What Mechanics or Systems Do You NEED?

[payn]

I partially agree but if you play a game for a long time, say you go to 500 or 600 hours of play with the same characters - and I've been in that neighborhood a couple of time - then even if you don't have a lot of character progression it starts to feel weird if the system is blocking characters from progressing.

Take "Traveller". It's got this brilliant character burner system. The character burner system implies that it takes years to gain small marginal improvements in your skill. Ok, fine. I believe that, though, at the level of comparing what real world people can do to what other real-world people can do, it feels like the range of skill offered by the character burner is smaller than the range of skill we commonly observe. But, again, that's fine, maybe you aren't supposed to play an extraordinarily talented character. But now we start playing and we play through many adventures and the characters do a lot of stuff. Why can't they progress like in the character burner at least? The character burner suggests that by having the sort of experiences that the player characters are having is how they got their skills in the first place - and not just in the narrow ways that Traveller normally allows it. I mean presumably we're doing more stuff and more interesting stuff now than during the character burner stage of that person's life, because otherwise why aren't we playing through those parts of life on the mere principle that you should always start the story where it is most interesting?

What aesthetic is really being served by not having character progression? It almost becomes a defiant attitude - "Oh yeah, this is thing that sets our game apart from those other games. We don't need character progression." that doesn't make a lot of sense to me from either in the imagined world or in terms of the story being created or the meta of playing a game. So yeah, you don't need rapid increases in power for the aesthetic Traveller is going for in its base game, but it does feel like a weird oversight that you can't get a marginal improvement every in-game year or so at least - like a special extra character burner step but with less aging going

Don’t miss the progression at all. Guess I don’t know what you are talking about.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Don’t miss the progression at all. Guess I don’t know what you are talking about.

I get part of his point; as I've noted before, its odd to have people never improve at tasks they do, no matter how long. I'm not even sure it makes sense given the big chunky skill bonuses traditional Trav has.

 

[payn]

I get part of his point; as I've noted before, its odd to have people never improve at tasks they do, no matter how long. I'm not even sure it makes sense given the big chunky skill bonuses traditional Trav has.

I don’t need the treadmill of do x + y and get z. The mechanics are a package to give a capable character and playing is its own reward. It’s very odd to me that people view it as a real world simulation. Though I understand that mindset. I just don’t have it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is a question about personal preferences and NOT a question about objective game design truths or onetruewayism. Please respond accordingly.

For a TTRPG work for you, as a player or as a GM, what does it need to have in its mechanical base?

By that, I am essentially asking you what parts of play are important, but with a strong focus on the mechanics of it all.

Do you need a system that supports narrative elements through mechanics? Do you need the game to model the world, mechanically, in a realistic or at least consistent way? Do you need a robust and fun combat system? Do you need the game to get the hell out of the way with transparent and intuitive mechanics? Do you need a game to have new and interesting mechanics to bother with trying it?

Like that.

Thanks.

So, there are a few things.

• The ability for players to make a character. No random gen, no “you lay one of these 12 characters”. Real PCs
  • Ways to tie that character to the world
  • Ways to make that character distinct mechanically and thematically. I don’t care if the game is about knights of the same holy order. In that case make physicality, weapon choices, persona, approach to faith and interacting with the faithful, all matter mechanically.
  • Some degree of resentation of what makes the character interesting with mechanics, related to above. The especially athletic shield and holy sword knight shouldn’t feel the same as the especially scholarly glaive specialist, or the especially pious/devout/dedicated that inspires fierce courage and loyalty in her fellows. But also, the glaive should feel different in a way that makes some kind of sense, like attacking first when closing with an enemy or whatever.
• Inclusive “politics”in the worldbuilding and lore, and art
  • Obv can’t get too in the weeds on this, but I don’t care if the inspiration is medieval European knights, the Round Table had a black knight so can your game.
• A reason to careabout the action of the game
  • If everyone sucks and the world has already ended and your game assumes that resource scarcity leads to humans devolving into murderously selfish idiots, or any other grimdark premise with no counterbalancing Light or Heroism, why should I care?
  • I have experienced enough darkness in real life. I don’t need a guided tour.
• Push and Pull, where players can try harder in some way and the GM can present complications, and there are knobs and levers on both sides. (5e mostly fails at this tbh, and only the fact that I have resources to add it in keeps me playing 5e as a result)
  • I’m adding Star Wars Saga Edition Force Points to my 5e games because I’m tired of watching the utter dissatisfaction with the game itself when players roll not quite well enough and have no way to do anything about it
• Room to manuever and improvise, in the rules. Things like skills that don’t hard code exactly what you can do, for instance.
• Supernatural elements that aren’t rigid, and instead have weird bits and bobs, and consequences and variable outcomes and costs,
• It can’t put simulation over fun, but verisimilitude is vastly more important when it comes to behavior than when it comes to how combustion works, IMO.

 

[Wolfpack48]

• It can’t put simulation over fun, but verisimilitude is vastly more important when it comes to behavior than when it comes to how combustion works, IMO.

