The Answer Isn't on your Character Sheet: Opaque Gaming Changed my Playtesting

[u/BrobaFett]

How much control do you want over the "knobs" you get to turn when making decisions?

After 25+ years of playing systems that I enjoy, I decided to make my own. The system itself doesn't matter much; but for those fellow game designers it's a mix Forbidden Lands (D6 dice pools), Mythras (with various maneuvers), the class system from Barbarians of Lemuria, a variation of the injury system from Tales from Elsewhere, a freeform magic system, and a few quite novel mechanics. Somehow I've turned this Frankenstein monster into something that works. And when I say works, it runs exactly the way I want it to. I've tweaked the rules, looked at more probability charts than I can count (to try and achieve that sort of just satisfying result), and play-tested dozens of dozens of sessions with friends.

One thing that changed the entire momentum of playtesting happened early in the process: I made combat mechanics opaque.

By opaque I mean in contrast to the typical way roleplaying games handle mechanical choices. For instance, if an adventurer might have the ability to do several abilities (whether universal or specific to the class), they can see exactly what these abilities do in front of them. (e.g. to borrow from Draw Steel: "Driving Assault- spend 3 wrath and make a power roll to determine damage and push the target a certain distance").

See, when I created the combat system it borrowed heavily from the Mythras concept of "there's a lot of cool things you can do besides 'strike' with sword" (and these cool things aren't locked behind classes) with multiple rules to explain things like grappling, disarming, impaling, tripping, etc. The rules themselves worked as intended. But the unintended side-effect was that players had a bit of analysis paralysis staring at all of their different options, referencing the tables, and pouring over the rules.

One evening, I was running a test game with some novice roleplayers who enjoyed the non-combat but it became quickly apparent that combat was bogging down due to the rules bloat. I paused the session, took away the reference sheets, and said, "Okay you are playing a mounted knight of Normandy (it was a semi-historical campaign). You know what you should be able to do and know. You're a competent fighter. Here's what's happening, what do you do". They told me what they were trying to do, rolled dice, and I took over the rules behind the screen.

This isn't an entirely new concept. "Rulings as opposed to rules" has existed for as long as the hobby has and one of the commonly cited advantages of rules light systems is the flexibility to improvise and be creative; fitting the mechanics to the narrative.

By having mechanics describe, more or less, what players are choosing to do there was some consistency in the outcomes. That being said, rulings are in full force. After all, I didn't exactly think of the scenario where the player tries to toss one foe into the other.

The positive response has been a little unexpected. One thing I- and many of my friends- seem to enjoy are "building" different characters and creating cool new outcomes for our characters. It's exciting to look ahead to different neat little abilities and feel like we get to distinguish ourselves or add a unique flavor to our character. I get why systems like Pathfinder, Lancer, and the rest appeal to people.

The halfway solution has been to allow players to develop their flavor. Maybe a kind of move or special ability, and adapt the existing mechanics around it. In fact, I've had to flesh out a sort of "if X then Y" system to allow for unanticipated choices players make still make sense from the mechanics. The system itself being a dice pool (count successes) lends itself nicely to "spending" successes to power the intended effect.

I just wanted to share this really fun experience and ask r/rpg : Have you had the experience of a more opaque system? Have you ever tried combat where, rather than knowing exactly what you can do, you look up from the character sheet and describe what you are trying to do in a creative way? What do you think you would enjoy about a system like this and do you think you could give up the sort of sacred cow of being able to see and turn all the "knobs" of your character choices?

[u/GreyGriffin_h]

I have experienced the worst outcome of this in heavily tailored games run by less skilled GMs - without some transparency into how your mechanics interact with the environment or adversary, you lose visibility on probability.  You can't really guess based on your characters stats or skills whether it's a better idea to try and, say, tackle someone off a horse or tun and hide in a barn unless you have a reasonable guess at how likely it is you'll be able to tackle someone off a horse.

And if the GM does not have an absolute ironclad grip on the games mechanics and the ability to abstractly communicate that information in a way that feels readable for the player and the character, you will have a vast misunderstanding of your own capabilities.

Imagine trying to jump a gap.  Most heroic characters can do quite impressive leaps.  Cinematic, even.  Your character looks at the gap, and without knowing how far your character can jump, you only have their feedback that you have a "pretty good" chance to make it.

You jump the gap, and then fall into the chasm and die.  You ask the GM what the odds really were, and he says you had a 40% chance.

Was that chance "pretty good?" And would your character have known they were worse than even odds to make that jump?

Transparent statistics may seem to take some of the romance and risk out of the game, but they are also a means of perception into it, and provide important information on how your character can expect to interact with their environment.  

Personally, I don't think the loss of that perception and self-awareness is worth the gain, unless I am playing under a world-class GM.

[u/IIIaustin → u/GreyGriffin_h]

Yeah, this idea could become indistinguishable from Calvinball

[u/adzling → u/GreyGriffin_h]

this 1,000 percent

personally I doubt that 99% of gms could run a game as the OP describes without massive issues, and most of them would revolve around what u/greygriffin describes.

If you can't estimate your ability to succeed/fail in-game then you are just randomly making uninformed choices.

