Baldur's Gate 3 - Rewriting of the Rules
 

PC Gamer reports how RPGs have to be changed from tabletop to PC games:

Thanks henriquejr!

More information.

Really good article, which I somehow missed. Thanks!

It's a valid discussion, that's for sure. I just hope they don't leave too much of the pen and paper mechanics out of the computer version.

I look forward to comparing their 5E decisions with those in Sword Coast Legends. :)

Will they get away with the same decisions people hated from SCL just because they're Larian?

My priority is to enjoy the computer game on its own merits, so modifying something from pen-and-paper is not a problem in my view (as long as it's not wildly different in many ways).

However, if there is an implementation which is not good and it matches pen-and-paper, I would have more understanding of the poor implementation decision than if it were a change from pen-and-paper and a poor implementation at the same time.

Gives me sword coast legends vibes. Hope Larian still mostly sticks to rules.

I dunno, D&D has always naturally translated very well to PC on a pretty much 1:1 basis. Normally it's just the combat rounds and initiative bit that gets simplified. I'm hoping it is this kind of streamlining they are talking about and nothing radical like changing core fundamentals like attributes etc. I think with Wizards of the Coast and the lessons learned from Sword Coast Legends this is unlikely, but who knows for sure…

Imho the biggest problem is the resting mechanism. I PnP you have to be economical with using spells or spell-like abilities because resting is restricted by the DM.
In a video game you either allow resting anywhere resulting in having hardly any ressource management (like in BG) or you have to somehow restrict resting. To design resting restriction both immersive and challenging is a difficult task.

Honestly, you could apply that to Neverwinter Nights too, which was a huge success, and still is almost 20 years later.

The key is doing it right.

I've never cared about resting mechanics and whenever I've played a game that tires to make it an issue it's resulted in me disliking the game more because of the obtuse resting system. IMO video games are precisely about getting on with it and for me simply surviving the encounter means you are free to then get on with the game.

I didn't mind it so much in the Infinity Engine games as it allowed the player to decide for themselves how tedious and how strictly they wanted to be with resting, the better player having the luxury of a better overall game pacing. Likewise in NWN you were just punished with having to watch a loading bar for a few seconds.

IMO, the more convoluted you get with it, the more grindy it makes the game.

Yeah, it never really does anything for me. I prefer simple systems like BG (unlimited resting) or DA (recovery after each fight) to supply systems like PoE.

As many others here, I really think resting can become a tedious mechanic. I actually like the Might and Magic/Xulima approach where you have "food." You need food to rest, but resting is instant, and the longer the game goes the more "food" you can carry. Also the NWN/NWN2 instarest is also good. I don't like the whole camping thing that is in Expedition:Vikings or Pathfinder. Its a fun mini game a couple of times before it becomes a tedious grind due to it being time consuming and repititious. The only game in which it is actually decent in Darkest Dungeon, where you usually can only rest in longer dungeons and then only once or maximum twice, which makes resting both seldom and dramatic.

They wouldn't have to change nearly as many things if they made it turn-based instead of RTwP.

But I know that many BG fans want RTwP for reasons I'll never understand and so it will likely have to be a RTwP or some sort of hybrid or Arcanum style toggle. That's fine though I could't even bring myself to finish BG2 and I'm not even a big fan of Divinity: OS TB combat or Larian's brand of humor, so I'm just not the core audience.

I thought the camping in Expeditions Viking was fine. It was largely automated so it's not like it too much micromanagement. Only time you had to tweak anything was when a unit had injuries and that didn't take too long. Not something that is essential for every CRPG but feel like an "Expeditions" game needed to have it.

To me PoE had the right intention but the wrong implementation. Camping supplies is a good idea, but give it carry weight (this if course implies that the game should have an inventory system with weight limitations) that matters. I like resource management as long as it's not extreme, and choosing how much resting I'll pack for as opposed to extra gear appeals to me.

Then add an option at game start, "unlimited resting". Problem solved.

This kind of system will get highly annoying if a game has extensive crafting so you carry around a boatload of components. Personally, I prefer it if a game only has limited options in that regard. But otherwise crafting components should have their own inventory and be regarded as weightless, likewise for currency.

I'm kind of sad the author didn't sit down with the developers behind DDO and Neverwinter,too.

I'm concerned about the idea that the video game changes could be pushed back into the PnP game. That hasn't always worked out for the best.

The conclusion to the article is appalling and shows a neglect for fundamentals in gaming.

