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Original post by stimarco (For example, most computer RPGs make the mistake of simulating hardcore table-top RPGs to the letter. Never mind that the _only_ reason to have all those tiresome formulae and reams of stats in the original game in the first place was because humans had to do the number crunching themselves. Computers make that side utterly trivial, yet most RPG designers still stick rigidly to their conservative, traditional views of What An RPG Should Be. Why? Because of some misplaced view that The Stats Must Be Crunched, And Must Be Seen To Be Crunched? When did this requirement get carved in stone?)

Now I wonder about what are you talking about.

However using a rules from PnP RPG is actually great idea. These are often self consistent, and these were actually play tested. The problems with implementors is just, they don't read discussion about these rules, and they don't think too much about them either. These rules sometimes have a problems with them, for example DnD 3.5 edition has problems with dispel. Nothing forces implementors to implement, without thinking, a broken rule.
There is nothing wrong with going into public library and create a some self consistent system yourself. I remember these hours I used Guinness book of records to derive a self consistent system, and do a factor analysis.

Attributes characters, and interaction with environment are connected. RPGs are about interaction of characters with environment. Thus the numbers are crunched by the definition of RPG. Of course it's up to developers if they would show the numbers, or not.

There are three types of RPGs.
For entertainment only. (as a simple just for laugh, or whatever)
Sandbox.
RPG with great story.

Sandbox requires very deep ruleset, and proper implementation of it, as it's about the freedom sandbox allows.
RPGs with great story also needs detailed, and selfconsistent rulesystem. It prevents questions like why they didn't jumped out of that cliff, if they had ...

From what I seen from the players, the main problems weren't with number crunching, at least if you talked to someone else than a person with attention span of ... , the main problems were with incomplete rule set and artificial restrictions. Inability of completing the quest as would the character want, was able to break immersion. Now some of RPG players are playing them for creating theirs own stories, not as an entertainment movie. If you will not show them what is happening behind the scenes, they might be disappointed. A sentence you missed by 2 is still much more clear than an animation of sword missing the head by 0.3 meter. As long as nobody would force a player to read the stats if you don't feel like so, it's fine. Otherwise he decided to play that game, so he would see some numbers.

Both Disgaea and Ogre Tactic are games with great story, however both of them have incredible amount of stats, number crunching, looking at different variables and so on. I very doubt they will become much better without all these numbers. Perhaps you like Fable approach more, I listened they would have a dog instead of a stat screen. I wonder what would happen if it would become lost. ^_^

Of course games should be about choice, and there might be a little switch, in the options, with worlds: "show exact calculations".

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Original post by Raghar Quote: Original post by stimarco (For example, most computer RPGs make the mistake of simulating hardcore table-top RPGs to the letter. Never mind that the _only_ reason to have all those tiresome formulae and reams of stats in the original game in the first place was because humans had to do the number crunching themselves. Computers make that side utterly trivial, yet most RPG designers still stick rigidly to their conservative, traditional views of What An RPG Should Be. Why? Because of some misplaced view that The Stats Must Be Crunched, And Must Be Seen To Be Crunched? When did this requirement get carved in stone?) Now I wonder about what are you talking about. However using a rules from PnP RPG is actually great idea. These are often self consistent, and these were actually play tested. The problems with implementors is just, they don't read discussion about these rules, and they don't think too much about them either. These rules sometimes have a problems with them, for example DnD 3.5 edition has problems with dispel. Nothing forces implementors to implement, without thinking, a broken rule. There is nothing wrong with going into public library and create a some self consistent system yourself. I remember these hours I used Guinness book of records to derive a self consistent system, and do a factor analysis. Attributes characters, and interaction with environment are connected. RPGs are about interaction of characters with environment. Thus the numbers are crunched by the definition of RPG. Of course it's up to developers if they would show the numbers, or not. There are three types of RPGs. For entertainment only. (as a simple just for laugh, or whatever) Sandbox. RPG with great story. Sandbox requires very deep ruleset, and proper implementation of it, as it's about the freedom sandbox allows. RPGs with great story also needs detailed, and selfconsistent rulesystem. It prevents questions like why they didn't jumped out of that cliff, if they had ... From what I seen from the players, the main problems weren't with number crunching, at least if you talked to someone else than a person with attention span of ... , the main problems were with incomplete rule set and artificial restrictions. Inability of completing the quest as would the character want, was able to break immersion. Now some of RPG players are playing them for creating theirs own stories, not as an entertainment movie. If you will not show them what is happening behind the scenes, they might be disappointed. A sentence you missed by 2 is still much more clear than an animation of sword missing the head by 0.3 meter. As long as nobody would force a player to read the stats if you don't feel like so, it's fine. Otherwise he decided to play that game, so he would see some numbers. Both Disgaea and Ogre Tactic are games with great story, however both of them have incredible amount of stats, number crunching, looking at different variables and so on. I very doubt they will become much better without all these numbers. Perhaps you like Fable approach more, I listened they would have a dog instead of a stat screen. I wonder what would happen if it would become lost. ^_^ Of course games should be about choice, and there might be a little switch, in the options, with worlds: "show exact calculations".

