Heu heu, you thought that I was done with the topic from last week, but it was all actually just setup for this thing I wanted to discuss here about the way game complexity is modulated in D&D. Have at thee!
Variable Interfacing in roleplaying games
“Bootstrapping” is technical jargon for the process of setting up a process. In game design, as in many other engineering arts, it’s an important marginal concern: how do you translate the social capital (a bunch of people mildly interested in trying out the game) into fully competent performance of the game? That’s the question, and it’s answered by play tools, rules texts, game facilitation and other techniques.
The caste distinction from the last newsletter is crucial to the way roleplaying games are bootstrapped: there are usually no tutorial play modes, but there sure is a GM-type personality whose role more resembles creating a game from a bunch of recipe books than being a player per se. The bootstrapping is one of the more important things the GM does in the game, for the game designer cannot and will not do it for him, and the players certainly won’t; a player willing to put the work into studying rule books and designing the play event would be a GM.
In many design contexts bootstrapping never ends, and roleplaying definitely qualifies for that: not only will you bootstrap every new campaign from what amounts to scraps of common ground you might have with familiar players from past experiences together, but even just the particular individual campaign project might involve a surprising amount of bootstrapping throughout its days. Every time you change the “what we do”, or “who are doing it”, either way, you start a new bootstrapping process as old players need to learn new tricks, or new players need to learn old tricks.
Legacy games (Chess, Backgammon, card games, etc.) often have far less bootstrapping overhead, by the way; in this sense tabletop gaming as a historical phenomenon is basically one massive maelstrom of creative engineering. We’re constantly reinventing what we’re doing, and that makes bootstrapping vastly more important than it is for e.g. traditional sports. Football is something that you can get by never explaining, it changes so slowly in comparison to player retention that you can actually just sit interested people down at the side of the field and let them watch until they’re on board enough to play. And once you learn football, you never need to relearn it.
Some roleplaying games do achieve a stable running form, characterized by a fixed group of players repeating what they did last week. But even then, groups that stabilize a campaign and then just decide to keep doing that are the exception. To my understanding it’s mainly because we keep growing as humans and gamers, and with the game being a big part of that growth in itself, the game being successful in itself ensures that you want to move on from it, to new vistas thus enabled.
And in adventure fantasy D&D blarg specifically
Focusing further on the ur-form of the adventure rpg, for all that thousands of distinct game texts have been created, the history of the form only knows of two basic bootstrapping strategies:
GM facilitates learning: This is how original D&D worked, and how most rpgs since then function. The GM reads a rpg text or gets taught by another or whatever (doesn’t matter for our purposes), and then when game time comes, it’s the GM’s job to show and tell the other participants what we’re doing, where you stand, how you act, step by step through the game.
It’s a competitive boardgame, guys: Over the decades D&D led the pack in developing towards a vision of the game reminiscent of the “Games Workshop hobby”, where individual players purchase gaming products, study them, and then meet up to play the game, majority of which is referenced from the common ground of those gaming products. AD&D went this way in the later TSR years already, but modern D&D really only flowered over the last 20 years. Today it’s reasonably realistic for a D&D gamer up to date on the product line to call in on a new campaign with a character already made, with both sides expecting that they’ve already been read in, no bootstrapping work at the table required.
I’ll set that second type of bootstrapping strategy aside for now in favour of considering the first. Just, gotta focus to get to the goal sometime. The thing I actually wanted to discuss three newsletters ago when I started streaming random thoughts about creative group dynamics, though: given that you’re bootstrapping with a traditional GM-led process, what are the implications for the game design?
Specifically, consider the ever-green subject of lightweight vs heavyweight mechanical game design in tabletop roleplaying: this question has powerful proponents on both sides, and it’s often considered something of an identity issue. Some gamers prefer playing with less rules, others with more rules…
I would like to suggest that the question of rules weight is a mirage caused by getting stuck on the physically concrete game text object; we contrast and compare a simple and lightweight game text with a dense heavyweight text because it’s easy to compare concrete objects, rather than because this distinction is decisive. In reality the rules weight only matters as a bootstrapping issue: different types of game texts imply a different approach to learning and teaching the game. The core reality of how the people play is not affected. Expressing preference between a light and a heavy game is merely a preference of pedagogy, not a preference on the nature of the game itself.
