We're too late for Web 2.0? Hardly!

I've been plugging the site away on various forums and one individual responded to my post about how our site is Web 2.0 by saying, "....you're six or seven years late to the punch, methinks."

Because I make it a habit to try to better explain myself to people who I feel don't understand my actions, I wrote a long reply back to him and after doing so realized that what I wrote really summarizes the thought process behind the website. So I'm reposting it here for more people to see,

Late to the punch?

More like way ahead of the curve

Let me compare with an analogy.

Let's say that Youtube is a funnel. When you submit a video, you basically dump it into the funnel along with millions of other people dumping into the funnel at the same time. That results in stuff pouring out of the top that is overflowing, because only so much can get out the bottom-- the intended destination. Do you know what I'm describing? Youtube's display algorithms for relevancy. Compared to the total number of submissions, only a small number of videos are actually benefited by these algorithms and it is primarily people who already have large subscriber bases and can make videos go viral in a few hours after uploading. That's why you see the same people on the front pages all the time. Everyone else is lost in the ocean of Youtube.

For smaller people if they want their stuff seen they need to embed their videos OUTSIDE Youtube. And there is only a finite number of places you can do that and hope your videos actually get seen. As an example, this forum. People's own submissions sit here at the very bottom of the forum, which no one has any other reason to go look at. Consequently few things are seen. Spoony's forum isn't alone in this; nearly every website works that way, including Blistered Thumbs, TGWTG, Kotaku and ScrewAttack. All the featured contributors-- the people who work on the site-- they get front page exposure and everyone else is basically pushed into the back alleys of the website.

And that's fine--there is nothing wrong with them focusing on their own people,  but that's not what true Web 2.0 design is about.

Now take a look at www.rpgfanatic.net

We have a featured contributor box. That represents roughly 1% of the website. The overwhelming majority of space is devoted to allowing user submissions to be found, and we have several different ways to do that; directly from a game's page, or using the navigation menu at the left hand side of the screen. We have a small leaderboard on the front page below our image slider. And we will eventually have more ways, too, and put a great deal of emphasis on search functions and a few other ideas I've personally came up with that nobody else has done (near as I can tell, anyway).

Also, unlike GameFAQs and GiantBomb, we won't ban people for submitting monetized videos. GameFAQs and Giant Bomb will do that. It's my belief that Whiskey Media was only running sites like Giant Bomb in order to advertise their website development platform and had little actual interest in building communities beyond that; thus why they sold their company at the first chance they got, even going as far as selling Giant Bomb to CNET -- cause the company who let GameFAQs go to hell are going to manage Giant Bomb so much better, right?

The way we handle walkthroughs is also better. GameFAQs is still primarily notepad txt files. We allow easy embedding of images and videos to compliment your walkthroughs, and you can even embed monetized videos if you have a monetized Youtube account. You'll never be able to do that on GameFAQs, it's against their terms of service.

You can also submit Let's Plays / Commentaries. We have a specific feed just for them so they don't get mixed in with news or review submissions. I don't know of any other site that handles different types of user submitted game content the way we do. Everything usually just gets dumped into one big feed (like on ScrewAttack) and consequently much of it is lost in the sea of submissions. We've put a lot of effort into minimizing that from happening. It's way harder for things to be lost on our site.

You should give my site a shot. We will never sell out to anybody. We're in this for the long haul and for the right reasons.

I Criticize Because I Care; A Game Critic Speaks Up

I Criticize Because I Care

 By Carey Martell

Originally written: 3/25/2012

Erik Kain, a long time contributor to Forbes.com concerning videogames, recently had a spat with Destructoid’s Jim Sterling over Twitter. The argument stemmed from an assertion Kain made in ‘Do Positive Mass Effect 3 Reviews Reveal a Conflict of Interest in Gaming Journalism’? (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/23/do-positive-mass-effect-3-reviews-reveal-a-conflict-of-interest-in-gaming-journalism/ ).

                The subject of the discourse aside, I want to focus on a sub-argument that emerged in their debate. Jim Sterling attempted to defend game critics everywhere by explaining that whenever he points out any flaws in a game, regardless of how mild the criticism may be, there is a vocal part of his audience who issue slurs at him because he dared to say anything but praise, and this is common for all videogame journalists and unique to the field. By highlighting this, Sterling attempted to divert part of the responsibility away from reviewers and make his readership share blame for the way reviews are written, pointing out that while he does not tip-toe around his reader’s fanboyism he understands why many reviewers do.

