Spotlight is Not a Conserved Property (No Zinegata, thanks)

[Foxwarrior]

I know a lot of people talk about "sharing the spotlight" or about what percentage of the spotlight players are taking up, but I think this may actually be a harmful way to look at it. A good situational joke only takes a few seconds to tell in a three hour session but can still be a highlight in retrospect. In my last session, there was a fire moat, some black puddings, and some ogrish people, and I put up an illusion of sausages in the fire moat to trick the black puddings into roasting theirselves. We could have then just beaten up the ogrish people and been on our way, but I feel like it was much more memorable that one of my compatriots decided to chat with them instead, eventually bribing them with actual delicious sausages he had in his pack for some mysterious reason.

I'd go so far as to say that if everything goes according to plan without surprises or diversity in approach, there's not much spotlight going around at all.

[Zinegata]

Except a situational joke isn't a DM, player, or even a rules thing. It's a social group thing.

Likewise deciding to bribe ogres with sausage has nothing to do with the spotlight.

Instead that's a player decision on which approach to take in an encounter.

If there's only one good talker in a group and the group decided to take a diplomatic approach, that's not a spotlight sharing issue if the rest of the group consented to the approach.

It only becomes a spotlight sharing issue if the one good talker insists on his diplomatic solution even if the other players don't find it interesting. It may have been interesting for the talker and the DM, but for the rest of the players it may have just been 30 minutes of boredom.

More importantly, what you're talking about has pretty much nothing to do with the "spotlight sharing" being discussed in the other thread which you alluded to.

In that thread, people were talking about how rules and mechanics tended to give certain characters the spotlight. The Wizard / Psyker will tend to have more of the spotlight because they have "hail mary" powers which kill all the enemies while everyone else can only shoot and maybe kill one enemy at a time.

That is not sharing the spotlight by consent. That's spotlight being distributed poorly and randomly by the dice Gods.

And more importantly, this poor distribution is largely the fault of designers - because they keep adding randomness to the game based on their imagined ideal scenarios, when in reality the randomness tends to just create plainly bad situations that DMs keep needing to fudge to keep working.

Going back to the psyker example: Every proponent of miscast balancing imagined that miscast penalties were great for balancing overpowered spells because they likened it to gambling. If the party is in a desperate situation and is losing, then why not go all-in with a big gamble? That gamble might turn the situation around.

Yet if you took that approach in real life, and decided to play a high-stakes poker tournament when things got rough, your friends would do everything in their power to stop you. Because chances are, you will lose that poker tournament and be in an even deeper hole. And unlike an RPG, there is no DM that will fudge your Gamble Roll.

Consistency is not the enemy of diversity. Consistency is about making the system work as intended without fudging.

The problem is when designers think only of the ideal scenarios - and design elaborate systems to facilitate the creation of said scenarios - without actually looking at all the possible scenarios that the system will create.

This is why I kept saying Warhammer-style miscast tables were a bad idea if the intent was to use them as a balancing mechanic.

There are some results in that table that can result in your ideal scenario. In most cases though, these tables just make an already bad situation even worse - thereby overturning their intended outcome of "balancing" the situation back to equilibrium.

Worse, these tables invite catastrophe even in other situations that don't warrant them. It'd be very, very funny to imagine a group that ended up summoning a Greater Daemon by accident just because the psyker wanted to show off and pushed a simple non-combat spell into the miscast table; but it would NOT be very fun for the group who may have just had their entire campaign ruined by one moment of goofing off.

[Foxwarrior]

Well, ignoring the 80% of your post that should have stayed in the other thread:

The Wizard / Psyker will tend to have more of the spotlight because they have "hail mary" powers which kill all the enemies while everyone else can only shoot and maybe kill one enemy at a time.

My point is, if it wasn't for the Psyker, there'd be no spotlight going on in the fight at all. If the lasgun pingers ping away with their lasguns until the enemies are dead, it's not memorable or distinctive. Maybe the fact that the fight happened at all could be relevant to the overall narrative, but other than that, when players think back on the session later, they may well forget that the fight happened at all. While if the psyker managed to actually pull off a hail mary power this time, they'll remember it. What's the point of having a spotlight if there's nothing to see?

It only becomes a spotlight sharing issue if the one good talker insists on his diplomatic solution even if the other players don't find it interesting.

