Exception-based design is tearing 4th Edition apart.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:46 am

Look at this, an issue as simple of whether powers that grant extra AP that tell you that you must spend them is causing the system to crack.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st17943550

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:29 am

Wow. Ziana's fucking retarded and likes to pretend otherwise. I love it when people know just enough about a subject to be annoying.

For example:

"Must" linguistically doesn't necessitate obligation. If I hand you an ice-cream cone on a hot day and say "you must eat it quickly", that doesn't mean if you're not feeling well, or are allergic to dairy, you have to eat it. It only means that if you don't, it will melt, so eating it is no longer an option.

Except no. Just no. You're a fucking retard, Ziana. If you hand me an ice cream cone on a hot day and say, "You must eat it quickly," then it does in fact imply an absolute obligation. The problem, my little fucking retard, is that the sentence has an implied context, a context that you are conveniently ignoring. To wit: "You must eat it quickly, lest it melt, rendering you unable to eat it."

Dumb fucking retard. The obligation is contingent upon the intent to eat the fucking ice cream cone. If I want to eat the ice cream cone, then I'm fucking obliged to eat it quickly.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:32 am

It's a possiblity that the power is unusable if you cannot spend an action point.

The other way works too, though.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:30 am

NIN: I've added your comments to the thread.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:26 am

Wow. Is Ziana ESL? No native English speaker would ever be that confused as to the meaning of the word "must."

-Username17

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:47 am

Apparently, the way WotC has written it, the power isn't unusuable. If they had written a few extra words at the end of the sentence, they could have made it work that way, but they didn't.

To be absolutely fair to Ziana, must does have several subtly different dictionary definitions. However, I'd be inclined to think you have to assume the first, most common definition ("to be obliged or bound to by an imperative requirement") unless the context of the statement/writing clearly implies another use. In a written set of rules, we have no context that points us in another direction.

I really don't think this is a problem of exception-based design, though. It's just a problem of lazy wording. WotC would probably screw up the rules under any design paradigm. Fortunately, they have a bunch of fanboy sycophants who don't know what exception-based design actually means.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:11 am

Fortunately, they have a bunch of fanboy sycophants who don't know what exception-based design actually means.

It's the greatest design principle in any gaming system! M:tG is balanced and a great example of EBD! 3e was all about EBD! EBD helps promote system mastery! EBD saves space in books!

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:40 am

But does it make julian fries?

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:04 am

virgileso wrote:But does it make julian fries?

No, but it does make baby Jesus cry.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:07 am

I don't get the EBD fappery in 4e. Doesn't make much sense. M:tG sucks.

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:08 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I don't get the EBD fappery in 4e. Doesn't make much sense. M:tG sucks.

The last of these statements is debatable, but you are correct. Something which works in one environment need not (and often does not) in another, as it is ultimately contextual.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:25 am

To be fair, I hate all CCGs. I suppose that M:tG isn't objectively bad, and it works as far as CCGs go, but I really, really dislike them.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:34 am

I don't get the big deal about EBD. In law, it's a general rule that special laws supercede the general laws if they collide (of course, there's also the general rule that newer laws supercede the older laws, which can contradict the other rule). What exactly makes 4E so special that people laud the EBD? Other rules systems had the "general rule, but there are special cases as well" too.

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:38 am

Fuchs wrote:I don't get the big deal about EBD. In law, it's a general rule that special laws supercede the general laws if they collide (of course, there's also the general rule that newer laws supercede the older laws, which can contradict the other rule). What exactly makes 4E so special that people laud the EBD? Other rules systems had the "general rule, but there are special cases as well" too.

The thing is, in 4E, EVERYTHING is its own unique subsystem which interacts with other subsystems only in specifically spelled-out ways and no others. This means that basically everything is doing its own thing and nothing works together, which is really fvcking daft.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:02 pm

Since I've been pushing Cosmic Encounters lately, I figured I throw it out at the peak of exception based design. You need a VERY simple system for it to work.

Flip a card - attack a planet or your choice the color of the card - the person that plays the card with the highest number wins. If you win, repeat once. If not, next person's turn.

Then you have powers. Powers are the definition of exception because the above rules are simple and they let you break them. Powers consist of things like "your card number doubles", or "opponent chooses card or your choice at random". Please take careful notice that these can never interact with each other directly.

4e uses the
"you are dazed so your available actions are anything that doesn't involve moving"
and
"you get a free move action at no cost!"

These VERY CLEARLY contradict each other. It doesn't even matter which one is correct for rules interpretation, the EBD paradigm is blown.

MtG is a decent game, but it holds very strickly to the EBD paradigm. The rules are simple "monsters attack and kill defending monsters of lower hp, or do damage to the opponent", and the interactions are nearly always (they have slipped up a couple of times) tangential in the manner of "all goblins gain 1/1" and "any goblin that gets a bonus has this bonus doubled". They have very carefully avoided "anything that doubles goblin bonuses doesn't" types of cards, instead opting for "destroy/deactive target card".

