What Games do you think are Neotrad?

[clearstream]

Yesn't, in the sense that you are completely correct about it being very common, and those people playing in (something approaching) that style, its largely been conflated with trad until recently, and largely rejected by the Story Now movement (which does raise some Chomskyish concerns for me about the semiotics Forge deploys and its utility in producing non-Forge outcomes, I see that language as being very particular to the values of that movement.) You can see a lot of this in recent controversy about Brennan Lee Mulligan's comments about needing game rules because he can't intuit the flight of an arrow in the same way he can intuit a conversation.

Edit: To back up the potentially controversial statement a little, to my mind, this little FAQ statement in the simulationist essay recently being discussed, is a fairly offhand rejection of what I regard as Negative Space:

Edwards veers back to this here:

and here:

I think what's very interesting in discussing Neo-trad utilizing this language, is that OC/Neotrad (without commentary on their separation) can be understood as the position that play-mediated-through-social-contract IS the core form of play at work in the TTRPG. I think, this cause and effect chain isn't represented historically in the wargame roots of the game (though its probably represented historically in the roots of wargames) but is represented in the personal story of the play in adopting system for purpose.

System arising as an enhancement of that play, is naturally constrained to solving the problems he attempts to identify as being endemic to social contract based play-- but whereas he flattens the distinctions between the needs of each moment in his discussion of negotiation, Mulligan's comments (which I regard as admissible to a Neo-trad canon) about the arrow emphasize the importance of those distinctions in the necessity of procedure in comparing differentiated moments of play.

Could you link to Mulligan's comments so that I can make sure I understand them. Or if you have... apologies, I've missed that post. What number was it?

OC/Neotrad (without commentary on their separation) can be understood as the position that play-mediated-through-social-contract IS the core form of play at work in the TTRPG

I can agree with you about OC. Neotrad pays more attention to the rules than that.

That's so long as the position stated is one not intended to apply to all TTRPG.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Could you link to Mulligan's comments so that I can make sure I understand them. Or if you have... apologies, I've missed that post. What number was it?


I can agree with you about OC. Neotrad pays more attention to the rules than that.

That's so long as the position stated is one not intended to apply to all TTRPG.

The cast of Worlds Beyond Number is coloring outside the lines of D&D

The first year of the actual-play podcast is a master class in narrative role-play

www.polygon.com

I'm describing how the movement see's TTRPGs, not an intrinsic categorization of the games themselves.

 

[thefutilist]

Do you mean that those others I quoted seemed to you to be describing that style?

I think the blog may do to an extent, as it is expressly outlining a style informed by streamers.

Have you read the post here on Enworld that I linked? Do you really feel it describes such a style?

Yeah I’ve read the posts and yeah I think they’re describing the same style. The only difference is that neo-trad designs for the style and Vampire gives you rules and tells you not to use them.

 

[thefutilist]

Yesn't, in the sense that you are completely correct about it being very common, and those people playing in (something approaching) that style, its largely been conflated with trad until recently, and largely rejected by the Story Now movement (which does raise some Chomskyish concerns for me about the semiotics Forge deploys and its utility in producing non-Forge outcomes, I see that language as being very particular to the values of that movement.) You can see a lot of this in recent controversy about Brennan Lee Mulligan's comments about needing game rules because he can't intuit the flight of an arrow in the same way he can intuit a conversation.

Edit: To back up the potentially controversial statement a little, to my mind, this little FAQ statement in the simulationist essay recently being discussed, is a fairly offhand rejection of what I regard as Negative Space:

Edwards veers back to this here:

and here:

I think what's very interesting in discussing Neo-trad utilizing this language, is that OC/Neotrad (without commentary on their separation) can be understood as the position that play-mediated-through-social-contract IS the core form of play at work in the TTRPG. I think, this cause and effect chain isn't represented historically in the wargame roots of the game (though its probably represented historically in the roots of wargames) but is represented in the personal story of play in adopting system for purpose.

System arising as an enhancement of that play, is naturally constrained to solving the problems he attempts to identify as being endemic to social contract based play-- but whereas he flattens the distinctions between the needs of each moment in his discussion of negotiation, Mulligan's comments (which I regard as admissible to a Neo-trad canon) about the arrow emphasize the importance of those distinctions in the necessity of procedure in comparing differentiated moments of play.

