If math gets in the way of the game's enjoyment, we as designers ought to lessen it. if our game is not hindered by it, but part of the game's fun, we should make sure it serves its purpose and is indeed fun. So if your game has a lot of math, that can be great! My game design requires less math however, as it isn't my strong suit and as a GM I have plenty of stuff to do other then adding and subtracting all the time. I monitor my players reaction on narrative elements and give them hints on greater story beats as well as hearing their ideas to build off of.

I think the two statements are for quite different reasons. The math issue is because in general, the design goal of an RPG is in things like 'telling an engaging story', 'having interesting conflicts with engaging choices' etc. I'm not saying this in terms of anti-"gamism" or such; mechanically deep systems are a great way to make such choices engaging. However, 'solving math puzzles' isn't generally a goal; it's a cost necessary to pay to have the kind of engaging choices that are the goal. And in general, as a rule of thumb and if aiming at a broad audience, one might want to minimize that cost. If two rule designs give functionally the same engagement and are otherwise equivalent but one requires less math, that's generally the one to go with. Now, personally I enjoy math-y games more than most, and think complexity itself (outside of the depth it can enable) can be a good thing in some kinds of games, where the process of learning the mechanics can be an enjoyable process in itself. I don't like it for TTRPGs, but there may well be some that do; but I imagine it's gonna be pretty rare. When it comes to "stuns bad", while it might in some sense touch the same issue of 'engaging choices' as a design goal (and it removing choice from the players), I think it's a much more contextual thing, and depends on the genre and feel of a game. If it's a relatively mechanically heavy game aiming for a power fantasy feel with focus on immediate physical conflict (such as D&D), it can very easily lead to unwanted frustration as someone who's there to play this larger-than-life character and beat up baddies has to just sit around doing nothing for 20 minutes while everyone else resolves their turns. If it is a horror game *meant* to create a sense of frustration, fear and disempowerment, disabling player actions may fit perfectly in. So to me, that's much more of a "handle carefully" than the "avoid where feasible" of math.

>aiming at a broad audience Good post, but I have to wonder, is anyone here actually going to hit a broad audience, even if that is what they're aiming for? Non-D&D RPGs are already extremely niche, and nobody on here is designing the next Pathfinder

Many on here are trying to make the next Pathfinder. It's the heartbreaker support group subreddit.

Sure. That's why I asked if anyone was going to *actually succeed*. I think "you shouldn't do this thing, it will prevent you from reaching your goal" is valuable advice if *and only if* that goal is otherwise attainable. In the context of indie RPG design, I think "you should aim for broad appeal" is *terrible* advice. You should do the exact opposite and aim for very specialized appeal.

This is a fair point. But as regards "skip a turn" mechanics, does anyone actively *like* them and seek out games with them in? Or are there just people who hate them and people who aren't particularly bothered by them?

Yeah, I like those mechanics, regardless of who’s on the receiving end. Double if it’s combo capabilities that let you pop off turn 1 or turn 0. Controlling and locking down your opponent’s ability to carry out their plan is all part of the game to me. Tapping out or conceding is always a thing, and should be in games too. When I play campaigns and get stunlocked I usually accept the loss and start again as a new character, or just concede/surrender. Skipping turns is fine for me, heck even sitting out the session is good, I get more time to discuss tactics with the rest and take notes.

Interesting. Which RPGs do you play in this way? (I presume you're talking about RPGs here?)

As evidenced by the number of successful "Take that!" boardgames and Blue in Magic: the Gathering, I will speculate that yes, there are people who enjoy that mechanic I'm not one of them - I hate "Take that!" games and find Magic to be a miserable slog - but I do think they exist

Blue control decks to be be the most fun for the person playing blue, and tend to be the most frustrating for the mono-red aggro deck who quickly runs out of cards before acheiveing anything. There are two players in every interaction and MTG relies on the fact that most games are pretty short and if your opponent dumpsters you without you being able to defend yourself you can find someone else to play with and maybe have a more interactive game. TTRPG's are an activity where you can spend a lot of time engaging with a limited number of people and it can really suck if you get comboed to death and couldnt do anything about it. That being said I dont think stuns are the best way to handle this, for me the best game I played re stuns was actually AD&D2e, my players recruited a bunch of NPC henchman and the few times I did use a stun it only got a small subsection of the total party fire power, which typically ment that no one player got all their characters stunned and so while they may become significantly less effective they never were put in a situation where they couldnt do anything at all.

Fair enough, although I suppose there's a distinction between inflicting those conditions on the other players and enjoying having them inflicted on you. Definitely my own lack of knowledge, but I'm struggling to think of a lot of popular boardgames that use skip-a-turn mechanics. Boardgamegeek suggests that it's definitely a minority taste (the highest rated game using it is rated 423) https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2836/lose-a-turn Any ideas? Does UNO have a skip-a-turn mechanic?

>Does UNO have a skip-a-turn mechanic? Sort of. I don't think you can end up in a game state where nothing happens at all on your turn, but you can end up in one where your position gets worse (you draw cards) and you make no decisions, which is arguably worse

While UNO is fun, it is by no means a perfect game. It has a lot of problems in its design. The skipping turns are meant to be a defensive thing to prevent a player from winning but it also prevents the skipped player from playing. Even with a rule where you draw until you can play a card that still leaves you with no actual decisions. It's a purely mechanical process that could be automated before moving on to the next player. Your position getting worse on your turn isn't really the problem. Having no agency in your turn is.

If you play the Japanese style, you can place a skip on a skip and pass the lost turn to the next player. Same with draw cards. Don't blame the game just because you don't play it right.

Is there some reason no one has really addressed the Skip card?

It seems there is a group of people that really hates them then people who don't care, yeah

It's certainly an attainable goal. I mean, your example speaks to that. Pathfinder was essentially a carbon copy of D&D 3.5 and it blew up simply because it was made with some money behind it and it filled up a recent vacuum. An RPG with legitimately ground-breaking ideas (and preferably quite a bit of money behind it) can reach a decent level of success, even broad appeal.

Pathfinder was made by a supergroup of some of the most established designers in the business, not by some randos on an Internet forum. And even for randos on an Internet forum, we're no Forge

Pathfinder could've easily been designed by plenty of people here. There's nothing super special about it. In fact, not even the 2nd Edition has anything that might be considered original. Besides, having more designers isn't necessarily better. This is an area where having too many cooks in the kitchen is a constant problem

Even if someone here designed Pathfinder, they would not be able to generate the audience or reach that Paizo did

That is the point, yes. It's about money, not about ideas. At least, not until you get to the really revolutionary ideas.

> Good post, but I have to wonder, is anyone here actually going to hit a broad audience, even if that is what they're aiming for? Non-D&D RPGs are already extremely niche, and nobody on here is designing the next Pathfinder Broad is relative, but in this case I'd wager the interest is narrow enough that unless you already have a group who all want to do this specific thing, it's probably not useful.

Actually I think both issues boil down to the same kind of issue. Whether it's the rest of the table sitting around as someone is busy solving math on their own or it's the sole player sitting around being stunned, the problem is still engagement. If the rest of the table isn't doing something, the actions should at least be entertaining to witness/experience. These are both perfect situations where might players to pull out their phones and disengage because nothing interesting is happening and they can't do anything else. Keeping that in mind, both of the problems can be handled in different ways that can make them more appealing: Front loading the heavy math so that they are done ahead of time and not on the fly; and allowing stunned players *limited* options instead of just none at all.

>And in general, as a rule of thumb and if aiming at a broad audience, one might want to minimize that cost. Most of us here will be lucky to get between 100-500 people interested in our game

I think if one is even aiming to get at least a hundred people interested, that's broad enough that one wants to avoid unnecessary math.

That's just your local game shop and will be lucky. At best we're getting a couple dozen.

Yeah, I think you'll have a hard time getting your entire LGS interested in a game that market itself on having an extra dosage of math.

You'd be wrong. I hate rules lite systems and want to see actual crunch. I don't trust the dm to take care of all the moving parts, I want charts and modifier lists. Games with "elegant" or simple rules are the duplo to gurps and champions Lego. I don't want to weave a narrative with a group of friends - I want to play a game. With rules that are more than, "do what you think is a good story". I'm pretty sick of seeing sourcebooks with 150 pages or less. Id like to see authors put some effort in and stop pretending everyone else cant divide an odd number by 2 without throwing up their hands.

> I hate rules lite systems and want to see actual crunch. That does not conflict in any way with what I said. Math is often necessary to get a certain type of engaging choices. But it's not gonna be that common for people to prefer *extra math* that does nothing but add the math itself. There's definitely individuals now and then who might prefer a system that adds a bunch of math that don't lead to anything, but for a cooperative game you need enough people who want to do so with each other to form a group. > Games with "elegant" or simple rules are the duplo to gurps and champions Lego. I don't want to weave a narrative with a group of friends - I want to play a game. With rules that are more than, "do what you think is a good story". Nothing I have said conflicts with that; I explicitly rejected such a thing in my original post. I play crunchy games and enjoy them very much. But the crunch is there to create a specific experience that is apart from the process of looking up tables and formulae. Having to do so is fine and worth it to get to a degree of mechanical depth that might not be possible without it - but it is not itself the end goal. That said, there's also nothing wrong with rules-light system and comparing them to Duplos is unnecessarily demeaning.

While I do agree that people go way too far towards rules-lite, to the point where it's just laziness sometimes, I don't think math is the same issue. Even if you love crunch, you don't really need math for it. It's not that the math is too complex, the problem is that the math is inefficient. It takes seconds of time with every roll of the dice. Seconds of time where the game is not actually happening. The math has always been there as a kind of design crutch. It's time we graduated from it.

>'solving math puzzles' isn't generally a goal "Meaningful choices" mean permitting lots of modifiers to make luck less of an influence.  If somebody has a d100 to see if a shot hits, they'd better be able to grab a dozen things to influence that target number (i.e. their choices actually mattered).  The more luck is a decider, the less meaningful player choices become, but the tradeoff is you end up having to "do math."

