Do you have any f$&%ing idea how hard it is to be me? No. You don’t. You have no idea how it feels to be single-handedly responsible for every single role-playing game session run by every one of the hundreds of thousands of people who read all my crap articles. Sometimes, I can’t f$&%ing sleep for thinking about how many game sessions I’ve utterly destroyed. And how unfair it is that I have to labor under this crushing weight of responsibility. I mean, yes, I can tell you how I do every damned thing and tell you exactly why, but I still can’t make you me. Is that my fault?

Well, no, it’s not. And truth be told, I don’t actually give a single, solitary f$&% about anyone’s games but my own. But if I did care, you’d all have broken me. And for once, I’m not complaining about a$&holes being a$&holes in comments and e-mails. I’m talking about the fact that you’re all watching my every move and hanging on my every word because you know there is only one right way to run a game. MY. F$&%ING. WAY. If I choose one system over another, it must be the best system. If I remove a race or class from my game, it must be broken. And if it’s not broken, I must have some other objectively right reason to hate that race. That class. And when you can’t figure out my secret, objectively correct, mechanical, provable, axio-f$&%ing-matic reason, you demand that I tell you what it is. You demand I justify my position. As if my playing a specific game or removing a specific class constitutes a f$&%ing position. But then, everything these days constitutes a f$%&ing position doesn’t it.

And then, as soon as I take a position, there’s always some a$&hole waiting to prove my position wrong. Oh, what f$&%ing fun you’ve all made writing articles about pretend elves.

This article is about why my choices aren’t positions. And why you shouldn’t imitate them. Or me. And why I usually can’t explain them. And why even if I could, they wouldn’t be arguable. And, most of all, why I spend so much time telling you how I think instead of what to do so that maybe, just maybe, you can all learn to think for yourselves.

Now I know how Alan Greenspan felt.

Running the Wrongest Game Ever

I dropped a couple of hints about my new, for-fun, personal home game of D&D in my last few articles. Actually, I outright described the start of my f$&%ing campaign, didn’t I? And why I made the choices I did. I was hoping that seeing my thought process would help you all make your own decisions about your own games. But instead, all it did was open me up to a f$&%ing inquisition.

Why are you running D&D 3.5 instead of Pathfinder? Why wouldn’t you just run D&D-but-better? Why did you ban gnomes? Why do you hate monks? Why did you stop hating sorcerers? And what’s your beef with Dungeon World? I thought you liked Dungeon World? And why are you using something that’s sort of similar to a thing in Fate? Did you stop hating Fate too?

For a little while, I was just ignoring all that s$&%. I was even laughing at it. A little. Before I got f$&%ing sick of it. But I was just going to, you know, run my game and ignore all that crap. And then, the saddest thing ever happened. I got a question in my Patron’s-only Discord that went something like this. And I am only exaggerating a little for humorous effect.

Angry, I’m curious why you made the choices you did for your home game. I’ve always made different choices and I’ve been perfectly happy. But when I saw the choices you’d made, I realized I must be wrong about everything and that everything I like must be broken and stupid. Please tell me what I’m missing.

And that’s when I couldn’t ignore that s$&% anymore.

See, there were two reasons why I was ignoring those questions to begin with. First, because I know that somewhere between sixty percent and absolutely every one of those questions was an attempt to start a discussion. An internet discussion. You know, the kind of discussion someone thinks they can win? And they’ll stop at nothing to do so? All the while cheerfully insisting they’re just trying to understand where you’re coming from.

The other reason I had for ignoring those questions was that there is absolutely no f$&%ing way I can answer them. Not in a way anyone wanted me to. And not in a way that would make anyone happy. But I have no choice now. So, by the time this article is over, I’ll tell you, at the very least, why I chose D&D 3.5 over “fixed, better D&D 3.5.” And I’ll give you some insights as to why some classes and races aren’t allowed. And why I’m not using other systems. But, most importantly, I’ll tell you why I can’t actually tell you any of that in a way you’ll like. And why it doesn’t matter anyway.

But first, let’s have a…

Pop Quiz Hotshot: Who Rolls the Dice?

This ain’t a non-sequitur, but it sure as hell’s going to look like one until you figure out what I’m getting at. Let’s talk about dice rolling in RPGs.

A lot of game systems make a really big deal about who should and shouldn’t roll the dice in an RPG. Well, actually, they make a big deal about not ever letting the GM roll the dice. But does it actually matter who rolls the dice? And I’m not talking about math or mechanics here. Assume all the math and all the rules and mechanics and everything would all be exactly the same no matter who was touching the dice. Same odds, same outcomes, same everything. Does it actually matter at all whether it’s a player rolling the dice or the GM? And if it does matter, why? And if it doesn’t matter, then why do some game systems make such a big f$&%ing deal about it?