So if there's a session where one player does every action, has every roleplay conversation, etc, but the other players are really fascinated and happy to watch, there isn't a spotlight sharing issue. What's the percentage distribution in that situation? N/A%?

[Zinegata]

My point is, if it wasn't for the Psyker, there'd be no spotlight going on in the fight at all. If the lasgun pingers ping away with their lasguns until the enemies are dead, it's not memorable or distinctive.

Lol, no. That's an even worse design failure - it's a failure of imagination.

If Guardsmen can do nothing other than fire their lasguns until the enemy dies, then it only means they were not given enough interesting powers or options.

By contrast, there are seriously Warhammer 40k novels where all the characters are just Guardsmen with ordinary weapons. And yet they manage to make multiple, very memorable characters like in the Gaunt's Ghost series.

One Guardsman can be an ace sniper who can catch the enemy commander right between the eyes.

Another could be a demo expert making jury-rigged explosives.

A third could be an expert leader who inspires his troops and gives them bonuses.

So if there's a session where one player does every action, has every roleplay conversation, etc, but the other players are really fascinated and happy to watch, there isn't a spotlight sharing issue. What's the percentage distribution in that situation? N/A%?

It isn't because again it's a group consent issue.

Group consent is binary. They either consent to your approach or they don't. A group might have one primary talker who hogs all the spotlight in most sessions - but the group consents because they're amused by him - or they can outright refuse to consider letting one guy just talk the whole session to begin with.

That's why it's not a math issue like spotlight distributed randomly by dice because of shitty design balancing or worse, gimping non-magic characters and refusing to give them interesting options.

That you're mixing these two issues up IS the problem.

Group consent is a social gaming group issue, which exists beyond the rules.

Spotlight by character options / effectiveness is by contrast a design issue. In this case, the Guardsmen weren't even gimped because of bad dice. They were gimped because the designer couldn't even be bothered to make their character classes as interesting as psykers.

[MGuy]

I basically agree with the idea that certain things that happen in a session will take up more mindspace with the group than others. I think that on a design level though you are trying to design a game that allows or promotes everyone to have the chance to do something memorable. I'd like to avoid having people go off and take up a bunch of screen time performing tasks that other players can't attempt or who's inclusion would only hamper it because that's table time eaten up with less people being able to give their input.

Experientially, I've had sessions where players split themselves up far more often than not, which caused me to have to cover different parts of the group. This is not ideal. It's harder on me as the GM, potentially dangerous for the characters, and means players will have times where they don't have input. This hardship, however, is self imposed. I could at any time talk to my players and ask them never to do that. The thing is, I don't mind it. My players tell me that they 'feel' freer by being able to go off and do their own thing because coming up with reasons to stick together every time in every moment of the game feels less realistic to them.

I take my experiences in running the game into account when I'm thinking about what I'm trying to do design wise. In action people seem to come to a social agreement over just how much bullshit they are willing to tolerate in their individual games. That's not something I can really legislate out of the game. A bad GM is going to be a bad GM and it goes the same for the players. What I can do is try to think of rules as a way to promote certain kinds of behaviors. If no one bites, or if the groups want to promote something else, they will find a way to do it.

So let's say I make a decent tactical combat minigame where all the players can nominally do what they want to contribute towards the group's victory. What if one of the players have a very aggressive kind of attitude toward maximizing every action the group takes in this minigame to the point where they attempt to direct other people's turns? That is not what my design would promote and it isn't something I could give disincentives for as a designer trying to make a functional tactical minigame. That's a behavior the group has to decide if it's going to tolerate.

[Foxwarrior]

I think that on a design level though you are trying to design a game that allows or promotes everyone to have the chance to do something memorable.

Yeah, it's good to give every player a nice toolbox that they can use to steal the show, and I'd say it's the place where TTRPGs are most likely to just sort of trip over theirselves, at least if the popular ones are any indication. Noting that it's not actually necessary for all the tools a player has to be powers rather than weaknesses: I've managed to extract a decent amount of entertainment from tools like "not being able to speak".

Experientially, I've had sessions where players split themselves up far more often than not, which caused me to have to cover different parts of the group.