                Kain countered Sterling’s argument with, “A critic writes to express *themselves*, not to help their subject or please their audience.”

                Dwelling on this, I have to say I completely disagree with Sterling and half-agree with Kain. I believe authentic criticism is not sugar-coated-- if a critic’s disappointment led to feelings of anger then those feelings should be transmitted in the criticism delivered-- but I do not believe it is impossible to both express oneself AND want to help both the subject and audience. Indeed, I believe that the intent for one’s criticism to supply meaningful information to both the audience and developer determines what kind of critic you are.

                 One of my favorite quotes comes from President Theodore Roosevelt, delivered as part of a speech he gave after his term as President ended,

            "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

                But Roosevelt never talked about what happens when it is the critic who finds himself in the arena, with his own face marred by dust and sweat and blood. This essay serves to explain my thoughts on how that plays out for the video game critic today.

               It is my belief that the role of the critic is to provide feedback. It is this educated feedback that distinguishes our modern day art from that of prior generations, and allows creators to make leaps and bounds in their fields. The desire to “prove” the critic “wrong” by improving one’s work can be a powerful motivator, and the musings of the critic can often provide insight for the aspiring artists that will set the pace for future generations of that industry.

                However, there exists a type of critic whose judgments are not motivated by a desire to see the field of their criticism improve, but instead colored by personal demons. This class of critic is not angry at “men in the arena” because of anything the men have done, but because the critic believes he ought to be “in the arena” performing as they are, and he is angry that he is not. He believes with absolute sincerity that it is he that should be in the spotlight and because his ego will not allow him to acknowledge the inadequacies that keep him in the shadows, he takes his frustration out on successful efforts of better men. This is the jealous critic, he is a sad beast, and too often I see this cowardly type gain prominence in the world of game criticism because he is able to skillfully conceive his contempt with humor and wit.

                I am not a jealous critic. I am more than capable of working in the development side of the videogame industry and I have already dabbled in it. I have made a conscious decision to focus on videogame journalism because I believe the field desperately needs people who understand the science of games in order for it to mature. It is true that in my heart of hearts I will always be a designer but aside from a few self-published endeavors I have little interest in working in the mainstream world of videogame development.

                This decision was not made lightly. I have not chosen to become a journalist so I can score free videogames and press passes to events. I do not spend any of my convention hours flirting with booth babes. My goal as a journalist is to improve the field of videogame journalism so that the medium that is the videogame can one day be viewed with the same respect that other established arts like film, music and literature are awarded. To achieve this goal I must criticize games because there can be no constructive discussion about art without informed criticism to guide that discussion.

                As many review shows are today, The RPG Fanatic Show is a pundit type show. I stand before the world on my soap box and share my opinions about a game-- and oh how opinionated I am! Woe to the poor designer who manages to trip over the things that set me off, such as obvious grammar and spelling mistakes in dialogue boxes, plot holes, unnecessarily long loading times and unfriendly user interfaces. I am harsh, I am brutal and ideally I am also entertaining, but most importantly of all I am honest.

                It is this brutally honest feedback that is my valuable contribution to the field, for without criticism from individuals such as myself the medium will never be recognized with the respect it so rightly deserves.

                As it is the job of the videogame developers to make games and the job of the sales team to sell them, the burden of proving to the world that a game is high art or low art falls upon the shoulders of the game critics. None other can do this task, for it is the job of the salesman to sell a game at any cost regardless of the game’s quality, and the development team-- the artists-- are too emotionally involved in their work to fully see all its obvious imperfections and hidden strengths.

                Unfortunately, because the medium of game criticism is so young, there is no straight-forward route to becoming an educated game critic. You cannot yet attend a college and study videogame theory as you can “film theory”, as attempting to enter most any college program for “game design” will force you to choose whether to become a 3D graphics designer or a game programmer; and neither field is wholly appropriate for a game critic’s education.  I shall explain why.

                For graphics design, while understanding how digital textures are built can be useful, the step-by-step process on how to build the visuals of a game are as necessary to know as the step-by-step methods carpenters use to construct film sets. Carpentry knowledge is not used when judging the aesthetic style of a film. Instead, as it is with games, it is vastly more important to have a firm grasp of visual story-telling languages. Studying film cinematography and sequential storytelling (comic books) will better arm the game critic for dissecting the visual aesthetics of games than learning how to use Maya and 3D Studio Max ever will.

