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So we dance around it, - and have so for years without really discussing it (or at least I don't recall seeing it talked about) - SCALABILITY.

I've noticed that when we get into out average firefight about what we like/dislike about various games and editions within those games, and keep fighting down to the atomic detail of gaming taxonomy until we're a seething mass of pre-biota flailing our pseudo-pods at one another - but I noticed that we rarely directly discuss the scalability of games and the mechanics inherent to them.

Sure we'll nickle-and-dime our mechanics debates to death, but that's actually what occludes us from the forest because of the tree in front of us. How much of our various heated discussions stem from our inherent tastes in scalability? (lets answer this last)

1) Exactly how do you like your systems to scale? How much is too much? How narrow is too narrow?

D&D (d20) is a good example of a mechanical system that, due to it being one of the oldest systems, has been stretched to cover every genre from low-fantasy normal people to godlike supers. But personally I think it's a bridge too far without a lot of gymnastics. Though the OSR and Mutants and Masterminds share DNA - they're very much different species.

2) Do you want *maximum* scalability from your system? Or do you think specialized systems are better for genre emulation?

3) When considering the first two questions - how much do you think the usual debates and arguments from the various Edition/Genre/Systems wars are more directed towards tastes of scale?

4) For fun: What systems are your go-to systems for maximum scalability and what ranges to they handle very well. OR which systems are narrow in scale that do it better than anything else that you simply wouldn't use another system for that has a wider range?

Just to clarify, you are talking only genre scalability?  Because I don't care about that much at all.  I do want scalability in number of players supported, number of foes supported, and power level supported.  Obviously, that has a little overlap with genre scalability, but not much.

Define scalability? because how you are using the term isnt how others are using the term. Which is to refer to how a game can scale from man-to-man to scirmish, to batallion, to nation, etc.

Here you are not talking about scale. you are talking about VERSATILITY.(or adaptability) How well a system can be rethemed and retooled to a different setting.

Problem is that is a VERY YMMV thing. One person looks at D&D and can rework it into effectively anything. Someone else looks at it and thinks it can not be used for anything else but fantasy. One person will extrapolate new rules based on whats there. Someone else will just rename stuff, another cant/wont do any of that unless its hard coded into the system allready. On the flipside one person will look at Gurps and make anything. Someone else will draw a blank. Its impossible to tell who clicks to what or how far.

Personally I see D&D as being very versatile as you can build from whats there to create about anything. In some ways it is more versatile than Gurps. but it requires some creativity and possibly some new rules to handle an element. Gurps is very versatile from the opposite direction. It gives you alot of tools and puzzle pieces to fit together. You dont have to do much creating. Just renaming or figuring how X fits into R.

What is a persons threshold for how much footwork or the type of footwork they have to do to adapt a system

2: Depends on if I want a system or a setting? Or both. And the system may be an attractor or repeller to that. I am just not a fan of Gurps. I dont like the system overall. Whereas I found BESM to be ok. I do not think specialized systems are better. They are simply there and someone might come along and decide MERP would be great for running a Star Wars campaign.

3: As said. Everyone has their thresholds of both how they adapt a system and how much they adapt a system. Some of the arguments stem from that. Some people just can not see at all how say D&D can be so versatile.

4: For the most versatility my goto is D&D and Gamma World. With either of those you can generate about any setting imaginable with a little or alot of tweaking. Next up is Marvel Superheroes as by its very nature it can cover anything and it scales well too.

X: and a little quick list of things D&D has been officially adapted to.
Post apoc.
Pulp Heroes
Modern London
Alice in Wonderland
Cross country Car racing
Mecha
Trapped in a VR world
Rock Bands
Space Opera/Planet Romance
Paranormal Investigators.
WWII war
Biopunk
Rapture

And probably more I've missed or forgotten.

I think I get you about scalability. Sorta about how street level WoD, then Aberrant, Scion, and finally Exalted. Yet people notice how... "tiers," (for a better word,) don't play well with others. Basically a discussion about 'buckets of dice and immunities' and how they tend to collide.

For me, d20 3.PF is a good example of how scalability can easily turn into a meaningless treadmill. As is D&D 4e is a good example of how designing for "scalable tiers" can end up being as fun as paint drying. The lesson I learned is at a certain point ("tier,") you are playing a different game entirely and should not even be compared. Basically you are not experiencing meaningful encounters.

However, as much fun there is in Dynasty Warriors ('One Man Kills All of China!') I personally prefer the conceit that eventually sheer numbers washes out individual power. So I did like Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign Guide(? IIRC) advice that for military campaigns 1:1000 means that individual character dies regardless of level. Which is an unnecessary formality to me, but nice to see; at some point I am not going to mix scales as I see no benefit in doing so.

Actually, I assumed tenbones' OP was asking about "scaleability" in terms of how well a game handles a range of PC power/ability levels.

Quote from: tenbones... from low-fantasy normal people to godlike supers ...

If that's what he meant, I would say that one major thing (of the several) that stops me from playing/running D&D is the range of power levels between starting characters & monsters and "normal human" NPCs, and higher-level PCs, monsters, spells, etc. In one sense, I think the game does allow play at an extreme range of power levels, but on the other hand, I think that doesn't make sense to me as something I can understand as a rational semi-stable game setting, and I don't see how I could run such a campaign the way I like to without being overwhelmed by the complexity and steepness of the power dynamics. At best, if I ran a D&D campaign, it would tend to play out as pretty nasty contest of high-powered NPCs/monsters vying for domination, and PC parties would probably tend to get incidentally squashed or specifically targeted if they survived long enough to be of concern to the stronger elements.

The rate of character advancement and the demographics of who/what has what abilities has always been a major concern to me in running and designing a game world. It seems to me there's always a delicate relationship between rewarding/entertaining players with PC experience/training/accomplishment/power-acquisition, and having a satisfyingly self-consistent and manageable game world with an appropriate range of power levels of inhabitants and how they relate to one another.

So

Quote1) Exactly how do you like your systems to scale? How much is too much? How narrow is too narrow?

I both like to see characters improve with experience, and dislike having them become more powerful than makes sense compared to others in the world. I like it when they can improve in fun, interesting and consistent ways. I dislike it when there's no in-world reason why suddenly the PCs have become notably more powerful than NPCs who have had similar experiences. I like it when PCs can be exceptional but I like them to have specific abilities and several things they don't do so well, so they aren't just great at everything because they're experienced. I sometimes enjoy very strong powers as long as they are specific and interesting and make sense and are being handled in a fair rational way. I tend not to like them when they're generic and too numerous and remove a lot of interesting limits and gameplay elements.

Quote2) Do you want *maximum* scalability from your system? Or do you think specialized systems are better for genre emulation?

Even if I'm right that you mean power levels, I'm not sure I understand what this is asking.

Quote3) When considering the first two questions - how much do you think the usual debates and arguments from the various Edition/Genre/Systems wars are more directed towards tastes of scale?

Assuming still that you mean power level, I think it's at least related to power level. I like GURPS because it does normal people with realistic limits in fantasy/ancient/medieval settings well in gritty combat detail. It's interesting to resolve a bar fight between two drunk jerks, for example. And I like that it feels about right how it plays out if you make up various situations and play them out. I feel like it matters to have the basic ordinary people play out right for people with exceptional abilities to be played out. When a system decides most humans are meaningless mook/fodder and then has abstract power levels in contest with each other, it doesn't feel like the game is about much that's solid to me, and I lose interest quickly.

Quote4) For fun: What systems are your go-to systems for maximum scalability and what ranges to they handle very well. OR which systems are narrow in scale that do it better than anything else that you simply wouldn't use another system for that has a wider range?

GURPS which handles well even improvised weapon content between drunk geriatric cripples, up through heroic but mortal/realistic humans with medieval/ancient weapons really well (IMO). There are various optional rules for various levels of pulp/cinematic/super excesses, but I tend not to use those and think they undermine what I like most about the system.

Tenbones, please define scalability for this thread.

I like dragon scales! But scale armor in AD&D was a bummer.

Quote from: tenbones;1026274So we dance around it, - and have so for years without really discussing it (or at least I don't recall seeing it talked about) - SCALABILITY.

Scalability gets confused with scope. Not many talk about either because they don't know what they mean, or two people just can't seem to agree on what they mean to even begin talking about them. It's much easier to talk about failing rope climb rolls instead.

Anyway, I like rules that scale without having to add new mechanics (supplement books) to those rules. Core books should be able to scale up or down.

If we're talking about tiers of play, I generally prefer the system to handle a single tier only.

Eg lower level loot adventuring in Dnd vs higher level saving the world epicness dnd. So like B/X for example but dont want the whole BXCMI.

