Design lessons I've learned from games.

[Bigode]

DnD-style “stat-only” fighters are viable only if magic users can't get armor (or armor-like defenses) and they can't summon monsters. (DnD Basic set)

False. Stat-only characters only work if no abilities are able to circumvent stats to a significant degree.

People don't actually use maps of cities, but they will use maps of countries (Forgotten Realms).

Dunno. Certainly if I knew of a good city map relevant to whatever I was playing, with well-made places (in terms of RP content, not ... mapping art), I'd use it. Why'd you say that to be exception rather than the rule?

Any buffing at all is boring.

Shapechanging's counted as buffing in lots of circles. Also, the "dumbass turns hero when needed" is rather wanted AFAIK.

Once a society can't hurt a character, they lose their fear of that society.

Any "respect" is either fear, or one's oversized ego telling them they don't need to "stoop down to others' level" - certainly powerful people are free to have the 2nd, but no inertia's forced outta them, which's bad for a presumably persistent setting.

Every area has a new monsters because monsters are not tactically interesting, so once the surprise is over the fun is over.

Because those monsters are too retarded to have more than, say, 3 abilities each, i.e. sized for the average player's intellect. That could be avoided if the average player isn't deemed important.

Basically, Chess is boring which is why old men in the park play it and gamers don't.

Yeah, sure - a.k.a. shut the fvck up. You may find it so, feel free to; but whereas much of tactical RPG combat actually exercises memory the most (as you do know well), Chess exercises actual tactics - exactly because you know how things can work, but don't know how they will work - that's the only point where tactics win the day alone. Also, I don't fvcking want stacks of books with newly-colored monsters with retarded new restricted abilities, because they're newly-colored.

But I'm not so sure what's so shocking or revolutionary or even novel about this thought.

There's nothing shocking, revolutionary, or even novel about it (certainly, I've read about it before). There's the retarded concept that once science reigns and racial superiority's gone, people'll go all moral - ha, ha, ha!!! BTW, are we on the same page on "magic belongs in D&D" or not? And, do you believe racial superiority exists in our beloved Earth? Because some people might argue we're completely reliant on science, without magic or any race being intrinsically superior to others (certainly some peoples' situation's rather heinous, but it's no inherent racial quality AFAIK), and yet anything but stable or desirable.

Well, this is an example of a poorly designed combat system (at least for fighters). You have one gimmick. Melee.

Isn't that what you actually want?

Breaks the game, and that's no fun.

No it doesn't. Just hand them out to everyone, and don't be retarded when balancing them internally, the same way you shouldn't when making stuff in the level system. Then find out what environmental adjustments you might need to make to keep challenging.

Exceptions don't disprove a general rule, they can just prove that they are exceptions to that rule.

Yeah, sure (this time not an irony ). But players not wanting to customize seems really common IME.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

There's nothing shocking, revolutionary, or even novel about it (certainly, I've read about it before). There's the retarded concept that once science reigns and racial superiority's gone, people'll go all moral - ha, ha, ha!!! BTW, are we on the same page on "magic belongs in D&D" or not? And, do you believe racial superiority exists in our beloved Earth? Because some people might argue we're completely reliant on science, without magic or any race being intrinsically superior to others (certainly some peoples' situation's rather heinous, but it's no inherent racial quality AFAIK), and yet anything but stable or desirable.

No, I'm not stating that once all of the races are equal and science has a foothold on the world that everything will be hunky-dory.

I'm saying that it's a start. I'm saying that it's actually necessary for a happy ending. It might not even lead to a happy ending--the future might be as apocalyptic and hopelesss for the have-nots as Gattaca. But's it's the only road to go down.

Imagine if there was a world in which Nazis were automatically better than everyone else. They were stronger, braver, smarter, and more healthy than anything you could ever wish for. There's no frickin' way this can end happily if you combine this with social inequality and limited resources. Now let's make it even worse--imagine if said Nazis had access to magic powers that turned them into one-man armies.