A time where the spotlight sharing is more literal than usual. I guess this kind of spotlight sharing is what the Shadowrun people were thinking about. For interleaving the actions of the different groups, I know PhoneLobster is a fan of expanding the combat system to a point where the party can use turns to split up and interact with different parts of the museum during a heist or whatever. When groups split up in my games though (which hasn't happened very often at all) I guess I've usually had some difficulty juggling the separate parties and I think it tended to drag on a bit.

What if one of the players have a very aggressive kind of attitude toward maximizing every action the group takes in this minigame to the point where they attempt to direct other people's turns? That is not what my design would promote and it isn't something I could give disincentives for as a designer trying to make a functional tactical minigame.

I think there are a few designable defenses against this, although they're not exactly pretty. You can make each player's resource system complicated and different enough that the quarterbacking player can't really know what the other party members can do. You could make it so the players weren't actually completely trying to cooperate and had secret goals.

[PhoneLobster]

I think there are a few designable defenses against this, although they're not exactly pretty. You can make each player's resource system complicated and different enough that the quarterbacking player can't really know what the other party members can do. You could make it so the players weren't actually completely trying to cooperate and had secret goals.

To the degree it's solvable at a design level, and I think for TTRPGs it is eh, 90% solvable? (not so much for board games). I think the solution is the direct opposite of opacity.

Increased transparency as to which options are "the good ones" in any given context, less reliance on players having real world social or math skills, and for the love of god some sort of restraint in the severity/existence of Trap Options and I Win Buttons. These are the tools you need to avoid all the backseat driving.

If you try to solve this by making it impossible for Player 1 to understand Player 3s optimal decision all that will happen is that Player 1's superior rules knowledge will allow them to understand their own AND Player 3's optimal decisions and Player 3 will not understand optimal decisions at all period. And that is basically THE foundational root cause of the co-op board game problem.

Meanwhile trying to use elaborate traitor game secret objectives? Yeah, sure, pick the second worst poorly implemented fad mechanic in modern board game design and try and use that to solve the first worst one? Look, it's not that traitor/secret objective stuff can't work, but you only have to look at board games to see how very very often it fails due to it's own inherit flaws and baggage it brings with it.

If you want to do secret objectives/traitor mechanics in your TTRPG, it better be because that is in and of itself a major part of your goals and objectives and you had better expect it to bring in a whole raft of major new issues to deal with. Don't expect it to be some magic wand that is going to actually help with anything whatsoever.

Almost every story of a GM trying to bring in even minor individual secret objectives or traitor mechanics into an RPG almost always is a fail story.

In fact if you think about it, there is ONE really big name in TTRPGs out there that is almost built around traitor mechanics and secret conflicting objectives. It is not coincidental that it is a throw away gag based comedy game.

[jt]

I think that on a design level though you are trying to design a game that allows or promotes everyone to have the chance to do something memorable.

I like this goal, and I think you said it well. Let's look at options for how to make it happen:

It's good to give every player a nice toolbox that they can use to steal the show[...] Noting that it's not actually necessary for all the tools a player has to be powers rather than weaknesses: I've managed to extract a decent amount of entertainment from tools like "not being able to speak".

I just had a game where my Kenku Bard heard something in another language, then later cast Comprehend Languages and used his Kenku mimicry ability to repeat it until he understood it. It wasn't the highlight of the session for me, but I think it was for the DM. (I got more amusement out of the druid trying to communicate while being a horse, and roleplaying it very straight.)

I like the toolbox approach a lot. It definitely solves the spotlight problem.

Interacting toolbox items in particular can really stand out (like my mimicry + Comprehend Languages example), so I'd like to throw overlapping toolboxes into the pile of proposals. Overlapping is distinct from just having two toolboxes - you're more likely to stumble into a combination of two related tools (mimicry and Comprehend Languages are both language-related) than, say, mimicry + summoning.

I also agree that limitations can work well for spotlights, but I think they work better when framed as a drawback to a different ability. The "has to talk like a horse" thing was fun when bolted to a Wild Shape form, I don't think it'd be so fun if it was permanent. Though I've never seen it done on a very pervasive level, and if everyone has a rather severe limitation it might actually be something quite special. I haven't actually played a game where one character is mute, another is a potted plant that can't walk, and another is a ghost that can't physically move objects, but just by posing the question I'm already rooting for this party to succeed.

I'd like to avoid having people go off and take up a bunch of screen time performing tasks that other players can't attempt or who's inclusion would only hamper it because that's table time eaten up with less people being able to give their input.

