Thinking About the Purpose of Mechanics from a Neo-Trad Perspective

[Campbell]

I like to split neotrad play between power fantasy, which is all about displaying competence / having cool moments in the spotlight and interpersonal / Slice of Life play, which is more about playing a defined character who often get themselves into as much trouble as they get themselves out of with a strong focus on interpersonal relationships. For the latter sort I think having mechanics that encourage playing to type really help because they can help overcome the need to focus on completing the scenario and give players cover to play the sort of character they want to play.

For my own play having things like Cortex distinctions, trouble aspects in FATE, Passions/Anxieties in L5R 5e and Nature/Demeanor in World of Darkness are immensely important because they help to overcome the trained impulses we all have, help us get a sense of each other's characters, communicate to the GM what sort of content players are interested and most importantly give players room to express themselves without feeling like they are letting down the team.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To answer the first question: because the fiction around them, not having the "layers" or "depth" that the more conflict-y/"story now" stuff has, is not doing as much expressive work. So the mechanics loom proportionately larger.

I think that would be basically my answer, also maybe something about the difference between "I do X" and "I want to achieve X result"

As to the other two questions, if I could answer them properly I'd be a great RPG designer! @The-Magic-Sword gave some examples upthread from PF2, but they all pertained to combat.

ROFL, way to cop out man!

Maybe it's enough that the mechanic for winking - which is about reaching out to someone and communicating with them - feels different from the mechanic for (say) stabbing - which is about unilaterally affecting someone, rather than engaging with some degree of reciprocity.

Yeah, that's an interesting point in terms of game design. I mean, you could see 'stab someone' as a two-sided interaction as well, assuming they are attempting to avoid your stabby stab stab. But it might well make sense to reserve some specific mechanic for a social interaction where the outcome is more complex. Oh, maybe it should get several die rolls! Anyway, I don't know either...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I like to split neotrad play between power fantasy, which is all about displaying competence / having cool moments in the spotlight and interpersonal / Slice of Life play, which is more about playing a defined character who often get themselves into as much trouble as they get themselves out of with a strong focus on interpersonal relationships. For the latter sort I think having mechanics that encourage playing to type really help because they can help overcome the need to focus on completing the scenario and give players cover to play the sort of character they want to play.

For my own play having things like Cortex distinctions, trouble aspects in FATE, Passions/Anxieties in L5R 5e and Nature/Demeanor in World of Darkness are immensely important because they help to overcome the trained impulses we all have, help us get a sense of each other's characters, communicate to the GM what sort of content players are interested and most importantly give players room to express themselves without feeling like they are letting down the team.

I'm not sure they're all that separate. Even back in the day, Hero had a lot of encouragement to take Disadvantages, which encouraged or forced you to do things that might be suboptimal play in a mechanical sense because superheroes are for the most part, nothing if not big personalities riddled with baggage, but was also very full of potentially fussy ways to express things mechanically.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think it is more that with more defined mechanics stuff gets taken out of DM adjudication and placed into more system defined results rather than directly to increased player control. Players can refer to the rules for defined results, but they can only control stuff within the defined confines of the mechanics which often includes a random dice element.

In B/X D&D having a crappy detect traps skill mechanic is often not really more player control than interrogating the DM about the scene the characters are in and trying to figure stuff out without mechanics. Narratively using a 10 foot pole is often better at detecting pit traps as the party explores.

Does B/X HAVE a 'detect traps skill mechanic'? There is NO SUCH THING in Greyhawk! The skills are 'Open Locks/Remove Traps' and 'Pickpocket/Move Silently/Hide in Shadows' and then thieves get a level-determined bonus to their 'hear noise' roll (which IIRC is d6 based). There is also the Climb special ability of course. In any case, there is no 'Find Traps'! You find them by the old-fashioned method of pixel bitching the dungeon! Also, Remove Traps is defined as 'remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)' (p4). Thus thief abilities are irrelevant to the normal sorts of 'dungeon traps' such as covered pits and other 'tricks'. The player must describe HOW she is finding the small mechanical trap, and then may use the Remove Traps ability to defeat it. Presumably this, and Open Locks, were provided as thief abilities in this way is on the assumption that most DMs are NOT trap smiths nor even lock smiths, and thus would be unable to adjudicate these sorts of actions without resort to some kind of mechanics (and would be under heavy pressure from players to NOT make them fail).

I would put it this way, in the famous Indiana Jones trap gauntlet it won't help to be a thief, except maybe at the very end where he tries to lift the idol and replace it with a bag of sand. That one I could see qualifying, and Indy obviously blew his check there!

