quote: Original post by Sandman
...at the end of the day you really only need to know whether a strike has caused damage or not, and let the DM describe the flow of combat however he likes...

But there is no DM, this is a CRPG?

You do understand the abstraction of the D&D system, I realise myself that''s why they''ve done it that way, so I''ll adress specifically why I think it could/should be done otherwise in a CRPG, as opposed to human-moderated roleplaying.

quote: Original post by Sandman
You could just say: My character has this armour, which protects a certain percentage of his body. Therefore, the opponent''s chance of hitting a vulnerable location and thus causing signinficant damage is substantially reduced.

This implies that anything covered by armour cannot get damaged though, and that''s obviously not the case. Leather covers as much , if not more, than a breastplate, yet it does less to protect you from getting hit. It seems to abstract the size of the armour, but not the quality of it. You could use this abstraction well and logically, if you only had one type of armour, but could vary how much of it you were wearing. D&D also modifies it backwards for the actual type of armour though, and you end up with a bunch of conflicting things adding or not adding up to an "everything rolled into one" stat, AC.
Having one unified end-result statdoes make it easier to do in pen-and-paper, but really, do you know what is going on? I certainly can''t figure it out exactly, it all seems VERY arbitrary to me. I''d rather write out the system in a more detailed, complex way, describing exactly how I''d get to the "everything rolled into one" stat in a CRPG, because in there, we do not have to take into account the difficulty humans have at quick math.

quote: Original post by Sandman
Factor in a few armour modifiers to take into account different types of armour vs. different types of weapon (don''t know if NWN does this, but the 3E rules definitely allow for this) and you have saved yourself an enormous amount of complexity. Hit locations are catered for by the called shot rules.

You might have saved complexity, but why (still talking CRPGs!)? The computer doesn''t mind complexity. And you''ve sacrificed transparancy for reducing the complexity, which I also doubt is always a good choice.

You will say "But the player might not understand it!" As a player, I don''t really understand it now. I understand the reasoning, but I do not understand the formulae (if any) they used to get to their "unified result". It means I cannot expand on their system, because they''ve refused to tell me what exactly their system is!

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
But there is no DM, this is a CRPG?

But at the end of the day, the description of the exact course of events is eye candy (or 'mind' candy if you are playing P&P)
I did then go on to explain how this eye candy can be added with a computer system.

quote:
This implies that anything covered by armour cannot get damaged though, and that's obviously not the case. Leather covers as much , if not more, than a breastplate, yet it does less to protect you from getting hit. It seems to abstract the size of the armour, but not the quality of it. You could use this abstraction well and logically, if you only had one type of armour, but could vary how much of it you were wearing. D&D also modifies it backwards for the actual type of armour though, and you end up with a bunch of conflicting things adding or not adding up to an "everything rolled into one" stat, AC.
Having one unified end-result statdoes make it easier to do in pen-and-paper, but really, do you know what is going on? I certainly can't figure it out exactly, it all seems VERY arbitrary to me. I'd rather write out the system in a more detailed, complex way, describing exactly how I'd get to the "everything rolled into one" stat in a CRPG, because in there, we do not have to take into account the difficulty humans have at quick math.

Granted, the armour values are a bit of a kludge, and the system could be improved. A good, well defined system which explicitly takes a few more details into account would be nice, but even on a computer, it'd be better to keep it moderately simple. Having clever AI algorithms for determining hit location is all very well, but when you start fighting more than a couple of opponents at a time you'll suddenly start wondering where all that processing power you thought you had has gone. I am not against adding some complexity to the system, or revamping it entirely, but I am strongly against over complicating it, and losing the player.

quote:
You will say "But the player might not understand it!" As a player, I don't really understand it now. I understand the reasoning, but I do not understand the formulae (if any) they used to get to their "unified result". It means I cannot expand on their system, because they've refused to tell me what exactly their system is!

I don't think there is any particular formula - they just say 'this armour gives X percentage of protection from damage. They assume that damage suffered through armour is negligable, and that if the armour fails to prevent an attack, then this makes no difference to the amount of damage which can be inflicted. (or this is factored in as part of the random damage roll)

The D&D abstractions may not be the most sensible abstractions, but they are not entirely unreasonable. They also have the advantage of being very easy to follow from a players perspective. You don't need a PhD in calculus to realise that a piece of armour which gives an AC bonus of 4 is better than a piece of armour with an AC bonus of 2.