Or, to put that differently: a player complaining about rules being complex and obscure is reacting to a flawed bootstrapping procedure: the rules are being introduced and engaged in a confusing, frustrating fashion. Lightweight game texts have a pedagogical advantage in this regard, as they focus on those first session experiences. Heavyweight game texts are accused, rightly, of being non-functional; traditionally the texts are more focused on laying out comprehensive references instead of bootstrapping lesson plans. Ironically neither type of game design really focuses on bootstrapping, light games just get a pass by having less material to learn.
If the above is credible, then the answer to whether basic or advanced D&D is preferable is clearly “both”. Basic D&D is what the game looks like early in the campaign process. Advanced D&D is what it looks like in a mature campaign. We see this all the time in practical reality, as ostensibly rules-heavy and detailed games start slow and simple, and games that started with a “basic” identity evolve towards idiosyncratic complexity. For a wargamey, organic D&D campaign the question is not basic vs advanced, it’s how do you bootstrap meaningful game engagement among the play group.
Soldier, Fighter, Hero
Rules presentation in old school D&D is a perennial interest of mine that has been becoming particularly important in the Coup campaign. I’ve traditionally been playing with an oral presentation strategy, with no player-side rules texts accessible at all; there’s major bootstrapping benefits to this, as it helps the players access the rules fiction-first, on a situational basis, at the pace of necessity. Also rewards long-term participation with rules mastery, instead of rewarding obsessive out of game rules study. An oral-only campaign transmits rules to players in dialogues with the GM and other players, only transmitting the rules immediately necessary, and storing the rules in the memory of the campaign participants.
In Coup we have a much more text-based approach to the rules, though, which is further complicated by the campaign involving a large number of character options, different level ranges and even campaign tiers. The result is that players, of whom some follow rules development blow-by-blow, some read produced rules texts carefully, and some run characters ported over from earlier campaigns, encounter the rules in a much less uniform process. I’m not even interested in personality-based differences between players on how they relate to rules complexity, that’s not what I’m seeing; rather, what I see is a group of unique individuals who end up encountering the game with vastly different engagement histories, which leads to the same rules being perceived very differently by different players.
(Callback to the last two newsletters: imagine a campaign where the players are just there to do whatever the GM tells them to do. This would all be much less interesting in those circumstances.)
The anecdote I wanted to offer here concerns something almost comically transgressive that I developed last winter as an experiment in “variable interfacing”, enabling players to opt-in to rules complexity. The original inspiration was a detailed development dialogue we had with Teemu and Peitsa over the campaign’s combat rules: I had, in my efforts to produce a stable and powerful combat rules chassis ready for mid-tier play, managed to produce something that the players felt to be unnecessarily cumbersome. The adjective “janky” was proffered several times.
So that got me to thinking… I feel the immediate issue was more about these players jumping into the new rules with 3rd level characters, so they sort of skipped the way I intended the more complicated combat rules to be introduced, learned and developed over time. But also, it’s not like a desire for technical simplicity is a foreign idea in D&D design. And if I’m designing combat rules to be class feature based anyway, then why should I force Fighter class characters to mess around with complicated rules stupidity?
This is, of course, the same question that D&D 4e design team answered in Essentials (the 4.5 version of the game) by introducing a new variant Fighter class that could be used side by side with the original 4.0 Fighter in the same campaign. I wasn’t thinking about that at all when figuring this out, but in hindsight I ended up with a kinda similar idea.
So, my suggestion for how to have two Fighter classes, one focused on simplicity and the other on being competitive at higher levels. Mainly relevant for advanced D&D campaigning with plenty of classes and multiclassing and so on. First, the “low Fighter” class table:
| Level | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Scaling AB, Improved HD |
| 2 | Special Feat |
| … |
The “low Fighter” class is very similar to the Fighter class of a basic low rules complexity campaign. Most classes in Coup don’t get improved attack bonus by level (a LotFP idea that I get heartily behind, that), so that’s the deal you get here: +1 to attack per level. Also a bit more hit points, but mostly the unparalleled might of universal scaling AB.
