briarpatch-dragon

[briarpatch-dragon]

Tabletop game design tip: always write a glossary for your game, even if you have no intention of including one in the finished product. If there are any bits of mechanical jargon for which you're struggling to write a clear and concise definition, chances are the text itself is fuzzy on what it actually means when it says them!

[briarpatch-dragon]

Have I done my rant on how despite being a play culture inundated with the idea of homebrewing whatever you want to do, 5e homebrews often miss the point and end up giving themselves extra work for less functionality than just developing system mastery to do what you want in the first place?

[briarpatch-dragon]

Doesn't Hasbro have a strong incentive to make a "lite" version of D&D with a pared-down paperback rulebook and sell it as a casual-friendly overpriced starter kit with a bunch of dice, figures, treasure cards, etc.? It could be a strict subset of the normal 5E rules (I guess - not that knowledgeable about TTRPG design). That way they could sell you all the same books. Seems like a slam dunk

Hasbro's present marketing strategy for Dungeons & Dragons is to try to position every D&D group as potential purchasers of every D&D product. Among other things, this is one of the main reasons that every campaign setting other than the Forgotten Realms is being repackaged as a series of tourist destinations for Forgotten Realms based campaigns to visit, and why there's been a strong move away from focused, topical sourcebooks and toward big, messy "book of everything"-style anthologies that consciously avoid focusing too much on any one type of character or campaign. It's also why the core books make a lot of noise about how wonderfully modular the rules are without actually providing any meaningful modularity in practice – if the game was designed to make it easy to pick and choose modular components, they'd risk fracturing the player base into distinct subsets with different preferred sets of modules.

All this in mind, it's fairly easy to see why there's currently no official "light" version of D&D. Under the paradigm of every single D&D group as a potential purchaser of every single D&D product, a version of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition that was actually, meaningfully simpler than the core product would function in practice as a competing game (what if people decide they like the simpler version better and just play that instead?), and the last thing you want is to compete with yourself. TSR learned that the hard way! With substantive simplification off the table, the only introductory version of Dungeons & Dragons Hasbro can offer is one with exactly the same rules which simply has less content, and tells people to buy the full version if they want more – which is exactly what they're selling in the various starter sets that are presently available.

[briarpatch-dragon]

in the vein of my post from earlier today I do truly believe that the most important thing you can do as a game designer is to look at design across a lot of different types of games.

designing a ttrpg is fundamentally different than designing video games, but some of the best game design books I've read focused on the latter. the lessons are still broadly applicable!

it's like reading, you have to have an open mind and see a lot of genres to really be well rounded.

[briarpatch-dragon]

there are some really interesting insights in looking at TTRPG mechanics through the lens of MMOs.

so this insight is brought to you by my new high-level 5e campaign, where I managed to stun our DM by building a character for burst DPS. basically I have an array of limited-use abilities that I can hit to increase my damage by variable amounts.

the MMO equivalent here is popping cooldowns (CDs). CDs are differentiated by how long they take to come back up (3-minute, 5-minute, 8-minute...) limited use abilities have short- and long-rest CDs, and they have a use per day that functions as a secondary CD. a once-per-long rest ability has a longer CD than a three times per short rest.

the real trick here as a player is to get into the mindset of making good use of your CDs. you don't pop an 8-minute on trash unless something has gone very wrong. you pop a 3-minute at the top of a fight so it comes back up for execute phase. et cetera.

as a TTPRG player, you know you can hit your short rest abilities frequently because you'll probably get to reset them. but the limited use long rest abilities? those you save for tough fights. and as a player, you need a good eye for telling immediately how serious a threat is. is this trash or a boss?

as a designer, how CDs are meted out is a good grasp on how you expect your game to be paced. 5e, for example, doesn't want to be paced around set piece fights. you need to claw your way through trash first to sap player resources. if they're smart, they have big CDs for the boss. if not, well...

other systems use different pacing. lots of games reset abilities on a scene change. which is fine! it just means you have lots of 3-minutes and quick fights, so hit those bad boys. you're not saving your abilities.

Anyway I've been mulling on this and I think its an interesting approach for understanding gameplay.

[briarpatch-dragon]

my RPG gripe of the week is: I don’t understand how people get so attached to characters

Obviously my characters are my fun little guys. I have a whole tag dedicated to that on my blog. But the number of guys that I have should indicate that I am not overly attached to any particular one.