There is also the fact that you are probably going to need to playtest any new ruleset P&P style before coding it into the game anyway.

[edited by - Sandman on July 26, 2002 10:27:14 AM]

quote: You're correct in what you say, but I don't think it's all that relevant for a computer game.

God save gamers from designers because no two of us can agree with anything that any others say. One designer wants to have hit points and levels because 'it appropriately represents the progression that one goes through' while another wants one hit point amount that almost never changes because 'you can't take 50 swords through the gut just because you've got 1500 hit points'. Realistic, fun, balanced... they're all relative. I personally could care less about balance myself. The world isn't a fair place, so I'm not going to spend too much time busting my butt balancing any of my games. There will be factors that balance out different characters, but they won't be there specifically for balance.

quote: No, you just need a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics, which most computer game designers appear not to have.

Well, I've got an intimate understanding of probabilities and statistics. Does that mean that I can design a good game system?

Maybe I'm just missing the correlation here. Then again, maybe I'm just too used to thinking of things in terms of probabilities.

quote: I am criticising the reliance on an inappropriate game system for many games in the genre. The most popular RPGs at the moment are the D+D ones, which has a very negative implication - that PC game players are putting up with poor game mechanics and balance for some reason.

I think your chance of convincing the makers of the computer based D&D games to change their system has about as much chance of happening as the chances on your convincing Lucas that he needs to remove Light Sabers from Star Wars.

quote: PC game players are putting up with poor game mechanics and balance for some reason. The campaign setting? The nice graphics? The brand name? I'm not sure, but I'd like to see it end.

Usually I find it is because the storylines are very well constructed. Why do Star Wars games do so well? Name brand recognition and a familiar setting that they like.

The only games that are still based upon the decades old PnP systems are D&D games and that's part and parcel of the name. You can't make a D&D game and not make it a D&D Game. It's just not going to happen. There are a lot of them? That's because a lot of people still play D&D and a lot more people out there used to play D&D. They know the worlds (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc...), the system and they have characters that they used to play in D&D and are somewhat attached to the personality that they created for that character and want to play it more.

As with anything, if people buy it they will make more of it. People buy the D&D games because they like playing D&D but don't have the time (or just don't have a life, not sure sometimes).

Anyway, my point is that the usefulness in railing against basing D&D CRPGs on the D&D RPG is completely lacking. As I said before, you've got just as much chance of convincing Lucas to get rid of Light Sabers.

These (the D&D games like Baldur's Gate and NWN) are the ONLY games that are based upon those rules types, so why begrudge them for using what makes the game a 'D&D' game? If they didn't use that system it wouldn't be a D&D game, would it? Almost none of the games out there in the last 10 years have been based upon PnP rule sets. The last game that I played that didn't have AD&D on the cover that seemed based upon a PnP rule set was Bard's Tale and that was well over 10 years ago.

It truly isn't a case of 'why do we keep using PnP game rules for CRPG games?' because we don't, only the people who make D&D games do and they are 99% chance contractually obligated to do so and even if they weren't they would probably still use the system because that's what makes a game a 'D&D game'.

[edited by - solinear on July 26, 2002 5:59:54 PM]

quote: Original post by Sandman
I am not against adding some complexity to the system, or revamping it entirely, but I am strongly against over complicating it, and losing the player.

Same here.

Heh, maybe I''m chasing windmills, trying to fix something that isn''t broken. Time out, I''m off into my weekend. See you guys on monday.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
Heh, maybe I''m chasing windmills, trying to fix something that isn''t broken

Yes and no.

I don''t think the D&D combat system needs fixing any more (the 3rd edition rules have cleared up a lot of the shit from the 2nd edition rules), and I think it is perfectly acceptable to use this system in a computer game. I would agree though, that there is room for improvement - I don''t think this thread has been a complete waste of time.