Er, no. You missed my point.

Do you, personally, have a "+7 Writing Posts On A Forum" rating? Are you typing your words on a "+3 Keyboard Of Scrivening"? Is it fair to assign actual numbers to your abilities to sing, quaff ale, swing a sword or attract potential mates?

No.

That kind of statistic was invented purely because the nature of pen-and-paper RPGs requires quantifying _everything_. One of the biggest bugbears people have about RPGs is that they become an endless chore of cranking up these statistics. You hear this whinge year in, year out, and apparently, RPG designers never ever tire of that. I can only assume that CRPG designers actually measure their success by how many people complain about this in public forums.

Hell, even these forums echo to the wailings of people who wonder why their forum rating has just dropped. (Which is why I'd like to see the current, purely numerical, system replaced by something else.)

Now, I don't care for some of Molyneaux's game design tics, but he _does_ at least understand that the whole point of a computer is that it can do all that hard work for you. Since you are no longer having to fart about punching numbers into a calculator to work out whether you defeated the "+12 Master Sage Dragon" with your "+45 Diced Carrot of Painful Death", you no longer need to know about the numbers *at all*. They're not important. I'd even contend that they are usually detrimental.

An RPG should be about letting players _play a role_. Hence "Role-Playing Game". People don't carry slips of paper quantifying all their major attributes, so why bother showing this stuff to players in the game? Why should the player even have to care how the magic works, so long as it's consistent?

Once you realise that you don't need all those numbers, bar charts and the like, you can get down to the nitty gritty and make a game people actually play, rather than merely a jumped-up spreadsheet with delusions of grandeur.

The only place for the prettified spreadsheet is the football management sim genre.

For a game designer even if they don't actively take part in the programming of the game itself the ability to protoptype a concept seems like a advantage

though i might just suck at game design but of all the ideas i have prototyped about 9/10 iv ended up immediately throwing away.

especially if you recruit a team a prototype shows that your willing to put effort into the project and proves that your game concept is good,
Furthermore everyone say how there idea is the best thing ever but most of the time its seem its only good in there eyes because there too full of them selves to preform a objective analysis.
Just look at most of the mmo threads on permadeath and such,
trying to convince people that adding it isn't going to isntantly end grifeing and add role playing or that people aren't going to play your game the way you want just because you said so is like trying to convince a fish to breath out of water.

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Original post by stimarco Er, no. You missed my point. Do you, personally, have a "+7 Writing Posts On A Forum" rating? Are you typing your words on a "+3 Keyboard Of Scrivening"? Is it fair to assign actual numbers to your abilities to sing, quaff ale, swing a sword or attract potential mates? No.

