Monte Cook recently posted “A Different Way to Slice the Pie” at WotC’s website. In this essay, he argues that system mastery is a bad idea and makes the game more difficult to learn.
… has everyone swallowed crazy pills around here?
From the essay:
The problem with a newly codified rule is that it becomes one more thing to remember. Moreover, it becomes a component of the game that you have to learn even though it might never come up in play. As unlikely as it seems, it’s possible in 3rd Edition for one to read and understand the “Attacks of Opportunity” section and then never actually have the rule come into play. Why? Because attacks of opportunity are triggered actions that don’t happen on the player’s turn. They’re also situational and easy to forget.
So imagine slicing the pie a different way. Rather than calling out attacks of opportunity as an element of D&D combat, you simply add the rules where and when they are needed. So it would say, as in 1st Edition, that if you move away from a foe, or use a missile weapon next to him, the foe gets a free attack.
With this approach, rules appear only when you need them. There’s less codification and fewer (potentially far fewer) rules to master before you can start playing. The rules are revealed on a need-to-know basis, as distinguished from rules that are “unpacked” and individually categorized and described in a large chapter of a rulebook.
Okay. Let’s break that argument down:
- Take a rule which can be trivially memorized and referenced with needed.
- Delete that rule.
- Replace that rule with a bunch of new rules which are all similar to each other.
- This will result in there being fewer rules for you to master before you start playing.
So, increasing the number of rules will somehow result in there being fewer rules?
That’s gotta be crazy pills talking, right?
To be clear here, what Cook is simultaneously talking about here is the idea of organizing the rulebook so that rules you don’t need at 1st level are segregated. That way new players don’t need to spend time learning rules that they won’t use until weeks or months later. That makes perfect sense. That’s exactly how the old BECMI boxed sets were organized, and although it made things a little more difficult to reference sometimes, if you do the separation correctly it can be a net gain for the game.
But what that has to do with taking one rule, turning it into 90 different rules, and then smearing them across the rulebook I’m somewhat at a loss to explain.
SYSTEM MASTERY
What I’m seeing here is yet another manifestation of the inherent hostility that has inexplicably grown up against the concept of “system mastery” over the past 5-6 years.
For example, we saw a similar bit of insanity 4 years ago from David Noonan when he claimed that giving every monster unique powers was much easier than referencing unified rules from the PHB because you can list the unique powers in the monster’s stat block (i.e., “the rules only appear where you need them” as Cook says). I pointed out that this was a false dilemma: You can both reference the unified rule and include it in the monster’s stat block (making it easy to use on-the-spot and also rewarding a player’s system mastery).
In other words, Cook’s thesis that rules should “only appear where you need them” is fundamentally flawed. For maximum utility, rules should appear where you need them AND they should be based on universal mechanics which are easier to learn and master.
Why?
Well, for example, let’s imagine that Monster A has a special attack. In order to use Monster A, I’ll need to read the rules for that special attack and understand how to use it. Ideally, I’d find these rules in the monster’s stat block (so that they can be easily referenced when I use the monster). But if I use Monster A several times, I’ll probably remember how the special attack works. I will have mastered those rules and no longer need to read them before using Monster A.
Why anyone would think that’s a bad thing, I dunno. I’m assuming they’re masochists.
But let’s take this farther: Now I want to run Monster B. It, too, has a special attack. And as with Monster A, I’ll need to read the rules for that special attack and understand how to use it.
Unless, of course, Monster B uses the same rules for its special attack that Monster A uses for its special attack. Then I can use my mastery of the rules from Monster A to run Monster B without reading its rules. (Even better would be if this special attack were referred to by a common, unique name so that I could tell at a glance that this was the same ability.)
Legends & Labyrinths leverages the principles of system mastery through its Sidebar Reference System (SRS). (As I’ve discussed before.) I’m not saying that’s a universal solution that everyone should adopt (although I know that, personally, I wish all my RPG rulebooks used it). But I don’t understand why any game designer would want to run away from the principles of system mastery or make their games harder to learn and use.