Take a minute to think about that question. See if you have an answer. Notice, I said think, though, and not type. Or comment. I’m going to tell you the actual, correct answer below. So just think about your answer, then keep reading. And yes, this is absolutely related to why I chose D&D 3.5 and why I threw out monks.

More than a Game Feeling

There’s this term that’s all the rage in video game design circles these days. It’s all anyone can talk about. It’s brought up in every GDC talk. There’s dozens of books about it. And every one of your favorite game-design YouTubers has mentioned it at least once. Maybe they’ve done a whole video on it. The term is game feel. Or sometimes, game juice. And for something that no one can stop talking about, it’s hard as f$&% to find a good, concrete definition that everyone can agree on. And that’s because the term itself defies concrete definition.

As you might expect from just looking at the two f$&%ing words that make up the term and from knowing the English language, game feel describes how a game feels. Shocking, right? And note that when I say that, I mean it in the most hippie-dippie, artsy-fartsy, touchy-feelie way. Now, you probably expect me to call it a load of bulls$&%. That’s what I always do when I talk about artsy-fartsy, touchy-feelie terms. But no. Game feel is super important. It’s actually the most important. It’s everything.

The problem is, it’s also totally vague and nebulous. Because it’s about feelings. It’s subjective. It’s qualitative. You can’t measure it or define it. You can’t do math with it. And while game designers can point to the specific things they’ve done to juice up games and make them feel better — like how Vlambeer will not f$&%ing shut up about their shaky screens — those things only work when they work and there’s almost no way to predict when they won’t. You just have to try s$&% out and see how it feels. Eventually though, you can develop a sense for it. It’s an art.

And game feel is also totally not objective in another way. See, while it’s possible to do all sorts of wrong things and make a game feel bad, there’s an infinite number of ways to make a game feel good. And what feels good in one game might feel bad in another. And things that feel bad in some games work in other games. For example, a high-octane brawler will absolutely feel like s$&% if the controls feel slow and clunky. But that same s$&% makes piloting a giant mech or controlling a kaiju monster feel exactly right.

So, game feel’s something you can only talk about descriptively and prosaically. Mostly. Yeah, I know there’s a bunch of math and neuroscience about controller response rates and frames of animation and stuff, but let’s try to stay on topic here. And game feel’s something that can’t be spoken about in absolutes. It’s not something you can rate on an objective scale. It’s not something you can even compare, really. The best you can say is that one game feels more right than another. Or less right. Whatever.

The Answer to Last Section’s Puzzler…

As you might have guessed — if you’re got at least two functioning brain cells — I asked that question above about dice rolling specifically so I’d have a good example of just how game feel actually works. So, does it matter who rolls the dice?

Mechanically, it doesn’t. Not in the f$&%ing least. All the rules, odds, and outcomes are the same. But it does matter. For totally vague, fluffy, intangible feelings reasons. When a player rolls the dice, it feels like they’re in control. They’re taking an active role in their character’s destiny. Even if they can’t affect the outcome in any way, it still feels like they can. So, whenever the players roll the dice, the action is about the players.

And look, I know what you’re all thinking. You’re all thinking that that’s how all RPGs should feel, right? All RPGs should be about the players. And consider this a cautionary tale about the dangers of assuming there’s ever a single right answer when it comes to game feel. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

When you have an RPG system that makes the players roll all the dice, you have a system that’s entirely about the players. And their characters. The world exists only to react to their actions. Take Dungeon World for example. That system’s unapologetically About the players and their characters. With a capital f$&%ing A. Nothing else in the world acts except when it reacts to the players. Even the baddies don’t take actions. They can only move when the players give the GM an opportunity. And the GM must telegraph the reactions. A GM’s not supposed to make a hard move against the players — one that actually f$&%ing hurts them — unless it follows a soft move that the players failed to respond to adequately.

Now, I’m not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a thing. It’s an aspect of the game. And likely, it was a conscious choice made by the designers. They knew what they wanted to make Dungeon World about and they did so. And they made sure it felt that way. But that feeling doesn’t work for every game. For example, those choices also poke holes in the idea that there’s a world beyond the characters and their actions. There are no other stories in the world. There is nothing else going on. Even fronts — a tool for tracking story events —only move in step with the characters’ adventures.

And that’s why I won’t use DW for extended play. Longer games, the ones that last for months or years, require more variety in their scale, scope, and pace. Sometimes, the players take the reigns and drive the action. Sometimes, terrible things happen to which the players can only respond. Sometimes, things are totally beyond their control and their responses are limited.

