Saturday, August 24, 2013
Classic vs. 2.0 - What's your beef? ;-)
There seem to be a lot of people who are staunchly opposed to the 2.0 rules, using words like "hate" or "can't stand it". I'd really like to hear from you if you are someone in that category. I'm not here to judge; I only want information so that I can better understand the position. I'm not here to convince anyone that they are wrong or right. I think we need a frank discussion of the topic . . . well, at least I'd like to have one. :-) So, please feel free to express yourself. I'm listening.
Tim Kennard
Councilor in Chief of The Guild for Dragon Storm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Let me start. Item A on many people lists. Wow I have to buy a whole new set to replace my old cards... Answer.. No you don't Have Too.... But it is offered to keep the product going. Much of the original art is past rights to reprint. And the misprints of the past can be cleaned up....
ReplyDelete- it is absolutely ok to be of concern on spending money. The product we call classic never broke a real profit , deluxe barely keep the owners fed. So there is no doubt each release was to increase a growth in keeping things alive
ReplyDeleteHmm, where are these 2.0 rules? I must of missed the link along the way somewhere? And a lot of people whined every time the guild came out with clarifications and rules in the old days. I know I did a few times.
ReplyDeleteThe 2.0 Rule set was published in 2011 by Mark and Sue. It was a way to deal with the flaws that had crept into the game over the previous 15 years. Errata was only a band aid, and quite annoying. So, they felt it was necessary to address the significant problems they saw with their game and introduce a little chaos for fun and interest at the same time. It will be available for purchase at The Guild store after Labor Day.
DeleteTim
The significant rules changes in brief are:
DeleteTen Things - instead of calculating independents based on WIS, a character may do a maximum of 10 things during their turn: 1 move, 1 action, and up to 8 independents.
Exploding dice - If a 10, 11, or 12 is rolled, the dice explode allowing you to roll them again and add to the total. This continues until you do not roll a 10 or better. "Make it Independent" is banned, as it would break the 10 things rule.
Terrible Twos - If a 2 is rolled, whatever you were doing automatically fails. Consequences are determined by the GM under rule 3.4
Character Death - If a character reaches 0 or less HP, that character dies at the end of the following round, if not healed back above 0. Classic said they died immediately.
Classic cards are welcome and easily playable in 2.0, as long as they are played by 2.0 rules. You do not have to own 2.0 cards to play by 2.0 rules.
One of the biggest complaints I have heard is that many of the new cards are too powerful when used in tandem with the original cards. They don't want to give up the original cards, and they don't want to have to buy all new cards.
ReplyDeleteThe other issue I have heard commented on it the "10 things" rule being too restricting.
I'd really like to hear directly from the people who are having the 'issues' with 2.0 for their actual concerns. We've all heard comments that people have passed around. Without getting into specifics, it's difficult to actually respond. :-)
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but I fear most of the folks we want to hear from regarding these "issues" may not even know this blog exists.
DeleteSome sort of active outreach may be needed to get the desired comments from the alienated ones.
Otherwise, it's mostly hearsay, except for griping over details from those of us in the convert choir. And we all got some of those.
;-)
I can speculate all day about what could be going on in the minds of the alienated ones, but I doubt it would contribute anything constructive.
Mark made numerous comments to me that suggested he had given up trying to appease the alienated Storm Rider's Guild contingent and had simply written them off.
I prefer a big tent approach myself.
One game, two versions, multitudes of styles.
Arguing over the right way to play a game that includes rule 3.4 and gives total control to the GM running it has never made much sense to me.
But many gamers do appear to like arguing for its own sake. One more opportunity to win, I guess.
Seems to me we all lose this particular argument.
I like 2.0, but I do have some issues.
ReplyDelete1. Exploding dice on 10, 11, or 12 means that there are only low rolls and stupidly high rolls. Specifically you can’t have an unmodified roll of 10 or 11, only 3-9 and 12+ and succeed. It makes many +1 cards less useful and practically speaking really tweaks results to the upper end of the curve. Multiple explosions are even worse. I work around it, but it is a major annoyance. Exploding on *any* double…2+2, 3+3, 4+4…etc makes more sense to me and would go a long way toward resolving this mechanic.