Characters are like fun tools. I want to use the right little guy for the right situation. My fey diplomat probably isn’t the right guy for a dungeon crawling campaign, and I don’t feel any particular obligation to make it work. I can just put her back on the shelf and build a different little guy to play.

Now even more bizarre to me are people who get so wrapped up in The Characters that it upsets them when you choose to change characters. I’m completely fine with swapping. Why are you trying to troubleshoot this?

[briarpatch-dragon]

I notoriously dislike intra-party conflict and I think it’s because it’s very hard to keep a “yes and” mindset when two characters are in conflict

like obviously it’s possible, but it’s easier when we’re in agreement to build off each other. when our goals conflict, we can’t both achieve what we want in a scene. which tbh is when I think it’s most important to “yes and” the other characters.

and I think that’s a lot of why I dislike intra-party conflict: when it feels like the interaction is trying to shut down another player, it very quickly gets frustrating. so I just avoid it.

but mastering the art of “yes and”-ing conflict I think could salvage it. it turns shutting down another player into an interesting scene.

[briarpatch-dragon]

side note on my whole wargaming pathologies post, “bored players” is easily the funniest one for us. when we know a certain group of players won’t have enough to do, we invent a task for them. this is called “getting them to shut up and color.”

(NOT a recommended approach for ttrpgs.)

[briarpatch-dragon]

i recently talked about "gaming pathologies" and specifically how toxic culture leads to what I’m calling “toxic pathologies”. and wanted to expand on this concept, since it's really something i borrowed out of Wargaming Discourse.

the term "wargaming pathologies" originates out of a 2003 essay, which prompted a follow-on study. the study used the medical terminology as a framework and looked at healthy vs. unhealthy games:

A healthy game is a game that meets the objectives.

An unhealthy game is a game that does not meet the objectives.

A wargame pathology is the reason why #2 occurs instead of #1.

"objectives" is a weird framework for ttrpgs. professional wargames are done to answer a specific sponsor question; ttrpgs are played because a group of people want to play with a particular concept. however, when you sub in "does what the table wants it to do" for "objective", it's a workable approach.

some of the pathologies described in the study are applicable to ttrpgs. specifically, we can look at the pathologies they describe for rules/models and players

some rules/models pathologies, adopted for a ttrpg concept:

the rules are too simple: the fidelity of the game is too low; the game doesn't do what you want it to

the rules are too complicated or weird to use: when the game is perceived as too complicated, it becomes difficult to play

the rules do not match the game's objectives: the rules don't represent the situations / stories the game wants to focus on

the rules are being used in a way that invalidate their design assumptions: rules are designed to be used under a specific set of assumptions; if you use them for something else, they'll break down

you might notice that there are basically two ends of an axis presented here, capped off by some logical follow-ons. a ttrpg can either be too simple or too complicated for any given table or game. it can also just be the wrong ttrpg for whatever the table is trying to do. and finally, you get bad results when you try to force a game to do something it isn't designed to do.

looking at player pathologies, adopted again for the ttrpg concept:

players not understanding their game rules: players need to understand the role they're trying to play in the game

player unfamiliarity with gamed concept: players need to understand the conceit of the game; otherwise, they won't get to play into the premise (at best) or be disruptive to the table (at worst)

bored players: players who are bored get into mischief, ranging from a desire to "stir things up" to refusing in game play. bored players also drag others with them.

players who feel they are not in control: when players feel they don't have agency, they get frustrated, and act like bored players.

wrong player roles: players need to be in a role appropriate to them. if they aren't, the table won't have fun.

you may have noted my pet rock (players should read the rules) enshrined up there at #1. however, more broadly, #1 and #2 talk about how the player needs to understand and buy into the game they're playing. essentially, it's disruptive to gameplay when players don't buy into the game.

#3 and #4 are a little different. "bored" and "frustrated" can have any number of sources for players; they can result from other pathologies, or they can result from somewhere else. if players don't feel like their choices are meaningful (e.g., being railroaded or constantly overruled by other players), if decisions appear to be arbitrary (e.g., inconsistent GM rulings), if they don't understand why something happened, if they don't know the outcome of a particular action... people disengage from games for any number of reasons.

