Gameplay - depth vs complexity vs fun

[Harthwain]

In videogames, the PCs income is all disposable, none of it is need or alleviate-sufferig based, so that really changes the nature of the economy.

And if you add need-based factors, it becomes...less fun.

ANd that's before taxes!

Simulation elements (such as needs) can be fun in a game, provided they are done well. However, I don't think we need needs as such. Instead of buying food and drinks we can buy medkits, ammo, health insurance (Trauma Team), etc. That way you still need to spend money (unless you conserve ammo, don't get injured, etc.), but it's more meaningful for players than "buy meat to not die from starvation" (although I find need based games fun as well).

 

[Suhiira]

Yeah, most games that implement needs tend to overdo it IMHO.
Seems like every 10-15 min (sometimes less) you have to stop whatever you're doing to eat/sleep/whatever.
This gets old fast.

Once an hour of play-time I could deal with.

 

[Darth-Death]

The game has to be fun, first & foremost before anything. Complexity can come later, perhaps even to complement the fun aspect.

 

[Suhiira]

The game has to be fun, first & foremost before anything. Complexity can come later, perhaps even to complement the fun aspect.

Unfortunately "fun" is a VERY subjective term.
One of the things we're trying to do here is define "fun" in terms of game features and how they're implemented.
While the CDPR folks don't post here often I have no doubt some check out what we're discussing occasionally.

 

[Darth-Death]

Unfortunately "fun" is a VERY subjective term.
One of the things we're trying to do here is define "fun" in terms of game features and how they're implemented.
While the CDPR folks don't post here often I have no doubt some check out what we're discussing occasionally.

If that's the case, then I'll opt to leave it in CDPR's hands since I lack the credentials to formulate what's fun from a game feature implementation stand point. That sort of thinking is best suited for the devs to figure out, and not I, the consumer.

 

[Sardukhar]

If that's the case, then I'll opt to leave it in CDPR's hands since I lack the credentials to formulate what's fun from a game feature implementation stand point. That sort of thinking is best suited for the devs to figure out, and not I, the consumer.

Well, you know what you like, surely. No dev knows that. FIgure out what you like and what you'd like to see in a Cyberpunk game in terms of gameplay and there you go.

CDPR isn't perfect. The melee in W2 was not a strong point of the game for me, for example.

 

[Darth-Death]

Well, you know what you like, surely. No dev knows that. FIgure out what you like and what you'd like to see in a Cyberpunk game in terms of gameplay and there you go.

CDPR isn't perfect. The melee in W2 was not a strong point of the game for me, for example.

Currently, I don't have anything specific in mind, but what I can say is that I don't want a derivative experience (especially from other well established franchises). I'm hoping CDPR will surprise me with whatever they reveal, as long as it's fun. In the end they're the professionals & I'm just relaying my trust in them to make a solid experience. What I like/want may not fit the needs for this game.

 

[blarty]

Gameplay should allow multiple different options, particularly when you have techs and net runners on the team, however modelling and reacting to that kind of ad-hoc thinking is really the realm of pen and paper, human GM games - in all my years of GMing and playing RPGs one rule still holds true, 'Never underestimate your players potential to think of something completely unpredictable'

 

[Sardukhar]

- in all my years of GMing and playing RPGs one rule still holds true, 'Never underestimate your players potential to think of something completely unpredictable'

Aka "What the *&%$% did you just do to my PLOT?!"

 

[Suhiira]

'Never underestimate your players potential to think of something completely unpredictable'

But that's half the fun of GMing!
No matter how well you plan, or how much you consider potential NPCs reactions, your players will do something you hadn't forseen and you'll be forced to think on your feet.

 

[Calistarius]

I have done some pretty unforseen things in my day as a pnp rpg'er. XD

Maybe not to such a level where I really screwed up the plot of the adventure or something. Most of my stuff tend to mostly take place during combat, but also at times during scenes where physical activities like jumping, climbing, and other such things are needed. The combat one tended to mean though that a fight that was supposed to have been challanging would end pretty damn abruptly, and long befor my GM wanted it to. XD

That is part of the reason why my characters/names Rhodryn Callahorn, and Marius Khayman, are so special to me. Since they have both pulled of some seriously cool stuff.