I like D&D (all editions, all variants). It scales great IMO, except the advancement mechanics don't work well for mundane or low-powered horror - Call of Cthulu/BRP or even Traveller handles it much better if you want PCs to be normal people forever. But I have used BX D&D with level 1 PCs for a 2 session Game of Thrones type game with 4 hp PCs stabbing each other in the back. :)

I'm willing to sacrifice playability for scalability.  The only place I really see people wanting scale is in super hero rpgs.  Games that have a large scale tend to not do the low level or high level side of things well.  Like going on a road trip and the best part is just the halfway point.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1026294I think I get you about scalability. Sorta about how street level WoD, then Aberrant, Scion, and finally Exalted. Yet people notice how... "tiers," (for a better word,) don't play well with others. Basically a discussion about 'buckets of dice and immunities' and how they tend to collide.

For me, d20 3.PF is a good example of how scalability can easily turn into a meaningless treadmill. As is D&D 4e is a good example of how designing for "scalable tiers" can end up being as fun as paint drying. The lesson I learned is at a certain point ("tier,") you are playing a different game entirely and should not even be compared. Basically you are not experiencing meaningful encounters.

However, as much fun there is in Dynasty Warriors ('One Man Kills All of China!') I personally prefer the conceit that eventually sheer numbers washes out individual power. So I did like Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign Guide(? IIRC) advice that for military campaigns 1:1000 means that individual character dies regardless of level. Which is an unnecessary formality to me, but nice to see; at some point I am not going to mix scales as I see no benefit in doing so.

Exactly.

We end up talking past one another on a lot of things because our assumptions of scale are different. D&D for instance is superb at doing Sword-and-Sorcery, low/high fantasy - but at a certain powerlevel it starts to break down.

Part of the issue we see with OSR folks vs. the new generation of players are assumptions about what D&D is supposed to emulate. This is easier (somewhat) to peg down once you apply it to a setting. But in reality, most adventures are relatively setting-free both in the old-school and new-school. But the modern conception of D&D is more likely to be a freakshow which dilutes the wargaming-semi-realistic conceits of the old-school assumptions.

Conversely - Supers is a genre as pointed above that has all these tiers of play built into one game. By definition it almost has to. This is there the rubber hits the road in terms of mechanical expression in a system. Does the system itself handle those tiers well, and does it keep that cohesion throughout those tiers? In a Class-based system like D&D where you're an above average person at level 1, and by level 10 you should be a powerhouse of the realm (at least in the old-school view) and if you get into the high-teens you're a world power dealing with the gods etc. - those are essentially the same tiers of play, relative to the assumed power-levels of the game.

There are modern systems designed to deal with these variations of scale. And there are systems that want to keep a tighter and narrower focus for specific genre emulation.

For example Cyberpunk2020 wants to keep it on the personal scale. Once you start getting into souped-up super-borgs and mini-mecha, it really starts rendering a lot of the core conceits of the game moot.

I think D&D is like this too - but more broad in its application because your level of play has its own conceits. A 10th-lvl fighter is assumed to be festooned with magical items in conjunction with mechanical benefits of level in the modern context, and likewise the challenges he is capable of dealing with are commensurate. Whereas a 1st-lvl fighter would get obliterated instantly.

Then you have things like Savage Worlds which can scale from personal low-fantasy fare with zero-magic and highly-skilled characters are still very killable. To those same characters getting shunted to Rifts and gearing up and can start taking on Kaiju with mountain-shattering power.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1026325Scalability gets confused with scope. Not many talk about either because they don't know what they mean, or two people just can't seem to agree on what they mean to even begin talking about them. It's much easier to talk about failing rope climb rolls instead.

Anyway, I like rules that scale without having to add new mechanics (supplement books) to those rules. Core books should be able to scale up or down.

This is a very good point. I need to ruminate on this.

Yay! I guessed right! What do I win? :) A D.O.N.G. hat? Perhaps a D.O.N.G. bracelet. Or maybe a D.O.N.G. purse puppy?! :cool:

I feel that scale, like scope, was one of those obvious-to-me, yet undiscussed, issues with campaign management. It's basically the scope of power level and playstyle focus. Not all things can be present, in fact they cannot be if you want to retain meaning.

You cannot have all time and space and culture and world view and power level and widgets and so on, meaningfully present without the mind shutting down from overload. If all is present, essentially nothing is present. It's the basis of contextual composition. The limits help the mind anchor and thus navigate to derive meaning.

Therefore it is important for the GM, manager of the setting's expression, to define values and choose placement. It is akin to (god forbid we end up on a tangential argument about "rpgs as art," but alas...) the artist managing their work through a composition of values (and color, and so on,). At some point you have to tell a certain audience segment that this piece will not cater to such desires; find another campaign that speaks to those, for these are the limits I found meaningful in this construction.

It's about defining what the GM wants to explore and let others play around in. Sometimes the GM is ambivalent or open to suggestion. But in the end a traditional RPG leaves the preparation work upon one presenter to be responsible. ;)

Well, in that case, I'm not sure where I fall, because it's a question I still struggle with (as in, what exactly I want), because of the inherent compromises required.  Consider something as simple as this.  Assume a character in the system can grow from novice to big damn hero (to be deliberately vague):

1. What kind of numbers of lesser beings can the hero reasonably and consistently handle?

2. What kinds of terrible, powerful creatures can the hero have a shot at handling?

Because no matter how you answer that, you have to set the underlying math/system somewhere, and it is bound to not be what some people are expecting.  You get the same kind of issue with, "Can one shot kill, and if so, what are the chances?"  Reason I'm unsure even what I want, is that I don't much care for either extreme.  I don't want the big damn hero mortally afraid of 3 common soldiers, and one unlucky hit away from a crossbow bolt through the throat, but I'm also not terribly fond of big damn hero effectively invulnerable to 30 orcs, either.  I don't want a simulation of realism, but I don't want it dialed up to action movie emulation, either.  It seems to me sometimes that systems try to have it both ways, satisfying no one, me included.  

This feeling is hardly limited to combat.  I have the same reaction to most skill systems--either incredibly punishing to characters or giving away the store.

The point of the rules is to be a tool used to adjudicate what the players do when interact with the setting as their character. If there is a problem with scaling then any answer is useless drivel unless we also ask what are the player doing within the setting.

For example I was talking with a friend and he was complaining about how broken D&D 5th edition was with a 8th level part. But when I dug into what was happening it turned out the referee was generous with the magic item.

So I asked him what a 8th level character is supposed to have in his setting? How did the players wind up with more? Was that reasonable given the circumstances of the campaign at the time? The answer boiled down to the fact there was a little bit of luck and a little bit of foresight on the part of the players to preserved what the found. Now they are at 8th level it coming together for them. The problem was not the rules.

Another example is D&D 3.X use of 1d20+mods versus a target number. The designer built everything as a bunch modifiers that stack on each other for example the to-hit bonus versus armor class. By not considering what is reasonable for a 18th level can do versus a 1st level character. They constructed a system of rules that made it possible for low level/low hit dice to have any effect on higher level/higher hit dice creatures outside of a certain range.

If it doesn't make sense in your setting that a 18th level character can't be damaged by a 1st level character than that mechanic is not going to scale well for you. Most questions of scale can be answering by asking "how would it look if i was really there looking at this". Then modifying the rules to reflect that insight. Or picking a set of rules that work with your assumptions.

Quote from: tenbones;1026388Part of the issue we see with OSR folks vs. the new generation of players are assumptions about what D&D is supposed to emulate. This is easier (somewhat) to peg down once you apply it to a setting. But in reality, most adventures are relatively setting-free both in the old-school and new-school. But the modern conception of D&D is more likely to be a freakshow which dilutes the wargaming-semi-realistic conceits of the old-school assumptions.

I guarantee you that the number of gamers who know what the odds are of a warrior with three years of battle experience dealing damage to an opponent with four years of battle experience wearing chainmail and holding a medium round shield while attacking with a falchion fighting in a rainstorm is low. If two gamers did know it is highly likely they will disagree about the importance of one detail over another.

Hence they rely on rules as written to tell them. OSR comes off as different because many are experienced gamers who are either willing to do or have the knowledge to say "Hey the rules don't make sense here, we need to adjudicate this differently."

It has nothing to do with specific genres, settings, or styles. It about people starting out with gaming,  view it as a light leisure activity, or just really don't give a fuck about the details. These folks rely on rules as written to tell them what is permitted or not permitted in a tabletop campaign.

There are plenty of segments of the OSR who like to run freakshow D&D for example the recent release of Operation Unfathomable or the years the DCC RPG been sold.

If there is a problem, then it is a meta-game issue born of a lack of communication about what the campaign is about and what the setting is like. The way to fix it is to use the same technique people been using for generations to deal with small group interactions. And it work, sometimes hard work, often more work people are willing to put into a leisure activity.

Quote from: tenbones;1026388Does the system itself handle those tiers well, and does it keep that cohesion throughout those tiers? In a Class-based system like D&D where you're an above average person at level 1, and by level 10 you should be a powerhouse of the realm (at least in the old-school view) and if you get into the high-teens you're a world power dealing with the gods etc. - those are essentially the same tiers of play, relative to the assumed power-levels of the game.