                For game programming, the lack of necessity should be obvious. While it is highly useful to have some knowledge about how programming languages work so one can understand how easy or hard tweaks to the game actually are, it is impossible for a game critic to see the raw code of a game as they play. Though we might make assumptions, we cannot accurately deduce what language a game was coded in based on gameplay alone, or if that code was “sloppy” or “brilliant”. All we can see is the result and it is that result we must form our judgments upon.  

                As of this moment, the proper education for a game critic is constructed in a Frankenstein-like style by learning several distinct disciplines and haphazardly stitching them together; script-writing, art appreciation, musical scoring, film theory and game design theory. The audio-visual fields can be learned from classes available from nearly any community college in the United States, so obtaining a reasonable amount of knowledge about these fields is not difficult to acquire.

                Game design theory is not that accessible. The only way to obtain this knowledge is through self-education; reading books on game design, making your own games, and playing hundreds of games (especially the bad ones, as their mistakes make the truly good games shine ever so much brighter). Direct instruction from an experienced teacher is rare, because experienced teachers still work in the industry, as they are in high demand.

                And even when an individual does obtain knowledge in all these areas they are still missing a vital component that any student of film, art or music theory would obtain by the time they complete their Associate degree; knowledge of their field’s history. A graphic artist might study da Vinci and a musical studies major might study Beethoven. Game design students might study Miyamoto, but alas they do not. There is no such thing as “Videogame Appreciation 101”. Classes about early computer game development simply do not exist, even in the programs offered by those few colleges that offer educations in game development.  Some pretend to by talking briefly about the development of games like Space War and Pong, but there is little discussion about games involving the PLATO or acknowledgment of MUDs, and discussion about the development of the Japanese and South Korean industry are either absent or glossed over. They do not teach the full history because few know it; while there are a handful of books on the topic, they tend to read as brief summaries and center around the plights of particular individuals to the exclusion of other equally important people, and much of the true story behind how and why a game was developed is locked up tightly behind non-disclosure agreements. You hear whispers of it at conventions like GDC, but even at this same convention I can find myself in an auditorium with an employee of a prominent developer who admits she does not know who Nolan Bushnell is, as Nolan Bushnell speaks at his own panel about his projections for the future of the industry. People dare to whisper to one another, “Who is this guy and where does he get off thinking he knows so much?”. Some even smugly snicker while disagreeing with his prophetic vision of the industry’s future, and they do so having no idea Bushnell is largely responsible for them even having an industry to work in, since he envisioned the whole thing and made it happen. Even if they disagree with his assessment they should not be so quickly dismissive and listening closely to every word he says, but they do not because they don’t know him. It is like a software engineer not knowing who Bill Gates is.

                This is tragic. It is as difficult for anyone to completely understand the design of a game like World of Warcraft without knowing where all the mechanics used in World of Warcraft came from and why they were invented, as it is to fully understand the cinematic techniques at work in a Steven Spielberg film without knowing all the pioneer film-makers who influenced Spielberg and what those directors were seeking to do with the techniques they invented. There are many game critics and game developers who are well versed in the language of games, but being well versed in the use of the languages does not necessarily mean they have any understanding of how that language developed and why certain things are done the way they are. This dark area of their knowledge base limits the quality of their criticism and designs.

                This is not to say that I believe the opinions of the uninformed critic are without merit; I absolutely believe that people know what they like and don’t like. The real question is if they fully understand all the reasons for why they like or dislike something, and it is my belief the average gamer is not equipped with the technical knowledge necessary to decipher those reasons. Without this vital education the feedback the average gamer provides to game designers is of little use, because they do not speak the same language the game developers do. It must be translated, which requires interpretation and can result in some important things being lost in the translation.

                On the other hand, the educated game critic not only speaks the language but is so well versed in it they can make their own games. Just as their counterparts in the film, literature, music and art world are capable film-makers, writers, musicians and artists, the game critic is a competent game designer. The game critic knows how to provide useful feedback to the developer, but their only audience is not the developer; the audience of the game critic is also the average gamer. Therefore the commentary must be explained in such a way that both the developer and the average gamer will get something valuable from the criticism. This is where the critic enters the ‘arena’; they are no longer a mere spectator in the crowd. They have switched places with the developer, who now takes the place of the critic who sat on the bench.  It is now the critic who must perform when the spotlight makes all their inadequacies impossible to hide, and they must perform something that is able to please both divisions of the stadium.