One of the oldest of those that I remember was against a dragon... (as always... long, so read at own risk... )

Spoiler

... we had realized we where pretty much F'ed... we where unable to realy do much damage to it, atleast any significant damage really... which was not the case for the dragon when it came to us. We where also unable to really get at it's belly and cheast area, where Dragons armour/scale tend to be weaker, since the dragon was down on all four legs and managed to counter our tryes to get at it. So in a somewhat desperate move I decided to do something stupid.

I asked the GM what the ground was made of, the GM replied a bit confused, but I had goten the answer I needed for my plan to maybe work. I layed out the entire plan for the GM. First I would run full speed straight at the front of the dragon, as if I was about to attack it's head or something... but then at the last moment I would basicly throw my self forward,onto my back and feet first, down onto the ground... and hopefully thanks to the ground I would have enough momentum that I would slide in under the dragon so I could get at the chest/belly of it, where I then would be able to make an attack... and then after the attack, if I survived, I would finally want to try and roll sideways out from under the dragon to try and get away if it all proved to be unsuccessful.

I got this look from the GM that basicly said "What the hell are you thinking?!" XD But he obliged me, told me that the difficultyof each action would be pretty high, and that I would probably not survive this. I said I was ok with that, since it was a pretty damn stupid idea after all, but it was all I had, it was the only thing left that I saw could maybe work, because we where losing, and there was no way out for us from this. So he gave me the difficulty of the slide thing and I roll, "Special".

In that particular game, the swedish pnp rpg DoD, the types of outcomes of a roll is: "Perfect" (roll of a 1 on a D20, and then rolling under your skill again with the D20), "Special" (a house rule we used, roll 2-5 on the D20, and then roll under your skill again), "Success" (rolling equal or lower then your skill... max you could buy in a skill att character creation in DoD is 15, but doing so for more then 1 or 2 skills would seriously hamper your character in everything else), "Fail" (rolling over your skill), and finally "Fumble" (rolling a 20, and then rolling over your skill again, where depending on what you did some bad outcome would happend, like hitting your self with your own weapon, falling down from what ever you where climbing on, swallowing your own tongue, or your bow/crossbow snapping of a finger or more as you tried to shoot it, etc, they had fumble lists you rolled on to see what happend).

So... to continue... I rolled a special for my slide as mentioned, and I was now perfectly placed under the chest of the dragon, so I grab my sword in both hands since if you hold a 1h weapon in DoD in both hands you would do a little more damage (do not recall the kind of sword... but probably the biggest I could find that my character could use in one hand) and attacked the dragon... I roll the D20... and it's a 1! A chance at a perfect! So I pick up the D20 and roll it again... another 1! I mean it can not be any more perfect of an attack then that. No matter what the outcome of a perfect was, I did so much damage to the dragon that I killed it in one blow... and the story became that I had somehow managed to hit the heart of the dragon. But now I had a problem, I just killed the dragon, and I was laying right underneeth it, and things that die tend to... you know... fall down... and if I was still there when that happend I would pretty much become squashed under the dragons weight. So I needed to roll out of the way, but again due to circumstances the difficulty of this was pretty high... I roll my dice... chance at special... roll it again... SPECIAL! And my character rolls out of the way with no problem, as the dragon heavy body slams into the ground mere centimeters away from me.

The GM was pretty devestated about that... that his planed difficult fight ended pretty quickly in one single blow. XD

And that's not the first time I have killed difficult enemies with a single or very few attacks. Another one of my characters, my Rhodryn Callahorn that I mentioned in a previous post (in the Pillars thread I think... actually the character who killed the Dragon I mentioned above, was my character Marius Khayman, who I also mentioned in a previous post XD ), with another (our original) GM, killed many enemies pretty easily even though they should not have been. Everything from skilled fighters of various races, to big animals and monsters, to demons etc. I recall Rhodryn almost single handedly defeating a Hydra for example, where Rhodryn did most of the work to keep the Hydra at bay and keeping to chop of heads, as the others tried to burn the necks of it after we realized it was a hydra. Think Rhodryn was the one who did the last two attacks, with cutting of it's last head and then attacking the stump with his tourch to finally kill it off. He also defeated a Manticore by him self with his first attack, a single strike so powerful that it broke it's back... forcing Rhodryn to have to put it out of it's missory. There was something with a Minotaur as well, but I don't think he did that alone. And I seem to recall him also killing atleast one demon with a single blow. It's understandable that characters like Rhodryn Callahorn and Marius Khayman became so iconic names and characters for me.