2. The structure of race+shifter cards is very cumbersome, especially since buying sets I have to buy an entire compellation of extra race X+desired shifter combinations to get the one card I wanted. I would rather have had shifter types and race types as separate sets, making the process of creating a character much more modular.
3. The rule book is well thought out but poorly executed. The example of rule 3.4 for example is not how I as a GM would want new players to view the role of a GM. There are numerous typos and grammatical errors as well as turns of phrase that could have been handled better.
I will say that I love the ten things rule. It does completely mess over some classic characters that ended up with strength and defense statistics in the 60+ range due to stacking. That said, I don’t particularly find stat-spamming to lead to good stories or dramatic combats.
#1: There are only 3 ways to make a 10 (6-4, 4-6, 5-5), and 2 ways to make 11 (5-6, 6-5), and 1 way to make 12 (6-6). That's 6 ways to explode, which is 6 out of 36 possible rolls of 2d6. The odds are exactly the same as what you propose. There are exactly 6 ways to roll 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc., which is the same exact explosion rate. Both of those have the same odds as rolling a 7, 6 chances in 36. The explosions on 10-12 were designed to bring a little chaos into the game. If a skeleton is attacking my shifted dragon, it doesn't have a change to do much, if any, damage. Conversely, a young character might be in the same situation with a madspawn. Exploding dice leave that small chance of the lucky shot.
Delete#2: I have been working on a modular method for character creation for the new releases already, which addresses directly your problem. We are even considering throwing gender cards in the mix, as well. So, your starting character would be 3 cards - race, gender, shifter type. Greater flexibility results with fewer cards.
#3: Unfortunately, typos were a hallmark of Mark's production style, which we always chuckled about right along with him. We always blamed their dog, Mocha. I know it isn't very professional, but it is what it is. I intend to do a better job of getting things proofread before they are put into production than has been done in the past.
The 10 things rule and the limit on stacking were there directly to address the failings in classic. Some don't like being limited, but I argued long before 2.0 was every discussed that I just couldn't understand how a single person could do 16+ things in a single combat round. In Classic, a combat round is only 6 seconds!
I've heard of quite a few people giving reasons why they don't want to even look at 2.0, but it all seems to boil down to them not wanting to accept change. All sorts of claims can be made as to why 2.0 took place, but in the end it doesn't matter, because 2.0 is the current version of the system.
ReplyDeleteThat said, great effort has been made to try to make things easier to those who have a big investment in the 1.0 and 1.1 systems. Contrary to what is often cried, they are not incompatible. Most convention games I've seen run anymore are hybrid games which accept 1.0 characters.
I hear people say that 2.0 characters are too powerful compared to 1.0. I also hear that the 2.0 system is too restrictive because of the 'ten things' rule. Which is it, people? Too powerful or too restrictive? Honestly, anyone that thinks that 2.0 characters are too powerful has obviously not tried playing an Orc under 2.0 rules.
In the end, I like the 2.0 rule set because I got into the game 10 years after it started, and don't have the vast banks of cards to build my characters. There are too many out of print Classic Deluxe cards for me to ever hope to catch up with. I can start on a more even footing with 2.0, and if i don't have a particular card, the PDFs can be used to make proxies. I freely use those proxies with the understanding that I will buy real cards when I get the money for it. That seems like quite the fair deal to me.
I don't understand why people won't even give 2.0 a try. It's easy to reject something without looking at it. It's a challenge to adapt to something new. And really, is the personality of your favorite character going to be changed because of what cards are in its deck?
-Sean
aka HORG
I concur. Change is the hardest thing. People get invested in their long-time characters, and sometimes degenerate into 'what else can I acquire for my baby' mode, instead of keeping it centered on role playing. My first character, back in 1996 was Dakar Gruffjaw. I actually retired him at one point because of a situation that happened in a game that Mark had run. For several years, he was off on a solo quest to avenge himself on the 'necro that got away'. During that time, he was just a cast member; Susan even turned him into a cast card. Now, I haul him out every now and then at a convention, just for fun. I love role playing him far and away above acquiring things for him. When the 2.0 cards are available to transition him, I will definitely do it.
DeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteAll good points. Something else worth pointing out is that most of the enhances and stackable buffs in 2.0 are specifically limited to 1/round and restore only with rest. All those classic cards, not so much.