If that how the setting of the campaign works then I would say to the individual quit whining about it and deal with it. Or run a different campaign with a different setting, and a different set of rules. More often the case is one of unexpected consequences. That the rules mostly work but there are unacceptable outliers.

In that case, fuck the rules as written and fix the issue. Either for the next session if the players agree, or for the next campaign if they don't.

Steven, I love that answer. ;)
 
It reminds me of artist's or writer's block. Or even better, audience ambivalence to what they want to eat for dinner, ("Just throw out restaurant options for me to say 'no' to,"). 'I know what I like when I see it, but I don't know what I like yet.' Beautiful, like a quintessential human condition. :)

Well, no one ever said knowing yourself at the moment, or being inspired, was easy! :p Happy gaming travels! :D

Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

Just sit down with a group of players with some dice, pen, and paper. Describe the setting to them, have them tell you want kind of character they want to play. Everybody writes down notes. Then the next session you start playing. Using just what the players have on their notes, and you using your experience about the setting and genre to figure out when the dice needs to be rolled and what are the odds.

If you say you can't. Then I ask you to consider that if you were able to do the above and make it fun and enjoyable even if only for one session. You will that much better when you use your favorite set of rules. It will help you understand what really important about the rules and what not. That there are many elements to running a tabletop roleplaying campaign that rules don't and can't address. That heart of the experience is the player interacting with a setting as their character.

Quote from: estar;1026453Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

I can do it.  I have done it.  I don't enjoy it.  When I try it, I spend a lot of time answering questions about what is possible instead of getting on with them trying things and the fun of the back and forth dialog.  Maybe it is the particular players, because I've been on the other side of the table with a GM doing precisely that, and enjoyed it just fine.  If pushed into that role, my inevitable response is to begin developing rules to push some of that responsibility back onto the players, so that I can get back to having fun again.  

My reaction to it is why I do not quite agree with the degree of emphasis you put on the point of running the setting.  I agree it is important.  Based on my understanding of your points, I don't agree that it is as important as you say it is.

Quote from: estar;1026453Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

Just sit down with a group of players with some dice, pen, and paper. Describe the setting to them, have them tell you want kind of character they want to play. Everybody writes down notes. Then the next session you start playing. Using just what the players have on their notes, and you using your experience about the setting and genre to figure out when the dice needs to be rolled and what are the odds.

If you say you can't. Then I ask you to consider that if you were able to do the above and make it fun and enjoyable even if only for one session. You will that much better when you use your favorite set of rules. It will help you understand what really important about the rules and what not. That there are many elements to running a tabletop roleplaying campaign that rules don't and can't address. That heart of the experience is the player interacting with a setting as their character.

Another good question. My initial response is: Yes I can do that. But I also think it depends on the player(s).

A lot of players, especially veteran players, have specific mechanical likes/dislikes that often preclude them from entire genres or styles of play. One merely has to look at the revolt against 4e by various edition loyalists. Noobs to gaming didn't know better and simply went along with it.

It's funny because I have extremely opinionated players. One of the big issues we have is my desire to do a Star Trek campaign - and my entire group loves Star Trek (we've never played a Star Trek game before) - but one of our players vehemently hates Trek for no particular reason. But I asked him if I ran a Star Trek game (no mention of any system), he said "Well you know how I feel about Trek. But, if you run it, I'll play it."

But that takes us back to the premise of my question - if I'm going to run such a game, I need to decide what system I'd use to express whatever my vision of Star Trek is going to be based on the scale of the game. That's where all of this kinda comes together. I COULD say "Well I'm skilled enough as a GM to take B/X and make a Star Trek game... or I could just pick up Modiphius's Star Trek RPG sight unseen, and run it. Or I could use a system that I know well like Savage Worlds that's designed to be tinkered with as a universal system." etc. What's going to give me as a GM the best bang for my buck? And... does it matter enough?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026440Well, in that case, I'm not sure where I fall, because it's a question I still struggle with (as in, what exactly I want), because of the inherent compromises required.  Consider something as simple as this.  Assume a character in the system can grow from novice to big damn hero (to be deliberately vague):

1. What kind of numbers of lesser beings can the hero reasonably and consistently handle?

2. What kinds of terrible, powerful creatures can the hero have a shot at handling?

Because no matter how you answer that, you have to set the underlying math/system somewhere, and it is bound to not be what some people are expecting.  You get the same kind of issue with, "Can one shot kill, and if so, what are the chances?"  Reason I'm unsure even what I want, is that I don't much care for either extreme.  I don't want the big damn hero mortally afraid of 3 common soldiers, and one unlucky hit away from a crossbow bolt through the throat, but I'm also not terribly fond of big damn hero effectively invulnerable to 30 orcs, either.  I don't want a simulation of realism, but I don't want it dialed up to action movie emulation, either.  It seems to me sometimes that systems try to have it both ways, satisfying no one, me included.  

This feeling is hardly limited to combat.  I have the same reaction to most skill systems--either incredibly punishing to characters or giving away the store.

Man I love this post. It really hits the nail on the head of what I'm talking about. How does this synch up with your preferred systems you use in play?

For example - I like Big Damn Heroes but I also like danger when it's dangerous. So I use Savage Worlds in my D&D settings. Its easy for me to establish the baseline without having to go full-freakshow without making a lot of qualifiers. i.e. if I wanna go freakshow, I'll just say Spelljammer is in play or I set it in a specifically exotic setting/setup. But the mechanics of SW imply a lot of different things that traditional D20 doesn't automatically. Nor would using Runequest, or Rolemaster in a similar setting.

Quote from: tenbones;1026465Man I love this post. It really hits the nail on the head of what I'm talking about. How does this synch up with your preferred systems you use in play?

For example - I like Big Damn Heroes but I also like danger when it's dangerous. So I use Savage Worlds in my D&D settings. Its easy for me to establish the baseline without having to go full-freakshow without making a lot of qualifiers. i.e. if I wanna go freakshow, I'll just say Spelljammer is in play or I set it in a specifically exotic setting/setup. But the mechanics of SW imply a lot of different things that traditional D20 doesn't automatically. Nor would using Runequest, or Rolemaster in a similar setting.

D&D 5E does a good job for me in some areas, but I doubt I'd ever run it with the healing system set as is.  I want it a little more deadly than that. Or more specifically, since I could always just throw a lot of over-powered encounters at the party if all I wanted was deadly, I prefer something more like the RC or AD&D effect where characters get worn down.  I just like that style.  I even modified Fantasy Hero to get some of that effect deliberately.  Part of the focus of my own system tinkering (and part of why I struggle so much with this question) is that I want an effect that might be described as: "Big Damn Heroes are heroes until they take some big hits.  If they keep going or must, then they are competent, regular guys.  Then if things really go bad, they are mooks with an edge--where one crossbow bolt can finish them off."  You'll note that D&D-style hit points only addresses about half the needs of such a system, and it implies a very shallow death spiral.  I have learned to my displeasure that getting that mix to suit me, while not overcomplicating a system, is not easy.  It's constantly walking a tight-rope between deadliness and staying power and clear mechanics. I'm not even sure it is possible.

In contrast, I think the 5E skill system is vapid.  It's redeeming virtues are that it is easy to use, doesn't take up a lot of mental space, and is probably adequate enough for a class-based system.  Those aren't small things.  So I tolerate it, because I recognize to get something that I'd enjoy would require a complete rewrite of the underlying system, and at that point, why bother to play 5E?  There are no skill systems that I've either played or had explained to me that I like.  I might be difficult to please in this area.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026440Well, in that case, I'm not sure where I fall, because it's a question I still struggle with (as in, what exactly I want), because of the inherent compromises required.  Consider something as simple as this.  Assume a character in the system can grow from novice to big damn hero (to be deliberately vague):

1. What kind of numbers of lesser beings can the hero reasonably and consistently handle?

2. What kinds of terrible, powerful creatures can the hero have a shot at handling?

Because no matter how you answer that, you have to set the underlying math/system somewhere, and it is bound to not be what some people are expecting.  You get the same kind of issue with, "Can one shot kill, and if so, what are the chances?"  Reason I'm unsure even what I want, is that I don't much care for either extreme.  I don't want the big damn hero mortally afraid of 3 common soldiers, and one unlucky hit away from a crossbow bolt through the throat, but I'm also not terribly fond of big damn hero effectively invulnerable to 30 orcs, either.  I don't want a simulation of realism, but I don't want it dialed up to action movie emulation, either.  It seems to me sometimes that systems try to have it both ways, satisfying no one, me included.  

This feeling is hardly limited to combat.  I have the same reaction to most skill systems--either incredibly punishing to characters or giving away the store.

This is pretty much where I'm at, I'm in the exact same boat.