D&D mitigates this to some extend with levels and heroes. Shadowrun mitigates it by having science be just as good as magic. Exalted mitigates it by only letting you play as the Nazis. But when we get into things like Superheroes and we combine it with the current setting then your plucky band of subhumans are destined to bitter failure. And who the fuck wants to play a game like that?

[MartinHarper]

Given that Nazism is a matter of belief, rather than genetics, that ends with everyone being a Nazi and having magic powers. I'm not entirely sure what the analogy is for, or the relevance to this thread.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

Given that Nazism is a matter of belief, rather than genetics, that ends with everyone being a Nazi and having magic powers. I'm not entirely sure what the analogy is for, or the relevance to this thread.

I intentionally Godwinized to point out how we should be fucking thankful that social darwinism and racialism have no basis in reality whatsoever. Otherwise it justifies their actions and makes us all sad pandas.

So it's alarming to see this pop up so often in heroic fiction. D&D attempts to make up for it by telling you 'so bugbears fight better than humans. Then gain some levels you punk-ass bitch and show them who's boss', but for the Mega Happy Ending we should just do away with this idiotic trope entirely.

[Judging__Eagle]

Once you know what an enemy can do in combat, actual combat is just a grind and not exciting (every game, evar.)

Fights after the first one have everyone rolling 1/2 of the Dice rolls for everything.

Boring, but much faster, and faster will make it easier.

If the PCs have beaten a set amount of monsters at once, they only have to actually fight if they're fighting more monsters than usual(ex. 12 orcs at lvl 4, when you faced only 2 or 4 at lvl 1 or 2). If they've beaten 12 orcs at once, they simply describe what resources they would use to make the fight end faster.

[Koumei]

D&D attempts to make up for it by telling you 'so bugbears fight better than humans. Then gain some levels you punk-ass bitch and show them who's boss', but for the Mega Happy Ending we should just do away with this idiotic trope entirely.

Wait, you seriously think the basic human should be as good as the basic bugbear should be as good as the basic wyvern should be as good as the basic titan should be as good as the basic pit fiend? You seriously want a world like that, and where "I kicked the shit out of a bunch of balors!" doesn't mean anything?

[K]

Every area has a new monsters because monsters are not tactically interesting, so once the surprise is over the fun is over.

Because those monsters are too retarded to have more than, say, 3 abilities each, i.e. sized for the average player's intellect. That could be avoided if the average player isn't deemed important.

Basically, Chess is boring which is why old men in the park play it and gamers don't.

Yeah, sure - a.k.a. shut the fvck up. You may find it so, feel free to; but whereas much of tactical RPG combat actually exercises memory the most (as you do know well), Chess exercises actual tactics - exactly because you know how things can work, but don't know how they will work - that's the only point where tactics win the day alone. Also, I don't fvcking want stacks of books with newly-colored monsters with retarded new restricted abilities, because they're newly-colored.

I don't know what the first part means, so I''ll ask for a clarification.

Chess is actually very simple in terms of tactics, and very complex in terms of strategy. I mean, tactically speaking there are only six unique pieces and seven to eight ways to move(depending on how you count pawns).

Once you have the memory to see all the potential moves ten to twenty moves ahead and correctly pick the right strategy for the situation, you are a grandmaster. Tactically, the game never expands beyond that which is why computers can work out all the potential moves and strategies and can beat grandmasters.

RPG monsters usually get one or two tactics which makes them tactically very boring, which is why monsters of the week is very common because new tactics need to be cycled in to force players to try new things. They are even strategically boring because there are universal counters to whole swathes of abilities (for example, spell-likes are countered by readied magic missiles and melee is countered by flight) and because they rarely are given magic items of power to make them tactically unique (to prevent PC power-ups).

A good example of a tactically interesting monster would be something like a 2e demon. They had a long list of abilities they could use at will so you never knew what they might use and you were forced to have a broad range of tactics so that you could mix up your overall strategy (assuming you were a spellcaster). Powerful 3e dragons are also tactically interesting despite having preset com bat tactics because of their massive feats and spellcasting.

