Forum

In the back of my mind there is always that specter of the "simplify a game to make it more accessible to casual players and thus greater sales" incentive that dominates gaming today,

I don't think that describes the long-term trend in game design. I think the first couple decades of RPGs were designed by and for a very particular type of person that loved complexity for complexity's sake (which was me, back then). But over time designers realized that while all those rules and options and weapon tables and spell lists and talent trees were like crack for a certain personality type, none of it actually contributed to the gameplaying and storytelling. All it did was keep RPGs a niche market for that one personality type.

But rules don't have to be lengthy or complex to be rich. Jon Hodgson once used the phrase (although I paraphrase because I don't remember exactly what he said) "simple rules with deep implications".

An example in RPGs is armor (or "armour): in TOR there is no "best" armor, because there's a trade-off to wearing heavier armor, and while the rules are simple an the list is short, the choice of which armor to wear is actually a complex decision. Contrast that with most (all?) editions of D&D, where there are a lot more armor types, and access is gated through proficiencies and price, with some rules on stealth and encumbrance thrown in for good measure....but really the choice is simple and uninteresting: within the bracket appropriate to your class, take the highest AC you can lay your hands on. I'll take the TOR rules any day.

Another example is talent trees in World of Warcraft. For the uninitiated, for the first few years of WoW each class had three talent "trees", where every level you got to spend a point, working your way up (or down, as the UI was arranged) through prerequisites, many of which cost 3 or 5 points, to the better talents. Then one day they changed to a system where every X levels you just pick one of three talents. Every talent was a single point, and there were no prerequisites. The hard core WoW fanbase, who thought they had developed expertise in optimizing these trees, screamed bloody murder. "Catering to casuals!" But here's the thing: these supposed 'experts' were not creating their own statistical models and using secret builds; basically everybody went to the same theorycrafting sources on the Internet and copied what a handful of smart people told them was optimal. So the new system actually increased choice, despite being simpler, because there were more good choices. (The theorycrafting sites updated their content with a lot of "pick whichever one you like the best".)

So while I agree that RPGs have trended more toward simplicity, and I also agree that the result appeals to a larger audience (yes, leading to more sales), I disagree that it is catering to casuals by dumbing the games down. I think in general the increased appeal is because the games are just better. I, for one, enjoy them more.




Except for before-the-roll Hope. That's just catering to stinkin' casuals.

Except for before-the-roll Hope. That's just catering to stinkin' casuals.

I "Hope" it is a sarcastic remark, because After-the-roll Hope is what I would define a handholding system for "casuals" not to be too afraid

I like the new approach. Councils were a bit clumsy in 1e. Never used the rules as written. Now it is more about actual roleplaying. You even get a bonus success, if your tactic fits. Theoretically you could skip the die rolls and just give every player one success if they played it out really good.

For the outcome I don’t need a list. It all depends on what was actually talked about during the council.

Except that it wasn't explicitly for councils, where it's a gathering of (near) equals...

it was for non-combat encounters of all kinds. (1RE, p 185)
Tolerance was the number of skill failures before the encounter ends. Not just social actions.
I found it just as useful for "entering town" as for "the court of ___"

It accounts for alienness and even racism.

2E changes,
No preliminary dice
Only one introduction
only one level of positive outcome
No more general use, only for attempts to influence
Number of attempts limit instead of number of failures limit
No modifications for status, valor, wisdom, or cultures.
Introduction determines attempts limit, rather than participation (which is sonorous with the change to only one introduction)

Things I much prefer about 1E:
Valor, Wisdom, Status determine tolerance, not rolls.
General use.

I plan to hang onto 1E's enounters, as it better fits the paranoia and xeophobia of the late Third Age, as well as the use of Valor or Wisdom to represent reputation.
I also much prefer the graded outcomes of 1e.

I may be unusual, in that I've always found the 1E Encounters flavorful, easily used, and intelligible, and literally do not understand how people can find it vague. And suitable for multi-goal encounters even.

I find "councils" to be redundant with the "Prolonged Actions" rules; IMO, the two should be combined, as councils literally is just a special case of the prolonged actions.

.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
However I would like to post an extract on Social Encounters from a review of TOR 1E from RPG NET, which is probably one of the most respected ones.

RPG NET https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/17/17089.phtml
A criticism that I myself agree with is that the formalized structure TOR follows in certain sub-systems ultimately muddles the waters and disorients the end-product. It is rather quaint; TOR presents itself and feels as a game where the narrative matters. In reality, there are many dice to be cast and many rolls to be made and won, even in situations where such rolls would appear counterintuitive. Yet, the more dice one rolls, the more likely he is to fail every now and then at inappropriate times. Again, easy example: Journeys and social interactions. Unless everybody around the table is experienced enough, a group runs the danger of blatantly bringing the rules into the foreground, like musicians stating on stage on live mics which chords they are playing while playing them during a live concert. And this only has to do with the process. What if the group royally fucks up the introduction to an Encounter, thus killing the chances of actually beginning an adventure? This isn't how things should work; successful systems should remain in the background and randomness should have a constructive role to play, not derail the game. Knowledgeable players and Loremasters should mask all this rules noise under a thematic narrative carpet, while doing almost what the rules require. It will not be easy, especially during the first times, but it will be rewarding in spite of the results' partial randomness.