Quote from: tenbonesMan I love this post.

Quote from: OpaopajrSteven, I love that answer.

Quote from: Christopher BradyThis is pretty much where I'm at, I'm in the exact same boat.

YEs, let me also say good show. We need more posts like these around here. :-)

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026472D&D 5E does a good job for me in some areas, but I doubt I'd ever run it with the healing system set as is.  I want it a little more deadly than that. Or more specifically, since I could always just throw a lot of over-powered encounters at the party if all I wanted was deadly, I prefer something more like the RC or AD&D effect where characters get worn down.  I just like that style.  I even modified Fantasy Hero to get some of that effect deliberately.

5e, in a few places (healing and the rest mechanic rules, in particular), feels very much like they set the default at a very design-convenient spot, and kind of expected most people to modify in one direction or another (and included example options for doing so in the DMG). I suspect they've been rather surprised at the number of people who've just gone with the default and then complained.

QuoteThere are no skill systems that I've either played or had explained to me that I like.  I might be difficult to please in this area.

I'm in that boat. I think the very concept of 'skills' is somewhat problematic in that there are some things that a novice should have a 0% chance at and an expert only 33%. Other things where it should be 0%/99%, others 70%/90%, and so on. I don't think trying to find a universal emulation for such has been all that successful (without making the game so convoluted it can only marginally be considered a 'simplification' of reality.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026440Assume a character in the system can grow from novice to big damn hero (to be deliberately vague):

1. What kind of numbers of lesser beings can the hero reasonably and consistently handle?

2. What kinds of terrible, powerful creatures can the hero have a shot at handling?

Because no matter how you answer that, you have to set the underlying math/system somewhere, and it is bound to not be what some people are expecting.  You get the same kind of issue with, "Can one shot kill, and if so, what are the chances?"  Reason I'm unsure even what I want, is that I don't much care for either extreme.  I don't want the big damn hero mortally afraid of 3 common soldiers, and one unlucky hit away from a crossbow bolt through the throat, but I'm also not terribly fond of big damn hero effectively invulnerable to 30 orcs, either.  I don't want a simulation of realism, but I don't want it dialed up to action movie emulation, either.  It seems to me sometimes that systems try to have it both ways, satisfying no one, me included.  

Honestly, a think the best systems I have seen to answer that question are ones with 1) a very hard and fast genre, and 2)where the character doesn't really grow from zero to hero. Traveller being a good example. GURPS and Hero System being decent in that if you start out at say 100 points, you rarely make it to 200 (much less 5-10x as powerful as starting, as most leveling games will have), but being generic systems, they try to split the difference all ways on things like lethality.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1026518Honestly, a think the best systems I have seen to answer that question are ones with 1) a very hard and fast genre, and 2)where the character doesn't really grow from zero to hero. Traveller being a good example. GURPS and Hero System being decent in that if you start out at say 100 points, you rarely make it to 200 (much less 5-10x as powerful as starting, as most leveling games will have), but being generic systems, they try to split the difference all ways on things like lethality.

I agree.  The problem is, I want the zero to hero (or at least most of that range).  Maybe I ask to much.  But yeah, Fantasy Hero in practice does a good job on the lethalness question for me.  It's the nature of the system that holds me back there--not as complicated as people make it out, but too much accounting.  With GURPs, I think it's less accounting, but I'm not as enamored with the way it works, as it edges more towards the realism side than I want.  The way skills work in GURPs is almost a deal-breaker --not because it is bad, but because for what I want, it is so tantalizingly close in some ways while completely and utterly wrong in others.  The scaling of skills on the lower and upper ends irritates me just thinking about it, but you couldn't change it without a complete rewrite from the ground up.

Quote from: estar;1026453Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

Yes.

Of course, I've also practically memorized almost every detail of TFT and GURPS, so I can run those without any books.

But I could also do it without using those, though how I did it would probably still be influenced by my experience playing those.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026520I agree.  The problem is, I want the zero to hero (or at least most of that range).  Maybe I ask to much.  But yeah, Fantasy Hero in practice does a good job on the lethalness question for me.  It's the nature of the system that holds me back there--not as complicated as people make it out, but too much accounting.  With GURPs, I think it's less accounting, but I'm not as enamored with the way it works, as it edges more towards the realism side than I want.  The way skills work in GURPs is almost a deal-breaker --not because it is bad, but because for what I want, it is so tantalizingly close in some ways while completely and utterly wrong in others.  The scaling of skills on the lower and upper ends irritates me just thinking about it, but you couldn't change it without a complete rewrite from the ground up.

Hmm, how do they irritate you, and how would you want the skills to work?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026458I can do it.  I have done it.  I don't enjoy it.  When I try it, I spend a lot of time answering questions about what is possible instead of getting on with them trying things and the fun of the back and forth dialog.  Maybe it is the particular players, because I've been on the other side of the table with a GM doing precisely that, and enjoyed it just fine.

Did you ever find out why they were asking so many questions? When I dig into it, most of the time it because I wasn't supplying enough information. So things devolved into a game of twenty questions.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026458If pushed into that role, my inevitable response is to begin developing rules to push some of that responsibility back onto the players, so that I can get back to having fun again.

That understandable, having a printed rulebook as a referee saves on the verbal bandwidth so to speak. Otherwise you will have to spend time explaining why the odds are what they are when you try to attack a warrior with 4 years of battle experience wearing chainmail, holding a shield while fighting in a rainstorm.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026458My reaction to it is why I do not quite agree with the degree of emphasis you put on the point of running the setting.  I agree it is important.  Based on my understanding of your points, I don't agree that it is as important as you say it is.

A humanoid duck trying to hit a rabbit with a sword is a very different thing in Toon than it is in Runequest. The reason what one set of rules uses the setting of Looney tune cartoons and the other is using the world of Glorantha. The rules of Toon versus Runequest are an expression of the reality of their respective settings. And using one set of the rules for the other setting would entail a lot of work for the referee to making the settings still feel the same for a campaign.

Now if you talking about using Runequest for Glorantha, vs. Middle Earth, vs. Forgotten Realms. The difference are so dramatic and the work is correspondingly less.

Quote from: tenbones;1026463Another good question. My initial response is: Yes I can do that. But I also think it depends on the player(s).

While player temperament does make a difference I think it more about good communication including tailoring to the needs of a specific player. And I have to stress while I feel what I said is accurate, what we do, we do for enjoyment. Using a specific set of rule in particular way is part of the enjoyment factor.

The design of the rule system can do little to address preference. It solely on the shoulder of the referee and his player to communicate with each other over what they like or don't like. What the author of a rulebook can do to make this easy is clearly state the assumptions that they are using to design the system with. What they are emphasizing and what they are not.

Quote from: tenbones;1026463A lot of players, especially veteran players, have specific mechanical likes/dislikes that often preclude them from entire genres or styles of play. One merely has to look at the revolt against 4e by various edition loyalists. Noobs to gaming didn't know better and simply went along with it.

My opinion that the bulk of D&D 4th edition issues are meta-game issues. Marketing, how it built on past editions (it did not), what style of campaign the supplements supported (fantasy superheroes 24/7 only), etc.

The rules themselves worked well for what they were designed to do. Allow a broad spectrum of players to play tactically detailed combat encounters and outside of that function as a lite set of rules for a fantasy campaign.

The lack of commonality with past editions gave birth to Pathfinder and had an impact on the OSR. The lack of variety in its supplement meant that interest didn't last long among those who did like it. In short many of it fans got tired of being fantasy superheroes 24/7.

Quote from: tenbones;1026463It's funny because I have extremely opinionated players. One of the big issues we have is my desire to do a Star Trek campaign - and my entire group loves Star Trek (we've never played a Star Trek game before) - but one of our players vehemently hates Trek for no particular reason. But I asked him if I ran a Star Trek game (no mention of any system), he said "Well you know how I feel about Trek. But, if you run it, I'll play it."

I get that with GURPS. I have players who would never touch GURPS with a ten foot pole but will gladly use it provided I am running the campaign. Experienced referees make a huge difference in the enjoy-ability of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. If a company wants to sell more  the best payoff in the long run is to focus on making better referees for their products. Get it to the point where a newcomer can say "Yeah I see what you are getting at, I can do that as well.".

In part that what made the OSR enjoy the success it had. Many of those involved explained how to use older edition D&D in a campaign to the point where people were going "Yeah I see what you mean..."

Quote from: tenbones;1026463But that takes us back to the premise of my question - if I'm going to run such a game, I need to decide what system I'd use to express whatever my vision of Star Trek is going to be based on the scale of the game. That's where all of this kinda comes together. I COULD say "Well I'm skilled enough as a GM to take B/X and make a Star Trek game... or I could just pick up Modiphius's Star Trek RPG sight unseen, and run it. Or I could use a system that I know well like Savage Worlds that's designed to be tinkered with as a universal system." etc. What's going to give me as a GM the best bang for my buck? And... does it matter enough?

