d20 As Design

[xiombarg]

Okay, since I'm also interested in "discussing d20 intelligently", I'm starting a thread on what I'm interested in.

I want to talk about d20 as a system design. In particular, I want to talk about its impact on game design overall and whether or not it's a good thing for us indie people. (My assertion is that it is a good thing -- see below.) Whether or not d20 is a good design or not is important to discussing this, but it's not the main issue. But we'll forgive you for rambling in that direction, as I'm about to. ;-D

Okay, this is my take on D20. D&D 3E is, bar none, the best version of D&D so far. It does Gamist D&D fantasy very, very well. And isn't that how we're supposed to judge things here on the Forge? Does it meet its design goals, and is it reasonably coherent? Hell, yes. Regardless, one of the reasons I like it is while "back to the dungeon" may be the marketing emphasis, the system can support other things as well.

Think about it. Let's look at the core of d20. Throw away your prejudices about levels, hit dice, and so on. Let's look at the big "innovation" of d20: the skill system.

Let's face it, the old AD&D skill system -- "nonweapon proficiencies" -- was a kludge to allow D&D characters to do non-combat things. It didn't work very well -- D&D characters were still largely a collection of combat abilities.

While D&D 3E may be all about going back to the dungeon and killing things, the fact of the matter is the skill system supports doing other things, and it supports it very, very well.

Frankly, it does this by introducing to D&D "innovations" that have been in other RPGs for a long time. John Wick complains about how nothing d20 does is new in an article in Campaign magazine, IIRC. Fine, d20 isn't as innovative as a lot of its boosters claim -- but let's look at the mechanic as a mechanic, thowing aside claims of innovation and our "levels suck" prejudices.

Basically, the task resolution system in d20 takes years of Sim/Gamist design and puts it into a nice, neat package. It's a basic "target level" system. The GM sets the Target Number using a basic set of guidelines, then the player rolls a d20, adds their attribute bonus and skill bonus, and if they beat or meet the TN, they succeed. Simple. Both attribute and skill are a factor.

If you aren't under pressure, you can "Take 10" -- assume you rolled a 10 on the die. IF you aren't under pressure and don't mind taking a long time, and are doing something where it's okay to try over and over again, you can "Take 20" and assume you rolled a 20 on the die.

Innovative? No. Good? YES. Okay, sure, there's a lot of variation in the d20, you might not like that. But if you don't mind that -- or if it fits well with what you're trying to do -- d20 contains an excellent, simple, tried-and-true task resolution mechanic.

And lots and lots of people are now familiar with it. Yeah, okay, we've heard all the arguments here on the Forge about the mainstream. But fact of the matter is, anyone you're likely to play with had likely played or will play D&D3E -- bringing in new players is fine, but there's something to be said for "old" players as well. As a designer, this is great, even if you only use one concept from d20. I can talk about something in another game and say "it's like taking 20" and eyes light up around the table and everyone in the play group knows what I'm talking about. And unlike comparing it to stuff in old editions of D&D, I'm actually comparting it to a reasonably "modern" mechanic. Sure, it's not The Pool. but, hell, it worked for Over the Edge, didn't it? That was just a dice pool totalled and compared against a TN.

Regardless of what you think about D&D fantasy, this is a good thing for designers. And the revent OGL games, where they've modified the game signifigantly, like Mutants and Masterminds and the Farscape RPG, have shown us the way.

If there is an element you like in d20, even if it's just the skill system or the Feats system, you can keep those elements and then modify the system to do what you want. Isn't this the ultimate "having your cake and eating it too"? You can still design the system to reward the kind of play you want, while using mechanisms people are already familiar with. (The most "D&D Fantasy" thing about D20 is the "kill things and take their stuff" orientation of the experience system. Fine, change it -- that's what d20 Cthulhu did.)

Indie designers should look beyond their prejudices and consider d20 -- like any other system, from The Pool to Paladin, to be a tool. If it does what you want, great. If it doesn't, can it be modified to do what you want? I mean, we're seeing this with The Riddle of Steel with discussions of using TROS in a modern-day setting -- why can't we view d20 in the same way?