Moreover, my upcoming D&D 3.5 campaign is a low-fantasy game. That means the game’s to some extent about how the civilized people of the world are at the mercy of, well, everything. Monsters. Magic. The environment itself. The wilderness is amoral and uncaring and filled with the dangerous and incomprehensible and uncontrollable. That is not a world that benefits from a sense that everything revolves around the characters and in which the players are always in control.

And, by the way, I will admit that the D&D designers don’t really seem to give a f$&% about game feel vis-à-vis the “who rolls the dice” question. Most of the time, whoever takes the action rolls the dice in D&D. That’s fine. Smart actually. But sometimes, it’s the victim that rolls to prevent the action. That’s what a saving throw is. And saving throws usually come up as the result of magic or weird environmental effects. For the latter, you don’t want the players rolling to avoid weird environmental effects in the fantasy genre. The environment is an antagonist in fantasy play. For the former, you could claim that spellcasters not rolling their own dice creates a feeling like magic is unreliable and uncontrollable, but then I’d point out that most spells work totally reliably. They never ever fail. Sometimes the target avoids or resists them, but the magic actually works exactly as defined every time. And, of course, sometimes the wizard does get to roll. And the magic still works, it’s just that the magic misses the mark.

So, in D&D, die rolling feels like… nothing. It’s got no feeling at all. Which is, to be fair, better than it feeling wrong. Which is why I’ll take D&D over DW for long-term, campaign play in low-fantasy worlds in which I want the world to be a substantial character.

And in D&D, magic just feels like a set of rules you use to resolve spellcasting. Just look s$&% up in a book and do exactly what it says. Which is precisely how magic should feel. Right?

Right…?

Objective Subjectivity

Now let’s have the subjectivity fight. You know the one I mean. That’s where you finally get someone to admit that something is totally subjective and then they point out that any further discussion is pointless since everyone can just feel however they want about anything subjective.

Yes, game feel is indeed subjective. By which I mean that it is not based on facts and logic and concrete definitions, but it is rather based on emotional responses that defy full, rational understanding. And yes, it will therefore vary from person to person. But that doesn’t mean it’s a total crapshoot.

If you show most people a picture of a big-eyed, three-legged, homeless doggy in a puppy orphanage, they’ll immediately feel some sort of sympathy for the gimpy little beast. And if you play some emo Sarah McLachlan song over the picture, they will seriously consider flinging money at you to make the sad pictures stop happening. Or to support their local Human Society. That’s why those advertisements work. But they don’t work on everyone. Some people like their money more than they want the sad pictures to stop. And some people just don’t care about anything that isn’t them. Which is why they don’t work on me.

People are all wired up a little differently, sure, but most people aren’t wired up that differently. And that’s the art of game feel. You want to make your game feel a certain way to as many people as possible. Moreover, you want your game to feel the way anyone who looks at the box would expect it to feel. If your game has Cthulhu or Eldritch or Lovecraft in the name and a tentacle monster on the cover, you don’t want the game to feel empowering and meaningful. No one with any sense who wants meaningful empowerment would buy that game. And no one with any sense who would buy that game would expect it to deliver them a meaningful, empowering experience.

Remember MDA?

This whole game feel thing was actually at the core of that whole MDA thing I talked about years ago. Remember that? Of course you don’t. Because everyone thought that Part 1 of that discussion — the one with the Eight Kinds of Fun — was the important part and they all skipped Part 2. Guess what? They were wrong. Are you remotely surprised? Because I’m sure as hell not.

Let’s review that whole thing then. Except for the part about the Eight Kinds of Fun. You know, the less important part. People play games because they’re after particular emotional experiences. Aesthetics. Ultimately, game designers are trying to provide those experiences. Because those are things that determine whether anyone actually f$&%ing likes your game. Whether they actually have a satisfying time playing it.

Now, those aesthetics arise from the players interacting with the game’s systems. And vice versa. Dynamics of play is what that’s called. When a player picks up a fistful of dice he spent a bunch of resources on and rolls a crapton of damage and utterly f$&%ing destroys that lava dragon that’s been wrecking him since turn one, he feels like he’s earned himself a victory. He overcame a challenge. And if overcoming challenges and earning victories is that player’s jam, he will probably pump his fist in the air and shout “hell yes” and keep playing your game.

Unfortunately, you can’t make any of that happen as a game designer. The only thing you can design is the game’s systems. Mechanics. You can design a statistically powerful lava dragon and invent rules for chewing up resources to buy damage dice, but then you have to send those systems out into the world and hope to hell that they create experiences like the one above. But that’s kind of like trying to write someone a poignant love letter knowing it’s gonna get run through Google Translate twice before it gets delivered. So good f$&%ing luck.

