Game Design Sins

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By almost any metric the 3rd edition of Villains & Vigilantes is much better designed than the 2nd edition (arguably by default, as one might argue that the 2nd edition wasn't so much 'designed' as 'thrown together'), but for my money 2nd edition is much more fun for me to run.
I only ever ran the first edition of V&V, so I can't comment on this one specifically, but in a lot of cases it comes down to balance. "Well-designed" systems often worry a lot about balance. D&D 5E is a carefully balanced game with a system that allows GMs to set up encounters with predictable results. That's fine, but both as a player and GM, I prefer the wilder outcomes I get with DCC, WFRP and Savage Worlds. As a GM, I want to be surprised as well.
 
I only ever ran the first edition of V&V, so I can't comment on this one specifically, but in a lot of cases it comes down to balance. "Well-designed" systems often worry a lot about balance. D&D 5E is a carefully balanced game with a system that allows GMs to set up encounters with predictable results. That's fine, but both as a player and GM, I prefer the wilder outcomes I get with DCC, WFRP and Savage Worlds. As a GM, I want to be surprised as well.

Predictable combat results is definitely something that gets dull for me. Both approaches are fine (some people want combats that are easy to predict the outcomes of out of a sense of fairness or setting the appropriate challenge for a party, some want more surprises). I definitely fall in the preferring the surprises camp. To me that is what leads to some of the most interesting developments in a campaign or adventure.
 
Sure, but that's not what game design is for me, or rather, it's a self-limiting view of it. The game should really give me parts that aren't "immediately useful at the table", for example. Because some day, when they become relevant, it is going to be an epic story to tell (to other gamers, not in the sense of "crafting a story":grin:).
In my defense, I was talking about designing settings rather than systems. The post that SJB SJB quoted gives some context.

On your basic point—that if games that people agree were a blast to play are described as bad design, our view of good design is wonky—I agree. Of course, you can make a distinction between what is popular and what is good. It’s easy to think, for example, of very successful pop musicians who are not incredibly talented or accomplished at the technical craft of musicianship in their instrument. But, for RPG design, that view does not hold a lot of water, IMO. RPG design doesn’t have the sort of established and longstanding professional standards and training that, say, many forms of musicianship do. If the game is fun and people enjoy it and want to play it, then it has a strong claim to being well-designed.

Some of the criteria often invoked for good design—intellectual elegance, consistency for its own sake (e.g. unified central mechanic)—are in my view really tastes or prejudices rather than objective principles of good RPG creation. They may make the game more pleasant to contemplate as an aesthetic object but do they make it more enjoyable or interesting to play? Sometimes, yes, but sometimes no.
 
That's how I took your post. Savage Worlds and DCC are two other games that offend some people's game design principles, but I've had a very good time with those as well.

Meanwhile, some "well-designed" systems are elegant and clean, but resolve actions without adding any interesting wrinkles in play.
Been having a lot of fun in our weekly Sunday DCC game. The action is a lot of fun and leaves us often laughing our asses off. The only real negative is looking up things all the time, which does slow the game down at times. My priest got a lucky natural twenty plus is modifier's on a cast of Paralysis that took out the boss and his two lieutenants with no saving throw since they were 4hd or less for 12 rounds. We polished off the remaining five underlings in under four rounds and put the boss and his lieutenants to the blade.

We honestly love the game but frequently do find ourselves lamenting over trying to find the charts and tables etc. Often it comes down to some hand waving and getting on with the play. :smile: I wouldn't mind seeing them tweak and revamp the book a bit though at some point. Currently the GM and the players really have to know the system to keep it flowing, but it is worth it.
 
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Been having a lot of fun in our weekly Sunday DCC game. The action is a lot of fun and leaves us often laughing our asses off. The only real negative is looking up things all the time, which does slow the game down at times. My priest got a lucky natural twenty plus is modifier's on a cast of Paralysis that took out the boss and his two lieutenants with no saving throw since they were 4hd or less for 12 rounds. We polished off the remaining five underlings in under four rounds and put the boss and his lieutenants to the blade.

We honestly love the game but frequently do find ourselves lamenting over trying to find the charts and tables etc. Often it comes down to some hand waving and getting on with the play. :smile: I wouldn't mind seeing them tweak and revamp the book a bit though at some point. Currently the GM and the players really have to know the system to keep it flowing, but it is worth it.
DCC could really do with a fresh layout design.

On a related note, I am currently working on my own interactive WFRP 4E document in Craft to speed up play when I resume my campaigns. It is sad that electronic copies of games are still almost exclusively in PDF, a format that takes almost no advantage of being on a computer.
 