It has not stopped there though with those two characters. I tend to do it every now and then with all my characters. Both killing enemies to quickly, or pulling of incredible maneuvers that no sane person would even try or think of, be it in combat or in other situations. And not only in pnp rpg's, but also in games like Blood Bowl... where I was known amongst my friends as the guy who pulled of the impossible plays. Of course... my friends conventiantly forget the fact that the number of times I succeed is far far fewer then the times I fail. I am just more willing to take big risks when I play, so the fact that I pull off things like this is more due to sheer volume then anything else. But it was still usefull to a degree because some of my friends stared them selves blind on the fact that it did not matter what they did, I would still succeed to get at the ball no matter how well protected it was. XD

As the Tactica Imperium says: "If you are strong feign weakness. If weak, pretend strength. Whatever your position, conceal it from the enemy, and he will waste his armies fighting his own phantoms." XD

One of the most recent one, of my crazy maneuvers that I pulled of, made for a great escape story... (like always, with most of my things... it's pretty damn long) XD

Spoiler

Was playing a swedish pnp rpg called Eon. The other 3 in my group at that time, some years ago actuall... and one of the few times that we where more then me, my friend the GM and his brother, over the years (untill earlier this year when me and my GM for the first time since befor 2003 finally have a big group of people to play with, we are now 6 people in total)... anyway... those three had been captured, due to stupidity. Against my suggestion, of checking if it was safe first, to cross the river at a bend in the river... they just bolted out into the pretty wide river that we needed to cross. All this was due to being chased by military in a forest. As they got about halfway across they where spotted by another military unit, guarding their supply wagons, that where crossing an actual river crossing only some 50 meters further down the river (my team had not seen it due to the bend in the river)... luckily my character was a little bit behind, due to an earlier stumble, so as soon as the shouting started I managed to stop and get back into the forest and bushes befor any of those soldiers saw me.

I decided to not come to their help at that point, because there was no point in me trying to help them fight a vastly superior number of soldiers. So i hid and watched as my friends had to give up and be captured. Then I spent a lot of time sneaking around, checking for what I could do, for options etc. Basicly waiting for an oppertune moment to act. I was under a time pressure as well though, since once all of them had crossed the river they would continue to march away along the road in the forest, plus it would not be far befor they would leave the forest and go out onto the open plains where it would be difficult for me to follow without being seen. Eventually I found my moment. They had put my captured, and heavily tied up, friends in the first wagon, and then performed the crossing with that wagon so it was on my side (still the wrong side for us... but hey what can you do really). It was a pretty difficult and slow crossing, so I knew it would take time for the next wagon to come across. Part of the unit protecting the supply wagons had also crossed, and had spent time checking the area for intruders (I managed to avoid them, and was now lying in a bush at the edge of the clearing), and they where now standing on guard around the clearing on this side of the river. But the only ones who really where keeping an eye on their 3 captives where the wagon driver and his crossbow wielding protection sitting next to him.

My plan started to form there. I would rush up to the wagon and somehow get rid of the driver and his protection as fast as possible, and then steal the wagon and drive off befor the other guys on this side of the river could intervene... it was a longshot though... but it was the easiest one I felt at that moment. So I get my weapons ready and burst out of the bushes in a sprint. I realize as I am running that standing on the ground fighting the two guys on the wagon is a bad idea, since they would have higher ground, and the guy furthest away has a crossbow... so with the idea of that I need to get up into the wagon to fight with them somehow crosses my mind. The driver and crossbow man have now noticed me bolting towards them in full speed with sword in hand (the kind I had would probably be an Arming sword in English) and start to shout about the danger as they try and get ready to deal with me as best as they can. One turn away from reaching them I see how the driver pulles out a shortsword from under his seat as he stands up and turns toward me in the seat, and how the crossbow man is pulling back the string on his crossbow. I know that what ever I do now it will have to somehow get rid of both guys quickly, and probably in the first turn (especially the driver), because if I fail to do that then I would probably be staring at the tip of a bolt just befor I get shot by it, and I had no armor what so ever (due to that we had only the night befor managed to flee from captivity at a militarycamp, and only had time to pick a weapon each really).