#5 is a bit of a variation from the wargame pathology. by "wrong player roles," i mean two things: 1) players bringing the wrong character to a game, and 2) players choosing a character that isn't suited to their play style. type 1 is likely to frustrate the table; type 2 is likely to frustrate the player. either way, it isn't good for the game or table.

across all of these pathologies, when these things occur, we go from a "healthy" game (the goals of the table are being met) to an "unhealthy" game. unhealthy games are pathological because people will stop having fun.

now: why toxic pathologies?

this is my own contribution to the underlying concept here. i would argue that a toxic pathology is the combination of a toxic culture + a pathology. a lot of these are easily recognizable from ttrpg culture; players not knowing the rules, for example, is basically a copy + paste of a common complaint.

there are some of these, though, where the toxic culture is actually a refusal to engage with the pathology on its premise. the toxic culture surrounding minmaxing, for example, is a result of people refusing to acknowledge a combination of these pathologies. minmaxing might be wrong for your game and your table. but it isn't wrong in general. in fact, if you're the only non-minmaxer, you might be the one in the wrong player role! this gets at a combination of wrong player roles, rules knowledge, and suitability of the game in general.

in conclusion: i think this is a useful framework for understanding why so many people encounter the same problems in their games. pathologies of play + a toxic culture enshrining those pathologies as good = consistent problems across many games, solvable by addressing the underlying problem.

[briarpatch-dragon]

On the subject of TPKs and failure in TTRPGs, I gotta say, I love a good mechanic for losing.

I love that Fate gives you metacurrency for conceding a scene, and I love that taking extreme consequences creates a new aspect for your character.

I love that when you die in Blades of the Dark, if you're still attached to the character, you can just become a ghost.

I love that in Monster of the Week, when you need to avoid harm it costs a point of luck, which triggers a character-specific consequence and lets you see when your character's luck is literally going to run out.

I even love that in Cyberpunk they've created an omnipresent group of amoral, heavily armed paramedics, so no matter where your character gets gunned down, there's always a chance of pulling through.

Basically, any game that is set up so that losing is going to make things more interesting, not less, is a game that's going to help great stories happen at the table, and I love that.

[briarpatch-dragon]

I miss the days of yore (3.5) when multiclassing was encouraged and you didn’t even really need to explain it

mostly this is because I’m looking at building an archer in 5.5e and I’m basically stuck with three classes: Ranger, fighter, or monk. I don’t like what they’ve done with Ranger, but I can get a lot out of 8 levels of Ranger. but if I then go over to kensai monk, I can get some pretty nice bonuses, and/or go Eldritch Archer for the extra fighter feats.

what’s the “story reason” behind doing any of that? nothing. it would just make my character more fun to play. I guess I could workshop a whole backstory, but I already have one in mind and I don’t feel like changing it. why is “Ranger is pretty meh for me past 8th level and this will make a more fun character for me to play” an insufficient justification

[briarpatch-dragon]

my other, unrelated nitpick about the 2024 rules is how badly formatted they are. i wanted to cite the function of the Diplomacy skill for my anecdote, and i had to go to the rules glossary, find the Influence action, and THEN see what Diplomacy does. why aren't skills defined anywhere? how am i supposed to know what i'm choosing when i'm building my character?

[briarpatch-dragon]

ok good morning it's time for me to elaborate (with citations)

so from the 2024 rules' Introduction section:

I have two problems here:

DM as referee

"The DM always strives to delight the whole group"

2 is actually describing a different type of toxic play culture, so we're going to set it aside for now and instead look at the "Playing the Game" section:

got another two problems here (both actually relating to my point this time):

"use a combination of imagination and the game's rules to determine the results"

"you oversee how the group uses the games rules"

no!!!

the first problem i have with this setup is that it perpetuates a toxic play culture where the DM is expected to be the group's Rules Manager. it literally only includes the text of "you'll want to read the rest of this chapter to understand the rules" and "you'll find the rule's glossary useful" in the DM section! players don't need to do that. players don't need to know how their characters or the game works--the DM will do that for them. as many others have discussed, this very quickly leads to DM burnout, since it offloads all the work of keeping the game running onto a single person.

second problem i have is how it positions the DM as the arbiter of the rules. as sort of a follow-on from the first premise (DM as Rules Manager), there's also a toxic play culture in the sense that knowing the rules is seen as Bad. you know the rules? you engage with the rules? well, you're just some kind of munchkin minmaxer uninterested in the story, only interested in power. you're just some kind of rules lawyer.