The only smidgen of complexity that this Fighter involves is that they gain a “Martial Feat” on 2nd level. Feats are special combat skills that can be learned by the talented with exceptional breakthroughs and grueling practice, but the “low Fighter” gets one for free at 2nd level. Sort of customize your own Fighter to be particularly good at a single thing, so they can be a berserk fighter or a cavalry fighter or whatever. And after that, it’s smooth sailing for this class; no further class features to worry about!
| Level | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Scaling AB, Improved HD |
| 2 | Action Stunt |
| 3 | State Tracking |
| 4 | Martial Feats |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Blade Sight |
| … |
Meanwhile, the “high Fighter” is the Fighter class the way I originally envisioned it for Coup. This one has bells and whistles intended to both encourage an uniquely combat-oriented playstyle, and make the class “charop competitive” (you either know what that means, or I guess not if you’ve never played modern D&D) at the mid-tier, and perhaps the high tier.
The particular complications that make this class far more intensive to play compared to the “low Fighter” are the three level-up features of Action Stunt (requires player to improvise cogent combat choreography at key points in combat), State Tracking (allows the player to access a range of “combat magic” style sub-systems) and Martial Feats (enables the character to learn Feats relatively easily, making considerate Feat-combination charop a possibility). The class also has a high-conceptual upper levels class feature that might or might not make it competitive in high tier play (don’t know yet, what with the campaign being nowhere near that far).
So I have these two alternate visions of what the D&D Fighter class should even be like: is the Fighter best as the streamlined simple class of minimal mechanical complexity? A class that has robust and constant features, allowing the player to focus on playing the situation instead of the rules. Or should the Fighter be the consummate master of the battlefield, a sort of “wuxia bullshit combat magic” class that can contribute in a tactically relevant way at higher levels?
If you believe in organic local campaign development, it’s natural to answer with a shrug and just put both versions into the game. Let the markets sort of it. I think this part is particularly funny, because I offer a toggle: the players can choose which of the above Fighter visions should be the default Fighter. The other one gets to be a variant class. Like this:
Low toggle: The two classes are called Soldier (low) and Fighter (high).
High toggle: The two classes are called Fighter (low) and Hero (high).
The class named Fighter has the traditional stat requirement of STR 9+ and takes 2k XP to level 2; its literary theming is also traditional in that the class presents a particularly talented youngster or grizzled veteran of war. All the prestige fighter classes (Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger, etc.) work off the Fighter, whichever of those classes is decided to be that one.
In the meantime, the other class in the campaign is either the “Soldier” or the “Hero”. Summaries on how those work:
Soldier
The working man’s fighting man, nothing fancy. The Soldier makes do by being tougher and more sensible than your supposedly heroic figures. Soldier-class characters are never clean-shaven young talents, that’s what “Fighter” is for.
Requirements: No stat reqs, except don’t be a wretch.
XP threshold: 1500 xp to 2nd level.
Hero
Japanese dungeon fantasy’s understanding of what a Fighter is: a teenage boy with a man’s equipment, a big heart and talent in spades. Natural leader of his team, the Elf’s oblivious boyfriend, etc. you know the drill. Knows gun kata — I mean, has fancy sword-fighting techniques that might as well be magic.
Requirements: STR 12+, and only one Hero in the party at a time; if multiple are present, the one with the lower XP functions in all ways as an ordinary Fighter as long as the situation persists.
XP threshold: 2500 XP to 2nd level.
So the group can choose which ever toggle position depending on whether they prefer the simple or the complex Fighter chassis as the default Fighter. If they want to default to simple, then we get this fun JRPG prestige class option as well for those players who want to hassle with complicated combat. If they want to default to complex, then we also get this cheap commoner-variant fighting man class for those players who nevertheless personally prefer playing a simple class.
We’re currently playing with the toggle low, mainly I think because the campaign started with the complex Fighter as the default Fighter. Time will tell if we’ll ever switch; I expect not, as going to high toggle would mean that all prestige Fighters in the campaign would lose their Fighter-based class features, and players don’t usually cotton to no nerfing their characters. But the option is there, and most importantly in the meantime anybody who feels exasperated at the Stunts and Feats and Aggression points and whatever else stupidity we’ll develop can just choose to play a Soldier instead. Soldier’s clean, and cheapest way to get full AB progression, so what’s not to like.