                Furthermore, to enter the arena is to care enough to risk ridicule and embarrassment in your attempt to achieve something meaningful, and this is true regardless of whether your work is wholly original or builds upon the work of other artists. It is also true whether you are prepared to enter that spotlight or not, where your triumphs and follies become the subject of others criticisms. 

        

                So I do not agree with Sterling's excuses for why game journalists should be permitted to tip-toe around. We are in the arena and what we are doing right now will contribute to the future of this artform we all love. We can't be so careless as to sugarcoat our criticism. To cause true change you must be unafraid to invite the wrath of powerful voices who disagree with the change you seek to create.

        

        Every critic has their own agenda and I cannot always be certain what motivation every critic has.

                Speaking for myself, I criticize because I care. 

Responding to the second part of Extra Credits "JRPGs Aren't RPGs" argument

http://extra-credits.net/episodes/western-japanese-rpgs-part-2/

I believe that my original rebuttal still addresses their argument. This is because, as I expected, the Extra Credits folk's argument is based on broad assumptions. Why they believe they know what "emotional reasons" everyone plays a title for is beyond my ability to rationalize as anything but arrogance. In particular, they make the claim that people play Fallout 3 because they like the first person perspective, but I can assure you the first person perspective is the thing I least like about Fallout 3 (hell, even in Elder Scrolls titles I dislike it but it's necessary to play in first person mode in order to effectively target enemies). And in contrast to myself I know there are many people who prefer the first person perspective in games. The argument the Extra Credits guys have made seems to have been formed in a bubble where discussion with hardcore fans of the games was absent.

So if you didn't get it before from my original post, the hard truth is that how players "feel" about a game and the specific reasons "why" they play are very diverse and based on taste which may or may not have any rational basis. When you make any product, you make it with the full knowledge that a significant portion of people are not going to see things your way, thus why you need to make a product for a target audience who will "get it".

I would think the Extra Credits guys would get that since they often take positions others strongly disagree with. It's impossible to even say people watch their show for the same reasons, let alone that people play Fallout 3 for the same reasons.

And oh yeah, also as expected they made the argument that "WRPGs" always give you a blank slate character and "JRPGs" do not. An argument that is factually incorrect by just looking at a recent title like Lord of the Rings: War in the North (as I pointed out in a different post).

But let's talk a little about the argument that "WRPGs" as a genre allow you to "become" the character in the world whereas "JRPGs" simply let you play as a character in that world.

The basis of the argument is that playing a silent protagonist lets you better feel like "you" are the hero, because they don't have any dialogue and characters seemingly talk directly to the player.

To this I say that Chrono Trigger (a JRPG) does the same thing, as do all the games in the Dragon Quest series. They feature a silent protagonist and NPCs address "you" most of the time.

I supposed some might argue that,

"Oh no, it's not the same thing because Chrono has a detailed backstory and a mother and a childhood friend and blah blah blah, he is his own character separate from the identity of the player!"

....and to this I will say,

"True, but so does every Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Fable and Fallout character you play; they have memories of that world you do not share. They were born in that world and had a life long before you came into it.
                    Therefore, "You" the player do not exist in that world. You simply use that character as an avatar to explore and interact with the world, the same way you use Cloud to explore and interact with the world in Final Fantasy 7."

I know that the goal of using silent protagonists in a game is to better allow immersion than a game where the protagonist has their own highly detailed personality. I don't agree that silent protagonists allow better immersion, because I think there is a specific level of immersion that the silent protagonist strategy attempts to reach but fails to obtain, because the player is awake in the real world and has their needs of food, and tiredness and needing to use the bathroom (have you ever tried to stay immersed when you need to take a leak? It's pretty impossible) that are separate from the character in videogame land. "Full immersion" is not possible, and the same level of "unawareness" of the real world can be reached in games where protagonists have their own personalities and dialogue. And on that note, the same level of immersion can be obtained by watching a movie or reading a book.

Discussions about "immersion" have become rather distorted in recent years; the discussions originally came about from the desire of writers, film-makers and game designers to improve the experience their entertainment provided, with the rational being that anything which broke immersion reduced the enjoyable experience the media was providing. The goal was to reduce the number of things in a design that caused immersion to break (for example, plot elements that make no sense, or frustrating game mechanics) and not to design a product that led to "full immersion", because that was acknowledge as impossible. Unfortunately the understanding of these discussions has been wholly misinterpreted by laymen gamers, including those who became game journalists and the discussion is now muddied into the kind of nonsense Extra Credits is talking about concerning silent protagonists vs "talkie" protagonists. Sadly even a few game designers have bought into the idea, logic be damned.

