A few thoughts/gripes about recent game modern game design.

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Online dictionaries can be less than helpful.

Railroad as a verb originally meant to rush something through, as railways were fast. It comes from America in the late 19th century:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/274533/in-what-country-did-the-term-railroaded-originate#:~:text=Dictionary definitions of the slang,to fast-track." J.S.
That does seem likely to be the primary motivating thought. Indeed, even before it be verbed, that also mentioned a figurative use as a noun:

In 1837, "railroad" was being used as slang for a cheap liquor (probably whiskey) "because of the rapidity with which it hurries men to the end of their journey".

There's also in the same book a splendid illustration of T. Timkin's grocery store with an sign beside the door reading:"RAILROAD, STONE FENCE, Chain Lightning & other choice Lickers"
But these coinages are definitely more art than science, and people might well have had a gestalt of related ideas in coming up with the term, and more subtly still, in deciding to use them. So what's a "false" etymology can be a rather knotty question. And certain some other notable feature of railways is that they, well, run on rails. And also that in order to build them there's generally some fairly brutalist exercise in a state or corporation acquiring the requisite land, and so on.

In fact that modern post-hoc invention of the etymology makes no sense, as railways indeed allow you to travel anywhere.
Well, anywhere there's railway, ideally a station -- otherwise be very good at tucking and rolling! -- and a series of connections...

But what you can't do is "change lanes" in a flaithiúlach manner in the process. Much less go country-country. Etc.

Where does this get us? Rather off topic. Sorry!
Teh irony!! :grin:
 
Or there's Europe where you can go pretty much anywhere by railroad. I'm not sure where we get when we add those two examples together.
I live in Switzerland, which is known for having a very robust public train system. It's good; compared to Canada where I lived before it's amazingly fantastic. But even in Switzerland you can't get everywhere by railroad. There are so many amazing sights that you won't even reach with a car, and are only accessible by foot. Even with the best rail systems that currently exist, if you leave the limits of a city, a railroad is limiting. So I think the metaphor of a railroad being a limited one dimensional plot still holds true everywhere in the world.
 
When I was discussing adventure design and other RPG theory in the RPG club at ANU, back in the Eighties, our usual term for a linear adventure design in which the players had no real choice but to overcome all the encounters and do them in order was not "railroad" but "tunnel of fun". That got coined in a remark that a lame tournament module in which each room had only one exit, which led into the next room, was topologically equivalent to a tunnel (we had lots of maths majors). I think it stuck because it evoked the image of one of the lamer rides at a second-rate amusement park. I don't think I replaced that in my parlance with the metaphor of a railway as affording no choice of route until I started interacting with foreign RPG theorists on r.g.f.a in about 1995.
 
"Shepherding" sounds much too benevolent. "Sheepdogging" sounds like it's illegal in 37 states.
If we are making forced term changes here, 'corralling' sounds about right. Works both on cattle and people.

Edit: No, wait. It was some other cattle-driving term I was thinking about, but can't recall ATM. I found the term 'kettling', but it's for people only.
 
Last edited:
What I'm talking about is taking the improvisation too far, to the point where you decide ahead of time not to prep anything and just wing the lot. Then there's not a real world/situation that the characters are exploring, just the pretence of one.

There's always just the pretense of a real world. The major difference is when the details are made up.

IME, absolutely.

Some players are pretty much incapable of doing anything else than reacting to GM set 'scenes'. If those scenes are structured in a linear fashion, it becomes a railroad.

I think this problem is a bit of a chicken or egg situation. I think some players certainly fit the description, but is that because they lack proactivity or is it because they're not allowed to be proactive?

I think the expectations about this can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a GM thinks (correctly or not) that his players aren't going to be proactive, then he's going to take stronger control of things. If players think the GM is likely to railroad them, they'll often try and find the rails to do what they think is expected of them.
 
Online dictionaries can be less than helpful.

Railroad as a verb originally meant to rush something through, as railways were fast. It comes from America in the late 19th century:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/274533/in-what-country-did-the-term-railroaded-originate#:~:text=Dictionary definitions of the slang,to fast-track." J.S.