Seeing as we seem to have more or less reached an agreement on this issue - lets assume that we want to devise a better system. First of all we need to spec it out. Here are a few things I think it needs:

Simple underlying mechanics. The rules need to be simple enough for players to understand, and simple enough to playtest using a P&P system.
Quick and intuitive way of dealing with piecemeal armour, hit locations etc.
Encourages players to be more elaborate in their fighting styles. In P&P terms, you want to hear people describing their moves in detail, like the example SilverMyst gave, rather than just saying ''I swing at him (roll dice) and miss''. Also, this has to translate to the computer somehow.
Experience awards and progression: Everone likes to do these differently - is it possible to keep everyone happy? Can you encourage more roleplaying as opposed to just hack and slash? Perhaps devise different reward and progression models so that players can choose one that they like?
Variety in character creation. Everyone has different ideas for the characters they want to play in RPGs. First, they need the customizability to create that character in the first place, second, they have to be able to express that character''s unique quirks within the medium of the game, or it becomes irrelevent. This is easy in P&P - how does it translate to the CRPG?

These are just a few thoughts - please comment and add your own.

PS MKV: Have a nice weekend

quote: Original post by Sandman
Actually, the ''armour making you harder to hit'' isn''t such a dumb abstraction anyway, and would seem to cut away an awful lot of rather superfluous complexity.

It''s a very sensible abstraction for a wargame. It has some merit for a tabletop roleplaying game, but not much. And it has almost no point in a computer game. It abstracts away details that in a computer game are potentially useful and interesting, such as the player''s choice between using light armour that lets you dodge with little stopping power vs. heavy armour that stops most attacks. In 2nd edition AD+D one is clearly better than the other, so there is no interesting tradeoff to make. In 3rd edition D+D there is the potential of reduced Dexterity bonuses, skill check penalties, and so on, so it''s not so bad on the ''choice'' front, but the damage is still fixed. In D+D this isn''t so much of an issue because being on the brink of death doesn''t affect your ability to do anything. In a system where injury impaired performance, this choice is given another interesting dimension, as it may be more favourable for all your characters to be slightly injured than most to be in perfect health with a couple badly injured. (The latter being the situation that the D+D rules tend towards.)

So what I''m saying, is that the unnecessary abstractions reduce the interesting choices that we can give to the player. There should be more to it than just trying to lower your AC and raise your Hit Points. By adding more dimensions to the statistics, we can move away from "stats as scores" where the player just seeks to improve them, to "stats as indicators of state" where the figures give the player interesting things to consider.

quote: Armour does make YOU harder to hit - it does this by being between your soft squishy parts and the sharp objects that are being swung at you. Since becoming familiar with the D&D rules, I realised that the seperate to hit and damage rolls used in systems like Warhammer are really redundant - at the end of the day you really only need to know whether a strike has caused damage or not, and let the DM describe the flow of combat however he likes.

Warhammer is indeed the king of redundant dice rolls! But this doesn''t matter on the computer because a single random number lookup plus a little arithmetic is trivial. You could be making 1000 such ''die rolls'' per hit and the game wouldn''t slow down one bit. And of course you don''t have a GM/DM to make those judgement calls on the computer. It''s still far, far easier to program a sane damage calculation algorithm than to program an AI that can be a decent dungeon master showing human intelligence and discretion.

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I don''t think anyone''s brought up Fallout. In that, the character progression is a gradual upward curve. And you can run into critters (critters! not even people with weapons!) that will murder you at any level, depending on where you are. (In DMing terms, status quo encounters.) Every three levels you get a perk that makes your characters a bit better in some way, as well as obligatory HP and skill increases. The SPECIAL system (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) only allows one increase ever in each category up to 10, unlike the stupid (I think) every-four-level-increase in AD&D3.

And if anyone thinks I''m talking about Fallout Tactics, I''m gonna run you over with Phil the Nuka-Cola Guy''s bike.

The design goal of D&D 3E was NOT to create a realistic game RPG engine. The designers were aware of certain "Golden cows" in the system, things like Hit Points that were kind of silly but so essential to the feel of D&D that to remove them might outrage the players.

I don''t think it such a bad thing that D&D computer games use the system in all it''s monster-hacking, power-acquisition glory. It remains true to the feel of the game, whereas a more complex system would not have the feel of D&D. If the target audience for these games is D&D players, why change the system? This is a case of "What''s good enough for the player?" which is a question any game designer should be used to asking. Most D&D players feel authenticity (or rather, consistency with the tabletop game) is much more important than realism in this case.

Some other RPGs (Shadowrun on the Genesis leaps to mind) have also taken the rules verbatim in the game engine. ''Cept SR is much more realistic (read: complicated) and had a better result in my opinion.

