I roll twenties

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

So I'm trying to refine the mechanics of my game. This means that I'm playing out a lot of potential scenarios. And I'm not using any of my system's bells and whistles, I'm just trying to see how well basic conflicts work when evenly-matched opponents go at it.

And I'm working my way through the process and I sit back and go: "this is terrible. This isn't any fun at all." Then I'm sour and bitter about the whole thing.

But then I realize that in RPGs, the resolution mechanics aren't entertaining in and of themselves, it's the act of play itself that's actually the fun part. This doesn't mean that mechanics can't be fun, but they're not the reason why anyone plays. Despite the name, you don't get together to play a d20 based game because you're hot to roll a polyhedron. You get together to roleplay based on what those polyhedrons say your guy did or didn't do. I don't play Nobilis to spend Miracle Points, I play because of what those Miracle Points say I can do. And so on and so forth.

I do think there are fun mechanics, but to me, those mechanics are generally ones that help push the roleplaying experience. Taglines in Men In Black and Dying Earth are big fun examples. Confessionals in InSpectres are good. The ritualized phrases of negotiation in Polaris are fun because they reinforce the epic grandeur of the game.

Still, that's my opinion and I don't know if such "roleplay" mechanics can carry the entire game (although I think Polaris comes close). While they are fun, they certainly aren't the end-all, be-all reason to play the game. All of these mechanics, without the imaginative framework that support them, would be a complete waste of time to play on their own.

This doesn't necessarily argue in favor of rules simplicity or complexity. A smaller, simpler ruleset plays much faster than a larger, more complex one and lets players focus on the play. On the other hand, a larger, more complex ruleset (when properly designed) can offer intriguing options and pathways for play to evolve.

None of this let's me off the hook of doing a lot of boring work on the system though. But it does make me feel a little bit better about not trying to over-engineer this thing too much. Sure, it seems really boring and un-fun, but the die rolling a spur to fun, not the end-product.

later
Tom

Comments

[mazianni.livejournal.com]

I think mechanics can certainly hurt a game. It can be difficult to balance mechanics against game play. In V&V you can have some speedster character go ten times before the rest of the PCs and NPCs have a chance to do anything. It's part of the genre, but it sucks if you have to sit around for 15 minutes of real time waiting for the GM and one or two players to resolve 15 seconds of game time.

One thing I did like about V&V was that, other than character generation and combat, things were pretty wide open.

I don't want to have to consult more than one chart to figure anything out either. Roll to hit, consult chart to see if I hit. Roll on sub-chart to see where I hit. Roll on Limb Loss subtable.

[brainiac69.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this a bit lately...here are some rambling thoughts... d20 games are dominating these days, mainly because everyone I play with more or less knows the rules. We can easily switch genres and play pickup games because there's no time loss in explaining the rules. Due to our chaotic schedules and the limited amount of time we have to play the 'not wasting time' aspect is very important. However, the more I play it the less I like the game system...the mechanics. I was chatting about this with a friend of mine who thought that the d20 system basically simulated a video game...he prefers to play oldschool 1st ed AD&D. Frankly, I'm toying with the idea to do so as well. The simpler system seems more appealing to me these days.

There've been a couple of posts about mechanics in a couple of the LJs I read occasionally...might give you some ideas:

thread #1

thread #2

[mazianni.livejournal.com]

That was one thing I liked about Palladium, and Gurps. You could play different genres but it was always the same mechanics. Wanna play a fantasy RPG? Pick up Palladium Fantasy. Next week maybe it's Beyond the Supernatural.

I haven't played any of the other d20 games yet. There were things that bothered me about 3rd ed D&D, but I'm not sufficiently gamer geeky enough to analyze the mechanics like st_darwin might do.

When I met mearls at Noreascon, I did say that I thought feats were completely gratuitous. He said he'd never heard anyone else say that.

I am amused that people think 1st ed AD&D was simpler, when I think about all the rules we used to ignore like casting time, weapon speed, 10' is 10 yards outdoors and 10 feet indoors...

[brainiac69.livejournal.com]

I don't know that the rules were any simpler but the characters certainly were. You had a race, a class, and some weapon proficiencies. No skills, feats, or prestige classes, along with all the optimizations involved.

I've read a bit of Palladium way back when but don't recall much about it, other than I enjoyed reading about it. I think Gurps can suffer from the same deal as 3.x D&D though...you've got so many character creation options that it's easy to fall into the munchkin/optimization trap. I'm also not a big fan of the Gurps system...while I appreciate the merits of a generic system the mechanics just don't feel right to me. It might have something to do with getting killed in every playtest we ran.