Is exposing core rules paramount in an RPG?

[Lance Treiber]

Bear with me, it's a quick question.

Let's say you know the following:
- the hit/miss resolution takes THAC0 and AC into account
- you know which gear gives you how much AC or DEX
- you know DEX gives you a Hitroll bonus, but you don't know how big of a bonus
- you know DEX also decreases the enemy's AC, but you don't know by how much

You also don't know your class base thac0 for your level.

In short, you don't know how the attack will resolve exactly (because the tables aren't exposed), even though you have a good idea of how combat works in the general sense.

Is it a cardinal sin not to include that info?

Why I'm doing it? Because I don't want my players to worry about it. If they have found good gear, they'll know. And the progression system is pretty straightforward without class mixing, so there's not much room for munchkinism.

Between a wooden sword and a steel sword, the stats will scream which one is better. But between two amazing helmets, I don't want them to worry about which one is 1-5% better. Am I shooting myself in the foot with that decision?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

so there's not much room for munchkinism.

Bullshit, they'll find a way. Always have, always will.

 

[Tyranicon]

Having rules be transparent is almost always a good thing.

I'm personally trying to be better at it.

That being said, there is a school of thought in creating "fuzziness" through complexity.

 

[Lance Treiber]

Having rules be transparent is almost always a good thing.

The reason I'm not exposing mine are:

- My system is somewhat OSR-ish, and modern players have no idea what THAC0 is, but more importantly they'd be shocked by a negative AC. They don't want to see it.
- Which is fine by me, because I don't want them to see it either. Because in my game, it's not exactly important to know the minutiae details of a hit resolution system. They have the best gear they could get. Now they'll either hit or they'll miss. And I let them take it from there.

 

[Faarbaute]

It betrays a lack of respect for your players that you don't want them to know whats going on under the hood. This is a personal pet peeve of mine.

If you're worried about people obsessing over small details then don't include two helmets whos onley difference is 1-5% "betterness", would be my advice instead.

 

[JamesDixon]

Having rules be transparent is almost always a good thing.

The reason I'm not exposing mine are:

- My system is somewhat OSR-ish, and modern players have no idea what THAC0 is, but more importantly they'd be shocked by a negative AC. They don't want to see it.
- Which is fine by me, because I don't want them to see it either. Because in my game, it's not exactly important to know the minutiae details of a hit resolution system. They have the best gear they could get. Now they'll either hit or they'll miss. And I let them take it from there.

They can learn how to do THAC0 really easy with a simple formula.

THAC0-1D20=AC Hit

That's it. For example, a first level fighter has a THAC0 of 20 and he rolls 1D20 to get a 20. 20-20=0 AC hit which is the range of 0-10 AC.

If you have to hit bonuses based on Strength that is also subtracted from the roll. The formula would be: THAC0-1D20-Strength Bonus=AC Hit. In the above example say that you have a +4 to hit bonus for 18 Strength. Using the same roll as before the formula is now: 20-20-4= -4 AC hit. The character just hit everything that has an AC of -4 to 10.

If someone can't understand simple subtraction they're not your target audience. Fisher Price toys are more their speed.

 

[deuxhero]

Look at Morrowind. Most of the infamy of its combat could have been avoided if it simply had, in some way, conveyed how its notorious hit chance is determined. There's no real way abuse knowing its hit chance is
((weapon skill+(agility/5)+(luck/10))*fatigue multiplier)+fortify attack effects vs. d100
With fatigue multiplier normally being a number between 0.75 and 1.25 (for zero and full stamina respectively).

What it does do is tell the player how to build a playable warrior. With this formula a warrior player knows they need raw weapon skill, and agility, and luck helps but not critically (luck is great for a favored attribute boost, but lame for a level up boost), and thus they should work to boost their slow, clumsy, warrior's agility.

 

[Tyranicon]

It betrays a lack of respect for your players that you don't want them to know whats going on under the hood. This is a personal pet peeve of mine.

Agreed. As a player I would like the rules to be clearly stated somewhere. The casuals wont go looking, but RPG veterans will demand it.

 

[vazha]

I ll probably be in the minority here, but I do like that kind of thing. Not really a fan of turning characters & items into excel sheets - even though thats what they are at their core, no need to throw it into the face of the player. A puzzle is no longer interesting once its figured out.

 

[JamesDixon]

Well, 1% can make a difference.

Depends on on the dice used for the roll. On a 1D20 that's only 1% difference which each number is 5%. On 1D10 it's 10%. On 3D6 it's not worth it, like 1D20, since each +/-1 is 16.7%. 1D100 would be a flat 1%.

 

[Nano]

People are just going to get inside the game files and write it down on the wiki anyway.

 

[just]

theres only one stat that player needs to know
DP fucking S

 

[Butter]

It depends entirely on how you want players to play your game. If you're making a deep tactical system, you have to give them as much information as possible so they can make intelligent choices. If you're making a game in which combat is secondary to story, exploration, puzzles, etc then it's arguably not important. The Dark Heart of Uukrul obfuscates almost all of its combat mechanics and it's not a problem because combat isn't the point of the game.