When applied to a law people meant it was being rushed through without due process.

Railroading a legislative assembly into doing something got widened into forcing by coercion anyone into doing something.

OK, I think that's clearly not the idiom that came into use in RPGdom



So calling an adventure a railroad originally simply meant that the players were forced/coerced into a certain series of events. That's how I always used the term, and the few instances of it I've found from the 90s back me up on that.

right, so rushing/speed has no part in that. It seems to me more a straight analogy for a train running on tracks (a "preset path"), whether used as a verb ("the GM railroaded their players through their plot", i.e. did not allow them to deviate from the tracks) or an adjective ("the Dragonlance modules are railroads", as in they present one correct series of events ("lay out a track") that the PCs are expected to follow without deviation.


It's both occam's razor, and it's how it's been used, unambiguously, for as long as I've been in the hobby. Obviously, as with any hobby terminology, there is no authority to point towards and gamers in particular have a specific tendency to adopt idiosyncratic definitions for terms (and defend them TO THE DEATH online), but the meaning & use of "railroad" in the context of RPGs has been almost uniquely cohesive for at least since 1988.
 
If we are making forced term changes here, 'corralling' sounds about right. Works both on cattle and people.

Edit: No, wait. It was some other cattle-driving term I was thinking about, but can't recall ATM. I found the term 'kettling', but it's for people only.
I'm getting One Man and His Dog flashbacks -- to before the BBC had gender-neutral language, clearly! -- but can't think of any especially helpful terminology as such. There was a bit where they penned the sheepies, but I think they just called that "The Pen". And there was a "Drive", "Fetch", and "Split". You'd think they'd have had bizarre Cornish and Old West Mercian words for this shizzle really, most disappointing...
 
I think this problem is a bit of a chicken or egg situation. I think some players certainly fit the description, but is that because they lack proactivity or is it because they're not allowed to be proactive?

I think the expectations about this can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a GM thinks (correctly or not) that his players aren't going to be proactive, then he's going to take stronger control of things. If players think the GM is likely to railroad them, they'll often try and find the rails to do what they think is expected of them.
I agree with both of those latter sentences. I think that it depends on the players and the past experiences they might have had with previous GMs. Nowadays my favored GMing style is to get the PCs to the spot I want (or just tell them where they are), then in a shortish span of time, I throw a bunch of stuff at them to choose from, or they can come up with something original. I think that is an acceptable method of dealing with both reactive and proactive players at the same time.
 
OK, I think that's clearly not the idiom that came into use in RPGdom
But it is clearly how it was being used in the examples from the 90s I cited above.
right, so rushing/speed has no part in that.
Indeed, rushing/speed indeed was at some point became an optional part of the meaning, as discussed. Forcing/coercion became the meaning of the word a long time ago without any necessity for speed.
It seems to me more a straight analogy for a train running on tracks (a "preset path"), whether used as a verb ("the GM railroaded their players through their plot", i.e. did not allow them to deviate from the tracks) or an adjective ("the Dragonlance modules are railroads", as in they present one correct series of events ("lay out a track") that the PCs are expected to follow without deviation.
Yes, that does seem a plausible etymology for the use of the word, but it isn't. People were clearly saying that some modules railroaded players in the usual meaning of the phrase 25+ years ago. At some point other people misinterpreted the term. It's how language works. Anything else is highly unlikely.
It's both occam's razor, and it's how it's been used, unambiguously, for as long as I've been in the hobby. Obviously, as with any hobby terminology, there is no authority to point towards and gamers in particular have a specific tendency to adopt idiosyncratic definitions for terms (and defend them TO THE DEATH online), but the meaning & use of "railroad" in the context of RPGs has been almost uniquely cohesive for at least since 1988.
But it hasn't. It clearly wasn't used in that sense in the examples I quoted from 25+ years ago. I found the same also in earlier issues of The Dragon, so plenty of evidence for my point of view.
 
This only works if you were to have two characters, both with lockpicking, in the same party, which would be pretty weird.

I don't agree with either statement.