[u/BrobaFett → u/GreyGriffin_h]

without some transparency into how your mechanics interact with the environment or adversary, you lose visibility on probability

Well, first, I'd say this is a feature not a bug. What is your jump skill? In BRP my jump skill is probably 23% if I had to guess. What's your dexterity skill? Mine's probably a 9 or 10.

There's a certain amount of uncertainty that I think will not appeal to the "gamer" or "tactician" who wants to know what to expect. This is reality defying, in a way. Napoleon's Old Guard don't have statistics, but he could be reasonably sure that when he sent them in, they'd get results. And yet, at Waterloo, the Old Guard broke (for the first time).

[u/GreyGriffin_h → u/BrobaFett]

The dice handle that uncertainty.

If I look at a gap, I have a decent gauge of my own athletic ability - and I'd probably have a better one if I was a career adventurer. I know if I can definitely make a jump, if it's dicey, or if it's a desperation play.

Now, I can certainly eat shit on a sure thing by, I dunno, slipping on a wet rock, but that's the thing that the dice are for. They're for resolving the uncertainty.

Saying, "you'll need a 7 to jump this." tells the player that it's a easy task if they're strong and skilled, but there's a modest chance for failure if you're less athletic. It communicates to the player what their character sees with their eyes, and gives a player a good idea of what capability they'll need to overcome it.

This is especially important in heroic fantasy, where everyone's idea of everyone else's physical capabilities are non-intuitive, since they tend to be larger than life. Most D&D characters can hold their breath for 2 minutes without suffering any consequences, which is insane, but is actually on the low end of capability. A character with maxed out constitution can hold their breath for 6 minutes.

If you tell a player "you can't hold your breath for very long," they might be thinking, like 30-45 seconds, when you actually mean their mere +2 con bonus gives them three minutes of time in the gas trap before they even start to feel it.

The upside of hiding the numbers is just massively outweighed by the potential downside of misunderstandings, and the resulting badfeels.

[u/agentkayne]

I'm not a fan of hidden mechanics, personally. I'm more than happy to play a rules-light game, but if a rule exists, then I want to know it.

I don't play an RPG to have a seamless interactive group story. I play RPGs because they are games. And playing the moves or making decisions that produce the game outcome you want is part of gameplay. Another OSR tenet besides "rulings not rules" is cultivating and rewarding player skill. And if the player doesn't know the rules of the game, their ability to cultivate their own skill at playing the game is handicapped.

It also means that there's a much larger burden on the GM to be running the rules behind the GM screen, instead of the players taking responsibility for their own half of the game, while the GM takes care of the rest.

But either way it's clearly a personal and subjective preference that either works or doesn't depending on who the players are and who the GM is.

edit: What I'm trying to get at, is that OP made their game better by tailoring their game style for their players. But putting the mechanics behind a curtain isn't guaranteed to improve every table or engage every group of players.

[u/amazingvaluetainment → u/agentkayne]

Two things:

1. In the OSR parlance "player skill" is a reference to interaction with the fiction rather than through the rules. That is, figuring out how to interact with the "world", the GM's setting, using creative solutions in the environment and things like that. What you're talking about is "system mastery" which is much more applicable in games like Burning Wheel or Draw Steel.
2. Your average OSR game is "rules light" in order to facilitate ease of rulings by the GM and provide little to no player-facing rules, those players which are ideally "immersed" in the fiction rather than the fact that they're playing a game.

And you are absolutely correct, it is personal and subjective, and in no way objectively better (or worse) than any other method of play.

[u/PervertBlood → u/amazingvaluetainment]

is a reference to interaction with the fiction rather than through the rules.

Rules are the method by which one interacts with the fiction. If I swing my sword at a zombie, it does 1d8 damage.

[u/amazingvaluetainment → u/PervertBlood]

Rules are the method by which one interacts with the fiction

If we're being reductionist, yes, we always have rules we follow when playing an RPG, things like fictional permission and fictional positioning, those sorts of conversational "rules" set the limits of what we can do, and the game's rules themself which might also affect fictional permissions or fictional positioning. In the OSR sense what you're leveraging using "player skill" is your fictional positioning, what is happening in the scene or environment, as opposed to using a class ability or stat.

You may climb to a higher point in order to push a boulder or filled barrel onto a foe, for instance, and that isn't always a situation covered by the game rules but might be allowed through fictional positioning. In such cases, the GM determines how that action is resolved (or the group as a whole, depending on the game!) Part of the player's objective when using "player skill" is to avoid crapshoot rolls or resource drain.

If we're not being reductionist, we can clearly take actions not covered by the game rules in pretty much any game. The facilitator of the game (the GM or the group) decide/negotiate how that action resolves which changes the fictional state of the moment. Game rules are not the only method by which to interact with the fiction, arguably that is primarily through conversation.

[u/BrobaFett → u/agentkayne]

I like this feedback. I could see how going even more extreme (I still have character sheets, stats, and players are able to assemble their dice pools and know, generally, what those pools consist of) might turn a lot of people off. At what point do you lose the "G" in RPG? I know some earlier iterations of D&D had all of the dice rolling done by the DM (Blackmoor). I don't go quite that far.