All that being said, AD&D did add the word 'Find' to the ability. Again though, this explicitly applies ONLY to "relatively small mechanical devices" and I imagine the addition of the word 'find' was intended to help adjudicate these situations, since the DM's notes are going to basically "there's a poison needle trap on this chest which triggers when you unlock it, save vs poison or die!" Finding it by procedural methods simply doesn't work, there isn't enough information. Sadly a lot, probably most, DMs didn't really read the PHB very carefully and assumed that 'Find Traps' meant ANYTHING that is semantically considered a 'trap' including deadfalls, covered pits, etc. This was NEVER intended! In AD&D 1e, even if you have a thief, you need to prod everywhere you intend to step with your trusty 10' pole first!

 

[pemerton]

@AbdulAlhazred

AD&D (and Moldvay Basic, which also has it as F/RT) would be easier to make sense of if the things you describe were spelled out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not sure they're all that separate. Even back in the day, Hero had a lot of encouragement to take Disadvantages, which encouraged or forced you to do things that might be suboptimal play in a mechanical sense because superheroes are for the most part, nothing if not big personalities riddled with baggage, but was also very full of potentially fussy ways to express things mechanically.

Well, this backfired as a game design in the original Champions game. For instance my famous hack was to make 'Wizard', a character who's power was all found in his staff! I got a big point value discount for that, I presume the assumption being maybe it could be lost or stolen. I attached a wrist strap to the thing and never let it off under any circumstances! So basically I had this 'disadvantage', but it was so minimal that it didn't really count. I don't remember Wizard ever actually losing his staff in actual play, so it was just free points. My other character, Mushroom Man, shot out spores which did various things. IIRC his disadvantages were things like sometimes the wrong spore effect fired (oh well, they're all nasty, big disadvantage!).

I'm not sure how Hero was different, we never used it, but anyway, the thing worked. It just required either the GM to really go after people's disadvantages sometimes, or else supervise chargen pretty closely and disallow certain things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred

AD&D (and Moldvay Basic, which also has it as F/RT) would be easier to make sense of if the things you describe were spelled out.

Well, in AD&D 1e PHB p27 it is quite explicit!
"Finding/removing traps pertains to relatively small
mechanical devices such as poisoned needles, spring blades,
and the like. Finding is accomplished by inspection, and they
are nullified by mechanical removal or by being rendered
harmless."

The equivalent D&D text is on Greyhawk P4.

DMG 1e P18 however muddies the waters!
"Finding And Removing Traps: Use the time requirements far opening
locks. Time counts for each function. Small or large traps can be found, but
not magical or magically hidden traps."

This would seem to indicate you can find "large" traps, but is this still limited to 'mechanical' traps of the sort that are triggered by things like opening a lock, or maybe a pressure plate? True to its nature, AD&D never fails to be contradictory or ambiguous in ALMOST EVERY rule! lol.

 

[pemerton]

Well, in AD&D 1e PHB p27 it is quite explicit!
"Finding/removing traps pertains to relatively small
mechanical devices such as poisoned needles, spring blades,
and the like. Finding is accomplished by inspection, and they
are nullified by mechanical removal or by being rendered
harmless."

The equivalent D&D text is on Greyhawk P4.

DMG 1e P18 however muddies the waters!
"Finding And Removing Traps: Use the time requirements far opening
locks. Time counts for each function. Small or large traps can be found, but
not magical or magically hidden traps."

This would seem to indicate you can find "large" traps, but is this still limited to 'mechanical' traps of the sort that are triggered by things like opening a lock, or maybe a pressure plate? True to its nature, AD&D never fails to be contradictory or ambiguous in ALMOST EVERY rule! lol.

There is no clarification in the Moldvay text - it just refers to "traps"

In addition, it gives all characters a 1 in 6 chance to detect traps, with Dwarves having 2 in 6, without explanation of how this interacts with the 1st level thief's 10% chance.

 

[Fenris-77]

I also suspect, from personal experience and copious forum reading and whatnot that, despite the text above, the dominant mode of play was finding dungeon-sized traps using the skill rather than limiting it to smaller devices. I find this very interesting.

 

[SpringRoll]

It's fun to me. The debate is about 4ed being good for "neo-trad" gameplay, but what the OP is doing is not "neo-trad", it's "trad" (detaching methods on convenience to follow the plot and reattach them is the core of trad).

Neo-trad is something no one is playing or quoting in this forum from what I readed so far. Is playing a setting where the players urges are satisfied automatically. Like MAID. You like Maids, there are Maids, they do Maid things. You don't lose or struggle, your urge of maids already satisfied for the whole time. The player happy.
The focus of the simulation is the player directly, not the metanarrative between the player and his character or the relation between character and ecosystem, or even narrative drive. It's all about make the player feel good. It's "fantasy ganja".
To make an extreme metaphor, is like a Conan game where you don't attack enemies, you roll instead on tables that tell how cool and strong you (you, the player!) are in 100 different ways. Your owm esteem lightened up.

So, to me, the entire debate is a bit faulty. Is 4ed good for "neo-trad"? No. Is good for "trad", but that's actually true for every RPG that's not structured.