I'll address the second (and rather tangential) statement first: that it is weird to have two (or more) characters in a party with overlapping abilities, one of whom is significantly better than the other(s). To the contrary, I often or even usually see parties in which everyone can drive, but one character is expert at it, in which everyone can fight but one is the 'muscle', in which everyone can shoot a bit but one is the sniper, and so on. I am just now in the middle of generating a party in which one character is a specialist "second-storey man" (with excellent climbing and stealth and just enough lockpicking skill and tools to deal with window catches, balcony-door locks, and the privacy locks on internal doors), while a different character is a specialist safecracker (with merely workmanlike stealth and climbing, but expert knowledge and advanced tools for opening high-security locks). I'm not doing that to be surreal; I'm doing it to support genre conventions in the secret ops and heists genres.

On the first (and more central) statement: that my previous example "only works" if there are two characters. I could if you like construct an example in which a character got a bad roll early in their career when their skills were low and their equipment poor, and therefore failed because of adverse circumstances represented by the die roll, and then later in their career when their skills were higher and their equipment better got the same roll on the dice on a similar task, and then succeed despite the same adverse circumstances — because their higher skill meant that they were (now) good enough to overcome them.

But my examples don't seem to be very effective, so I shall make an explicit statement instead. When I interpret a high die roll as indicating adverse circumstances (such as corrosion of a lock) that high skill can overcome but low skill cannot, that does not make skill level meaningless. It makes high skill stat mean "can deal with adverse conditions, such as corroded locks" in distinction against low skill meaning "cannot deal with such adverse conditions". And if I extend that interpretation uniformly to an auto-fail indicating such an adverse condition that no-one could have succeeded I may get bad results if the mechanics make automatic failure too common, but that isn't a issue of meaning.

If you have one thief in the party, how you would have hypothetically handled it with a character with better stats is irrelevant.

No, it isn't irrelevant. It is directly relevant. It shows that my interpretation makes different skill levels mean different things, and different die-rolls mean different things, and the same die-roll mean the same thing whether the character is skilful or unskilful. I could convey exactly the same thing using future-tense conditionals instead of present-tense hypotheticals and it would be nothing other than a description of my procedures. But I think by this stage the readers who want to understand me already do understand me.
 
Last edited:
Poor Alaskans!
Actually the train is quite nice, very relaxing and scenic. It's just that there's one line from Seward to Fairbanks and only about 13 stops on it.
 
But it is clearly how it was being used in the examples from the 90s I cited above.

But here's the thing...it's not.

"Basically the players got railroaded into the plot" - so, nothing to do with speed or being rushed, everything to do with the being forced to follow the plot (read:tracks)


"Break the rules of the game to make them helpless, railroad them into impossible situations" - there is no context here for what railroading entails other then clearly forcing players into impossible situations, which does still fit the common usage as referring to players being forced to follow a specific path (track) to predetermined situations (in this case "impossible ones").

But even if they did have some analogous usage to rushing something (and I see no implication of that), why wuld these two random examples from RPGnet be authritative examples of anything? It's still at least a decade, if not two after the term entered into hobby parlance


Indeed, rushing/speed indeed was at some point became an optional part of the meaning, as discussed. Forcing/coercion became the meaning of the word a long time ago without any necessity for speed.

I don;t think you've shown that. You one example of a law being rushed through without due process is a statement where the qualification "without due process" is being used to modify the use of the idiom "rushing", otherwise it would be implicit. And I still think the supposition is, in general, counterintuitive.



Yes, that does seem a plausible etymology for the use of the word, but it isn't. People were clearly saying that some modules railroaded players in the usual meaning of the phrase 25+ years ago. At some point other people misinterpreted the term. It's how language works. Anything else is highly unlikely.

OK, well, I won't convince you. But I'll probably still continue to use the term that way since it is the most apt and utilitarian in regards to what it's analogously describing regarding RPGs
 
I think the genesis of the term railroading actually quite nicely descibes what it looks like in RPG terms. You have a unidirectional goal and you batter aside anything that doesn't fit with that goal.
 