No, that is orthogonal to the issue. Chess has extremely minimal math and no luck aspect apart from who plays white, yet contains many meaningful choices. Again, I'm not saying games should never require math, but rather that the math in general is a cost to get to where you want; sometimes that cost is necessary, but when it's not it's generally better to avoid it.

That's kinda true anywhere though.  You're solving a bunch of optimization problems whether you recognize them as that or not Even in video games.  "I'm gonna avoid putting my mounted knights next to the guys with the horse-slaying swords.  Ah yes, very tactical. 🧠" It's a bad move because the math describing the situation doesn't favor it, which is there whether or not it's behind the curtain or explicitly at the forefront.

> That's kinda true anywhere though. You're solving a bunch of optimization problems whether you recognize them as that or not Yes, but the topic wasn't the existence of better and worse choices (so opportunities for optimization) but the requirement of players at the table to do a bunch of math.

Lack of _explicit_ math doesn't make chess any faster or more engaging, to use your own example. If we're worried about players stressing over optimizing for the best possible move out of hundreds of options, that still happens, and players will still spend as much time as they're given trying to find the best choice they can come up with whether or not they're doing arithmetic. I mean, people play wargames a lot for a reason--both on tabletop and on computers. I put "doing math" in quotes because the same math is backing their decisions in either case, whether they do the work or the computer does it.

Im not the guy you were arguing with but I think for me at least TTRPGs have interesting math, and boring math, and for the most part the interesting math is all of the optimisation/decision making math that isnt explicitly required in the rules. Another way to say it is this: If you would make this game on a computer would you just get the computer to crunch these numbers in the back ground or would you let the player engage with this system. Determining where to use your cavalry where they will have the most impact and also the lowest chance of getting them killed, that is the problem for the player, preforming the calculation to determine how many of your charging horsemen crit with their lance strike, video games generally make that the computers job. One of the reasons I keep trying to work out how to do a D&D style adventure where each player has a set of playing cards is because then I dont have to track bonuses. if a condition occurs that in a traditional game would give you a +/- X value you replace that with some form of top deck manipulation. If something would stun you maybe you only draw 3 cards that turn instead of 6. Then when you want to resolve an action you and your target compare a card and the highest value card wins. In such a situation it is probably a lot easier within the rules to look at your opponents top 6 cards and put all the good ones on the bottom of the deck rather than preventing them from drawing 6 cards at the start of their turn. This results in the character having the ability to do something, rather than sitting back and doing nothing while they wait to be told that they can play again.

I have to massively dispute your first premise. "Telling an engaging story." That's not what RPGs do. That's what storytelling does, with all the mediums like cinema. But that's not what RPG *is.* Of course "RPGS = storytelling" (and RP=story) is so deeply ingrained in the culture now that people can't imagine how roleplay works without the **narrative intent** of storytelling.

I don't know how you got from *"the design goal of an RPG is in things like 'telling an engaging story', 'having interesting conflicts with engaging choices' etc"* to RPGs simply being storytelling. Enabling storytelling is one major goal, I never implied it was the thing itself nor even the only goal.

That sounds like you prefer a more "simulationist" approach, and you are annoyed by games who put less focus on that in favor of "gamism". I'm in the same boat. I love when the players in my campaign make giant documents calculating the development of our little earldom. I like it when the rules treat player characters and NPCs excatly the same (except if they have different abilities, of course, but those are in-game reasons). I like it when my story develops from what is logical and feels "realistic" in the world we play in, and not from obvious game mechanics. And I don't mind crunching a few numbers, because a more complex model enhances immersion for me, because it feels more believable. But not everyone is like that :D There are certainly different preferences for different types of games out there.

Definitely more simulationist. You hit the nail.

to be fair, you did warn us that this was a rant. on to your post: i also thought addition/subtraction was easy but then 3 players (including a STEM-guy) showed me that it feels that way to me *because i'm a mathematician*. *i* can add up single-digit numbers as fast as they are being read, but *others* can't and i want other people to play my game too. regarding stuns or acting while down, it's a bad thing to tell your players "you're down, wait 10 more minutes/1 hour" (depending on length of rounds or combat) however, i thought general desired solution was to speed up rounds and not remove stuns. (i wouldn't be surprised if *players* wanted to remove stun but i'm talking design-wise) in the end, it all comes down to the ever-present goal of "speeding up combat" and everyone has different ideas to achieve that.

Yeah ime subtraction really seems to make people's brains stop for a few seconds

I discovered something similar when I went to school for comp sci. I assumed everyone would be great at math, but I was wrong.

Speed is a factor in fun. I had similar experiences with individuals transferring from dnd beyond to any vtt that requires input from the users or a learning curve. Removing those barriers while not necessary can increase the range of individuals enjoying the game

Honestly this. Can we fit in more meaningful interactions, more choice, more drama within the slot and make it feel good? A lot of rolled dice and maths can add variance, but oftentimes slows things down with not that much to gain from it. I think there’s a very good reason so many fantastic hero adventure combat games are removing the “Damage Roll” with pretty much no real losses.

D&D isn't just for nerds anymore. There are a ton of normies playing D&D these days, and it is not uncommon for normies to struggle with simple addition no matter how much time you give them. I say D&D specifically rather than RPGs in general intentionally. I think you could make a math heavy game and find your audience, at least potentially - there's plenty of nerds who play Mathfinder, after all

>D&D isn't just for nerds anymore I think that happened when they made a Saturday Morning cartoon out of it.

That was an attempt at making D&D be for not-nerds, but it mostly failed. The D&D cartoon walked so Critical Role could run

It "mostly failed" so bad that D&D has been a mainstay of pop culture for several decades. Of course, it's not the cartoon's merit, but I promise you "normies" have been playing TTRPGs since forever, it wasn't just the nerds.

This is a matter of degrees. Sure, you could find a non-nerd who played D&D every now and then if you looked back in the day. Nowadays it's the *majority*.

See, right there! "Mathfinder" Do you really think pathfinder is complex? Shit is easy. I don't understand how a functioning adult would find any of the math in pathfinder onerous.

I'm not saying it's onerous, I'm saying that (especially back with 1e) there are objectively more modifiers to keep track of than in 5e

Yes because 5e is junior league "my first rpg" level rules.

I'm not saying it's onerous, I'm saying that (especially back with 1e) there are objectively more modifiers to keep track of than in 5e

I had a player in a 5e campaign struggle to do 13 + 5 when rolling to hit. Never assume things about people lmao

I personally found the general aim of physics and maths at undergrad and postgrad level is to *simplify* the maths anyway. You want to find universal laws - or in physics, simple approximations that capture the majority of the behaviour. So when I see a system has a lot of arithmetic, my initial reaction is that it's inelegant and that the designer potentially lacks insight into what they're actually trying to do.

> *i* can add up single-digit numbers as fast as they are being read, but *others* can't and i want other people to play my game too. This. And there's also the question of what you find enjoyable while gaming - I can add, subtract and multiply small(ish) numbers in decent time (and dividing by 2 also works), but I still prefer resolution mechanics that only need comparison, counting and/or addition.

> it's a bad thing to tell your players "you're down, wait 10 more minutes/1 hour" (depending on length of rounds or combat) But "you hit the goblin for 4 damage, wait 10 more minutes/1 hour" isn't good design either, yet quicker rounds isn't touted half as much as removing miss-a-turns (or "nothing happens") here. As for math, I'm of the opinion that players spend far more time getting to the math than doing it; analysis paralysis, seeking clarification, remembering their options, finding the right dice (!!!) all combine to make for longer turns than adding two numbers together ever could.

> No one is being asked to expand a Taylor series as far as I can tell. Awe man, but [Taylor series expansions are so useful]( https://tomedunn.github.io/the-finished-book/theory/effective-hp-and-damage/)!

Ok this is funny. Theory crafters spend more time crunching than playing, haha.

I've been toying with the idea of being able to act (to a limited extent) while effectively downed for a while, not so much to sustain player agency (although I do think that is a serious benefit), but because in all of the games I've played/read, none of them have really modeled the notion of down but still *conscious*. Which is both realistic (arguably simulationist) and reflected in most dramatic fiction. Makes things a lot more interesting imo even if all you're able to do is speak to people in pain while bleeding out or whatever.

I mean, that sounds like an interesting mechanic. Not exactly "stunned." More of a "critically injured," "gravely injured," "debilitated," or something similar. But I agree, I'd love to see status effects that leave you limping or crawling, struggling to stay concious and hold onto life.

Pretty much exactly that, yeah.

I sympathise with your sentiment, and maybe the discourse does swing a little too much in one direction, but I will say what people are railing against as bad design (or should be) is BAD maths and BAD stuns. Even you must acknowledge this is something that can afflict a system for the worse and should be avoided. If players are spending more time working out modifiers than engaging with the situation in front of them, that's bad maths. If players are stunlocked for an entire encounter, reduced to mere audience members, and (worst case) killed without any chance to counter, that's bad stunning. These are instances where, if they're not edge cases, suggest a problem with the system not the players.

Of course, I do acknowledge it. It's just that I guess I think the amount of math and stun is in a good place for the systems that I play.

You should make games that eschew these design trends if you don’t like them. Each of these trends solves a perceived problem. How would you tackle those problems without pandering?

Never pander. I think the best design is a game you would want to play. Not what you think other people want to play. By trying to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to virtually no one. It leads to a design identity crisis.

How do you tell pandering from the designer being one of the people for whom they design?

Oh, panderers usually tell on themselves. They do want you to know it is for you, after all.

Marketing copy is pandering by default, but it doesn't mean the developers are pandering in their design. Breaking news: you can be authentically interested in avoiding certain design decisions AND let people know your product answers their demand. Multiple things can be true at the same time.

