Interview Old School RPG Interview with Brenda Brathwaite

[thesheeep]

So, what? If a player wants to reload - fine.
Forget about trying to prevent players from reloading in a system that relies on die rolls

 

[tuluse]

Die rolls don't necessarily cause save scumming. People didn't reload every time they missed an attack in BG. The problem is how critical a single roll can be. So if you have a 5% chance to cast some awesome spell, and your party is about to die, people will reload repeatedly until they get that spell off.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Then, no matter if that was successful or not, he has to "defend" against a casting drain (mental damage). The higher the power level, the more damage he has to sustain.

This is a great mechanic. How did I not know about this? Oh, right. Never played Shadowrun PnP. Curses.

That system is simply perfect. It has all the flexibility without allowing for any bullshit and has no need for any artificial balancing tools (the casting drain makes perfect sense in the SR world and could do so in any other fantasy world - or something alike, at least).

Totally. Any system with stats or hitpoints can implement something like it. As long as there is a risk-reward limitation on spell casting tweaked for the particular rules of the game, you don't even need to have resource management - cast too many spells? Well, your luck will run out eventually. No need handwave why non-wizards can't cast spells - they can, it'll just kill them!

For example, in DnD type games, just replace memorization limitations with a critical failure table that you roll on every time you cast a spell. A low roll is relatively minor, like slight damage or a temporary stat penalty. A high roll will kill you and everyone you love. The level of the spell adds to the roll, while the level of the caster/2 (or whatever denominator works for balance) subtracts from it. You can suffer a few HP damage on a minor spell, and if you start casting out of your pay grade, you might as well roll a new character.

 

[thesheeep]

And that is bad because....?
No really, I fully understand that someone wouldn't want to do so because it feels to him like cheating. But for others, it might come totally natural to reload until the desired result is there.
That's just different styles of gaming, and as long as nobody is forced to reload because the game would be unfair otherwise, I don't see a problem. Quite the contrary: if a game caters to both playstyles, everyone can be happy.

Seriously, if you feel that a game lacks challenge just because it allows you to reload before/during critical situations, then it is not the game's fault that you feel a lack of challenge

And this is also ridiculously easy to solve by restricting when one can save/load. Some games (Mount & Blade comes to mind) have settings for "how hardcore do you want to be?".

 

[Vault Dweller]

So, what? If a player wants to reload - fine.

Exactly. Players' eagerness to reload should never be taken into consideration. If someone wants to play a game reloading constantly, it's their choice.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Hmm, but Vancian with unlimited rest is bad because some are tempted to rest after every fight?

 

[Barghest]

Well, pledge cancelled. Really underwhelmed with how this is being 'sold' to us.

I'll spend the money on beer or throw it at Cleve.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Resting after fights isn't an exploit or some obsessive behavior. It's part of the core design and the CRPG take on that design gives you no reason not to rest. You either rest and have a full spell book or not, in which case the decision not to rest to maintain some form of balance and challenge becomes a form of larping.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Hmm, but Vancian with unlimited rest is bad because some are tempted to rest after every fight?

Depends on if its balanced for rest less often than every fight. Assuming it is, the difference would be that reloading forces you to replay until you succeed, but it doesn't effect how difficult the encounter is - you still have to succeed under the same limiting conditions as before. Save-scumming implies failing repeatedly. Rest-spamming allows for easy success - you go into every fight at maximum power, bypassing those conditions limiting your spell resources.

 

[Gragt]

Which is why the spirit meter of MotB is so cool, because then it becomes a choice between refreshing your spellbook or keep your hunger at a low level. Yet a great number of morons complained of this.

 

[Infinitron]

Resting after fights isn't an exploit or some obsessive behavior. It's part of the core design and the CRPG take on that design gives you no reason not to rest. You either rest and have a full spell book or not, in which case the decision not to rest to maintain some form of balance and challenge becomes a form of larping.

