Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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Kasbak
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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby Kasbak » Wed Nov 13, 2013 1:21 pm

The attribute changes are a more subtle method of imposing the racial changes, and less restricting. People in all walks of life have tendencies they are naturally born into, but that doesn't mean they can't be overcome one way or the other. Elves tend to be nimble, but that doesn't mean you won't ever find one that is clumsy. Dwarves tend to be hardy, but you could potentially find one that is frail and sickly. If you only change the derived stats directly, you are reducing the ability to play out those potential differences.

Also, attribute values derive much more than just the single stats you mentioned. A dex bonus increases physical defense, movement speed, and dex based skills/talents, all items that can be associated with 'being nimble'. Toughness will increase uncon and death ratings, wound threshold, recovery tests, etc., again all ideas that fit with the theme. In this sense, changing the attribute is much simpler than changing all of the derrived values.

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Panda
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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby Panda » Wed Nov 13, 2013 4:25 pm

Adding directly to secondary attributes is a way to introduce some very specific racial abilities, but a poor way to model broader tendencies. Increasing Physical Defense doesn't say "nimble", that is what increasing Dexterity says; it says "hard to hit". Which has been appropriately interpreted to mean "small" in the case of a windling. The reason it doesn't mean nimble is because that also indicates that someone can do feats of dexterity and probably get out of the way more easily, not just present a more difficult target. Increasing Death Rating just indicates that they are hard to kill, very specifically, not that they are hardy. Hardiness would also imply that they can withstand injury easier (Wound Threshold), take more punishment in general (Unconsciousness Rating) and possibly heal faster (Recovery Tests), also, just generally be more physically resistant (Toughness Step). Obsidimen have a bonus to Wound Threshold that represents their unique physiology - there simply aren't as many weak points on them. Their tough "skin" grants them Physical Armor and they have a large Toughness bonus on top of that.
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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby zayven » Wed Nov 13, 2013 8:04 pm

I should probably just accept that I'm in the minority on this one. That seems to happen to me a lot around here. :)

I don't see how Attribute changes are "subtle" in any way. It's something that players actively dump Legend Points into so that they can increase their Action Step bonuses regardless of their race. I'm not sure that I've ever seen players increase their Attribute values just to boost a derived attribute. In my experience, players spend those Legend Points primarily to get a better Step value. Also, I realize that those Attributes determine more than the few things I mentioned. I just threw out Physical Defense and Death Rating because they were the first stats that came to mind.

To be perfectly honest, I'd just as soon do away with Attribute bonuses/penalties for everybody but windlings, trolls, and obsidimen (since they're physically so much larger/smaller than the other races). I would much prefer letting players allocate a bonus to any Attribute that they want based on the sort of character that they want to build. Choosing a race should be a decision based primarily on roleplaying considerations, not "roll" playing ones.

Anyway, I'm digressing a bit here into my discomfort with the whole "biological determinism" of rpg races (ie- elves are smart, so they're wizards; dwarves are tough, so they're fighters). Earthdawn's setting actually does a pretty good job of avoid this for the most part as NPCs are usually very diverse in terms of race/discipline combinations.

Back to the Attribute vs Step thing, I'll concede that there are logical reasons for doing it. Personally, I don't think that the benefits are valuable enough to justify an extra layer of complexity that could be confusing to newcomers, but that's just my opinion.

And I've already established that my opinion spends a lot of time in the minority. :D

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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby Panda » Thu Nov 14, 2013 2:05 am

There is another layer going on beyond just attributes and racial abilities: the karma system. While it doesn't always work out perfectly, there is a consistent attempt to use karma to balance out the various Namegivers. The rather small nature of the attribute modifiers in most instances actually makes it so that, by and large, any Namegiver can be good at any Discipline. Certainly some may have a slight advantage, but it will rarely end up being significant. By going directly to just steps, it will actually pigeon-hole each race into a particular set of Disciplines because they will be that much better at these things and that much worse at those other things. The current state of affairs supports the role-playing decision over a purely mechanical one. Right up until you get to certain Namegivers that have huge swings in attributes. Also, t'skrang to a certain degree.