Basically, it's my assertion that d20 is a design that we should be willing to add to our toolkit, and that several aspects of the design are good -- the skill mechanic is only one of them. If it doesn't do what one wants, fine -- design something else. But it's introduced several good system concepts (a clean task resolution mechanic, consistant math, a high roll is always better, etc.) to people who'd never seen that before, and even if you hate D&D you have to admit that's a positive impact on design.

I'm saying that "It's just like D&D, except..." can become a good phrase for talking to other roleplayers, rather than a stereotypically bad way of explaining roleplaying.

No, it's not the One True System. It does some things -- particularly in its most unmodified form -- very badly. But it's not the One True Evil, either -- d20 actually contains some solid design concepts. (Another example: There's nothing wrong with the attribute breakdown. Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. For a lot of design concepts (particularly Sim/Gamist ones), this attribute breakdown is perfectly fine.)

And, as an aside, d20 CAN lead players to other things. The clean-ness of D&D3E, compared to other incarnations of D&D, can be a starting point for going in another direction. My current group started out largely as people playing in my D&D3E Planescape campaign. Planescape, as a setting, had a lot of room for "out of the dungeon" non-Gamist play, and the system actually did an okay job of supporting this, especially once I tweaked the XP system. This let us discover and then focus in on the other, non-D&D stuff we liked. From there, we have played and enjoyed Wuthering Heights, InSpectres, OctaNe, Elfs, Donjon, The Pool and other indie games, and this has informed everyone's thinking about their gaming in a positive way -- and, as proof of D&D's flexibility, it's informed the way the group runs D&D3E. (In the upcoming Dragonstar game my friend Shawn is running, critical hits will give you, essentially, a Monologue of Victory, and all characters are to be described using the "three points of interest only" method from OctaNe...)

As another example, a recent Spycraft game had been useful for figuring out how interested we are in the spy genre, and what aspects of it we like -- even if we end up using a different system for it (which is what I hope happens) our familiarity with d20 made it easy to get in and play. From a design perspective, it lets you tinker with certain ideas (like the Requisition System in Spycraft, sort of an abstract Wealth mechanic) without having to re-invent the rest of the wheel. The fact that you may throw away the d20 aspects of it doesn't make d20 a bad thing.

[Valamir]

The core rules of 3e is by far the simpler than any of the AD&D variations.  Consolidating all of the disparate types of rolls (attack, saving throws, theif skills, attribute tests) into a single system was a much needed improvement.  As has been said...state of the art in 1987.  But you're right.  So the hype about innovative should be taken to mean "innovative to those who've been living under a rock for the last 10 years"...but since a huge portion of "gamers" fall into that category as far as their gaming experience goes its not that irrational a claim, and pretty irrelevant as to whether or not the system is good.

I particularly think the concept is decent.  I'd give it a 3 maybe 3 1/2 out of 5 stars on the system scale.  Detriments to me are the unnecessary (save for marketing reasons) conversion of a 3d6 score into a +/- modifier step and the tremendous variability of the d20.  The take 10 and take 20 rules are good.  They show someone was thinking...but again they are a kludge for a core die system that it too linear over too wide a range.  I've seen house rules that roll 3d6 instead of 1d20 (with corresponding tweaks to the critical rules) and that makes sense.  Personally I would have replaced take 10 with roll 3d20 and keep the median...and take 20 with roll 3d20 and keep the high...but I can see where this wouldn't go over well with the core audience.

Where D&D begins to fall down for me is the huge wealth of stuff that gets tacked on to this.  EVERY feat is a rules exception.  The best feats from a sanity standpoint are the ones that serve no function other than to make something possible that wasn't otherwise.  But many of the feats require you to learn an entire rules subsystem.  Cleave and GreatCleave is just one example.  Even if you just stick to WoTC products and eschew the numerous (oft munchkinized) add-ons the number of feats are astounding.  

I've played AD&D since 2nd grade.  I know how to throw a dozen orcs at a party, and to judge how rough a battle it will be.  But how do I judge as GM a party where the effectiveness of a 5th level fighter ranges from scrub to combat god depending on what feats he took (ok...true combat god status doesn't kick in until level 10 or 15...but these levels are eminently obtainable...have you seen the shear volume of ass whooping a 15th level fighter with the right feats can dish out?!)

