Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing

Ganymede

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

It expects that people will be familiar with the dice mechanic and associated statistics to figure out what those pools give them in practice, which is often not at all obvious when you factor in modifiers, merits, etc. Especially for new people.

You're right. Merits and things like that throw everything off a little. But the Storyteller system, at its basic, is Attribute + Skill. This is what you should expect for your pool, and all situational modifiers and merit adjustments are frills that apply sometimes, but not all the time.

So, I've described the basics of the Storyteller System in three sentences. That doesn't mean it's a good system, of course, but I concur with The Sands in that it is pretty basic.

I like it better than THAC0, at least.

It doesn't provide any consistency across players. Two people may intend for their characters to be comparably skilled (let's say... both modestly successful pilots fresh out of flight school) and end up with wildly different dice pools completely by accident because they're just not on the same page as to what's appropriate.

On BSG:U, the +census feature was great because it allowed you to see how others built their PCs. I strongly advocate for open sheets on all games, even PvP ones. This is a good way for folks to meet expectations.

Also, staff. As I've said countless times, I carefully look at applications when I'm staff, and I offer up suggestions to folks where I feel it is appropriate. Because sometimes a person is a newbie, doesn't know how to strategically allocate points, and genuinely appreciates it when someone takes an interest in their enjoyment on a game.

But I think that they can provide a lot of value if you can manage to get them right.

And I agree. That's why I like L5R's roll-and-keep system or DP9's Silhouette system. In fact, the latter is probably the best system I've found to accurately describe skill level, skill complexity, and attributes. Basically:

You roll a number of d6 equal to your Skill Level, generally 1-5 (although it can go up to ten).
You pick the highest result if you roll more than one die. If you roll more than one 6, you get a +1 to the result for each additional 6; so, if you rolled three dice and got 3, 6, and 6, the result is a 7.
If unskilled, roll 2 dice and pick the lowest result.
If your result is a 1, you fumble.
Apply your Attribute modifier to the result. An "Average" attribute gives you a 0.
Apply your Complexity modifier to the result. If your PC's Skill Complexity is equal to the Task's Complexity, you get a 0 modifier.
Compare the result to the Threshold or opposing roll. Determine Margin of Success or Margin of Failure to determine outcome.

It sounds more complex that it is, but, really, the Silhouette system is light and very versatile.

faraday

@ganymede said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

It sounds more complex that it is, but, really, the Silhouette system is light and very versatile.

I agree with what you've said about Sihlouette and Storyteller being pretty simple systems to grok. What I'm saying though is different. It's not about the mechanics.

Cate is a 3rd year Emergency Room resident physician who's pretty talented but not top of her class or anything. She's a little smarter than average - she got through medical school ok, but she's no genius.

What ratings are appropriate for that character's Medicine and Intelligence?

I can't answer that question by looking at dice and statistics. Is it 2 dots in Medicine? or 3? or 4? I'm not really sure. It kinda depends on whether you view 1 as "First Aid" or "Medical Student". What about intelligence - is what I described a 3? 4? I'm honestly not sure. (I'm trying to use WOD examples there for common ground but you could ask the same question with FS3 or any other system.)

If I pick wrong compared to what staff expects - my character is going to get bounced back to me, delaying my entry to the game. If I pick wrong compared to what other characters have chosen, I may be severely disadvantaged in plot scenes. And either way, I feel like I'm on shaky, uncertain ground, not confident in my chargen choices.

Skill census helps a bit, but it's not a magic bullet because you lack the context of those chars' backgrounds.

I'm not saying everyone needs to care about this issue. I'm just saying that some people care about this issue very much when they make up their characters. If your game doesn't have descriptions for what the levels actually are intended to mean - or worse, it has descriptions but they're wrong and/or everyone ignores them - then there's some percentage of players who are going to be drastically frustrated and/or led astray.

Three-Eyed Crow

@seraphim73 said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@the-sands said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

However, [WoD/CoD] the system in use in most places.

I would bet that it's not. The plurality of places, perhaps, but not the majority. It's just MSB that is soaked in WoD.

