Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

"All bets made by all players go in a pile of chips in the center of the table, called the pot. No player can compete for the pot unless they are willing to meet the highest bet made by another player. Because of this rule, players are able to bluff and win the pot (everyone else folds, because they don't want to call the bet)."

https://www.hoylegaming.com/rules/showrule.aspx?RuleID=222

Not everything needs to have full mechanical support, fluff can account for a lot of the non-combat stuff. You can roleplay things out, but it can't hurt to have more clearly defined guidelines for how to do other stuff, or more examples. There may also be some value in games that give explicit incentives to roleplay things such as Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Engine.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

That's sort of true but the complaints I hear (about other games because mine has not been widely read yet) are not about the proportion of combat rules compared to the rest of the rules but about the simple size of the combat rules. I suppose I have heard the complaint most about OD&D and the combat rules are not "most of its pages." Nor are they most of the pages in mine.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Somewhere someone must because it, bluffing, is in some printed rules. The concept should be obvious from the fact that you win the pot if you bet and everyone else folds but I guess it isn't obvious to everyone.

Quote from: TJS;1039887They tried completely the wrong things however.  They went a long way toward constraining any advantage that a player might be able to get by creative or lateral thinking or approaches to a situation and drew it all back to a series of skill roles.  Anything you wanted to do to resolve the situation - make a skill role.  Come up with a clever plan to avoid the need to avoid making a role in situations you're not suited for?  - nope, that's just colour - make a skill role.

Mechanics for resolving negotiation, persuasion and such reduce the amount of  roleplaying required and the people who don't bother,  because "it's just color" make it less enjoyable for some others and possibly themselves.  That people ask for such rules in the name of roleplaying. Go figure.

I have included skills like that but admit up front that they are little used in our campaigns and heavily influenced by bonuses for what the character says when they are.

Quote from: Krimson;1039784So put that somewhere near the beginning of the combat chapter, and maybe add another chapter, or even a few paragraphs on alternate problem solving methods.

Great ideas. I have already done some of the latter but moving that to the beginning of the chapter is brilliant. It is one of those ideas that is obvious once one hears or reads it but neither my editor nor  I had thought of it.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat.

Some people seem to be replying as if the word I put in bold were not there.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

But not necessarily all about that thing.

Quote from: finarvyn;1039811Maybe, but I think that the "vibe" of a game can be found by reading the rules. If combat is all you get, that's all the reader will expect to deliver.

Sure, but William wasn't talking about avoiding a combat "vibe" and he wasn't talking about a game where combat is all you get - just that if you do get a crunchy combat system (and presumably, other things), that doesn't mean that game is all about combat.

As Steven already wrote:

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039818False dichotomy.  If a game spends all its pages and energy (or so close to "all" as to make no difference) on one thing, then it is probably about that thing.  However, if a game can explain how a major part of the game works in less words than some other part of the game, that's just the nature of how those parts work in the game. ...

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823... Most games have some sort of mechanical focus.  If a 100 page rulebook spends half that page count on combat and things related to combat, then that game's main focus is on combat. ...

Ok, but no one was claiming otherwise.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823It just seems weird that games where combat supposedly isn't the focus because it's lethal and to be avoided at nearly all costs, have some of the most detailed combat systems out there.  If it's not the focus and you want it lethal, there's probably other ways it can be done.

An interesting but different point.

I like combat to be crunchy and lethal but I also like actually playing that crunchy combat system to be a major focus of a game, and am disappointed when a game features crunchy combat but it barely gets used.

However, I do know of a couple of types of games where combat is crunchy/lethal and "to be avoided at nearly all costs" and that makes a game I'd want to play:

1) A game where you do whatever you can to avoid combat, but eventually it will break out and then you get to play a glorious crunchy combat based on the situation that was put in place by everyone avoiding it as much as they could. That can be really interesting and a lot like many actual situations go down.

2) A game where you do whatever you can to avoid combat, and might not even ever get into combat, but how exactly you do that matters a lot, and takes into account and is made real by the crunchy combat system you're trying to avoid using. For example, games where agents sneak around trying to accomplish things without getting into combat. Or games where there's a fragile peace kept in place by mutual fear and visible movements of forces (like type 1 above, but the combat doesn't ever break out). In these games, the crunchy/lethal system makes the situation about the danger a detailed and actual thing.

And yes you can play those types of games without the crunchy system backing it up, but personally I'd rather have it.

Quote from: Luca;1039835If you spend most of your allotted page count for an aspect of your product which you see as secondary, you've failed as a designer.

Maybe. But again, not what William or anyone here was saying otherwise.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat. I've heard that said about many games since D&D first came out and here is how I replied in my own rules:
"That I provide elaborate combat rules does not mean that combat should be the focus of your campaign. Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.
I ran an eighteen-month campaign where the PCs were performers and roadies in the world's first Elven Fusion rock band. There was some fighting but it was far from a major feature of the campaign."

I feel like when I design a game, I owe my players and GMs a conversation about how that game should play.