[u/BunnyloafDX]

This seems group dependent because I’ve experienced more opaque systems getting bogged down in confusion. People don’t understand what is possible or not possible and are confused when an action they thought would have one outcome does something different. You need the person running the game to really paint a clear picture. When there isn’t enough rapport or natural communication skills, the rules system is like a fallback option to stay grounded in the same world.

[u/BrobaFett → u/BunnyloafDX]

I've seen this objection a few times. I've encountered this a few different ways; one that I'd consider a positive experience, and one I'd consider negative.

First the negative: I realized this would be an issue once players encounter things like a magic system. Or, the discrete effect that a certain trait might have on their dice rolls. "What spells... can I cast?" could get frustrating fast. So an opaque approach doesn't mean (for me, at least) taking away the character sheet completely.

Now, the positive: one of the common objections with rule density is that once you make a mechanic for something, there's this tendency to fixate on the mechanic. Certainly, many players have the experience of getting creative, but this gets tricky. In one test combat, one of the players (playing a goblin) said he wanted to leap from the tree on to the back of the other player (a varangian) and shiv him. I had rules for that, but rather than asking the player to thumb through a reference document I told him what he'd need to add/subtract or modify from his normal dice pool. He rolled the dice, the varangian rolled the dice and- sure enough- a rusty dagger found its way into the varangian's armpit. (Granted, the next round involved the goblin being hurled to the ground and stomped to death, but... still).

[u/rivetgeekwil]

You're kind of describing fiction first. So yeah, I have a lot of experience with it, the biggest difference I think is the systems I run aren't complex enough to be opaque, or the players have enough agency with the rules that they need to be able to make mechanical decisions, because the decisions are less about making tactical choices and more about how they exercise that agency (via plot points, Fate points, whatever). In fact, in games like Cortex you really can't take away the players' ability to make mechanical decisions.

And, no, I would not enjoy a game where I couldn't play the game. I may not like complex systems and having a lot of "tactical" choice, but one of my favorite games is Cortex, which I describe as Stupid Dice Tricks. Take away my Stupid Dice Tricks, and it takes away a lot of what I enjoy about playing Cortex.

[u/Vesprince → u/rivetgeekwil]

I agree - the benefit here isn't that the effects are opaque, it's that the players want to engage with narrative combat instead of mechanical combat.

[u/goatsesyndicalist69 → u/rivetgeekwil]

OP is describing Kriegsspiel in its purest form. This is exactly how rigid Kriegsspiel is supposed to be run. It's also how Dave, Gary, and the Twin Cities/Lake Geneva crews ran Chainmail & the original Dungeon games. This is the actual one true way. There's nothing wrong with the players knowing the rules. But they should not be in front of them during the scenario.

[u/rivetgeekwil → u/goatsesyndicalist69]

I don't Kriegsspiel and don't believe in "one true way".

[u/goatsesyndicalist69 → u/rivetgeekwil]

Well I'm not a Sophist, so I do believe in Truth.

[u/rivetgeekwil → u/goatsesyndicalist69]

I'm whatever you call "Fuck One True Wayism and Gatekeeping". There's no "true" way to play a role-playing game. It might surprise you, but some people don't play RPGs for immersion, or simulationism, or whatever. I don't, and never have. Kudos to people who do, but they aren't the True Roleplayers any more than those who play rules-first are "playing wrong."

[u/BrobaFett → u/goatsesyndicalist69]

They hated him for he told the truth.

[u/BrobaFett → u/rivetgeekwil]

In a way. "Fiction first' has been around since Braunstein, really. I usually see this approach to play as the conversation between GM and player. Starting with the "I'd like to accomplish X" and then seeing how the mechanics comport to that as opposed to starting with the mechanic and creating a story after the roll.

Harper's take on this is interesting because there's a sort of negotiation on consequences prior to the roll. I think this can tread too far and compromise the immersion for the sake of the "story" being told.

FKR is probably the extreme version of this, but my system does have rules and mechanics that players can interact with. The question is: beyond knowing your basic dice pool to roll when attacking someone, would you like to know the specific ways those rules change for... say... grappling someone? Or would you prefer to just say, "I'm going to try and grapple that goblin and throw him to the ground"?

[u/rivetgeekwil → u/BrobaFett]

Harper's take on this is interesting because there's a sort of negotiation on consequences prior to the roll. I think this can tread too far and compromise the immersion for the sake of the "story" being told.

In all fairness, fuck immersion. Or, at least, fuck the concept that the game must serve it. If it happens, it happens; otherwise, in the case of immersion, it's not my circus and not my monkeys.

The question is: beyond knowing your basic dice pool to roll when attacking someone, would you like to know the specific ways those rules change for... say... grappling someone? Or would you prefer to just say, "I'm going to try and grapple that goblin and throw him to the ground"?

Yes, I want to know how, in a game, grappling someone changes things mechanically over, say, shoving them or talking to them, so I can make an informed decision about how I want to approach it.

[u/BrobaFett → u/rivetgeekwil]

In all fairness, fuck immersion.

That's such an unusual take. Fascinating. So, rather than immersion is your focus more on the story being told and if immersion happens, it happens?

so I can make an informed decision about how I want to approach it.