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.
The thing that stops this IMO is how much effort you have to do to put in different versions and take into account accessibility.
 
The thing that stops this IMO is how much effort you have to do to put in different versions and take into account accessibility.
Yeah, I get that there are significant issues to manage, but I don't think that they're enough to really represent a barrier to service.
 
Tales from the Floating Vagabond is utterly imbalanced and seems to have been designed by throwing random "cool bits" at the wall to see what sticks. And yet I love that game so much I would fuck it if it was given human form.
 
Tales from the Floating Vagabond is utterly imbalanced and seems to have been designed by throwing random "cool bits" at the wall to see what sticks. And yet I love that game so much I would fuck it if it was given human form.

That was a great game. I think it was also a different time in the hobby in terms of how we reacted to systems. Also one of the best reads. Three have been two joke RPGs that I felt were playable and good beyond them being a joke as a concept: Tales from the Floating Vagabond and OG (the latter of which is a highly gameable concept in my opinion, I remember it just clicking when I read it).
 
That was a great game. I think it was also a different time in the hobby in terms of how we reacted to systems. Also one of the best reads. Three have been two joke RPGs that I felt were playable and good beyond them being a joke as a concept: Tales from the Floating Vagabond and OG (the latter of which is a highly gameable concept in my opinion, I remember it just clicking when I read it).
I'd say Paranoia, although it requires a good GM and Teenagers from Outer Space were also excellent comedy games that worked as playable games. There's also ones whether it's borderline whether they're comedy or not like Hellcats & Hockeysticks.

Notably, while I loved reading Toon it's always crashed hard when I've tried to run it. Relevant to this discussion, I think that Greg Costikyan may actually be too tight a designer for that kind of game.
 
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.

One of the issues is it is about layout. I could put in all kinds of things in my word document as I am developing it (I tend not to but when I've worked on other writing projects outside of RPGs I've made use of these kinds of features). But once I put that in a layout program, most of the formatting is going to go away (I may even strip out formatting like that so it doesn't trip up anything in the layout process). You can do similar things in the layout stage, and if you are doing the layout yourself (which I used to do but don't do anymore) then it is just a matter of how much time do you want to spend fiddling with all the features). If you are hiring a layout artist, then it is about cost and whether you can afford to pay that person to go that extra mile with the document. I don't have indexes for instance, and the reason isn't because I think no indexes are a good idea or I enjoy making look--up more challenging, but because you have to hire a whole other person to do the index and that is beyond what I can cover in terms of cost (we do put in a robust table of contents, but it isn't as easy to navigate as an Index (when I used to do the layout myself, I made my own indexes but those were hardly well constructed as I am not an index guy). So I think a lot of this is stuff you will probably see more and more with either companies that have the budget, or with developers who are technically savvy one man shows.
 
I'd say Paranoia, although it requires a good GM and Teenagers from Outer Space were also excellent comedy games that worked as playable games. There's also ones whether it's borderline whether they're comedy or not like Hellcats & Hockeysticks.

Notably, while I loved reading Toon it's always crashed hard when I've tried to run it. Relevant to this discussion, I think that Greg Costikyan may actually be too tight a designer for that kind of game.

I forgot about Paranoia (that is also one where the premise is highly gameable).
 
I thought of another game design sin. I can't recall which specific games I've seen it in, but I know I've seen it in more than one: have multiple categories of things that give some kind of positive bonus to a character. For example's sake, I'll call them... hmm... Perks, Gifts, and Benefits, with Perks giving +1, Gifts giving +2, and Benefits giving +3. Than it itself I wouldn't call a sin; just something that's not to my taste. Where it becomes a sin is when the distinction between what's a Perk, what's a Gift, and what's a Benefit is, as far as anyone can tell from looking at the lists, completely arbitrary, and there's no explanation in the text as to why the game designer(s) divided them that way.
 
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.
Have you seen Ghastly Affair? It shouldn't be this impressive in 2022 to have a game that understands how to use hyperlinks, but it really is compared to most.


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Yeah, I get that there are significant issues to manage, but I don't think that they're enough to really represent a barrier to service.
I've seen some books that have done it, and in all honesty, it hasn't really made a big deal to me. Sure there were some clicky menus and such and cross-referencing, but though it was cool, in practice it doesn't go with the way I reference PDFs and were only used a couple of times. The contextual hyperlinks were cool, but it also showed me how little I contextualize rules.
 
