Desired System Qualities

[anarkeith]

The blog Campaign Mastery has an interesting post about rules and mechanics that got me thinking about the games I run. I'm vaguely dissatisfied with 4e D&D because I find parts of it unnecessarily complex. It fails Nate's test of 'simple player actions translating to rich character actions'.

That's why I've been working on the combat and magic portions of the game, searching for answers that might satisfy my players. As the blog post linked above notes, such house rules should consider the type of game played, and how the group of players plays it.

What I find is that I have some players who want tactical and mechanical complexity, and others that desire simplicity, while I as DM desire simple, logical systems with little for me to track (perhaps distributing the burden of tracking), that allow me to get on with the decision making. Having the time to react to players' creative ideas rather than using it to track whether or not they have no standard action this turn, and have their movement reduced by 2 minus their Constitution modifier (if they're not wearing boots of speed and using the Flatulent Propulsion, TM, encounter power), is my issue with the published rules.

Paring it down to something that still allows players to impose some tactical conditions, while favoring the old 'roll-to-hit and damage' model for those who don't care for the tactical aspects is what I'm proposing as a solution.

Yes, I could move to another system entirely. And there are a number of worthy candidates (Savage Worlds and Dragon Age are the two most likely, at this point), but if my card-economy model works for my players and we can just plug that in to the current system, it seems like it would be less disruptive (even though we're replacing a very large portion of the rules.)

It does place a greater burden on the players to create the flavor that describes their actions in the game, but most of the people we play with have played RPGs enough, that I don't think this will be a huge problem. The solution is particular to the needs of my group of players, and my preferences as a DM.

[anarkeith]

Dave ran a session using Hero system rules for us the other night, and it got me thinking:

Do players want their characters to have a mechanic that is unique, or nearly so, within the party? (Feel free to explain if there are other elements that are more important to you than character mechanics.)

I'd love to hear what you guys think about that.

[wrathofzombie]

All players want to feel like beautiful unique snowflakes, not just in their character personalities, but in the mechanics of it. Look at Pathfinder/3.5. How many different classes, variants, prestige classes, etc all came out to facilitate player uniqueness.

The truth though, is that mechanically (in my opinion), players really aren't a beautiful and unique snowflake. There must be some semblance of balance and uniformity to the abilities to keep them in line with others.

I've also found that the ones that really try to have unique mechanics end up being really cumbersome because they have to create a new mechanic to make it work.

Some would point at the new Gunslinger coming out in Paizo's Ultimate Combat and say, "see! This is unique! The grit mechanic is awesome!"

Well yes it is, but honestly it is just like the rage points mechanic for barbarian and for Rogue (during Beta).

Where I find the uniqueness really shines and comes through (and again this is all just my opinion) is in narration. That is something that Savage Worlds does with flying colors. 4 characters all have the "Bolt" spell, but each one can say it does something different through description. SW also allows for quick tweaking of the spells.

Want to do bolt that is ice natures and freeze opponents? Ok- you only do half damage. You want to do fire bolt and ignite people? Ok. It costs slightly more Power Points.

I prefer players to tell me how it is unique (which is one of the reason I'm not a fan of 4e since it is really done for you and most players just regurgitate what is on their power card).

[anarkeith]

Thought I'd compile some responses:

Fritz said:
I think for me mostly the character is just a cool-looking avatar to be in the world through. before 4e, wizards had enough latitude to be a sub-game unto themselves, which added appeal for me. when combat comes, I want to feel in control, which means having a lot of something, either so much dexterity that I'm dancing around them, so much strength that I'm crushing them, or enough spells to choose from that I can surgically dissect the opposing side.

So, Fritz doesn't need a unique mechanic. Just one that enables some form of heroic action (and, perhaps, provide a little side-puzzle or something to tinker with.) I'm guessing (based in part on mutual play experience) that one of the things that might bothers Fritz about 4e mechanically, is the cookie-cutter approach to mechanics (powers are just reskinned from class to class.)

Dave said:
I don't need a power to make me feel special. For me what makes a character work for me is when I can exercise their personality and character design through the mechanics.

Normally this is how i start.

I come up with a background that fits into the campaign world. Determine generically how I want the character to work and then seek to bring them to life in the mechanics. This may be why i am a software engineer. Because this is how I always thought of DnD characters. In DnD i know the archetypes are important to the game design and so I stick generally to them when considering my character.

Dave, do the mechanics you'd like to use need to be unique to your character? How do you feel about other characters in the party sharing some of those mechanics? What about sharing all of those mechanics?

[randy]

I don't care specifically if I have powers that others don't have, but I do like some sort of delineation between different types of abilities. I like games in which each of the members of the party bring different abilities and strengths/weaknesses, and through good play and cooperation the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

As an example using current lingo, there should be defender powers, striker powers, leader powers, and controller powers. I don't care if you can mix and match the powers to meet your vision of your character, but someone who is a generalist (taking all the powers) should not be as "powerful" as someone who focused all their experience (all else being equal) into one class of powers in that specialist's defined role.

Each set of powers should have unique things about them that bring a different "tool kit" to a party. If every power group has a "push" abilitity, for example, that abilitity is not unique and unless defined as some sort of utility power of all characters, blurs the line too much between different power sets.