the word might) have good rules in the combat area, but it is devestated by bad content in the combat area. The areas other than combat are fatally flawed rules made worse by shit poor content.

Good rules are good. Good content is good. The appearance of good content is gravy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Just bumping this thread, because it seems relevant what with all of this talk about depth and turn boredom.

I'd also like to apologize again for mentioning knot-cutting. I didn't think people would go all Amateur Mary Tzu over it.