It is a problem with several variables and the design of the rules are just one component. Does it work with the way you think about the setting? How much work does it take to use it? Do the players like the rules you want to use? How much time in a session does it take to adjudicate various situations with the rules?

I argue that it more important to teach referee what to look for than it is try to make the ultimate set of rules. Your equation will change once you change the setting from Star Trek to Babylon 5. It will change again if you want to run a fantasy campaign using Forgotten Realms, or a campaign involving the War of the Rose in historical England.

This thread started by asking about Scalability, what does scalability mean in Star Trek? Babylon 5? Fogotten Realms? England? Does the rules that you want to work reflect how things scale in those settings?

Since characters are free to whatever they could do as if they existed in said settings, what will happen if they become socially powerful? Materially rich? Achieve high rank? Are you prepared? Does your chosen set of rules help you with this preparation? Or do you have to do the work yourself?

And there always the option of just living with the consequences. My view is that it is only an issue when it something you didn't expect. For example long ago I learn about the consequences of the PCs acquiring a lot of magic items. That in many campaigns no matter how stingy you are the PCs will check off everything on their "shopping list". So rather than throwing up my hands and saying "that it for the campaign" I learned how to live with it and still run things that are fun, interesting, and challenging. My concern with Scalability is that I know how it works in the given rules and does it fit with how I conceive the setting.

Quote from: estar;1026727Did you ever find out why they were asking so many questions? When I dig into it, most of the time it because I wasn't supplying enough information. So things devolved into a game of twenty questions.

I have some insight and opinions into why.  I haven't rigorously tested or researched the thing, because I found it easier to simply use some rules.  But taking that for what it's worth, what I usually found was that I often had players that had trouble properly generalizing from specifics.  

To use a crude example, say that a situation comes up a few times in this setting where they need to climb a rickety ladder.  I give them a 50/50 shot to succeed, and implement this by rolling a d6 out in the open.  Some players will take that into account, recognize the odds, make extrapolations from other situations, and have a decent guess as to what is going on.  I think these are the types of players you are discussing.  If I tell them that the ladder looks rotten, they may not know whether I'm rolling a d8 or only giving them success on a 1-2 on a d6, but they know the odds are worse than 50/50, and will react accordingly. Likewise, if they need to climb some vines on a wall.  In contrast, the kind of players I'm talking about will base almost everything off of whether they succeeded or failed.  It won't matter if they rolled a string of 1s or a string of 6s, they'll decide the thing is inherently easy or hard based on their outcomes.  Already, any extrapolation is shot to hell.  You'll note that hiding the roll from them helps, but doesn't completely mitigate this.  In effect, such a person that has had a bad or good streak of luck will extrapolate things about the world based on their own limited anecdotes, instead of filing that away as a possible outlier.  

Yeah, I know, welcome to the real world.  This is a part of reality that I don't find particularly charming in characters.  Now as to why I attract player like that, that's another question, possibly a chicken or egg one, since I take steps to provide a game they can enjoy.

Quote from: Skarg;1026723Yes.

Of course, I've also practically memorized almost every detail of TFT and GURPS, so I can run those without any books.

But I could also do it without using those, though how I did it would probably still be influenced by my experience playing those.

Sure, my nearly decades of refereeing GURPS has influenced how I currently run OD&D. Not so much in actual die rolls and modifiers but more in procedures. So a player wants to put the guy in a head lock with his legs while swinging from a chandler?* How did GURPS handle that? Then I dial it back and have the player make his rolls.

*I would have the player make a to hit roll at -4, and the target would get a saving throw to avoid getting trapped in the headlock. If the target fails the save the character can do 1d3 +strength mod for damage.

GURPS has several more steps, skill rolls, defense rolls and modifers. But with OD&D I am assuming that the character is competent enough to grab and swing from a chandelier. That getting one's legs around an opponents head is about as difficult as trying to hit a known invisible opponent. That in OD&D to avoid bad things happening to your character, you make a saving throw. So his target gets a save. That if the headlock fails to occur the character still gets to deal damage by kicking.

Quote from: Skarg;1026723Hmm, how do they irritate you, and how would you want the skills to work?

This could be a topic by itself. :)  An abbreviated, incomplete version:

A. I don't care for point systems that use half points or otherwise have artifacts from an initial design that sets the scope of a 1-point ability too low.  Furthermore, I find that such system often have intractable balance issues distinguishing between 1 and 2 point abilities, and often have kludges built up around the system that makes it more complicated than it needs to be.  However, to fix it would require completely overhauling the point assignment system, which would affect not only skills but the whole game.  I understand why they don't do such a thing to satisfy the handful of people like me that are irritated by it, but I can't stop seeing the issue.  (In passing, I propose that the floor of a well-design point system should be a 3-point ability, and possibly even a 5--if you wanted to allow for 3 and 4 point abilities that you missed later.)

B. On the upper end, the geometric progression of the skills, combined with what a higher-end skill is, means that the zero-to-hero thing is largely neutered.  Since the system was design in part with such a goal in mind, I could hardly quibble about it, but it does make it more difficult to modify for my purposes.  In a sense, I'm in the same boat as someone that tries to twist D&D into too much realism.

Those traits won't stop me from enjoying a game of GURPs run by someone else.  After all, if I'm signing up for that, it is probably a game set firmly at a power level where GURPs excels, and other than my starting character or maybe a character at the end of a long-running campaign, I don't have to deal with those outer limits at all.  If I'm trying to GM it, though, I can't ignore it as much.  It's kind of like a suit and shirt and tie that used to fit perfectly, and then you gained 5 pounds.  It's still wearable, and you look fine, but you aren't quite comfortable anymore.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026737This could be a topic by itself. :)  An abbreviated, incomplete version:

A. I don't care for point systems that use half points or otherwise have artifacts from an initial design that sets the scope of a 1-point ability too low.

I am not following you.

First 4th edition GURPS has no 1/2 pt level anymore. But in regards to the point I am going to make it matter little.

GURPS uses 3D6 roll low. The basically idea to succeed on a skill roll you roll equal to or lower than the attribute that controls the skill. This is with modifiers. The average human attribute is 10.

Each skill lists a default modifier if used without any skill point applied to it. For example Broadsword is DX-5. Somebody without any skill in Broadsword will have 4.6% chance of succeeding. If it was d20 being rolled they would have to roll a nat 20 to hit with it.

If they put a point into a skill the default modifier is figured on whether a skill is considered Easy, Average, Hard, or Very Hard. Easy it starts at +0 (equal to the attribute), Average -1, Hard, -2, and Very Hard -3.

To get +1 to this you need to spend 2 pts, to get another +1 you need to spend 4 pts. Each additional +1 is 4 points after that.

Broadsword is considered an average skill. So putting one point into will raise it from its default of DX-5 to DX-1. Which for a ordinary person with a dexterity of 10 means they need to roll a 9 or less or 37% chance of success.

GURPS 3rd edition with 1/2 points in skill just had a level underneath the starting one I mentioned above. For example 1/2 point in Broadword meant it was DX-2.

I don't see how any of this precludes a zeroes to heroes style campaign especially in relations to Fantasy Hero which I also refereed campaigns for. I run campaigns both in 3rd and 4th edition with low point starting characters. The lowest I ran was 50 point plus 20 points in disadvantages back in the late 80s.

My biggest issue with GURPS in this regard it just has too many skills finely divided. For social interactions you have Acting, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Performance, Public Speaking, and Savior-Faire. Granted that many of these default off of each other. But still, luckily it not hard to trim down the list and make some of these specialized Techniques off of a basic skill.

Still I do find Fantasy Age (the RPG by Green Ronin) idea of your attribute being a modifier to a 3d6 roll and you add your skill on top of that to beat some target number to be more friendly in play.

Quote from: estar;1026740I am not following you...

I was not aware that GURPs 4th ed. lopped off the upper end of the scale in favor of a flat +1 for 4 points.  My last plays was with 3rd ed.  That is a ... a more drastic change than I was led to believe was the case in GURPs from some early online reviews.

I find that when a scaling system for skills uses a path of something like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ... that it has problems around the edges.  However, those problems are specifically for dealing with a wide range of power levels.  Yes, it doesn't preclude zero to hero, but you have oddball side effects that make managing that scale difficult.  For the resolution mechanics of GURPs and Hero, such a scale is a positive thing, because you don't want a lot of modifiers.  That kind of progression is far better for a more realistic game, because it says, effectively:  "You learn fast early, but about the time you get competent, you must really dedicate yourself to get any better."   Hero has less of this particular issue, because it doesn't scale the same way.  There's still some edge cases, but the heart of it is scaling in 5 point increments of effect (though the power calculation doesn't work as well for fantasy as it does for superheroes).  It's a big part of why I favored Hero (4th) over GURPs (3rd) for the fantasy games I was running.  