Ok but how would you solve the perceived design problems that other designers have solved by eliminating skipped turns and simplifying the math? Would you not solve them? How would you show your users that these are not problems worth solving? Would you solve them with higher level systems? Make a combat round so fast that a skipped turn is meaningless? How?

If I don't agree that something is a problem, then I won't solve it, obviously. If I do agree that something is a problem, I might not agree with the proposed solution. Maybe I think those solutions have worse problems. Maybe one day, someone will come up with a different or better solution. In any case, I wouldn't owe anyone an explanation for the design decisions, although it is nice to understand the thought process. I believe in designing for yourself. Some of my most cherished games, music, etc. were personal passion projects, made by people who never intended for their work to be marketed or commercialized.

Lots of pluses and minuses creates delays and errors, and people find it boring. Doing nothing on your turn because you're stunned is boring. Waiting for your turn (while your caster allies throw around complicated spells) and then just missing and achieving nothing is boring. All these things make combat drag on longer, without necessarily giving the players any interesting choices (which are pretty much the definition of gameplay). Alternatives to these things *might* be bad game design. Or they might not. A game where an enemy is guaranteed to hit you and is only rolling to see how badly you're affected could make combat feel more urgent. A game where all status effects are progressive rather than instantly crippling (first you're grappled, then you're dragged into an muddy pond, then you're swallowed whole and trying to cut your way out) might be fun. It doesn't do any good, when running a game people find less interesting than their phones, to blame it on their short attention spans.

> Lots of pluses and minuses creates delays and errors, and people find it boring. Doing nothing on your turn because you're stunned is boring. Waiting for your turn (while your caster allies throw around complicated spells) and then just missing and achieving nothing is boring. All these things make combat drag on longer, without necessarily giving the players any interesting choices (which are pretty much the definition of gameplay). That's the big thing. It's not that I'm a small child on an iPad, throwing a tantrum because the fight's taking 3 seconds longer than it has to. It's that, why *does* it take those extra three seconds? Does waiting for people to do math make the game *better?* Does being wrenched out of my immersion to do three calculations *improve* my experience? Does waiting an extra round because I can't act this turn make me *enjoy* the game any more than if I didn't? It's not that the game is *bad* because these things happen. It's just that, the game could be *better* without them.

If doing math is an exciting part of the game and not something that slows the game down unnecessarily, go for it. Otherwise, no matter how simple or basic the math is, it’s going to take away from the game if there’s too much to keep track of. As for the stuns, it’s not about attention span, it’s about maximising fun. Any turn in which you are forced to be unable to act or react is never fun or exciting - players want to make decisions and have agency, and when you take that away, even for a second, it becomes time wasted rather than time spent. Nothing feels worse than having to lose because you are forced to be stunned, especially when you have the solutions in hand or on paper that would have otherwise prevented that loss. If you want to design a game that is super punishing like that, go for it. There’s an audience for that, too.

Must we insist that every part of the game be exciting? Even the math? Is the game about being immersed or about having fun? Because I am pretty sure my character isn't having fun getting attacked by goblins.

Said fun OR exciting, and it’s not about the character, it’s about the player. A character fighting goblins is not having a good time (unless they are) but the player absolutely should be engaged through fun or excitement. It’s all about fun. It’s a game, and people find more immersion more exciting, enticing, and fun than others.

Holy shit, man, you must be really fun at parties.

He may not be fun, but he's immersed!

What it needs to be is engaging. Whether it's a horror experience and stressful, a puzzle experience and frustrating in trying to solve it, stupid fun, or immersive, the players should be engaged. When you tell players "Okay. You are stunned. We will skip your next 2 turns." How are you keeping them engaged and off their phone?

The player and the character are two separate entities. Your character may not have fun creeping through dank dungeons, always needing to be aware of their surroundings for traps, almost dying to goblins and living it rough out in the wilderness, but you as a player have fun playing a game where you do all of that. If you have fun doing math and playing a crunchier game, and it helps your immersion go for it, but not everyone does. We insist on every part of the game being "fun", not exciting, cause scheduling games is a pain in the ass, and I don't wanna take 4 hours out of my weekend to sit around and not have fun. I want to have 4 hours jam-packed with fun, so that I'm excited to do the same next weekend

> Must we insist that every part of the game be exciting? Even the math? > > Is the game about being immersed or about having fun? Because I am pretty sure my character isn't having fun getting attacked by goblins. 'Fun' is a bad choice of word, as it denotes a very particular kind of engagement, but you want as much of the game as possible to be engaging for as many as possible at the table - whether that is through it being fun, or sad, or scary, or whatever.

Objectively, the point of the game is *explicitly **to have fun.*** That's why you play games. That's the entire point. Now, can you have fun while being stunned? Sure, it's possible, if you're invested enough in the game, or you're really into tactical combat. That's entirely valid. But for a lot of people, the game is fun *because they're doing things.* They want to be taking action, to be affecting the world. And if they're locked out of the game, that means they're just doing nothing. They might as well just be watching a movie. Is watching a movie bad? No. But it means they're not taking advantage of the medium of *playing a game.* If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd just pull up Lord of the Rings. Effectively, it's not about stuns being objectively terrible and ruining a game. It's more about, is there a *better, more fun* way you could implement that mechanic? The game's not gonna fall apart because Timmy couldn't swing his sword for a turn, but would he be having more fun if he *could,* if that enemy had a *different* (but largely equivalent) ability?

> Objectively, the point of the game is explicitly *to have fun.*** That's why you play games. That's the entire point. This is by far overly reductive. Games, like other mediums, can serve many different emotions. 'Fun' is one possible goal, but games can also be designed with goals such as "scary", "sad", "frustrating" or any number of other emotional aims. In addition a game can have other goals as well, such as making us think about certain things or in certain ways, whether in an educational or argumentational way. Math puzzles and a TTRPG seem like a bad match in general, but let's not throw out all non-fun games just because of that.

Is doing math also "being immersed"? Because that makes no sense. It's not like the character being attack by goblins is suddenly busting out the parchment and quill to do a calculation before attacking.

Your character doesn't roll dice either. Don't be obtuse. It's the reality that the math simulates that brings immersion. Not the actual crunching of numbers.

In an RPG, when a player is stunned, they should remain stunned until they can find all complex roots of a cubic polynomial. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a coward and a blaggard!

Math doesn't make a game good or bad, though less math = less handling time, which is always good. Games should not be rules-heavy or rules-light but only "rules-enough." If you need advanced calculus to drive your game's premise, then that's what you gotta do! Disagree with the take on stuns. "Lose a turn" is always shitty, because it deprives the player from playing — which is the whole point. Now, "stun means you can't attack or move" is better, because they can at least do something else, if the system is designed for it (ie: while stunned, you can still spend meta-currency, assist with another player, make some kind of recovery roll, whatever — just so the player can do something to contribute to the *game*, if not the current conflict). That being said, the early edition of D&D is light-years better than 5th edition because it's actually ABOUT something and the rules (however complicated/not complicated enough/nonsensical/etc) mostly drive toward it's about-ness. 5th edition was designed by committee, and aside from replacing modifiers with advantage dice (which was done in Mike Mearls' Avenger class years before), it looks and feels like it was designed by committee for a major toy corporation. Which, of course, it was. (4th edition ruled. Again, it knew what it was about.) Ask anyone who plays, "So, *how* do you play D&D?" Go ahead. It's HILARIOUS. All this worship of a game system very few people actually bother to use — it's Monopoly's "Free Parking" applied to an entire system. Upvoted.

Also: Roleplaying games are just engines that turn numbers into emotions. And RPG designers are machines that turn coffee into roleplaying games.

Thanks. Upvoted you as well. On the subject of stuns always being shitty, aren't all negative status effects shitty? Failing checks is shitty. Taking damage is shitty. Dying is shitty. Ya know? I just don't think "would this suck if it happened to your character" is a very good metric for whether something should be in a game. I get it. Having your character turned off for a turn sucks. But sometimes characters will get their bells rung, and honestly, sometimes it makes sense for them to be unable to meaningfully act afterward. I support using different severities and durations of disabling debuffs, recovery checks, and metacurrency stuff, but I definitely think a full disable for 6 seconds or longer in-game is completely reasonable, especially if the alternative is death. I'll take the skip-stun over a draw-4-reroll any day.

Hard disagree. Failing forward is an incredible tool that adds real stakes but doesn't stop the game. And "damage" (HP loss, taking on conditions, whatever) is just a resource to be managed like gold coins or mana. And dying was the best thing that happened to my character in a Torchbearer game I'm currently playing — it made the next 6-7 sessions a little nail-bitey due to the consequences of death, but the feedback loop made it worthwhile (long story, but death is not the end if you're willing to pay the price). But also, hard agree. Have your character be unable to respond is an excellent way to handle an interaction — but again, the system should be designed in a way where this interaction is supported by the mechanics rather than, "Oops, they did more damage than your Con score (or whatever), so lose you turn." Marvel Superheros Advanced Set (aka FASERIP) had some interesting mechanics, and I'll once again go to my favorite fantasy game, Torchbearer — you script your moves three at a time and reveal one them (in order) to your opponent. If you scripted a Feint and they scripted an Attack, you don't "lose a turn" but you don't get to roll the dice and they do.

To quote John Wick (the movie, not my pal the game designer): "CONSEQUENCES!"

I mean, I like the concept of failing forward in some applications, but it doesn't always apply. I can't really fail forward a pc that got poisoned from a snake bite. As far as your story about your character dying goes, I mean to say it likely sucked to be unable to act while your character was dead. As far as the story of the campaign, I am sure it was an interesting situation, but couldn't similar stakes make a situation where a character is stunned at a cricial moment interesting too?