But anyway, I wanted to discuss this fancy thought-experiment on Fighter design because of how it combines campaign bootstrapping and egalitarian development concerns. It’s so interesting, it would never have occurred to me to think this up if the other players didn’t actively take me to task over the possible over-design (or whatever you’d like to call it) of the Fighter class. Playtesting this sort of stuff is slow, but perhaps I’ll get some concrete results at some point about whether it’s useful to have two Fighter classes in a campaign.
AP Report Pile: Coup de Main goes Greyhawk
Tuomas, my co-GM in this Coup business, took a couple of weeks of him-time around Easter, which meant that we again did a quick pivot back to Castle Greyhawk! I have the Castle prepared for just these eventualities, so while we’re not apparently stopping with Coup-de-Gnarley any time soon, I can run the occasional switch session whenever.
I guess I’ll just report on both of these sessions at once because they more or less belong together. In the next session after these we would again return to Gnarley Forest, after all.
Coup de Main #82
Last time we were at the Castle (a couple months real time, in session #76) the party, who’ve comfortably settled at the Ranger-occupied Barbican, ranged to the deeper levels of the dungeon and had an accidental high-risk encounter with troglodytes, whom they successfully home-invaded, robbed and killed. The encounter was tactically perilously close for comfort, as these desperate dungeon affairs often are. On the plus side, there was a respectable amount of treasure involved in the heist, so all good I guess.
This time, though, was worse: the party had only just started dealing with the secret entrance to the dungeon (the Greyhawk Construction Company keeps repairing the door, so the adventurers have to bust it down every time they come in, seems like) when they had the ill fortune of encountering a patrol of bullywugs looking for a lair.
Bullywugs are one of the variety of “evil humanoids” that D&D is rife with, basically Chaotic Evil frog-people. You wouldn’t usually consider them super-dangerous, but give them good dice and they will fuck your shit up. These bullies were particularly dangerous with their hopping charge, coming in hard and brazen, breaking party formation and foiling all efforts at holding a defensive position in the doorway. The adventurers were rolling badly, with Saad Man the 2nd level Fighter fumbling and ending up stampeded on by the attacking bullywugs.
The party had all opportunity to die here if not for any and all desperation plays they had on hand. There were over a half dozen of the bullies, and the party didn’t have much staying power with Saad out of position. While the other characters failed to have anything decisive to contribute, Saad Man, down there underfoot, actually did have a thing to try.
Saad had been carrying a magic shield around for a while. In our last Castle expedition the shield started relating to him after he successfully harmonized with it. (This is all dumb Coup-specific magic item rules stuff, I basically joinked the best bits out of Earthdawn.) The shield, now revealed to be the Green Devil Shield, is apparently Lawful Evil. It has a mysterious power, and sometimes you can see a Green Devil Face make an appearance on the shield.
So Saad, from down in the ground, activated the Green Devil Shield. Its power is fairly wacky: the character chooses an enemy and commits to fighting them to the death, immediately rolling the rest of their attack and damage rolls for the current melee phase (a handful of combat rounds, depends on initiative scores). If the rolls were sufficient to slay the chosen enemy, the Green Devil Face appears on the shield, striking terror to anybody who sees it. If not, the face does not appear. Either way, Saad is committed to fighting those rounds he rolled for, only straying from his fated path due to external influence. It’s sort of fate magic, kinda peeking into the future.
This was the first time we used the shield’s true power in play; I’d actually forgotten how it worked myself, so good thing we’re getting better about actually writing down this stuff when it’s invented. The first use was both impressive and fearsome as Saad stunted with the shield, managing to display the emerging Devil Face to the entire buggywug patrol. As he thrust his sword at the nearest bully, fated to slay it (we knew, for the Face had started emerging), Saad scrambled up and allowed the grimace of doom to wash over the bullies.
So the one bullywug was down and Saad was up, but what actually saved the party was that bullywugs are fearful critters that took a morale check from being shown the Visage of Doom. Utter failure caused them all to start running from the brink of victory. Appropriate for the Green Devil Shield, an item of fear and fate magics.
The fight was again very close to ending up in a total party wipe. The party retreated to lick their wounds, of course, and would only go back to the dungeon the next day. So of course they’d run into the bullywugs again on short order, except this time with less tempo advantage and battle luck for the froggies; the second encounter ended up a conclusive victory for team filibuster. Maybe we could handle this place after all!