I think the genesis of the term railroading actually quite nicely descibes what it looks like in RPG terms. You have a unidirectional goal and you batter aside anything that doesn't fit with that goal.

the goal is the pertinent part in regards to RPGs...it's the path the GM wants the players to go down, and the forcing is the means to that end.
 
When I was discussing adventure design and other RPG theory in the RPG club at ANU, back in the Eighties, our usual term for a linear adventure design in which the players had no real choice but to overcome all the encounters and do them in order was not "railroad" but "tunnel of fun".

That referred to something....verrrry different when I was at Uni...
 
But here's the thing...it's not.

"Basically the players got railroaded into the plot" - so, nothing to do with speed or being rushed, everything to do with the being forced to follow the plot (read:tracks)
You're not arguing against what I've said, I think you're completely misunderstanding me. I never said that the usage in RPGs ever had anything to do with rushing. The meaning I'm referring to is about coercion. It's a perfectly normal meaning of the word.
 
the goal is the pertinent part in regards to RPGs...it's the path the GM wants the players to go down, and the forcing is the means to that end.
For instance, I draw a distinction between a "tunnel of fun" and a "funnel of fun". Both force the PCs to a particular "climactic" end-point, but only the tunnel-of-fun is like a railway line.
 
On the first (and more central) statement: that my previous example "only works" if there are two characters. I could if you like construct an example in which a character got a bad roll early in their career when their skills were low and their equipment poor, and therefore failed because of adverse circumstances represented by the die roll, and then later in their career when their skills were higher and their equipment better got the same roll on the dice on a similar task, and then succeed despite the same adverse circumstances — because their higher skill meant that they were (now) good enough to overcome them.
That doesn't make it any better. For that to potentially work the campaign actually has to last a certain length of time. And assuming it does, having a different result later isn't going to change the feeling that the initial result felt like bullshit.

Fundamentally you need sound mechanics where excuses like these aren't necessary. Rule zero can still exist, because no game is perfect. But a game should never be designed with rule zero in mind. And rule zero should never be invoked to justify a particular mechanic in the context of game design. Rule zero can be valid in play. But that's not the topic of this thread.
 
That doesn't make it any better. For that to potentially work the campaign actually has to last a certain length of time.
No, it doesn't. The example shows how the approach is consistent, sound, and makes skill level meaningful. No events have to turn out exactly like that for the things to be true that it shows are true. Which is what examples are for.

And assuming it does, having a different result later isn't going to change the feeling that the initial result felt like bullshit.

But the initial result doesn't in practice feel like bullshit. As I pointed out to you in post #684 and ffilz ffilz clarified in post #709, this is exactly equivalent to rolling lock quality-and-condition and then using a mechanic in which a certain skill level or better is necessary and sufficient to open each lock. Which looks a lot like what we see in reality.

Fundamentally you need sound mechanics where excuses like these aren't necessary.

My interpretation of what dice represent is independent of what mechanics are being used. It is a perspective, not an excuse.

As I said, I think everyone who wants to understand already does understand.
 
If you have a character concept of proficiency in a skill. And they keep failing at it because the skill is so low. And your excuse is they weren't prepared and didn't bring WD-40 with them, that might fly once. But after that it's going to stretch suspension of disbelief, and they're going to think that it's bullshit they can't explicitly carry a can of WD-40 with them to deal with the rusty locks. Because the next time they fail, it's still represented by them not having been competent enough to prepare properly.
 
If you have a character concept of proficiency in a skill. And they keep failing at it because the skill is so low. And your excuse is they weren't prepared and didn't bring WD-40 with them, that might fly once. But after that it's going to stretch suspension of disbelief, and they're going to think that it's bullshit they can't explicitly carry a can of WD-40 with them to deal with the rusty locks. Because the next time they fail, it's still represented by them not having been competent enough to prepare properly.
I think you are deliberately misinterpreting me. The character's degree of preparation is explicitly represented by whether they have basic equipment that gives a penalty, standard equipment, or advanced equipment that gives a bonus.