I have 24 of the classic Orc Rumbles, which I can stack at will if I wish to do so, up to the ten things limit anyway and then get them back with a potion.
Mark and Sue have said repeatedly that 2.0 is how they envisioned DS to actually play. If you want to play classic DS, there’s nothing stopping that. That said, if a character is significantly diminished between classic and 2.0 I respectfully submit that such characters are specifically why 2.0 was created. Nothing wrong with playing a powerful classic character, just understand that the two systems scale power very differently (which is why we likely hear the contradictory claims that 2.0 limits too much and 2.0 characters are overpowered.)
In my experience, classic was scaled around 300cp, with most power and flexibility past that point coming from stat spamming and independent manipulation. 2.0 fixes that by scaling much better at higher levels, but adding a cost to that advancement so the classic method of blowing your wad in one round and then getting it all back with a few strategically timed potions doesn’t work as well any more.
Matt,
DeleteSo well said that I have nothing to add. These are very astute observations. :-)
Thanks Tim ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd re-exploding on doubles, a terrible 2 wouldn’t explode, so my method would result in a 5/36 chance of exploding. Also, the totals of those explosions would be lower on average, which was what I was looking for.
As a GM, my issue isn’t the chaos, which is fine, but the fact that in the current system, explosions make already great rolls fantastic often to the point where the relative difficulty of the task is completely irrelevant. Theoretically the 2d6 mechanic is supposed to be built around the bell curve, where 12 is the most desirable and one of the least likely results. In reality now it just doesn’t work that way.
Rolling on doubles would bring the average up but would reduce the instances of redonculus mega spam ™. I run with 4-6 players and I see explosions happen regularly. It’s great for the players in each individual instance, but in a game where the majority of seasoned characters succeed at most rolls anyway it significantly reduces the sense of risk and accomplishment.
My buck fifty. I hold to the 2.0 rules for consistency sake and I’ll go with whatever the rules say.
The only thing I would ad is that most rolls add "GM Mod." That is the GM's way of leveling anything that might be considered 'fantastic.' I see very few GMs actually modifying their die rolls to make things interesting for the players.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would ad is that most rolls add "GM Mod." That is the GM's way of leveling anything that might be considered 'fantastic.' I see very few GMs actually modifying their die rolls to make things interesting for the players.
ReplyDeleteWow, where to even start chiming in on this one....
ReplyDeleteIn the "been there, done that" portion of this grand game, I've done a lot. Characters with 80 DEF, missile batteries (non-unicorn thank you very much), glyph masters, warlocks, etc... I've been in this game a while and love it. I wish I had more time to play but lately that hasn't occurred. I've played both classic and 2.0. Both are interesting in their own ways.
I understand the purpose and use of the GM MOD wording. I was explained why it was there and how to use it properly as a GM. However, I know a number of GMs who don't know this and can't use it properly. I also think that some of the GM MOD problems come from GMs trying to see too wide of a player base at the table. "I'll take any character under 600 pts." I've seen games with over 500CP characters and 13 CP characters at the same table. Using GM Mod with those can be quite challenging, mostly because one roll for something won't cut it. Your 13 CP character will see nothing while your 500 CP character sees everything.
I am torn on the terrible twos and the exploding dice. I get the concept for them, but I fail to see the need for them. I will admit that I kind of like the idea submitted above of doubles causing explosion. If doubles cause explosion, I can still get as low as a 6, where as if 10, 11, or 12 cause explosions, my minimum is a 12. It still adds to the chaos of the game, while not braking things beyond proportion.
I also agree with the concept listed above about the characters being too cumbersome. I like the concept that someone posted about the starting character being race, gender, shifter. That would make it nice. One card for each race. Most humans are all the same stat wise to begin with. Then pick gender (probably a little rp bonus but mostly asthetics in my opinion). Then one card per shifter. This leads to many less cards. Example, say 9 races, 9 shifters, and 2 genders. To do cards like Male Human Dragon and Female Dwarven Gargoyle, and Male Elven Unicorn, that would lead to 162 different cards. By making them all separate, I'm down to 20 different cards. I like 20 cards much better than 162.