Okay, let's say that LARPing is a sin, a horrible sacrilege.

Wouldn't you say that maybe, maybe that's still a price worth paying if the the outcome is an exponentially larger amount of fun and challenge? Maybe you need to learn to look at things from the point of view of a player, not that of a game designer.

LARPing? A heavy cost - one I pay gladly.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

If LARPing is a sin, its a sin of the designer rather than the player. If a skilled player has to hobble themselves to maintain balance, the game is poorly balanced. If the designer wants to make an easy mode, make difficulty settings.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Resting after fights isn't an exploit or some obsessive behavior. It's part of the core design and the CRPG take on that design gives you no reason not to rest. You either rest and have a full spell book or not, in which case the decision not to rest to maintain some form of balance and challenge becomes a form of larping.

Okay, let's say that LARPing is a sin, a horrible sacrilege.

It's not. It's a sign that something's broken. Kinda like "LARPers will fix it!"

Wouldn't you say that maybe, maybe that's still a price worth paying if the the outcome is an exponentially larger amount of fun and challenge?

Of course, although I fail to see how resting frequently to have all spells will result in an exponentially larger amount of challenge, which is what usually determines if the game is fun or not, at least for me. I can't think of a single example where entering combat fully rested was more challenging than having to do my best with 3 low level spells.

 

[groke]

This kickstarter is fucking bizarre.

I mean, ok, I get Braithwaite was lead for Wiz8, and that's cool, but she was just a playtester for the older Wizardry games. She was involved in Jagged Alliance 2, ok, cool, but as a writer? I liked JA for the combat, I guess the writing was ok... But why the fuck is she claiming involvement in Realms of Arkania? Sirtech published that game. MobyGames says she wrote the English manual and playtested the English release. Uhh.

Tom Hall, is... a pretty cool guy, I guess. He's been involved in some stuff I've liked, Anachronox was good-for-what-it-was, but what it was was not an "old-school RPG". Hmn.

John-fucking-Romero is John-fucking-Romero. They're suggesting his involvement in Dark Designs gives him credibility, but Dark Designs was (while very enjoyable) RPG-lite as fuck. And I thought it was Carmack's child.

I can't fathom the logic behind (Wiz8 + Anachronox) / THE ROMERO = "An Old-School RPG"

Also I find this to be an unbearably cute lie:

Like our forefathers in the software industry, we believe in unprotected software

IN SUMMARY: This kickstarter has made me start a Wiz I - IV run.

 

[Infinitron]

Of course, although I fail to see how resting frequently to have all spells will result in an exponentially larger amount of challenge, which is what usually determines if the game is fun or not, at least for me. I can't think of a single example where entering combat fully rested was more challenging than having to do my best with 3 low level spells.

Uh, I'm saying the exact opposite. If you LARP a party that only rests once every 24 hours even if the game allows you to rest more, that's more challenging.

 

[St. Toxic]

That's why time-limits are a good mechanic. You're not just spending some pointless sum of koolkreds to refresh your spell-books, you're actually wasting time of which there is only a limited amount. Add to that being able to link world-events to a timer (preferably with some randomization) rather than having the player step on pressure-plates, and you're on to something. And, if nothing else, it'll make it less fun for larpers.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I can't fathom the logic behind (Wiz8 + Anachronox) / THE ROMERO = "An Old-School RPG"

The logic is simple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZHCVyllnck

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Wouldn't you say that maybe, maybe that's still a price worth paying if the the outcome is an exponentially larger amount of fun and challenge?

Of course, although I fail to see how resting frequently to have all spells will result in an exponentially larger amount of challenge, which is what usually determines if the game is fun or not, at least for me. I can't think of a single example where entering combat fully rested was more challenging than having to do my best with 3 low level spells.