Because, in reality, the power of system mastery extends beyond merely “I know that rule”. Memorizing the rule is only the first step; learning how to use the rule (and use it effectively) is the next one. For example, a Chess player doesn’t just memorize the rules for how a rook moves. They combine that knowledge with how the other pieces move and, from that, learn how force is projected on the board. And then they grow from there.
And the same is true in D&D or any other roleplaying game.
Definitly the crazy pills. ;o)
His argument works better for Threatening Reach than for AoOs, because you can actually finish first level without encountering anything that has threatening reach. But everything can AoO – – are you going to put that ability in every stat block and character sheet? Your monster manual is going to get two pages longer just from that.
I could see a section in the monster description describing “Rules Applicable to this Monster” — barbed devils get the rules for improved grapple, ghouls get the rules for coup de grace.
classic case of the fallacy of the false dilemma eh?
I haven’t been reading Monte’s essays there; prompted by this I went back and got caught up. I agree that this is a bad idea. Not quite monumentally bad, but pretty bad. I’m a wargamer and I value precision and clarity in rules. I recognize that D&D is a game of imagination and that hacking or house-ruling the game is an important and sometimes necessary part of the process, but I think the importance of having a well-grounded, consistent foundation to build on is paramount. I play ASL, which is widely-regarded as one of the most complex wargames ever; it doesn’t so much reward system mastery as require it. It is nigh-impossible to learn ASL just by reading the rules; they’re not written to facilitate learning the game. Unfortunately, they’re not really the best reference, either, although a lot of effort was spent on organization and cross-referencing (there is very extensive cross-referencing, notes of exceptions, and so on) — it’s just too complicated. I’ve been playing pretty much every week for something like 15 years, and there’s not a session that goes by when we don’t have to look up a rule for some detail that escapes us. Frankly what system mastery mainly does for us is let us know what section (or sections) of the rules to go to for the answer to any given question.
ASL is based on Squad Leader, which used the “Programmed Instruction” method for its rules, in which you would read a few rules, and then you would know enough to play a few simple scenarios. Then you would add some more rules, allowing you to play other scenarios that made use of those rules, and so on. It was designed to facilitate learning the game. Unfortunately, as the game expanded over the years, and many rules sections were revised or amended, this led to an absolute nightmare of confusion. When you wanted to look up a rule, you had to look it up in (potentially) four different books, to see what the rule’s final state was.
Gradual introduction to the rules can have its place, but if you are building a game system with a lot of complexity (and modern D&D certainly qualifies) I think the players and referees are better served by having a well-organized and efficient rules document allowing system mastery. If you want an introductory work, that should be a separate book/product. (Hmm, the cynic in me was thinking that maybe Wizards might like the idea of duplicating rules text in many places to drive up page counts and justify more books; at least a sideline of introductory or learning books to get you up to speed with using the dry rules reference would be optional.)
But I don’t think what Monte’s doing in his essay is promoting the idea in a “this would be better” way; I think he’s asking “Hmm, COULD this be better?” In this and his other writings he’s pointing out sacred cows and asking whether they should be so revered, looking back over the history of the D&D game and asking his readers in polls as well. Which makes some sense given his somewhat-nebulous role of apparently thinking about what direction D&D should to in next.
It may be interesting to look at the poll results next week to see how the voting went.
Monte Cook should become politician. He already has the right mindset XD
I have to admit, the logic is mind-boggling:
Premise: Rule A applies to situations B, C, and D- this hard to keep track of.
Conclusion: Instead of explaining how Rule A applies to all of the situations, we wil now write separate rules A:B, A:C, and A:D.
That will will simplify things!
Furthermore, this means that any rules interacting with the concepts of Attacks of Opportunity in general have to refer specifically to EVERY version of the rule!