(end part 1 as the whole thing was too long)
As for the stacking of cards... I'm torn here too. I can see that some of that would make for customizing the character for one thing. However, I can also see where it can cause problems. My best example is my 80+ DEF gargoyle. (Before you ask again, no I don't play him anymore. He was making games not fun.) I stacked multiple cards, multiple times to get his DEF up that high. He had a lot of magical def due to what I stacked. He also had a lot of other things, due to the cards I stacked. I used 5 fire shields, for example, 10 DEF + 2 fire damage to the opponent who tried to hit me. Stack on that the Firewall Form Enhancement for another 6 DEF and 6 damage. Stack another 5 Amethyst Forms for another 10 DEF and 5d6 magic def, with a spellward adding more magic def. Things like this can get really hard to keep track of over time, even with a cheat sheet and notes and everything else. I would spend extra time counting things multiple times a game because I would do something and forget or scan my notes for where I wrote it down. It isn't easy to keep track of 5 attacks at 31, 51, 51, 53, 53, 6d6+2 magic defense, 16 magic fire damage returned on an attack, 80+ DEF, 220 HP, 2 Mark of the Rats, and all the physical cards all at the same time. Hence the reason why I think removing some of the stacking is good. I have also spent too many games playing "calculator" for fellow gamers who have a hard time adding 2+2+3+5+2+2+2 for stats going across their character cards and anchor cards or on their ace cards to help the game go faster, so adding in cards with much higher numbers is also not necessarily the best idea either.
ReplyDeleteI know I've been a little wishy washy this whole email but these are my thoughts on the game so far both Classic and 2.0. Thanks for reading.
Kordayn and Mouse
(or just Jason)
Hey, Jason (Kordayn, Mouse, whatever) ;-)
DeleteThanks for your comments. Classic is a great game. Over the first 15 years, the abuses that Mark & Susan didn't envision crept into the game slowly and took a firm hold on some long-time players. Attempts were made to "errata" a way out of it, but the band-aids weren't working. Stacking, WIS as the stat for everything, too many IND . . . you know the list. There's nothing wrong with Classic for those that love it that way.
But, 2.0 was brought about to address the failings of Classic, from the perspective of Mark & Susan. They are the designers; they decided there were things that needed 'fixed'. They also decided that Classic (including Deluxe cards and special sets) had been expanded as far as they were going to take it. So, there needed to be a way to continue the game without using Classic cards. 2.0 was designed to be simpler and more chaotic . . . and it is. For good or bad, in anyone's opinion, it is what it is. No one is trying to convert everyone to 2.0, especially not me. But, the reality is that we WILL run out of Classic stock, not immediately but in the somewhat near future. These two systems have to co-exist for the health of the overall game. We just have to figure out a way for everyone to drop the gloves and make nice. ;-)
Hey, Jason (Kordayn, Mouse, whatever) ;-)
DeleteThanks for your comments. Classic is a great game. Over the first 15 years, the abuses that Mark & Susan didn't envision crept into the game slowly and took a firm hold on some long-time players. Attempts were made to "errata" a way out of it, but the band-aids weren't working. Stacking, WIS as the stat for everything, too many IND . . . you know the list. There's nothing wrong with Classic for those that love it that way.
But, 2.0 was brought about to address the failings of Classic, from the perspective of Mark & Susan. They are the designers; they decided there were things that needed 'fixed'. They also decided that Classic (including Deluxe cards and special sets) had been expanded as far as they were going to take it. So, there needed to be a way to continue the game without using Classic cards. 2.0 was designed to be simpler and more chaotic . . . and it is. For good or bad, in anyone's opinion, it is what it is. No one is trying to convert everyone to 2.0, especially not me. But, the reality is that we WILL run out of Classic stock, not immediately but in the somewhat near future. These two systems have to co-exist for the health of the overall game. We just have to figure out a way for everyone to drop the gloves and make nice. ;-)
I’m going to try and put this GM mod-vs.-explosions thing another way. I typically run for 4-6 players. Say I have a 6 player game running. What Jason said about small and big players is true in my games. Sometimes I’ll have several hundred cp difference between participants. That gives me several problems.