But what's worse is as a GM I CAN'T simply throw a dozen orcs from a random encounter at the party.  The orcs have levels now...they have feats of their own.  The truely adept 3e GM can put together a 12 man orc death squad with feat combinations that compliment each other like some sort of Navy Seal Team.  

Can I do that...?  Do I have the time to master that much stuff, and that many permutations?  Would I WANT to take that much time?

Magic is even worse.  Its always been a huge pain in the ass.  I could never play a wizard effectively because I could never learn the effective use of more than the basic core spells.  A true AD&D wizard player can come up with all sorts of evil uses for magic.  Now there are magic feats that enable spells to be cast in less time...with or without components, more damage, etc, etc.  Making up the evil wizard NPC is a now a monumental task.  

In AD&D a 20th level evil wizard was as simple as looking up how many spells a 20th level wizard would have based on level and INT bonus, taking the standard selection of PHB party killer spells and multipling 20 by 3 or 3.5 to get HPs without rolling.  Everything else from thaco to saving throws involved just looking them up on a table.

Try that in 3e...no way...you might do it but he'd be an effective putz compared to what he COULD be if you feated him out right and new the best multiclassing path to take.

Its a nightmare of epic proportions for a casual DM...especially if you're not DMing casual players.  That's why D&D as a gateway game is an absolutely ridiculous concept.  There are few RPGs since the hey day of Chivalry and Sorcery and RoleMaster that are as up front intimidating to try to learn.  Its hard to be even a casual player in a party of masters...your character will always be about 30-40% (at least) behind in effectiveness.  "That was stupid...since you didn't take Feat X at level 3 you won't be able to get the A-B combo now until 12th level...that really sucks"

So when all is said and done.  AD&D with its crazy inverted AC scale, arcane thaco calculations, saving throws that rolled opposite from hit rolls, and thiefs skills based on % for no good reason whatsoever...is actually a HELL of a lot easier to play than 3e.  Or at least a hell of alot easier to play well.  You can play 3e just to play it...but to play it well you need a masters degree in min-maxology.

[xiombarg]

So when all is said and done.  AD&D with its crazy inverted AC scale, arcane thaco calculations, saving throws that rolled opposite from hit rolls, and thiefs skills based on % for no good reason whatsoever...is actually a HELL of a lot easier to play than 3e.  Or at least a hell of alot easier to play well.  You can play 3e just to play it...but to play it well you need a masters degree in min-maxology.

I agree, but only for certain values of "play". It's notable that all of your examples involve combat. It's tougher to just throw a combat at a group in 3E, which is ironic given the "back to the dungeon" thing. (Frankly, I think this was a secret trick on the part of Jonathan Tweet -- making planning a combat encounter so hard that only the diehard grognards will do it.) But for anything non-combat, d20 beats AD&D hands down -- try to build a competent character capable of winning a dancing contest at, say, fourth level under AD&D, who is materially better than someone who just has a high Dexterity.

The problem you refer to is, ironically, a result of all the extra options that players and GMs have now. (Note: You can still just throw generic orcs at people. I've done it. Isn't THAT hard. Just becaue you CAN give the orcs levels doesn't mean you HAVE to. Ditto any other monster with a high CR.) And the reason it's so hard to create an NPC on the fly is everything is so path dependant now -- what can do at level 12 is materially affected by decisions you made at level 4.

This is good and bad. It's good in that it's generally balanced and give a lot of player control and options, and nice crunchy bits to boot. It's bad, generally, for the DM.

Well, frankly, this is the stuff that an indie designer can rip out. Imagine a version of d20 without levels, where you use XP White Wolf style to buy skills, Feats, attribute increases, whatever. (Maybe you need some sort of XP-linked, neo-level like cap on skills for "game balance". Maybe not.) We're groping in that direction now with stuff like Mutants and Masterminds... and the first game to do this successfully is going to have a solid, well-tested mechanic to build on top of. Again, in this sense, I see this as a positive thing for designers, as d20 gives a less broken system to refer to as a baseline than D&D.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Damn it, Kirt, you've uncovered my secret plans for Narr20. Arg. (I'm keeping levels, though.)

[xiombarg]

Damn it, Kirt, you've uncovered my secret plans for Narr20. Arg. (I'm keeping levels, though.)

LOL... I thought those were your secret plans for Donjon d20, aka "As Ironic as a Coming Full Circle Can Get".

