Exception-Based Design?

To spring-board off my "RPG Exhaustion" and "Character Creation App Dependency" threads, I'm thinking about something that adds to my frustration. The exception-based design present in games like D&D 4e, 13th Age, and Pathfinder 2e. Consider the following 1st-level fighter abilities - which are not limited usage (like a daily or encounter power). This is something the player (and GM) must keep up with constantly, along with likely 4+ other abilities ... all for a beginning character.




It just seems a lot to keep up with, needing to constantly reference rules books or printed character cards.

While I've been doing this for years, I feel like my brain just "snapped."

Im guessing its less too much in one place, and its too much in multiple editions/systems. Hopping around before you get a good feel can just restart the mental load clock. I have PF1 nailed down, but I have also been playing it for 20 years. I look at similar systems and I do have a moment of pause while I consider if its worth it or not. YMMV.

Yeah thats been a common criticism with DND and DND likes.

But what you're pointing at isn't really exceptions. They're just abilities.

Exceptions would be where a general rule works in X way, but then some obscure part of the rules says that rule now works in Y way. Eg, the Y exception is changing the rule rather than augmenting it.

Abilities like what you're pointing at aren't changing any general rules, they're just new ones to empower bespoke combat options.

I think your frustration here is still just rooted in a lack of boundaries and lazy players. None of this is your problem to remember or keep up with, and especially not in games like 4e or PF2E.

Since you seem to be most comfortable with D&D like fantasy, why not switch to something in the OSR area? Something modern and clean, like Shadowdark or Knave?

Retreater said:

To spring-board off my "RPG Exhaustion" and "Character Creation App Dependency" threads, I'm thinking about something that adds to my frustration. The exception-based design present in games like D&D 4e, 13th Age, and Pathfinder 2e. Consider the following 1st-level fighter abilities - which are not limited usage (like a daily or encounter power). This is something the player (and GM) must keep up with constantly, along with likely 4+ other abilities ... all for a beginning character.

Spoiler: Tide of Iron - D&D 4e

Tide of Iron Fighter Attack 1​

After each swing, you use your shield to shove your foe backward, and then you surge ahead.
At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be using a shield.
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you can push the target 1 square if it is no larger than one size category larger than you. You can then shift 1 square into the space that the target left.
Level 21: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage.

Spoiler: Skilled Intercept - 13th Age

Skilled Intercept​

Once per round as a free action, roll a normal save (11+) to intercept an enemy who is moving to attack one of your nearby allies. You can pop free from one enemy to move and intercept the attack. If you are engaged with more than one enemy, the others can take opportunity attacks against you.

The moving enemy makes its attack with you as a target instead. If you’re wearing heavy armor and the attack hits, you only take half damage.

Spoiler: Double Slice - PF2e

Double Slice[two-actions]Feat 1​

Fighter
Source Player Core pg. 140
Requirements You are wielding two melee weapons, each in a different hand

---

You lash out at your foe with both weapons. Make two Strikes, one with each of your two melee weapons, each using your current multiple attack penalty. Both Strikes must have the same target. If the second Strike is made with a weapon that doesn’t have the agile trait, it takes a –2 penalty.

If both attacks hit, combine their damage, and then add any other applicable effects from both weapons. You add any precision damage only once, to the attack of your choice. Combine the damage from both Strikes and apply resistances and weaknesses only once. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.

It just seems a lot to keep up with, needing to constantly reference rules books or printed character cards.

While I've been doing this for years, I feel like my brain just "snapped."

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Agreed, that's a lot to keep up with. But is it "exception-based design?" I don't know the ins and outs of the above games, so I can't tell that there are exceptions being made.

What I can easily see is that each of the above is a combat maneuver with requirements and special outcomes, which is another layer of rules over games that already have rules for attacking and defending.

For contrast, here's how you would do these with Modos 2:

Tide of Iron:
Describe what happens if your attack contest is a Pro. And you have a shield. Describe what happens if it's a Con, too.

Skilled Intercept:
React to opponent's attack with a physical-movement Pro to put yourself between that opponent and an ally. The GM may apply Difficulty if you are exceptionally far from this opponent or otherwise hampered.

Double Slice:
Wield two weapons. Use an action for each weapon with which you'd like to attack.

Edit: nice ninja, @Emberashh !

TwoSix said:

Since you seem to be most comfortable with D&D like fantasy, why not switch to something in the OSR area? Something modern and clean, like Shadowdark or Knave?

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I'd shout out DCC as well. Its big like the games his group are used to but its dramatically simpler to learn and run.