Where the toolkit used is the same, a character with higher skill will open a larger proportion of the locks they encounter (and therefore have a higher probability of opening a random lock), not because they meet different locks, but because they know more methods.

Where the skill level is the same, a character with a better toolkit will open a larger proportion of the locks they encounter (and therefore have a higher probability of opening a random lock), not because they meet different locks, but because they have more different tools and supplies.

Preparation is not included in skill any more than luck is. Preparation is represented by the quality of the toolkit, and that was perfectly obvious in the worked example I gave in post #705.

If I have a character concept of proficiency in a skill. And they keep failing at it because the skill is so low. Then my explanation is that they don't know many methods, so they often encounter locks they they just don't know a method for. That is, they fail often because their skill is low.
 
Last edited:
Fundamentally you need sound mechanics where excuses like these aren't necessary. Rule zero can still exist, because no game is perfect. But a game should never be designed with rule zero in mind. And rule zero should never be invoked to justify a particular mechanic in the context of game design. Rule zero can be valid in play. But that's not the topic of this thread.
Unless you are somebody like myself who believes that the point of the rules is to reflect the reality of the setting first. There are plenty of RPGs that have systems that would make for a terrible board game or wargame. But do just fine in terms of helping the referee adjudicate what the players want to do as their characters.

Plus the system should absolutely be designed to incorporate rule zero as it is impossible for any type of mechanics or system to encompass all that possible to do within a setting even one that is fantastic in nature or imaginary. The way to do that is author commentary teaching the referee the underpinnings of the system so they can make a considered judgment as to how to handle a novel solution.
 
I agree with both of those latter sentences. I think that it depends on the players and the past experiences they might have had with previous GMs. Nowadays my favored GMing style is to get the PCs to the spot I want (or just tell them where they are), then in a shortish span of time, I throw a bunch of stuff at them to choose from, or they can come up with something original. I think that is an acceptable method of dealing with both reactive and proactive players at the same time.
If you want to throw terminology at the problem, you could regard the first part as scene framing. This is really a pretty standard thing, everyone does it to some extent, and in one way or another. The porcine additions -- oink, oink -- are just to have a name for it, to explain it explicitly, and in some cases to "federate" it around the table. All of which are things that enrage some other people, in various tiers.

I think the "provide choices" thing is also important. Providing zero is the same thing as providing an infinite number... so that'll work great, or disastrously, depending! Providing one is very risky, unless your group is very compliant, or you're a very cunning reverse-psychologist. Normally the safe option if provide them with a small handful at any given time, and see what happens from there.
 
And rule zero should never be invoked to justify a particular mechanic in the context of game design.
Certainly justifies toolkits. (Of rules. Not of picklocks.)
 
Set the default task difficult to Hard (DC 15 in D&D, -2 or-3 to Skill in GURPS
D&D5 calls DC15 'medium' or 'moderate', which apparently actually means "kind of hard", seeing as most 1st-3rd level characters can expect a 50-55% chance of making that if it's a proficient check with their best stat. Even for a Bard or Rogue it's only 60-65% at these levels.

Was it here or on TBP that there was recently a whole discussion/rant about difficulties that didn't match what you might expect from their names? Because damn, but the 5e names don't match their difficulty (to me, anyway),
 
Hmmm, no I don't think any of those options.

I just have it on good authority that that is what "buffaloes" means. For some reason.

I cant think of any situation where buffaloes or trains would push/bully anyone, TBH. Seems like "Sheep Dog" would be a better idiom.

Railroads leaves no other options for the train to go than the tracks.

Buffalos, by itself or in herds, are a big bovinae animals (hah! that include bovines, buffaloes, AND bison, aha! :hehe:) that are quite intimidating in size that you are coerced to get out of their way, even more so when they are stampeding.

Cow Catchers are those big iron-grill wedges in front of old timey train engines of Ye Old Wild West. They would lift bovinae (be it ranchers' bovines or wild bison herds) and nudge/toss them aside like a plow through snow.