The best thing I can think of is to somehow use my forward momentum, to use the fact that I am running, and somehow surprice the guys on the wagon. And right then and there the final parts of my plan fell into place, I saw the whole scenario play out in my mind. Instead of running up and then standing there on the ground trying to get rid of the driver and then somehow get at the crossbow man... why do I not just try and jump, right up in the drivers seat area, and why not also as I am in midjump attack the driver by thrusting my sword at him hoping to catch him off guard... that way if I am a little bit lucky I might have goten rid of the driver so quickly that I have time to take on the crossbow man just as he is about to swing his weapon around and fire off the bolt.

So I lay out my plans for the GM, and he is just staring at me with a little bit of a surpriced look at first, and then says to me "You do realize that performing those actions together will mean I will have to raise the difficulty for both actions significantly...", I just say "I know". So he gives me the difficulty for both, and I feel sting as I realize this was probably a very bad idea... but it's to late to back down now as I was already on the way.

I roll my jump, success! Now I am flying through the air up towards the seat area, my front fot take perch on the edge of the wagon as I continue forward and upwards. I now roll for my sword thrust, and it's a "perfect" roll! Not only that, the driver failes his reaction test to see if he saw this coming or not, so his try to parry my attack has heavy penalties on it, and he failes horribly. I now roll for damage, and due to the attack roll was perfect I will have a chance in doing more damage (you add 2 additional D6's to the damage if you rolled a perfect for the attack, almost everything in Eon is rilled with D6's), and again my roll is really good (I keeped rolling 6's on the D6's, which means that you pick all the 6's up, add an equal amount of new D6's as 6's you had rolled, and roll them again, and keep going untill there are no more 6's). The damage roll is pretty damn big, so big so that I run the driver clean through with my sword, all the way down to the hilt... which can be a problem for me of course, but the driver is effectivly out of the fight now.

Start of turn 2 of combat: and I am now standing on the edge of the wagons drivers area, my sword run compleatly through the driver who is not dead, but is dying, and starting to slump down, pulling me partly down with him since I am still trying to hold on to my sword. Due to the driver I do not have any easy access to the crossbow man either, and he has now also finished loading his crossbow and will be ready to be use it against me in turn 2, and will not have any problems attacking me either for that matter. I do manage to win the initiative for this round though, so that is always a good thing. I get asked "what do you do"... and I am at a bit of a loss at first, my brain is running through a huge amount of scenarios... use the dying guy as a shield, let go of the sword and try to get at the crossbow man somehow, jump of the wagon, get into the back of the wagon, maybe pull the sword free and hope that the crossbow man misses so I can attack him with my second action... can not really come to a conclution what I want to do. The GM is now stressing me on, that I do not have much more time to act, and if I do not my actions will be forfited.

A spark of a thought comes to my mind here... I ask the GM "would it not be logical that I still have some kind of forward momentum from the previous turn? I mean it's not like the characters do their turn and then stop and stand still, that is just how the rules work so it is easier to use."... the GM agree's a bit hesitantly. And I now have my answer to what to do. Using that continual forward momentum from the previous round I continue to push forward, and want to try to hold up the dying driver with the help of the sword and my free arm, as I intend to push the driver and the blade of my sword (sticking out from his back of the driver) onto the crossbow man... and hopefully manage to either hit the crossbow man with the sword, or at the very least prevent him from using his crossbow against me... and then finish it all of with me puting one of my feet up as high as possible onto the driver as I pull the sword free from the driver, and at the same time try to push-kick the driver and crossbow man of the wagon. Again I get told against which things I need to roll, and the difficulties of each of them. A difficult strength roll to hold the guy up and continue to push him towards the crossbow man, and a difficult sword skill roll to maybe stab the crossbow man with the sword, and a second more difficult strength roll to pull the sword free as I try to kick them of the wagon. I barelly manage the first strength roll and the sword skill roll... but the crossbow man manage to avoid the sword. But I effectivly stopped him from using his crossbow, due to having dying driver pressed up against him, with one of my feet now resting on the drivers stomach I think it was. And then I roll the strength roll for my pull sword + kick driver and crossbow man of the wagon... Perfect! And the crossbow man compleatly fails with his strength roll to try and withstand it. So... as I pull my sword free of the body of the dying driver, I kick as hard as I can, and the driver and crossbow man are kicked back where the crossbow man fails his final roll, a dexterity roll to see if he can hold his balance, plus turn in such a way that the driver falls past him out of the wagon... he fail, and instead get's stuck on the driver who pulls him with him out of the wagon where the crossbow man lands on his back with the driver's entire weight lands on his chest knocking the wind out of him.