Basically, the argument of "silent protagonist" = "better immersion" isn't a rational one, but a subjective one. It seems to be rational rather than actually being so, because it relies on the assumption the player is living in a space that has nothing to keep them from remembering that the game is a separate world. The argument is based on the idea that only the videogame is capable of reminding the player that the real world exists and that just isn't true. The goal of good gameplay is a level of immersion, but it cannot be a deep one because deep immersion is impossible so long as the player remains aware of the "real world"-- and they always will be because we exist in the real world.

The best use of "silent protagonists" and "talkies" doesn't really have anything to do with immersion, it has to do with the kind of message you are intending to send to the player. I mentioned this in my review of Dragon Age: Origins, that the game's "moral system" is capable of delivering a higher message than may be obvious. For some types of messages, it may be best to use a talking character who doesn't have dialogue trees, and for other messages it may be best for dialogue trees. It has to be handled correctly, of course, but that is how the different narrative styles ought to be used. Not for immersion, because that is a pointless pursuit; both types of protagonists are just as good at it.

(EDIT: This article was written 10:03 am PST on 3/7/2012. At 6:40 pm one of my readers let me know that today at GDC Naughty Dog’s Rich Lemarchand also expressed similar sentiments at GDC. )

Also, I respond to the, "WRPGs let you change the look of your character and JRPGs do not because they have different immersion goals" with, "Originally it had to do with file size limitations of the media the games were on; a SNES cartridge has a lot less space than a game like Ultima 7 that could be released on several floppy disks. Images consume a lot of space; it's not always wise to dedicate crucial space to changing costume of the characters. These days it actually depends a lot more on if the game is using a lot of FMV sequences or not. FMV sequences require the characters clothing to be consistent in the movies as in gameplay, as FMVs are not a scripted event (like in Dragon Age) but a rendered movie file so the creators have more cinematic options."

Also some players of Elder Scrolls and Fallout might choose equipment based on how they want the character to look, but many players (such as myself) would wear a clown suit if it had the best stats in the game, and don't care that much about the look of characters- what we care about is efficiency. Whether I build an Elder Scrolls or a SaGa Frontier character, I'm not doing it to express myself as an individual but to play the game in the most optimal way I can think, so that I don't die left and right. Again, the guys at Extra Credits are focusing too much on why THEY play games without regard to the very real possibility that other people may approach the game differently-- I shouldn't say possibility, because people actually DO approach and play the games differently than the Extra Credit people do.

I just don't know why people persist in spreading these fallacies when they are so easily disproven. The whole problem here is that they don't think about how anyone might prove their beliefs incorrect. That is the difference between me and other reviewers; I actually think a great deal about the weaknesses of my arguments; to predict how others might prove them wrong. And that allows me to form strong opinions that can stand up to intelligent scrutiny, because I've already talked myself out of all the stupid stuff before I present my views to the world.

Extra Credits and JRPGs (again)

I happened to come across the Youtube teaser for the Extra Credits episode I responded to in an earlier post. The comment section is, as expected, a cesspool of stupidity.

Here's a few choice comments that may help to illustrate why the average gamer has no business deciding what genre games should be,

"The difference between WRPGs and JRPGs is pretty much the difference between any western product and japanese product. The latter has low production value and setting/lore planning. The japanese like to mix in random elements together without thinking too much about having to make sense within the same game universe (which doesn't mean it needs to be realistc, there's a big difference here). Also, fanservice up the ass on almost every single opportunity. More often than not ruins the experience."

(My response: Every time I hear this kind of argument I'm reminded of that scene in Gremlins where Mr. Futterman rants to Billy about imported products being inferior to American ones http://www.anyclip.com/movies/gremlins/ry7M42nuhtmb/#!quotes/) 


 "Aha! THANK you! With the next two parts of this, I'll finally have an easy way to convince people that Metroid Prime is not an FPS.

You play COD to shoot stuff and make some of it blow up.
You play Super Metroid to explore an alien world.
I think it's clear which one Prime shares more with."

(My response: Metroid Prime is a first person shooter, the same way Mass Effect is a first person shooter. Just because it has an open world doesn't mean it can't be a first person shooter. Many first person shooters focus on multi-player modes these days but there is nothing inherent about the genre that means every level has to be self-contained. And lastly, a game is capable of having elements from more than one game genre; it doesn't need to be forced into just one kind of genre)

" I keep feeling that the main different between JRPGs and WRPGs are the overall tone and writing, because they can still differ in terms of subject matter.