Predictable combat results is definitely something that gets dull for me. Both approaches are fine (some people want combats that are easy to predict the outcomes of out of a sense of fairness or setting the appropriate challenge for a party, some want more surprises). I definitely fall in the preferring the surprises camp. To me that is what leads to some of the most interesting developments in a campaign or adventure.
Yes, that comes through in your games. I wouldn't mention the Network System in my above post though, as it manages to both have a clean, unified system and give interesting results.

Disclaimer: I do editing work for Brendan, so take that into consideration when evaluating my praise.
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.
Yeah, I have mouseover in my personal version of WFRP, and it is awesome.
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The thing that stops this IMO is how much effort you have to do to put in different versions and take into account accessibility.
I can vouch that is a serious amount of work, and I am not even trying to make it pretty.
That was a great game. I think it was also a different time in the hobby in terms of how we reacted to systems. Also one of the best reads. Three have been two joke RPGs that I felt were playable and good beyond them being a joke as a concept: Tales from the Floating Vagabond and OG (the latter of which is a highly gameable concept in my opinion, I remember it just clicking when I read it).
I'll add Ghostbusters in there.
I'd say Paranoia, although it requires a good GM and Teenagers from Outer Space were also excellent comedy games that worked as playable games.
As someone that disastrously tried running Paranoia as a kid, it really does take a good GM.
Notably, while I loved reading Toon it's always crashed hard when I've tried to run it. Relevant to this discussion, I think that Greg Costikyan may actually be too tight a designer for that kind of game.
Toon is more like a platform to be funny on. If the players and GM are just expecting the comedy to happen, it really isn't going to work.
 
Yeah, I have mouseover in my personal version of WFRP, and it is awesome.
I think the reason I didn't find it helpful is that I was using a tablet, so many of the UI things put in were not as functional on Android. Which throws in the other difficulty- the variety of platforms and use cases for the documents.
 
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.

Tsar Frontiers, the spoof that was thrown together during the nuTSR/Star Frontiers kerfluffle, had hyperlinks in the table of contents.

That puts the fan product put together out of satirical spite above at least 98% of the professionally produced gaming PDFs our there in terms of ease of use.
 
Although in the case of WFRP, I think elements of poor design are just overwhelmed by the genius of it's career system.

While the career system really imparted the flavour of the world, hence the attention it recieves, I honestly think the true masterstroke of the 1st edition WFRP rules is it's combat system, which is a masterpiece of streamlined elegance and conveying theme, and, unfortunately the main thing I feel every edition since has messed up by over-complicating (I haven't read 4th though, just skimmed it, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong there)
 
While the career system really imparted the flavour of the world, hence the attention it recieves, I honestly think the true masterstroke of the 1st edition WFRP rules is it's combat system, which is a masterpiece of streamlined elegance and conveying theme, and, unfortunately the main thing I feel every edition since has messed up by over-complicating (I haven't read 4th though, just skimmed it, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong there)
They over-complicated it in the core book, but they have reduced the complexity in Up In Arms, the combat book. It's still going to be too crunchy for some. If you don't want to be bothered with complexities like Weapon Qualities, the players can just use the old WFRP classic Hand Weapon.

The core die mechanic is actually pretty elegant. You make a percentile check. If you succeed, the 10s place is your success level. You add your success level is added to the base damage for your weapon. You flip the percentile result to get the hit location. Doubles on a success are crits and doubles on a failure are fumbles.

It's an efficient amount of information packed into one roll, which is a big reason why I am using 4E as the starting point for my house rules.

I agree with you that the combat is more important than the career system. The career system is important, but cool as it is, advancement systems are mostly something that happens between sessions.
 
Yes, that comes through in your games. I wouldn't mention the Network System in my above post though, as it manages to both have a clean, unified system and give interesting results.

Disclaimer: I do editing work for Brendan, so take that into consideration when evaluating my praise.

Yeah, I have mouseover in my personal version of WFRP, and it is awesome.
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I can vouch that is a serious amount of work, and I am not even trying to make it pretty.

I'll add Ghostbusters in there.

As someone that disastrously tried running Paranoia as a kid, it really does take a good GM.

Toon is more like a platform to be funny on. If the players and GM are just expecting the comedy to happen, it really isn't going to work.
Nice! That mouseover is exactly what I was talking about. It saves soooo much time flipping pages.
 
