The existence of "traps" in advancement. A problem?

[DavidBVal]

The other thread about useless spells, made me think, in general, about all useless powers/skills you can actually have in many RPGs. Supposing enough "good" advancement options exist, is it a problem if a RPG system offers a few of the so-called "traps"? ( i.e, terrible character advancement options, even if sometimes they look good.)

An example often mentioned are the feats in 3.5 that offer a +2 to a skill. Other examples are spells, which lack an apparent practical use.

IMHO: they're fine, I even like the fact they're there. A game isn't better or worse balanced simply because a game has "traps"; it only means players and DM should do their homework. Not to mention pure roleplay usage (especially in PnP, oc), or the fact that maybe there's an unexpected use for that "lame" spell, which even goes beyond what designers had in mind.

 

[Nael]

In PnP, sure. But in a cRPG? Don't fucking waste my precious time.

 

[Excidium II]

The mark of an imbecile designer. Nobody who isn't a cretin is going to put straight-up bad choices in game. You design rules for people to make use of, if you can't see it being optimal in any circumstance then don't put it in.

 

[felipepepe]

Shit options are shit, especially when due to poor design / balance - You create a character specialized in Katanas, then find out that there are no magical katanas in the game...

But careful not to bundle them together with bizarre or unconventional options.

For example - Dark Souls has weapons that are far weaker than others, but they allow for different playstyles & challenges. Those aren't "traps", more like self-imposed challenges.

Same thing in Arcanum / Fallout - making dumb characters that can barely speak isn't a trap, but a different challenge altogether.

 

[Tigranes]

Does anybody ever actually design such traps on purpose? Nobody sets out saying "let's make this skill kind of shit." I'm sure every developer in the world would like all the choices offered to be interesting (which is not the same as 'equal', 'cos that's impossible). It's just that you end up with some shitty options, and sometimes it comes down to small, late-development changes (you change one attribute the last week, makes x skill not cost-efficient).

The only thing you can do is just keep trying to make things interesting enough to be alluring at each stage of development. And ideally taht means both what felipepepe mentioned and straight-up number jiggling.

 

[Excidium II]

Does anybody ever actually design such traps on purpose? Nobody sets out saying "let's make this skill kind of shit." I'm sure every developer in the world would like all the choices offered to be interesting (which is not the same as 'equal', 'cos that's impossible). It's just that you end up with some shitty options, and sometimes it comes down to small, late-development changes (you change one attribute the last week, makes x skill not cost-efficient).

Ok, let us be fair and assume pure welll-intentioned incompetence.

 

[Carrion]

Completely useless stuff is shit design. Every skill, attribute, ability, spell, perk etc. should be potentially useful, even if it's somewhat obscure or only comes in handy in very specific circumstances (and discovering the unconventional stuff can often be extremely satisfying, even if most players will rather go for something completely different). However, I do think it's okay for a game to have terrible builds, poor combinations of skills or powers and so on, because stupid players also deserve to be punished. If you create a weak, slow nerd character and then decide that his weapon of choice should be a sledgehammer, it's all on you, but it's still nice to have that choice. It can also make for an interesting playthrough like felipepepe mentioned.

 

[Ellef]

Careful, down this path leads Sawyerism.

I look at Dark Souls for great weapon balance: A bunch of roughly equivalent weapons that play in different ways, some unconventional weapons that are weaker but fun, and some joke weapons that are very obviously traps that you upgrade asap or make youtube videos showing how good you are (broken dagger)

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Does anybody ever actually design such traps on purpose?

 

[lurker3000]

This thread title was totally misleading.

 

[Night Goat]

Fuck trap options. I just want to immerse myself in a game without having to alt-tab to gamefaqs or a wiki and make sure I'm not gimping myself.

 

[lurker3000]

An example often mentioned are the feats in 3.5 that offer a +2 to a skill. Other examples are spells, which lack an apparent practical use.

In PnP, sure. But in a cRPG? Don't fucking waste my precious time.

And there is the crux of it. In PnP there are typically so many more options that nothing can be considered completely useless. That +2 to a skill might be crucial to a player about to retire. There are no useless spells in PnP. You just have to find a way to use them.