In 3.5, you can just have a handful of tactics and one or two strategies and get by; the classic example being the Rogue who sneaks(strategy 1) with melee weapon(tactic 1) and acid (tactic 2 and strategy 2) and has golemstrike(tactic 3) and gravestrike(tactic 4) and who uses a ring of blinking(tactic 5).

In 4e, you don't even care what monsters can do. All you care about is the range on their power, so running off the battlemat and attacking with a better ranged power is the way to win (one tactic and one strategy).

[RandomCasualty2]

Chess is actually very simple in terms of tactics, and very complex in terms of strategy. I mean, tactically speaking there are only six unique pieces and seven to eight ways to move(depending on how you count pawns).

Ah, the age old Tactics versus strategy argument. Honestly, I always thought chess was all about tactics and no strategy, since it was just moving around fixed pieces that you had. I usually consider strategy to be stuff for the long term and an overall plan, where tactics is the small unit movements. Like building a deck in Magic would be strategy, where playing the deck would be tactics. I've always considered tactics to be the point where you get into move/countermove, and this is what chess is all about, you must react to your opponent, where in most RPGs that isn't necessarily the case. More or less you just use your schtick and he uses his schtick and you see which schtick comes out on top.

There's much less ability interaction in RPGs and much fewer tactical counters. Often times, one side is straight up superior to another and there's really not much you can do once you're already in battle. You rarely react in D&D, most of the time you just act.

RPGs are really the case where the tactics tend to be really simple, but the strategies can get somewhat complex if you're a character who can rebuild himself from battle to battle, like a 3E wizard. 3E is a very strategic game, but it's really not tactical at all. There's lots of memory involved, and a bit of guesswork based on descriptions, but there's not too many situations where you get in a direct tactical duel with your opponent.

Even 4E that tried to emphasize tactics isn't all that tactical. Most of the planning still ends up going into setting up a simple strategy as to what your group does best and just going with it. There's again very little in the way of countermoves.

[Bigode]

K: I'm with RC on why I called Chess about tactics rather than strategy, but I might well be wrong. And for the first part, exactly the 2e demon example, which AFAIK mostly applies to 3.x dragons and fiends as well (except, of course, that we all know some of those abilities are unfortunately way superior to others, lessening the freedom of choice).

[K]

Chess is actually very simple in terms of tactics, and very complex in terms of strategy. I mean, tactically speaking there are only six unique pieces and seven to eight ways to move(depending on how you count pawns).

Ah, the age old Tactics versus strategy argument. Honestly, I always thought chess was all about tactics and no strategy, since it was just moving around fixed pieces that you had. I usually consider strategy to be stuff for the long term and an overall plan, where tactics is the small unit movements. Like building a deck in Magic would be strategy, where playing the deck would be tactics. I've always considered tactics to be the point where you get into move/countermove, and this is what chess is all about, you must react to your opponent, where in most RPGs that isn't necessarily the case. More or less you just use your schtick and he uses his schtick and you see which schtick comes out on top.

Well, the Chess Tactics section of wikipedia says:

"In chess, a tactic refers to a short sequence of moves which limits the opponent's options and results in tangible gain. Tactics are usually contrasted to strategy, in which advantages take longer to be realized, and the opponent is less constrained in responding."

It then goes on to show the short list of available tactics. The strategy section is interesting in that is seems to realize that even describing a few of the strategies mean each strategy needs it's own page (see pages for the Latvian Gambit or Boden's Mate, for example).

That's why I consider chess to be a tactically simple game. The potential tactics are fixed to a list while the potential number of strategies are very high.... so high that only the most striking examples can even be differentiated.

Back to DnD:

The 3.5 demons are not tactically interesting simply because the designers specifically removed a number of their abilities across the board from their 3e versions. Vrocks, for example, used to have mass charm as a power and now their most potent magic is telekinesis and their other few spells are combat buffs.