ReplyDeleteFirst, with a 1/6 chance of explosion and 6 players, there’s a very good chance that someone will explode. Many significant rolls, perception, knowledge…etc end up having all the participants checking for success. In effect, when one character succeeds, they all succeed. There’s no chaos there, it’s almost certain that the group will succeed and by a significant amount too.
Second, I as the GM have several variables to control for when I set my difficulty/GM MOD.
1. I can set it by character so that the players with higher bonuses are somewhat canceled out. That’s not really fair to them since I’m negating their experience and power. I’m essentially deciding how badly I want player x to fail. Whether that comes in the form of wanting player Y to succeed or not, it still comes down to player X getting the short end of the stick.
2. I can set the MOD based on the presumption of a critical success. This too isn’t really fair. It means that only incredibly lucky or heavily charged up rolls will succeed. Granted, it’s likely that someone will still succeed, but in affect I’m saying that rolls that would otherwise have garnered positive results are worthless because I’m afraid of someone exploding.
3. I can modify the roll based on the standard 2d6 bell curve and the relative difficulty for a +0 character to attempt the same task. This is IMHO the most fair and equitable solution, except that it sets me as the GM up to lose most group roll offs. There is no chaos here, if there’s a 1/6 chance of explosion and 6 players are rolling, someone is likely going to explode. This view has been validated countless times over the last year.
What I see over and over again is a group of moderately powerful characters succeed at every available task because someone, not even a more experienced character, lucks into a critical success. I can and do work around this by limiting the number of players who can roll for a specific task, limiting the types of modifiers they can use, and making sure that characters are only acting upon information actually available to them. Alternatively, I don’t have characters roll for some things that they would reasonably succeed on regardless—because fishing for a botch is pointless unless it has the potential for relevant plot issues or humor.
My issue is that in a group of six players, rolls start to lose their zest when you’re pretty sure that someone’s going to succeed. Explosions aren’t rare. They aren’t unusual, and the only chaos they cause is in combat and often not even then.
I see the GM MOD and exploding dice as false premises. They are supposed to represent the derived difficulty/opposing resource to a certain roll and truly random luck respectively. The +1-+4 modifiers you get from most cards are balanced around the idea that 3-12 is the available range of potential die results. Implicit with this concept is that GM MODs will be calculated using the same assumptions. That’s an artifact of classic, where dice didn’t explode and where high totals required stacking of independents, static bonuses, or one shot enhances. The corollary to this is that the highest random result a character should be expected to roll is 12. Because of the way explosions work, the highest non explosion number a character can roll is 9. That effectively means that all players get a +3 on every non terrible 2 roll.
It gives the appearance of randomness and risk, but actually removes group risk from the equation.
While I agree with your math and logic, I still disagree that the odds are against the GM. I have the same odds of exploding as the players do. That's the balancing factor. Moreover, I not only have access to GM cards, but to all of the player cards as well. Anything a player can do, a cast member can do.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I have not had the same experience as you as a GM. I let the chips fall where they may, even for me. When the players succeed because of a lucky roll, that's the way it was meant to be. I account for the unexpected when possible, and roll with the punches and get creative when I can't.
The bottom line is that 2.0 will remain as it is. Nothing in the rules will change. This is not a debate about what we need to do to "fix" it. It isn't broken; it's a different mechanic that Classic. It was intended by Mark and Susan to be that way. And, GMs may modify the rules as they see fit in their home campaigns. The only time that the rules must be more closely followed are in Guild games. Guild games require that they are fair for all Guild players.
While I agree with your math and logic, I still disagree that the odds are against the GM. I have the same odds of exploding as the players do. That's the balancing factor. Moreover, I not only have access to GM cards, but to all of the player cards as well. Anything a player can do, a cast member can do.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I have not had the same experience as you as a GM. I let the chips fall where they may, even for me. When the players succeed because of a lucky roll, that's the way it was meant to be. I account for the unexpected when possible, and roll with the punches and get creative when I can't.
The bottom line is that 2.0 will remain as it is. Nothing in the rules will change. This is not a debate about what we need to do to "fix" it. It isn't broken; it's a different mechanic that Classic. It was intended by Mark and Susan to be that way. And, GMs may modify the rules as they see fit in their home campaigns. The only time that the rules must be more closely followed are in Guild games. Guild games require that they are fair for all Guild players.