third problem i have is that it emphasizes ambiguity. "use your imagination" "make sure the rules serve the group's fun". frankly, the rules should do that for me. i have rules as a resolution mechanic, and the rules should adequately handle that, without the need for my imagination entering the equation. sure, something like a Diplomacy check requires narration, but it should be straightforward rules-wise. did you convince the NPC? well, did you hit the DC?

for an example, i have a DM who regularly emphasizes that a d20 roll will get you "the best possible result", especially for Diplomacy checks. this annoys me because it's just not how the rules work. Influence Actions (in 2024 rules) are extremely straightforward. are they willing to do it? then they do. are they unwilling? then they don't. no rolls are called for in either circumstance. are they hesitant? then you roll either a flat roll or with advantage/disadvantage, depending on their attitude (indifferent, friendly, or hostile, respectively). the DC is fixed at 15 or the creature's INT, whichever is higher. there's none of this "best possible result" nonsense--either i make the DC and persuade them, or i don't, or it was never possible in the first place and i don't roll at all.

but due to the aforementioned various toxic play cultures, this is seen as an a-okay implementation of the rules. i shouldn't know how Influence actions work in the first place--that's the DM's job! and the DM is just making sure the rules serve the group's fun, I clearly want to make a roll (fun), but having the NPC do what i want would ruin the story (not fun), so i get to make a pointless roll because I never could have succeeded.

more importantly than my personal nitpicks about anecdotes, it's very frustrating to see the pathologies of toxic play culture literally codified in the rules. i have a lot of problems with the 2024 rules but for me, this is truly the worst part of them.

I’ve talked before about why I don’t think “adjudicator” or “referee” is a good way to refer to a DM but I did discover that the D&D 2024 rules specifically use both of those terms for a DM

I’m so fucking tired of the culture of it being okay to not know the rules of the game and expecting the DM to do everything for you. it’s exhausting and I hate it.

[briarpatch-dragon]

I’ve talked before about why I don’t think “adjudicator” or “referee” is a good way to refer to a DM but I did discover that the D&D 2024 rules specifically use both of those terms for a DM

I’m so fucking tired of the culture of it being okay to not know the rules of the game and expecting the DM to do everything for you. it’s exhausting and I hate it.

[briarpatch-dragon]

A lot of things that are bad puzzle design for campaign play work in megadungeons where the same place is going to be revisited over and over, possibly even by different groups of characters and/or players.

There's a door that only opens if you have this one specific spell? Well, the first half-dozen times you pass it, it's an enigma and then you get to open it.

Mysteries with easy-to-miss clues? By retreading the same areas, maybe you'll eventually find all the clues. Or not.

[briarpatch-dragon]

a dear friend of mine that I play in a 5e game with has presented to me I think the cleanest-cut example of why Games Are More Fun When You Engage With Mechanics

she plays an archer ranger. she wanted a pet spider, so she picked out beastmaster as her archetype, though it’s more of a pet so she keeps it out of combat. she doesn’t want any bad stats, so she has a nice, even spread of mid stats (nothing below 10, most in the 13-15 range). she likes sickles, so that’s what she has as her main melee weapon. she doesn’t bother much with spells.

to be clear, this is not a criticism of her! it’s her character and she built it the way she wants, and it’s a very fun character to play with. however, she recently asked, “why does trelle not do as much damage as everyone else?”

the answer is really difficult to give without sounding like you’re going “well, have you tried minmaxing?”

but at its core, she just isn’t engaging with the mechanics of the game. there’s a reason the quick start ranger guide tells you that you want DEX high (or STR, but she’s an archer). she’s got a 15 in DEX at 10th level, so she doesn’t hit often or hit hard, and her sickle means that she’s not even using her DEX in melee—she’s using her 10 STR. she doesn’t put up hunters mark at the top of combat reliably. and she’s sending her main archetype feature out of combat to safety—so while the spider is an iconic party member, it’s also a detriment to her in combat.

we tried giving her various suggestions, but she came down on “I think I’ll play a barbarian next time. they seem stronger.” which is. not the takeaway here. a barb will be weak if built improperly—any character will be weak if built badly.

which is frustrating, because as a Noted Minmaxer, I’m over here planning to convert my ranged blast caster sorcerer into a melee sorcadin for our level 10+ game, since we’ll be losing our main melee tank. a decent barbarian could keep up, no problem. and I don’t want to overshadow or compete with her for that role! but at the same time, if she doesn’t build her character to function as a tank, she’ll just be frustrated in melee instead of frustrated at range.

anyway, there’s no conclusion here other than. knowing mechanics is a key step toward building the character you want.

