System: Player Expectations and Style of Play

Since I'm going to be talking about system and how it impacts games for a bit, I think that it would be good to start by defining system.

For role-playing, I define a system as follows:

System: A set of rules used to determine the success or failure of characters within a role-playing game.

There are other elements which nearly every system has, but they are all designed to support the core success/failure mechanism of the system. For example, most games have a character generation system of some sort.

The most common core mechanisms involve dice, and can be summed up in a single sentence - "Roll one die, add appropriate modifiers and compare to a target number." "Roll a number of dice. Count the number of those dice which equal or exceed a certain number."

Systems also provide reward systems. Most of the time, this takes the form of experience points which allow characters to change and grow.

Each system brings with it certain expectations, which can drastically color how players react to it.

Where do the expectations come from? A variety of sources.

The most important and influential piece of the player expectation puzzle is the game's reward system. In Dungeons & Dragons, defeating monsters¹ and disarming traps give you experience points which are added to your total. At certain threshholds, you gain more abilities which make you more effective at defeating monsters and disarming traps. The system doesn't spell out rewards for outwitting NPC's or avoiding combat. This leads to a specific style of play.

In the Tribe 8 (and other Silhouette-system games), you gain experience for being involved with the game, for advancing the story, for staying in character, and for working as a team. Yes, you can get experience for defeating enemies, but you can potentially obtain more experience for a dramatic act of self-sacrifice than for that defeat.

In other games, survival is its own reward. Call of Cthulhu is probably the most infamous game in this respect.

Other games provide additional rewards - King Arthur Pendragon, with its Winter Phase allows players to build dynasties, not just characters.

While it's the major contributor, a game's reward system is not the only element which impacts a game's style of play. So what else influences player expectations?

Rules focus. In Ars Magica, for example, devotes more than two-thirds of the rules to the magic system. Not surprisingly, the game focuses on magic. In fact, the combat system is almost underdeveloped by comparison.

Skill Lists. Tales From The Floating Vagabond had a skill list which included, "Swing Nasty Pointy Thing with Panache." With a list like that players knew from the outset that the game didn't take itself too seriously. It's worth noting that the game (and a number of its supplements) are now available at Drive Thru RPG.

Interior Art. CthulhuTech is illustrated throughout, and there are a number of images that make me think, "I wanna be that guy."

Game Fiction. I'm not talking about the Dragonlance novels, here. Nearly every game includes one or more bits of introductory fiction. These are frequently incomplete and end with a cliffhanger of sorts before introducing the rules elements demonstrated by that fiction. More importantly, they give you an idea what the setting is.

So what about Universal Systems? That is: systems which don't tie to a specific setting or genre. Universal systems generally lack a specific rules focus, they have very diverse skill lists, and the interior art and game fiction are all over the map in terms of quality and flavor. GURPS, FUDGE, Silhouette, and d20 have all tried to be completely universal systems - how well do they succeed? I'll talk about universal systems next week.







¹ Until fairly recently, "Defeating" always meant "killing." Now, if you can force them to retreat or flee, you get credit for defeating them.

System Matters

Let's get to the meat of the discussion, shall we? I have two words for you - they are words that the large sections of the RPG publishing industry spent the better part of a decade trying to convince you were incorrect. Words that the rest of the industry spent the same amount of time trying to reinforce and remind you of.

These two words?

System Matters

In 2000, Dungeons & Dragons released its third edition. The game was a huge step forward for D&D - it transformed the game, and advanced the system so it was almost caught up to the rest of the industry¹. But it did one thing that advanced the entire industry - it opened its system up to third-party publishers, with a few restrictions. This meant that anyone could publish product that used the same system as the best-selling game in the industry. They were even allowed to claim compatiblity. Did I say allowed? I mean "required." Each book said on the front, "Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook." Sales exploded. For everyone. We saw d20 Superhero games, d20 Pulp Noir Detective games, d20 Cyberpunk games, d20 Horror games ...

For the first few months, all you needed to do in order to sell product to a distributor was slap that d20 logo onto the product.

And everyone that produced d20 product spent time telling you, "System doesn't matter. The flavor of the game comes from the Game Master (GM)." In essence, "The d20 Version of Game is just the same as the non-d20 Version of Game. If you are noticing a difference in your game, it's all your GM's fault." More on this later. And by "later," I mean, "Probably next week."

What these publishers forgot - and hoped you would forget - is that each system brings with it its own set of player expectations. Someone who enjoys GURPS is probably not going to enjoy a system with fewer rules, such as Vampire: The Masquerade, because each game has a completely different reward system. And yes, I know about the train wreck known as GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade. It took the Gothic Punk setting of the one and shoehorned it to the system of the other. The problem was that most GURPS players weren't interested in the setting, and most V:tM players preferred the system they already had. Steve Jackson Games published a few other World of Darkness adaptations

In fact, I suspect that GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade is a large part of why White Wolf and Steve Jackson both approached the d20 system the way they did - White Wolf published a series of settings and adventures that were completely unrelated to their World of Darkness setting (and didn't use the White Wolf name), and Steve Jackson Games waited a few years, and then began mocking d20 with The Munchkin Player's Guide.

