Can crafting ever be fun / interesting in a game?

[hyzmarca]

I always hated the gathering reagents part, because gathering reagents is just grinding and grinding is boring. Worse, reagents often make little sense. Big recipe books encourage developers to throw together combinations of reagents and slap and effect without explaining why they work.

In a game that I'm currently playing, crafting (R&D actually, since is a sci-fi megacorp game) is a huge part, but the system isn't very detailed. It's mostly single die rolls and a lot of MTP. The interesting part is that we all start out with access to a number of clearly defined base technologies, whose function and purpose are well-codified. We then refine and combine those base technologies in new and interesting ways which aren't explicitly codified. Some of them are obvious. Advanced robotics + tissue cloning = terminator (Cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton). Others aren't so obvious. Microscopic FTL communicators + theraputic brain implants + Cloning + Memory download = distributed consciousness system that spreads your mind across multiple clones, allowing you to operate bodies on five different continents simultaneously. The end result is that the crafting minigame is less about gathering materials (though this is also important, it isn't focused on) and more about solving engineering problems. We have X and Y, we know what they do, it should be possible to put them together and make Z, that sort of thing. Of course, in game one turn = one month and the enemies are constantly on the move, so we can't just sit around until we craft a +12 vorpal particle cannon. We have to allocate our R&D time intelligently, and that's also part of the fun.

And since our characters are primarily doing logistics, realpolitik, and dragons and leaving most of the combat to faceless people who have no names, this works very well. The R&D minigame is part of a larger logistics minigame and influences the politics minigame.

[Prak]

I think one thing that would make crafting more interesting is if a failed roll, or insufficiently met requirements didn't mean automatic failure, but quirks, flaws, etc. I know it was mentioned previously, I'm just reiterating. For one thing, it means that enchanting is not all or nothing, and if you fuck up, you haven't necessarily pissed away a bunch of money/time/personal power. For another, it gives individual items a bit more personality. For random loot, you can roll quirks/flaws/extras, that mean the +1 sword has to be recharged with moon light, because the crafter failed to meet the requirements, but was able to throw in some moon power to pull it out in the end (maybe you'd want some kind of affinities system here. A blood moon can aid in weapon crafting, a crescent moon can help when you're enchanting bows/scimitars/sickles, etc.)

[fectin]

The bigger problem with the reagents route is that you find a way to bypass it, and then the game breaks (assuming crafting even matters).

Most games have some way to duplicate DnD's Major Creation. Usually, at minimum, there's some form of Limbo, but there are a lot of options.

[Surgo]

D&D has stuff drop fully-formed from treasure piles, but why can't a bunch of random reagants also drop from treasure piles (and monsters)? Then you can combine seven of them together and get some cool piece of gear.

I'm not sure if that would be awesome or retarded.

[RadiantPhoenix]

How to make crafting interesting and fun for typical D&D players:

In order to craft items, you must subjugate the spirits within the components so they'll work together. Normally, you would spend a long time using tools on the components to get them the way you want them, but you've got to save the world now, so you don't have that time. Fortunately, you're murder hobos, so you have a shortcut: you can just {travel into the item world / call out the spirits of the components} and stab the spirits of the components in the face until they can't stop you from doing what you want with them.

[Hicks]

The common conceit of D&D is that if a dude was trying to stab you with a sword while hiding behind a shield and you stabbed that dude in the face, you tear both the sword and shield from his lifeless hands, drop them in your Santa Sack of Holding, and skip merrily across dungeon to the next encounter.

The whole 4e/diablo/computer game bullshit where you cannot find a sword and board and in their place is a bag of 3 copper and a magic fire ring is bullshit.

That said, there is a place for dragon hearts and demon eyes. You could rip out the heart of a CR 9 Red Dragon and write down "Dragon Heart [fire] 9" on your character sheet and have it substitute for a [fire] spell like for a wand of fireball (CL 9); a wizard could use it to auto succeed spell research for a [fire] spell of up to 5th level in liew of paying gold and possibly wasting time. Use types, subtypes, CR, SLAs, Su and Ex abilities; like if a ring of blink needed to be made out of the bone of a blink dog, a cloak of invisibility is the hide of an invisible stalker, an amulet of regeneration is the claw of a hydra.

[Surgo]

Well, yeah, but you're not guaranteed to get an item you actually want out of any given dead guy -- they might drop what they're holding, but what they're holding is essentially random. I see crafting as a way to put some player determinism into treasure, which may or may not be a bad idea.

[Dean]

Ok the first thing to realize is that this whole concept of hunting for arkenstones or hydra claws or demon hearts to smash together into items is bullshit and it won't work in a cooperative roleplaying game, period. I like the people I game with, they are personal friends of mine whom I actually like and there is still no way I'm spending one night of my actual time RPing traveling around to volcano's and hydra fens and summoning circles just to get my buddy Dan some extra +1's on his character's imaginary sword. That's not happening for many reasons just one of which is the fact that there is no guarantee he will not find a better sword next session which he will then use because we ARE playing an RPG.

