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

[Faolyn]

FYI, BitD is not really a heist game despite how people talk about it, which I think does a huge disservice to the game. It's a criminal gangland game that may or may not have heists in it depending on how the player characters choose to go about expanding their turf. Heists may not be appropriate, for example, if the characters were part of a gang of mercenaries, drug dealers, or even cultists. You could use BitD, for example, to play something more akin to Gangs of New York. However, Leverage RPG is a game dedicated to heists.

Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Pedantic]

This is why Neo-Trad emphasizes player empowerment over system or GM, because the focus is on removing obstacles that might stand in the way of realizing the story one wants to tell with a given character, with story notably taking on the aspect of a line or ray, rather than a line segment-- players CAN pursue dramatic, life changing events, but they can also play characters that are more static, where inhabiting their headspace is an expressive fantasy, rather than a novelty seeking one.

I feel like I've seen this dichotomy a lot in the wild and it's caused problems at some of my tables (and in other role-playing contexts). I think it comes off a little understated here, and you're describing two pretty different flavors of character/player relationship.

You have players that are coming to a scenario with a character that exists as a complete entity entirely in their mind already. They may further define that character, or learn/create things about that character in reaction to situations, but the fundamental point of the character is not growth, but expression. They want to experience a bunch of unexpected situations because they want prompts and opportunities to explicate their character further. Sylias is a thief, and it's interesting to define that further as he takes it doesn't take things when given an opportunity.

Then you have characters that are specifically looking to change. They tend to be more embryonic, having fewer defined traits, and often present hooks specifically to a GM, with the goal of encouraging specific story beats they want to react to. The player here usually has a narrative plan. They don't need to know the whole story, but they know the progression will be "shy->friendly" or that the character will be different after a specific trauma/problem is resolved somehow. They may be looking to put weight on a given roll, or to the outcome of some mechanic to determine precisely how they change in response to the stimulus, but the player will be looking for an event (or waiting for a planned one from a backstory) to resolve so they can announce how they're different now.

The commonality here is that both players are not generally amenable to being made different by outside forces. The player is making the decisions about the character's internal world at all times. The tension comes in when either a growth focused player doesn't get the narrative they want, or doesn't get it fast enough and feels trapped in an earlier form of the character, or when an expressive player feels like the narrative is too tied up in another character to give them enough space to react and play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I feel like I've seen this dichotomy a lot in the wild and it's caused problems at some of my tables (and in other role-playing contexts). I think it comes off a little understated here, and you're describing two pretty different flavors of character/player relationship.

You have players that are coming to a scenario with a character that exists as a complete entity entirely in their mind already. They may further define that character, or learn/create things about that character in reaction to situations, but the fundamental point of the character is not growth, but expression. They want to experience a bunch of unexpected situations because they want prompts and opportunities to explicate their character further. Sylias is a thief, and it's interesting to define that further as he takes it doesn't take things when given an opportunity.

Then you have characters that are specifically looking to change. They tend to be more embryonic, having fewer defined traits, and often present hooks specifically to a GM, with the goal of encouraging specific story beats they want to react to. The player here usually has a narrative plan. They don't need to know the whole story, but they know the progression will be "shy->friendly" or that the character will be different after a specific trauma/problem is resolved somehow. They may be looking to put weight on a given roll, or to the outcome of some mechanic to determine precisely how they change in response to the stimulus, but the player will be looking for an event (or waiting for a planned one from a backstory) to resolve so they can announce how they're different now.

The commonality here is that both players are not generally amenable to being made different by outside forces. The player is making the decisions about the character's internal world at all times. The tension comes in when either a growth focused player doesn't get the narrative they want, or doesn't get it fast enough and feels trapped in an earlier form of the character, or when an expressive player feels like the narrative is too tied up in another character to give them enough space to react and play.

I have recognised this dichotomy in my own characters. They are either static characters with quirks that are fun to play or they're characters with issues that need to be resolved. The latter tend to produce more memorable stories when things go right, but are harder to cater to. I have also noticed that I tend to lose interest in such characters when their story is "resolved."

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I feel like I've seen this dichotomy a lot in the wild and it's caused problems at some of my tables (and in other role-playing contexts). I think it comes off a little understated here, and you're describing two pretty different flavors of character/player relationship.

You have players that are coming to a scenario with a character that exists as a complete entity entirely in their mind already. They may further define that character, or learn/create things about that character in reaction to situations, but the fundamental point of the character is not growth, but expression. They want to experience a bunch of unexpected situations because they want prompts and opportunities to explicate their character further. Sylias is a thief, and it's interesting to define that further as he takes it doesn't take things when given an opportunity.

Then you have characters that are specifically looking to change. They tend to be more embryonic, having fewer defined traits, and often present hooks specifically to a GM, with the goal of encouraging specific story beats they want to react to. The player here usually has a narrative plan. They don't need to know the whole story, but they know the progression will be "shy->friendly" or that the character will be different after a specific trauma/problem is resolved somehow. They may be looking to put weight on a given roll, or to the outcome of some mechanic to determine precisely how they change in response to the stimulus, but the player will be looking for an event (or waiting for a planned one from a backstory) to resolve so they can announce how they're different now.