I also agree with this. Making separate minigames where each character does their thing and everyone else looks on in awe is a reliable way to give everyone a spotlight. And it's boring compared to toolboxes, overlapping toolboxes, and limitations.

A toolbox [is a] place where TTRPGs are most likely to just sort of trip over theirselves, at least if the popular ones are any indication.

In D&D, I've noticed that there are loads of spells that could be fleshed out into an entire character's shtick. Say you pick any one of silent image, invisibility, summon monster, flight, passwall, scry, or wall of stone (by no means exhaustive). Make a character class that gets this spell at-will, with whatever modifications it takes to make it level appropriate. For whatever levels that's a viable character concept, that character already has a compelling toolbox.

I think D&D made a very bad allocation of resources here by writing a bunch of toolbox abilities, then giving all of them to the same handful of classes, and attaching them to a daily limit to compensate.

[Zinegata]

So let's say I make a decent tactical combat minigame where all the players can nominally do what they want to contribute towards the group's victory. What if one of the players have a very aggressive kind of attitude toward maximizing every action the group takes in this minigame to the point where they attempt to direct other people's turns? That is not what my design would promote and it isn't something I could give disincentives for as a designer trying to make a functional tactical minigame. That's a behavior the group has to decide if it's going to tolerate.

That's an issue called "Alpha Player" problem. It's been discussed a lot already in very many other forums because it's a common issue in cooperative games.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/496213 ... er-problem

And it's ultimately a social issue, not a rules issue. That's why a lot of the "solutions" involve talking to the Alpha Player, making them recognize it's an issue, and impose social rules to limit them from taking over the table.

Trying to solve social group issues via game design is, frankly, pointless. Its like trying to come up with rules to try and influence what kind of pizza the group orders before a game.

[jt]

There are cooperative board games that solve the alpha gamer problem. For example, Space Alert solves it with a harsh time limit and private information. So I'd hardly call addressing it pointless.

Yeah, sometimes someone is just bringing out-of-game baggage in and causing a mess for reasons that the game never could account for. But not all social problems are so cleanly separable. A game is already inherently a social construct.

[Zinegata]

I think there are a few designable defenses against this, although they're not exactly pretty. You can make each player's resource system complicated and different enough that the quarterbacking player can't really know what the other party members can do. You could make it so the players weren't actually completely trying to cooperate and had secret goals.

To the degree it's solvable at a design level, and I think for TTRPGs it is eh, 90% solvable? (not so much for board games). I think the solution is the direct opposite of opacity.

You're right on opacity.

Experience in other games have shown that making the rules more opaque, complicated, or difficult to grok doesn't actually discourage Alpha Gamers.

It in fact enables them even harder. Because when most players at the table are clueless, they will naturally gravitate towards the one player who does get the system.

Being open, simpler, and less opaque though doesn't solve the Alpha Player problem. It can reduce it, but it's ultimately still a social issue demanding a social solution rather than a rules-based one.

Traitor mechanics by the way don't fix this problem because they fundamentally change the nature of the game. Instead of being a game of logic and decision, it becomes primarily a social game where the best liars win. It literally turns the actual social issues the group has into a game (e.g. We ALWAYS assume a certain player - not character - is a traitor because of how he loves playing the traitor).

That's why it doesn't work with multi-session RPGs. People aren't inclined to lie in front of their friends for months on end.

[Zinegata]

There are cooperative board games that solve the alpha gamer problem. For example, Space Alert solves it with a harsh time limit and private information. So I'd hardly call addressing it pointless.

It's true that Alpha Gamer can't direct the action during a Space Alert session so much - there simply isn't enough time - but you're going to hear from them in excruciating detail exactly what each of you did wrong after you fail.

And you can be sure they'll be watching for you to not make the same mistake again in the next session, which can be unpleasant for some people who don't want to be reminded over and over that they made a mistake.

That's why you need to set social rules outside of the game rules. Some groups are fine with Alpha Gamers and see them as a way to learn the game faster. Others can't stand being told what to do so they react with hostility even to simple suggestions. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and more importantly...

Yeah, sometimes someone is just bringing out-of-game baggage in and causing a mess for reasons that the game never could account for. But not all social problems are so cleanly separable. A game is already inherently a social construct.

A game is a social construct, but there are only so many things a designer can dictate to a social group.