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:50 pm

M:TG does not use exception based design as far as I know. 3rd Edition (thankfully) has very few exception either. 2nd Edition hat tons.

When that term was coined (I think during my "big squares" debate with PL) what I meant is this:

Modular design example:
1) Your position is determined by the square you are in.
2) Movement is defined as changing the square you are in.
3) Attacks of Opportunity are normal attacks at full BAB.
4) Attacks are made with d20 + BAB against AC.
5) A character threatens all squares adjacent to him.
6) Moving into a threatened square grants an Attack of Opportunity.

Note that these rules do reference each other. They do not create special rules for their own special cases however. AoOs from moving do not use other rules than AoOs from spellcasting. A hide check does not use different rules than a spellcraft check, and hiding in the forest does not have a mechanic separate from hiding in dungeons.

There can be modifiers to each of these modules (for example "Take an AoO at +5 to hit") but every game mechanic should be present only once.

Exception based design example:
1) Attacks are made with d20 + BAB against AC.
2) When you fail a concentration check your opponent deals 3d6 + level damage to you.

Note how there is now a special case, for one specific occurence, with its own game mechanic and a duplication of similar mechanics. That rule may work fine for its intended purpose or it may not. But what always happens is that you run into trouble as soon as you want to add new stuff on top of it, or you want to change stuff that already exists. Say, a new feat is designed: "Add your level to the damage of all your AoOs". How does this interact with rule 2?

Anyways, generally speaking I haven't seen much of this type of design in either 3rd Edition or M:TG. Nearly everything references the basic rules and that is the direct opposite of an exception (in the sense defined above).

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:09 pm

"Attacking does not cause this creature to tap"

That's a keyword ability these days, which might not count, but it showed up for a long while before getting a keyword. At that point in time, it served as a clear exception to the rules, so such things count unless Exception Based Design does not mean what it sounds like it should.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:32 pm

name_here wrote:"Attacking does not cause this creature to tap"

That's a keyword ability these days, which might not count, but it showed up for a long while before getting a keyword. At that point in time, it served as a clear exception to the rules, so such things count unless Exception Based Design does not mean what it sounds like it should.

EBD isn't about having a set of rules that things normally follow and a few specific rules that show how things change those rules. It's about the rules for each thing being exceptions, not having exceptions.

EBD isn't that there are normal rules for attacking and a creature has an ability where it doesn't tap when it attacks. EBD is when a creature has its own attack rules written in full on its card.

Nothing actually does that (though M:tG sorceries come very close), but the 4e writers explicitly used that as a design goal. And it's stupid. And it shows.

-Username17

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:40 pm

Thanks Frank, that's exactly what I meant except I used 10 times the words and apparently it still wasn't clear.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:43 pm

Okay, that is stupid and totally divorced from anything with real gameplay instead of being 1001 blank white cards.

That's actually a party "game" BTW.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:07 pm

1001 Blank White Cards FTW!

Excuse to doodle stuff.

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Wow. Is Ziana ESL? No native English speaker would ever be that confused as to the meaning of the word "must."

-Username17

In my experiences online it usually does require a native English speaker to confound his own language so completely and ignore basic common sense as to how it works. Foreign speakers screw up idioms but native speakers are so sloppy sometimes that they ignore basic rules of grammar or even sense.

srsly when u dun talk gud even in lulcatz, u fail.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 2:46 am

FrankTrollman wrote:EBD isn't that there are normal rules for attacking and a creature has an ability where it doesn't tap when it attacks. EBD is when a creature has its own attack rules written in full on its card.

SunTzuWarmaster wrote:1001 Blank White Cards FTW!

Excuse to doodle stuff.

That reminds me of a game I played in college... "Happyville: Random". It's a live action... uh... sorta-kinda-roleplaying game. There are crazy numbers of cards and they each have a different "character" and set of abilities. Vampire, Inigo Montoya, Sonic the Hedgehog, that sort of thing.

Admittedly, there *was* a core mechanic, but that was pretty much "hit man with stick".

Seems like EBD is primarily useful for games where working out weird unexpected rules interactions is the source of entertainment...

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:00 am

1001 blank white cards gives each player a pen and lets them draw from the titular 1001 blank white cards. and write on them.

It leads to "That Card", which said, "All cards do the opposite of what they say, including this one."

Pretty funny though.

Thymos · Post by **Thymos** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:30 am

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how dumb EBD is if Frank is giving an accurate description of it.

Is it possible for anyone to actually think that is a good idea?

I mean, I thought 3e showed that subsystems like grappling or turning for example didn't work... at all. The turning system sounds like EBD, and it's frankly retarded. Mostly because it doesn't sync up with the rest of the system. I think everyone agrees that the 3.x turning system was retarded. I really don't think I need to even defend this claim.

4e is trying to go that route?

(there really needs to be a retarded smiley face)

Is there any proof that 4e is trying to have EBD?