Turn 3, I can now see how a lot of the guards on this side or the river are aproaching the wagon at a run with their weapons ready, some have stopped to use their bows, and how more soldiers from the river are trying to get across, with some kind of leader standing on wagon on the other side of the river pointing and shouting in my direction. I quickly glance down in the back of the wagon to make sure all of my 3 team mates are in there, which they are. At which point I dive down behind the drivers bench, as to not get shot by the archers or the other wagons crossbow men, grab hold of the reins, and shake them as you do to get the horses to start pulling... I roll against my drive carriage skill, and I manage to get the horses to do what I want. I eventually manage to get them to speed up to as fast as they can, outrunning the soldiers, and with a few arrows and bolts, and even the odd spear, here and there flying by, but missing. And eventually we burst out of the forest, along the road, out onto the plains at high speeds. Of course, we are now going in the wrong direction, towards the enemies city, but for now it was better then nothing. Eventually I also manage to free one of the 3 others (he had almost managed to get free by him self already), who then helped the 2 others to free them selves as well.

Then with a little bit of planing we came up with how to try and get out of all this. Turning of the road out on to the plains, so as to not go towards the city, trying to make it look like we where trying to keep out of the way of running into other military units. I then tied the reins to the wagon, and then we all jumped of the wagon as it speed of further out on the plains, We ran back to the road and crossed over to the other side of the road and, doing our best to not leave any to obvious marks and what not, and continued towards some hills that we had seen, so we could use them as cover and continue to move in that direction to then at some point turn towards the river again and hopefully manage to get to it and cross it, to get back home to our own country and military units that we where working for.

Unfortunatly, from what I recall, this was the last time we played this particular adventure.

 

[Suhiira]

Yeah, it's a real love/hate thing when your players get creative or lucky.

 

[Suhiira]

Yeah, but you didn't need cyberware in Shadowrun.

Unless I missed something yes you do.
You don't need it yourself, you can bring along a cybered NPC, but it is needed.

I can't see it being necessary in our Dream RPG. Make it easier, yes, but necessary, I hope not.

Exactly.

 

[Sardukhar]

Unless I missed something yes you do.
You don't need it yourself, you can bring along a cybered NPC, but it is needed.

Well, that's what I meant - you didn't need it yourself, you hired a pro. You could have a totally non-cybered person in Shadowrun, that was doable.

Asking to play Cyberpunk without using any kind of cyberware OR hiring anyone with cyberware or anyone who can run the Net competently - now, that is too much.

It's a tech game - you don't need all the tech, but it's perfectly fair to ask that PCs make other arrangements when they don't have the tech themselves.

 

[Suhiira]

Asking to play Cyberpunk without using any kind of cyberware OR hiring anyone with cyberware or anyone who can run the Net competently - now, that is too much.

I'm not asking for this, I agree it would be totally unreasonable to expect a non-cybered person to be as good in the net as a cybered one, heck it's even in the rules with the automatic initiative reduction, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But you CAN conceivably run Cyberpunk PnP with a totally noncybered group of players.

Actually when I played Shadowrun I had exactly one piece of cyber ... a netjack. 5 wasn't as good as 6 for a mage but worked just fine.

 

[Calistarius]

Are you two talking about the same thing in Shadowrun?

Because to me it sounds like one is talking about cyberware (the things that you replace bodyparts with to become better in some way)... and like the other is talking about Cyberdecks and Decking (used to access computers and the matrix) but is mistakenly calling it "Cyberware".

As far as I remember (about Shadowrun Returns atleast, not sure about the later games/editions) you never needed to have anyone with cyberware to get through the game... at all. Technicly atleast... Deckers had to have 1 cyberware to be able to use the Cyberdecks etc, I think.