This further induces a kind of breakdown in the difficulty of simulation, as simulation itself develops a level of gamism that arises naturally from the activity that engendered it. You could see this as "If we were to add rules to our FKR to make it better, how would we go about doing that" you wouldn't add something unfun (although someone else might find your fun, unfun) to that because then you'd simply sand it back off using the control group of social contract negotiation (how willing my friends are to put up with my ruling about whether they hit when they shoot a bow.)

I kind of address this in the other thread but let me try again. In Brennan’s style the mechanics mediate in so much as the GM allows the mechanics to mediate and Brennan, for whatever reason, wants to use 5E mechanics for combat. He’s totally wrong about the function of a system because he can only see what a system is through the lens of a Vampire the Masquerade GM. If we look at his actual system (in Forge terms), it’s as complete as any other system because there’s certain stuff systems have to do to be functional.

The million dollar question, do people die in Brennan's games, as a result of using the combat mechanics, or is there fudging or contrivance involved to stop that happening?

If it’s the former, I’m probably wrong about everything I’ve said. If it’s the latter, then is he actually using the 5E combat system?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I kind of address this in the other thread but let me try again. In Brennan’s style the mechanics mediate in so much as the GM allows the mechanics to mediate and Brennan, for whatever reason, wants to use 5E mechanics for combat. He’s totally wrong about the function of a system because he can only see what a system is through the lens of a Vampire the Masquerade GM. If we look at his actual system (in Forge terms), it’s as complete as any other system because there’s certain stuff systems have to do to be functional.

The million dollar question, do people die in Brennan's games, as a result of using the combat mechanics, or is there fudging or contrivance involved to stop that happening?

If it’s the former, I’m probably wrong about everything I’ve said. If it’s the latter, then is he actually using the 5E combat system?

I think the choice to see things that way is where the Story Now movement crystallizes it's ethos, whereas I think the choice to see things Brennan's way is the crystallization of the Neotrad ethos, at least in so far as my thinking vis a vis negative space is concerned.

 

[Pedantic]

I kind of address this in the other thread but let me try again. In Brennan’s style the mechanics mediate in so much as the GM allows the mechanics to mediate and Brennan, for whatever reason, wants to use 5E mechanics for combat. He’s totally wrong about the function of a system because he can only see what a system is through the lens of a Vampire the Masquerade GM. If we look at his actual system (in Forge terms), it’s as complete as any other system because there’s certain stuff systems have to do to be functional.

The million dollar question, do people die in Brennan's games, as a result of using the combat mechanics, or is there fudging or contrivance involved to stop that happening?

If it’s the former, I’m probably wrong about everything I’ve said. If it’s the latter, then is he actually using the 5E combat system?

Well, it's actually quite hard for PCs to die in general in 5e, but setting that aside, it varies significantly with the tone of whatever Brennan is working on. In practice, he's pretty happy to toss extra chances at characters in most cases, barring a Crown of Candy, which was pointedly shooting for a Game of Thrones vibe.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah I’ve read the posts and yeah I think they’re describing the same style. The only difference is that neo-trad designs for the style and Vampire gives you rules and tells you not to use them.

Taking into account Brennan's comments, designing for the same style here seems to mean ensuring the game text has rules mainly for those facets of a play a group doesn't want to rely on social-contract for. Is that right by your lights?

 

[thefutilist]

No. See my other responses. As much as I use Brennan as a punching bag, he’s selling himself short, he could adjudicate combat totally free-form, if he wanted to.

For ease of communication I’m going to call the general style the ‘storyteller style’ (sts for short).

So the fundamental, design, problem of sts is that it’s hijacked a design that wasn’t built for it’s purpose. I think this led to a whole ton of cognitive dissonance and post-hoc apologia. Amongst designers, because system didn’t matter, it, well, didn’t matter. You threw whatever together because that’s how it’s done.

Think for a moment about how crazy that is. I was serious above when I mentioned Vampire telling you not to use the rules. You find the same thing in 2e, 3.5 e, 5e, not to the same extent as Vampire but still, it’s absolutely crazy. It’s only defended because ‘that’s how it’s done’. Or you get smart people and smart people are amazing at post-hoc rationalising and so they’ll write pages about negative space, bricolage, Chestertons fence and so on. This obviously isn’t a phenomenon confined to rpg’s, it’s just a thing humans do.

So a rational designer, one who wants the parts of the system to be intentional, to have function, has a bit of problem.

But let’s rewind a moment. I think there have been innovations in the STS. So the first thing you’d want to do, is make them concrete in the text. A lot of the neo-trad principles are born from this. So in terms of teaching a GM, there can be better or worse texts.