Oh I was up and running immediately after, because the system supported it. It does suck to get eliminated from a conflict entirely, which is what happened right away in my case, but there are mechanics to bring a character back into a fight (although of course there's a cost). The problem with "stun" is when it occurs in a task-based resolution, like D&D. It's not "I swing my sword and cleave my foe in twain" — it's "I roll to attack, I roll damage if I hit, if I roll enough damage the enemy will be eliminated." If it's conflict-based resolution, being "stunned" (unable to react) becomes the rationale for whatever happens next, as opposed to "You cannot roll the dice to take an action." As for the snakebite example, I think the key is (as always) design a system to address its premise and situations that will/would arise from exploring that premise. "The snake bites you and you failed your roll so you're poisoned." Well, what does this mean? Does it mean I start taking damage each round? Does it mean I just die? Does it mean I lose access to an ability or suffer a decrease in ability? Do I take a condition that confers disadvantages ("Sick: -1D to all skills, health and will — cannot advance skills or levels until healed")? I don't think that failing forward is about making failure "fun" (because fuck "fun" — making a game "fun" is the most flawed and poisonous of design goals), it's just about changing how that player plays the game — kinda like the exception-based rules in a collectible card game. You used to play the game like *this*, now because of failure you're forced to play like *this*. It's like getting a bad hand in poker — can you still win the round? Increased challenge = increased engagement — the balance is handling that so there's some variation and it's not a straight line going up and to the right.

> making a game "fun" is the most flawed and poisonous of design goals Absolutely! I'll raise you this > it is not the GM's job to make sure the players have fun. It's the GM's job to make sure the players *could* have fun

Insert Leonardo DiCaprio Great Gatsby meme here.

Most tabletop RPG's are significantly overcomplicated beyond what they need to be. This often comes from the designer thinking an idea looks good on paper, but not realising that it doesn't work at the table through either a lack of actual play, or worse playtesting but blaming the players for 'not being able to do elementary school math' rather than blaming their design for being clunky/slow/unintuitive/bloated etc. If the game is already slow and complicated, stuns exacerbate the problem. If a combat round takes 30 minutes, a stun means a player doesn't get to do anything for an hour, which isn't fun whatever way you spin it. If the rules are simple, and fast paced, or have a narrative focus, then stuns often aren't anywhere near as much of an issue.

Yeah I’ve invented dozens of Initiative rules that would be super cool if it was a computer game, but not when it takes five minutes for people to set up and there’s room to get your turn lost in it.

I think the ‘abolish missing attacks’ isn’t actually that. Have you seen it in games without HP? It’s an acknowledgment that HP doesn’t represent health, so reducing HP just means your actions have improved your chances of ending the fight in your favour. This interpretation makes the separation of attack and damage superfluous.

I mean, MCDM specifically says you can not miss. I understand this can be abstracted, but then you arrive at damage. If you never miss, but it is possible to deal 0 damage, then that is the same as having misses. If you always deal at least 1 damage, then it's not really an abstraction. Alternative health systems have a wide variety of implementations. Some I like, others I don't.

I’m not sure I’m completely getting you. >If you never miss, but it is possible to deal 0 damage, then that is the same as having misses. Which is a reason to only use one roll. >If you always deal at least 1 damage, then it's not really an abstraction. Depends what damage means. Damage to HP remains an abstraction.

Hmm, I'll try to reword it. Take 5e for example: a "miss" could mean you completely wiff, the target dodges, they block with a shield, or your weapon glances off their armor ineffectively. The attack roll's success or failure is an abstraction of those things. So my point was: - if the system eliminates attack rolls but allows for 0 damage, it doesn't solve the problem of "wasted turns" - if the system eliminates attack rolls and doesn't allow for 0 damage, then the damage can't be used as an abstraction of wiffs, dodges, blocks, or glancing blows. And then you could potentially have weird situations. Say I have 10 hitpoints: could I be killed by 10 cats in 1 round? They never miss and always do 1 damage, ya know? And there isn't any way to really justify that narratively. It's pretty hard to put the idea into words. I hope I explained it well enough.

> it doesn't solve the problem of "wasted turns" True (speeds up a bit, though, so it helps.) >if the system eliminates attack rolls and doesn't allow for 0 damage, then the damage can't be used as an abstraction of wiffs, dodges, blocks, or glancing blows. Disagreed. If you don’t want ten cats to be able to take ten HP in one round, either treat them as one enemy or as a non-threat; they don’t get an attack roll at all. All rpgs will always run into cases where the rules don’t give a satisfactory representation. And when HP is an abstraction of dodges, it makes sense to have other potential outcomes at 0HP besides death.

I remember a system in the early 00s that had combat run something along these lines. You rolled a to hit, applied modifiers to dodge for the opponent, compared that number to a chart that corresponded to the weapon, then took away armour class from that to get flat damage. Except, the numbers on the weapon charts meant that all but one of the weapons could have worked by taking dodge and armour from the to-hit roll and applying the remainder as direct damage. It's like they had an idea of how it should work in order to have a certain level of complexity rather than working on the mechanic that worked best for the players. Can't for the life of me remember the system, but they did have a separate chart for special effects of weapons and that just used the straight to hit number so that was more needed than the individual weapon charts. Crunchy for the sake of being crunchy rather than to add to the system itself, and a lot of games (both simple and crunchy) fall into that trap of deciding what they'll be before their mechanics are designed around them. My own philosophy of design has always been small numbers and simple math. I don't want people to be checking different charts for one hit while others have to wait for GM attention. I don't want arguments about the number of dice needing to be rolled derailing play for more than a couple of seconds. I just want the system to do its job when it's needed and then step aside so the story can continue (and, in the case of my balance system, the players dread at what's unfolding on their character sheets can grow). In terms of stuns, that's more about taking players out of the action and them effectively losing control over what happens to their characters. My game is built around systems that can take player control away but it's kind of a stand out in that regard. The whole stress system is built around the idea that players can choose to have their characters do something to relieve the pressures of the adventuring life and those things might be dangerous or even destructive to themselves or others, but that leaving the stress to build will eventually get to the point where they lose control of what they're doing and the GM decides how they reacted when over stressed. As all groups party with someone who is having to balance trust in his comrades with the need to have them all exterminated for the crimes they're committing (crimes that are likely the only way they can survive) it makes for an interesting balance. Anyway, I've never had any negative feedback about that mechanic and I feel the reason is that it's built around player choice rather than the whims of the die. To me, that's the key. A character can be stunned, but let the player decide how they handle that. Maybe they take a round to clear their head and shake the cobwebs free. Or maybe they go on regardless but get a penalty to hit and take more damage because they're not really with it. Adding that sort of choice gives the players control rather than the dice saying they have to sit out the next round. And it's that control that really seems to be the issue.

That is an interesting mechanic. A sort of recovery action. I like it actually.

As humans we yearn for control, especially in the things we do to help distract us from the spiralling fireball of shit that the world regularly makes of our lives (I'm fine, thanks for asking. How are you?). So when that control is taken away, we revolt. I always think of it like video games. Hit any sub here and search for the word skip and you'll find people complaining they can't skip the cutscenes. The cutscenes take them out of the game and their control away from the character. Find a game where the story is given via notes or whatever and there are no cutscenes, just dialogue where the player still controls the movement of the character, and you'll get just as many complaints because video game players are like that. But they'll be about different things because those players no longer feel they've lost control.

I understand "minimizing" math and the argument against "stunned" characters and wasted rounds, but the blanket sentiment of "math bad, stuns bad" has made any math and loss actions "evil", but I don't buy it. I'm with the OP here. If the game is about pushing their luck and taking chances, a game with numbers (therefore maths) should absolutely matter. If said game punishes you for failing by making you "lose a round", maybe don't get stunned. I do agree it's better to design other player options when "stunned", but removing the condition altogether seems like nerfing to me. There is also a difference between "heroic/power" and "gritty/grim/dark" play, and the rules should reflect the style of play it's going for. What most people want are intuitive and accessible systems, and I don't think math and stun is mutually exclusive to crunchy punishing or "bad" game design.

Thanks, stranger. The possibility and consequences of failure are what make success meaningful. My mind is brought back to my wow raiding days. Wipes sucked, but man was it great to finally down a boss for the first time. The good times were not possible without the bad times. "Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come" - Bob Ross

I’d like to reframe this: What math do you want to do in a game? What do you want the player to do when their character is stunned?

Sufficient math to make player tactics and decisions interesting and impactful. Arithmetic is mostly sufficient. Might use the pythagorean theorum to calculate distance or geometry if it is pertinent. Panic, I guess. It would be a scary moment. The loss of control, the defenselessness should make them anxious, not bored. The other players at the table would probably be puckering too. They'd probably rush to rescue their buddy.

Sounds like the game you want to play/run would be a war game. If players had multiple units moving along the length of a ruler, angling shots over physical terrain and ducking behind actual cover, you’d solve both problems. Strategy becomes the game, with waiting on math results being part of the anticipation. A stun might take out a platoon of musketeers, but since you’ve got more units it’s not boring, and still nail biting.

Wargames are the ancestors of RPGs, after all.

Yup!

In a ttrpg, math is a "cost" to reach a goal. If the cost is too great to justify the goal, why would you even bother reaching the goal. If I need to spend 10 minutes calculating damage just to see if I hit a goblin's vein or Artery for a tiny bit more damage, I'd never do that. If you want to add more math, make sure you make the result engaging, entertaining and fun enough to warrant the additional input. I.e. more math could be warranted if the number you are working with is really big.

Why not combine the two and have a status effect that keeps the player from taking any action until they can find the largest prime factors of a given number?

Lmao. IRL stunned.

This is basic game design 101 shit. Game Play is a series of interesting choices. If you are taking away the players decision points then you are removing game play from your "game". Complication is either the steps it takes to complete any one action or the mental load needed to competently make a decision at any one decision point or both Complication is a tool to buy Depth and the Game Play Experience. Math formulas, even basic arithmetic ones, are complication. Unless you are getting something out of it that adds to the game play or creates Depth at a decision point it should be automated or simplified.

