Now, I don't want to sound like I'm insulting Dungeons and Dragons. It was the first major RPG, and has kept pace with the industry over the years. However, no first attempt is perfect, and a few of D&D's imperfections have influenced RPG design longer than they should. This is my short list of RPG tropes that have outstayed their welcome.
I'm not sure who first thought, "Hey, what if some players had to start with characters that were randomly worse than those of their friends?" but I'm surprised at how enduring the practice has been since then. Fortunately, most systems are finally edging away from this method. Even D&D has largely abandoned this concept, listing it as one method among several in 3rd Edition and an openly-discouraged option in 4th.
I understand that the concept has some visceral and nostalgic appeal keeping it alive, but it's such stunningly bad design that it really needs to die out. Rolling dice for hit points at each level is a particularly egregious variant.
2) Overcomplicated Experience Systems
Let's look at a quick sample of the 3rd Edition D&D combat experience rules: First, look up the challenge rating for each of the opponents faced. Then, use these to figure out the total challenge rating for the encounter. Consult a table comparing the CR of the encounter and the average level of the heroes to determine the total experience for the encounter, then divide that experience between the heroes evenly. And even though you've already scaled the experienced based on the heroes' level, it's set up so that each level requires exponentially more experience to advance.
Now let me suggest an alternate system I came up with off the top of my head: You get one point of experience for overcoming minor obstacles or encounters, three points for difficult ones, and five points for defeating important opponents or completing major campaign goals. Characters level up every 20 points.
I get that there are reasons to use systems more complicated than the one I suggest, but lots of games still use ridiculously complicated systems that require multiple tables, multipliers, and scalers. These systems are fine for computer and console gaming where the numbers are crunched automatically, but are overcomplicated and completely unnecessary for tabletop RPGs.
#3) Loot-Based Economics
My first two points are easy targets - anyone can attack bad game mechanics. Looting is much more of a sacred cow, fundamental to many game designs. "Kill monsters, steal treasure," is one of the basic principals of the fantasy RPG.
In my experience, though, few things hurt drama or willing suspension of disbelief as much as looting corpses. It makes perfect sense in certain circumstances (post-apocalyptic settings, killing dragons with treasure hoards) but you don't see many books or movies where the heroes rifle through the pockets of every mook they kill.
Looting is a fine concept for "gamist" systems that aren't trying to emphasize storytelling or realism, but it has been far too widely-used in RPG design. Noble paladins shouldn't have to strip-search fallen opponents for loose change.
Thanks for this post! I concur, and would like to share some thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Yep, randomized character creation elements should die in a fire. Particularly because every time I have rolled for stats, DMs have had to let me reroll about four sets of times out of pity. It destroys the intra-player egalitarianism that I absolutely demand as a pen-and-paper gamer. I prefer standard array (I ran a game like that once) and point-buy systems.
One element you forgot is that level one characters should actually roll for starting gold as well, which presents an additional way for a PC to suck.
As for HD, I am more ambivalent. Over many levels, HD rolls converse to the average. The problem is, players have to suck bad rolls for a while, and I have never played in a campaign that has actually lasted long enough for HD rolls to converge to the average (you know, like 12ish levels). I would be okay if it were like "okay, you have a d12 HD, so you get 5+1d4 HP per level." That would allow just enough randomness that players could feel giddy if they rolled a 4 but not totally hosed if they rolled a 1, whereas rolling a 2 on a 12 is like "fuck my life."
2) I think complicated experience systems only work for games that meet often and have lots of XP-yielding encounters per game: in short, none of the games I have ever played in. (Very unfortunately indeed.) Usually, DMs I have played with simply give levels after a certain amount of time or a certain number of sessions. (As in, you level up every third session.)
For games that don't meet often or that have few encounters, actually following the XP rewards given in the rules is a recipe for PCs never actually progressing.
3) The folks over at Gnome Stew (a pretty good GM blog in my opinion) have addressed this question before. For example, a displacer beast is supposed to have treasure because it says so in the MM. Does it eat gold pieces? Longswords? That's insane. It's also insane to have a party of D&D characters going around gutting corpses to retrieve the mithral breastplates that could be in the stomachs of whatever they just dispatched.
One alternative I like is having PCs belong to organizations that give item rewards at well-defined breakpoints. This is also pretty effective when you have players give you wish-lists beforehand. That way, after completing the halfway mark through a major story arc, you can have the captain of the guard say "you have done well, but we need more out of you, and we know the road ahead is dangerous. The armorers have been working on this equipment for months, precisely so you can fight to protect the city." Congratulations, you get your +3 Mithral Fullplate and +2 Darkwood Heavy Shield, and you didn't have to Loot the Room.
Yet another alternative I have seen used is to use the Weapons of Legacy rules (or some kind of house rule). Under such a system, mundane equipment actually becomes magical as you get better skilled with it. Why? Because it's fucking fantasy, and you're just that good. That way, the DM doesn't have to dick around with treasure, and as long as you keep your longsword the whole game, the DM can say it becomes +1 at level 3, +1 frost at level 6, +2 frost at level 9 and so on.
Still a third alternative is to emphasize innate abilities. For example, we can just add class features that make characters' abilities innately track with the items they should have been getting anyway. With an altered Vow of Poverty for every character, treasure could almost be dispensed with entirely, except for rare, but meaningful moments in the story.
TL;DR
1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Use NPC item rewards/innate ability progressions for PCs/have items level up.
All of the options you suggest are valid alternative to the trope I am criticizing - perhaps I should have been more specific about what I mean by a "loot-based economy."
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with equipment/treasure being used as a reward by NPC organizations or even reasonable circumstance. I am saying that the basic model of "kill monsters, they drop treasure" is not concussive to a believable and immersive game.