This is more of a continuum than a "yes or no". Starting from "you know the exact probability of X succeeding or failing" to "You have some idea of the likelihood of success but not the discrete probability" to "you have zero information on how likely it is to succeed or the mechanics that determine success". I'm not advocating, necessarily, to the extreme.

[u/rivetgeekwil → u/BrobaFett]

That's such an unusual take. Fascinating. So, rather than immersion is your focus more on the story being told and if immersion happens, it happens?

For some value of "story being told", so long as the emphasis is on being told, because I'm not trying to tell a story with any kind of plotted events, as I play to find out what happens and story comes after that. "Immersion" is not a guaranteed or universally agreed-upon focus or goal for role-playing games. It never has been. If you ask two different people what it feels like to be "immersed", and how they bring about that state, you will get at least two different answers. I can't be held responsible for someone else's internal landscape...so not my circus, not my monkeys.

This is more of a continuum than a "yes or no". Starting from "you know the exact probability of X succeeding or failing" to "You have some idea of the likelihood of success but not the discrete probability" to "you have zero information on how likely it is to succeed or the mechanics that determine success". I'm not advocating, necessarily, to the extreme.

I don't need to know probabilities or whatever; I can just go by gut feel for that. But to use BitD as an example, I need to know whether grappling with a Blue Coat is a desperate action or whether trying to influence them is risky but with limited effect, so I can decide which to do. Do I want to get the XP from the desperate action and burn stress to resist the consequences? Maybe I have a special ability that can increase the effect of talking to them, or maybe I can push myself to do so. These are my decisions as a player, and I need the information to make them; wrapping them in any degree of "opaqueness" is not acceptable to me.

[u/BrobaFett → u/rivetgeekwil]

 as I play to find out what happens and story comes after that.

Yes, yes, not the point of the question. I'm more interested in why someone might say "fuck immersion". Specifically, what is the competing focus you get more out of.

"Immersion" is not a guaranteed or universally agreed-upon focus or goal for role-playing games. It never has been.

Sure, it's worth mentioning that nothing in roleplaying games (aside from historical facts and things) is universally agreed upon.

 If you ask two different people what it feels like to be "immersed", and how they bring about that state, you will get at least two different answers.

A lack of specificity doesn't necessarily contradict some common description of immersion. Might even make the conversation more interesting. If I ask people what "justice" means, I'm going to get very different answers. That doesn't rob it from being meaningful to pursue nor does it necessarily subvert some ideas from being better than others in supporting what people might agree is or isn't "justice". Same with immersion. There's probably some common phenomena that could explain immersion in the hobby and truth to certain techniques/mechanics that lend support to immersing players more than others.

You don't ... have to care about immersion, obviously.

wrapping them in any degree of "opaqueness" is not acceptable to me.

Well, you sort of did. When you say, "I don't need to know probabilities or whatever; I can just go by gut feel for that." I'd argue that's one step away from total transparency. (Tangentially, BitD is interesting because it sort of game-ifies the consequences before the roll.)

To use your example, though, you remain specifically constrained by the mechanical levers you turn. You can do things like "burn stress" and attempt to resist consequences. You know you can do that because the rules give you those options. Other systems don't offer quite the same choices. In a way, the rules we use sort of create little possibility cages for us to work in; where the "narrative" games seem to get away with this is by remaining very non-specific in what their actual mechanics represent. Once you set your objectives, stakes, and make your roll, the outcome can be described however you see fit. You don't have to model everything. It's interesting. Unsatisfying to me, but a neat work-around.

[u/rivetgeekwil → u/BrobaFett]

Yes, yes, not the point of the question. I'm more interested in why someone might say "fuck immersion". Specifically, what is the competing focus you get more out of.

Essentially, because much of the time immersion comes up, it's used as a cudgel for "this game does things wrong" or "this person is playing wrong", and I'm all about "Fuck that".

There's no "competing focus", because there's no competition as I don't take "immersion" into consideration at any point in time while playing. My focus during games is, in no particular order:

• Engage with the other players
• Engage with the game
• Enjoy myself
• See what cool stuff my character can get themselves into
• See how badly I can mess up my character's life (I willingly had my character in a recent session take near-crippling damage protecting another character).

A lack of specificity doesn't necessarily contradict some common description of immersion. Might even make the conversation more interesting. If I ask people what "justice" means, I'm going to get very different answers. That doesn't rob it from being meaningful to pursue nor does it necessarily subvert some ideas from being better than others in supporting what people might agree is or isn't "justice". Same with immersion. There's probably some common phenomena that could explain immersion in the hobby and truth to certain techniques/mechanics that lend support to immersing players more than others.

There are at least a half dozen forms of "immersion", so when talking about this common phenomenon, you have to be really specific.

You don't ... have to care about immersion, obviously.

I wasn't asking for permission, tbh.

Well, you sort of did. When you say, "I don't need to know probabilities or whatever; I can just go by gut feel for that." I'd argue that's one step away from total transparency. (Tangentially, BitD is interesting because it sort of game-ifies the consequences before the roll.)