So this is I think where a lot of people differ, because "fun" is very subjective. One table might think of succeeding at most tests as being the most fun, another to add story or player control elements to mitigate or change failure, another the ability to roll the dice again at higher stakes, another playing out the awful failure and seeing where the chips land. I don't think the system should try too hard to adjudicate this, but rather give good guidance to the referee on how to best handle skill tests at their particular table.

 

[Starfox]

I get part of his point; as I've noted before, its odd to have people never improve at tasks they do, no matter how long. I'm not even sure it makes sense given the big chunky skill bonuses traditional Trav has.

I don't think Traveler was really made for long campaigns. It wasn't explicitly said, but the deadly combat and lack of an experience system and military bent wasn't conductive to long games. If you wanted to play a long campaign in Traveler, I would suggest you don't muster out - play active service members, and have years pass between each story arc.

But this is a tangent. Back to the main topic!

 

[Campbell]

I partially agree but if you play a game for a long time, say you go to 500 or 600 hours of play with the same characters - and I've been in that neighborhood a couple of time - then even if you don't have a lot of character progression it starts to feel weird if the system is blocking characters from progressing.

Take "Traveller". It's got this brilliant character burner system. The character burner system implies that it takes years to gain small marginal improvements in your skill. Ok, fine. I believe that, though, at the level of comparing what real world people can do to what other real-world people can do, it feels like the range of skill offered by the character burner is smaller than the range of skill we commonly observe. But, again, that's fine, maybe you aren't supposed to play an extraordinarily talented character. But now we start playing and we play through many adventures and the characters do a lot of stuff. Why can't they progress like in the character burner at least? The character burner suggests that by having the sort of experiences that the player characters are having is how they got their skills in the first place - and not just in the narrow ways that Traveller normally allows it. I mean presumably we're doing more stuff and more interesting stuff now than during the character burner stage of that person's life, because otherwise why aren't we playing through those parts of life on the mere principle that you should always start the story where it is most interesting?

What aesthetic is really being served by not having character progression? It almost becomes a defiant attitude - "Oh yeah, this is thing that sets our game apart from those other games. We don't need character progression." that doesn't make a lot of sense to me from either in the imagined world or in terms of the story being created or the meta of playing a game. So yeah, you don't need rapid increases in power for the aesthetic Traveller is going for in its base game, but it does feel like a weird oversight that you can't get a marginal improvement every in-game year or so at least - like a special extra character burner step but with less aging going on.

From my perspective it really matters how fine-grained stuff like skill and attribute rating and like what they mean. In most games that don't put much emphasis on character progression you are already starting pretty damn close to the peaks where just maintaining that level of skill would take an enormous amount of effort. For example, in my group's current Vampire game, my character, Laurent, is a former sergeant of the Guet Royal (police force) who discovered a major embezzlement scheme and was basically forced out by political forces. Laurent starts the game with Wits, Investigation and Empathy all at 4 out of 5. To advance in any of these would mean Laurent would go from one of the best to the very best in these things. That could possibly happen, but it's fairly unlikely, which when it comes to these things in real life, jives with my understanding of how the world works. At certain levels of proficiency just maintaining it can be a challenge.

 

[payn]

From my perspective it really matters how fine-grained stuff like skill and attribute rating and like what they mean. In most games that don't put much emphasis on character progression you are already starting pretty damn close to the peaks where just maintaining that level of skill would take an enormous amount of effort. For example, in my group's current Vampire game, my character, Laurent, is a former sergeant of the Guet Royal (police force) who discovered a major embezzlement scheme and was basically forced out by political forces. Laurent starts the game with Wits, Investigation and Empathy all at 4. To advance in any of these would mean Laurent would go from one of the best to the very best in these things. That could possibly happen, but it's fairly unlikely, which when it comes to these things in real life, jives with my understanding of how the world works. At certain levels of proficiency just maintaining it can be a challenge.

Yeah, if I have a base competency I dont have expectations on continual character improvement. When I played E6 back in 3E/PF1 I realized I could make a level 6 PC and essentially play it forever as long as the exploration and political intrigue keeps up; Just like my Traveller games. Also, the Traveller examples dont make much sense to me in improvement anyways. After basic training you gain a bump in 1-3 skills every 4 years (and sometimes none at all). If you use most of the skill improvement rules the character is likely to outpace chargen on development anyways. Its just not D&D proportions so folks feel its not right.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t need the treadmill of do x + y and get z. The mechanics are a package to give a capable character and playing is its own reward. It’s very odd to me that people view it as a real world simulation. Though I understand that mindset. I just don’t have it.

I don't expect it in everything, but with the quasi-realistic approach traditional Trav has taken it was always jarring.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think Traveler was really made for long campaigns. It wasn't explicitly said, but the deadly combat and lack of an experience system and military bent wasn't conductive to long games. If you wanted to play a long campaign in Traveler, I would suggest you don't muster out - play active service members, and have years pass between each story arc.

But this is a tangent. Back to the main topic!

Its funny, but it never felt that deadly to me. I think I lost one character in play across two campaigns. I couldn't say that about, say, RuneQuest.