Now I understand why they did that. Demons used to be very good spellcasters and very good combatants, making them more interesting and powerful than characters and forcing DMs to think hard before they used an ability. Now you seriously can play a vrock by casting a buff(mirror image) and then attacking, using telekinesis for ranged, and mixing up the two options as needed, thus making them very simple to run.

4e, as far as I can tell, has no strategy. There are a short list of 8-9 tactics, and you either make a character that is good at one of those tactics or you don't. 4e's biggest criticism is that you seriously don't need players: you can randomly determine which power is used each round and randomly determine target and still get the same effect in combat as a character being run by a player.

3e has a tactic per almost every feat or spell, meaning that potential strategies are almost limitless. The key flaw to 3e was that fighting characters tended to have 1 tactic per two feats since they were encouraged to spend feats on +1s and mages tended to have one tactic per spell, on average (for every blaster chain of spells, you have a spell like silent image that has ten tactical uses).

Ideally, you want monsters to be tactically diverse and easily customizable so that when they pop they do something interesting and unexpected. 4e has tried the "this monster only does two things" and it has been shown to be a failure, so I don't even know why people want tactically boring monsters who's stats can be memorized.

[K]

If you reward people for killing a monster, they will always seek to kill monsters, even if those monsters are waving a flag of peace (Every monster-death=XP system ever).

Exept when you can expect an equal or greater reward for not killing someone that is not meant to be killed, or when the reward for such a kill is too small it's not worth your time (Planescape:Torment).

I played through Planescape: Torment for the first time a month ago and I learned the lesson that "you should go through all the dialogue options to get the quest XP, and then murder the monster for the kill XP." Ravel Puzzlewell and the angel at the end are both good examples of this.

I also like how lying for XP is part of the game. You can do things like tell the woman you are going to release the demon, then kill it for XP and unique magic items, then you can tell her you released it for full gold and XP (and a small amount of Chaos added to your alignment).

[MartinHarper]

I'm not sure that individual 3e and 4e fights are long enough for there to be strategies. You have strategy in both games around choosing when and where to fight, and around character/party-building.

I like 4e simplified monsters because it's realistic to discover what they can do over the course of a few encounters, and that in turn allows players to exploit those things. They've screwed up by making kiting a viable strategy against everything in the book, but the principle is sound. They're less tactically interesting to play, but I don't think they're less tactically interesting to play against.

[K]

I'm not sure that individual 3e and 4e fights are long enough for there to be strategies. You have strategy in both games around choosing when and where to fight, and around character/party-building.

3e fights are generally designed to be short simply because once the melee fighter gets into combat, he won't last more than four or five rounds before he is dead.

This doesn't mean that they have to be short. In a game that Frank and I were playing in the DM told us that clerics and healing were out, with the exception of some potions preset in Red Hand of Doom. We proceeded to create characters designed to not get hit and use stealth, so encounter areas that the adventure wants to be "run into room, fight battle, then rest" ended up as long running battles simply because we could take it. Resting happened after we had cleared the whole dungeon or castlee area

4e can't do long battles simply because going magic missile, magic missile, magic missile once you run out of encounter power and daily powers is very boring.

So I'm saying that 3e can be tactical and strategic.

As for monsters, I think that as long as monsters are not tactically interesting, we will suffer from the "fight it once, then don't see it for three years" mentality that 3e and 4e has. I mean, there is a difference between learning about a weakness in battle and then exploiting it and learning about the weakness of a race of monsters and then saying "ho hum, not another X. Break out the fire."

One creates memorable encounters, and the other creates monster bloat and player boredom.

[JonSetanta]

I was talking about the fact that adventures in 3e are designed so that everyone has a chance to use their unique schtick and everyone has completely different roles and abilities. For example, if your schtick is party face then adventures that involve fighting zombie hordes have you twittling your thumbs but the healer is happy and useful, while a mystery adventure with lots of interviews and combats stretched between days or weeks has the healer feeling like a third wheel.

That's... pretty much what I was trying to explain. Focused class roles rendered useless.