In cRPGs its a lot different. If you are using a well-know system like DnD you can put everything in but everyone will know whats a trap. If you are making your own system then putting shit skills in is a bad idea. I cannot remember what it was but my PC in PoE took some perk that I didn't realize was worthless until a level or two later. Game was so easy it didn't matter but it bothered me every time I leveled.

 

[Ellef]

Who honestly cares about balance in PnP though. At worst, your DM can incorporate more underwater basket weaving tournaments to accommodate your characters speciality.

 

[ColCol]

Does anybody ever actually design such traps on purpose? Nobody sets out saying "let's make this skill kind of shit." I'm sure every developer in the world would like all the choices offered to be interesting (which is not the same as 'equal', 'cos that's impossible). It's just that you end up with some shitty options, and sometimes it comes down to small, late-development changes (you change one attribute the last week, makes x skill not cost-efficient).

The only thing you can do is just keep trying to make things interesting enough to be alluring at each stage of development. And ideally taht means both what felipepepe mentioned and straight-up number jiggling.

Monty Cook

 

[upwardlymobile]

in numenera? elaborate pls

 

[octavius]

HoMM 2, having to choose between Eagle Eye and Estates (or Navigation on a map with no sea) for your main hero.

 

[Xathrodox86]

HoMM 2, having to choose between Eagle Eye and Estates (or Navigation on a map with no sea) for your main hero.

They've also sucked in HoMM 3, unless you've played the Wake of Gods mod in which they were actually pretty decent.

Anyway Deus Ex had swimming. I don't know a single person who took it in their build.

 

[T. Reich]

Fuck trap options. I just want to immerse myself in a game without having to alt-tab to gamefaqs or a wiki and make sure I'm not gimping myself.

Diablo 3?

 

[T. Reich]

Path of Exile devs have stated that some of shitty item mods and passives to choose from exist specifially because if you don't have anything "bad", how do you know something is "good"?

Anyways, RPGs (and also strategy games of various sorts) are all about systems and cerebral gameplay, so it makes some sense that they may and maybe even should have some deliberately inferior choices that could gimp the ignorant. conversely, that means that insightful, smart players are rewarded for playing the system.

Now, in purely action games, any "trap" options ARE kind of stupid, because those games aren't about utilising systems to facilitate gameplay, that's whay they're "action" games in the first place.

And, of course, having absolutely useless (as in can't affect anything in the game but still exist there for some reason) skills in RPG is a sure sign of bad game design. There's difference with encouraging thoughtful advancement and bad design resulting in unplayable options.

 

[Gord]

Anyway Deus Ex had swimming. I don't know a single person who took it in their build.

I think I took swimming once out of curiosity. Helps reaching a few places, but those can be reached in other ways usually.


Realms of Arkania has been mentioned already. That game had several skills and spells (copied over from the PnP rules) that didn't have a use in the game. It did also have one or two that seemed useless but actually were quite helpful at some point in the trilogy. Without some meta-knowledge of the game, chances were good that you ended up with some "bad" choice (horse riding anyone?).
On the other hand, the games were not that demanding in terms of stats, so it's probably no big deal.
AFAIK the reason for keeping them was also that the devs wanted to give the players the possibility to directly use their heroes for additional PnP adventures.

 

[DavidBVal]

Shit options are shit, especially when due to poor design / balance - You create a character specialized in Katanas, then find out that there are no magical katanas in the game...

But careful not to bundle them together with bizarre or unconventional options.

Yes, you nailed it with this distinction. Weapon specialization via skills/feats/whatever to only later find out there aren't any good ones, is plain bad design. And, sadly, very common too. Happens in nearly every game where you can specialize in weapon types.

However, I believe when a certain option is giving you all the information you need, then it is not bad design. the +2 feats are a good example... you know what you're buying, fair and square.