(On an aside note, for those who consider 3e to be perfect- it lacks parrying. Two 20th level fighters wearing no armor can''t technically miss each other, it comes down to a hit point contest. Adding base attack bonus to armor class could potentially fix this, but might cause other problems. However, I still like and play the game despite this and many other flaws.)

quote: Original post by Landfish
(On an aside note, for those who consider 3e to be perfect- it lacks parrying.

Actually, the 3rd edition rules has Parrying if I'm not mistaken. At least in NWN it does. I doubt if they added it just for NWN.

quote: Original post by Landfish
Two 20th level fighters wearing no armor can't technically miss each other, it comes down to a hit point contest.

Would you really expect fighters with that much experience to really miss? You're talking about men with probably years (in character time) of fighting experience. Everything else being equal, of course it would turn into a contest to see who could endure the most punishment. That's without considering parrying. With parrying though, it would be a case of whoever made the first slight miscalculation (bad roll).

So now that everyone has all of the D&D rules bashing out of their system, why not come up with a better system for a CRPG? Things to start with:

1) What stats and how should be be used? I still think the basic stats are valid, but used slightly differently -

Strength - how much a character can lift and how much additional damage he does with weapons where strength would make a difference (bashing weapons)

Dexterity - manual dexterity, hand eye coordination, ability to use tools (weapons, lassoing a moving target, etc)

Agility - dexterity of the whole body for things like dodging, diving, taking a fall with less than normal damage

Quickness - reaction time

Speed - movement speed, how fast a character can run unencumbered. This would be modified by the load he carries of course.

Constitution - how fit or healthy a character is

Intelligence - IQ, the ability to learn or memorize things, however you want to put it.

Looks - physical appearance

Charisma - the real definition - Personal magnetism or charm (a character with low looks and high charisma could still influence people)

Something like pain threshold or tolerance could be used in place of hit points, possibly along with Constitution. This could be something that could be improved with training.

2) I would have to say a skills based system would be a good idea for combat and non-combat things. Exactly how it's implemented is open for discussion.

3) Armor would be used to decrease damage taken, not avoid it. Location based, of course and with a stat that measured how good it is against certain weapon types (chainmail sucks against stabbing weapons like daggers).

4) Combat could be real time turn based similar to how NWN implemented the D&D rules, or it could be open and based on things like weapon speed and quickness. Personally I would prefer the latter.

Additions, thoughts, comments, suggestions, flames?

[edited by - Machaira on July 27, 2002 11:11:13 PM]

quote: Original post by Landfish
This is a case of "What's good enough for the player?" which is a question any game designer should be used to asking. Most D&D players feel authenticity (or rather, consistency with the tabletop game) is much more important than realism in this case.

Well, while all this is true, it's not any more satisfying than going off to write Yet Another First Person Shooter, is it? Or writing Diablo 47. If you're interested in cookie-cutter games that follow a formula in order to guarantee an audience, then that's fair enough, but it's also not much help. The point that "D+D rules appeal to D+D players" is so obvious it doesn't really need stating, isn't it? What I am looking at, and I assume MadKeithV and others as well, is how developers would want to look at stats if they want to make a system that works well rather than a system that is guaranteed to sell well but not necessarily be all that good.

quote: Some other RPGs (Shadowrun on the Genesis leaps to mind) have also taken the rules verbatim in the game engine. 'Cept SR is much more realistic (read: complicated) and had a better result in my opinion.

Sure. Some tabletop rules would transfer well to the computer, and some would not. I believe there is compelling evidence that the (A)D+D rules do not, with only massive numbers of sales to prove me wrong! Seriously though, I think branding does a lot for sales but not so much for gamer satisfaction.

quote: On an aside note, for those who consider 3e to be perfect- it lacks parrying. Two 20th level fighters wearing no armor can't technically miss each other, it comes down to a hit point contest.

One version of my combat rules basically assumes that every attack is a hit. I've played with swords, and there's next to no way even an amateur would miss a stationary human target. So there is no 'to-hit' roll. Instead, the defender gets a Block or
Dodge roll. The effect of this is that battle between two amateurs is swift, deadly, and quite random, whereas battle between two experts tends to take quite a while as they try to find weaknesses in the other person's defence. This matches my own swordfighting experience, although I've never had the pleasure of being on a real battlefield so I don't know how historically accurate it is.



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[edited by - Kylotan on July 28, 2002 1:57:12 PM]