clearstream
(He, Him)
Recently I have noticed an interest in OSR and "skilled play" and story-now on these forums. I feel there is a significance to these matters, and it might be due to an elephant in the room: computer RPGs.
Game Developers are better at Story-Before
If we think about story-before - a pre-scripted story - then teams of game developers can out-build lone-DMs. For one thing, we can hire professional writers. We can give them voice-actors, sound effects, and visuals. The story can be tested - is this the right pace, does this tension work here?
What we cannot do so easily (yet) is have the story author itself on the fly. Yes, we can think of a few branches, but we can't accommodate simply whatever the players think of. PnP RPG can still fill this niche - free from natural predators - by pursuing story-now.
Computers are better at Mechanics
If we think about rules, computers can both enforce them and take care of them - do any bookkeeping - far more reliably than a DM. There are videogame mechanics that would be senseless to even attempt in a PnP RPG. And simple, oft-repeated mechanics can be enhanced with visual and audio effects. One could write a book on great, good and bad implementations of mechanics in videogames! The thing is, these mechanics are increasingly gathered into libraries, so that as we go along, more and more game developers can just use the great ones, in their best instantiation. For example via Unity or Unreal.
What games cannot do is on-the-fly arbitration of anything players might think of. This isn't cut and dried. Within a defined physics system, computers are increasingly coping with anything players can think of to do within that system. Valheim is an example. Minecraft, obviously.
So the idea of detailed moves in the fiction as a preferred mode - "skilled play" - arbitrated on-the-fly by a DM, is something PnP RPG still owns. If you can't win the accurately implemented elegant mechanics race, you still can win the do-whatever-we-can-think-of race. For now.
Thus a Hypothesis
So that's the hypothesis: that the unremarked pressure guiding PnP RPGers toward story-now and "skilled play" is survival instinct. Fear. Or a better way to put it, group-think toward our viable niches. Does that belittle those concepts? For me, not at all. Rather they might point to what I see as crucial questions for PnP RPG - what burning problems do we uniquely solve for players? Or put another way - what differentiable experiences can we offer players (differentiated from computer RPGs, of course)?
And 6e?
Potentially - 5e design is conflicted. The designers wanted to support that which is unique to PnP RPG, which they had a sense for. While we players still wanted - and want - good rules for expressing and navigating our worlds. A secondary hypothesis - more personal than popular - is that the future for games will be immersion (or simulation, in GNS parlance) all the way down.
The game rules that most need to be advanced in 6e, under this view, are ability use and skills. 3e and 5e rules have both been clunky in dealing with simple and common exploration moves, such as climbing a mountain. You can "skilled play" it (smooth talk your DM into concessions, to put it controversially), but what would be great would be just enough support in the rules that player choices - as interpreted by a DM - translated smoothly and convincingly into mechanical game flows and resolutions.
4e looked at this, but didn't hit the nail quite on the head. One needs to ask - is an exploration turn structure needed - and question of that ilk. If the future for PnP RPG must be about what we as small groups of humans can do, then we need better rules in 6e. And those are not combat rules - 5e combat rules are strong - 6e needs to offer more in the exploration and social pillars. Parts of play that 5e shied away from, and then returned to rather reluctantly, when what was needed was vigorous and sincere design attention from the start.
Game Developers are better at Story-Before
If we think about story-before - a pre-scripted story - then teams of game developers can out-build lone-DMs. For one thing, we can hire professional writers. We can give them voice-actors, sound effects, and visuals. The story can be tested - is this the right pace, does this tension work here?
What we cannot do so easily (yet) is have the story author itself on the fly. Yes, we can think of a few branches, but we can't accommodate simply whatever the players think of. PnP RPG can still fill this niche - free from natural predators - by pursuing story-now.
Computers are better at Mechanics
If we think about rules, computers can both enforce them and take care of them - do any bookkeeping - far more reliably than a DM. There are videogame mechanics that would be senseless to even attempt in a PnP RPG. And simple, oft-repeated mechanics can be enhanced with visual and audio effects. One could write a book on great, good and bad implementations of mechanics in videogames! The thing is, these mechanics are increasingly gathered into libraries, so that as we go along, more and more game developers can just use the great ones, in their best instantiation. For example via Unity or Unreal.
What games cannot do is on-the-fly arbitration of anything players might think of. This isn't cut and dried. Within a defined physics system, computers are increasingly coping with anything players can think of to do within that system. Valheim is an example. Minecraft, obviously.
So the idea of detailed moves in the fiction as a preferred mode - "skilled play" - arbitrated on-the-fly by a DM, is something PnP RPG still owns. If you can't win the accurately implemented elegant mechanics race, you still can win the do-whatever-we-can-think-of race. For now.
Thus a Hypothesis
So that's the hypothesis: that the unremarked pressure guiding PnP RPGers toward story-now and "skilled play" is survival instinct. Fear. Or a better way to put it, group-think toward our viable niches. Does that belittle those concepts? For me, not at all. Rather they might point to what I see as crucial questions for PnP RPG - what burning problems do we uniquely solve for players? Or put another way - what differentiable experiences can we offer players (differentiated from computer RPGs, of course)?
And 6e?
Potentially - 5e design is conflicted. The designers wanted to support that which is unique to PnP RPG, which they had a sense for. While we players still wanted - and want - good rules for expressing and navigating our worlds. A secondary hypothesis - more personal than popular - is that the future for games will be immersion (or simulation, in GNS parlance) all the way down.
The game rules that most need to be advanced in 6e, under this view, are ability use and skills. 3e and 5e rules have both been clunky in dealing with simple and common exploration moves, such as climbing a mountain. You can "skilled play" it (smooth talk your DM into concessions, to put it controversially), but what would be great would be just enough support in the rules that player choices - as interpreted by a DM - translated smoothly and convincingly into mechanical game flows and resolutions.
4e looked at this, but didn't hit the nail quite on the head. One needs to ask - is an exploration turn structure needed - and question of that ilk. If the future for PnP RPG must be about what we as small groups of humans can do, then we need better rules in 6e. And those are not combat rules - 5e combat rules are strong - 6e needs to offer more in the exploration and social pillars. Parts of play that 5e shied away from, and then returned to rather reluctantly, when what was needed was vigorous and sincere design attention from the start.