Why Do Our RPGs Still Need Numbers? @ Kotaku

This whole "no numbers" argument as presented is fallacious. ALL CPRGs have numbers under the hood. Whether you expose them directly to the player or not I think is the real question. Points of view seem to depend on whether one wants the player to game, or wants the user to experience a more realistic simulated world.

For example, take health bars on enemies. Players want to know the health of their enemies for gameplaying purposes. Simulation aficionados hate them, because it breaks the immershun. What surprises me is the lack of games that change the models of enemies significantly based on damage, theerby both improving the simulation and telegraphing enemy health. Keeping both sides happy, as it were.

This is all obvious, so ignore me if I am preaching to the choir...

Thrasher said:

Whether you expose [the numbers running the system] directly to the player or not I think is the real question. Points of view seem to depend on whether one wants the player to game, or wants the user to experience a more realistic simulated world. ...

Click to expand...

Obvious, perhaps, but you've re-stated Plunkett's issue quite well (and quite concisely). I love the "game", as you phrase it, but I also dig the imershun. Be nice to see more of each.

bobisimo said:

Obvious, perhaps, but you've re-stated Plunkett's issue quite well (and quite concisely). I love the "game", as you phrase it, but I also dig the imershun. Be nice to see more of each.

Click to expand...

go LARP then

SAGO said:

go LARP then

Click to expand...

I tried LARPing once. It wasn't fun. I'd rather watch LARPers yell lightning bolt or get pretend-repo'd.

PS Thanks for the compliment about my teeth.

Thrasher said:

This whole "no numbers" argument as presented is fallacious. ALL CPRGs have numbers under the hood. Whether you expose them directly to the player or not I think is the real question. Points of view seem to depend on whether one wants the player to game, or wants the user to experience a more realistic simulated world.

Click to expand...

The "no numbers" comment is quite clear in context. It is all about explicit/implicit delivery.
The "no numbers' comment is also faithful as it does underline a common consequence to the explicit number delivery, the numbers side supercedes many other sides: gear, items mostly appear as numbers only.

A realistic simulated world demands a referential to operate. Health bars are still the most convenient abstraction to deliver the required information.
Changing the models corresponding to the endured damage reflects a stage by stage process. It does not deliver information about how severe one hit is, weaknesses and all. It is just one part of the equation.
Even a game like Shadow of the Colossus, wich offers a variety of reactions to hits and is bosses only features health bars.

The information need to be conveyed explicitly, visibly and be enough of variety to avoid scripting the developpment of a battle. It might work for a boxing game, or games one on ones is the focus, allowing the player to concentrate on one target's reactions.

In boards/forums like The Forge, people are much, much further with building up the fundamental role playing theories for defining this "numbers or not stuff", so to say.

According to the theories, thre are several kinds of role players.

For example, there are the story-oriented players and the more combat-oriented players and then there are the stats-oriented players, too …

Someone from the Larian forums did an extensive list of these player types :
http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=416990#Post416990

Please read through this list before discussing further on !

Because there you can see that different player types have different needs.

Different players, different needs... I read a lot of those thesis, a number of them being derived from PnP experiences, which are substantially different from a video game experience.

It defines an accomodation threshold more than anything: players interested in combat bothers less about the other areas of the game.

It does not tell what makes a good combat system, does not tell what a good RP situation translation is etc

Answer stays the same for me: some game rely on numbers because numbers are still the most effective means to convey the necessary information/feed back. Until technological means have not progressed enough to supercede numbers, they will stay.

Man, I was thinking my ignore feature was borked when I actually saw another SAGO post. It just so happened, that I wasn't logged in. Whew! I'd hate to have to read that bile very often

On topic: I guess I'm very much a numbers guy. I'm a computer nerd and numbers are a part of life for me. Our D&D/AD&D sessions were always with DMs that were computer guys too, so it worked out well for me. One of our DM's is a published author with a couple books out, so numbers do not necessarily detract from good story-telling.

ChienAboyeur said:

Changing the models corresponding to the endured damage reflects a stage by stage process. It does not deliver information about how severe one hit is, weaknesses and all. It is just one part of the equation.

Click to expand...

You're making assumptions that I am not agreeing with. One could change the models to reflect every kind of effect and its severity. It would certainly be a design challenge for something complicated like the DnD ruleset. And it would be p. cool.

Thrasher said:

You're making assumptions that I am not agreeing with. One could change the models to reflect every kind of effect and its severity. It would certainly be a design challenge for something complicated like the DnD ruleset. And it would be p. cool.

Click to expand...

The D&D rules would be a very poor choice for such a game because D&D "hit points" have no real world thing to model. Hit points are just hit points, not even an abstraction of anything real world.

That said, if based on something concrete it would indeed be really cool. I once played a paper RPG where the GM was a doctor. When you hit something with a weapon (or were hit) you knew from the vivid (and often gory) description what effect you'd had.