TFT Game Design Issues

[tbeard1999]

This post was triggered by a reply I made in another thread.

Because we're all givers, we've very generously given Steve Jackson our advice on all the things in TFT that he needs to address. I'm sure he'll find some way to show his gratitude to us for such selflessness :D

However, we should bear in mind that time is a limited resource. Mr. Jackson, like all game designers, has a finite amount of time and energy to devote to this project. My guess is that he'll devote far more time and energy than can be economically justified, but the point remains.

A serious challenge for game designers is that good rules for typical cases very often don't work so well for extreme cases. (In the law, we say "hard cases make bad law").

The old Space Gamer feature "Murphy's Rules" highlighted this issue. And tellingly, many of the games mentioned were generally considered to be very good games.

Anyhow, the reverse is often true as well - rules that handle extreme and unlikely cases often work poorly for typical cases.

There's also a related problem - "writing rules by anecdote". We ran into that a lot on A Fistful of TOWs. The problem is that anecdotes are largely unverifiable and usually contradictory with other anecdotes. Our solution was to simply exclude anecdotes and require credible, written evidence before changing or adding a rule. And in general, we designed for typical cases. We also focused the most design energy on the most important (as we saw it) parts of the game - the combat system in FFT's case. Everything else was ruthlessly abstracted. The less important, the more the abstraction generally.

My point is that we can provide the most serious benefit by identifying the genuinely serious problems with TFT. Trivial or low probability issues just create background noise, though they are often fun to cuss and discuss. Besides, many of these issues (like absurdly high attributes) can easily be solved by a good GM, if he finds it a problem.

I don't mean to criticize any of the discussions here. But I, for one, will try to assess the importance of TFT changes that I suggest and state that in my post.

Just remember - every rules change will probably be evaluated and playtested. This takes time. We shouldn't expect Mr. Jackson to simply take our word that a particular rule change or new rule works great. So every change or new rule probably pushes back the day we get the new TFT.

[JLV]

"...require credible, written evidence..."

I'll just say that in some cases, when dealing with a FANTASY role-playing game, you're going to find it very hard to maintain that standard. Is Dracula more "credible" than Interview With a Vampire or the St. Germain chronicles with regard to what vampires are, and what their weaknesses/strengths are? Why? Who gets to determine what version of a Gryphon is more credible than another?

I understand your intent here -- that combat should be more or less coherent with physical reality as we understand it. However, I for one, would be extremely displeased if everything beyond combat were "ruthlessly abstracted."

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by JLV

"...require credible, written evidence..."

I'll just say that in some cases, when dealing with a FANTASY role-playing game, you're going to find it very hard to maintain that standard. Is Dracula more "credible" than Interview With a Vampire or the St. Germain chronicles with regard to what vampires are, and what their weaknesses/strengths are? Why? Who gets to determine what version of a Gryphon is more credible than another?

I understand your intent here -- that combat should be more or less coherent with physical reality as we understand it. However, I for one, would be extremely displeased if everything beyond combat were "ruthlessly abstracted."

Of course, we were dealing with a modern game of mostly hypothetical combat. Somewhat different from fantasy...at least we knew things like the mass of an M-1 or the horsepower of its engine. I wasn't really thinking about the nature of fantastic creations, though. The primary written sources are varied and often violently disagree with each other. And I'd wouldn't talk very long to someone who claimed to be a vampire...

Every fantasy RPG game designer has to reconcile contradictory sources on creatures, deities, etc.

I was referring to factual assertions made by people based on personal experience. In FFT's case it was things like "we were told that the M1's armor couldn't be penetrated by the XYZ system". Typically followed by someone who swore that they saw an M1 penetrated by that system.

With fantasy RPGs, SCA members often use anecdotes to argue for rule changes/additions. It's a free country of course. But everyone evaluates their personal experiences subjectively and there's no guarantee that the evaluations are objectively accurate. And even if they are, the experience may not be representative of the majority of cases. Indeed, that's a big problem with anecdotes. They're often remembered precisely because they're so unusual. So at the very least, I'd require multiple credible, corroborating anecdotes before changing the rules.

EDIT - I should add that the designer is well within his rights to use his own experiences as a guide. After all, the game itself is really nothing more than the designer's subjective view of a topic. Besides, it's good to be the designer. :)

In addition, game designers have to evaluate a rule's overall effect on the game. Abstraction/simplification of minor matters is often required for playability of major matters.

An example of "designing for typical cases" - FFT has a maximum range for tank guns. Yet we are aware of verified incidents where longer ranged shots were made. The problem is that these occurrences are extraordinarily rare and FFT uses a d6 to resolve hits. We'd need a d100,000 to account for event which will matter in only 1 game in 1,000 or so. So we don't allow such shots in FFT. A combat system that allowed this would prove very cumbersome in the other 99.9%+ of cases.

An example of "ruthless abstraction" - The FFT artillery system abstracts most aspects of calling in an artillery barrage - spotting, communicating, firing, observing where the first shot hit, calling in the correction, etc. At the end of the day, FFT player want to command tanks on the table, not artillery batteries. So the artillery generally arrives when it should and mostly acts like it should. But FFT doesn't simulate the major problems encountered by an artillery battalion commander; that's not its focus. We did a worse job simulating the problems of a signals officer. Yet the command and control system yields very reasonable results.

And regarding "ruthless abstraction", I didn't mean that we abstracted everything to the same degree. ALL games require abstraction to work. Think of abstractions in the TFT damage system for instance.

What I meant was that the less important something was, generally the more abstractly and simply it was treated.

TFT also did this - the combat rules in Advanced Melee take up about 1/4 of the total pages in the game system. Yet the rules for jobs take up only a page or so (and were considered very detailed for the time). Spells and talents have detailed descriptions, while rules for languages have only a couple of paragraphs. Hand to hand combat is highly detailed, while mounted combat is more abstracted. Etc.

To me, that's the mark of a good game design. Anyone can write a rule for everything. The hard part is deciding what to detail and what to abstract. And to what degree.

So I guess I'm arguing that we bear in mind the difference between "important" issues and "trivial" or highly unlikely issues. I would want Mr. Jackson to focus most of his time and energy on the major things and not get bogged down with rules that won't matter to most players and GMs. Even if they would matter to me.

[Dave Crowell]

I suppose one of the first questions to answer is "What sort of a game is TFT primarily? It is a board game of individual combat (both melee and wizard combats), it is also a rules light role playing game.

Would it be best served by writing extended and more detailed rules for combat and all the various environments, weapons, and special cases combat can bring? Should it instead focus on all the out of combat stuff, skills, jobs, interpersonal relations, exploration, realm building and management, etc?

I think most of us will say the answer is "a bit of both". But where should Steve draw the lines?

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Dave Crowell

I suppose one of the first questions to answer is "What sort of a game is TFT primarily? It is a board game of individual combat (both melee and wizard combats), it is also a rules light role playing game.

There's no "also" to it. It's two different games that happen to share a system. The board game of individual arena combat is different from the roleplaying game. To some extent, even a series of one-shot arena combats is different from an arena combat campaign game.

Would it be best served by writing extended and more detailed rules for combat and all the various environments, weapons, and special cases combat can bring? Should it instead focus on all the out of combat stuff, skills, jobs, interpersonal relations, exploration, realm building and management, etc?

The roleplaying game needs all of that stuff, while the arena combat game doesn't. Neither of these is the "true" TFT...

[Steve Jackson]

In my own opinion: what Chris said.

And in fact there is material in "Advanced Melee," in particular, that I think should have gone into ITL.