Then again, I haven't played that many Western RPGs..."

(My response: And there is your problem. You haven't played many of these games. BioWare and Bethesda aren't the only American companies making RPGs)

"@AFnord There were RPGs being made in Japan before wizardry was produced, but they were mostly in a western style. Wizardry was cited as one of the inspirations for DQ, iirc, but the genre was a hybrid at that point, and now has it's own statement.
It's Q&D, but I've always heard the rule of thumb as "If you create the role, it's a CRPG, if you're given the role, it's a JRPG". 

(My response: FYI, with that logic Shin Megami Tensei 3 isn't a "JRPG", nor is Final Fantasy 13-2. Or Final Fantasy 12. Or Final Fantasy 8. Or Final Fantasy 7. Or Final Fantasy 6. Or Final Fantasy 5. Or any game in the Disgaea series. Or, hell, any Japanese produced game where you can decide the party role of the character)


"@TheDuck1234 While Demon Souls and Dark Souls were made by a Japanese company, it is more of a WRPG than a JRPG if you go by their attributes. The colours are muted, the character design and aesthatic is for most part restrained, the story takes a backseat to gameplay and so on."

(My response: World of Warcraft has bright colors, an almost "manga-ish" aesthetic to its world and the story is kind of hard to avoid. Does that mean it's not a "WRPG"?)

Every time I hear people try to articulate why "JRPGs" and "WRPGs" are so, so different, I always have the same thought,

"Play. More. Games."

Because many gamer reviewers have selective memory (i.e. they crap over any game that doesn't fit neatly into their ideas of what "JRPGs" and "WRPGs" are supposed to be), here are a few you can start with,

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age - linear narrative "Final Fantasy"-like "WRPG"

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance - linear narrative "WRPG"

Champions of Norrath - linear narrative "WRPG"

Forgotten Realms: Demonstone - linear narrative "WRPG"

 Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes- linear narrative "WRPG"

Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale - linear narrative "WRPG"

King's Bounty: The Legend - linear narrative "WRPG"

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song - "non-linear "JRPG" with huge emphasis on character customization based on behavior of the character, similar to Elder Scrolls

For similar non-linear gameplay and deep character customization gameplay, check out SaGa Frontier and SaGa Frontier 2

Radiata Stories - non-linear "JRPG"

Chrono Trigger - from the middle onward, the game is completely non-linear, to the point the protagonist may even remain dead. "JRPG"

That's just a handful of games that break the stereotypes. There's hundreds more.

A "Momentum" System for Radiant Fantasia

One of the commentators to the blog, Mildra the RPG Monk, shared with me his thoughts in a message on Youtube,

"Back when I played Warhammer Online, my favorite class was the Swordmaster, primarily its combo system that acted on an opener/builder/finisher setup. Thus my suggestion is having various 'tiers' of momentum, with abilities having an entry and exit requirement as its minimum. here's a rough example, a fighter could use "Steel Burst" as their first move, which has a momentum entry of 1 (the default minimum) and an exit of 2, allowing him to use an ability with a momentum of 2 or lower, and so on, with the strongest abilities having 'finisher' tags that reset the level of momentum they have.

In other words, instead of building up a kind of super meter to spend, they build up their combo piece by piece. In my opinion, this might allow it to be a bit more intuitive and have less in the way of micromanaging on the sheet."

 It's certainly true that a system where you unlock the ability to use tiers of abilities by executing lower tier moves requires less updating and note-taking than one where you build up and spend points to use abilities. 

However, I think a combination of the two might have merit.

Fortunately, all Spell and Weapon Techniques are already assembled into tiers. This was originally done to determine what level a technique can be learned at, but I'm now wanting to change things so the tiers instead determine the "momentum" needed to use them in battle. The highest tier abilities will probably have a level requirement to learn, because the strongest abilities are very powerful. I am thinking that to learn Grade B abilities you must be level 6, and to learn Grade A and S abilities you must be level 10.

For an example of what the tiers look like, let's look at the Sword Techniques in Radiant Fantasia,

Grade E: Air Slash, Double Cut, Hurl Sword 

Grade D: Iron Cutter, Artery Thrust, Blade Rush 

Grade C: Sword Stance, Demented Slash 

Grade B: Million Cuts, No Moment 

Grade A: Brave Buster 

Grade S: Final Hour

An example of what one of these abilities looks like,

Air Slash (Attack action)
Launch a stream of raw magical force from the sword blade to slash a target at a distance.