So big animal herds in the way of other smaller traffic bullies (coerces) said traffic into a stop or crawl or retreat, but a Train with a Cow Catcher -- having nowhere else to go and enough force to push on through -- pushes them away and keeps going! :grin: Voila', buffaloes stopping small traffic gets plowed away by big railroad trains! The sheepdogs are higher up on the mountain worrying about the flocks, where the bandits are holding out. :gunslinger: That's in the next adventure module.
 
D&D5 calls DC15 'medium' or 'moderate', which apparently actually means "kind of hard", seeing as most 1st-3rd level characters can expect a 50-55% chance of making that if it's a proficient check with their best stat. Even for a Bard or Rogue it's only 60-65% at these levels.

Was it here or on TBP that there was recently a whole discussion/rant about difficulties that didn't match what you might expect from their names? Because damn, but the 5e names don't match their difficulty (to me, anyway),
We did discuss this exact issue here recently.
 
D&D5 calls DC15 'medium' or 'moderate', which apparently actually means "kind of hard", seeing as most 1st-3rd level characters can expect a 50-55% chance of making that if it's a proficient check with their best stat. Even for a Bard or Rogue it's only 60-65% at these levels.

Was it here or on TBP that there was recently a whole discussion/rant about difficulties that didn't match what you might expect from their names? Because damn, but the 5e names don't match their difficulty (to me, anyway),
Yea I don't like the 5e default DCs and apparently a lot of people agree. A common house rule for 5e is to adjust Easy to 8, Medium to 13, and Hard to 18.
 
Yea I don't like the 5e default DCs and apparently a lot of people agree. A common house rule for 5e is to adjust Easy to 8, Medium to 13, and Hard to 18.
I'd probably just bump them down a whole step, so 'medium' becomes DC10, and a proficient person succeeds comfortably more often than not, even with an average stat. That makes 'hard' 50-55% for a low level character with a good stat. Seems reasonable to me, and it's easy to do and remember and explain (and as I'm lazy this is a major plus).
 
D&D5 calls DC15 'medium' or 'moderate', which apparently actually means "kind of hard", seeing as most 1st-3rd level characters can expect a 50-55% chance of making that if it's a proficient check with their best stat. Even for a Bard or Rogue it's only 60-65% at these levels.

Was it here or on TBP that there was recently a whole discussion/rant about difficulties that didn't match what you might expect from their names? Because damn, but the 5e names don't match their difficulty (to me, anyway),
I have been using a default difficulty of 15 for my Majestic Wilderlands/Majestic Fantasy rules since 2008. And my take has a different range of attribute bonuses (+3 for 18 for mine versus +4 for 18 for 3.X/5e). Starting skill bonuses range from +2 (most classes) to +4 (burglars).

To be clear a DC 15 is always the target number. I adjust for favorable and unfavorable circumstances by having the players roll with advantages or disadvantages (after 2015). Prior to 2015 and 5e I had used a standard set of modifiers (-4, -2, +0, +2, +4 ) to grant the equivalent of advantage and disadvantage. Why -4 or +4 because -4 is the classic D&D modifier for hitting an invisible opponent. So I made the most favorable circumstances +4. With one set of in between modifiers, -2, and +2. However, the way players "got" advantage and disadvantage made it the way to go after 5e showed how well it worked.

So for a 1st level character, you are talking on average anywhere between a +4 (+2 attribute, +2 skill bonus) to a +6 (+2 attribute, +4 skill bonus). Which winds up being a 50% to 60% chance of a successful roll.

This is only relevant when the character is under stress like in combat or an opposed skill check (stealth versus a guard perception). It feels right for what 1st level means in my campaign, a trained apprentice. That under the stress they have a 50-50 chance. Coupled with the method I outlined above about when to handle skill checks. And keep in mind the opposition they face plays by the same rules especially the NPCs.

1679055911124.png

I realize that there are alternate views of levels out there. I don't share them. For me, levels are a measure of life experience, not something special that only heroes get.

I wrote this all up in When to make a Ruling. While this was written for my Majestic Fantasy RPG, I have done the same thing for D&D 5e and it worked out fine there as well. Although the higher average attribute and the +4 for 18 means that on average 5e characters are more likely success when making a skill roll under stress with my method. But since the opposition enjoys the same benefit it works out the same.
 