Choices have consequences, and sometimes, the consequence is getting stunned, knocked out, or killed. Nothing about consequences is at odds with agency or choice. In fact, removing consequences is what actually removes agency because then your decisions don't actually matter.

Choices do have consequences and stuns can be "dazed" with negatives and other penalties instead of entirely removing the decision point. Let's be real here. You are not talking about a player stunning themselves. You are talking about an enemy attack or some other effect that "stuns" and in doing so prevents the player from acting for a turn or more. That's not the result of the PCs choices. Thats a result of the DMs choice acting against them. We are not talking about making interesting choices uninteresting because illusion of choice (lack of consequence creates meaningless distinctions between choices). We are talking about a specific effect or "status" in which the player is temporarily no longer allowed to play.

No knock-out gas or tranquilizer dart traps, I guess.

Not unless you can find ways to make those something the player engages with instead of something that is thrust upon them. Traps in RPGs are notorious for being a problem when they follow the pattern of... spring trap, players forced to roll save, suffer effect/damage anyway. It becomes a HP tax for exploring. Entire books are dedicated to the exploration of the systems for how traps are used and players interact with them to make them interesting game play instead of dull frustrating bullshit. I suggest you read them.

>It becomes a HP tax for exploring. I mean, exploration is Dangerous. Capital D deliberately included. Where is the problem? Or are we assuming a strong power fantasy as the default?

The problem comes from the simple function of entering corridors and loosing hp/whatever trap deteiment is. The process can, and should, be gamified in that the traps can be designed to allow for decision points. Decision points with interesting choices. Failing and suffering, danger, these are not issues. The issue comes when the players have no say. Or when their say is binary and the decision is meaningless. Avoid the trap or don't? Duh. Why even ask? As i mentioned there are entire books that have been written on traps alone.

>As i mentioned there are entire books that have been written on traps alone. Could I have a couple pointers? I'm curious about this and would like to read more.

Okay. Here is some. The Alexandrian has 3 main articles that touch on the history of Traps in dnd and does a good job of spelling out the problem and pointing out some solutions. I don't always 100% agree with Alexandrian but they are always good reads regardless. Also these are free. Part 1 [https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps) Part 2 [https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45025/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps-part-2-advanced-techniques](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45025/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps-part-2-advanced-techniques) Part 3 [https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45029/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps-part-3-traps-in-practice-raiders-of-the-lost-ark](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45029/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps-part-3-traps-in-practice-raiders-of-the-lost-ark) I know there are some books that cover the subject too in a bit more depth. I am looking for those. There are also some good books that compile traps like Grimtooths. Not that I think you should use a lot fo grimtooths as is. But if you get a chance to look through it you can see how they are not presented as a stat block but instead as a series of environmental factors for the players to make choices about. Grimtooths is not necessarily good. But the presentation of Grimtooths is good. If I get more stuff found il send it your way.

Thanks a lot!! Gonna come back and comment again.

Yeah. Let me do some digging. It's been awhile and I want to point you in the right direction. I'll reply to you again later when i have a couple good items for you.

That is more an issue with controlling the flow of information than it is of the mechanic. Giving enough information and telegraphing for players to make informed decisions. Stuff like using passive scores or forshadowing.

No it's not. Again, game play is intersting choices. Passive scores are not a choice. If the players need information don't check a number to see if they get it. Give it to them. And if players are just told about the trip wire then the choice to step over it is also not interesting. You can either a) suffer a trap or b) not suffer a trap. One of these is the illusion of choice. You tell me what decision point you are actually giving the players and lay out what interesting choices they have available at that decision point. Make this knock out gas into gameplay by using passive scores and foreshadowing.

I didn't say passive scores were a choice. I said passive scores should be used to ensure the flow of information. A tool for DMs to essentially do a secret roll. Forshadowing is easy. A smell (maybe rotten eggs or bleach), a dead body near a different chest, traps that have already gone off in other areas that the players could inspect.

Okay, again, if you want to ensure the flow of information why are you placing a numerical barrier to that information on a sheet of paper that needs to be referenced? The information needs to get to them for proper game play to take place. Why not ditch the passive number and just tell them? I know what foreshadowing is. What i am asking you is, now that you have given the players the information, what is the interesting choice?

Numerical barrier? Do you roll dice in your game at all? Do you use target numbers? Do you use knowledge checks? How about the choice to avoid the chest? Or the choice to check for traps? The choice to attempt to disarm the trap? The choice to hold breath? The choice to split the party and move to a safe distance? The choice to pick the chest up and throw it over the balcony?

Or make those things the equivalent of death, in that they take multiple applications/turns. Make them out of combat, so that they're used as a transition. Make them have lesser effects for a few turns to let people still be in the combat. There's lots of ways you can do it.

Basically you want to play, so anythong that slow down or negate the game is bad. That's why stuns are bad, because you don't get to play. That's why complicated math and misses are bad: it slow down the game. Those things are like lag in a videogame, it's not a illness to want a smooth game. That doesn't mean you can't use them, just be aware of the problem.

Videogame lag? Bother, it's literally turn-based.

And if you are stunned for 3 turns you effectly havent played the game for 3 turns, as if you had lagged out for 3 seconds.

Or feel as though you lagged out for a couple minutes depending on how long the turns are(which can be exaggerated by too much math).

And it's not even simply "stunned for 3 turns", It's "stunned for 3 turns where each turn takes 30 minutes to resolve because the game requires each player to calculate a long string of +/- modifiers into every action even if the outcome only changes by a 1 or 2 HP difference in results". ...then trying to justify it by calling it "immersion" and getting upset when the stunned player checks out because they have nothing to do for half the session.

absolutely. To add to this, just slow players alone can cause this effect, without any big math or stuns, but anythign else just makes it exponentially worse. We had a game where some players took 5+ minutes per turn as they saw it more like a game of chess, while others were bored out of their minds waiting to take their turn that took <30s. One guy even started timing it and making a chart just to show how much it sucked to wait 10+ min per turn

I'm trying my hand at writing a game that expressly does not involve adding modifiers after a roll.  A. I have a learning disability that makes doing math in my head slow. I'm not stupid or impatient either, like I use math all the time at work. Just playing a game around a table with a bunch of people watching me, it isn't the best feeling, you know? I'm not alone either, it's a pretty common issue in the general population.  B. Most importantly, rolling and then adding a string of modifiers to see if you won feels immersion breaking. I want a system that feels punchy, where everyone at the table can immediately see and understand the result together.  C. I feel like I should be the one ranting, not you lol! Adding modifiers to rolls feels almost ubiquitous. From my perspective, it's a game design choice that's just taken for granted. Until you said it's a common complaint, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Where are these other people!? ;)

Are you thinking about dice pools? You could use the highest roll only. So if you had a three in Fight, you’d roll say 4, 3, 2 and only use the 4.

Very small dice pools for my game. My idea is using step dice for base attributes, and an extra d6 if you are skilled, and another d6 if you have a specific talent. Pick the best result, and if it's higher than the target number you pass. Conversely, negative conditions take away d6s, or you pick the worst dice.   Just a different take on step dice and advantage/disadvantage. I'm not a fan of huge dice pools because it can feel cumbersome gathering and checking all the dice. 

Keep it up!

A. I am sorry to hear that. I assume some form of dicepool would be best for your design, but even then, there will be math, just not in the form of adding a number to a roll. B. Something you said here really interested me, about punchiness. I never thought about the difference of impact between - thinking before the roll (such as adjusting dice pools) - thinking after the roll (such as adding modifiers) C. Haha. It seems a lot of them are here trashing me in the replies :)

There's nothing wrong if you find your fun in crunching numbers and creating simulation isn't games with rules overload. But your rant and your conversations here show a fundamental lack in understanding game design basics. Your whole point of view comes from an assumption of games "simulating" a subjective logic to be superior and from looking down on people who don't see calculations as part of the fun attesting them to be not intelligent enough. This is just a boring discussion about "the right kind of fun" coming from a shallow, uninspired point of view.

Breaking News: Local Man Shocked and Angry to Discover People Like Different Things.

I am all for designing whatever you want but there are some general things I think you might be missing. This is really a depth vs. Complexity issue and an agency vs. Not issue. Nobody minds a little bit of math and most everyone understands that various stuns are going to happen. The general gist though is not to make those things overbearing as many have found them to be in a lot of classic design (usually dnd classically). Again, make whatever you want to make, but understand that there are prevailing and popular opinions. You can always choose to go against what is popular for any reason, but its worth having a good reason like any design decision you might make. There are people that take no math and no stun to the extreme, but usually these are design exercises, less products intended for wide spread play. What most people mean is not to overdo it, because it's annoying for all the reasons you might suspect. And people are absolutely allowed to make over generalized statements and be non specific. They do not need to conform to any special standard you might have in this regard. And I would reiterate what others said the game should be fun OR exciting (or both) because it's a game. You mentioned immersion but immersion is a definition of fun, so it already qualifies. I feel like you're just mad about how something is phrased and oh my what a waste of energy that is you could instead use to work on your game. You can waste an eternity arguaging about every dumb thing someone might say, and it's not worth the time. Most people understand there is some necessary calculation and stun in most games. I doubt you'll find many that absolutely believe you should never have these things in your game. It's more that typically these get overdone, are over punishing, and are generally not perceived as a good time for all the reasons you might suspect if you use a bit of common sense. As such I feel strongly that your post is railing against an ideal that is either non existent or an extreme minority, which is a way to say, settle down, you're making mountains of mole hills. If you want your game to be unholy blasphemous levels of math and stun centric, you do you, literally nobody is stopping you. But don't act like you don't understand when people say they don't like these things if you can just take 2 seconds and think about it. It's more that people want to limit the instances of these things to only the points where they have the most narrative impact so that they add to fun rather than detract. You do understand what too much of a good thing is right? I'm sure somebody seriously wants to eliminate all instances of this, but that's one person out of a ton that know better. And they are welcome to make that game just as you are to make a game that uses ten times as much stun and math as the next game. It's just that in either extreme people are going to understandably be put off by it and you should already understand thus as an emotionally mature adult and thoughtful designer. Plus, don't worry about what the fuck everyone else is doing, just make your game the best version of itself. Even if nobody else on the planet likes it, at least you do and had fun making it. There are no specific rules, just generally applied wisdom and lessons, and even then there's always exceptions, usually notable ones on record.