And in defense of bizarre variety of powers, even those +2 feats are useful in some contexts, just not in the NWN/NWN2 official campaign. Dungeons and Dragons is a broad system, supposed to fit a variety of different game styles, and official DnD games are supposed to incorporate as much of the ruleset as possible, so leaving out such feats would have been weird. And a mistake, as they can be useful in custom content. I had a lot of fun playing on a NWN2 server which was roleplay-centered, and used the L5 system (capped at level 5, and you can buy feats with XP) and in that case, those feats could be useful.

 

[DavidBVal]

This thread title was totally misleading.

 

[thesheeep]

Shit options are shit, especially when due to poor design / balance - You create a character specialized in Katanas, then find out that there are no magical katanas in the game...

But careful not to bundle them together with bizarre or unconventional options.

For example - Dark Souls has weapons that are far weaker than others, but they allow for different playstyles & challenges. Those aren't "traps", more like self-imposed challenges.

Same thing in Arcanum / Fallout - making dumb characters that can barely speak isn't a trap, but a different challenge altogether.

Very true.

In addition to that, I would say that the nature of an option being "bizarre" or not should not be communicated directly.
Of course, the effects of an option should be communicated clearly in most games, but figuring out what is very useful always and what isn't should be the job of the player, as figuring that out should be a rewarding experience.

 

[HotSnack]

The other thread about useless spells, made me think, in general, about all useless powers/skills you can actually have in many RPGs. Supposing enough "good" advancement options exist, is it a problem if a RPG system offers a few of the so-called "traps"? ( i.e, terrible character advancement options, even if sometimes they look good.)

An example often mentioned are the feats in 3.5 that offer a +2 to a skill. Other examples are spells, which lack an apparent practical use.

IMHO: they're fine, I even like the fact they're there. A game isn't better or worse balanced simply because a game has "traps"; it only means players and DM should do their homework. Not to mention pure roleplay usage (especially in PnP, oc), or the fact that maybe there's an unexpected use for that "lame" spell, which even goes beyond what designers had in mind.

I think you need to be wary whenever the term "trap" gets thrown about. IIRC Ever since Monte Cook made that ivory tower essay, butthurt players have been latching onto the word to complain about any skill they think solely exists to punish uninformed players, when it'd be more accurate to be "exists to serve a small niche, but lacks a broad/awshum-button use for my character".

As a counter to the often cited "trap" feats:

Skill bonus: skill bonus (concentration) is a pretty good feat for a low con wizards in the early levels. In PnP the feat can be an a way to represent certain quirks about your char.
Toughness (the +3 hp at level 1 variant): If you know a campaign won't go far beyond lvl 1, it's a pretty nice bump. Double the hp in the wizard's case.

As others have mentioned, there's a danger in trying to balance all the abilities to be equally useful, as you lead to a bland awesome-button game where you can faceroll through everything as the designer had to make sure your special snowflake character feels powerful.

tldr;
Not a trap: Picking weapon specialisation (daggers) and complaining you don't do as much damage compared to spec'ing in longswords. You knew what you was getting yourself in to...
An actual trap: Picking weapon specialisation (longsword), then finding out the only magical weapons are daggers, and you need a +3 weapon to fight that demon overlord.

They've also sucked in HoMM 3, unless you've played the Wake of Gods mod in which they were actually pretty decent.

Anyway Deus Ex had swimming. I don't know a single person who took it in their build.

I never understood this swimming = useless criticism in deus ex. There are are several secrets that can only be reached by having some kind of swimming ability (be it skill, augment, or env. training + rebreather). The swimming skill itself is so low investment I can just put my excess points into getting 1-2 ranks in it and get some nice return from it.

 

[Gord]

I never understood this swimming = useless criticism in deus ex. There are are several secrets that can only be reached by having some kind of swimming ability (be it skill, augment, or env. training + rebreather). The swimming skill itself is so low investment I can just put my excess points into getting 1-2 ranks in it and get some nice return from it.

I think it's one of the drawbacks of Deus Ex' pretty good design. There's probably no part where you need swimming to succeed, be it optional or mandatory. It's always possible to substitute it with other skills or some equipment. In turn that makes swimming a bit underwhelming, since most substitutes have more potential applications than the swimming skill.
You could however turn JC into Aquaman, if you wanted.