Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

[Aldarc]

Bingo! You've hit the mark!

And the question then becomes:

Why not just use D&D* which the vast majority of players and GMs already know, and save everyone the time and bother involved in learning a new system?

* - or another quasi-universal system that people at the table are already familiar with.

Nope. The question does not follow from the premises unless you are engaging in the fallacy of begging the question.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Love the idea of joining a discussion only to say that what other people do doesn't really work, and instead there's one style of game and actually one single game that works best, and it just happens to be the only one you play. Thanks for contributing. Extremely useful discourse.

 

[Campbell]

The two things aren't really related in my mind except in so far that people who like playing shorter form character focused games also tend to be novelty seeking in general. I know that's true of me both inside and outside of gaming. I own and play a bunch of indie games, trad games and OSR games because I like games. I also have a fairly large board game collection, movie collection, watch a whole host of different anime and TV series. I go through different phases of being into different sorts of exercise routines. Right now I'm into body building, but could easily get back into Crossfit or Muay Thai / Juijitsu. Might even give climbing a go soon.

None of that like makes me better. Just more eclectic.

I do know a bunch of people who are into more short form character focused stuff who tend to stick to one game or one family of games. Fate, World of Darkness, Cortex, 2d20 are all pretty common choices. There was a period of like 3 years where I only ran Sorcerer. Same for D&D 4e. Was considering going deep into Pathfinder Second Edition for a minute. Also went through a World of Darkness phase and a Chronicles of Darkness phase.

I will say trad games are generally require some effort to learn, but the juice is worth the squeeze for games that I plan to run or play for 12+ months. OSR games are a little easier to learn, especially streamlined ones like Into The Odd or The Nightmares Underneath. Games like Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World are fairly trivial for players. Not that any of this particularly matters for character focused play in general. I just like different sorts of games, about different sorts of characters. That's a me thing.

 

[pemerton]

It's weird that you use this as an example, because the majority of soap operas revolve around a family.

Well my paradigms for soap operas are Days of Our Lives, Neighbours, and Home and Away. Also comedy soap operas like Scrubs. These don't involve teams and they don't involve adventures. They follow the interactions and interpersonal dramas of various more-or-less closely related protagonists.

 

[dragoner]

In my group we do both one shot indie games, and long multi-year campaign trad games. Board games too when there aren't enough for a normal rpg sesh, or we just feel like it. Do you have wood for sheep?

 

[Jack Daniel]

The question wasn't what should we permanently delete. It also wasn't a question of value or quality. To put it another way, it's asking what are things that are included in RPGs in a knee-jerk sort of way where we might benefit if we try removing those things. It's easy to overlook some really fantastic options because one has already filled the need with something else. There are also things that people become so used to, that they never consider NOT having.

A somewhat similar example is smoking in old scifi novels. Ingenious authors with amazing creative minds never stopped to wonder if maybe people would stop smoking in the future. SOME authors did, but many (or most IMO) did not.

The whole point of the question is "what is our 'smoking'" in games? And if we pulled those things out, what creative solutions might we fill the gap with. It's a creative exercise.

That only makes things more baffling. I can't think of a single mechanic, procedure, or tradition that is so ubiquitous as to constitute a hobby-/industry-wide blind spot. "Playing a character in a fictional milieu," maybe?

 

[Campbell]

Well I think it should definitely exist for people who want it the biggest thing I look to avoid in games I am thinking about running is daily attrition and resources that refresh without players having to take action. Mostly because those sorts of mechanics make it my responsibility to manage the pace of the game. This sort of stuff is great in OSR games where skillfully managing this stuff is like the point, but outside of that I want as little attrition as possible for the games I run.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Bingo! You've hit the mark!

And the question then becomes:

Why not just use D&D* which the vast majority of players and GMs already know, and save everyone the time and bother involved in learning a new system?

* - or another quasi-universal system that people at the table are already familiar with.

Dude. YOU don't play D&D. You play a hacked version you've tweaked to your own liking. This question can be turned around and ask why you aren't currently playing 5e. Whatever your answer, stop and consider that you even have an answer before asking a question like this again.

 

[pemerton]

I'm also cynical enough to suggest that GMs running lots of short campaigns each using a different system is more to the advantage of game publishers than anyone else, as it means they get to sell more copies of more games.

I think I've already linked to Cthulhu Dark, which is free. In case you missed it, it's here: http://catchyourhare.com/files/Cthulhu Dark.pdf

Here you can get In A Wicked Age for $5: In a Wicked Age

Here you can get Apocalypse World (2nd ed; I don't know how it differs from 1st ed, which is what I've got) for $15: Apocalypse World (2nd Ed)

Here you can get the core rules of BW for free: Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes - Burning Wheel | Burning Wheel | DriveThruRPG.com

Here you can get a version of Torchbearer for $15: Torchbearer - Burning Wheel | Burning Wheel | DriveThruRPG.com

Here you can order BW Gold Revised for $35: Burning Wheel Gold Revised.

That's $70. For 5 RPGs.

The only RPG publisher I know of who is actually making significant amounts of money from recurrent sales to RPGers is WotC.

 

[Cadence]

The only RPG publisher I know of who is actually making significant amounts of money from recurrent sales to RPGers is WotC.

Even WotC gave away almost all the 3.x rules and gives away the basic 5 ones.