If you really want to strip away the racial modifiers down to just abilities, Versatility is where things are going to get weird. Essentially, dwarfs, elves and t'skrang will drop to the human/ork karma level (depending on your edition; my assumption here is going to be 3E). However, orks have a +1 attribute over humans because Versatility is just that good. In fact, it is most likely better than that, but that is a different discussion. Tail combat is a tricky creature since it can easily go from "so good, it's insane" to "just plain useless" depending on the character. How exactly you want to address the disparity between those four Namegivers and humans is going to have to be up to you, but part of their advantage over humans is their ability to specialize, while humans can either generalize by filling in the gaps in their competencies, or specialize by picking up complementary talents without going through multiple Disciplines. Low light vision just doesn't stack up and never will - I can get a blood charm that does that.

Which is all to say that this is a rather intricate web (perhaps some kind of complex pattern woven of individual threads, if you will) that cannot easily be solved without considering all of the other pieces that will be affected and the potential results from that. If everyone refrains from tinkering, nothing new will ever be developed. Think of this not as "don't do that", but "have you considered these other facets which are at play here?". Because I can assure you, it is almost certainly the latter. Though the internet is certainly a poor medium to transmit important non-verbal cues that indicate as such.
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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby zayven » Thu Nov 14, 2013 10:32 am

Oh, believe me, I've thought about how all of these changes would have a significant ripple effect on the rest of the game. I'm firmly in the "tear everything down and start over from scratch" camp (though, to be fair, that camp may only include myself). Don't get me wrong, I like the game system in general, but I feel like it's really long in the tooth and overdue for a complete rebuild. Third edition did as good a job as it could probably do in smoothing out the problems with first edition, but I was a bit disappointed by its steadfast loyalty to the original design. For lack of a better way of putting it, Earthdawn "feels" like an old game to me when I play it. Game design has come a long way in the last twenty years and it just feels like ED has missed out on all of that. One of the great appeals of ED is that the rules are supposed to reflect several aspects of the setting, but I don't always feel like they do that effectively.

Oh, and don't even get me started on karma. I've agitated way too many people by ranting about how much I hate the way ED handles/conceptualizes karma. Let's just say that I hate the way karma works and leave it at that.

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Kasbak
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Re: Is it possible to simplify the rules?

Postby Kasbak » Thu Nov 14, 2013 12:32 pm

As far as the attribute system goes, I don't think the arguments against your suggestion are so much that it's a bad idea, only that there are so many things tied to attributes that you'll actually be causing yourself more work by making that sort of change (at least, that is my thought). What I think would serve your purposes better would be to rewrite your attribute table using steps as the base rather than the current attribute values. The main purpose I can see behind them is to keep the old d6 based attribute rolls that are common in many systems. I will admit that it always did seem a bit clunky to me. However, messing with the attribute table really only seems to come up at character gen and going up Circle for me, and I have felt that spending the time to change and test it would cost me more time than I would save having a simpler system. This of course is where community collaboration is helpful, and if you test something and feel that it works, I encourage you to share for mutual benefit and feedback.

Now, bearing in mind that I play ED Classic, I don't have my books in front of me at the moment, and that I'm going off of memory with a sleep deprived brain, here's my suggestion to accomplish that.

Start by reconfiguring the attribute dice to conform to step rather than attribute. Going off of prior info, the average step is in the 5 to 7 range, with a few to the extremes. To fit that range, you could go with 2d4 reroll 1's, which would generate values between 4 and 8. If you want to allow more swing, make it 2d4+1, which would then be 3 to 9. I would need to work out the math to figure the averages for each of these, but that will get you the basic range. Or you could just do a point buy system. If you figure 6 is the median step, and if you start everyone with a minimal value of 3, they'd get 18 points to assign as desired.

Now, make the changes on your attribute table to increase by step. Easiest for this is to just drop the rows from the current table that don't involve a Step increase. Or, if you really want to remake it all from scratch, start with what the base attributes will be for your median step (6 as previously noted), then make the desired changes for each direction. For example, if memory serves, movement rates make a change roughly of +3/+6 for each step change, defense values increase by 1 roughly every three step increases, ect. You could build this all from scratch if you really wanted, but I would recommend at least having the base in current values to keep some semblance of the existing balance.

Once the table is set, adjust the min/max attribute values for race based on the step value that gets closest to the desired result. Also bear in mind that you may need to make further adjustments down the line for spirits and spells, depending on how you apply the change.


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