So that being said we can focus on the larger point that you are all focusing on the wrong part of crafting. All crafting games have a design portion and a creation portion and the creation part is what you are all erroneously focused on. The creation portion generally makes you use visual information to make twitch timing based decisions of which ttrpg's have neither. So that's out. The part we CAN do is the design phase and that CAN be both fun and interesting. Star Wars Saga did this (well!), Iron Kingdom's Full Metal Fantasy did it (badly!), as well as many others. You simply create a robust list of optional modifiers or parts that take up the same space as each other. Then you can look at the rifle you want to craft and figure out which scope ability you want, which accessory ability you want, which tech upgrades and so on. If you have enough options with enough difference between them people can spend time looking through the books and enjoying crafting different weapons by simply spending the money and saying they do when they have downtime.

That way Dan can just say "If we have 3 days in town I'm going to craft a Crystal Warhammer of Celestial Lightning" which he would then just do. The deepest you could get and not disrupt play would be a series of checks like "3 days and a DC 20 BAB check gains you a Demon Heart" to make Dan accumulate the various pieces of bullshit he needs to make the Crystal Warhammer but it would still need to be done behind the scenes and it should still only be usable as a different method to spend money you have to get level appropriate gear. It's just level appropriate gear that you would DESIGN so it's gonna fit your schtick better.

[hogarth]

D&D has stuff drop fully-formed from treasure piles, but why can't a bunch of random reagants also drop from treasure piles (and monsters)? Then you can combine seven of them together and get some cool piece of gear.

I'm not sure if that would be awesome or retarded.

From they way you're describing it, it would be exactly the same, except slower. E.g., instead of getting a sword +1, you get half the parts for a sword +1.

[MGuy]

People want to be able to make their own stuff at this point or that. People also want to be able to have a bunch of independent options that they can combine to create various effects. If you want people to be extra interested in crafting make it so they can trick out things that exist or invent their own stuff. In my experience those are the things people get really hyped over when crafting is an option.

[hogarth]

If you want people to be extra interested in crafting make it so they can trick out things that exist or invent their own stuff. In my experience those are the things people get really hyped over when crafting is an option.

In my experience, people want to craft in order to get better and/or more specific loot. So a crafting system that is functionally equivalent to a system without crafting (e.g. instead of dropping a +1 sword by level 3, the GM drops all the parts to build a +1 sword by level 3) would be pointless.

[Dean]

Agreed. It needs to be a matter of turning money (a resource) and time (not really a resource at all) into custom items that you spent time figuring out were optimal by looking through the options in the rulebook.

[MGuy]

If you want people to be extra interested in crafting make it so they can trick out things that exist or invent their own stuff. In my experience those are the things people get really hyped over when crafting is an option.

In my experience, people want to craft in order to get better and/or more specific loot. So a crafting system that is functionally equivalent to a system without crafting (e.g. instead of dropping a +1 sword by level 3, the GM drops all the parts to build a +1 sword by level 3) would be pointless.

I don't think its necessary to have the GM drop stuff to make a +1 sword. Hell I don't think the existence of +1 swords is even a good thing. I think the crafting system is more interesting if its a collection of just disparate things people can build into something better or if they are able to just customize their spaceships, tanks, flying fortresses, etc. Something more similar to the Steampowers from Dragonmech

[hogarth]

I don't think its necessary to have the GM drop stuff to make a +1 sword. Hell I don't think the existence of +1 swords is even a good thing.

What does that have to do with the point that I was making?

[MGuy]

You said:

So a crafting system that is functionally equivalent to a system without crafting (e.g. instead of dropping a +1 sword by level 3, the GM drops all the parts to build a +1 sword by level 3) would be pointless.

And I responded by saying that, THAT is not what I would want anyway. I'm not sure where the confusion is.

[hogarth]

You said:

So a crafting system that is functionally equivalent to a system without crafting (e.g. instead of dropping a +1 sword by level 3, the GM drops all the parts to build a +1 sword by level 3) would be pointless.

And I responded by saying that, THAT is not what I would want anyway. I'm not sure where the confusion is.

You don't understand what "e.g." means?

[MGuy]

Yea... and your example was what I responded to? Is that weird? I mean if you just meant for things to get special abilities and not just being incrementally better it would be closer to what I suggested anyway wouldn't it?

[Surgo]

If you want people to be extra interested in crafting make it so they can trick out things that exist or invent their own stuff. In my experience those are the things people get really hyped over when crafting is an option.

In my experience, people want to craft in order to get better and/or more specific loot. So a crafting system that is functionally equivalent to a system without crafting (e.g. instead of dropping a +1 sword by level 3, the GM drops all the parts to build a +1 sword by level 3) would be pointless.

I don't think you really understood what I was saying.

The treasure a monster gives is effectively random. You really can't reasonably seek people out for their +4 Swords of Awesomeness (unless of course they are well known for their artifacts, or something). But you can reasonably seek out a Frost Wyrm so you can take its heart to make your own +4 Sword of Awesomeness.

[Vebyast]

Stealing from the combat system always works. Making an item could literally include summoning and trapping an elemental or something, while stopping it from destroying your tools and lab assistants, and then finding some unwilling high-level Fighter to stab to death with the partly-enchanted blade for extra bonuses.