Last edited:
Yea I don't like the 5e default DCs and apparently a lot of people agree. A common house rule for 5e is to adjust Easy to 8, Medium to 13, and Hard to 18.
This is a bandage not a solution to the problem.

The solution involves coming up with answers to the following.
  • What does 1st level mean?
  • Given the above what are the odds that a 1st level will be successful with a skill check when under stress like combat?
  • When the 1st level character is not under stress what are the odds of success i.e. they have the time and/or resources to complete the task.
  • What does being 10th level mean?
  • What are the odds of success for stressful circumstances and nonstressful circumstances for a 10th level character? This will see if the skill progression system is where it needs to be.
And likely be different for different referees and for different settings. Which is OK in my book. And I admit after doing all that you may wind up with the DC outlined above and that the circumstance of the campaign means that having three levels of difficulty (DCs) is useful as a mechanic.
 
That sounds like a mismatch of expectations…

The mismatch of expectations is due to bad game design. If the designers know what they're doing, the players will know what to expect. Game design isn't just about the mechanics, but also communicating the mechanics. DCC, while it isn't a game I would ever want to play, is a game where the designers make it very clear what to expect, so that players who don't like it know not to start.

Unless you are somebody like myself who believes that the point of the rules is to reflect the reality of the setting first. There are plenty of RPGs that have systems that would make for a terrible board game or wargame. But do just fine in terms of helping the referee adjudicate what the players want to do as their characters.

That depends on how you construct it from the beginning. If the mechanics of the system are task resolution, it should be a good task resolution system. You could feel that something else is more appropriate, have abstractions, and make them clear. That's fine.

Plus the system should absolutely be designed to incorporate rule zero as it is impossible for any type of mechanics or system to encompass all that possible to do within a setting even one that is fantastic in nature or imaginary. The way to do that is author commentary teaching the referee the underpinnings of the system so they can make a considered judgment as to how to handle a novel solution.

There's a difference between saying you should use rule zero for a situation that the designers didn't think of or didn't have space to include in the rules, and saying to use rule zero where the rules were presented but are simply garbage.

Certainly justifies toolkits. (Of rules. Not of picklocks.)

Saying rules elements are optional and you can use or ignore them according to taste, and mentioning that other elements are essential to the system and taking them out may break things is also something different from handing the players a broken rule and telling them to fix it.
 
That depends on how you construct it from the beginning. If the mechanics of the system are task resolution, it should be a good task resolution system. You could feel that something else is more appropriate, have abstractions, and make them clear. That's fine.
What is good in my view is a design that results in the least amount of work for the referee to resolve the situation at the desired level of detail. With the caveat that different folks view important elements of detailing a setting differently. This means there is no one size fits all mechanic at a given level of details that works for every player or referee.

A simplistic example is the use of different dice as the primary roll of a system 3d6 vs. 1d100 vs 1d20 and so on. None of them are better overall but are better for specific individuals for various reasons.

As a result, it is important to layout one assumption so the reader has more information to decide whether this is going to work for them or not.

There's a difference between saying you should use rule zero for a situation that the designers didn't think of or didn't have space to include in the rules, and saying to use rule zero where the rules were presented but are simply garbage.
What is "garbage" is so subjective that it is useless as a point of discussing game design. For example many consider D&D to be garbage because it lacks hit location and uses hit points and armor class. As for hit location D&D is not concerned with that level of detail. As for hit points and armor class D&D only sin is that Gygax never explained his assumptions in using those two mechanics. With the new research into the history of D&D it is a lot clearer what hit points and armor class represent and what they can and can't cover as far as detail goes.

The worse sin in my book an RPG can have in my book are mechanics that the author never used or would ever use if they ran a campaign. The most famous example of this is AD&D. The system has several sections like this. Luckily the rest is pure gold so overall the system is able to rise above that.

