Some thoughts after playing Brogue

[Starhawk]

That's awesome - thank you! It's so long ago that I had forgotten the xp-for-gp completely. I think I last played AD&D about 20 years ago in the early 1990s, and my wife made me sell all my hardbacks about six years ago.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the tour down Geek Lane!

No problem -- it's my geek specialty, I suppose. i.e. if I were a Sil character I'd have "D&D affinity".

I'd invite you to play, but it's an awfully long swim for you.


I still have memories of sitting down after a game to hash out xp, using multiple sheets of notebook paper. Every monster had to be worked out by hand, then all the treasure converted to gp value.... magic item xp value looked up..... whaaaaaa sometimes I miss those days!

[Magnate]

Actually, no -- I started on 1E AD&D too. And the XP rewards for treasure almost always outstripped the rewards for killing, unless we were on a specially bloody or specially chintzy adventure. The awards for monster-killing XP were decent, but paled next to the amount you were supposed to be awarded for GP and magic items. Check pages 84-88 of the old 1E DMG if you still have a copy, and can wade through the Gygaxianisms.

Per the chart on page 85 and the example underneath, an ancient red dragon was worth around 7758 XP depending on special abilities and hp.

However, check the section just previous labelled EXPERIENCE VALUE OF TREASURE TAKEN. XP was supposed to be awarded for GP value of treasure gained, on a 1-to-1 basis.

So if you chop up 100XP worth of orcs and they're guarding a treasure chest with 250 gp in it (a not unusual occurrence), you just got twice as many XP from treasure as you did from combat.

Oww... my geek muscle. I think I pulled it.

That's awesome - thank you! It's so long ago that I had forgotten the xp-for-gp completely. I think I last played AD&D about 20 years ago in the early 1990s, and my wife made me sell all my hardbacks about six years ago.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the tour down Geek Lane!

[Starhawk]

That is truly ancient - I grew up on 1E AD&D and that was all about killing monsters for xp. You must be talking about the original Dave Arneson era D&D from the mid-1970s.

Actually, no -- I started on 1E AD&D too. And the XP rewards for treasure almost always outstripped the rewards for killing, unless we were on a specially bloody or specially chintzy adventure. The awards for monster-killing XP were decent, but paled next to the amount you were supposed to be awarded for GP and magic items. Check pages 84-88 of the old 1E DMG if you still have a copy, and can wade through the Gygaxianisms.

Per the chart on page 85 and the example underneath, an ancient red dragon was worth around 7758 XP depending on special abilities and hp.

However, check the section just previous labelled EXPERIENCE VALUE OF TREASURE TAKEN. XP was supposed to be awarded for GP value of treasure gained, on a 1-to-1 basis.

So if you chop up 100XP worth of orcs and they're guarding a treasure chest with 250 gp in it (a not unusual occurrence), you just got twice as many XP from treasure as you did from combat.

Oww... my geek muscle. I think I pulled it.

[jday]

Missing XP looks like a common theme. I suppose the reception is really quite good, considering Angband's preference for a steep power curve; the decision in Brogue

The reward for killing an enemy is that that particular enemy isn't left wandering around the level. Sometimes that's worth the trouble. Sometimes it isn't. But because you don't outgrow monsters quite so quickly, even a relatively weak monster can remain relevant fairly late. If you plot an experience curve against Brogue, scale the monsters down, and then introduce a new "virtual" monster when they fall below some threshold, you'll end up with something like five times as many monsters. There's a lot of merit in additional monsters and intrinsic development as a storytelling mechanic, but it's really just a pain when you want to design a tight system.

(The current system of Potions of Life was calibrated to behave the same as the old XP system, except that your accuracy no longer increases. And since Potions of Life are metered, you could make a pretty strong argument that you actually are still getting XP, invisibly, by exploring.)

I prefer Sil's stealth to Brogue's, too. Brogue has some really great stuff going for it in this regard -- and then it just sort of drops the ball in favor of slightly more simplicity than it really needs. One key to stealth is that the player doesn't need to understand it completely, so, like terrain, it can be more complicated. The absence of unaware states that don't give the player the x3 bonus is a major liability, where it comes to making stealth more interesting.

The mouse. I know, it's 2012, but I hate having to hover over monsters or items to get their recall information when they're sitting on the floor.

Tab!

Being chased across floors.

A necessary consequence of deterministic levels; you'll find pretty quickly that this is really just another tool in your bag. You can lure a monster up and then jump back down a chasm, or you can lure it up to a trap you remember.

The supposed lack of fanfare at endgame.

I know many players feel differently (and say so!) but I think this makes it more, not less, exciting. I don't want to feel like the game experience was laid out for me. I want to feel like I'm violating the intent of the game by, you know, winning. I do think Brogue is gradually developing away from these lines.