I agree with you about too many schools, finely divided.  But I was trying to keep my answer short.  I'm pretty happy with Hero for starting a little higher than low, and not scaling very far, but not so much for more rapid scaling.  The number of points required ups the accounting costs, and around we go again.  I'm not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole, but some of my objection to 1 and 2 points skills is that it encourages that fine division.  

Again, this is not a point against GURPs or Hero.  I think they achieve their design intent very well.  It's in response to the original question, which is why I find they do not efficiently scale in ways that I want.

I probably still wasn't very clear in that last post.  Let's try contrasting something I think does a better job of doing the kind of relative scaling I want, such as a hypothetical point-based system using the Fibonacci sequence for the costs, with the lower end chopped off as problematic.  (It still has problems on the upper end, but you can't have everything.  A log sequence might be even better, but those don't result in convenient math without a lot of judicious rounding.)  Assume points costs for abilities are 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc.  5 points is the standard for an average ability.  3 is for a minor ability.  2 is for a throw-away or something you really want to scale down after balancing (that is, not used very much).  8, 13, and 21 are for increasingly enhanced abilities.  Starting at 34, you have your upper-tier, epic type things.

Since the cost of an ability at level N is the same as an ability from one each of the two levels before it, there are muted pushes towards some specialization and some generalization.  You can get an average ability for 5 points, or you can get a minor and a throw-away, or you pool all of that, sacrifice another minor, and thus have 8 points to pick up something better.  You'll still have those situations where spending 21 points to reach the upper end of normal doesn't look very compelling compared to picking up a bunch of 2, 3, and 5 point abilities, but it's not quite the same as the 1, 2, 4 points versus 32 of the geometric progression.

Given the research into estimation of effort using such points in Agile programming, I suspect the designers during playtest will do a better job of properly assigning abilities, too.  The clear categories, and chopping off the extreme lower end, should result in less skill scope inflation.  

GURPs built on such a framework might or might not be a better game, but I think it would be one that I personally would enjoy running more.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026472D&D 5E does a good job for me in some areas, but I doubt I'd ever run it with the healing system set as is.  I want it a little more deadly than that. Or more specifically, since I could always just throw a lot of over-powered encounters at the party if all I wanted was deadly, I prefer something more like the RC or AD&D effect where characters get worn down.  

5e hit dice less than double effective hp, so they do get worn down. But at least half the time they are going into fight at full hp. I think that is different from BX-BECM but is much the same as AD&D where Clerics are typically spamming Cure Light Wounds.

Quote from: estar;1026453Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

Can do it. Have done it. Don't particularly want to do it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026458My reaction to it is why I do not quite agree with the degree of emphasis you put on the point of running the setting.  I agree it is important.  Based on my understanding of your points, I don't agree that it is as important as you say it is.

Nor to I agree it is that important. You can define the setting and it's logic and select, interpret, and impose rules to suit. Or you can use the rules as part of the definition of the setting and it's logic. Neither method is better, they are just different. Think of it like this...

When making dinner I can choose a recipe, go to the store, buy the right ingredients, come home, and prepare the meal according to the recipe with the ingredients I specifically purchased for that meal. Because that meal is all about that recipe. Or I can see what's in the frig, the cupboards, and the pantry and prepare a meal out of what I have on hand. That meal is about being hungry now or about being thrifty.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1026518I'm in that boat. I think the very concept of 'skills' is somewhat problematic in that there are some things that a novice should have a 0% chance at and an expert only 33%. Other things where it should be 0%/99%, others 70%/90%, and so on. I don't think trying to find a universal emulation for such has been all that successful (without making the game so convoluted it can only marginally be considered a 'simplification' of reality.

I like the Runequest/CoC/BRP skills system. But I certainly agree that it usually needs a lot GM interpretation and setting modifiers to get it to work at all well across multiple situations. And I've yet to see a really good way of simulating the change in difficulty for sneaking based on the number of people sneaking. Intuitively it seems obvious that one person is less likely to be spotted than 10 people, but a rote interpretation of the rules in any system results in some unpalatable outcomes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1026758Let's try contrasting something I think does a better job of doing the kind of relative scaling I want, such as a hypothetical point-based system using the Fibonacci sequence for the costs, with the lower end chopped off as problematic.

Your idea is interesting, but one problem I see in achieving a wide adoption of something like this comes from Fibonacci values being less easy to remember or calculate in my head than the outcome of simple 2^N power sequence. Generally I prefer a fairly simple formula to a required lookup table.

Thanks for going into that, Steven. I've been interested in playing with different systems for skills forever, and it's interesting to see what other people think about them.

I am mainly interested in having detail and consistent simulation of character improvement compared to a game world's population and what it takes to progress from no study to competent to expert to champion, and what that lets characters do. (And as Willie the Duck pointed out, that can get really complex when each of many skills should probably have different progressions even for different uses of the same skill.)

I think I see what you mean about the point costs for low levels of learning skills. I think there is an issue with letting players freely choose to allocate points to skills so they can choose between an expert level in one skill or 8 or 16 skills at beginner-level (especially if that actually ends up being quite competent because say it's based on IQ and they're smart). I don't think free point-buy is a good model for how people learn skills in that case, and so I instead apply GM/player discretion and/or rules/considerations of how people actually gain skills, which I think needs to detach from the point-buy system at some point to model it well. But I do want to be able to have the most detailed/used characters be able to dabble and have some-but-not-much competence in things - I just don't think free point spending models that well, as learning skills is rarely a matter of "do you choose to focus on being an even higher-level expert, or go learn 8 other skills?"

Quote from: Skarg;1026830I am mainly interested in having detail and consistent simulation of character improvement compared to a game world's population and what it takes to progress from no study to competent to expert to champion, and what that lets characters do.

Do you also simulate skill atrophy? If you didn't you wouldn't be unusual, typically game systems don't. Probably because it would require even more more book keeping and because most players dislike having their characters get less skilled as they get more experienced.

Quote from: Bren;1026840Do you also simulate skill atrophy? If you didn't you wouldn't be unusual, typically game systems don't. Probably because it would require even more more book keeping and because most players dislike having their characters get less skilled as they get more experienced.

Part of what is holding me back in my own design is that I'm trying to simulate skill atrophy without suffering the usual problems of annoying the players and too much complexity or handling time. The only approach that I've found that has some promise is roughly:  Learning skills is done in two tiers, temporary and permanent.  Once a skill (level) is "locked in" as permanent, it can't atrophy.  You've mastered that thing.  This is relatively difficult to do, and you can only do it via sustained attention, represented by sustained practice and a limited number of opportunities to lock in over a given amount of time.  Whereas, temporary skills are "easy come, easy go."  You can cram for them if you need to be better at something temporarily.  You tend to pick up a little temporary ability just by walking around and breathing.  Whatever you are actively doing right now tends to get a temporary boost.  If not locked in, these temporary abilities "evaporate" over time.

The typical play experience is supposed to be that you get temporary ability in several things.  Of these, you'll probably pick something to lock in, but can't lock them all before some will evaporate.  Temporary ability is largely governed by experience points, while permanent ability is largely governed by time.  You can directly learn something permanently without gaining temporary ability first (typically through study), but it is not the most efficient way to do it.

Actually, that part of my system works quite well in itself.  It's the bind that it puts on the system for resolution mechanics and other related parts that is dragging.

I tend to use the word scalability differently. Here used as a game having a large dynamic range of PC power, I'd say it's really not that important. There are games that have only a single power level, and never move. There are games that start at one of several power levels, and never move. There are games that start anywhere on a scale and grow with time (D&D is one). All can be good, provided the game handles well within the intended range and it is clear to GM and players what that range is. After all, if the game isn't suitable to the power level you want, there probably is some other game that is.

Scalability is only important when you need to cross a lot of power levels (from peasant to god). And there really aren't a lot of games that can handle this.

Quote from: Bren;1026840Do you also simulate skill atrophy? If you didn't you wouldn't be unusual, typically game systems don't. Probably because it would require even more more book keeping and because most players dislike having their characters get less skilled as they get more experienced.

Yes, I have, but I don't have a very satisfactory system for it, mainly because ideally it'd take into account which skills got used how much for everyone, which would be colossal to track in detail (even considering which skills should be more like bike riding and which should be more forgettable). I make guidelines for what it ought to roughly be like if tracked, and then instead of tracking, try to notice if someone is using a skill they haven't used in a long time (again from memory and/or GM assessment). i.e. fudging but compared to what it ought to be like if it were tracked.

As I said, it's more complicated that most want to deal with. (Though you were one of the few posters I figured would have tinkered with a system of skill atrophy. As a side note, I had not ridden a bike for about 25-30 years. Then my wife wanted us to buy bikes to ride around town. One thing I learned from that was that after long disuse the skill of riding a bike is actually not "like riding a bicycle."