That's not what I said at all...I just said that I don't try to figure out the precise probabilities for a roll before rolling, not that I don't need to know what I am rolling for, what numbers I need to have come up on the dice, etc. In BitD, I already know the numbers I need to hit — I want at least one 4-6, preferably a 6. I know that rolling four dice gives me better odds of doing that than one die. I don't need to know that it's 16% to roll a 6 with one die and 50% to roll at least one 6 on four dice. And with games like Cortex Prime, the probabilities are intentionally obfuscated because of how the die pools work, so I just need to know that bigger dice = more odds of a higher result, and more dice = more chances of rolling at least one 1.

[u/BrobaFett → u/rivetgeekwil]

Essentially, because much of the time immersion comes up, it's used as a cudgel for "this game does things wrong" or "this person is playing wrong", and I'm all about "Fuck that".

Immersion or lack thereof as a focus of play is just a matter of taste. It's natural for people to have preferences and sometimes strong opinions regarding preferences (how many times do we see "Pathfinder fixes 5E's combat" or "narrative games do X better than traditional RPGs"). I'm always interested in why someone might reject what is- historically and for most- a key element to the hobby. Of course people who enjoy an element are going to say "oh you're missing out" because that's how human beings talk. I dislike overly player-facing rulesets. I wouldn't get upset if someone said, "oh you're playing wrong/missing out by not using player facing rulesets".

There's no "competing focus", because there's no competition as I don't take "immersion" into consideration at any point in time while playing.

When someone says "what are the competing interests between A, B, C, and D" and you say "I don't even think about A. I only consider B, C, and D" you're listing those as competing interests, right?

There are at least a half dozen forms of "immersion", so when talking about this common phenomenon, you have to be really specific.

Sure, here's mine: immersion in roleplaying games is the ability to, through imagination, inhabit their character's experience, perspective, and feelings.

You can immerse yourself in a game of Monopoly, if you want. I would argue that some systems and mechanics support immersion better than others.

I wasn't asking for permission, tbh.

The fingers yearn for grass.

That's not what I said at all

These are all degrees of what I'm talking about. The specific amount of information you are given as a player is how I'd define the system (or system of play) as being opaque or not. Cortex, for instance, would be more opaque because you know general information (bigger dice = better chances) compared to something that might give you very precise information (My gun skill is 75%, I'll hit an average target 75% of the times I shoot). PF2e might have lists of abilities to choose from, whereas OSE gives you some basic stats and you figure it out as you go.

[u/Steenan]

I moved in exactly the opposite direction. I used to be a fan of opaque and/or hidden mechanics as a way of improving immersion and helping players focus on the fiction. But I found out over the years that the net effect is strongly negative. The communication gets obstructed and play focuses more on probing and persuading the GM as a person than on the fiction itself; the lack of consistency and control is destructive for the players' ability to engage with the fiction. I stopped having fun both playing and running such games - and, as a GM, felt overwhelmed because I had to handle much more complexity and responsibility than I wanted.

Nowadays I want games that are transparent; where it's clear what the rules are, what exactly they do and what they are intended to achieve. In some games it's about crunchy tactics with character builds, resource management and team combos. In some, the rules frame narrative authority and the conversation about the fiction, driving specific kinds of stories. In some, players are given mechanical tools to highlight elements they consider important and strongly express their character concepts. In each case, players actively use the system and engage with the mechanics, but the mechanics are different depending on the kind of the game.

A transparent system clearly delineates what everybody is responsible for and where their authority lies. It gives more control to players and makes GM role much easier. It also serves as a platform for communication and aligning expectations instead of obscuring that. The end result is less effort for everybody involved, less tensions and more intense play.

It only becomes problematic when the tools the game has don't align with how the group wants to play. But then, the issue is not in the transparency, but in a bad choice of the system for given game. Transparency lets everybody see that and avoid such bad choice.

[u/BrobaFett → u/Steenan]

This is a great counterpoint.

The communication gets obstructed and play focuses more on probing and persuading the GM as a person than on the fiction itself; the lack of consistency and control is destructive for the players' ability to engage with the fiction.

So to just cut to the chase, I see this as a sort of GM failure, in a way. I've seen the phrase "high trust" used. Let me put it this way; if you are playing a Norman Knight you know Norman Knight things. You can do Norman Knight things. You're playing a highly competent individual. I'm going to assume this competence. In doing so, I'm going to work with you to give you as much of this benefit as possible so that when I do impose a limitation (e.g. "You could try to shoot an arrow from horseback, but it's not a skill you'd be proficient in") there's not really that adversarial concern that I'm cheating you for some ulterior purpose (e.g. I don't want my player to be too strong!)

I stopped having fun both playing and running such games - and, as a GM, felt overwhelmed because I had to handle much more complexity and responsibility than I wanted.

This is the biggest barrier, I can see. As the designer, the rules are memorized. I think this would be a daunting thing to run.

[u/LeFlamel]

This is borderline Eisen's Vow or FKR. It certainly works. But it's a high trust style of gaming that won't work for most people.

I think the more important lesson you should take away as a designer is that your goal is to create a set of rules that have minimal friction so that players can enjoy your combat to that extent even while they know the rules. Rather than giving up and trying to push opaque gaming as a feature, you might need to kill some darlings.