Tech. Power: 1    Delay: 1 round At Will [icon] 

Weapon, Sword Range: Medium Target: Single 

Check: Skill check Vs. Magic Defense

Special: This projectile attack can be used to intercept another projectile spell, resulting in a Magical Clash. 

Magic Point Cost: 4 

Tech Grade: E

(For historical purposes and so you can see how much progress I've made in refining the technique, this is what Air Slash looked like during the first draft of Radiant Fantasia,

Air Slash (Attack action)
Tech. Power: 1

This technique launches a stream of raw magical force from the sword blade to slash a target at a distance.

         Check: An Air Slash skill check plus the ranged attack bonus of the character sets the DC for the target‘s Magic Defense check. A successful save means the target does not take damage. Air Slash can hit only one target.
                Dual Air Slash: If the character is dual wielding swords, at the cost of 10 Magic points Air Slash deals double damage to a single opponent. The weapon damage of the main hand determines the damage to be multiplied.
                 Air Slash has a delay of one round. After it has been used the character must wait one round to use it again.
               Special: This projectile attack can be used to intercept another projectile spell, resulting in a Magical Clash.
Range: Medium; Single  

Time: Air Slash is an attack action; delay 1 round. 

Spell Resistance: Yes 

Magic Point Cost: 4 (single); 10 (dual) 

Tech Grade: E 

Uses: Infinite

The structure was very similar to a standard 3rd edition spell. Currently it resembles 4th edition a'bit more, and fits neater into a little statblock. )

Anyway, as for the incorporation of the "momentum tiers", this is what I'm thinking of.

Grade E to B are going to be tiers that build Momentum. Grade A and S are going to reset Momentum.

By default a character has 0 Momentum, and with no Momentum character can use Grade E abilities.

Using a Grade E ability builds 1 Momentum, and Grade D requires 1 Momentum to be able to use those skills.

In order to obtain 2 Momentum the character must use a Grade D ability, which allows the use of. 

Grade C abilities

In order to obtain 3 Momentum the character must use a Grade C ability, which allows the use of Grade B abilities.

In order to obtain 4 Momentum the character must use a Grade B ability.

After reaching 4 Momentum, the character may use a Grade A or S ability, but after using one of these abilities the character will be left with 0 Momentum. 

Grade S techs are the strongest techs available, and the biggest difference between Grade A and Grade S is that Grade S abilities require the character to be in a mode called Dying Will, which all characters can enter after they have suffered significant Wound point damage (but can otherwise be entered for a limited time by using special abilities; for example, Elemental Champions have an ability called Gift of the Chiefs that allows them to tap into the Elemental Roads to enter a super mode and gives them the benefit of Dying Will on command.

(Dying Will normally functions as a way for a character to make a "last stand", not unlike the final fight scene of The 13th Warrior. The name of the ability, of course, comes from the manga Katekyō Hitman Reborn!)

I mentioned earlier in this post I am thinking that to learn Grade B abilities you must be level 6, and to learn Grade A and S abilities you must be level 10. If I implement this, then until level 6, using a Grade C ability will reset Momentum and until level 10 using a Grade B ability will reset Momentum.

Lastly I want the Momentum tiers to not be tied to certain classes of Techniques; if you built 3 Momentum by using nothing but Sword Techniques, you can use any Grade B ability your character knows, not just Sword Techniques. This way a character who decides to specialize in dual-wielding two different types of weapons (such as Sword and Shield) or wants to be a "spell-blade" kind of character who uses both melee weapons and magic, can generate Momentum without needing to focus on just one kind of tech. 

So, you could throw fireballs until you build up enough Momentum to unleash a powerful axe strike, or perform a chain of knife thrusts until you build up enough Momentum to bombard the enemy with a torrent of wind. 

Note that using Spell Techniques will cost Magic points, as will certain Weapon Techniques that are enhanced by raw magic ability, such as Air Slash. 

Musings on skill design in a tabletop system

So it turns out I wasn't the only one who was blogging about skills yesterday.

Over at Wizards of the Coast, Rodney Thompson (one of the designers working on D&D 5th edition) also made a post about skills. In that post he mentioned the design team is leaning toward most skill checks to just be an ability check, as in earlier editions of D&D.This likely means that you will no longer gain ranks in skills that add a bonus to the rolls you make.