One of the expedition objectives (the party actually does plan their forays into the Castle!) was to perform a closer study of the “burned library” room that by all rights seems exactly like it was some kind of main entrance into the dungeons (and therefore out from there). The party had been to the place a fairly long time back, but they wanted to bring Frida the Teenage Telepath to “check out” the place (Frida has the gift of psychometry, “Touch of Ages”; often useful for exploration) in case there’s something to learn there. Ultimately no major luck with that; the library has multiple doors out of it, but those doors have been damaged by great heat from the last Fireball Fest held in there, so difficult to open, and the party wasn’t interested in pushing that venue further. There’s other places to explore, after all!
The night’s last stab at results involved mapping a further cross-cut route (a more direct route to connect to a place found earlier during circuitous exploration) to improve the party’s dungeon map and get closer to a portion of the dungeon the party thinks to be occupied by dwarves. (Always good neighbours, those dwarves. Could be useful to get in touch?) For our troubles, we found signs of some great beast’s lair, and actual orcs living nearby.
The orcs proved surprisingly amiable, particularly as one of the adventurers, a Suloise wizard, proved open-minded enough to get into some parlay with them. The orcs warned the party about the beast and generally indicated unwillingness to get hostile at them. Even had some things to say about the dungeon layout. Relations cooled considerably when Frida the Elf-Friend showed her face, of course; orcs generally speaking dislike elves fiercely for reasons lost to time and design. Time will tell if this diplomatic overture leads to anything in the future.
Coup de Main #83
Easter Special! Last time we’d had another one of those fun close calls with the bullywugs, so the players were certainly feeling their mortality. While this particular dungeon feels very “fair”, that fairness still means these 5–10 strong armed humanoid parties. The adventurers need to win every time to succeed, while the monsters only need to get lucky once.
But anyway, this was to be the Easter Special, so the Barbican residents of course spotted the Egg of Coot flying (psionically, one assumes) over the northern horizon and approaching the Castle, only to descend in its horrifying majesty and meld its way through the Castle walls, disappearing inside. The players took this fairly well actually.
Also, now we had a new plan. Last time the party tried the burned library, and the time before that the Old Guard Kobolds Triple Stair, all without finding any sign of the Oracle of Zagyg. (Remember, Frida the Teenage Witch has an elf quest about this, which is to say, she’s probably just dreamed the whole thing up, the funny girl she is.) Frida, poring over the maps the Rangers had collected from hapless adventurers, concluded that the party should now go look for the elves living in the south-eastern quadrant. And perhaps, after that, the dwarves in the north-eastern quadrant. Lacking any better ideas, the rest of the party agreed to the plan. (Frida can be fairly convincing in sweeping tenured adventurers in her wake, I’ve found. Something about her self-confidence, I imagine, combined with their own lack of goals in life. Just bosses these murderhobos around.)
The party had a fairly good idea of where the elves might be by this point: Frida herself had found a locked “elf door” outside back when she explored the outside of the Castle with her elf friends, and the orcs the party met in the last session basically confirmed that yeah, nasty elves do indeed lurk in that same part of the dungeon. So all that the party really needed to do here was to crawl to that specific area they hadn’t been yet, mostly through familiar corridors.
On the way to the elven parts the party learned about the Easter Special: the Egg of Coot (or perhaps, dare I say… the Mad Archmage?!) had hidden clusters of various fantabulous eggs within the dungeon, for the denizens and adventurers to find. The eggs were mostly hidden within dungeon rooms, so what with the party sticking to the corridors on their way to meet the elves, they didn’t find many… but they did stumble upon a carefully hidden alien egg! (This was amusing to me and I hope to other players from Coup-de-Gnarley’s latest Fearmother saga… it was, of course, a Feardaughter egg!)
Adventurers being adventurers, party’s wizard, Opioid, insisted on carefully taking that egg and bringing it with him. The plan: paint Protection from Chaos runes on it to keep the egg quiescent, and then take it back to his wizard cult to be used in their eldritch rites. Opioid is an OG Suloise cult wizard, so unlike these free-spirited Oeridian wizards with their towers and such he’s all about the community and loyalty to the traditions of Spider Pit (the name of his wizard cult; nice people).
