Friday, December 5, 2008

RPG System Overview: Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons The one who started it all. The one RPG by which all others are measured. Say what you will, D&D is the granddaddy of all role playing games. Everybody plays D&D. It's the standard game. If you're in the hobby long enough, you'll play this at some point. Everyone is familiar with it, and most of the time it's the easiest thing to get everyone to agree on. It also established a lot of the conventions that other games follow.

D&D tends to do pulp fantasy very well. There's a Tolkien-esque flavor to the system, but high fantasy isn't really it's strong suit. The new edition is a fairly big departure from past versions, and may manage to do the LotR style better, but I haven't had enough experience with it to come to a definite conclusion.

D&D, more so than most games, tends to encourage a very strict division of labor within a group. Players must choose a class when they create a character. Only certain classes can cast spells, and those classes aren't very good at fighting. Only certain classes can wear heavy armor, and those classes aren't very good at picking locks or sneaking past guards. Despite this, characters are still fairly customizable, though there isn't the room for versatility that there is in a pure point system.

Characters take damage in the form of lost hit points. 3e and 3.5e had no penalties for losing hit points as long as you were above 0hp. 4e has some game effects that occur after a certain fraction of a characters hp have been lost, but it's still very cinematic. Armor makes characters more difficult to hit, so characters must exploit holes in the armor, rather than trying to pierce it.

The magic is integrated into the system, and a party would have a difficult time surviving an adventure without using magic. This is less true for 4e, but a lack of magic users would still be a handicap.

Dungeons and Dragons is the progenitor of the role playing genre. It was also my first RPG. It's not my favorite system, but some of my best gaming memories were made playing this game.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Effects of Genre on a System

Different genre tend to encourage different levels of detail in RPGs. That's not entirely true. Different genre tend to encourage details in different areas of the system. This is a natural result of more emphasis being placed on those areas.

Fantasy games tend to have more complicated rules for melee and mounted combat. Ranged combat is present, but is usually allows fewer options than melee. Part of this is due to the fact that sword fighting is much more complicated than archery. But the rest is due to the fact that few of the genre's tropes involve standing back and shooting at someone. The armor rules also tend to be a bit more complex, and usually involve attacking around armor as often as actually piercing it. Magic is usually an integral part of the game, and often is the longest chapter of the book.

Modern action games tend to have more complicated ranged combat rules, especially when it comes to aiming and long distances. The exception to this is the martial arts sub-genre, which focuses on melee no matter the time period. Vehicle combat tends to be more complex as well. The list of equipment is usually longer, as someone can open a catalog, point to an item and expect it to be available to a character. Armor rules tend to be abbreviated to how much Kevlar one is wearing and wear, occasionally with additional rules for ballistic plate inserts. Unarmored can usually be aimed at, but actually penetrating the armor is usually more successful. Modern horror games also have these tendencies, and tend also to include rules for measuring mental stress and the resultant breakdowns and psychosis. Fun stuff, those horror games. Special rules for things such as psychic powers or magic may be present, but are rarely as emphasized as with fantasy, and the game may even be played without it.

Scifi games tend to be similar to modern action games. Air and space combat rules are usually more fleshed out than in the modern games, but the equipment list is usually just as long. Melee combat is usually given even less emphasis than in the modern game. Armor rules may be similar to the modern game, or even non-existent. Force-fields and other such things may be present, and if so add another layer of complexity. Magic systems are uncommon, but psychic powers or other special abilities such as the Force may exist and function in a similar role.

Games with a specific setting or sub-genre usually have more specialized rules. The general use rules tend to be a mixed bag. Some of them tend to be more useful for one genre of game or another, and almost all of them have a specific tone that is hard-wired into the system.

Next post I'll walk through some specifics on individual games.