MGuy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:32 am
I have similar questions to PL and I really don't feel like slogging through the mountains of text between you and PL. I'm going to probably tread over territory you may have covered and hope that I can get a shorter answer, or a quote that answers it. I'm having a difficult time figuring out what you're trying to definitely do vs seeing general thoughts about the subject. I talked about my thoughts on item creation in general in another thread I started some time ago. I can also touch on some of my thoughts on the very questions I ask if it is important but as I said I'm trying to figure out specifically what you're wanting to do.
So question number 1: What makes this worth doing?
In a game where you are expected to find gear fairly regularly, and if not that get rewarded with enough coin to turn into appropriate gear (assuming that you can do this conversion) why would I want to spend time messing around with this system? What is the risk, cost, reward set up you're going to pursue for this to make it engaging or can players only benefit from participation without risking anything of note? Are the assumptions I made about procurement of wealth and gear off and if so do you have another dynamic in mind?
I've mostly outlined a process on how to handle crafting magic items, and it includes risks, costs, and rewards. In play, I've found the largest and most frustrating element for players when interacting with crafting is the time it takes to craft an item. So central to this process is that once you have everything needed to craft an item, you get a result quickly. I've agreed prior there's no reason to set it do a d6 minute die roll, it can just be set at 10 minutes or a similarly short period of time -- such as an hour, the important detail is this does not consume a day forcing the other party members to slow down to accommodate the crafter. (I'll edit my original post to remove the d6 time roll)
What makes this worth doing? Is this a question for the players using the system? Is this a question for why a game system should engage with crafting? The den has many different positions concerning crafting, so I'm not sure which oppositional ideas I should focus on addressing. I've already said, some players like crafting, at the very least rules should be provided for such players and it shouldn't be especially disruptive for the players who don't care.
From a simulationist perspective, the game world should have crafting rules, and those crafting rules shouldn't self-evidently lead to incredibly bizarre game-altering outcomes (unless that is the goal). These crafting rules should also be able to explain some common magic item tropes, such as cursed items.
Finally, if you're going to have rules, they should be fun and interesting to use. Let me know if that doesn't answer your concerns.
MGuy wrote:
Question 2: if there is a good reason to participate in this system why would I ever not do it?
If something like this provides actual power for the players and there is every reason to participate in it then that creates a situation where every party is going to want a craftsman. Is that what you want? If so then can everyone automatically do it or is someone in the party going to be heavily encouraged to be the designated craftsperson?
If the above assumption is not true and parties can get through the game at no notable loss of effectiveness ignoring this system then what is its purpose?
I did see that you're trying to avoid spreadsheets and the like so my third question is: what is this meant to feel like for the player?
Is crafting an item just like an on demand solution to a specific obstacle? IE the party is going for a swim do you can insta craft your water wings. Is it an alternative shopping system? Meaning it is essentially the same as shopping but you utilize different resources? I assume it's not like a more involved crafting game where recipes and collecting specific materials is important because that would land you firmly in spreadsheet territory.
So I have written at some length already on this question... perhaps everyone skips everything i write if I happen to address nPLP concerns... anyway
If, in a given game, someone is interested in crafting, a fantasy rpg should be able to oblige them, and it should not make them feel foolish or a sucker to use the crafting rules. Crafting magic items should be a boon, but it certainly shouldn't break the game or make other players feel like they must engage in the system or suffer great hardships. Based off some responses here, it can feel like people may not even agree on how plausible that goal is. I suppose it depends on peoples min-maxing philosophy when doing character generation.
Q3, I guess I would like to hear from the community what people think or believe or believe themselves, about how a crafting system should 'feel'. I'll give it shot, but please, community, I'd love to hear people answer Q3 from their perspective.
Crafting magic items should scale with level, it should somewhat follow a traditional hero's journey -- you begin foolish and unwise, attempting things that doesn't always work or have unintended consequences, but there have been many successes and as they accrue and you become more powerful, crafting becomes easier and more useful, still even greater challenges exist but your prior experience with setbacks has better prepared you. And at the top end you can craft artifacts.
I don't want crafting to lead to the tippyverse or similar such outcomes, not that I have anything against the tippyverse, but I don't want the logical application of crafting rules to clearly lead to absurdist outcomes that are far from the default setting assumptions, crafting rules should enforce the setting ideally.
I could keep going on Q3, this is the core experience of the rule set. Again, my initial post is a process, in some ways there's very little 'rules' in it, it would be trivial to remove all dice rolls for example from the current process:
Use skill to know sufficient ingredient and required fuel
take ingredient and fuel and make item with craft.
without dice rolls branching elements are difficult to formalize. One thing very surprising to me is the hostility to 'failing' a roll. Here's the process laid out with the checks I suggested:
Use skill [check] to know sufficient ingredient, required fuel is assumed knowledge.
take ingredient and fuel and make item with craft [check].
Those are the two key rolls my process is demanding. The outline I wrote, it also includes other elements that can be layered in if so desired.
By process, the outcome I want from the skill check is to provide the crafter with a hook to create the item desired.
fuel is mostly a balancing mechanic, we want magic items to come in all shapes and sizes and do all sorts of things from the meager to the mighty.
the craft check is the high stakes result. 3.x magic item crafting, required a check, I'm well aware the check was easy to trivialize and there were no 'fumbles' on the die, I don't know if people are arguing that is was the pinnacle of design or not -- clearly not I would say.
Maybe I am misreading the room, but it seems many people are very much against there being any risk of failure in a crafting check. We haven't even really established what the failure might be or how costly they truly would be. This process doesn't even go into how it handles failure, it just asserts that as an outcome -- how else ought I to categorize outcomes from a die roll? Even as outlined this system could work essentially like 3.x crafting where the crafting check is easy to trivialize and there are no fumbles. I didn't mention how these checks are made.
The point I want to make is, none of those questions really need to be answered immediately, instead we can build a process that will be good at answering and editing answers to such questions.
I guess the question I want to know, are people truly intolerant in failing a crafting check? Why is that? What could be ameliorated to make failure bearable? How would you feel if crafting was made easier if more resources were dedicated to it?