But anyway, the elves: “Little Menegrod” is a small love nest of sorts set up by four ageless eladrin (grey elf) hipsters who, long ago, decided to rent a place from this up and coming Mad Archmage fellow. The elves here enjoy living on the brink of adventure. I like how their living here doesn’t really necessarily have anything to do with anything; maybe it’s exactly like they say and they just like living here, the four of them, away from the politics and wars of their fellows.
Physically LiMe is a fair-sized cave with glowlichens and dainty lanterns and modesty-preserving mists that choke Evil beings and all that good stuff you’d expect of a dungeon-sized grey elven enclave. In a true Gygaxian touch the elves also have a half dozen 3rd level half-orc pets/servants/friends subletting from them, so good luck robbing them, you murderhobos!
Not that the murderhobos were planning to: while the party has charming individuals in it such as Saad Man the Evil and Opioid the Hey-let’s-bring-this-Evil-egg-and-see-what-happens, Frida had things well in hand here and dealt with the elf diplomacy for the party. Her being a 2nd level Elf-Friend, personal acquaintance of elven prince Viusdul Daro the dearly departed, and the holder of a Noble Quest to save eladrin princess Sarana from fates worse than death, the welcome was pretty much a done deal here; the elves loved the doughty adventurer girl who’d set herself so wholeheartedly to the task of finishing prince Viusdul’s last quest.
(Viusdul Daro died tragically in these same dungeons a bit back from too much murderhobo exposure. Darn humans.)
The elves talked about many things with Frida and her more reluctant friends, but the main prize was of course hearing about the Oracle of Zagyg. That’s the big quest, after all! The elves could tell some things, I guess these were the highlights:
The Oracle is a lady: The elves have met her a long time ago, her name’s apparently “Doraldina”. She was working for the Mad Archmage back then. So yeah, verified a real thing. The elves even thought it likely that she could help in finding princess Sarana. While the elves here sure have some magical mojo, and they’d be happy to help find princess Sarana, they apparently don’t have “universal divination” of the kind the Oracle can perform.
Maybe look for hints in the castle: The elves didn’t know where Doraldina would be today, but they assumed she might well have left the Archmage’s service by now. Either way, surely the adventurers should look for her, or hints to her departure, in the castle proper? Maybe the archmage’s study? (This is basically what Viusdul Daro was planning to do back when he was looking for an entry to the Castle. The players might just have lost track of this logic a bit when wandering the dungeons. The LiMe elves here reminded them of the idea that they’d be unlikely to find the Oracle hanging out with orcs down here.)
Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Wizards: The LiMe elves probably know more about the surrounding facts of this Mad Archmage business (the Zagyg Lore, as we call it in the character sheet skill list business), but as they explained to Frida, they would rather not draw the ire of the Archmage by spreading his private business around willy-nilly. The LiMe community seems to think that the Archmage is alive and well, for all he’s thought to have long disappeared back in the human community.
The half-orcs fed the adventurers during their visit, of course; they’d been gathering the egg feast from the dungeon, so the lunch was all egg-y. Saad Man amusingly found a Ring of Protection hidden in his chocolate egg dessert, a true Easter miracle! (The player actually asked for it, we rolled for it, the roll gave it away. Others weren’t as lucky with their chocolate eggs.)
That was actually most of the session right there, chatting with these new friendly elves. Afterwards the party went to do some random dungeoneering (or I dunno, maybe they had some logic to it; not my department) in the so-called “pee corridor”, and discovered a maybe intentionally penned pack of giant fire beetles behind a random dungeon door. That’s the Castle for you.
While fire beetles can totally be fairly dangerous, the party wasn’t daunted by them, and were actually surprisingly effective at finding the soft spots in their hard chitin to put the beasts down. The party’s reward was of course just some more eggs, because Easter Special what did you expect.
And that was the session, and our Greyhawk Castle adventures for now. I’ll be interested in seeing where the Search for the Oracle goes next, I think the players are unlikely to drop it at this point. Next time, though: back to Gnarley Forest.
State of the Productive Facilities
Three newsletters behind, plus I guess this week’s. Part of the fun in falling behind like this is that every week I fall further behind.