But that is a digression from my point about Rule Zero. Running into something that is not handled by the mechanics happens far more often. Focusing on criticism of Rule Zero to overcome "bad" mechanics is bullshit because every system ever released is considered terrible by somebody in the hobby. It far productive to figure out the most effective use of Rule Zero and how to minimize the work needed to utilize it with a given system.
 
The mismatch of expectations is due to bad game design. If the designers know what they're doing, the players will know what to expect. Game design isn't just about the mechanics, but also communicating the mechanics. DCC, while it isn't a game I would ever want to play, is a game where the designers make it very clear what to expect, so that players who don't like it know not to start.
Sure, if the system doesn't communicate well what a skill rating means, maybe that's a poor design. That is often a disadvantage of dice pool systems, the probabilities are not so obvious. A D20 or D100 or even 2d6 or 3d6 roll mechanism is pretty easy to understand the probabilities. In those systems, if chargen gives you a skill with a low chance of success (for example something in the 5-30% range which is common for starting characters in RuneQuest), one should understand that that is NOT a character with high competence. So if the player has a character concept of being highly competent in such a system, they have a mismatch of expectations. RQ1 (which is what I play) is pretty clear that starting characters are beginners. It does have a previous experience system, and that CAN produce characters with some skills in the 70%+ range which starts to look highly competent.

Now let me also be clear that I DO expect the game system to communicate expectations.

But most often, I see players expecting more competence out of their character than the system has communicated.
 
But that is a digression from my point about Rule Zero. Running into something that is not handled by the mechanics happens far more often. Focusing on criticism of Rule Zero to overcome "bad" mechanics is bullshit because every system ever released is considered terrible by somebody in the hobby. It far productive to figure out the most effective use of Rule Zero and how to minimize the work needed to utilize it with a given system.
I think everyone is mostly on the same page about Rule-0, just expressing it differently. It's fine to use it to cover edge cases, occasional issues, and stuff at the edge of your games' design. But designing a game without addressing some basic activities at the core of your game, or not doing any probability system math checks for near half the game, and then claiming it's a great game because "you can Rule-0 fix anything" is bullshit.

On D&D's design I think it's become more and more obvious that the initial game design started from certain numbers like dex 16 = +3 ac, proficency = 2-6, normal dc = 15. Then, as they wrote more bits, when they had an issue they just added a patch or hack to fix that exact issue (rogue/bard expertise, monster legendary & lair stuff, the cr system) without revisiting the original subsystems & numbers that caused the issue. Then "but Ruke-0" or gets used as a fig leaf to excuse everything that causes issues.
 
But that is a digression from my point about Rule Zero. Running into something that is not handled by the mechanics happens far more often. Focusing on criticism of Rule Zero to overcome "bad" mechanics is bullshit because every system ever released is considered terrible by somebody in the hobby. It far productive to figure out the most effective use of Rule Zero and how to minimize the work needed to utilize it with a given system.
This last bit makes me miss the era of gaming magazine articles with people's favorite (semi-functional) house rules as articles.

Sure, it was messy and kludgy and all over the place design-wise, but it was understood (at least for early era D&D and contemporaries) that you'd use the add-ons/substitutions that made sense for your home group, and that was as official as it really needed to be.

I appreciate how much thought goes into game creation these days, but I also miss a bit of that backyard mechanic era too.
 
If you have a character concept of proficiency in a skill. And they keep failing at it because the skill is so low. And your excuse is they weren't prepared and didn't bring WD-40 with them, that might fly once. But after that it's going to stretch suspension of disbelief, and they're going to think that it's bullshit they can't explicitly carry a can of WD-40 with them to deal with the rusty locks. Because the next time they fail, it's still represented by them not having been competent enough to prepare properly.
I wanted to return to this...

Can you share some examples from real play?

I fired off a quick "mismatch of expectations" and I stand by that, but it's a valid question where the mismatch of expectations comes from.

Maybe it IS poor game design. Or maybe "poor game design" is really just the GM and/or players not taking care to evaluate the game system and understand the expectations it is tuned to. A zero to hero game is going to produce different starting characters than a game that assumes starting characters are masters of their profession.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top