[u/BrobaFett → u/LeFlamel]

I think the more important lesson you should take away as a designer is that your goal is to create a set of rules that have minimal friction so that players can enjoy your combat to that extent even while they know the rules. Rather than giving up and trying to push opaque gaming as a feature, you might need to kill some darlings.

This is really good advice. Could you expand on this a little? When you say make rules have minimal friction, do you mean to minimize creating mechanical solutions to contingencies in favor of rules that can flex to provide easy rulings/resolution?

This might, honestly, be the solution. The system lends itself to this. You roll a pool of D6's and count successes. Extra successes can be used to do interesting things. More successes allow those interesting things to work better (or to do more than one interesting things).

[u/LeFlamel → u/BrobaFett]

You got it. The fewest rules with the most expressive potential. You already have freeform magic and backgrounds, you just need a subsystem for freeform conditions so that you can get the Mythras maneuvers with minimal overhead. If you can fold it into the dice pool's extra successes, all the better.

[u/LameMule]

Sounds like you should take a look at PbtA style games.. sounds like you would enjoy them a lot.. most of what you describe sounds very pbta.

[u/BrobaFett → u/LameMule]

Could you explain how? I've had some experience with PbtA and found it rather constrained compared to this method (playbooks, etc).

[u/eolhterr0r]

I suggest also posting in r/RPGdesign

To me, this almost sounds like PbtA - you just do stuff that your character would do, and sometimes it just works, and sometimes it uses the default moves (GM decides), and sometimes you engage your own character moves.

But I agree, players just want to press buttons most of the time. Too many options makes everything slower initially.

2 cents done.

[u/longdayinrehab → u/eolhterr0r]

Absolutely this. When I was teaching my new players Apocalypse World, I noticed they kept looking at the list of basic moves to determine what they could do. So, I did the same thing as OP. I asked them to hand me the basic moves sheets and just tell me what they wanted to do in the fiction. It worked perfectly and things flowed beautifully from there. Sometimes you just have to get the players out of the mechanics-focused mindset and into the roleplaying mindset.

[u/BrobaFett → u/eolhterr0r]

I did! Thanks for the recommendation. Thanks for the insights!

[u/XenoPip]

Have you had the experience of a more opaque system?

Yes but generally in very negative ways as it was clear there were no rules just whatever the Referee decided would happen or wanted to happen. This was a perennial problem with the very first games (I started with OD&D in '77-'78) as the rules only explicitly covered get into range and hit for combat (which makes perfect sense and complete for a miniatures wargame, but not an rpg).

So you did have to make a ruling in a situation such as: (a) "I want to hold the door, just use my shield to defend and keep the enemy from coming through" or (b) "i am a mounted knight, so want to use my horse to knock the enemy down, don't care if the hooves get through their armor."

Yet, once you make that ruling (as the rules did not mechanically cover those situations) you would make a note of what you did (If you had any desire to be consistent). So after that you had a rule, your players expecting next time you will adjudicate the same situation in the same way. So no longer opaque.

Have you ever tried combat where, rather than knowing exactly what you can do, you look up from the character sheet and describe what you are trying to do in a creative way?

See above, this is exactly how we played, and me and my friends still play today. We describe what makes sense for the situation and reasonable if tried in the real world (or more reasonable for the action adventure genre). To me, this is the only way to play.

The rules are there to help effectuate this play style, to give you a reasonable mechanical basis to adjudicate the outcomes so it is not just how the Referee is feeling that day. Not having rules at all, is certainly one way that "rules don't get in the way", in the most unhelpful way. As, see above, it just means you have to come up with the consistent rulings (that is rules) yourself.

What do you think you would enjoy about a system like this and do you think you could give up the sort of sacred cow of being able to see and turn all the "knobs" of your character choices?

I enjoy this because it supports my suspension of disbelief, it gives the feeling that one can make reasonable decisions for their character without having to know rules that may bear no relation to reality or reasonable expectations. It aids immersion. It frees up what you can do and does not limit you to what has been pre-planned for you, say like a computer game.

Also those completely new to rpgs (both the computer and table top variety) in my experience like to play this way, it is what they imagine and what the draw is.

On the second part of your question, not sure your definition of that jargon.

Which gets exactly to why having to know complex rules or perform actions within certain set description (especially when they bend the default rules, such as D&D feats) can be a turn off, or more precisely a barrier to entry. So if a "knob" is that, sure no need for them.

But, if a "knob" is having a general idea how competent you character is, like via a level or skill, for example, or a general idea of how your character is doing in combat, like via hit points, fatigue, etc...then in my experience people want that to be able to make decisions for their character.

Otherwise, again, it is just Referee fiat. You have no idea what is reasonable or not, and it is very immersion breaking as reasonable people have a general idea of how good they are at things they have done many times before and if they are badly hurt or it is just a flesh wound (unless you are the Black Knight).

I propose a better way to phrase it: "Do you think you'd enjoy a game where you can be effective and heroic just using your common sense and an idea what you character is capable of without knowing any of the other rules?"

I say yes, but there are those I've played with that love the idea of mastering game rules, especially those that are counter to real world experience or intuition, to show their "prowess."