In my opinion the new way of how Council works addresses quite well this criticism

The Council rules do not reduce the risks of missing the adventure due to bad rolls. It's quite possible to wind up just as badly broken.

The gating of "the adventure" behind an Encounter early on is a strawman argument by someone apparently looking to dislike it. Why? Because it's idiotic to put "the adventure" behind any single point of failure. It's just bad GMing overall. Always has been.

The Council rules do not reduce the risks of missing the adventure due to bad rolls. It's quite possible to wind up just as badly broken.

The gating of "the adventure" behind an Encounter early on is a strawman argument by someone apparently looking to dislike it. Why? Because it's idiotic to put "the adventure" behind any single point of failure. It's just bad GMing overall. Always has been.

Said by "someone apparently looking to dislike" 2E in each and every post..

Simplicity in design is a good thing; would echo gyrovague again by saying I prefer simple but elegant and evocative mechanics, things that bring you into the game’s world and present multiple interesting choices that are all consistent with central themes and features of that world.

Middle-earth is an especially challenging world to be faithful to in a game because of gaming tropes and the proclivities of RPG players, and because how well established it is in the imagination and passion of many scholarly fans. TOR managed these challenges and expectations especially well in 1e, which is why we’ve seen so much pushback across the wide range of rules changes.

Councils are pretty bare bones. The social rules here are perfectly workable, as they were in 1e - and I would point out that in 1e, the separation of the meetings into Introduction and Encounter usually felt artificial except specifically at a royal court setting, and usually after the first time. It made no sense to continually Introduce oneself to Elrond after the second or third adventure in Rivendell.

What I find disappointing about it is that there is no built-in mechanism to generate multiple, interesting outcomes. That burden is entirely back on the Loremaster (which, fine, I will do that, but I don’t think it represents much improvement over 1e and therefore question the necessity of the overhaul). As the name Council implies, I had hoped there would be a phased approach whereby multiple proposals, courses of action, points of view, or narrative choices could be placed on the table for debate and rules upon such that one or more might be approved or accepted by the group. This was perhaps placing the bar too high - except that this is the way literally every TOR session with a meaningful outcome plays out at my table.

I see no reason why the game should encourage only binary choices or pass/fail. In LOTR they debate multiple options and what to do with the Ring - there are proposals to send it to Gondor, there is the thought to hide it or to throw it into the ocean. There is the selection of those who will carry out the task. None of these are purely Yes/No questions, they also incorporate multiple choice and If/Then. So why should the rules not already account for that?

It makes me scratch my head when so many indie games are out there that do handle this kind of “social combat” really well, using mechanisms such as separating a player’s success or failure from an antagonist’s such that BOTH or NEITHER might achieve their aim based on a given roll. Or by cleverly separating intent from result such that the overall result still achieves different outcomes for different parties in the discussion (ie this outcome satisfies some parties, partially satisfies others, or doesn’t satisfy another).

The end result here is far from catastrophic. I will simply continue to build charts showing what different NPCs want and the skills most likely to impact them, manage politics via an election or consultation minigame, work negotiations based on RP and the opposing motivations of various characters involved. I’m slightly annoyed that the promised rules revisions haven’t really moved the needle at all while completely changing other core aspects of the game, but the new Council rules really do no major harm and can either be fully integrated or completely ignored. Honestly that’s the disappointing part - the new rules are distinctly not profound and really nothing about them puts you in Middle-earth, and omitting them entirely would likely have zero thematic impact on the game.

Good post, Rich.

As you allude to, the current Councils are too...binary. The company has one goal that is Reasonable/Bold/Outrageous. And the LMC has one disposition that is Reluctant/Open/Friendly. And the outcome of the Council is either Yes or No.

I'd like to see something more flexible, where the LMC has goals and desires, but also likes and dislikes, and while the Council unfolds, with the players trying different approaches, there's an ebb and flow to both the LMC's disposition and the current "score". Where you can't predict exactly when the Council will end, and there's risk to pushing your luck.

I don't know exactly, or even approximately, what that looks like, though.

There’s a lot they could have done. A simple idea would be to return to Tolerance factor, but to assign it to each NPC with a stake in the discussion, so that there is the possibility one could either storm out or “forfeit” and yield to the party. Another would be to establish a clear (and RP relevant) Motivation for each interested party which would determine whether a roll was necessary to convince that NPC to support (or alternatively, to request) the players’ chosen course of action. First you talk and RP, establish the stakes, then you roll only if necessary to either convince or to win greater support or concessions, or whatever the goal is.

Yet another more sophisticated approach would be for the system not to assume that players within the same party will always agree, and instead assign a persuasive score to their “argument” therefore allowing a degree of competition (entirely resolved within the narrative) between PCs who might disagree on how best to settle a thorny issue (say a controversial character like Mogdred or an issue like the outcome of Oderic’s trial).