Plus, the example he chose is non-sensical, as Attacks of Opportunity are one of the things that apply just as much to low-level play as high level and are not an example of rule that rarely comes up (such as all the variant maneuvers in the grapple system of 3.5…)
I can see the underlying logic — that people shouldn’t need to worry about the rules until they actually need them — but for me, the holes in the reasoning are
1. how do you decide whether you need to know a rule yet without knowing it? It’s a tidy catch-22, and
2. the underlying assumption (and only solution to [1]) seems to be a game with neophyte players and an experienced DM, where the DM doles out rules information to the players on an “as I see fit” basis. I don’t know how Cook plans to prevent players from learning the rules and then remembering them again next time they make first-level characters. Finally,
3. how does this kind of schema not make the organization of the rulebook itself more difficult?
> 3. how does this kind of schema not make the organization of the rulebook itself more difficult?
This.
The real point of my long-winded diatribe, which I didn’t explicitly make, is that a rulebook organized for LEARNING is generally going to make a pretty poor reference. Squad Leader was designed for learning. ASL intentionally took the opposite tack, and designed for reference — in part they could get away with this because they had a built-in customer base that already knew how to play SL. Modern D&D is sufficiently complicated that I think it needs to be treated as a reference; if you want more handholding I’d argue it should be in a separate product (an introductory boxed-set, say).
I think I understand what Monte Cook is trying to say though, for example I would see times when a monster makes reference to a spell such as Ability A works like spell B except its range, amount of times it can be used also it’s some of its effect and this a supernatural ability.
So now I have to look up the spell, figure it out, adjust to how the monsters ability works and also figure out what a supernatural ability is.
If it were for example a monster who can run away quickly it could read, when this monster is effected by fear effects it gains the ability to run away quickly as the spell Expeditious Retreat, however he can do it an unlimited number of times perday and can only target himself, his speed is only increased to x6 when running and he can no longer choose to not run away. This a Supernatural Ability.
I know this is a real ability specifically although some come close (I haven’t seen any that would say the x6 thing) but its just an example.
It all could have been summed up by saying This monster runs away at x6 when running for his life.
I guess I think system mastery is fine, except with spells and such, why quote a spell than say except this one isn’t a spell and is not being cast and works differently.
I do agree universal things like Attacks of opportunity can be mastered, but I for one also hate trying to remember the difference between dazzled and dazed so those could be mastered but also should be reprinted every time, where as how is something like polymorph going to be reprinted every time or ever really mastered. If I create a shape changing monster I’m not going to mention polymorph.
The standardization of basic rules was one of the discoveries that made me think “Of course!” when I first encountered Third Edition D&D. Suddenly there was seldom any need to look up spell ranges: Once I knew “short, medium, or long”, I had the information I needed. Determining how much hit points a variant monster would have or what level it used to cast its spells all became basic calculations.
Fourth Edition sought to eliminate the fetishization of systematic rules, but threw the baby out with the bathwater. Sometimes it made sense to say “to heck with the rules, we’ll do what works for the story”, but they should have realized that the ideal rules system “knows when to hold ’em” AND “knows when to fold ’em”. Based on the comments I’ve heard, they’ve back come around to the idea that standardized rule systems can be your friend.
I think perhaps what you mean by “system mastery” is not the same thing people are ranting against when they talk about “system mastery”.
What you are talking about is the standardisation of rules, so that the game becomes progressively easier to play/run with time – as you go you learn the rules, so need to look up less and less. This is, of course, a good thing. And you’re right, the method of using both standard rules _and_ including the full text in the monster stat blocks really is the best of both worlds.
However, when people rant about “system mastery”, they are generally referring to the ‘traps’ that appear in 3e – the way that a character build with “Skill Focus” and “Toughness” as his two feats is considerably worse than one who took “Power Attack” and “Cleave”. Or the way that some magic items are plainly superior to others at the same price point. Or the way that Monks suck. Or that by combining five different Prestige Classes, you can find nice, fun ways to utterly break the game…
Of course, correcting the latter is perhaps better done with a rebalancing exercise, rather than a wholesale revision of the entire system (basically, 3.75e rather than 4.0e). But that boat has long since sailed.
Well, like I’ve discussed in the past, I don’t really buy into that prong of the anti-system mastery crusade, either.
Can there be badly designed rules that break the game? Of course.