[Patashu]

EDIT: I should say that I mean that the output of the generation algorithm is sort of predictable. I'm sure it's really sophisticated under the hood, I just wish there was more variance of the outputs, and different kinds of levels.

It might be possible to mod Brogue to do this - it already has some framework for parameterizing level generation, and defining the way parameters change as you go deeper in 'sets'. The lake/chasm/lava/brimstone/cave level generation uses a simple cellular automata rule for X iterations and then pick the largest blob, so to vary how those generate you'd need to write something new or find a different cellular automata rule you like. (There are many cool cellular automata rules though - see http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/mcell/mjcell/mjcell.html )

[d_m]

Just wanted to chip in. I also found Brogue 1.7 to be pretty inspiring overall. I share the love of graphics, and I just find the game design to be really "tight" in a consistent way.

That said, while the terrain, colors, features, of the levels were great I found the generation algorithm really boring. I quickly grew to recognize level layouts, the "trick rooms", the traps, etc. Ultimately it felt like a more complex version of Diablo 3's dungeon area templates, where relatively prefab stuff is stuck together in a fixed size space.

Of course, this fits with Brogue's overall ethos, and isn't necessarily bad. But it wasn't exactly what I wanted. Also, while I liked the XP-less development, I was often frustrated that the type of character you're gonna play is largely based on what items you find early on. Again, this is not necessarily bad, but wasn't ideal for me.

That said, there's a lot to steal from Brogue, and I think all its decisions were pretty well-reasoned.

I also think it makes sense to only use floating point to calculate transient values, rather than storing anything important in a way that might mean different things on different machines.

EDIT: I should say that I mean that the output of the generation algorithm is sort of predictable. I'm sure it's really sophisticated under the hood, I just wish there was more variance of the outputs, and different kinds of levels.

[bio_hazard]

I remember playing a few games of Star Frontiers as a kid!

Regarding Brogue- I really like it. The terrain and atmospherics are really fun. I like that it is a quick game- not only in number of levels, but the general lack of scumming with the persistent levels, and UI tricks like auto-explore and auto-travel to stairs, etc.

I like the video playback- it's more than watching the game again, but since you can reveal the whole map and all items are identified, you can see the consequences of the choices you made and find rooms you didn't know were there.

I think the relatively small set of items works for a game this size. Same with monster variety- I think it's great that they are all relatively unique.

The hunger mechanic seems well balanced. Remarkably so, actually. I'm often worried about my hunger meter, but rarely actually starve.

I think the puzzle rooms are good variety even if they get somewhat predictable. I like that some are fairly dangerous, even though I often get greedy and die trying to get that key!

Love the allies- and the talent learning mechanic.

Things I don't like.
There's maybe too much variation game to game. Some games you get lucky and get multiple really powerful allies early on which get you pretty automatically to the mid-teens levels. Other times you get pretty screwed with items and end up outclassed pretty early.

I've decided I really don't like the ID minigame. To do it carefully requires more time than seems warranted given how everything else is geared towards quick play.

I also wish there was a little bit of scaling of items. I dislike finding 3 suits of plate armor or a bunch of heavy weapons in the first level or two, and knowing they won't be helpful for some time. It would be nice to have a somewhat more gradual increase.

A big UI complaint- needs better auto-inscription of items (e.g. uncursed, ID'ed as neutral, etc), also level on which you found it in case you want to replace something in a vault or figure out which potions were new to this level if looking for a puzzle solution.

[Derakon]

Interestingly enough TSR did publish a sci-fi RPG in the mid-1980s called Star Frontiers, which had the kind of xp system you describe - xp was awarded per gaming session, or per significant story milestone, whether you had killed anything or not - and it was handed out at the DM's discretion in tiny amounts - 1xp was plenty, 3xp was a fantastic evening. It was then spent either directly on improving (percentile) stats, or on buying skills (where level 1 of a skill cost 1xp, and IIRC the cost roughly doubled every level).

This always struck me as the much more sensible way to play. Instead of trying to track experience values for the different enemies you kill / obstacles you surmount, the DM tracks your efforts as a team and basically decides when you level up for you. No more worrying about playing a character who can't directly contribute (e.g. a spellcaster specializing in buffs and debuffs, or a rogue specializing in locks and traps); as long as you're important to the team, you'll be kept around and be able to advance at the same pace as everyone else.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That is truly ancient - I grew up on 1E AD&D and that was all about killing monsters for xp. You must be talking about the original Dave Arneson era D&D from the mid-1970s.

I started with the Red Box Basic D&D. In that game most of your XP comes from the loot you find. The Basic sets are actually newer than the 1E AD&D. They coexisted peacefully for a long while.