[C. Edwards]

xiombarg wrote:

Well, frankly, this is the stuff that an indie designer can rip out. Imagine a version of d20 without levels, where you use XP White Wolf style to buy skills, Feats, attribute increases, whatever.

This may interest you http://www.netflash.net/llanade/redleafgames/dliberation20.php

The D(Liberation)20 system is a classless method of character creation for the D20 system where all the major facets of a D20 character are broken down into Feats.

I'm afraid that nostalgia clouds my thoughts so much when it comes to discussing any version of DnD that I find myself at a loss.  I always start drifting of into daydreams where Elf and Dwarf are classes and The Caves of Chaos are the only rpg lovin that I need.  So I'll leave this discussion to clearer heads.

-Chris

[contracycle]

Well, frankly, this is the stuff that an indie designer can rip out. Imagine a version of d20 without levels, where you use XP White Wolf style to buy skills, Feats, attribute increases, whatever.

So what?  This is like trying to ship a fridge on the basis that, with the right home modifications, you could turn it into an oven.  A system which needs this degree of modification is not Good.  As has been pointed out at tiresome length, this is a very elderly argument advanced in D&D's defence, and it has been thoroughly debunked.  I do not wish to pay for a system that I would then need to modify to such a degree.  If I were willing to invest that work, then I would simply build my own system.  If I were not willing to invest that work, then I would rrather purchase a system that did what I wanted it to do.  This argument is special pleading; surely excatly the samge argument can be advanced for GURPS; you too could take that system and slash the hell out of it, rewrite whole chunks, and then play.  In fact, is there ANY system ever published that could NOT be so mutilated?

Lastly, the appeal to the fact that d20 is now qwuite widely known is not germane.  That is an argument about the social context in which d20 appears, and has no relevance to whether or not d20 is a GOOD design.

[Valamir]

Just to be clear...since my post was rather negative.  I actually LIKE the d20 system alot.  I like where it goes and mostly how it gets there.  It quite probably would have been my favorite game in 1987 when we still got together for monster 10 hour game sessions every week and hacked through every creature in the Monster Manual.

I just don't have the time to invest in a game like D&D3e these days.  While I agree Xi that you COULD throw generic orks at a party, there's something unsatisfying to me about only using half of a system's potential.  D&D is a game to which there is very little point in playing it (vs some other game using a similiar setting) unless you're going to strive to be good at it.  And it just takes too much effort to get good at it.  But unlike say...Go...or even chess, the effort isn't one of "simple to learn, lifetime to master".  Rather the shear volume of information makes learning it a enormous task.

I wonder how many people who play 3e regularly actually do it "right"...meaning that the orc shaman has all of the appropriate class trappings and feats for an orc shaman...or if most players tend to abbreviate it because it is so complex.

[b_bankhead]

For the most part I think D&D3E is a complete mess! While there are many elements that are improvements (unified experience,unified mechanic for saves and so on...) overall the system is simply too bloated and complicated.
       They are trying to please to many people with the system.  They want to have many of the doodads of a 'modern' system (e.g. Champions ca. 1981) but they can't leave behind the tropes that made it D&D.  So they have symply piled more and more subsytems onto the old base system.  This has exponentially increased the complexity far beyond any advantages gained from the other genuine improvements.  Anyone who says D&D3e is simple should be read out of the discussion(as should anyone who say its for 'casual gamers or non-gamers).  The idea of D&D as simple is based on the nostalgia of the 3 brown books and 5 supllements, or the Little red book and its supplements.  The monstrosity that is has become bears little real resemblance to this. If I were going to use a D&D like system I'd rather dig out my old ARDUIN books or go on ebay and try to find actual D&D gamebooks.  The present version offers nothing over these but layers of excessive complexity.

 For me the biggest argument against the system is that I am simply not prepared to subject myself to all the travails of gamemastering and bookeeping for such a pointlessly complex system.  I know from experience good roleplaying can be done with less than a tenth of the rules of this thing so why even consider using it?  In my area the rpg  crowd is so depleted by cards and Warhammer that there is virtually no market for anything other than bad fantasy D&D and since I have no use for that, there is no reason to buy the game. Non D&D D20 is virtually non-existent too... I think most of those Spycraft books are sitting on shelves. If I do manage to created a new rpg culture for myself, its certainly not going to be based on game sets with page counts higher that DUNE.