[briarpatch-dragon]

in honor of me FINALLY getting to play Blackheart, he will be my next Fun Little Guy to discuss

frankly his build is insane and wildly suboptimal, but it accomplishes three extremely specific bits:

he is the ominous guy surrounded by a telekinetic halo of blades

he has a Smite Chaos ability (Hellknight flavor)

he is not inconvenienced by fighting blind

okay. so Blackheart is meant to be a Hellknight, which is going to set up some of our choices. technically, Hellknight is a PrC, so it will not be our base. the requirements are:

+5 BAB

proficiency with heavy armor

5 ranks intimidate, 2 ranks knowledge (planes)

lawful alignment / has killed a devil in a special ceremony

we can ignore the last ones because he comes in at 10th level so we can assume that they happened offscreen in his backstory.

the normal Hellknight build is fighter (/other martial) 5 / Hellknight n. however we are doing something weird: telekinesis, because it’s cool to have a guy in armor surrounded by floating swords. I have a vision here.

telekinesis is a weird ability because it’s just simply not something most classes get access to, and those that do (sorc/wizard and bard, mostly) get it via high-level spells and don’t have the ability to sustain this approach.

but! there is one class that does, and that’s an aether kineticist. they get telekinesis as of level 1!

now we are going to have to dip out of kineticist to pick up armor proficiency, and for that, we’re going to put some levels in Paladin and pick up a smite chaos via the Oathbound Paladin —> Oath Against Chaos archetype.

Oathbound actually does a lot to fill in some Hellknight-flavored abilities. while we could go into the PrC as of level 5 (we meet the requirements), the downside of kineticist is that it really wants to scale on its own virtue. kinetic blasts just. aren’t as good without more kineticist levels buffing them up.

so while we’re meeting all of the marks for Hellknight, we will not actually be going into the PrC just yet. it’s still on the table as an option, but for now, we’re going to leave it there.

aether kineticist is super, super weird, even by kineticist standards, because your telekinetic blast can be used in multiple ways on its own merits, either with its regular blast damage, or with “loosened threads,” where you use the damage of the thrown object. now this is useful for one primary reason:

the object’s special effects apply (including effects from its materials), and if the object is a weapon, you must be proficient with it

this means that when we throw enchanted swords, the enchantments trigger. this will be important later!

technically, you need to be able to wield the weapon in one hand. I’m throwing great swords, due to some GM leniency because while that is doable by RAW, I’m investing my feats in making a different stupid bit work by RAW. if needed, this build could pull out Monkey Grip and use oversized weapons. but we have other things to do.

namely, now that we have the ability to chuck swords, we need to be able to do that while blind!

“why would you want to do that?” is a totally reasonable question. the answer is: we’re going to wear a mask of a thousand tomes at all times, which blinds us but gives a +10 on all knowledges

“why are you doing that?” is another totally reasonable question. the answer is, because I can. moving on,

we are going to pick up blind fight to offset the obvious penalties we get to our AC. kineticists are ranged, so the ability to re-roll miss chances is irrelevant for us. however, we can take another approach.

because we can use item enchantments with our blasts, we will be deploying a combo of heartseeker enchantments + the touchsight utility talent

heartseeker does exactly what it sounds like: it ignores miss chance by zeroing in on living targets. this is perfect, since it lets us find our targets via the initial hit. after that, touchsight lets us track them, since it gives you blind sense at any distance vs. targets you hit with an aether blast.

ideally, in the long run we’d want to upgrade that to reactive touchsight to get a better version. however that remains an elusive dream for now.

for everything else, I went with pretty standard picks. feats are point blank + precise shot, weapon focus (blast), etc., and the other utility talents are telekinetic haul, telekinetic invisibility, things like that. it’s really all about getting off our main combo and that was the fun part.

final build: kineticist 6 / Paladin 4. I’m really looking forward to playing this guy.