Damn right it's not. It waxes and wanes but there are a LOT of games posters here have no idea exist and that drum along quite happily (myself included, but I'll own my relative ignorance to All the Internet). WoD as the assumed default game makes me Hulk rage.

I don't mind (or, rather, I numbly accept and try to exit the threads in which they take place) WoD tangents here because they're inevitable but Christ a lot of people don't play WoD quite happily.

Lithium

@three-eyed-crow hits the nail on the head here, there are a /ton/ of games, that are not WoD that are quite happily spinning along.

It's just most people get all their 'numbers' from Mudstats. Which is not all inclusive.

Apos

I'd go a step further and say I'm not even sure a majority of people playing MUs are aware of any of the community websites that exist for them, this one included.

ThatGuyThere

@the-sands said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

But the example given is WoD. Faraday quite literally was presenting the position that the other players should be expected to buy Drive in WoD so they wouldn't have an advantage over the newbie, despite the fact that the WoD rules say that they don't need it.

NWoD you are correct says they do not, However 2oth Annversary for OWoD no longer uses the manual transmission description but on Page 280 of 20th anniversary of mage described drive 2 as being "Practiced: Typical American" Changleing 20th uses a different set of descriptors on their write up for drive found on page 165 but for them drive one states, "Novice: You can drive an automatic. "
So yes depending on the flavor WoD still has this issue.

Seraphim73

@surreality Yup. I'm one of those nutjobs working (on the side) on his own system. No matter how much I love Ares. But you knew this already.

I cannot tell that story sober any more. I just can't.

Start drinking. I'll start with you, because that sounds like my own experiences in game design, when the designer says, "But that's not how this works. It works like that." And I, the playtester, have to say, "Yes, you know that's how it's supposed to work, but that's not how it reads to someone who wants it to read another way."

@ganymede said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

On BSG:U, the +census feature was great because it allowed you to see how others built their PCs. I strongly advocate for open sheets on all games, even PvP ones. This is a good way for folks to meet expectations.

Yes, yes. 100 times yes.

Also, staff. As I've said countless times, I carefully look at applications when I'm staff, and I offer up suggestions to folks where I feel it is appropriate. Because sometimes a person is a newbie, doesn't know how to strategically allocate points, and genuinely appreciates it when someone takes an interest in their enjoyment on a game.

Also yes. Suggestions from Staff are great, and should always be appreciated.

Ganymede

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Cate is a 3rd year Emergency Room resident physician who's pretty talented but not top of her class or anything. She's a little smarter than average - she got through medical school ok, but she's no genius.

What ratings are appropriate for that character's Medicine and Intelligence?

Intelligence 3 and Medicine 3.

I mean, I love Cate, but --

If you were using the Silhouette system, you'd probably have Intelligence +1, and Medicine 3/3.

surreality

@seraphim73 Yup. (And at some point I am going to try to borrow you and @faraday or something because y'all and math are friends and math's mean to me, she won't let me sit at the cool kids' table. )

That really is about the size of it, re: the answer.

And the truth is, his answer was a good answer -- for a table, or a place where you have some say in who is or isn't there.

The issue: oWoD, in it's 2E days. So we're talking early-mid 90s.

Celerity would, when you spent blood, be able to take additional actions in a round because you could physically move faster than other people.

Makes sense, right? Simple?

Well, sane people understood this was intended for use with physical actions.

But the text did not say that.

The text just said actions.

Cue every rules-lawyering wanker from the early-mid 90s insisting that because it did not specify physical actions, of course you could cause chemical reactions [Celerity] times as fast, learn things [Celerity] as fast, perform spiritual/magical rituals intended to last X number of rounds in X number/[Celerity] rounds instead, fire off Dominate [Celerity] times per round... (none of which were typically physical actions).

His answer was the right answer. It just was no help.

<takes the shot>

"Oh, honey. That's why you don't play with people that stupid, it's not good for you."

Observe the complete lack of any actual clarification in this answer, and... <clink> ...cheers.

faraday

@ganymede said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Intelligence 3 and Medicine 3.