[xiombarg]

If I'm skipping over some of your points here, Val and Gareth, it's because you were right. ;-D

Lastly, the appeal to the fact that d20 is now qwuite widely known is not germane. That is an argument about the social context in which d20 appears, and has no relevance to whether or not d20 is a GOOD design.

You're right, I'm drifting my own topic, my bad.

However, I do still think viewing d20 as a toolkit is a useful idea (and it's true of GURPS as well, as you say), but I think it's not germane to the topic. (Tho I think it's somewhat germane in that "slashed" versions of d20 ARE coming out... but they should probably be considered as seperate designs and not so much as part of d20 "proper".)

I just don't have the time to invest in a game like D&D3e these days.  While I agree Xi that you COULD throw generic orks at a party, there's something unsatisfying to me about only using half of a system's potential.  D&D is a game to which there is very little point in playing it (vs some other game using a similiar setting) unless you're going to strive to be good at it.  And it just takes too much effort to get good at it.  But unlike say...Go...or even chess, the effort isn't one of "simple to learn, lifetime to master".  Rather the shear volume of information makes learning it a enormous task.

I don't think it's as enormous as you think. This is speaking as someone who's run D&D 3E since it came out and doesn't dedicate a LOT of time to it. (Tho more than I've had to for other games, I'll admit.) Just having some well-designed NPCs, like the ones in the DMG, goes a long way toward eliminating this problem -- just modify the stats according to race and go.

To bring this back to a good design/bad design issue, I think, as I sort of hinted at before I got off track, that it's a trade-off. The options and path dependencies make it hard for the GM to create a NPC on the fly, but they give a lot of player freedom and options, a sort of Gamist protraganism -- in a lot of ways, players can now build what they want.

I don't think that aspect is a great design, but I don't think it's a bad one either. I think it evens out. More options for the player, more work for the GM.

Also, tho this is bordering on another "social" issue, I don't feel I have to use the full "potential" of the sytem. When I have time, I can trick things out. When I don't, I can just use generic orcs and the NPCs from the DMG.

I wonder how many people who play 3e regularly actually do it "right"...meaning that the orc shaman has all of the appropriate class trappings and feats for an orc shaman...or if most players tend to abbreviate it because it is so complex.

I can only speak to my experience, but I do it "right" (in your sense) about... 1/5 of the time. Another 2/5 of the time I use the NPCs in the DMG with some modification, as a shortcut.

This drifts into "social" issues -- hmmm, perhaps I should split this off into a seperate thread -- but a lot of times, people have done the work for me. I can get NPCs by the fistful because D&D is so popular, and use those with slight modification.

Is that a good design? No. Relying on a game's popularity is not a good design, tho if any game can get away with it, it's D&D. But, as I said, it's not a bad design either, IMHO. It's got a lot of pros and cons to it. And like any design, it's just something you need to remember before you use it. I certainly don't think anyone who doesn't want to run d20 because of the prep time is wrong for deciding not to use d20... I think they're quite properly understanding a particular design decision that was made by the d20 people (player options are more important than ease of GM prep) and deciding that said design doesn't work for them. (Just like I wouldn't use OctaNe to run a compicated tale of court intrigue...)

[Edited to attribute quotes correctly.]

[Bankuei]

I have a love/hate relationship with D20.  It makes my inner gamist smile, with all the happy little doodads and crunchy bits, the leveling up, etc.  But, on the other hand, I couldn't see myself playing a campaign of it.  I also couldn't see myself ever really trying to figure out attacks of opportunity, or counting squares with minitures, or using them anything more than to go"Hah HAh! Whack!"(knocks over the orc model).  

My biggest issue of D&D demanding too much time isn't even in the prep(which is quite a bit anyway), but if I want to see my character go from Frodo to Gandalf, that's oh, 20 levels, which is a few years of play.   I don't really want to do all that.

I think the biggest mistake that WOTC is having is that they were hoping to be able to make D&D work like Magic or Pokemon.  But the time it takes to learn the rules, set up a game, the length of time commitment(10-30 minutes vs. hours of play over the course of months, perhaps years), makes D&D a hard choice for folks to just "hop into".