Meanwhile, other games quietly started to take advantage of a growing d20 backlash. In 2001, Sorcerer (a game which had existed since the mid-90's) was a success in its print incarnation - not a huge success, but enough that smaller independent publishers started to take note. Discussion of game theory on the Forge took off. A few years later, the Indie Press Revolution took off. While they haven't billed themselves as such, these groups are to role-playing what the Punk movement was to music. But that's another subject for another time.

Is this to say there is no such thing as a functional universal system? No. Not at all. I'm also not saying d20 was a bad game - I thought some a few d20 versions were actually superior to the "original" versions of some games. I'll talk more about both of these later, as well.

I know it seems like I spend more time talking about what I'm going to talk about instead of just talking about it.

Here is why:
Every sentence I type spills fifteen more ideas into my notebook. Just in the last few paragraphs, I've realized that I have six different Cthulhu games (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Toon², Call of Cthulhu d20, GURPS Cthulhupunk, and CthulhuTech), that I have two different universal systems within arms reach (GURPS and FUDGE), and that I haven't played a White Wolf game in nearly a decade.

And, once I start to talk about one of those, they spill even more ideas. For example, it occurs to me that the Cthulhu games are a perfect example of how system matters. Each has their own way of dealing with sanity, and each has a different "feel" to it which is based in large part on the system. I am also aware that d20 tried to be a universal system, and it succeeded to a limited extent, but it still isn't as universal as FUDGE. I should write about universal systems and where they succeed and fail.

...

So join me next week, when I continue talking about system and how it matters. And, in a few weeks, I'll talk about setting and how it matters and how it interacts with system.

I'll get back to boardgaming, I promise. In fact, next week - despite what I've said here - I'll probably have an entry about Dungeon Twister. Or Ghost Stories: White Moon, which I've now seen the rules to. If, of course, I'm allowed to say anything about it.

It's also worth mentioning that Asmodee Editions and Repos Productions are sharing a booth at GenCon this year. I'm looking forward to meeting the Repos team.





¹ Care to see the history of the d20 system? Check out Talislanta sometime. Especially the 3rd edition, written by Jonathan Tweet and published by Wizards of the Coast.

² The Tooniversal Tour Guide has a section entitled "The Crawl of Catchoolu." It's a parody, but it's a functional parody.

4E Is Upon Us: First Impressions

I picked up my 4^th Edition Dungeons & Dragons books on Friday, and had just enough time to get through the combat section and a few other bits before Worldwide D&D Day.

It's a good thing, too.

Reading the adventure, D&D Day should have been at least a week after the launch of 4E. It didn't tell DM's how to figure initiative, for starters.

Some of the characters had abilities that referenced abilities that weren't explained well. The Dwarf fighter, for example, had an ability that allowed an ally to "shift" two spaces. Having read the PHB, I knew that shifting was movement that didn't provoke an Opportunity Attack (which are much clearer than they were in 3E). Had I not read the book, I'd never have known this.

The DM's minis pack was (for the second year in a row) short one mini (this year, it was an Animated Statue).

The Wizard had Skill Training (Stealth), but Stealth didn't appear anywhere else on the character sheet. It should have shown Stealth +7.

Here are a few impressions on the system itself, however (based ONLY on the Player's Handbook and a glance at the Monster Manual):

1) Magic Items have been drastically depowered. The majority of effects are character powers, now, rather than Feats or Spells. This means that players with a stingy GM will be almost as powerful as players with a generous DM. It's a good thing, IMHO.

2) Skills remind me quite strongly of 2E AD&D's Non-Weapon Proficiencies. All skills can be used untrained, and skill training gives you a flat +5 to that skill.

3) Multiclassing took a huge step backwards. As in, "There isn't any, anymore." There are "Multiclass Feats" that allow you to take one ability (and sometimes a skill) from another class, but that's it.

4) Hit Dice are gone. Every class gets a set number of HP (plus Con bonus) per level.

5) Base Attack Bonus is now the same for everyone. BAB is half of your level plus your attribute mod, plus your proficiency bonus. The advantage that fighters have in combat is largely due to the fact that they'll have higher combat-related attributes than non-fighters. Well, that and the class Powers.

6) Weapons no longer have non-Proficiency penalties. Instead, they have proficiency bonuses. Most are a +2, but a few are +3.

6) AC won't change much from low to high level. Since Base Attack Bonus goes up by 1 every two levels (excluding increases due to attribute improvement), it doesn't need to change much. Higher level monsters have more hit points and better powers (much like PC's) to compensate for the relative flatness of AC and BAB.

7) The new class powers system means that third party support will have to step up. Seriously. Each class will take a lot of work to balance against every other class. It also makes me unsure why they still have Feats - why not make them universal Powers with "Permanent" as their duration?

8) They still call it the d20 system, but it's a new logo. At its core, it's still the same as 3E - d20 + stat modifier + other modifiers. "Other Modifiers" includes half of your level, skill training, and situational modifiers as appropriate.

All in all, I make it three steps forward, two steps back. It's definately progress, and it looks like they did a good job of simplifying things for the DM. I may even break out my DM's hat for this one.

More To Come

I'll be putting a longer post up this weekend about the end of Wizards of the Coast's support for d20 and compatible products and the launch of 4E, but I just wanted to put up a quick note:

I just got flight confirmation for GenCon. I'll be flying out of Seattle on the 12th of August and returning on Monday the 18th.