A new RPG come on the market, and at first glance, it seems you'd be interested in playing it, due to its system or its setting. But then, the designers announce they intentionaly created a majority of useless, subpar or simply obnoxious to have character customisation options, and mixed them with the few ones that are actually playable.
Do you still try to play it?
>in before virtposting>but probably in after virtposting
>>44300378
D&D is all the proof you need that yes, obviously people play it, because at the end of the day it comes down to playing with people.
High-brow games design theory discussion is largely irrelevant to what's popular and enjoyed by the most people, the game with the biggest, shiniest monsterbook and the most players still wins even if the rules are a hot mess.
>>44300378
I play it for the same reason people play Call of Duty even though it's shit: Everyone else is playing.
>>44300378
If there's better and more played shit, no.
>>44300378
I activate eagle vision and begin to climb - I need to synchronize in this unmapped area.
>>44300378
D&D already exists, so their game fades into obscurity.
>>44300378
What's this, 2008?
Still not over the fact your shitty MMO tanked, costed D&D it's predominance on the market and is now dead and forgotten, 4rry?
But please, keep on shitposting about your precious balance. It should entertain us on your way back to /v/.
>I can't have fun if I'm not relevant
>>44300647
Isn't the point of playing RPG that your character can impact the world in a relevant manner?
I mean, watching others play can be fun, but that's not why I spend time with my gaming group.
>>44300697
>I can't enjoy being meaningless
>>44300378
>announce they did it intentionally to promote system mastery
I don't fucking play it.
I got tired of that shit with D&D 3.5 and I nearly got burned out on tabletop gaming as a whole because of Pathfinder. I'm just fucking done with that sort of design.
>>44300720
>playing an irrelevant shit even in imaginary elfgames
>being so omega
>>44300482
>people play it, because at the end of the day it comes down to playing with people.
>High-brow games design theory discussion is largely irrelevant to what's popular and enjoyed by the most people
Actually I have to disagree. I think that OGL-era games were popular BECAUSE of ivory tower design. Say what you want about actually playing them, but they are quite fun to character build in, and they set up a perfectly addictive feedback loop for "system mastery." The first few tricks are sort of obvious once you've figured out the first one, plus the plethora of tricks online, giving you a lot of positive feedback early on. Then, with each splat, it becomes harder and harder to truly optimize, making the positive reinforcement more rare and more valuable to your mind: forcing you to flail about with weird ideas, seeing if they work, creating a raodom-positive-reinforcement loop (the most addictive kind.) Ivory tower game design is exactly what early internet gamers wanted, and it's only because so many actively reject it now that it's not 100% the premier mode.
>>44301735
It makes sense that if you design a system that intentionally punishes less experienced players nerds with an inferiority complex would love it
>>44301735
I think you just described competitive pokemon...
>>44301735
>Conditioning 101 using random positive reinforcement with gradually decreasing likelihood of reinforcers
>>44301815
>I think you just described competitive pokemon...
I just described a LOT of things that are popular and addictive, From top-tier MMO-play, to MTG deckbuilding, to 3.PF. to 40k dataslate-stacking. It's the most addictive reinforcement pattern, and marketers know this. It stands to reason that they would use this to sell more units.
>>44301735
Well, Ivory Tower game design for 3.5 was made to emulate Magic the Gathering, no?
>>44301886
>>44301735
Wait, does it means so many splatbook rules were shitty/broken because not only the designers could afford it, but because half-assing the job literaly increased the numbers of book sold?
>>44301906
>Well, Ivory Tower game design for 3.5 was made to emulate Magic the Gathering, no?
Precisely: they figured out what made new packs and new sets of MtG so addictive, and applied it to new characters/books of D&D. It worked.
>>44301938
>Wait, does it means so many splatbook rules were shitty/broken because not only the designers could afford it, but because half-assing the job literaly increased the numbers of book sold?
Yes. However, your assertion that the job was "half-assed" is predicated on a false premise of what the ultimate goal of "the job" was.
"Ivory Tower Game Design" and "Flatcrack Addiction" and that roommate who can't pry himself off of the WoW game until he's optimized his gear another step are all just operant conditioning with slowly decreasing random-positive-reinforcement applied to our hobbies.