That's why I pointed out that it's pointless for a designer to try and influence what kind of pizza a group is gonna order. How likely is it for a designer to come up with the right pizza order for a group that he has never met? A designer can push pepperoni pizza all he wants, and try to give bonuses for eating this pizza in the rules, but if most of the players are vegetarians all this pushing will fall on deaf ears.

The core of most social issues in fact stem from issues that are wildly unrelated to the actual game and are specific to the group. So a designer will be proposing social solutions just as blindly as trying to divine the best pizza order for a group.

Better instead to just accept this is a group responsibility, rather than a design responsibility. The designer's job is to focus on stuff he can control within the game - and to offer the game as a socializing opportunity for various groups.

He's not trying to fix every gaming group's social problems. If they have deep social problems in the group, they should work it out as a social group, not act their social issues out on each other in a game.

[PhoneLobster]

Being open, simpler, and less opaque though doesn't solve the Alpha Player problem. It's ultimately a social issue.

The point is it mostly works, like I said, pulling a number out of my ass thin air, 90% solvable.

The player that will ALWAYS want to decide Bob's action no matter what cannot be fixed by rules . They have a problem with Bob.

The player that just wants Bob to stop falling into gigantic gaping (yet to Bob mostly invisible) trap actions that litter the play space like land mines and that keep "losing the game for everyone" has a problem with rules that can be fixed.

The first player is much rarer than the second player. Hell, it's even kinda a matter of self selection that such a player is rarer. If you fix the fixable issues the second player has which are founded in the rules you are just left with the minority of impossible/not rules related issues. That's a "close enough" solution.

[Zinegata]

The player that will ALWAYS want to decide Bob's action no matter what cannot be fixed by rules . They have a problem with Bob.

That is the Alpha Player problem. I think we agree here.

The player that just wants Bob to stop falling into gigantic gaping (yet to Bob mostly invisible) trap actions that litter the play space like land mines and that keep "losing the game for everyone" has a problem with rules that can be fixed.

Ergh, that's not really the Alpha Player problem, because the player stopping Bob isn't the problem.

The problem instead is Bob. He's the Leeroy Jenkins problem. Making the rules less opaque is one of the things that helps fix the Leeroy Jenkins problem though.

[PhoneLobster]

No, it's not a "Leeroy Jenkins" Bob, it's average gamer or at worst only slightly less Bob. Accusing Bob of being a problem is just another new intractable excuse that isn't inherent to the issue and doesn't need to be dealt with directly.

Because the point is this isn't "Ultimately a social problem" this is occasionally a "social problem".

That's why co-operative board games can work rarely and TTRPGs only have "the Alpha Player problem" rarely. Because this isn't just an intractable "but that guy is just like that problem". The vast majority of the time it is basic cause and effect motivation through rules. Very smart board game design, and honestly just really bare bones minimum consideration in TTRPG design can prevent the basic motivations that cause this behavior most of the time for most of the players.

Throwing your hands in the air and constantly pointing at ever more rare types of intractable "bad players" helps no one do anything. Point at good players doing bad things and figure out why the game is motivating them badly. Then fix it, because that means the game was broken.

[Ice9]

While it's partly a social problem, the rules do have a considerable impact, IME.

Like - with the same group - we ran into this problem a lot more in 4E than in 3E or PF. And most of that was because of mechanical reasons:
* Buffs or conditions that only last until the end of next turn, meaning that if someone doesn't capitalize on it as their very next action then it's wasted.
* Lots of emphasis on exact positioning. Standing a square or two off from where you 'should' be could be a major drop in effectiveness depending on the situation.
* Stronger niche/role protection. While mostly good, this does mean it's harder to cover for an ineptly played party member if they're the only one in that role.

Also there was the factor that the GM was running a fairly "tight" game, as in the opposition was a fairly close match and sloppy play could very well lead to defeat. But the same GM had run 3E in a similar style without this being much of an issue.

[Zinegata]

No, it's not a "Leeroy Jenkins" Bob, it's average gamer or at worst only slightly less Bob. Accusing Bob of being a problem is just another new intractable excuse that isn't inherent to the issue and doesn't need to be dealt with directly.

That's not how you defined Bob originally. You defined him as this.

"The player that just wants Bob to stop falling into gigantic gaping (yet to Bob mostly invisible) trap actions that litter the play space like land mines and that keep "losing the game for everyone" has a problem with rules that can be fixed."