Game feel is everything. It’s the goal. It’s what you’re actually trying to accomplish. At least, it’s how you win. Because, in the end, the players are after an emotional experience. So the mechanics have to feel right. And that’s not just about math and balanced rules. In the MDA model, remember, Mechanics are more than just rules and systems and math and paperwork. Everything you define about your game is a mechanic. Like the use of miniatures or visual aids. Or the existence of a human brain that referees the game. Or even simple little suggestions like “make one initiative roll for entire groups of identical monsters.” What do you think the game feel of that one suggestion might be?

And, in the end, the only way to actually be sure about this game feel s$&% is to just f$&%ing play the game and see how it feels. Which is why I’m always careful not to give too many opinions about games I haven’t played. And why I usually don’t judge an RPG until I’ve run a dozen sessions of it. And I usually don’t write my own content for a game until I’ve run it out-of-the-box, as-it’s-intended a dozen times either.

Why I Do What I Do: It’s All About the Feels

I could probably end this article right here. You should already know why I chose D&D 3.5 over Pathfinder. And you should already know why I’m not eager to explain it. I chose 3.5 over PF because, having run them both for several years each, I know how they feel. And I know which feeling is a better fit for the game I’m trying to run. The game my players asked me to run. And because I’m smart and critical and self-aware, I could probably even explain some of the reasons why each game feels like it does. But I can’t explain everything. No one can. You can’t explain feelings. Not completely. You can only feel them. And no explanation would stand up to any sort of logical argument about which mechanics are objectively better.

I chose D&D 3.5 because it’s fantasy dial and character power dial are a few notches below the ones in Pathfinder. PF feels more magical. And freshly minted, brand new PF characters feel more powerful. I can point to some of the mechanical reasons why, but I don’t want to. And I don’t think it’d be good for you if I did. Because, frankly, you need to care a little less about both my opinions and a game’s mechanics. Just play games and see how they feel. Then you try to figure out why.

Look, I give great advice. No one’s denying that. Well, no one worth listening to is denying that. But my advice is predicated on creating a certain feeling at the table. And I’m aware enough — at least I try to be aware enough — of the game feel issue that I give different people different advice based on what they’re looking for, not what I want. If you wanted to run a high-powered, high-fantasy, magic-heavy game and you wanted to pick between 3.5 and Pathfinder, I wouldn’t tell you that I like D&D 3.5 better or that it runs better. I’d tell you Pathfinder will fit that better.

D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder are different games. Similar, but different. Neither one is a fixed, better version of the other. They feel different. And you should pick the one that feels right to you. There’s no objectively better choice. And people don’t want to hear that.

When people ask my opinion and then demand I explain myself, they want to hear an objective, analytical answer. They want to play the best game after all. They don’t want anything broken in their game. And they know I’m so f$&%ing brilliant that’d never play anything but the best. That I’d never tolerate anything broken.

I wish I could make people understand it doesn’t work that way.

You can apply this same logic to all those questions I get about why I hate this race or why I think that class is broken and must be banned. Even though I very rarely use words like hate, broken, and banned. Except when I’m being funny or hyperbolic. Which is all the time.

Druids in 5E feel overpowered. Are they? What’s overpowered? Where is the line between overpowered and powerful? What is the formula for the exact mathematical curve beyond which powerful becomes broken? Who knows? I sure as hell don’t. Sorcerers in 5E feel really clumsy and mechanically fiddly. And they don’t feel like they fill an important role alongside bards, warlocks, and wizards. So, I don’t need them. I don’t hate them. Monks don’t feel like they belong in dark age Europe after the fall of Rome. And considering that’s where my games land, I don’t want them running around. And you can point to the medieval fencing books written by monks in the 14th century and I won’t give a single, solitary f$&%. Because facts don’t change feelings and games are about feelings, not facts.

As for gnomes? Well, I could claim I remove them because they demand more alchemy and clockwork bulls$&% than I want in my game to give them a strong identity. I could claim that they — like kenders — attract player personalities I’d rather not have to deal with. I could claim that their racial abilities feel like a random grab bag of gibberish. That prankster-alchemist-gem-cutting-illusionists-who-can-speak-to-badgers feels a bit all over the place for my tastes. And I could claim that fey stuff in general just doesn’t grab me. That I prefer the Germanic stuff over the British Isles faerie s$&%.

But really? I just hate the little f$&%ers. That’s just how I feel.