While I appreciate the clarification, I think you missed my point. (Or were being facetious :))

It's all well and good for staff to be able to answer that question, but I'm saying that the answer to that question (and a million similar questions for every character who comes through chargen) should be obvious from the skill system description.

(Incidentally, I played on a mortal-Storyteller game where 1 meant First Aid, 2 was Paramedic, 3 was Doctor-in-Training and it would've been perfectly appropriate for someone like Cate to have a 4. You never know.)

It's like FS3, where I kept having to reject people for their background skills being too high. I'd ask them: "Did you really mean to be good enough to be paid symphony violinist?" And they'd be like: "Oh - no - I just wanted to have more dice."

If the dice have meaning in term of training, then the system should make it clear what levels are appropriate for a junior doctor, or a pilot fresh out of flight school, or a casual hobbyist violinist.

If the dice don't have meaning, then I should be able to give Cate Medicine 4 just for kicks, and the violinist character shouldn't get grief just because it's "too high".

Either way, the help files should offer guidance about what staff wants beyond "just go by the dice pool".

Packrat

I definitely want to chime in and say that I agree with the people who prefer skills to matter over stats though, the default equal weight to both in WoD (and a fair few other systems) really is nonsensical.

Take the example of the doctor with Intelligence 3, Medicine 3 for a pool of 6. Should they really be barely better than a really smart person (Intelligence 4) who has qualified on a first aid course (Medicine 1) and thus has a pool of 5? Probably not!

It also makes all sorts of concepts just not work. Hell, in real life I probably have WoD Dexterity 1 (Dyspraxia) yet when I was in the military I was an excellent shot. Did I have Firearms 5? Hell no, but I was a better shot than the commando qualified captain who must have by definition had a dex+firearms pool of 5 or 6 minimum.

I actually really like the attribute+skill weight in the system used on Arx but it really could benefit from the system being an awful lot more transparent. That might have changed since I played there but it certainly used to be that people who had experimented and worked out the odds (and/or cooked up spreadsheets) were significantly advantaged mechanically if they wanted to be.

That said I found with Arx that all characters have amazing base attributes but also start with weirdly anemic skills in comparison which then rise rapidly in play. You cannot be a even a merely very capable person who is a serious expert at things, you have to start as a wildly naturally talented person who is 'pretty good but unexceptional' at one or two things.

WildBaboons

@packrat Arx system are.. kinda transparent I think? There was a design spreadsheet available and maybe even a version of code to look at?

But it definitely is a skill system that favors skill over stat. In the example of a 5 int, 1 medicine character they would roll 4 dice (I think) for a medicine roll. A character with 1 int, 5 medicine (which just wouldn't happen) they would roll 6 dice.

I believe it works by (stat/2+1) + skill to determine the pool, rounding down. Don't quote me on any of that though

Packrat

@wildbaboons It does not work like that at all in fact, kind of proving my point. Unless they changed it? From what I remember it is essentially a modified version of the the Legend of the Five Rings system with a 'roll keep' mechanic.

Basically you roll a number of 10 side dice equal to attribute + skill+1 (I forget if it is exactly one? It might vary between types of rolls), also 10s explode indefinitely. Then you keep a number of the dice equal to Skill+1 that rolled highest.

So attributes are definitely useful but somebody who has a Skill of 4 is going to be infinitely better than somebody with a skill of 1 even if their attribute is only at 2 and the Skill 1 person at 5. They both roll the same number of dice but the Skill 4 person keeps the highest 5 of the seven dice, the Skill 1 person rolls seven dice but only gets to keep the highest two.

WildBaboons

@packrat Oh, right right.. Like you said, it isn't easily listed to see. What i posted was the formula to determine number of dice kept, not rolled.

but.... anyways, it's a system that values skills more than attributes. Someone with more training will be better than a genius without it

Packrat

@wildbaboons Definitely, I like the system, but for combat especially it is pretty obtuse and it is not documented anywhere. Tehom from what I recall was happy to answer questions and suchlike but you cannot go onto the website and read to find out what dice system is being used. There can be weird and non intuitive results that favour those who go deep into numbers whilst it is pretty difficult to go 'Well I have Attribute 4, Skill 3, what kind of average result can I expect if I roll them?'