 

[NerevarineKing]

I don't really see very many downsides to not being transparent about systems, especially in games that are combat-focused.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I usually prefer to know and I also like some degree of munchkinism in my RPG but the system has to be complex enough to make it possible but hard to reach.

If you're going the other way, it's your choice but I expect you're aiming at casuals/hipsters and the masses?

Also, when you say the progression system is straightforward, I'm reading simple, if it's the case, see the question above.
If the answer is no, you're doing something wrong.

 

[lukaszek]

obscurity is added to hide lackluster mechanic. Give player freedom to pick abstraction that work for them.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Bear with me, it's a quick question.

Let's say you know the following:
- the hit/miss resolution takes THAC0 and AC into account
- you know which gear gives you how much AC or DEX
- you know DEX gives you a Hitroll bonus, but you don't know how big of a bonus
- you know DEX also decreases the enemy's AC, but you don't know by how much

You also don't know your class base thac0 for your level.

In short, you don't know how the attack will resolve exactly (because the tables aren't exposed), even though you have a good idea of how combat works in the general sense.

Is it a cardinal sin not to include that info?

Why I'm doing it? Because I don't want my players to worry about it. If they have found good gear, they'll know. And the progression system is pretty straightforward without class mixing, so there's not much room for munchkinism.

Between a wooden sword and a steel sword, the stats will scream which one is better. But between two amazing helmets, I don't want them to worry about which one is 1-5% better. Am I shooting myself in the foot with that decision?

Knowing core rules is part of being good at the game. No one complains when the core rules are revealed clearly since using them is part of playing the game. You'll at best get people complaining about being filtered or maybe a rule not making sense. But if you don't reveal how the game works, then it'll end up like Morrowind where you use the iron dagger on the mudcrab and complain about the game not working since the dagger looks like its hitting the mudcrab when you don't have the short blade skill and you also have an empty stamina bar.

 

[Alex]

Being transparent about rules is not "paramount", as in, necessary for a game to be really an RPG. Rules are, after all, merely a means to giving mechanical meaning to what happens in game. But, with that said, I've seen little reason to not do so. I've seen games that have tried to avoid this for one reason or another; but I haven't seen any that was, in my opinion, better off for doing that. Of course, you can argue that the finicky part of the rules is not the point of the game. If you actually made combat situations more flexible; with various different possible actions during a turn that might change how the combat goes in an unpredictable way; I think you might even have a point. But even then, I doubt it would really matter; after all the player is usually free to just ignore the particulars of the rules.

 

[Pocgels]

I hate it when you get something in chargen like "Your 7 Dexterity is providing you a modest accuracy bonus". For all I know that could be anywhere from 3% to 50%. You say "you have a good idea how combat works in the general sense", but I think you're being a little too optimistic. All it takes is one high evasion enemy or spider swarm for people to get confused, frustrated and quit.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Off the top of my head the only game that I can think of that I enjoy that intentionally obfuscates rules is King of Dragon Pass (and Six Ages). I’m inclined to say that any game with a tactical aspect must be transparent in its systems and mechanics.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Is it a cardinal sin not to include that info?

Only if the PC is supposed to know it.

I probably wouldn't play a tabletop or board game where I wasn't allowed to know all the rules

Good news for you then, CRPGs are neither.

 

[Tomas]

I would not go as far as calling it a cardinal sin, but I do like to have the rules accessible (especially a quality combat log).

 

[Sunsetspawn]

I would think not exposing the rules could improve the adventure, however, it would also seem that you were cheating, or nudging, things in the direction you would like them to go. I have trust issues.

 

[Jvegi]

NEO Scavenger did that, and it was great, but I suspect people who play that game for longer than a couple of days start to feel the need to game the system. And they go to the wiki. Because you need that shit to be efficient. The game isn't really about that, but it's beside the point.

A lot of games hide their calculations. In Gothic you don't really know what the numbers mean other than "higher is better". And it's fine. Knowing the details doesn't benefit you in any way, imo.

Because I don't want my players to worry about it.

If they don't need to worry about it, it means they don't need the calculations. If they need them, they should worry about them.

You can always provide the formulas in a hidden menu, or a tutorial page or something. No need to clutter the UI with unnecessary numbers, when you want to put something else there.

 

[Bloodeyes]

It drives me crazy when I can't find exactly how a system works in a CRPG. Yes you really do need to know this shit. Everything about how the game works needs to be available. You don't know what people will need to know when they're making their builds and gear/ability selections. It doesn't necessarily all need to be there in the item blurb, but it needs to be accessible somewhere. If people can't see the stats on their screen they're forced to figure out the effects of things by direct observation. They'll get there in the end but there's no reason to make things harder on them.