Also when I hear the word scale in reference to an RPG I immediately think of Star Wars D6 which explicitly had 6 different scales (character, speeder, walker, starfighter, capital, and Death Star) with associated mechanical effects for interaction between the different scales.

It's just like falling off a bicycle.  Once you learn how, you never forget. :)

Quote from: Bren;1026888Also when I hear the word scale in reference to an RPG I immediately think of Star Wars D6 which explicitly had 6 different scales (character, speeder, walker, starfighter, capital, and Death Star) with associated mechanical effects for interaction between the different scales.

Actually, that very scale is what got me to try and 'fix' Palladium's Rifts issue I had with Mega Damage.  When five men with rifles can take down a tank, with one total loss of soldier but utter destruction of said vehicle, my mind broke.

Quote from: estar;1026453Let me ask folks this, can you run a tabletop roleplaying campaign without a rulebook?

Just sit down with a group of players with some dice, pen, and paper. Describe the setting to them, have them tell you want kind of character they want to play. Everybody writes down notes. Then the next session you start playing. Using just what the players have on their notes, and you using your experience about the setting and genre to figure out when the dice needs to be rolled and what are the odds.

If you say you can't. Then I ask you to consider that if you were able to do the above and make it fun and enjoyable even if only for one session. You will that much better when you use your favorite set of rules. It will help you understand what really important about the rules and what not. That there are many elements to running a tabletop roleplaying campaign that rules don't and can't address. That heart of the experience is the player interacting with a setting as their character.

Sorry to be late to the party again...

Yes, I can, and I regularly do so in my games. I've been asked repeatedly how I do it, and my reply is that because I am playing a particular world-setting and have made sure to be very familiar with it, I can make decisions quickly enough so as not to impede game play. Ask Gronan how it works; he's played in my Tekumel and Barsoom games. If I was to name a formal 'set of rules', I'd say Free Kriegspiel and/or Braunstein.

Your second paragraph is exactly how I ran my game sessions in Ancient Egypt and Barsoom, last Free RPG Day at the local FLGS, the the players in each session told me that they had a great time.

Yep.  If you KNOW your setting up, down, left, right, backwards, and sideways, that's all you need.

I personally use things like the OD&D combat system because it gives me as the referee surprises... four kobolds wipe out a party of 9 player characters, all dice rolled in the open... and I use things like the D&D treasure charts because they give me as the referee surprises. like 4 first level PCs discovering some gems and three of them randomly roll huge, huge values and these four PCs are now amazingly wealthy.

I * COULD * think up things like that, but as referee I like to be surprised too.  For everything else, though, it's as Chirine says; know the world and the rest follows.  Insult Deja Thoris, and John Carter WILL invent new ways of killing somebody just to try them out on you.

It requires that the players either know the world also (like Barsoom) or trust the referee.

Which leads me once again to my oft-repeated aphorism:  If you don't trust the referee, don't play with the fucker.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026982Which leads me once again to my oft-repeated aphorism:  If you don't trust the referee, don't play with the fucker.

Meh, I'm not very trusting. Call me skeptical, but humans are fallible. So I don't really fully trust anyone as the GM, including myself. That's one reason I like games with dice. Using rules and dice helps me to remain fair and honest. Using dice also result in surprises which is another reason I like dice.

There is a difference between "trust to be infallible" and "trust to be honest."

I expect honest.  If the referee accidentally makes a different ruling six months later, I'd bet a nickel none of us will remember.  In which case, I'd say no harm, no foul.

Quote from: Bren;1027001Meh, I'm not very trusting. Call me skeptical, but humans are fallible. So I don't really fully trust anyone as the GM, including myself. That's one reason I like games with dice. Using rules and dice helps me to remain fair and honest. Using dice also result in surprises which is another reason I like dice.

I like and use dice as well, in my games, as I do like the surprises that result and the game play that results from them. Trust, like Gronan says, comes from the players trusting the GM to play fair - I'm not talking about fallibility; that does happen, and that's where knowing the world setting and any game rules being used comes into the game.

On the other hand, if simple honesty is in question, then I'm out. If it's a common issue in today's games, then you can count me out of them, too.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027003There is a difference between "trust to be infallible" and "trust to be honest."

I expect honest.  If the referee accidentally makes a different ruling six months later, I'd bet a nickel none of us will remember.  In which case, I'd say no harm, no foul.

Agreed. When did 'the rules are there to protect the players from the GM' become a thing, if I may ask. I simply cannot imagine a game session like this; it's just right out of my experience.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1027005Agreed. When did 'the rules are there to protect the players from the GM' become a thing, if I may ask. I simply cannot imagine a game session like this; it's just right out of my experience.

When people who stunk at playing at age 14 started working in the industry and changing the rules rather than learning to play.

In at least some cases, I know for a fact that's what happened.

The trust question for me is orthogonal to the issue of setting.  There has to be a basic level of trust (to maintain honesty, as y'all said) for the game to be worth doing at all, sure.  I like surprises, and I like the randomness of the dice for that reason also.  What I don't like, in the case of "just running my setting" is the constant back and forth over things that I'd rather just establish in rules.  This isn't even a trust question for me.  That is, I'll embed something in a rule not because the player want that because they don't trust me, or that I don't trust myself to be consistent, but because I don't want to put the work in.  

It may very well be that I have this attitude because I'm from the second generation of gamers, the ones that started with some established rules, who didn't have a strong background in war gaming, and certainly not in war gaming handled by a referee.  We dabbled in that, but it wasn't an established thing by the time we were hot after RPGs.  You might say that, for many of us, it doesn't matter whether the guy with chain and shield and sword at this level of skill versus this other guy at a slightly lower level with spear, is set to an accurate representation.  It only matters that is be semi-plausible within the context of the game.  Sometimes, there is some idea about how magic works in the setting or the economy or what not, where I do care.  Then I'm more or less doing it the older way.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027006When people who stunk at playing at age 14 started working in the industry and changing the rules rather than learning to play.

In at least some cases, I know for a fact that's what happened.

It explains fourth edition at the very least.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1027005Agreed. When did 'the rules are there to protect the players from the GM' become a thing, if I may ask.

It not a thing. It just a segment of our hobby playing in a particular way. The game store, the internet, the conventions are all loud and visible but they are just a small slice of a much larger hobby of people playing in the privacy of their own group whether at home or using some internet enabled form of communication.

Quote from: estar;1027012It not a thing. It just a segment of our hobby playing in a particular way. The game store, the internet, the conventions are all loud and visible but they are just a small slice of a much larger hobby of people playing in the privacy of their own group whether at home or using some internet enabled form of communication.

That's a relief, thank you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026982If you don't trust the referee, don't play with the fucker.

Agreed.

And by trust, I mean "I trust I'm gonna have a good time".

If I doubt I'm gonna have fun at game, I've got plenty of other fun things to do.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1027005Agreed. When did 'the rules are there to protect the players from the GM' become a thing, if I may ask. I simply cannot imagine a game session like this; it's just right out of my experience.

When games started seeing design elements towards that end, I can't tell you (and as estar mentions, it exists much more in discussion than in real-world implementation). I think, the idea of it might have some roots in the same cultural zeitgeist as the 'Killer DM' that is lampooned in things like Knight's of the Dinner Table.The D&D module Tomb of Horrors (again, the idea of it more than the actual product, which was out of print for many years and grew in the retelling) might have been a big part of it. Hard to say.

Well, at the very least, Skip Williams said in as many words that his goal for his work on D&D was "to protect the players from the arbitrary whims of the dungeon master," so yeah, it is a thing.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027075Well, at the very least, Skip Williams said in as many words that his goal for his work on D&D was "to protect the players from the arbitrary whims of the dungeon master," so yeah, it is a thing.

That could be what you say it is or it could be the fact when you go into more detail especially with combat players tend to be picky about following exact letter of the rule. I seen both attitudes.

They are close cousins but not born of the same reasons. One views referee as being a big bad guy that the poor little players need protection from. The other is a negative view about the referee being wildly inconsistent about their ruling on the odds of hitting a fighter with four years of battle experience while he wearing chainmail and holding shield while fighting in a rainstorm. So seek to codify every possibility.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1027004On the other hand, if simple honesty is in question, then I'm out. If it's a common issue in today's games, then you can count me out of them, too.

No that's not at all what I'm saying. See my comment to Gronan. And really you two aren't all that much older than me. :D Heck to me the old WoD still seems like a new fangled way of making game rules really difficult to read by printing weird blotchy shadowy shit all over the page. :D

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027003There is a difference between "trust to be infallible" and "trust to be honest."

I think the distinction I was trying to make is that I expect the GM to "try to be honest." Trying and succeeding being two different things. I see dice and/or rules as one method to help the GM succeed in being honest.

QuoteI'd bet a nickel none of us will remember.  In which case, I'd say no harm, no foul.

I notice you only bet $0.05. :D I'm old and forgetful now, but there was a time when I probably would have remembered.