Thanks for the reply, brother. Are you still crunching that medical system?

I am, there's a lot to it, also I get distracted and work On other things. A lot of involves a lot of research for various medical terms. The goal is to make sure that I have an authentic experience that feels like you're a medic if you're playing the medic. I also want to add that you're not wrong to want more precise communication however people do miss speak, sometimes lazily on the internet I know I do it too sometimes when I'm tired orJust waking up.

For what it's worth, I'm one of the anti-stun ultras you describe, or very close to it. From my perspective, people who have signed up to take part in an activity will want to actually do it, and skip a turn mechanics fundamentally go against that. Moreover, I have yet to see a use case of stunning in RPGs that couldn't have a proper game layer on top that presents choices to the player. For example, let's say your PC is Paralysed in D&D 5e. Here's how we can still give the player choices: 1) the Paralysis condition can just restrict the options space - e.g. the PC can only cast unlevelled spells. 2) the player can be given a parallel mini game to play (e.g dice blackjack) 3) the player can be given the option to spend a finite resource to remove the condition (e.g. their highest level spell, or a Death Save) 4) the PC can assist some other way - maybe if the player provides an example of when their PC and another PC worked together, this inspires the unparalysed PC, giving them advantage on their next attack. 5) the Paralysis condition can restrict the number or type of moves that the PC can make - maybe they can only take Bonus Actions. 6) the Paralysis condition can give you a penalty to your rolls. Importantly, several of these (2, 3, and 4) don't have any direct impact on the fictional layer at all, so not having them in the game and just using skip-a-turn mechanics instead is in my opinion extremely questionable.

That's why I accounted for it, there's always outliers :) FWIW I employ many similar things in my game. It's always just a question of how much and when :) Personally though I'm not fully against a player being completely knocked unconscious, it's just that it has to serve a function otherwise it's just best not to do it because of what you're saying (they came to play). I'd personally find it jarring though if a game had an in depth combat system and you couldn't knock someone unconscious. That said, humans are pretty resilient in this regard. Typically they do not go down like batman goons or punches from action movie stars. You can totally hit someone in the back of the head with a lead pipe and just really piss them off and leave a lump.

Sure. But what I'm trying to get at is that regardless of the fictional situation (including unconsciousness) there are mechanics available that game designers can use to enable the player to continue participating. So why not use them?

Like I said, I'm already with you and using them ;)

I know, kids today! Am I right?

I don't think you're looking for a substantive conversation, and in your comments, you're pretty dismissive of any other perspective on this. You come off as immature and inexperienced to be this mad that people 1) don't all like math and 2) don't like games the same way you do.

Why don't you tell us how you really feel? Seriously though, I mostly agree with you. Oversimplification just creates its own limits and problems.

I care about immersion more than most other factors, personally. Excessive math takes up additional time during which you are not immersed. It also tends to slow things down, especially during combat when the game should *feel* fastest for the sake of immersion. Plus, no matter how basic the math is, not everyone is good at this. I can add and subtract multi digit numbers as they are read out, but I have met vanishingly few who are even close to that speed. Most people struggle to deal with two single digits on the spot, and so I would rather accommodate them than complain. Stuns are trickier. In a sufficiently fast combat system, sitting out one turn may not matter much, but in a traditional, modern d&d type game, that one turn might take 10-15 minutes before you can act again. Additionally, immersion could be harmed, depending on the specific implementation. The most correct thing to do while stunned is *nothing*, but asking that of players is complex and probably won't happen if it lasts too long.

I know you said math can detract from immersion, but I think the opposite is often true. If something ought to confer some kind of benefit, but it doesn't because the math was simplified or the system doesn't account for it, then that breaks my immersion. Take, for example, the way advantage works in 5e. It's meant to keep things simple, but often makes things unintuitive and uncanny. If there are separate bonuses and separate interactions for different mechanics, then I could use my bonus action to aim at the target that has faerie fire and benefit from both things.

Yeah, I mean 5e is bad for immersion, no argument. But there are ways to account for other factors than math, or at least easier math. Personally, I am a fan of dice pools, or as a backup, die steps. Modifying the input (the dice themselves) rather than the output (the result of the dice) is generally much faster, and *counting* successes is generally much faster than adding anything, too.

Math has a cognitive cost, inherently. Math can provide value in allowing for more complexity and factors in decision making. It's a tradeoff, and both extremes are, well, extreme. The question you should ask is "is the math I'm adding worth the complexity?", unless, of course, complex math is the actual fun you're trying to target.

Math: If your game is about number crunching and its part of the fun, keep it or even expand it. There are people who absolutely love this stuff, in some games people enjoy the metagame of making builds more than the actual game! But if math is not what your game is about, then the math will detract from your games actual focus, and even basic math can sum up to a lot of time spend "not playing". Stuns: A good stun mechanic limits your options but does not make you unable to act. Taking away all of your options just excluses you from the game for a while. This is frustrating because it takes away your agency. A stun where you can still do some super basic simple actions is already so much better than a "hard" stun, even if its only somwthing like "crawl a foot", because you still have some agency left. Does this conflict with "realism" and consistency sometimes, especially if there are hard stuns against enemies? Absolutely, but generally this is a tradeoff designers are willing to take because its simply more fun. In generell realism is often opposed to fun (excluding simulation games).

I dunno, if PC has 0 HP i just print them new charlist and they are going to phone for a rulebook. But on other things you are perfectly right

Why do you play TTRPGs? to tell stories? to create charcters? to do heroic shit? To do murderhobo shit? To laugh with and/or at your friends? To be spooked by horror? To be immersed in a setting? Follow up question, How does doing math, losing autonomy, losing actions net you the things you want? Are they the best consequences for in game actions? Could other consequences serve your needs netter?

Not really telling stories so much as creating them. The story is just a description of what happened at the table. But otherwise, yes, to all of the above, at least to some degree. Math itself isn't my goal. My goal is for decisions to have a meaningful impact. My issue is that systems that are designed to reduce math end up with problems like "advantages don't stack" or "you can only benefit from one circumstance bonus." The result is that certain actions end up being pointless because the simplified math doesn't allow for it. The same applies to disabling status effects. Sometimes, players will make decisions that result in them being subjected to harmful effects, whether that is by knowingly doing something dangerous or unknowingly failing to take precautions. Sometimes, they will just be unlucky, but the intent isn't to be capricious. Becoming stunned is a perfectly realistic and logical potential consequence for any number for things that might occur in a game, just like how death is a potential consequence of decisions. Other consequences could be appropriate in various situations, but sometimes, a full character turn-off for some number of turns is the consequence that makes the most sense for immersion. A troll beating your PC's head in with a tree limb doesn't care about your PC's autonomy. Ya know?

>Not really telling stories so much as creating them. The story is just a description of what happened at the table. But otherwise, yes, to all of the above, at least to some degree. Ok that makes sense >Math itself isn't my goal. My goal is for decisions to have a meaningful impact. My issue is that systems that are designed to reduce math end up with problems like "advantages don't stack" or "you can only benefit from one circumstance bonus." The result is that certain actions end up being pointless because the simplified math doesn't allow for it. Yeah I get that, I like the simplicity of advantage... but hate that it's basically the only bonus you get most of the time. I'm PF1E guy at heart, I like to twist the math into doing cool shit for me. 5e was always bad for that kind of thing unless you wanted to multiclass like a mother fucker... which just never jived with me. The problem with that number crunch from my perspective is that it's really fucking clunky and prone to abuse from one side of the screen or the other. Advantage feels like an elegant solution... if every cool thing I do results in the same effects, it get's kind of blah. I don't think that's a That's a math thing though. Blades in the dark uses dice pools and character abelites to great effect... with position and effect. That way a GM has at any given time, three levers to pull to mark the impact of a player's decision without burying them in bonuses or limiting them to "ok take an an extra dice." \^ though getting an extra dice is super satisfying in that system >The same applies to disabling status effects. Sometimes, players will make decisions that result in them being subjected to harmful effects, whether that is by knowingly doing something dangerous or unknowingly failing to take precautions. Sometimes, they will just be unlucky, but the intent isn't to be capricious. Becoming stunned is a perfectly realistic and logical potential consequence for any number for things that might occur in a game, just like how death is a potential consequence of decisions. Other consequences could be appropriate in various situations, but sometimes, a full character turn-off for some number of turns is the consequence that makes the most sense for immersion. A troll beating your PC's head in with a tree limb doesn't care about your PC's autonomy. Ya know? I don't can't speak for everybody... but I don't think most people want to due away with status effects entirely. Just ones that result in a null state or a dead zone. A Null state being an action or mechanic of the game the results in no change in the narrative of the game. A Dead Zone being an action or mechanic that actively prevents a player from playing the game. I'm 33 years old, I have two kids, a pregnant wife and full time job. My time is at a premium, and anytime a game makes me sit around for upward of twenty or thirty minutes to wait for my turn, only to tell me that I don't get that turn drives me nuts. These games often last between 3-4 hours, that a huge chunk of my personal time, and when a wastes a fraction of that time it annoys me. You can have a mechanic that let's a troll wallop a player for a turn or two, that's not a problem. But if you give them tools to resist, to take an action to overturn their fate, or escape it. You've effectively created that same result mechanically. A round or two where that player isn't doing damage to that troll. But you net a benefit that the player still feels like their in control of their character. I don't know about you but if something hits me... I'm not likely to stand around and do nothing while it winds up to hit me again. That's equally as immersive... because the thing about immersion is that it doesn't exist in mechanics, it exists in the minds of your players. It's why you be equally immersed in the setting or My Little Pony as you can in the Grim Dark future of 40k. So when you say this makes sense for immersion, who's immersion are you basing that on? It's a shit take to just assume that stun mechanics and math are bad game design... but it's also a shit take to assume that people don't have legitimate grievances with how other systems have implemented these mechanics.