As far as the feats go, they're the greatest strength of perviness.  They're the equivalent of special cards in Magic, so the strategy in even developing your character becomes intense.  It was a very good gamist decision on their part.

Chris

[Clinton R. Nixon]

My biggest issue of D&D demanding too much time isn't even in the prep(which is quite a bit anyway), but if I want to see my character go from Frodo to Gandalf, that's oh, 20 levels, which is a few years of play.   I don't really want to do all that.

The best two rules tweaks I've found for d20:
1) Start your characters at a level different than 1st if you want to for the campaign.
2) If applicable, have all characters go up one level at the end of every adventure.

[damion]

What always got me about D20 was the sheer volume of special cases, some things were unified, but the feat system makes up for all of them.  The never fixed the spell system, since every spell is essentailly a special case, and there is no real consistency in them, other than bigger is better. Then only correlation I can think of in another system is picking skills and ads/disads in grurps. (Ok, there's 20 PAGES of these things?)  Maybe we need  a thread on how to organize games.

[Bankuei]

Thanks Clinton, although I always start at least 4th level in the games anyway.  

The biggest concern is that the gamist joy of earning the xp is diminished with the "instant level up" bonus.  Granted, I usually up the xp rate anyway, just because I believe that folks should level up once a session, or at least every other one, but it still requires a bit of time.  

One of the big things about D&D because it does play into power fantasies and strategic planning, is that you are almost always thinking 3 levels ahead, and fantasizing 10 levels beyond that.  One of the big satisfactions is watching your no-name not shit guy reach the point where he bitch slaps dragons.  You could say it feeds into the "picked on kid becomes buffed" fantasy of going from weak to mighty.

I'm not saying that all games have to watch characters climb 10+ levels, but from my personal experience and gamist bias, its more fun when it does happen.  Funny enough, the game that I've found that fufills my inner gamist far better than D&D is a Final Fantasy homebrew called Zodiac(http://www14.brinkster.com/zodiacrpg)  which literally sucked me and a few of my friends into a marathon entire weekend of gaming that normally I'm not down for.  There is some sort of sick glee that kicks in when you have to agonize over picking power A or power B for each level.

Chris

[wyrdlyng]

Well, like Val did, let's consider looking at this one piece at a time. d20 is made up of a lot of parts welded together.

The Core mechanic roll a d20 and add modifier to beat a Target Number is simple and clean. Whether or not you find a d20 to be too variable is another issue and touches upon personal taste.

Character attributes remain on the same scale (3-18, roughly) as old D&D, though for no real purpose since the modifier is the most essential portion. The system could have and can be converted to a simple + or - with 0 as average scale similar to Silhouette.

Skills are a good addition but also mixed. The skills themselves vary between specific and abstract and are constantly expanded upon with new supplements. Perhaps choosing one direction or another would work better. The other problem is the cludge of non-class skills. 1/2 points are not intuitive and there could be a better way to present the difference in training and proficiency.

The Level system is streamlined with only 1 experience table and serves well the gamist purpose of simple difficulty comparison.

The Classes are again a mix of good and bad. They vary from generic and open concepts (Fighter) to more specialized instances (Paladin). Again, choosing either generic, customizable classes or numerous, specific classes would have been better.

Feats are a good idea. They allow character customization but many are not well-balanced or conceived and some become staples of PCs. Feats and Classes could have been better integrated to allow Feats to turn your Fighter into a Paladin or to add personlized touches to your Burglar.

Combat... combat is very complex. Positioning and exact distance calculations become cumbersome. Calculating Attacks of Opportunity and their numerous triggers adds another level to an already slow system. Armor Class is simplified but still dangling inbetween specific and abstract (the heavier the armor, the harder you are to hit?). The same goes for Hit Points. The revised Saves however are very simplified.

Magic is a freaking mess. The spells are all over the place in regards to functionality and utility and there is little to no effort to put any kind of thematic links in place. You can have a Wizard with Scare, Melph's Acid Arrow and Detect Invisiblity. Magic is little more than a list of cool powers. Additionally, many spells have their own subrules which only add to the level of complication.

So as a whole, d20 looks like a design by comittee. The individual components vary in simplicity and there is very little "unified integration" between them. It has some good parts and some not so good parts but lacks a cohesive feel between them.

How's that?