If you want them to know about and use the "tactical infinity", then call that out and bring it to their attention. I made a call-out box in Tian Shang about that very thing; sure, kung-fu super powers dominate the word count, but we have a conversation about the other stuff you can do. That conversation is prominent, and importantly it gives practical instruction for interacting with the setting.

Still, whatever you dedicate the most word count to is probably what your game is about.

In theory you could do something with Tian-Shang that isn't magical kung-fu battles, but... Why would you do that? The system is begging you to rocket-punch your foes into the Heaviside layer. Why resist that call?

I think a lot of games feature extensive sections of rules for combat because many (most?) players want combat to be detailed. It is quite possible to have a game where combats are decided by a single dice rolls with a few modifiers.   Gamers like crunchy, detailed combat.

It is possible to write a "conflict resolution" system that treats other conflicts with mechanics similar to combat. Mouse Guard (and presumable Burning Wheel) do this. Lace and Steel has a repartee combat system that works social combats in parallel to physical combats.

Combat is also a naturally thrilling and exciting situation. Fighting gets adrenaline pumping. So it gets lots of rules focus to try and make game play as interesting, engaging, and exciting as actual combat.  Not all games succeed equally well at this. Some combat systems are as dry and dull as unbuttered toast.

Writing rules that make each skill as detailed in execution as combat and are also exciting, or at least interesting to play is a challenge.  I don't really want to role play through all the steps of baking a loaf of bread, I would rather just making a Cooking skill roll at most and get on with the game.  As for negotiation and social interactions, I would prefer to do at least a little in character roleplaying before tossing the dice to see what happens.  "I Negotiate my way past the guard" is not very exciting to me.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1039932I think a lot of games feature extensive sections of rules for combat because many (most?) players want combat to be detailed. It is quite possible to have a game where combats are decided by a single dice rolls with a few modifiers.   Gamers like crunchy, detailed combat.

It is possible to write a "conflict resolution" system that treats other conflicts with mechanics similar to combat. Mouse Guard (and presumable Burning Wheel) do this. Lace and Steel has a repartee combat system that works social combats in parallel to physical combats.

Combat is also a naturally thrilling and exciting situation. Fighting gets adrenaline pumping. So it gets lots of rules focus to try and make game play as interesting, engaging, and exciting as actual combat.  Not all games succeed equally well at this. Some combat systems are as dry and dull as unbuttered toast.

Writing rules that make each skill as detailed in execution as combat and are also exciting, or at least interesting to play is a challenge.  I don't really want to role play through all the steps of baking a loaf of bread, I would rather just making a Cooking skill roll at most and get on with the game.  As for negotiation and social interactions, I would prefer to do at least a little in character roleplaying before tossing the dice to see what happens.  "I Negotiate my way past the guard" is not very exciting to me.

In combat, there are a lot of choices defined by the rules. Do you attack the archer or the wizard? Which opponent is more dangerous? If I move to attack the wizard, I'll be close to the lava pit. I can push him in, but he might try to push me in. The cleric went down, should we retreat now? etc, etc, etc...
Skill checks and non-combat resolution is, for the most part in D&D a single dice roll plus or minus some situational modifiers. And not every skill should be rolled for. Baking bread is not very exciting, or even relevant unless you're in some strange baking competition.
Skill Challenges at least drew out the more important non-combat tasks, which I had been doing before that with a "best 2 out of 3" rule for critical checks.
I too wouldn't want a task to be boiled down to a dice roll, but in the end, a skill check does boil down to a dice roll. I'd like to see player ingenuity preserved in such a system. And I really don't want to see social/problem solving tasks rendered as if they were combats. I think that abstracts the task too far into Skill Challenge territory.

[Not all of these are direct responses to your reply, I'm brainstorming here.]

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039918Somewhere someone must because it, bluffing, is in some printed rules. The concept should be obvious from the fact that you win the pot if you bet and everyone else folds but I guess it isn't obvious to everyone.

Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules. Bluffing wouldn't be a thing if there was no raising/calling rules in Poker.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1039946Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules. Bluffing wouldn't be a thing if there was no raising/calling rules in Poker.

So what are the rules for bluffing, per Hoyle?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039964So what are the rules for bluffing, per Hoyle?

I never said there was an explicit rule for bluffing. Someone did claim:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Which is, of course, untrue.
Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules of raising and calling, and is mentioned on Hoyle's website where they have the rules for poker.

Quote from: SpinachcatIf a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

Or perhaps a reader might fairly assume that if something is given a lot of pages, it's important to the writer, since a writer spending a lot of pages on something irrelevant and few pages on something relevant is, well... a stupid person.

Writing a long combat chapter and then being surprised when players think the game is largely about combat is like building a website full of porn videos and then being surprised when people say it's porn.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823I'm in agreement with Spinachcat, thus I am stupid according to Omega ( and most people who meet me:)).  Most games have some sort of mechanical focus.  If a 100 page rulebook spends half that page count on combat and things related to combat, then that game's main focus is on combat.  The same could be said if it was half about magic, or social interactions..

I am also a complete idiot for thinking that time (e.g., allotted pages, reader attention span, etc.) spent on a topic represents relative importance to the writer.