Concept Shoehorning

As we discussed last week, versatility is a very important aspect of a gaming system.  The ability to build a character to perform in the way the player envisions is vital to maintaining the player's interest and enjoyment of the game.  Rather than embrace a fluid, versatile character creation system, other games are built with a rigid progression chart, forcing the player to "make their idea fit" a pre-constructed mold.  This is because of a current "opinion" that in order to create a versatile system requires increasing levels of complexity.  This is reflected in the way many game systems go about constructing the different types of classes/professions.  So let's start talking about how this philosophy came to be so wide spread.

When RPGs were originally created, the classes (which have now become "archetypes") were built to fill a specific role and so there was no need for the versatility that differentiates Bob the fighter from John the fighter.  This was not a major issue, since the game was a new idea and with any fresh idea, it tends to be rough.  Dungeon & Dragons 2nd edition introduced the concept of weapon and non-weapon proficiencies in order to provide a way for the player to create "individualized" characters, even though this aspect of the game was optional, and the system really didn't allow one rogue to be 'much' different from another rogue.  The next evolution came with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons 3.x edition, however rather than formulate a new way to build a character, they continued the process of creating classes to represent character concepts, they just added skills and feats, which...in order to be useful, you had to fill nearly all of them with pre-determined choices, effectively making you feel like Bob and John were different, but ultimately, they were nearly identical.  Of course, 4th edition continues this same mistake, they just disguised it better.

This mechanic of creating classes that represent character concepts, rather than just creating mechanics with which to build, is still present today in Pathfinder RPG.  Although this game system is a giant leap forward from the previous edition, it still forces the player to create a character according to the concept presented, effectively shoehorning the player's imagination.  This is readily apparent in the "archetypes" where they attempt to create "spins" on the traditional class in order to better fit a player's concept, but unfortunately fall flat in attempting to mimic their purpose.  A majority of those archetypes are not nearly as well constructed as the base class, and have the appearance of being slapped together at the last minute in order to try and interest the player in a variant that is closer to what they had 'originally imagined but could not create before'. 

So, over the past 20 years, most game creators have said that the more versatility there is, the tougher it is to balance each of the classes/professions primarily due to the fact that they keep creating concepts rather than creating mechanics.  Regardless of how well designed it is, if you create a class/profession to mimic a concept, it will forever be the AUTHOR'S concept and not the PLAYER'S concept.  This is fantastic if you create a class to emulate Conan, and there is a player that wants to play Conan.  But what about the player who wants to play a different type of barbarian?  One of the shining examples of how simplicity and versatility can merge together is Mutants and Masterminds.  This is a wonderful system that allows the player to create the exact image they have in mind for their character.  But this system has other drawbacks that will be the discussion of later blog entries.

 

I have found that in many instances, complexity is a self-creating.  The author of a system will start off with one concept, and then continue to add to it as the author progresses, all the while creating a more and more complex system that is built like a Jenga puzzle.  Pull out one piece and the whole tower can crumble.  I have strived to break away from this design flaw and stick to a simple set of mechanics, that a player can manipulate to create, from the start, a character they are excited to play, and not have to wait until they are level 12 or level 20 in order to get an ability that "defines" their character.  This simple set of mechanics allows a player to create that Half-Demon Unicorn Cleric/Rogue Anthromorph that can make a GM's head hurt just trying to figure out how to construct in other systems.