He meant the opposite: that not resting, albeit LARPy, leads to more challenge, since you're not in top form for every fight a là Dragon Age.

edit: bah

 

[Vault Dweller]

Of course, although I fail to see how resting frequently to have all spells will result in an exponentially larger amount of challenge, which is what usually determines if the game is fun or not, at least for me. I can't think of a single example where entering combat fully rested was more challenging than having to do my best with 3 low level spells.

Uh, I'm saying the exact opposite. If you LARP a party that only rests once every 24 hours even if the game allows you to rest more, that's more challenging.

Doh! Lost my train of thought there. Fuck, being old sucks.

You're a good boy, Infinitron. Go play with other children, grandpa needs some rest.

 

[Dorateen]

As far as resting, why not just designate areas as No Rest zones, where it makes sense. Or else implement some kind of threshold to be met, such as an area is not safe to rest until 10 patrols are defeated. This happened frequently in the Gold Box games.

And I still support this project on principle.

Harumph!

 

[Mother Russia]

Ultima Underworld and Wizardry 8 >> Vancian

Dunno about Ultima Underworld but Wiz8? No. I agree it's one of the better non-vancian systems I've played but it still kinda sucks. All you need to know about how good the spell system of Wiz8 is, is this: You want your party to perform well? Then you don't get more casters but more dudes with ninjitsu and kirijutsu. Bascially, more casters than necessary to provide the basic buffs/protections, say a samurai and a valkyrie, meant gimping your party.

That's balance, not the system itself. One can argue that the best character in Arcanum is a melee fighter, but that doesn't mean that the crafting system isn't fun to play with.

I played Wiz 8 a few times and spellcasters are loads of fun, even if they are weaker than the "kirijutsu guys".

What I like about such systems is flexibility that's missing from the Vancian system. You decide how much power to put in a spell, which deals with the issue of early spells becoming less and less useful with every level quite nicely. With higher level of customization the system would have been nearly perfect.

Uhm, pure mages/casters in Wiz 8 were greatly useful. Overall, I would say they were more useful than Ninjas, because their spells could damage masses of enemies and could do a TON of damage at once. Having multiple mages can mean wiping out a whole bunch of monsters in one turn. ninjas may do lots of damage in the last 1/3rd of the game, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the 2/3rds of the game that came before. Also, even then the ninja will damage one enemy at a time.

Lastly, Samurai and Valkiyre are not pure casters so they don't count. Also, the Samurai is a great class. Properly min maxed it is superior to the pure fighter, and can slice it's way through foes.

 

[Fryjar]

Astral Energy >> Vancian >> mana||cooldown in any way, shape or form. A factual fact with years of empiric evidence in form of cRPGs.

Fixed.

Seriously though, the magic system in Realms of Arkania was just great: Astral energy was similar to mana, but there was no innate mana regen and items that could restore a portion of it immediately were very rare.
This meant that you had to be very careful about casting your most powerful spells as they would drain you very quickly. On top of that, astral energy only regenerated slowly over multiple days which meant that you couldn't fire away all your astral energy pool in one encounter and be in top shape after taking a quick nap. Managing your astral pool became therefore much more meaningful when you didn't have a safe resting place (or if you were travelling via the (by very far) best to date overland travel system in a crpg).

 

[Johannes]

In Vancian systems, or D&D to be exact, I always liked the Sorcerer style spell selection over the Wizard - it had more long-lasting choices, but not constant spell slot micromanagement which could often get tedious.

And when you look at the Sorcerer system - it's really just a nonsensical merge of a mana system and vancian system. You've got a separate mana pool for each spell level, between spells that don't share any other commonality than rough power level. If you'd give each spell level a mana cost (not necessarily linearly correlated with level) and the sorcerer a mana pool, you'd lose nothing but a set of arbitrary restrictions.


So it would clearly seem that D&D magic is good thanks to the well-designed spells, not due to the spell selection system.

 

[tuluse]

All of dnd is about arbitrary restrictions.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So, did anyone notice it has a title now?

SHAKER