If Bob keeps losing the game for everyone, Bob's the problem; not the player trying to stop him from messing the rest of the party up. All the rest is you posturing.

But really, let's not pretend. You're just trying to posture that TTRPGs have nothing to learn from other games because that gives you an excuse to ignore them. That's why you hilariously claim co-op board games rarely work.

They actually work and sell far more than TTRPGs nowadays; and that's just glancing at the actual sales figures I have from our store.

And likewise, it's a myth Alpha Players are rare in TTRPGs. Why else would complaints about dictatorial / railroad DMs be so common?

More importantly, I'm not saying to give up. I'm saying its a bad idea to try and fix what are fundamentally social group problems because you have no control or idea what each social group's actual dynamics are.

You're basically all over the place in your definition of what a social problem is. That's why you keep trying to define Alpha Players are this super rare problem... when that's basically an offshoot of the Railroad DM problem that was much of the Den's focus since the very beginning.

[Zinegata]

While it's partly a social problem, the rules do have a considerable impact, IME.

Like - with the same group - we ran into this problem a lot more in 4E than in 3E or PF.

That's weird. For me 4E was the least tactical of any TTRPG because of padded sumo. People didn't need to Alpha Player or come up with strategy in the first place; they instead needed coffee to stay awake because of how long the damn monsters stayed alive.

But the thing is, that's very much a pizza preference thing. Your rules have very little guarantee that they can make players do something in a specific way, because you have no idea who the people in these groups are to begin with.

You might think 4E is super-tight and you have to optimize it to win it, but it could just be the case that your group always had a tendency to optimize regardless. Or maybe it was my group that was weird and we really just didn't see the nuance with the damn padded sumo.

[PhoneLobster]

That's not how you defined Bob originally. You defined him as this.

I didn't define Bob at all. I defined the trap options.

I defined some pretty appallingly obvious hyperbolic strawman level trap options at that.

If you think the problem is the undefined Bob, and not the gigantic burning strawman I created for him to interact with...

...whut?

And then you think... bad rail roading GMs are your co-op board game "Alpha Players"? ...whut? Why? Why would you pretend to believe that? I hope it's pretend. It's definitely a waste of god damn words.

And also you think that Co-op board games don't have a major structural issue repeated in game after game not fully shared by TTRPGs? Did you miss the bit where Ice9s description of 4E being worse was basically a list of ways 4E was more like a board game? Did you think that was a coincidence?

Then you seriously want to go with "but board games (collectively) sell more so they must be right... in some indeterminate way...? ...whut?

And... that learning from a flaw in board games is somehow... refusing to learn from board games? ... do you even... what is wrong with you? Do you just repeat words and phrases related to a topic you heard at random with no understanding of the meaning?

[Zinegata]

I didn't define Bob at all. I defined the trap options.

We're talking about Alpha Players, not trap options.

Your first example was literally what an Alpha Player was. So you clearly know what they are; you're just too busy trying to rewrite history because your attempts to discredit me are going badly wrong again.

And then you think... bad rail roading GMs are Alpha Players? ...whut?

Yes.

That you don't see this is why your posts are just useless rambling.

And also you think that Co-op board games don't have a major structural issue repeated in game after game not fully shared by TTRPGs?

Yes. They're the ones selling. TTRPGs are dying - especially the rules-heavy tactical combat ones. Everyone already knows those combat-oriented RPGs are terribly balanced.

Heck, even the ones who want the imbalance have tended to migrate to Kingdom Death.

Did you miss the bit where Ice9s description of 4E being worse was basically a list of all the ways 4E was more like a board game? Did you think that was a coincidence?

I really don't believe Ice9 played 4E (at least not without massive edits) because the overwhelming feedback I get from 4E (aside from my own experience) is that it's boring as hell and not tactical at all. Because of padded sumo.

There is no need for any tactics. Comparing it to a boardgame is again just you making up excuses to pretend that boardgames are bad, and that you have nothing to learn from them. 4E has nothing close to the tight balance of a boardgame; it's an MMO in paper form.

what is wrong with you?

I'm not a loser still trying to sell TTRPGs as the latest and greatest in tabletop technology even though it's been literally fucking years since we've even had to stock any non-core books due to the sheer lack of demand and all the players saying TTRPGs are so dated.