In board gaming, knowing the rules is essential to playing. It is an essential part in board gaming, players can not play a game without knowing the rules, manipulating them is a fleshy bone (that by the way might compensate the use of probabilities)

Computer games do not require players to know the rules, resolutions of actions are hard coded. Players can ignore the rules and play a game. There is no difference between players who know the rules and those who do not.

This strongly affects the port of any board game since one essential bit is taken from a player.

Already covered. It boils down to RTwP vs PwRT.

RTwP contains limitations, a player can sustain a limited number of rounds (a round being when each party member has taken at least one action)

PwRT extend those limitations, people compensate mistakes by overspending resources.

When playing PoE RTwP, combats are swift, they can not last long before overfilling a player's capacity to sustain rounds. The consumption of resources is low because a player can not get a fight to last long. Resting is then much less frequent.

When playing PwRT, players can over extend fights and consume a lot of resources. They depend on rests a lot more.

Rest is no solution. Because RTwP contains limitations, players'limitations.

DAO had this right in a certain manner.

Ultimately, in RT or RTwP, a party can regenerate fully after each fight because players are not able to spend everything during a fight.

UgoIgo or PwRT change the deal because players can consume way more.

A player who can sustain 3 to 5 rounds playing RTwP is able to sustain 100,200,300 rounds playing UgoIgo, PwRT.

Resting was no solution because they could not part between RTwP and PwRT.

PnP differs vastly with computer games.

The main restriction players face in PnP is the time they can spend together. Hence the experience is tweaked by this restriction fist.

PnP originated in a time when avatars were far more human than they have grown to be.

One thing is that players take from their life when they tweak rules as rule makers use to.

In life, you do not rest to limit fight. You rest because you can not sustain an unlimited fight. Professional athletes can fight three minutes and then must rest.

As avatars grew, players do not want that type of restriction. Implementing a rest period for avatars players do not want to rest is difficult indeed. It is not that difficult when game designers go for restricted avatars.

Avatars have grown less and less human over the years, they cant injure themselves, they have no permanent injuries, they do not get tired, they know no fear, they are always in control.

They are sort of an idealized version of players who do not want to feel restricted by petty things like being forced to rest. Sleep for the weak and players are strong.

You mean like D&D 4e ;) I agree 100%.

This sort of thing has been around since the dawn of RPG. Hit points themselves have always been a feature of pure fantasy. It's an abstraction for the sake of player enjoyment.

I'm not a fan of insta-recover system like DA:O and Deadfire. I actually liked elaborated camping system like in Kingmaker and E: Viking but I didn't like having to deal with trash mobs in TB when you fail to rest successfully (takes too long).

I don't like the way this game is going tbh

I do wonder why this debate about the appropriateness of converting tabletop rules to CRPGs is being led now, after we have already had a plethora of great and not so great CRPGs based on such rules for nigh on 40 years. One should think that there were already plenty of experiences for what works and what doesn't, unless 5th edition rules were so different that you had to explore completely new solutions.

For example, we've had plenty of classics that successfully implemented dice rolls in combat for hits and misses (the very thing that Larian appears to question now…). If the mechanic doesn't work, it's IMHO not a problem of CRPGs in general or of dice rolls, but of game design in the specific case. To be sure, RNG-based misses were more frustrating in Morrowind than in Ultima IV, but that's merely because in a first-person 3D implementation, you would be expecting a bit more of a feedback on WHY you didn't deal damage. But I would certainly hope for BG3 to be more alike to Ultima IV than to Morrowind anyway…

As for resting mechanics, as has been said, there are good mechanics that don't result in busywork for the player. Set up a guard at the cost of their HP recovery… no HP recovery if you don't carry enough food (as Ultima VI did). Auto-HP-recovery after each fight sacrifices an important element that, if implemented well, turns a dungeon delve from a series of disconnected combat setpieces to a harrowing journey that makes you wonder at every corner if it is better to risk yet another encounter in an increasingly weakened state and with dwindling food supplies and health potions, or just turn around and restock on supplies in town: the element of attrition.

I think I was misunderstood concerning the resource management. I don't want to manage camping resources. I want to manage combat resources, especially spells (in D20).
I like the challange to win encounters with only a few spells cast in comparison to (boss) battles weher I have to go all in. Obviously this challenge doesn't actually exist when you can rest after every encounter.

Perhaps Larian will play a bit with the resting mechanics in 5ed where it's distinguished between short and long rests.