>tfw people who keep shitting on anything but 3.5/PF are addicts that are being denied their fix
>>44301735
Yeah, coming up with character character builds and feeling that there is a reward for understanding the system better (in form of being able to optimize your character) is pretty fun, and having a lot of options on how to make a character, even if soem are better than others, allows for a better feeling of customization, rather than every chraracter being pretty much the same with a few largely cosmetic options.
On the other hand, being forced to jump through a ton of hoops if you want to play a monk or a fighter and to be at least not-terrible (not even good, just kinda okay-ish) is pretty tiring.
Having a system that's easy to learn and hard to master is good game design. But making it so that some classes are just plain useless without a huge amount of optimisations (and even then, they're still inferior to any non-incompetently built tier 1 class) isn't. Ideally, everything should be at least playble without having to go through loads of optimization.
>>44300378
Honestly, no. I still run PF games because it is easy to reliably find players for itwhen playing text only, but I would much rather play something like GURPS where there is more parity between characters. I am also not really familiar with other crunchy systems, and without a SRD GMing can be difficult without prior experience,
>>44303728
>Having a system that's easy to learn and hard to master is good game design. But making it so that some classes are just plain useless without a huge amount of optimisations (and even then, they're still inferior to any non-incompetently built tier 1 class) isn't.
You're right, it isn't good game design, but it is good marketing. At no point was I talking about game design as art, or even as a self-contained entity, but purely as it manipulates human nature to sell more units.
That would explain why 4e feels so different. Instead of expecting you to work for it, they just hand you everything in pre-package and tell you to pick
>>44305852
You can optimize a lot in 4e, but the good thing is that with little knowledge of the system your character does what it's supposed to do, that didn't happen in 3.5
>>44300763
>got tired of ivory tower in 3.5
>went to pf to eat more of the same shitWhy didn't you just try 4e?
>>44307030
Not this guy, but my GM hated 4e, and went PF.
>tfw a player tells you it's ok for the martials to be weaker at same level, because in the setting there is less casters than martial
>>44303728
>Having a system that's easy to learn and hard to master is good game design.
The easy to learn bit is good game design. Having a roleplaying game that's hard to master is not.
The difference in character effectiveness between a well-meaning and reasonably intelligent newcomer and a powergamer should be minimal in a well-designed system.
>>44307417
>The easy to learn bit is good game design. Having a roleplaying game that's hard to master is not.
That's the dumbest thing I've heard, something being hard to master doesn't mean it's inaccessible, it means there's depth to it and that you keep learning even once you figure out the basics of it.
If someone who's been doing something for a day is as good as someone who's been doing it for ages, the system is incredibly shallow. This doesn't mean that having tons of trap options or bullshit is a good thing, those are not the only ways to add depth to a system.
>>44307596
A roleplaying game should be about roleplaying characters. Having "hard to master" limits the character concepts you can create and the way you can play them. I understand what you're saying but what you're getting at has more place in the likes of a skirmish game or dungeoncrawler.
>>44307680
Absolutely, but you also have to realize that pen and paper rpgs are not part of the fantasy fiction fandom any more, they're part of gaming culture.
Most people don't pick up D&D because they're the kind of person who is genuinely sad that they'll never slay any dragons or learn magic. Most people pick it up because they're gamers, and they treat it the same as their Magic the Gathering, WoW or Warhammering, a game to figure out the system for and WIN HARDER AT IMAGINATION.
Personally, my ideal is a simple, concisely written rules-sets with coherent mechanics that I can teach someone in an afternoon without special exceptions popping up for every skill or class, because at the end of the day it's about the fiction, and games design only matters as far as giving me a way to resolve conflicts and have players influence their setting without resorting to freeforming or pure DM fiat.
But I'm not part of the majority any more, and I haven't been for like 15 years. I mean jesus, there are forums now, that are dedicated to discussing the best builds, in a game that runs on your imagination where the world is controlled by your friend, it's so ass-backwards I don't even know where to begin, but that's what it's like now.
>>44300378
>people still believing ivory tower game design exists
Paizo just says that to make people think they were only pretending to be retarded when they made a game that was unbalanced to shit
>>44301938
If you could spend less time and effort to make the same amount of money you probably would.