I don't really like the ability check as the sole bonus to the roll. The reason I have a different opinion is because I likely don't view skills as being a very significant way to "customize" the character ( I view the package of abilities obtained from classes as more crucial to character customizing) .  Instead I think skills are great for adding more depth by way of building sub-systems on top of them.

For example, if you have a skill like Athletics that covers the character's aptitude to swim, climb, and jump, you can then create items and talents which grant additional bonuses to the Athletics skill. You can also create other abilities that rely on the Athletics score to grant a modifier.

Let's say you want to implement rules for a character to learn some kind of martial art style, like Jiu-jitsu or something. You can make it so all the attack techniques they learn from that art get an Accuracy or Damage bonus from the skill level of the character's Athletics score.

Additionally you can have the character equip items that increase their Athletics score -- like say, a black belt -- so they gain a further bonus when they are doing that attack which incorporates the Athletics score into it.

Without having these general skills, the only way you could make bonuses apply to the Jiu-jitsu moves is if you have items that increase STR or directly add a bonus to Jiu-jitsu moves. The problem with this is that there becomes too little diversity in equipment; it will be obvious for characters to just stack STR items, which can have other unbalancing issues (since STR applies to ALL attacks, it's not just Jiu-jitsu moves which get the bonus -- STR is also tied into everything from how much weight a character can carry to other things like how many hit points they have) that aren't desirable in a game.

So when you have a skill system in a game, it's not just players who get more control over the way their characters are built; designers also get more systems to manipulate so the game can have greater depth and balance to it.

It is my belief that in D&D 3rd edition, the designers went a little crazy with the bonuses to skills. They ended up creating way too many splatbooks filled with feats and classes that had circumstantial bonuses to skills, like, "this character gets a +2 bonus to Climb checks but ONLY during a full moon!" or "The character gains +2 bonus against mental attacks from a vampire" and so forth. The skill system ended up incorporating tons and tons of circumstantial stuff that doesn't apply half the time or perhaps at any time, and doesn't fit neatly onto the character sheet; there is no extra space in the skill modifier for circumstantial stuff.

I've tried very hard to not design circumstantial things into my skill system, instead a bonus applies all the time or it doesn't. The exceptions are bonuses against certain races and elemental alignments, but to me these aren't so circumstantial since every enemy belongs to a race and many characters are elementally aligned.

What I have done is designed some attack techniques to rely on General Skills to obtain a bonus; for example, the Minstrel and Dancer Specializations have talents that gain bonuses from Perform and Acrobatics skill ranks.

I still feel that my skills system has a layer of complexity more than it needs, and am looking to trim the fat away, but one thing I am positive about is that there will be General Skills so that the game has the kind of depth I believe a modern tabletop RPG should have.

Simplifying Skill Purchasing

I've mentioned before that Radiant Fantasia is built from the OGL; 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. I've made substantial changes to it, but one mechanic hasn't changed that much: the skills.

In Radiant Fantasia the OGL skills are referred to as "General Skills", because they are skills all characters have access to. However, there are some differences than how they work in 3rd:

- The concept of "class skills" is scrapped. All skills cost 1 skill point to level up, regardless of what Job you are. Instead, some Jobs and Specializations get bonus ranks in skills (ex. +3 to Treat Injury checks) from their talents.

-Many skills have been combined together. For example, all the STR related skills (Jump, Climb, and Swim) are combined into one 'Athletics' skill, and several of the DEX skills have been consolidated (Balance, Escape, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble) as 'Acrobatics'.

- The numbers for difficulty checks has been adjusted to accommodate the use of 2d6 instead of d20.

Having made these changes early on in the design of Radiant Fantasia, I haven't done much to General Skills since. However, I've always felt the system may still be too cumbersome for novice players, and I get tempted to simplify it so that players don't spend skill points into General Skills, and their ranks are tied to the Job level and talent bonuses.

The reason I haven't done that is because I personally like being able to customize the General Skills by spending skill points into what you want to learn.

The compromise I'm thinking of making is to have "skill packages" where, for example, there is "Gym Training" and if you spend 1 skill point into it, you get +1 to Athletics and Acrobatics. So rather than spending 1 skill point into Athletics and 1 point into Acrobatics, you just put one point into "Gym Training".

With some clever thinking, that type of design would allow me to consolidate the existing 11 General Skills into about 5 "Training" options during the level up process.

I'm still musing on if this is better or not.