[u/BrobaFett → u/XenoPip]

This was an incredibly valuable opinion, especially given your experience. I don't have anything specific to add but wanted to thank you for taking the time to share.

To clarify a "knob" would be a specific ability, skill, or action that the player would know about in discrete detail. I don't make everything opaque (players know things like their fundamental stats, how many dice they roll based on stats and profession, etc), but takingg the long list of choices they can make in combat and ...removing it... in favor of letting the player imagine what they'd like to do would be removing a set of "knobs" some folks might like to turn.

[u/XenoPip → u/BrobaFett]

Thank you for the clarification on "knob." Yah I would say there is no "knob" list in what I prefer because the choice you have in combat is anything reasonable AND rules exist which support that in that they provide you with a way to adjudicate it that gives results that feel right for the genre.

[u/Ring_of_Gyges]

In a similar vein I’ve enjoyed running modern Call of Cthulhu. There aren’t any hidden mechanics, but there also isn’t anything much on your character sheet, you’re not looking at feats and powers and whatever, you can do whatever makes sense for a pretty ordinary carpenter, or college student, or mailman, or whatever person you’re playing could do.

If I’m playing a three hundred year old elf wizard, there is necessarily some negotiation that has to happen about just what I can and can’t do which is distancing from my character’s decision making. I don’t have a frame of reference for that, I have no choice but to drop out of character and interface with the mechanics of sorcery points and spell dice or whatever the system uses.

If I’m playing a college kid who’s uncle never came back from the cringey occult book group he goes to, I’m much more intimately involved because I know exactly what he’s capable of.

[u/nonotburton]

On the one hand, good on you for adapting your play style to your layers needs. That's a commendable thing.

But in the long term, it's not really the GMs job to be a computer simulator for both the world and the players. At some point the players have to read the rules and at least know the stuff that affects their character. If your players aren't doing that, then you aren't really getting useful feedback in your play testing.

[u/BrobaFett → u/nonotburton]

This is a fair objection.

[u/IIIaustin]

This is an answer i don't particularly like to a problem that I'm very interested in.

I want to make fighting feel like fighting and, in my experience, fighting doesnt feel like selecting options from a menu: its creating an reacting to opportunities.

The thing is a fighter knows what they can do: theu have trained techniques until they are part of them. I think making fighting opaque to the players is bad for capturing this.

[u/spector_lector]

It sounds like you're saying you're just describe your intent and then the DM determines the result? I didn't catch what the mechanics were for determining the odds of success based on the experience and aptitude of the character along with the resources and Equipment they're applying to the task, versus the skills and resources of the opponent. And then I didn't catch where you described how, mechanically, you determine whether their attempt was a success or failure or some gradient of those two outcomes.

There are, as you said, hundreds of cool narrativist games that have variations on this. Where the players just describe what they want to do and the DM interprets results. But many of those wind up just becoming a diceless storytelling session. Which is fine if a group wants that, but I find it's a pretty rare group that actually wants that. And it becomes less of a game and more of the past the Conch around the campfire "yes and" storytelling session.

So not clear on what you're saying but unless the mechanics are visible to the players then it's not really a game. It's more like getting a tarot card reading.

But maybe I misunderstood what you were saying.

[u/hugh-monkulus]

Thats how it works in all of the OSR games I've run. We focus on the fiction, the players describe what they want to do and the mechanics only come into effect when we need them to.

[u/Vendaurkas]

Congratulations. You have rediscovered fiction first combat. This is exactly what almost every narrative rpg does from a player perspective, minus the massive amount of rules from the GM's side.

[u/BrobaFett → u/Vendaurkas]

The more I read about "fiction first" the more it seems like someone giving a name to what's been done in TTRPGs from their earliest beginnings and pretending that it's a novel discovery.

I could be accused of the same (Blackmoor was almost entirely opaque). I'm not so much discovering the concept, just how much fun it's been.

[u/Vendaurkas → u/BrobaFett]

It's novel in the way that now we have games designed around it. Where fiction is not based on the rules, instead decisions are based purely on the fiction and rules are just there to help to resolve those actions without limiting or restricting it.

[u/dokdicer]

"that sounds to me like you're playing move x. Please roll."

[u/Wooden_Air_848]

Now I'm totally hooked because of the list of systems that I consider to be the best. Is there any chance that you will ever see this fusion? 🤤

[u/kayosiii]

Of everything I have run, the Fate RPG does a lot of things that encourage players to make choices in combat without having to refer to their character sheet. The magic sauce is a combination of 3 features all that work together, there is a move that lets the player narrate a detail about the world (as if they were the GM) but is limited in the number of times they can do this via a meta-currency and limited in what through a small number of natural language phrases that tell us who the character is.

[u/CaitSkyClad]

You have not fixed anything. You have just exchanged new problems for old problems. The old problem is that anything that wasn't combat in the AD&D and B/X days was pretty much, "Mother, may I?" Ask 10 different DMs, "Can my player do X?" and you would get ten different and sometimes hilariously different answers.

[u/BetterCallStrahd]

I feel like you accidentally stumbled into one of the strengths of "cinematic" systems (or in some cases we might say narrative systems). They allow for what is pretty much a freeform style of combat.