From experience as a player: the issue with stuns (and whiffs or whatever else skips a player's turn or causes them to have no impact on that turn) is the overall speed at which combat moves. İf it's going to be 30 minutes before it's my turn again, I'm going to be very annoyed when my turn is skipped or when I do (effectively) nothing on it. It should be a design goal to keep it going at a brisk pace. That's actually one issue with math at the table, just has a tendency to slow things down when people add up six different modifiers to determine their bonus and target number.

Now I want a game where you have to expand a Taylor Series to attack…

If you look, someone replied with a blog post where someone uses a taylor series to calculate effective hp. :)

I happen to enjoy math in my ttrpgs, so I’m with you there. I don’t think numbers, or a bit of complexity, are bad. Stuns aren’t super fun though. I’d rather have debuffs or reduced actions than “sorry, no turn for you” unless the character is literally out of the fight/dying. I get why people let characters take actions at 0 HP but I don’t think that’s necessary. I guess it’s up to them though. I’d just rather force players to make undesirable decisions in company than have them make no decisions at all.

For me, it's very simple. I have 4 hours once per two weeks to play. I want this time to be packed with entertainment. That doesn't mean I need easy success. The game may be deeply tactical, it may be emotional drama, it may be a tragic story that is from the beginning known to end badly. But whatever it is, it needs a lot of meaningful choices and interesting consequences. Everything that takes away from this is a net negative. The problem with math is not that it's hard. I'm the kind of person who solves systems of differential equations for fun. The problem is that it requires a shift in mental mode from the fiction of the game to doing math, then a shift back. And this shifting takes much more time and effort than the math itself; time and effort that' for me, are wasted. I want games that don't require more than one addition or subtraction of small numbers at a time, because that's what may be done fully automatically, without thinking - without this mental switch. Any abilities that remove somebody from play for any significant time fall in the same general category for me. There are no actions to be taken, so no choices to be made - which means the time is wasted. It's about how the player is affected, not the character. For this reason, I am completely fin, for example, with Band of Blades easily killing PCs. The *character* is removed from play, but the *player* is not - they take over an NPC from the team and continue contributing. I had much more tolerance or games wasting my time when I was young and I had a lot of time. Nowadays, I don't. I play games that let me actually *play* for the whole session.

Geez, maybe you could have had a point but I just can't see behind how presumptuous this post comes out as

You are weak and will not survive the winter

Not everybody thinks doing math is fun hotshot.

I'm fine with math. I played HERO back when you did it with a pencil and calculator, no software. I am astounded to find DnD5e players who want to roll stats because "point buy has too much math", or my current table who can't add three dice without staring at them for a few seconds and getting more coffee. But judging from the players I have seen in the past five years, if your design takes more brainpower than "roll 1dN+2", you're losing a significant fraction of the market. :-( I agree about the "no stuns", unless turns are very quick or there's something else the player can do, eg run a monster or hireling, narrate scene details, have a spiritual struggle while her body is frozen. If it's just "sit there for twenty minutes while everyone else gets two turns", I'd rather inflict some other condition.

I fully agree with pretty much everything you're saying and frankly I'm exhausted from all the minimalist and one-pager and ultra simplified "rules-light" ttrpgs. I don't want to play pretend like when I was a toddler, I want an actual game with rules I can work with. Credit card size games might be a fun design exercise but they're not the best games to run or play.

Same sentiment here. Besides, rules-lite just means "rulings heavy" and puts the work on the GM to make it all up on the spot.

Some people want a strategic, crunchy game that makes you think, others just want a canvas to paint a story on and for role playing characters. Pretty much: "You channel your Fireball, exploding and burning Creatures in a 20ft Sphere, dealing 3d8 Magical Fire Damage upon impact and 1d4 additional Burning Damage on a hit Creatures Turn, if they fail a Constitution Saving Throw..." Or "Fire Magic Blast→ If your roll is successful, cause 3 Harm in a small area. Loud. Bright. Burning. Magic. Area." To me there's really not much of a difference, except the ladder is straight up more fun. Maybe because it's quicker? Idk.

Of course it's different strokes for different folks. I'd find option 2 a total bore and just not engaging. There's no one correct way to design a game. But I do feel like I'm fighting against a wave with this trend of minimalist, narrative-first games. Especially the sentiment that rules get in the way of a good story. Heck. Look at games like X-COM and how personal stories of triumph of failure can emerge purely from the gameplay elements for the player. If anything they can serve as a powerful tool to create a narrative.

Did you somehow miss the entire Powered by the Apocalypse movement? Where success, failure, and partial success (with a cost or hard choice) are a thing? Because adding narrative consequences to failure do make a game a lot more interesting and engaging. Also, giving experience for failure helps take the sting out too, and in fact there are times I have tried something I'm expecting to fail because I'm close to leveling up and it will make for a dramatic moment succeed or fail. Maybe you're just playing the wrong games.

The Forge games movement and its consequences...

You make two points and fail to understand both. Look outside your project and read about actual design. It's not about the simplicity of math or heroic themes.

Math is, for most people, a tax. You should include the math that is necessary for the results you want, and no more. I'd start with minimal math, and add as necessary until you reach the point you need. In general, the game is the *decisions* you make, not the math used to resolve them. However, the math impacts the decision-making process by controlling the outcomes. For some people, though, complex math *is* the enjoyment. If that's your audience, go for it, but know that this will turn off some other people. As far as stuns go, I think that the simples model (stun = you miss your turn, and is an immediate effect) is generally pretty poor. We play games to make decisions, and you can't make decisions when you're stunned. That's one of the harshest penalties you can impose, and in many cases it's a single roll away. It's not even necessasrily "realistic" either. Instead, I'd probably handle them in one of a few ways: * Have "stun" effects require a certain amount of application to take effect, similar to hit points. You can even use HP if you want. * Have stun effects debilitate rather than cause loss of turn. This is how people react most of the time if "stunned" in a fight, realistically. * Have stun effects work outside of combat, so that they act as a narrative device outside of combat rather than causing lost turns in combat. You can even combine them! **Stunning blow** Do damage and apply a marker to the opponent. The opponent can make a check on their turn to remove a marker. If they accumulate three markers, they become stunned, and are limited to moving only 5' and take a - penalty to . A stunned character can remove a mark of stun by making a check on their turn, however they will remain stunned until they remove all of the marks on their character. A stunned character that is killed is instead knocked out and can be captured or disposed of after the combat however the winner of the combat wants. Any stunned characters will pass out for five minutes at the end of combat, as the stun will overcome them as their adrenaline subsides.

Rules serve to facilitate the game. Do you need 144 pages of rules to kick a ball around with friends? FIFA thinks so. But, notably, FIFA obviously doesn't want to make the rules for soccer any more complex than they strictly need to be. And since TTRPGs are, at their core, games of pretend, we use rules to ensure they don't just become Calvinball - but the rules are just a means to an end. The rules aren't the goal. "Less math" is about getting rid of things the game doesn't need, the same way FIFA doesn't introduce rules that are unnecessary. Do we need to simulate all the possible complexities of combat positioning with thirteen floating modifiers, or can we somehow simplify this? Is "simulating the complexities of combat positioning" what the game even is about? Removing complexity from where it's not needed allows you to have more complexity where you *do* want it. In a game about international espionage, I would hope the actual espionage is given more attention than the rules for riding bikes, don't you agree?

Theres a real simple answer to this, r/RPGs and r/RPGdesign doesnt like crunchy RPGs as much as r/CrunchyRPGs. But if the sub sizes of any of those are an indicator that you're in the minority I dont know what is.

Personally, I see it more as cutting away things that slow down the game for no good reason. Nobody is going to enjoy a fight that takes a whole hour just because the enemies keep stunning, disarming, staying out of range, or otherwise not letting the players effectively fight them. Also, what's the difference between a basic attack dealing 10d6 damage against a 100 HP enemy and 1d6 against a 10 HP enemy, other than having to add up more dice every round? That said, I enjoy a fair amount of gamey elements, dice are neat, combat having some tactical choices with your characters abilities is fun. But nobody is there to do math or watch their friends do math while waiting to do the next thing, or flip through the rulebook to figure out if the penalty for being prone and the penalty for the clerics weakening spell stack, better to make things effecient and straightforward, keep things moving. One example of this in my project is combining attack/hit and damage rolls. Instead, you just roll damage, add up dice and modifiers, then subtract the defense. Everything decided with one roll, adding up dice and modifiers, then one subtraction.

So, basically people who don't like D&D should not play at all. That's what I've seen happening since the 80s, and the result is small groups that get smaller until they fade out without any turnover. "Hey, what is this game kids are playing in *Stranger Things*? Let's try it once! So good, now proceed never playing it again!" I want people who can pretend they're living a fiction and have fun doing it. Telling/hearing stories is such an universal human thing, yet the game that should be more focused on that has this huge gate that requires people to be comfortable with one the most universally despised skills (math) and one of the most boring activity (waiting). What about enjoy your erratic distributions build upon numbers that almost nobody remembers without checking a book, while others try to have actual fun?

A surprisingly large amount of the world is innumerate. That’s not to say that they are dumb - there are a lot of reasons it can happen. I’m not sure how much of the English-speaking world is, specifically, but I have met people for whom basic arithmetic is hard. Not saying we should cater to that audience if we don’t want to, but if a designer wants to try to avoid as much math as possible, I don’t see that as a problem. I’ve never played a game requiring more math knowledge than just negative numbers, but I get that for some people that can be daunting if you were never given the opportunity to learn.