D&D 5E is a carefully balanced game with a system that allows GMs to set up encounters with predictable results.
This absolutely is true when the GM carefully curates battles and follows the encounter building guidelines. That said, a lot of fun can be had modifying, deviating from, or ignoring the formula altogether as long as the GM has a measure of system mastery and it's made clear to the players.
Yeah, I have mouseover in my personal version of WFRP, and it is awesome.
I absolutely love mouseover and hyperlinks in my pdfs. Why this isn't an industry-wide practice is beyond me.
 
This absolutely is true when the GM carefully curates battles and follows the encounter building guidelines. That said, a lot of fun can be had modifying, deviating from, or ignoring the formula altogether as long as the GM has a measure of system mastery and it's made clear to the players.
Yes, it is a relatively easy system to tweak.
 
I think the reason I didn't find it helpful is that I was using a tablet, so many of the UI things put in were not as functional on Android. Which throws in the other difficulty- the variety of platforms and use cases for the documents.
One more reason why I dislike Android running tablets. They just lack the "oomph" to run things. In the end it was the main reason why I went with a Surface Pro, having the ram and cpu power to make good use of pdfs is a must for me personally. That and 512 gigs of storage really nailed it for me. Often I find that Android base tablets lack in storage since they want you to use wifi etc to stay connected. Ugh.
 
One more reason why I dislike Android running tablets. They just lack the "oomph" to run things. In the end it was the main reason why I went with a Surface Pro, having the ram and cpu power to make good use of pdfs is a must for me personally. That and 512 gigs of storage really nailed it for me. Often I find that Android base tablets lack in storage since they want you to use wifi etc to stay connected. Ugh.
I have two Surface Pros also. I use the tool I need for the job. The android has the oomph to show PDFs and the form factor and relative ruggedness with the right case to carry anywhere. It just doesn't have the UI for it. And my Android device has 128GB onboard and a 512GB card inserted. I take my surface with me when I'll need to be productive for content creation and/or coding and my XPS is not needed. I use my Samsung Galaxy Tab when I just need to consume media.
 
I am waiting for people to start really making actual use of the computer in terms of document design. Even just some basic shit like text links, mouse-overs and drop down menus would be keen.
You would LOVE the PDF of EABAv2, then...pretty much everything is hyperlinked:thumbsup:!
 
The core die mechanic is actually pretty elegant. You make a percentile check. If you succeed, the 10s place is your success level. You add your success level is added to the base damage for your weapon. You flip the percentile result to get the hit location. Doubles on a success are crits and doubles on a failure are fumbles.
Yeah I agree, I really don't see how WFRP 4E is sometimes perceived too crunchy for a medium-crunch game. I guess it kinda reads crunchy, but I actually found it to be pretty streamlined and it's the right amount of crunch from what I would expect from WFRP, Mythras, RQ, etc. Even success-levels seem to work well, they don't slow things down. Pretty much suits the game, very tactile and gritty, I wouldn't really want a rules-lite WFRP.
 
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I absolutely love mouseover and hyperlinks in my pdfs. Why this isn't an industry-wide practice is beyond me.
It's work with no reward beyond quality of life. That said, you can also get an intern to do it for a mention in the credits and a CV point, so nearly free.

I did the hyperlinks when I recompiled Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e pdfs with my house rules. My main annoyance now is that I have yet to find a decent light/medium weight pdf reader that does a back button and form filling (needed for the dice rollers & random generators in the pdf) that's not loaded with ginormous bloatware features & requires networking to report home on me.
 
Yeah I agree, I really don't see how WFRP 4E is sometimes perceived too crunchy for a medium-crunch game. I guess it kinda reads crunchy, but I actually found it to be pretty streamlined and it's the right amount of crunch from what I would expect from WFRP, Mythras, RQ, etc. Even success-levels seem to work well, they don't slow things down. Pretty much suits the game, very tactile and gritty, I wouldn't really want a rules-lite WFRP.
WFRP is intended to be a game where you are expected the dig in to the system and setting and play for a while. If you are going to move through the career system, you want lots of interesting Talents to pick up. Weapon Qualities and Flaws and the distinction they give to weapons encourages the fighter type to seek out training in a variety of weapons. Crafting rules make sense in a game with mundane jobs, and they are another place where the Quality rules come up.

It's designed by guys like Andy Law, who has had the same campaign going for about 20 years, so they expect you will be sticking around long enough to make it worth your time to learn the crunch. If someone was just going to run one-shot of "Rough Night at the Three Feathers", then they might be better off using the 1E or 2E, which are easier to just pick up, play, and move on.