You can have writing skill, with some rating. You can have also some level in writing talent. An attempt of writing a successful post would be done by:

roll against writing skill + talent - difficulty number (made from time you had to compose the post and difficulty of theme you are posting)

Yes these are hard numbers. These hard numbers however will not affect the decision to make a post, these will just affect the result of the decision.

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That kind of statistic was invented purely because the nature of pen-and-paper RPGs requires quantifying _everything_. One of the biggest bugbears people have about RPGs is that they become an endless chore of cranking up these statistics. You hear this whinge year in, year out, and apparently, RPG designers never ever tire of that. I can only assume that CRPG designers actually measure their success by how many people complain about this in public forums.

You can have a RPG based on dice rolls, or storyteller RPG. Even RPG dependent on dices allows all rolls to be done by GM without showing the results to player. The problem is a character would be able to guess how successful he was in his attempt, thus a character dice roll should be known. How would a player describe the result otherwise? A difference between rolling one and three is unambiguous. Saying you had a wonderful success, and you have excellent success might be misleading.

Yes there is a difference between RPGs that allows changes in the story, and a RPG that would have a problem with that. Both of these has high demands on GM, However the RPGs that allow randomness to be able to alter the story, requires an ability of improvisation from GM.

If you can't see the statistics, how would you be able to find what's happening in the game? In addition, you need to see some measure of progress.

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Hell, even these forums echo to the wailings of people who wonder why their forum rating has just dropped. (Which is why I'd like to see the current, purely numerical, system replaced by something else.)

These people would ramble even about non numerical system, when a rating is low, they feel unsafe and humiliated, when rating is high they feel proud. You have the same effect in majority of competitions. Of course a rating of each post would work better, because they would be able to see why theirs rating changed.

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Since you are no longer having to fart about punching numbers into a calculator to work out whether you defeated the "+12 Master Sage Dragon" with your "+45 Diced Carrot of Painful Death", you no longer need to know about the numbers *at all*. They're not important. I'd even contend that they are usually detrimental.

A large numbers were mainly introduced by Diablo 2 game. It was a result of the a/(a+b) system. A system based on a dices was very likely to stay with single digit bonuses, and different weapons would behave noticeably differently.

In a PnP RPGs +1 weapons were a very rare enchanted weapons. +2 were extremely rare weapons. Actually the +1 description was a result of scrying, not actual description from GM, the actual description would be magical sword. In current DnD and similar games, amount of magical weapons undergone a rapid inflation for no reason. You can see this effect in majority of MMORPGs, for example WoW. The players are just trying to find some equipment with high bonuses, and because they wanna make players more interested into play, they adds incredible amount of different weapons, and armor. It's vicious cycle, that has more with a collector type of game than a RPG.

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An RPG should be about letting players _play a role_. Hence "Role-Playing Game". People don't carry slips of paper quantifying all their major attributes, so why bother showing this stuff to players in the game? Why should the player even have to care how the magic works, so long as it's consistent? Once you realise that you don't need all those numbers, bar charts and the like, you can get down to the nitty gritty and make a game people actually play, rather than merely a jumped-up spreadsheet with delusions of grandeur. The only place for the prettified spreadsheet is the football management sim genre.

Term RPG describes a type of game where a world is affected by a character, thus only characters skills are important. It doesn't have something to do with movie, nor theater. It's a game between a sandbox, and a book.

In fact if you'd look at a few girls that are playing, you can easily guess which one is clumsy, which one is strong, and other attributes. BTW do you know ANY game with a character that has a paper that precisely describes his attributes?
Characters would be of course able to guess attributes of other people in the party. One lifted a rock without problem, the other was quite clumsy and few times hurt himself, the other was able to regenerate a wound in nearly no time. (They will however not use a numbers when they will talk about each other, they will say "strong as an ox", or lifted "300 kg boulder", or "he is stronger than xxx".)

An experience from PnP RPG showed, hiding the numbers will not make a RPG more interesting. If players don't like to participate in the story, numbers or lack of them will not change anything.