As for the Deckers with Cyberdecks... from what I recall there are a few missions where a Decker is mandatorily needed, and if you do not have one you can not compleat the mission. But usually you will either automaticly have a decker in those missions (in addition to your own team), and/or you will have deckers available to you when you build your team for the mission (some of which I think might even have been free or something). Not having a decker though in your team will mean that you would miss a lot of oppertunities to get money or items, and it can also mean that a mission becomes much harder to get through as well in some instances. Also, I seem to remember reading that hired Deckers are not able to become as good at it as your own character can... not sure if that is true.

 

[Suhiira]

Been a while since I played Shadowrun and I'd forgotten some of the games terminology, that's probably what created some of the confusion.

In Shadowrun a Decker requires a Datajack to even be able to use a Deck, and a Deck is required to access the matrix.
There is no option for a person without a Datajack to even be able to operate a Deck.
While a person manually operating a Deck WOULD BE at a significant disadvantage they still should be able to get in.

 

[Suhiira]

Personally I always get a laugh out of people calling virtually every MMO that's been made since WoW was released a WoW clone.

Let's see ...
Poker is played with cards, people take turns being the dealer, each person is delt a specific number of cards, you can discard some of the hand you were initially delt and receive new cards, specific sets of cards are ranked from lowest to highest value, at the end of a hand one person wins.

OMG!

Most card games are Poker clones! Thus not worth playing.

 

[Calistarius]

And besides... it is not like Blizzard somehow invented the wheel when they made WoW... multiple games befor it used simmilar, or the same, kind of mechanics. All Blizzard really did was to take already existing mechanics, maybe doing some minor changes, but basicly reusing them. In many ways CoH/CoX (City of Heroes, the CoX one came about after City of Villains was released) was more innovative then WoW ever was I feel (and was about 6 months older then WoW as well)... and a lot of other games have also been more inovative then WoW ever was... like Guild Wars, or WAR (Warhammer Age of Reckoning), etc.

What Blizzard does with some or even a lot of their games, as I said befor, is to take already existing mechanics/philosophies (or newly created ones) from other games and jam the pieces of all of that together into creating their games. WoW borrowes heavily from older, and newer, games... and not only from other mmo's, but also from none mmo types of games (after all, most of these mmo mechanics do come from singleplayer games to begin with). Of course, most other developers does the same, it's just seems like Blizzard does it to "the next level" with all of the things in their games.

Just look at Blizzards new game "Overwatch"... it is the same there. All they are doing is taking already existing mechanics, etc, from other games of this style (and maybe from other games not exacly this style as well), tweek and refurbishe them, and then jam it back together into the package you see with Overwatch.

Not to mention that the worlds of two of Blizzards most successful franchises where in various amounts based on already existing IP's. That being Warcraft which was based on Games Workshops game/IP of "Warhammer Fantasy Battles"... and Starcraft being based on GW's game/IP of "Warhammer 40.000". They just changed it up a bit, and made both Warcraft and Starcraft much more... nicer... not as dark and bleak as WHFB and WH40K are. I mean heck... even in Warcraft III there is a unit, Gryphon Rider, which at times say "This warhammer cost 40k! Hehe." (just after the 1 minute mark). They have made it their own though, put their own touch on it and all, so even if it is based on other things it is still different enough.

Now, I am not saying that what they are doing is wrong, or bad, or that it is somehow easy to do it or something. It is not. Making a game like WoW takes just as much work as it takes to make any other kind of mmo, or any other kind of game as well... no matter how much it is based on other work, or how much inovation you put in it or not.

What I am saying, though, is that claiming that Blizzards games, like WoW for example, is somehow the origin of it all or something... is ridiculous.

What Blizzard should get props for are on other aspects of game development... like the ability to use all these already existing mechanics etc in such a way that the masses can get into it and all. It's not always good to be the inovator of something after all. Many inovative games and companies around that failed or flopped or something... but due to it/them the industry was better for their existence. Befor WAR there was nothing like "public quests" really in mmo's as far as I know, but after Mythic made WAR, then a lot of other both new and old mmo's added something like it. The makers of Guild Wars 2, for example, openly talked about using elements like Public quests from WAR, and using other mechanics and elements from other games like City of Heroes, in their game.

 

[Suhiira]

Hey I played WoW when it was first released, and enjoyed most of it, finally got fed up after 49 runs to one of the first "epic dungeons" (don't recall the name of it anymore) and absolutely nada to show for it but TONS of time lost.
Other then that I had a lot of fun.