I personally think Moldvay's Basic D&D rules is the best version of D&D. The excellent retro-clone Labyrinth Lord is almost identical to Moldvay's.

Interestingly enough TSR did publish a sci-fi RPG in the mid-1980s called Star Frontiers, which had the kind of xp system you describe

Basic D&D was all about collecting GOLD and gaining experience levels for it. And it makes a lot of gamistic sense for me. It was a very elegant reward system for the sort of dungeon adventuring D&D was designed for. Your adventuring party is neither heroes nor murderers, you're rogues!

Unfortunately it never gained a foothold vs. Traveler and Space Master, and despite a complete reinvention it was axed before the decade was out.

Speaking of D&D-style scifi-games, you may want to check out my favorite tabletop RPG system at the moment: X-plorers! "What if the original D&D had been a science fiction game?" It's very retro, but it's also modern in its streamlined game mechanics.

The game is light-hearted, but the system may be used for serious, thought-provoking science fiction adventures, too.

It seems I only ever play these really simple roleplaying games nowadays (not too often). When I play roleplaying games face to face, I slightly prefer difficult ethical decisions to fun combat tactics.

Designing Halls of Mist mostly satisfies my itch for crunchy combat mechanics. For tabletop gaming, X-plorers is crunchy enough.

[Magnate]

The early D&D (or at least some of the early D&D versions) gave very little XP from killing monsters. Most of the XP came from finding gold. The designers wanted to promote problem-solving, not murder. In a way, Brogue is returning to these roots.

That is truly ancient - I grew up on 1E AD&D and that was all about killing monsters for xp. You must be talking about the original Dave Arneson era D&D from the mid-1970s.

Interestingly enough TSR did publish a sci-fi RPG in the mid-1980s called Star Frontiers, which had the kind of xp system you describe - xp was awarded per gaming session, or per significant story milestone, whether you had killed anything or not - and it was handed out at the DM's discretion in tiny amounts - 1xp was plenty, 3xp was a fantastic evening. It was then spent either directly on improving (percentile) stats, or on buying skills (where level 1 of a skill cost 1xp, and IIRC the cost roughly doubled every level).

Unfortunately it never gained a foothold vs. Traveler and Space Master, and despite a complete reinvention it was axed before the decade was out.

[ggoDeye]

Unfortunately, I think my childhood of JRPGs and D&D has rewired my brain to require the observation of some sort of regularly ascending number to enjoy an RPG.

I hear you on this. The lack of skill development system to min/max can leave me unfulfilled and I sctatch that itch elsewhere.

[debo]

The early D&D (or at least some of the early D&D versions) gave very little XP from killing monsters. Most of the XP came from finding gold. The designers wanted to promote problem-solving, not murder. In a way, Brogue is returning to these roots.

Sorry my friend, I'm not that old (My first D&D experience was the Gold Box CRPGs, which did indeed reward a reasonable amount of experience and treasure for killing bad guys.)

@half: I'm selfishly glad you erred in this direction for Sil!

[half]

Every time I see a monster, I feel exasperated instead of excited because of the XP thing

In the development of Sil I thought about this quite a lot, and eventually decided on the current decay rate rather than, for example, just rewarding experience for the first kill of each type. In some ways the latter is more elegant, and I do like the idea of monsters as obstacles to avoid scumming and encourage problem solving, but I was aware that it could make large parts of the game feel pointless or discouraging. There are similar issues with the proportion of treasure found on the floor versus dropped by monsters.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Unfortunately, I think my childhood of JRPGs and D&D has rewired my brain to require the observation of some sort of regularly ascending number to enjoy an RPG. I played Brogue for a couple of hours on a long train ride last night, and I already feel burnt out on it. Every time I see a monster, I feel exasperated instead of excited because of the XP thing

The early D&D (or at least some of the early D&D versions) gave very little XP from killing monsters. Most of the XP came from finding gold. The designers wanted to promote problem-solving, not murder. In a way, Brogue is returning to these roots.

[debo]

Actually this was very much true up until the 1.7 release. The first 2 levels are still trivial but things get really uncomfortable starting on D5+ now.

Yup, as a newbie my shallowest death has been at DL5, my deepest at DL10. This game is no cakewalk, that's for sure. I like how situations escalate quickly, but not so quickly that you can't spend a few turns doing something risky to come out ahead.

Unfortunately, I think my childhood of JRPGs and D&D has rewired my brain to require the observation of some sort of regularly ascending number to enjoy an RPG. I played Brogue for a couple of hours on a long train ride last night, and I already feel burnt out on it. Every time I see a monster, I feel exasperated instead of excited because of the XP thing

It is a beautiful game, it's just not for me.

It might be neat to load up an older version of the game to see if I like that better!