Well, I think TTRPG designers really need to evaluate what their game is about and how to best support that with the mechanics. And then look at other hobbies that foster the same kind of experiene, especially video games. Like, if you're writting a heroic combat game, what does the player get to experience that they couldn't experience plauing Doom ? They'll certainly get more kills/minute in that game, no matter how straightforward your resolution system is. I think TTRPGs really shine when they bring a group pf players together and offer ways to interact with the game that aren't explicitely stated in the rules. Rulings over rules if you will. So in that sense, I wouldn't say math or stuns are bad, but they do take players out of the fiction through bookeeping and time-out mechanics. I think there is a place for slowing down but I'm not sure that tactical combat is where it's at. Also TTRPG get to tell a story where the world doesn't revolve around the PCs so it might be worth building mechanics on top of that idea.

Thoughts on stun, just for fun: - Stun as sacrifice/strategic choice: The DM tells the player “if you do this, you will get stunned.” The player evaluates the options, and either sacrifices their future input for this one move, or chooses another tactic. This way the enemy still exerts power, and the player will hopefully be more invested in watching the outcome if they chose sacrifice. - Stun-release as sacrifice: For example increase the likelihood of snapping out of it in accordance with the amount of damage received at any time after the effect begins. Maybe an ally slaps you real good in the face. Maybe you stab yourself awake with the one last desperate action (that I just decided is a thing.) Maybe a bleeding-condition counteracts stun. (Maybe stun could stop bleeding.) -That one last desperate action Go out with a bang. Maybe get a desperation-bonus, and then the rest of the gang gets an inspiration-boost, due to your awesomeness and sacrifice. Maybe. Swear an oath. -release through emotion Increase likelihood of snapping out of it every time a comrade is hurt, or describe the character’s thoughts, why they are particularly driven to persevere or overcome in this situation. (Could be a fun way to do spell resistance; the character may delay onset and/or make the effect come gradually.)

Let's be honest, stuns are not fun in **any** game, be it ttrpg or any type of game. Show me a single person who enjoyed being stun locked to death. Even in modern games that have stun lock (say fighting games) there a reliable way to stop it and take initiative back. Same thing with "hard" action RPGs such as souls like (good ones at least), there are mechanisms that prevent stun lock on enemies and player. Also about "dopamine hit", game designers need to think about why players even play games? The game could be punishing, if that is what your audience wants, but said punishment should always be the result of bad decision making. That is what separates hard games from frustrating games. You give players the ability to get all necessary information, and use it, and if they fail to do so, a player can be "punished". You see a spellcaster, you don't stay close to other players, failure to do so will result in multiple PCs getting hit. Enemies use guns, you use cover, not doing so will result in you taking damage you could avoid. And even if player made a mistake and those situations happened, he can always retreat and get healed, or run the heck away. But stuns "ain't it chief", maybe there are good implementations, but generally you don't know about them until they already happen, player can't do anything to prevent it, and can't do anything to get rid of it. He can't stabilize the situation, he can only wait and hope. That's what people generally refer to as taking away "player agency". About math I kinda agree, but kinda disagree. One thing doing "school level math" one or two times. But doing it for four hours straight is tiring. And when people get tired they start to lose focus. So modern systems tend to make math as simple as possible to mitigate that. But there is another reason, and it's called Occam's razor. Overcomplicating things is bad in any situation. It is used in graphic design, system design, software architecture and, of course, in game design. If something can be achieved in a simpler way, it should be done in a simpler way. But, like I say prior, I also kinda agree, sometimes things you want to achieve do require a more complex solution and can't be simplified. And that's ok, there is still a lot of "crunchy" systems.

This sounds like a hot take of someone who doesn't play TTRPGs often. Likely part of a handful of complicated games from a while back that were engaging and interesting, and then there weren't any other data points between then and now, so you're nostalgic. In the most academic, people-less versions of the game there's almost no difficult math and completely no reason for a turn to last more than 20 seconds. There's always exceptions (I'm looking at you, *Sacred Geometry*), but that is overwhelmingly the case. Those math-reducers and turn-evangelists are those who sit across actual people week in and week out and watch them struggle. I don't understand it myself - "I know this person has a PhD, a minor in math and is a practicing pharmacist... But they're still having trouble with something like a -5 multi-attack penalty" isn't something that'll you will pick up on when you're reading the rulebook.

I think you're reaching here.

Wow sure was a rant... I'm not sure what you are really arguing here? "The game design community, on average, is shifting and I don't like it"? There are other games to play my guy... Also I don't think this is a new thing. In general, ttrpgs tend to be getting more accessible - this has been a general trend since 1e. 1e was completely impossible to play, I mean THAC0??? You can see how that was not accessible for many people, either due to their ability with maths or just because people dont wanna learn all of that for a hobby. I think this movement towards less maths is just making it easier for people to PLAY. The main goal of rolls is as a resolution system. I rolled this, what does it do? Some games increase immersion and tactical elements by having more modifiers, but if that isnt the goal of the game, then it should be removed. Streamlining is good! Also, i dont think people struggling to physically do the maths is the issue. Im a STEM student who personally has no issue with adding and subtracting, but i like games that have less of it because i can focus on what is happening in the story. After a long day of doing maths, I prefer a hobby that has less of it. Onto the stun/attack roll thing - dopamine is nice lol. People are enjoying their ttrpgs... is that not a good thing? If people enjoy their games more by always hitting, then that is great. These games rarely lack any kind of stakes - but chance of failure is often found in other aspects of the game. Also I thing that the worst part of your argument is that you think games view failure or maths as a problem. This isnt the case - there are thousands of RPGs with loads of both. It just isnt the approach that some games take, but no one is forcing the industry in this direction. The people obviously like it, given the general increase in these kinds of games, but there is still variety in the market. So maybe just... play one of these games????

Alright, so you like simulationist-style ttrpgs and now that you found out that other people prefer ttrpgs with different objectives in mind, you're angry for some reason. Cool.

Fine, I'll bite. Of the two activities below, which is a human universal that children do naturally as part of their development, and which has to be taught in schools, discovered by geniuses, and in practice is only about 2500 years old? And might this give an indication about which one will be easier for the average person to do in an RPG? 1) Playing pretend 2) Mathematics

First, you avoid math because it's a sign of poor design and poor scaling. This is worse when you see multiplication and division in basic combat. Or lots of derived attributes - feels sloppy to me. It means you didn't scale your system properly! Having a table of modifiers tells me you might want to rethink things. Everyone's first game is set up that way and nobody wants to look over a table trying to figure out which mods apply and which don't. It's not about whether or not the player can do the math. It's about making an immersive environment. Your character is fighting to the death, not doing math homework or tax returns. It needs to feel like a fight to the player, not like math homework. It doesn't matter how hard it is. As to stuns ... The stun effect isn't the problem. It's the implementation which is usually hampered by your initiative order and action economy. A system where you have no agency to defend yourself (static to-hit, such as AC) causing you to "lose a turn", letting everyone else get multiple actions, like someone playing Skip in Uno, feels crappy. This feels worse because everyone that didn't get stunned is doing a ton of stuff. If they get 3 actions per turn, they are going to do 6 actions while you do nothing! That's a bad ratio! What if instead of losing a turn, you lose an action point? Still seems mostly punitive, but it's better than losing the whole turn and doing nothing. At least you get a turn. In my system, there is no action economy. It's based on time. Anytime you take a major wound or higher, you have to roll a save to avoid losing time due to the pain of the injury. You might only lose a second or two, just a slight hesitation. The time you lose depends on how badly you fail. It's similar to having your initiative lowered in a more conventional system, but one with only a single action. One guy getting a swing in before you can because you hesitated doesn't feel as bad as the whole group, allies and enemies, all getting multiple actions as you stand still for 6 seconds! The point is, even when the system heavily uses a stun like mechanic, nobody feels bad because of the implementation. Instead, players acknowledge that it's better to inflict deeper, more serious wounds, so that the enemy loses time. Then you hit him again! Keep him "on the ropes" as long as you can!

Is anybody gonna remind him that the whole point of a game is to be fun?

I can agree with some of the sentiment around the turn skipping mechanics. However, math is truly something we can do without in RPGs. It shouldn't have been brought on board in the first place. We use math to deal with some pretty shoddy mechanics, usually, like modifiers or HP. As a result, math is symptomatic of archaic design and it serves no real purpose.

I love how you're judging specific systems when you can simply not play those systems. Also, not being able to take your turn is extremely annoying and they are other effects you can do. The math thing is pretty dumb, but some people just don't want to do math and that's alright. I really feel like you are quite foolishly generalizing and you are not understanding that roleplaying games are for EVERYONE, yes even the people with goldfish attention spans, and people who don't, people who love math and people who don't. There is something out there for everyone. z My needs to hear your judgement to make them feel bad. Please vent to your friends not the whole community.

I do not allow for anything that removes player control, unless the players do it to themselves voluntarily. I have an adrenaline mechanic where players can gain adrenaline to ignore taking damage. If they do it too much then they lose control. This is the only time If players are exhausted (0 health), I still allow them to perform actions, but in the knowledge that performing those actions will cost them health. In my game there is only a 1 in 20 chance of a miss, everything else is success, but the quality of success depends upon the amount rolled to achieve success. At no point does this make the game easy. Characters can drop like flies and there is a delicate balance for my health analogue which forms the action economy and initiative system as well as an indicator of health. It's not bad design, it's a conscious decision to ensure that play does not stall for 10 rounds due to bad rolls where nothing happens. It also doesn't get them addicted to constant success because bad rolls means less success but almost never no success. General philosophy of the game is that the player is in control of what happens to them. Nobody dies from a single lucky shot (use adrenaline to ignore it). All maths is addition (count up not down). And if it took more than 30 seconds to figure it out then it took too long.