For instance Brennan mentions the water slide, what we used to call Roads to Rome.


Ignore what he says about being a player, he doesn’t have the first clue as to what he’s talking about, when we get to the GM advice though. It’s good advice (for the STS).

What about resolution mechanics though? When people think of system, this is often what they think of. We’ve already established they’re, at most, suggestions. Which puts us in a weird place. Why keep them at all? Or why not replace them with something that does have function?

Because neo-trad design is still basically bound by tradition. You can make the rules functional for the play style by basically reinterpreting them as improv prompts, you can even get rid of rule zero by doing that (In my home system that’s what I did).

I don’t think there’s any deeper design ethos though. It’s more like, here’s a neat widget that adds color and also isn’t a totally new way of doing things.

EDIT: I'm vastly underselling 'color adding improv prompt' and if you were seriously developing a design ethos for the sts, I think you'd start there.

 

[pemerton]

What about resolution mechanics though? When people think of system, this is often what they think of. We’ve already established they’re, at most, suggestions. Which puts us in a weird place. Why keep them at all? Or why not replace them with something that does have function?

Because neo-trad design is still basically bound by tradition. You can make the rules functional for the play style by basically reinterpreting them as improv prompts, you can even get rid of rule zero by doing that (In my home system that’s what I did).

I don’t think there’s any deeper design ethos though. It’s more like, here’s a neat widget that adds color and also isn’t a totally new way of doing things.

EDIT: I'm vastly underselling 'color adding improv prompt' and if you were seriously developing a design ethos for the sts, I think you'd start there.

In the past, I have - more than once - posted that in what you call the STS, which I often call the mid-80s onward style, that AD&D 2e and then WW completely mainstreamed, the numbers on the PC sheet are basically treated as descriptors. And then the GM's narration is expected to take those descriptors into account. And the dice rolls that are made, notionally as part of action resolution, serve as prompts to the GM in deciding what to narrate.

An example is provided here:

As a sentient embodiment of the minor utility spell Mage Hand, Mr. Callum is an incredibly skilled restaurant proprietor who is dedicated to his craft, but he exists without a lot of other aspects to his personality. That does not, as you might imagine, leave a lot of room for personal introspection. And yet that’s just what Ishii’s character, Ame, demanded of this tamori over a beautifully rendered lemon tart. . . .

“Do you have any taboos as a spirit that you must abide by?” she asked. Meaning, are there supernatural restrictions on your behavior — like crossing a threshold or eating mortal food — such as those that apply to spirits like Eursulon, who are similarly magical in essence.

Mr. Callum paused. “Am I a spirit?” he asked, while I imagined a puzzled look locked suddenly into place on his ghostly face. Realizing that she had transgressed with Mr. Callum, potentially planting the seeds of existential dread inside the humble baker/spell, she backpedaled. First came the heartfelt apology, and then the Insight check to see if there’s another way out of this corner she’s talked herself into. Ishii rolls a 24, and Mulligan takes that as his excuse to crack off a doozy.

“Talking to Mr. Callum in this way,” he continued, “you realize you’re a creature of the deep end of the pool and you are constantly starting deep conversations in a way that, to lots of people, will be really distressing. Your glib invitation for this tamori to have a panic attack/existential crisis is because there is no part of the universe you don’t feel interested in looking at. And that, suddenly, you realize is an immense gift. It’s a superpower. You’re tough, and your heart is strong, and there’s lots and lots of people who will never want to join you there.”

The encounter, such as it is, leaves Ishii the player breathless. “That [Insight check] was for my character,” she mumbled, clearly feeling the blow personally (though with good humor). Returning to her character, Ame, it’s clear that she too was wounded by that dose of Insight, wounded more deeply than if she’d taken a blow from a goblin’s sword. Just as Mr. Callum began to reflect on his own reason for being, so did Ame. The way that she is emotionally damaged in this moment seems to extend into the rest of the episode, which finds her uneasy, on edge, and downright reckless from start to finish. In the truest sense, that singular roll colors every one of the momentous actions that follow — actions that literally change the course of the entire campaign.​

Are we somewhat on the same page about these matters?

 

[Neonchameleon]

The million dollar question, do people die in Brennan's games, as a result of using the combat mechanics, or is there fudging or contrivance involved to stop that happening?

If it’s the former, I’m probably wrong about everything I’ve said. If it’s the latter, then is he actually using the 5E combat system?

Or is it 5e and no one dies as a result of using the combat mechanics because 5e characters are exceptionally resilient?