danejohnson
SOC-6
In the task systems thread, several people have mentioned "current thinking" in RPG mechanics, noting the 90's vogue for "handful of dice" mechanisms that games such as WEG's Star Wars, LUG's Star Trek, and White Wolf's World of Darkness systems had.
I'm not convinced that trying to develop a task system (or any part of a game) by commitee or by following "current fashion" is a good idea. I'd rather look at systems that have had long shelf-lives and loyal followings. They must be doing something right, eh?
If you threw your Average Gamer from the early 80s into a low berth and then thawed him out today what would he recognize on the shelves of you Favorite Local Games shop?
1) D&D -- It's mechanics look more like RuneQuest than D&D, but it's still D&D...
2) Call of Cthulhu -- The only mechanics change that I'm aware of was moving from a D6 skill increase to a D10 skill increase in the 4th-to-5th edition revision.
3) Pendragon -- Again, aside from adding a magic system, the new versions seem to have mostly changed by adding already existing supplements into the main rules.
4) Classic Traveller -- Naturally
5) Champions (sort of) -- The jump from the HERO system to Fuzion changed the game a lot for me. I gather it's Not Dead Yet, though.
(Honorable mentions: Car Wars, Ogre, and Illuminati, which aren't RPGs, and Hero Wars, which owes it's setting to RuneQuest, but not much else )
So, what do the long lived systems have in common? Is there a reason they are long lived? I think so.
1) Of the games which have stayed the same (Traveller, Pendragon, and CoC), all three are skill based. D&D/3e has adopted a skill-based system, and Champions just changed from one skill system to another.
2) Aside from Champions, all have random elements in character design. Designing a character in a point based system is a skill that the player needs to learn, which can make it "too hard" for new players.
3) Pendragon, CoC, and (now) D&D have effectively percentile systems (Pendragon is a percentile system where every die roll modifier is in 5% steps, and we then divide everything by 5, giving 1-20 and +/-1. D&D is (now) similar).
A percentile system is, in the gut, easier to grasp for a player. They more easily grasp "You have a 35% (or a 5 in 20, etc.) chance" than they do "Roll 8+ on 3 dice". That doesn't necessarily make a percentile system better, but it can be less intimidating to people.
4) Aside from Traveller, it's OBVIOUS how to make an adventure.
In CoC, you have your investigators stumble across some cultists and fight them.
In D&D you draw a map on graph paper, then wander around in it killing things.
In Champions, you encounter some supervillains and beat them up.
In Pendragon, you are Knights of the Round Table in search of migratory coconuts...
Well, you get the idea. There's an easy hook for beginners.
5) Greg Costikyan, on his website, has an essay about games. He mentions that games should evoke the genre in it's mechanics.
While you may argue with how "good" of a system it is, you have to admit that it's pretty easy to throw a "generic" fantasy world together with D&D.
Call of Cthulhu characters are pleasantly normal in comparison to the eldritch horrors, and there's always that slowly diminishing SAN to keep an eye on as they learn more and more about what's REALLY going on.
In Traveller, fairly large quantities of data can be represtented in hexadecimal strings. There's lots of information about all sorts of worlds, but that information is not complete -- it categorizes things, but still leaves room for the Referees to leave their own stamp. You get a sense of the vastness of the Imperium, but you also don't get completely overwhelmed by terrabytes of data. (Although the Web is, perhaps, changing that...)
Champions is probably the weakest of the lasting systems in this regard.
Anyway, I think it would behoove T5 to look to what has given Traveller and other long-lasting games their longevity. What has made them attractive to people for so long, sometimes with very little change in their core mechanics? That's what the system should embody, not "mechanics of the week" fashions. IMHO, anyway.
(Well, *that* was certainly long winded...)
------------------
Q: How many vilani does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, who holds the bulb while the planet revolves around him.
I'm not convinced that trying to develop a task system (or any part of a game) by commitee or by following "current fashion" is a good idea. I'd rather look at systems that have had long shelf-lives and loyal followings. They must be doing something right, eh?
If you threw your Average Gamer from the early 80s into a low berth and then thawed him out today what would he recognize on the shelves of you Favorite Local Games shop?
1) D&D -- It's mechanics look more like RuneQuest than D&D, but it's still D&D...
2) Call of Cthulhu -- The only mechanics change that I'm aware of was moving from a D6 skill increase to a D10 skill increase in the 4th-to-5th edition revision.
3) Pendragon -- Again, aside from adding a magic system, the new versions seem to have mostly changed by adding already existing supplements into the main rules.
4) Classic Traveller -- Naturally
5) Champions (sort of) -- The jump from the HERO system to Fuzion changed the game a lot for me. I gather it's Not Dead Yet, though.
(Honorable mentions: Car Wars, Ogre, and Illuminati, which aren't RPGs, and Hero Wars, which owes it's setting to RuneQuest, but not much else
)So, what do the long lived systems have in common? Is there a reason they are long lived? I think so.
1) Of the games which have stayed the same (Traveller, Pendragon, and CoC), all three are skill based. D&D/3e has adopted a skill-based system, and Champions just changed from one skill system to another.
2) Aside from Champions, all have random elements in character design. Designing a character in a point based system is a skill that the player needs to learn, which can make it "too hard" for new players.
3) Pendragon, CoC, and (now) D&D have effectively percentile systems (Pendragon is a percentile system where every die roll modifier is in 5% steps, and we then divide everything by 5, giving 1-20 and +/-1. D&D is (now) similar).
A percentile system is, in the gut, easier to grasp for a player. They more easily grasp "You have a 35% (or a 5 in 20, etc.) chance" than they do "Roll 8+ on 3 dice". That doesn't necessarily make a percentile system better, but it can be less intimidating to people.
4) Aside from Traveller, it's OBVIOUS how to make an adventure.
In CoC, you have your investigators stumble across some cultists and fight them.
In D&D you draw a map on graph paper, then wander around in it killing things.
In Champions, you encounter some supervillains and beat them up.
In Pendragon, you are Knights of the Round Table in search of migratory coconuts...
Well, you get the idea. There's an easy hook for beginners.
5) Greg Costikyan, on his website, has an essay about games. He mentions that games should evoke the genre in it's mechanics.
While you may argue with how "good" of a system it is, you have to admit that it's pretty easy to throw a "generic" fantasy world together with D&D.
Call of Cthulhu characters are pleasantly normal in comparison to the eldritch horrors, and there's always that slowly diminishing SAN to keep an eye on as they learn more and more about what's REALLY going on.
In Traveller, fairly large quantities of data can be represtented in hexadecimal strings. There's lots of information about all sorts of worlds, but that information is not complete -- it categorizes things, but still leaves room for the Referees to leave their own stamp. You get a sense of the vastness of the Imperium, but you also don't get completely overwhelmed by terrabytes of data. (Although the Web is, perhaps, changing that...)
Champions is probably the weakest of the lasting systems in this regard.
Anyway, I think it would behoove T5 to look to what has given Traveller and other long-lasting games their longevity. What has made them attractive to people for so long, sometimes with very little change in their core mechanics? That's what the system should embody, not "mechanics of the week" fashions. IMHO, anyway.
(Well, *that* was certainly long winded...)
------------------
Q: How many vilani does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, who holds the bulb while the planet revolves around him.