The made point that from a starting point, stuff was removed. So basically, that stuff was lost since the dawn of RPG.

The way to modelize health has nothing to do with the disappearance of features that existed.
One way to distribute minor, major, lingering, niggling, enduring, permanent, crippling, maiming injuries is to compare the damage done in one blow to max hit points.

Avatars have grown less human over the years. Injurying oneself, freaking out, losing control etc are all human.
Over exertion, being pushed to the limits are human condition.

Avatars are now deprived of all that side of things, which was not the case before.

Avatars are a one way street now. They grow stronger, they do not grow weaker.
In the past, there were systems that supported the deterioriating effects of age, past a prime, an avatar would lose capacities. It was up and down. Now it is up only.

Implementing a feature that players do not want because they do not like it is not possible.
Rest relates to exertion and players do not want their avatar to be subjected to over exertion. It sucks.

Players speak about choices and consequences, big decisions and stuff.
Players say they want a world that record their actions.

Rimword was thought as a human adventure. Pawns rising to characters through care.Being pushed, being over exerted, being injured, being crippled was part of the journey.

In Rimworld, small communities used to go through difficult times. There could be harsh times of recovery, stressful times that would push pawns, exert them. With a mature connection to drugs as drugs could help go through the harsh times.

A community could be hit hard and recovering could be even harder.

Players lobbied that out. They did not want to face decisions attached to it.

Rimworld has an organic way of growning relationship between pawns. Not taking care of a pawn could lead it to be incapacited. Big decision because what to do with the pawn. There were options, several ways of killing it, conserve it etc

Players did not want to face that dilemna, so now in Rimworld, everything can be undone. Dead pawns can even be ressurected. Because players did not want to cope with consequences that can not be undone.

Players resented, got angry that a pawn could be effected by loss of a friend. Two pawns became friends, for example because one risked its life by rescuing another through enemy fire. One pawn is incapacited in a later battle, it is dead weight, it is terminated. The remaining pawn mourned it. Unbearable for players who resented it as a penalty.



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No. In RTwP, players do not have the luxury of using tons of stuff during the short spell of a fight.
An infinite amount of resources means nothing without the time to consume it.

There is no debate. Apart from it, it is not a matter of stuff that works, stuff that does not, well designed stuff vs poorly designed stuff.

It is a matter of what players stand and cant stand.
Way better a poorly designed, non functional feature that players like than a bullet proof designed, wonderfully functional feature that players do not like.
Dice are seldom rolled in computer games. A number is randomly generated instead.

RNG is present in most video games, does not mean that players resent it and compare it to dice rolls.

Name of a product that delivers that lately. Players do not want attrition. Players do not want to be bound, they want to prevail, they want to dominate.

For resting I’d like a random encounter approach depending on where you rest.

You can rest anywhere, anytime but the safer area and the more you prepare a camp will factor in to if you can attacked at night or how well you rest.

For instance if you just rest out in the open the chance you will be attacked during the night will be high. You could assign someone to stand watch then that character wont get any rest benefits.

If you clear a room with a lockable door then the chance of a random encounter would be very low. Also the amount that you replenish could be tied to how well you prepare for the night. Just locking the door and grabbing some shut eye on the ground would replenish much less than if you barricade the door, build a fire, cook some food then roll out some bed rolls to sleep on. That would give your entire party a full rest and replenish all spells, skill and health.

I think that would be more realistic and quite fun, for me at least. It also would allow to just immediately rest after a tough battle with out a severe risk of being surprise by enemies.

Resting becomes something you need to plan out rather than a button spammed after each fight.

Actually, Project Zomboid used to have a very similar approach.

They had an old school gaming approach to avatars: players were supposed to play through avatars and avatars were limited. Rest was thought as a way to recover from physical and mental exertion.

Rest did not happen from thin air and was connected to the situation, to rest safely meant securizing a perimeter which could be set in a more or less dangerous sector.

Players used to hole up depending on their exertion and the potential threat the place was.

Scavenging at night was an act of necessity.
They also had that nice idea of dissociating players from their avatar during the rest period: players heard everything that was happening during the rest time while the avatar might not (deaf, heavy sleeper)
Players could get aware of a potential breach in the perimeter while the avatar kept sleeping.

It was pushed away by players because rest is a delay, it postponed their dreams of power and wealth. Project Zomboid has turned into a building product, overhauling a neighbourhood, concentrating wealth etc
Rest has no room in the pattern. It is an annoyance.