Another thing I've seen - mostly in JRPGs - is that combos in the combat system drop the crafted results into the treasure pool. To take an example from Baten Kaitos, using a helmet (defense item), a bag of rice (healing item), and then a water attack and a fire attack in the same combo would produce cooked rice, a much better healing item. I'm not sure how this would work in a DND-like system, since prereqs would be much harder to come by and the system wouldn't be particularly interesting for non-casters, but it could work if it were built into a prereq-light point-buy system at ground level.

[Prak]

The thing is that, outside of video games, in a table top game, there is no incentive to use such combos, or at least that example combo, in combat, rather than just using some down time to turn your bag of rice into cooked rice.

[Vebyast]

I'll take a stab at a DND-style example, then, even though it will also have problems. Say you want to craft a +2 sword with the Flaming and Dancing enchantments on it. Instead of just learning Fireball and Animate Objects and then dumping the required money into the item during downtime, you might have to craft the base item, then enchant it by getting in a fight and having an animated object use it stab a guy that you had set on fire using Fireball. As I said, kludgey and wouldn't work particularly well, but might be workable if you set up the entire crafting system around it.

[Prak]

That would be very odd. It could work for what you want to do if you built it to, but players would still wonder why they can't just put Animate Objects and Fireball into the sword itself in down time.

[Grek]

If I were to do a crafting system, it would work like this:
-Everyone has a level dependant skill level with whatever items they can use which imposes a cap on their bonuses from items. So the 1st level fighter with the artifact sword of +infinity can only get +1 from using it, but they never need to get a new sword either.
-You start out by picking a base item to craft. This can be a sword, some armour, a fancy ring or even a wall. This gives the base time, craft DC and minimum material requirements to make the item. You then add extras onto this base design which increase the time, DC or materials required, but give bonuses to the resulting item. Extras are stuff like decreased weight, bigger damage dies, +1 enhancement bonuses, decreased armour check penalties, incredible luxuriousness increased climb DC, whatever.
-Then you pick out materials that meet the minimum material requirements. What materials you use set the materials DC for the item. If you've not gone overboard with extras, you can pick something of the default materials list that meets youre requirements. If not, you need to bust out the unusual materials rules to get stuff like demon-forged steel. You can also do this even if you don't have to, in case you want to make a sword out of fire or acid-proof pants or something.
-The unusual materials rules are a long list of special processes you can apply to any material in the game in order to alter the weight, density, hardness, acid-resistance, etc. of an object. Mutliple processes can be applied to a single object. So if you apply the permanent freezing ritual to some acid, followed by the demon-forging, thousand-folded and super-sharpening processes, you get a weird material with funky properties all its own. Like demon-forged, thousand-folded, ultra-sharp acid-ice.
-You make a single Craft check that has to beat both the item DC and the materials DC. If you fail just one, no progress but you can try again later. If you fail both you ruin the materials and have to start over. Every +5 that you beat the item DC by decreases the time required by half.
-On top of that, you can also enchant an item (or a material, in the case of stuff like demon-forged or elementally infused), either yourself if you're a spellcaster or by having a magical creature do it or by applying magical creature parts/blood to the item. This gives it additional bonuses on top of the default ones, but add a drawback/quirk like "Cannot harm devils." or "Is always glowing like a torch." or "Inflicts 1 fire damage per round to the wielder." or "Does not protect from cold iron."
-Cold iron, by the way, is just default iron that hasn't had any supernatural processes applied to it like "demon-forged" or "elementally infused" that apply "cannot hurt X" type quirks.

Advantages: Is not just a Success: Y/N roll, lets you geek out over the customization options in the book and does not involve going out to farm 20 bear asses to make your new hat.
Disadvantages: Is more complicated than it probably needs to be, cannot be done at the table unless you're making something simple and will probably produce some weird combos like walls of infinite hardness unless you're good at thinking through the implications of your rules.

[Mistborn]

Wow this thread is increadibly dumb. Like I just took Int drain just for reading it. The crafting minigame is not going to be enhanced by any amount of fucking around with flumph spleens and dragon catnip.

Now having monsters drop regents that are worth Xgp towards the cost of your +5 bigsword of compensating is possibly worth considering. It's a marginal step up from magemarts or crafting just going piles of gold -> ???? -> cool stuff.

What people do give a shit about is being able to make gear that they can tailor to their own abilities and prefrences. Froging a sword in dragonfire and quenching it in the blood of and incest born king to creat the Sword of Fire and Ice sound's really cool but at the game table it's just a big hassle. Especially if the Sword of Fire and Ice just gives +hit and deals some extra cold and fire damage on a crit. Being able to select "+2/+2", "deals 2 damage to target creature or player", and "draws you and extra card" from a big list of abilities is what will actually draw people in to your item creation system.

[Surgo]

Froging a sword in dragonfire and quenching it in the blood of and incest born king to creat the Sword of Fire and Ice sound's really cool but at the game table it's just a big hassle.

Except that is, you know, role playing. Seriously. If the Sword of Fire and Ice is actually supposed to be an important piece of the story, actually questing to go make the Sword of Fire and Ice makes a good deal of sense.