Look, one of the most basic things about human beings, gamers or otherwise is, "If it's not detailed in some fashion, then it's assumed that it's impossible."  It takes exceptional thinkers or spelled out details for people to think outside of the box.  ANd for the record, I ain't one of the exceptionals.

I fell into the trap back in my AD&D and other gaming days:  If it's not in the rules, it's not possible.  It was a major roadblock for Champions or HERO System.  It took well into the 1990's for me to grasp that if it's not there, you can just add it.  A little game named Feng Shui taught it to me.  Some people never will, even if you tell them so.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1027135Look, one of the most basic things about human beings, gamers or otherwise is, "If it's not detailed in some fashion, then it's assumed that it's impossible."  

That's how computer games, chess, and pretty much every board game ever work. Traditionally tabletop RPGs tended to be considerably less rigid and far more open-ended. Which accounted for much of their appeal, actually.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1027135Look, one of the most basic things about human beings, gamers or otherwise is, "If it's not detailed in some fashion, then it's assumed that it's impossible."  It takes exceptional thinkers or spelled out details for people to think outside of the box.  ANd for the record, I ain't one of the exceptionals.

I fell into the trap back in my AD&D and other gaming days:  If it's not in the rules, it's not possible.  It was a major roadblock for Champions or HERO System.  It took well into the 1990's for me to grasp that if it's not there, you can just add it.  A little game named Feng Shui taught it to me.  Some people never will, even if you tell them so.

Miniatures wargames often tend towards minimalism.  Movement rates, missile fire, melee, morale.  But NOTHING on tactics baked into the rules.  At least way back when it was expected that you'd read up on the period and learn about things like the Genoese crossbowmen being driven into the French knights at Agincourt, or about the desirable effect of flanking a unit already in battle.  And when you tried them in a game, one little paragraph... sometimes only a sentence... in the rules suddenly became key.  But "how to fight an army" was not included in the rules.

D&D scales better than most systems. That's one of the reasons for its appeal.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027157At least way back when it was expected that you'd read up on the period and learn about things like the Genoese crossbowmen being driven into the French knights at Agincourt, or about the desirable effect of flanking a unit already in battle.  And when you tried them in a game, one little paragraph... sometimes only a sentence... in the rules suddenly became key.  But "how to fight an army" was not included in the rules.

But, in general, there were actual rules that made (for instance) flanking actually be advantageous, right?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027506But, in general, there were actual rules that made (for instance) flanking actually be advantageous, right?

Flanking was advantageous because in formation fighting the key to firepower was how many men you can bring to bear on the opposing formation. If If I am using a formation that is arrayed in a ratio of 12 across to 3 deep.  From the front I can bring 12 men to bear. Depending on the time period and the weaponry, the deeper rank add in as well.

If attacked on the flank the target can only bring 1/4 of the firepower they can from the front. While the attacker still can use their full capability.

There doesn't need to be any special rule for flanking. Just a general rule that governs how many can attack while in formation. The natural consequences of geometry will provide the inherent advantage that flanking gives.

In my experience with older miniature rules, where flanking is explicitly given some type of modifier it is found in the morale rules along with being attacked from the rears. Historical references are filled with accounts on how devastating it is to a unit's morale and cohesion being attacked from the side and flanked.

Having experienced it the mass field battles in the SCA it quite accurate. While in formation you can only see so far and when something hits from the side or rear it looks like a tidal wave about to hit and you feel exposed as all hell. Very easy to make a decision to flee.

Quote from: estar;1027508There doesn't need to be any special rule for flanking. Just a general rule that governs how many can attack while in formation. The natural consequences of geometry will provide the inherent advantage that flanking gives.

In my experience with older miniature rules, where flanking is explicitly given some type of modifier it is found in the morale rules along with being attacked from the rears. Historical references are filled with accounts on how devastating it is to a unit's morale and cohesion being attacked from the side and flanked.

Well, those rules that governs how many can attack while in formation fit my definition of "actual rules that made flanking actually be advantageous" (apparently I wanted to emphasize the actual-ness), even if they aren't exclusive to the flanking situation.

I have barely done any wargaming, but I have vague recollection of playing a game sometime as a young teen, where I played "strategically" -- trying to get elevation, flanking, even getting surprise -- and then us looking up in the book what advantages that gave me, and being sorely disappointed that I'd spent a lot of time, possibly subjected myself to a bunch of dice rolls and maybe some missile fire and the like, and only like one of those conditions actually giving a mechanical benefit. I was wondering if that was a common occurrence (and remember, the cobwebs of time and whether we were playing right in the first place could be a factor).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027519Well, those rules that governs how many can attack while in formation fit my definition of "actual rules that made flanking actually be advantageous" (apparently I wanted to emphasize the actual-ness), even if they aren't exclusive to the flanking situation.

However the rules that governs how many can attack while in formation don't explicitly say flanking in advantageous. It is a consequence of how those rules work in a battle.

The problem that many complain about is that the basic rule of tabletop roleplaying campaigns is that we are playing characters that interact with settings. The unstated implication is that we can do anything as those characters that within their capabilities within the setting. For example if the setting in part is based on a fantasy version of western medieval Europe then I can attempt to find or remove a trap. That the odds of doing that would be based on my character's dexterity, intelligence and perhaps training as represented by my level in a particular class.

Yet many, in treating RPGs as a game instead of a tool for adjudication, would view the fact that since finding/removing traps isn't mentioned as an explicit ability therefore the character is prohibited from attempting to do it.


Moreso even if it a low probability of success for example trying to make a viable potion just using my intelligence without anything else justifying

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027519I have barely done any wargaming, but I have vague recollection of playing a game sometime as a young teen, where I played "strategically" -- trying to get elevation, flanking, even getting surprise -- and then us looking up in the book what advantages that gave me, and being sorely disappointed that I'd spent a lot of time, possibly subjected myself to a bunch of dice rolls and maybe some missile fire and the like, and only like one of those conditions actually giving a mechanical benefit. I was wondering if that was a common occurrence (and remember, the cobwebs of time and whether we were playing right in the first place could be a factor).

Having done a lot of live action roleplaying and reenactments, a lot of the benefits from the situations you mention are more about the geometry of the encounter than a better to hit chance. For example elevation eliminates a lot of line of sight issues. Plus it is likely what I am using to elevate myself provides a barrier or at least will slow down any enemy trying to get to me. Surprise means that the enemy is not reacting as fast as you are. You get inside of his decision-action loop and do more than your opponent can with better information.

Still there are situation that should give mechanical bonuses. For example in GURPS with defense rolls, multiple attacker quickly causes the defender to run out of things he can do to defend himself. There isn't time to parry multiple opponents with any decent chance of success. And that represented by the rules on rolls beyond the first one for a particular defense. In D&D where defense is wrapped up in Armor Class and hit points, multiple attacks has to be handled differently. And many editions are silent on the topic forcing the referee to come up with own ruling for when it makes sense.

But even if the referee declines to do so. The mere fact that the party created a situation where multiple attackers are beating down a single opponent is an advantageous one. And for many groups a sufficent advantage that they are happy with. For myself I adopted 5th edition Advantage and Disadvantage mechanics and I grant advantage to attack made when a character attacking an opponent and has an ally on the other side.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027519Well, those rules that governs how many can attack while in formation fit my definition of "actual rules that made flanking actually be advantageous" (apparently I wanted to emphasize the actual-ness), even if they aren't exclusive to the flanking situation.

I have barely done any wargaming, but I have vague recollection of playing a game sometime as a young teen, where I played "strategically" -- trying to get elevation, flanking, even getting surprise -- and then us looking up in the book what advantages that gave me, and being sorely disappointed that I'd spent a lot of time, possibly subjected myself to a bunch of dice rolls and maybe some missile fire and the like, and only like one of those conditions actually giving a mechanical benefit. I was wondering if that was a common occurrence (and remember, the cobwebs of time and whether we were playing right in the first place could be a factor).

I would call those "shitty rules".  Once one had a bit of experience, the criteria for evaluating historical miniatures rules was "do they give close to historical results."

Maybe I'd say "you had to look in the rules to see that flanking worked, rather than learning that flanking worked by reading the rules."

It was so long ago that I don't even know what system it was. Perhaps we entirely missed those "one little paragraph... sometimes only a sentence"s you alluded to. I was just wondering if that was a common occurrence.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027557It was so long ago that I don't even know what system it was. Perhaps we entirely missed those "one little paragraph... sometimes only a sentence"s you alluded to. I was just wondering if that was a common occurrence.

Seems to me that there are wargames with issues, but in general, serious wargames tend to be good at providing effects of terrain and position and other circumstances, and they tend to focus on trying to make those make good sense, as modelling that sort of thing tends to be one of the main focuses of a wargame.

Yes.

This is not to say that there aren't plenty of shitty wargames out there.

True.