Emberashh said:

I'd shout out DCC as well. Its big like the games his group are used to but its dramatically simpler to learn and run.

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I like DCC RPG quite a bit, but there's nothing about that glorious mess of a tome that makes me think "less exhausting".

TwoSix said:

I like DCC RPG quite a bit, but there's nothing about that glorious mess of a tome that makes me think "less exhausting".

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Its daunting to learn, sure. After all, its rooted in 3.x. DND.

BUT, the beauty of it is that all the non-mage stuff is pretty simple, and for mages we have Purple Sorcerer to do cleaner reference pages for the Spells, and then they become simple.

Beyond that it runs as cleanly as any other OSR game does. Its still something where the players have to pull their weight though, which is OPs biggest issue more than what game they're playing.

TwoSix said:

I like DCC RPG quite a bit, but there's nothing about that glorious mess of a tome that makes me think "less exhausting".

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For me, I don't like the dependence of charts in DCC. I'd like to get away from having to reference a book all the time - whether it's for charts, rules, or character attack abilities.
Ideally, I wouldn't crack open a book for anything more than to look up a monster's stats or for a character to look up a spell effect. (That's just where I am mentally right now.)
I believe it was someone on these boards who said that I've been exhausting myself - my mind, my bookshelves, my gaming budget - trying to find a "perfect" game to reach some imagined nostalgic gaming nirvana.
And it's tempting to go to OSR games, because that's when my best gaming memories happened (1990s). But I'm not the same guy I was then. Plus, my players have their own ideals.
The funny thing is, I can almost envision what that game would look like. It would be something like a streamlined 5e where tactical positioning mattered (but cutting out confusing action elements like Bonus Actions, can't trade actions for "lesser" actions), a player could perform maneuvers like trip/grapple but it would be easy for the GM to adjudicate (without needing "action cards"), characters aren't pushovers at 1st level but don't become superheroes.

In general, I think people complaining about "exception-based design" are mostly complaining about how heavy the rules are more than anything else. It's a complaint about preference while feigning being merely descriptive. You can tell that to be the case because people only seem to use it to describe systems they wish to criticize.

In Monopoly, when you're sent to jail the only way out is to roll doubles or pay the fine. Except when you have a Get Out of Jail Free card. In Chess, kings only move one space and only knights can move through other pieces. Except when you castle. And pawns can only advance one square. Except the first square. Oh, except there's en passant capture, too.

I struggle to think of any game without some exceptions or special cases. Poker might be the only one I can imagine, and I think it's because money is involved. Go has few exceptions, although ko and komi and handicapping are certainly approaching it.

Exceptions can be used to introduce asymmetry, too. In the Dune board game, the factions of the game are all exception-based. There's a general rule for the sequence of play and player actions, and each player gets their own exception to it. That is where both the fun of the game comes from, and how the game expresses the fiction of the novel. The same is true in Cosmic Encounter, where each alien species has a unique ability that is totally unlike the other players. Other games like Scythe or Imperial Assault are similarly structured with players having unique abilities, pieces, items, and so on.

In TTRPGs, though, the game is created out of asymmetry. An Elf is not a Dwarf, and a Wizard is not a Fighter. Whether you're playing Pathfinder 2e, 5e D&D, B/X, or Shadowdark, that's the case. Asymmetry naturally must introduce exceptions. Most characters do not get spells, but Wizards do. Most characters do not speak Dwarven, but Dwarves do.

D&D is said to be exception-based because it makes Fireball work completely differently than Cone of Cold, and they're totally independent. In a game like Savage Worlds, every character just uses the Burst power! Except... not every character has the Burst power. Often, most characters don't have powers at all! You need to have the correct edges to take powers.

The problem -- if there is one -- isn't that exceptions and special rules exist that only some players can use. It's simply that there can be too many exceptions to manage. Like tracking bonuses in 3e, it can be quite tedious and error-prone to figure out what is actually going on. Sometimes, exceptions contradict each other, too. Complexity is not inherently virtuous, but how much is good is incredibly subjective. There's a reason there aren't more people sitting down to play Phoenix Command or Campaign for North Africa, but some players do.

In the same way that calls for "game balance" are often telegraphed calls for additional mechanical complexity and more crunch, calls for less "exception-based design" are often telegraphed calls for less mechanical complexity and less crunch. I don't think you will ever convince someone who is happily invested in Pathfinder 2e that "exception-based design" is a bad thing. That whole system is built around a network of exception-based rules.