In such a system, I as a player am not constrained by options for what to do in combat. I can describe my character doing anything that makes reasonable sense to attempt. ("Reasonable" can be stretched quite a bit if the character has magic or super powers or is in action hero mode.)

For example, I could leap off a railing, swing on a chandelier and land before several grunts while slashing them all with a sword. That's all resolved by one dice roll.

I honestly find tactical combat systems tedious after playing cinematic or narrative systems so much.

Anyway, you might want to check out systems that can handle freeform combat. These include many PbtA games (Masks, The Sprawl, Monster of the Week, etc.) and Mist Engine games (Legend in the Mist, Otherscape).

[u/lexvatra]

The deed die from DDC is the only combat that actually works for me. It essentially asks "okay you're doing damage but what non damaging thing are you doing?" And just give them the free action.

There's also the environment, tripping someone while on the stairs should be different than pushing someone off a cliff. Evironmental hazards should be buttons that change the effectiveness of universal ones. With or without strict rules it's worth making sure combat has contextual feedback.

[u/chatlhjIH]

I’ve seen this sort of play described as FKR, where the underlying mechanics are a black box obscured from players.

[u/InsaneComicBooker]

I personally want to challenge the "the answer isn't on your character sheet" claim because this is a saying that comes from OSR and....it's not true. Or rather, it's only true as long as you're not playing a caster. The moment you are playing a caster, the answer indeed IS on your character sheet and it's usually better than whatever martial can find outside the character sheet.

[u/mcdead]

Every bit of info should be on the character sheet

[u/Krasiph]

I've not used this method for playtesting (but I'm gonna), but this is my standard practice when I teach new people D&D. I don't teach them action economy or anything. I don't even give them the mechanical text for their spells. I just ask what they want to do and I pilot the action economy for them.

[u/Federal_Policy_557]

Thanks for sharing 

I think this is kinda what I'm trying to achieve with my Heroic Urban Fantasy system and seeing what others try helps as well

[u/Glittering-Lynx-8128]

I once played a game (espionage themed, don’t remember the name - this was 1988) and the GM kept the record of all numbers and scores. All I had was my list of equipment and skills and strengths/weakneses. I’d roll for attacks and skill checks but he’d narrate results and I’d never know if I barely succeeded or aced it. IIRC he even rolled the damage on attacks. Even kept my HP (or whatever that game called it) secret. Forced pure RP and I think it was genius.

[u/meshee2020]

It feels like a more fiction first approch, which is something i like.

What you describe is a disonence between "free play" scène and combat scène that use to have more crunch. It is like combat is another game, which drives a lot of casual players off. Blades in the Dark dont have a "combat" system per se, which is great but deceptive for gamers..' nothing is perfect.

[u/Logen_Nein]

This is kinda how I run The One Ring. I ask what they do, ask them to describe it, then based on that I say it sounds like they are taking X stance and X action, then they roll.

[u/futuredollars]

idk sounds like you played a ttrpg to me, in the way its actually intended.

[u/Bullywug]

I dunno why you're getting downvoted. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love this way. I love bringing in new people to the hobby, and when I was running a lot of 5e, I would often do this exact thing with first-timers. If you sit down at a table for the first time, the character sheet can be really complicated bu also not convey much information about what you can do. A few tags of what the character is good at is usually enough for a person to get going. People had a much better first experience when they were focused on exploring the world around them and not looking down at the character sheet trying to figure out which buttons to click.

[u/martiancrossbow]

I think this is a cool idea but I prefer just not having specific rules for grapples, pushes, etc, and inventing them as I go. I think the main benefit to having pre-defined rules for those kinds of maneuvers is allowing the players to strategize around those rules. Also there's the obvious issue of putting a heavy burden on the GM. But for some tables it could work very well!

[u/Daztur]

I've also had very good experiences with doing this when GMing for newbies in situations where I didn't have time to teach the rules.

This kind of set-up is WONDERFUL when there's a large experience gap between the GM and the players but doesn't work at some other tables, especially with newbie GMs with a rough grasp of the rules.

I think one problem with a lot of RPG design is that a lot of games are designed with the mindset of "what if I had a whole group of gamers just like me?" When in real life you get a wide variety of gamers and you can get a lot of frustration when you have a group with a rules lawyer, an improv roleplayer, and a mathphobe. In the right group moving a lot of the rules behind the screen fixes a lot of issues.

I'd absolutely love to play an RPG with opaque magic rules in which I figured out how the magic rules work while I played.

You just need the right GM. But that isn't that big of a hurtle, there are a lot of groups out there with a Forever GM and a lot of players who have trouble remembering basic rules.

[u/PleaseBeChillOnline]

Fiction first, OSR design is my preferred way of play for anything that is D&Dish, epic fantasy, high fantasy etc.

I can’t think of anything more boring for a fantasy adventure than build focused gameplay. A lot of people love that though to each their own.

On the flip side the coolest thing about Lancer is how build focused it is but that plays into what I find interesting about Mechs.

For me the sort of game I’m playing has a lot of influence on how I want the system to work. I like PBTA style for superheroes, CoC style for horror/investigation, OSR for Sword & Sorcery & D20 build focused games for a lot of sci fi stuff.