And yet I keep trying to explain reality today to people who want to stay in the fucking early 2010s.

But yeah, sure, it's this forum that has the greatest and most refined tastes in gaming; with the bestest ideas in design. Its just the dumb plebs who go for co-ops.

[Kaelik]

The point PhoneLobster is making, which is obviously correct, is that if there are Trap Options that Bob falls into which cause the entire game to be lost for everyone else in the party, and also those trap options are reasonably hard for Bob to notice, then it follows that the problem was in the game design that created those trap options and made them reasonably hard to notice.

That is really obviously true, and it is not a "social player problem" that you designed a game that TPKs every time one of the players is your average Timmy Gamer. The resident Spikes are not assholes for wanting to not TPK every encounter or every session, or ten times a campaign. The resident Timmy is not at fault for not being a Spike.

The problem was the game design that made it a requirement for everyone to Spike or a TPK.

Blaming Timmy is wrong.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm not a loser still trying to sell TTRPGs...

No, you are a loser "trying to sell" board games to a non board game community, despite the fact you seem to not know the first thing about board games yourself, and apparently refuse to allow useful or interesting discussion of board games "because shut up they (collectively) sell moar".

Much like your declarations of "leaving" here combined with prolific posting, your... dedication to your proclaimed goals is once again... questionable...

[MGuy]

PL is right here. Even if you might think he's exaggerating one of the imagined people or not it's undeniable that trap options are a thing. If you make a game that has 'wrong choices' you're going to get some number of people who end up making those wrong choices. If you make a game with 'correct choices' you're going to get people that fail to make them. In a game where the choices you make round to round or as part of your build matters then making wrong choices is going to make 'winning' more difficult. In a game where the price of failure can be steep you incentivize winning by any means possible. Hell you practically necessitate it. Conceivably you can make your combat minigame simple enough that it practically plays itself and that has consequences so minor that there's no reason to invest energy into trying to game it at all. Conceivably you can make a game where the difference between optimal play and suboptimal play is trivial.

I don't think this is at all controversial or something that's holding ttrpg design back.

Also I'll agree that 4e doesn't take a lot of effort to find easy ways to win but it is still needlessly complicated/convoluted in play. It has a lot of things going on that with interrupts, variable timing, and how particular abilities interact. I can believe Ice9 played the game. 2/3 of the things mentioned are things I remember being in the game. The only one that doesn't fit my experience is the idea that a weak player is hard to make up for.

[Zinegata]

I’m well aware of what trap options are. I talked about them last week.

https://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=5 ... &start=200

“Finally, I have to say that in the context of trad RPGs I would say that it is at best an exaggeration to say 3.0 cared about math or mechanical rigor all that much. Cook for instance was infamous for explicitly making gimped feats and making Fighters far weaker than spellcasters”

The issue is that I was pointing out however was not a trap option problem. What I pointed to was the problem of a player trying to dictate actions on other players.

That is the Alpha Player problem. Thats a social problem. You’re twisting it just so you can pretend I don’t know about trap options.

But really, lets cut through the bullshit here

Whats really galling about this entire exchange is that the people here are clearly completely full of shit in terms of the subject they supposedly specialize in - which is TTRPGs. Because they’re pretending 4E is finely balanced like a boardgame.

That was never the consensus in the Den. Its heyday was spent pointing out it was a very boring piece of shit because it plays like an MMO with padded sumo!

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49 ... sc&start=0

Hell, other forums still use the Padded Sumo / Rocket Tag terminology after the Den popularized it.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread. ... Rocket-Tag

That the bullshitters here have reached the point that they’re actively lying about the few legit design accomplishments the Den just to try avoid admitting they’re wrong is really the most vivid demonstration of why this forum is dead and there is no hope of ressurection.

Its a forum of literal frauds now. Even they don’t know the first thing about the TTRPGs they used to talk about just a decade ago.

Go suck a barrel of cocks.

[Pedantic]

Am I missing something? We've gone on a tangent from spotlight balance to a weird back and forth around whether mechanical design has any impact on the table's social contract to "the forum is dead."

I'd kind of thought (as weird as it is to say it) PhoneLobster's point was the general consensus? Trap options are bad, mechanical design can't bail you out of all social conflict, but can lessen the opportunity for friction in the first place.

This feels particularly bad faith.