At least not without consulting something scary like this:

Roll Keep Probabilities

Roz

@wildbaboons @Packrat Roll Stat + Skill, Keep Skill + (Stat/2) + 1.

peasoupling

How I typically stat characters: Well, I look at the descriptions of skills in the books, I look at example characters, and I try to figure out what would be reasonable for a character like mine to have. I will fudge this a point up or down, within reason, to bump up skills I feel would be useful, or in the case of CoD if I have to hit some prerequisites or something, but the keyword is within reason. I am not a newbie, this is just how I roll.

How I don't stat characters: Calculating the average expected outcomes for specific rolls given my stat and skill combinations and deciding I want a character who succeeds 70% of the time at shanking people in the ear. Because kill me now.

Sometimes I then realize everyone is way better at critical stuff than me and that STs are probably setting challenge levels in scenes based on that, so I very grudgingly start bumping up stuff I don't really feel like my character should have, and kinda hate it.

Lithium

The way you avoid min-maxing isn't systemic, it's thematic. If the goal is to be as powerful as possible, there will be min maxing, as we see a lot in WoD/CoD, D&D, where optimization can equate to survival in an antagonistic setting.

If the setting and theme is such that there is less of a pvp element, then min-maxing becomes less of a problem.

For example: Dark Metal, to not min-max there would mean setting yourself up to die back in it's hay day. The very nature of sphere's make it so you have conflict within your own sphere, conflict with other sphere's and the majority of that conflict is other PC's, who can and will optimize as well.

In D&D optimization is fun cuz it makes you feel powerful, but, it's not entirely necessary because for the most part, the antagonism is all NPC's.

So from a game design standpoint... you end up needing to design either a setting that doesn't encourage it or limits it's impact, or you need to create a system where people can, as was said before, make what they /want/ to play, without having to sacrifice in order to do so.

Ganymede

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Either way, the help files should offer guidance about what staff wants beyond "just go by the dice pool".

I agree, but if staff is helping folks coming in -- like you do -- then any misconceptions made thereby can be corrected too.

The Chronicles of Darkness nerfed text descriptions for attribute levels, but they do provide them for skills. In the core book, p. 34, it states that, for Medicine, a doctor would be considered "Experienced," which is the 3-dot level of expertise. Since I know that 2 dice is supposed to be the average level of attributes, I surmised that Cate, being smarter than average, would have an Intelligence of 3.

So, yes, my experience (Level 3!) guides me, but determining what levels you have in attributes and skills can be accomplished just be reading the source material, in my opinion.

That aside, as I said before, I really like the Silhouette system. The addition of the Skill Complexity variable allows for much greater skill definition. A pilot may have an Expert skill level (Level 4) in Piloting simple vehicles (Complexity 1), but if he is asked to handle an alien spacecraft (Complexity 4), he's going to have difficulty in getting a high result (the result is penalized by -3 for the Complexity difference), but it is still possible for him to succeed at a somewhat difficult Piloting task in that spacecraft (because he could feasibly roll 3 6s, which would be a result of 8, unmodified, or, perhaps he has high Wits, which would give a positive modifier to offset the negative one for the Complexity difference).

Packrat

It can be system based as well, a lot of older systems especially have multiple paths to get to the same place but some are wildly more 'efficient' than others. A lot of systems also punish diversity very very strongly.

Suppose your goal is to make a competent knight, you go with what makes sense for your character who is a 40 year old veteran. So you get a decent Sword skill, Mace Skill, Polearms skill and Knife skill, plus some Unarmed and Crossbow. You keep your Dexterity fairly low because your character is not some kind of ninja, they are a scarred badass with a limp.

But this is a system with exponential costs to raise things after character generation and linear costs in chargen, you just spent a huge number of points on combat ability only to end up distinctly mediocre to average.

Somebody else buys Dexterity up really high and Sword up really high, spends fewer points and could fight four of your character at once, then still has enough to raise their Unarmed higher than you before walking away with some spare to know how to dance.