As a final piece of advice, either make or find a fan-made deck of Condition cards. As characters can have multiple levels of Conditions, it's pain to track them on paper, but cards make it effortless, and you always have the rules in front of the affected player. My home-printed cards work fine,. but I would gladly pay money for glossy ones with nice art.

It's frustrating as Cubicle 7 even put out a WFRP tie-in card game last year rather than make this needed accessory. To get even geekier with my complaint, WFRP has a setting with plenty of canon card games (Cerevis, Scarlet Empress, Fareo, Pig Jiggler, Laggard) and multiple canon card decks (Reiklander Tarock, Wissen Trionki), yet the Warhammer card game they put out, Elector Counts, isn't any of those.
 
As a final piece of advice, either make or find a fan-made deck of Condition cards. As characters can have multiple levels of Conditions, it's pain to track them on paper, but cards make it effortless, and you always have the rules in front of the affected player. My home-printed cards work fine,. but I would gladly pay money for glossy ones with nice art.

It's frustrating as Cubicle 7 even put out a WFRP tie-in card game last year rather than make this needed accessory. To get even geekier with my complaint, WFRP has a setting with plenty of canon card games (Cerevis, Scarlet Empress, Fareo, Pig Jiggler, Laggard) and multiple canon card decks (Reiklander Tarock, Wissen Trionki), yet the Warhammer card game they put out, Elector Counts, isn't any of those.
Yes I can see Condition Cards making the GM job much easier, and it does seem ridiculkous that Cubicle 7 didn't do this first before making their Elector Counts card game
 
Baulderstone Baulderstone That's too bad that Cubicle7 won't jump on that bandwagon. Condition Cards have become popular as a easy to use tool. I know i'd definitely snag a deck or three just to make my and my players lives easier if I was running WFRP.
 
It's frustrating as Cubicle 7 even put out a WFRP tie-in card game last year rather than make this needed accessory. To get even geekier with my complaint, WFRP has a setting with plenty of canon card games (Cerevis, Scarlet Empress, Fareo, Pig Jiggler, Laggard) and multiple canon card decks (Reiklander Tarock, Wissen Trionki), yet the Warhammer card game they put out, Elector Counts, isn't any of those.
Looks like an opportunity for a Kickstarter project for someone...
 
I'll add Ghostbusters in there.

Ghostbuster would be the first game that comes to mind to me if we're talking about comedy games that are playable beyond a gimmick. A good Ghostbusters adventure isn't structurally any different from that of any of the more serious-minded systems, same as the original Ghostbuster's movie which was not originally meant to be a comedy. It is the sort of game you can get in character in a way I don't think you are meant to with Toon or Paranoia.

And the system is possibly the most elegant version of D6 out there. I picked up The Awfully Cheerful Engine (ACE) retro-clone relased not long ago. I've not been able to give in spin yet as I have other things going, but I reads really well.
 
Ghostbuster would be the first game that comes to mind to me if we're talking about comedy games that are playable beyond a gimmick. A good Ghostbusters adventure isn't structurally any different from that of any of the more serious-minded systems, same as the original Ghostbuster's movie which was not originally meant to be a comedy. It is the sort of game you can get in character in a way I don't think you are meant to with Toon or Paranoia.

And the system is possibly the most elegant version of D6 out there. I picked up The Awfully Cheerful Engine (ACE) retro-clone relased not long ago. I've not been able to give in spin yet as I have other things going, but I reads really well.
A couple of years ago, I bought a pristine copy with a Ghost Die and unpunched cards to replace that old one that I have no memory of parting with. There was even a Real Ghostbusters sticker book that worked its way in there.

I agree with your thoughts on the game. When I tried too hard to make a jokey scenario, it would fall flat. I began using straight urban legends and folklore or just ripping off scenarios from serious horror RPGs. Then I sat back and let the players and the system make it funny.

Ghostbusters was the game that taught me just how little work it was possible to do as a GM.
 
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I've always felt that Paranoia worked best when it was played 'straight'. Let the insanity of the situation, and the struggles of the players to avoid their characters' doom (often at the hands of other players) bring the comedy (and horror).
 
Yeah I agree, I really don't see how WFRP 4E is sometimes perceived too crunchy for a medium-crunch game. I guess it kinda reads crunchy, but I actually found it to be pretty streamlined and it's the right amount of crunch from what I would expect from WFRP, Mythras, RQ, etc. Even success-levels seem to work well, they don't slow things down. Pretty much suits the game, very tactile and gritty, I wouldn't really want a rules-lite WFRP.
The overton window of game crunchiness has shifted dramatially in recent years towards the light.
 
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