But the idea that you can (a) offer people a wide range of interchangeable options while (b) ensuring that every single combination of those options is identical so that (c) you prevent them from making bad choices when combining those options is a mirage. It’s an impossible goal. It’s even an impossible goal if you try to very narrowly restrict the flexibility of the wider system so that it only supports one style of gameplay. (If your game supports multiple styles of gameplay then the goal just becomes laughable.)
Sure, I accept that a crusade for total balance is futile. Some combinations are always going to be better than others.
But where 3e (especially late 3.5e) went wrong was that the available options ranged from “utter crap” to “game breaking”, and the distinction was often far from obvious. The difference between an optimised character and an unoptimised one was often not just a few degrees, it was the difference between being useless and ruling the game.
IMO, the clear sign that things had gone too far was the mere existence of the Character Optimisation board. If I’m creating a character of type X, I shouldn’t have to spend hours poring through dozens of books or ask some panel of experts. I should be able to grab a bunch of options from an obviously-named set of relevant powers and be pretty sure of coming up with a character that is at least worth playing.
Little late to the party here, and I generally disagree with a lot of your posts but I thought the same thing when I recently read that article.
Programmed instruction (the old Squad Leader was the first thing I thought of too) is a perfectly legitimate approach and would best be found in an intro or new “Basic” set.
The comments about de-centralizing the rules though … how does that make any kind of sense? There has been a trend towards “universal” rules in everything from D&D to 40K for a reason: It works better. I don’t need 10 different versions of an ability to move faster in combat and gain a bonus to hit – I need “Furious Charge”, which encompasses those abilities and is defined in one place. That’s one of the things that has been getting better in more recent game designs and now we want to go backwards? I’ve liked some of Monte’s past work so I’m hoping we’ve been reading it wrong but I just don’t see how that is the case. If they’re looking to win back fans I don’t think that’s the kind of thing most people are looking for…
Well, obviously, you need to strike a balance. I think the rule of 7 also kind of comes into the discussion here. I play Shadowrun 4th edition, and most of the monsters have univerally-defined powers which are explained at the beginning of the chapter. In the core rules, there aren’t very many of these powers, so you can “master” most of them without too much trouble, and that keeps the stat blocks pretty clean. I am also now playing Earthdawn 3rd Edition, which has more monsters and more powers, and they do a similar thing. The problem is that mastering the powers is harder, and you have to flip to the powers’ seperate entries if you haven’t mastered them, and some monsters have several. I found myself copy & pasting the stats and the power descriptions from the PDFs onto another page and printing them off. It’s not a ton of work, but I’d rather not have to. Any monster with spells makes this problem worse.
Overall, I prefer the system Justin is talking about, but even he admits it’s not the perfect solution.
Welcome to Keywords, its something CCGs have struggled with and found the solution for that can be pretty easily ported over to a TTRPG with minor modification.
Basically in CCGs they will release “Supplements” as expansions which do not contain a rulebook, it is just the cards/monsters. So there isn’t a way to standardize all these effects right? After all they are all scattered. What they came up with is the Keyword, a one or two word block usually given a text effect like italics or bold to denote it. On common cards that everyone will end up using they print the entire effect while on more complex powerful or just advanced higher-rarity cards they rely on the system mastery to compact things.
For example Harpy has “Flying: Can’t be blocked by non-flying creatures.” Simple enough, flying creatures fly over others.
Then you pull out Pegasus Wing Harness: “Grants Flying to one creature”. Oh you know what Flying is. Awesome. Time to make some Winged Monkeys.
If people get confused it is pretty simple to include a keyword cheatsheet providing the expanded text for every keyword as a system mastery cheat.
I’m not a 100% certain keywords are a be all and end all. We have them in L5R (which unsurprisingly came from the CCG) and while they are ok… the Ninja keyword as an example seems pretty problematic because sure a Ninjato has Ninja and Sword Keywords plus has its own rules. So do I use Ninjitsu (Ninja weapons) or Kenjitsu (Sword Weapons) in a fight?? Can I use Iaijitsu (Sword Dueling) with a Ninjato? and the special Katas are also keyworded which again adds another layer of difficulty especially with some kinds of neurodivergency.