At least 1e had a mechanism to avoid endless rolls in the form of tolerance, though it wasn’t perfect. A timing mechanism whereby attempts to convince run down the clock, and Councils can end without resolving a critical issue could also serve as a disincentive for players to always shoot for the “perfect” solution so long as they have secured at least some of what they want from the Council.

I also like the idea of trade offs within the system, if situations where a Patron might be unsettled and their tolerance lowered if the players make rash arguments, or where important and influential Loremaster characters (say, two of the Wizards) might publicly disagree, prompting the party to think hard about what the best course actually is. Or if as a natural result of the structure of debate within Councils, there are decision points where they must choose between two potential solutions or between obtaining one or more goals.

Mirroring something from 1e, they could have divided discussion into an agenda setting phase and a resolution phase, or they could have included prompts specifically for narrative intrusions in between skill rolls (such as the arrival of news, or producing an item, or revealing some previously unknown fact or secret); they could have tied such episodes to Hope expenditure as a way to reset the tolerance clock or to “buy” the attention of reluctant or hostile NPCs who don’t want to listen or agree.

I think there has to be some other element beyond just degree of success in other words to anchor the Council on and which could then be adjusted as a result of the other rolls (or simply RP arguments, if they are compelling enough) so that Councils are an actual narrative game, rather than purely a mathematical exercise - and one that can’t deal with complex negotiations with multiple results under the RAW.

Good post, Rich.

As you allude to, the current Councils are too...binary. The company has one goal that is Reasonable/Bold/Outrageous. And the LMC has one disposition that is Reluctant/Open/Friendly. And the outcome of the Council is either Yes or No.

I'd like to see something more flexible, where the LMC has goals and desires, but also likes and dislikes, and while the Council unfolds, with the players trying different approaches, there's an ebb and flow to both the LMC's disposition and the current "score". Where you can't predict exactly when the Council will end, and there's risk to pushing your luck.

I don't know exactly, or even approximately, what that looks like, though.

While this all an nice theoretically, I don´t see how you can come up with a "one-size-fits-all" rule that is robust and offers fun gameplay reliably

The OP asks "Councils too Simple?". A lot of the debate seems to be that the rules are too simple because RAW is very binary.

What is the purpose of a Council? Page 104 of Alpha rules says a FORMAL meeting. The same text recognises that "much" of the meeting is a "dialogue" between Players & LM over a "high stakes" issue. So can such High Stakes Issues only be resolved as Success or Failure? Page 108 says that they must reach that position. So RAW are designed as a Binary outcome. (It's a coin toss - Heads or Fails!)

A Success is the idea that the Company get what they asked for (and RAW do tend to imply 100% of what they asked for. Nothing more and nothing less.)
With Failure, it does say that the LM can deliver a variation. But all three variations illustrated still contain 100% Failure. What the LM then decides is whether to make the Failure even more significant by adding newer obstacles or adversaries. [Q: How come Failure is the only side of the coin that permits a further range of outcomes? For Balance to apply, Success should have three branches too, shouldn't it?]


When in doubt of my own ideas, I pick up my Tolkien. What Councils were there? Did they all have to be Binary?

1. Council of Elrond: I can't use this. The author has the rest of the story hinging on this one. If Elrond had not rolled nine Gandalfs to get this Outrageous decision through, this forum wouldn't exist.
2. Strider meeting the hobbits in Bree: His aim was to be their guide. Aragorn had a Success. 'Could this have 'gone wrong?' Could Aragorn have had a partial Success?
3. The Fellowship meet Galadriel & Celeborn: In this they wanted (needed) shelter. They got that. Yet they also had three major extras (a) their individual gifts (Really Useful Items!) (b) the advice of the elf lords, Celeborn and Galadriel - including the Mirror for Frodo & Sam and (c) the collective gifts of the boats and Lorien Cloaks.
4. Gandalf meets Theoden after escaping Isengard: A Failure as Gandalf did not persuade Theoden of his danger. But with this Failure, Gandalf had an excuse to take Shadowfax.
5. Gandalf returns to Edoras: A Success, because a defence against Saruman was raised. But More than a Success, because Theoden himself went to war. Gandalf could not have been expecting (or ASKING FOR) such a strong result.
6. Meeting with Saruman after Helm's Deep: A Failure. Saruman did not turn back to the path of Wisdom. His Lore and Skill was denied to the Powers of Light, and Isengard, though nullified, was of no use to Rohan or Gondor. Yet, not a total failure. His staff was broken, and a palantir was recovered.

Now I accept that these are my value judgements on these Meetings: some of my examples may not satisfy the standard of being a Council for the views of others and I haven't considered the events in the Hobbit . (and still in LOTR, what about Tom Bombadil? Denethor? even Faramir in Henneth Annun?)

For the ones that may well be Councils - would RAW realise their narratives? Does the framing of the Council Rules suggest and encourage such narratives strongly enough that new players and a new LM would produce interactions like this? Is so, then the rules are explicit enough. If not then they may be too simple.