The commonality here is that both players are not generally amenable to being made different by outside forces. The player is making the decisions about the character's internal world at all times. The tension comes in when either a growth focused player doesn't get the narrative they want, or doesn't get it fast enough and feels trapped in an earlier form of the character, or when an expressive player feels like the narrative is too tied up in another character to give them enough space to react and play.

I think you're right in that I should have made the fact that those two concepts were different clearer, to me, they came together under what you outline as their commonality of premeditation. I've also noticed that you can get tension if they get it too fast and then the player has to figure out "Ok wait, where do they go from here since I thought that once X happened their story is pretty much over" which is actually something specific one of my most ardently neotrad (my label not theirs) players feels about most characters in stories-- they have their one arc that consists of the growth they were meant to have and then that's it, they live happily ever after aside from helping out. They've also rather candidly told me that they prefer stories where the GM ties together the background antagonists created by the players into one (loosely or otherwise) enemy faction so that the arc isn't fully resolved until the campaign ends all at once.

 

[Celebrim]

The year was ~2004 and I was ~10 years old...

Regardless of the stated culture of play, and regardless of the RPG you are playing, my experience is that players that come into RPGs prior to age 12 and with a background that is directly of out childhood "make believe" have the approach to RP you are describing. I've observed that process of play with younger players, and especially much younger players as far back as the early 1990's, where they are very much 'make believe first, rules second' in their approach.

What you describe as your initial experience on forums is very much akin to LARPing or cyber-LARPing, and in some ways resembles the early uses of MUSHes in the early 1990's. In your six cultures of play, it's actually "Nordic". The main difference here is only that the LARPers and MUSHers were devising processes of play already being very familiar with TTRPGs and adapting from them, where as it doesn't sound like your forum were in any way constrained by traditional RPG mechanics, but the use of judges and other factors reminds me of LARPS and MUSHES and some of your processes even match Amber Diceless MUSHes of the period (or even the often judgeless unofficial play at something like Elendor MUSH).

Now, none of these were really satisfactory to my mind, and this seemed like a common sentiment, because they were all essentially dependent on the honor system and fiat, and the one that wasn't was essentially completely divorced from any simulation of the fiction that it takes place in. But outside of fighting, the roleplaying ecosystem was actually quite lovely, we did relationships, story arcs, action sequences, comedy, mysteries without any actual need for mechanics. Instead individual people would take point in 'leading the story' by introducing elements that the other characters would react to, prompt each other in ways that seemed interesting. Sometimes the RPs had strong plots, sometimes they didn't, character was the single biggest factor of these stories, particularly if they didn't have a strong ingroup who were driving a deeper narrative for the other players to react to. As a result, the stories were really about group dynamics. The participants, I would later learn, were mostly teenagers at that time, even fewer years older than me than I had assumed in those days of aggressive anonymity.

I mean, this is just straight up "make believe" play right down to the vague dissatisfaction with the fact that combat can't be handled objectively and in a way that is strongly connected to the characters you are playing.

And this for me really gets down to where essays like "Six Cultures" break down, because the culture you are describing existed as far back as the early 1980s just in what I'm aware of. In particular, I met a GM in the mid 1980s who refused to give players character sheets or access to the rules because he wanted to preserve the purity of and priority of "make believe" over interaction with the game.

You say things like:

"I never had the problem a lot of people had with 4e not being conducive to roleplaying, my games in 4e were absolutely lush with roleplaying"

And I'm not at all surprised, because how you think about playing the game is vastly more important than the actual rules of the game. The process of play (how you use the system) always dominates over the system.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Regardless of the stated culture of play, and regardless of the RPG you are playing, my experience is that players that come into RPGs prior to age 12 and with a background that is directly of out childhood "make believe" have the approach to RP you are describing. I've observed that process of play with younger players, and especially much younger players as far back as the early 1990's, where they are very much 'make believe first, rules second' in their approach.

What you describe as your initial experience on forums is very much akin to LARPing or cyber-LARPing, and in some ways resembles the early uses of MUSHes in the early 1990's. In your six cultures of play, it's actually "Nordic". The main difference here is only that the LARPers and MUSHers were devising processes of play already being very familiar with TTRPGs and adapting from them, where as it doesn't sound like your forum were in any way constrained by traditional RPG mechanics, but the use of judges and other factors reminds me of LARPS and MUSHES and some of your processes even match Amber Diceless MUSHes of the period (or even the often judgeless unofficial play at something like Elendor MUSH).



I mean, this is just straight up "make believe" play right down to the vague dissatisfaction with the fact that combat can't be handled objectively and in a way that is strongly connected to the characters you are playing.

And this for me really gets down to where essays like "Six Cultures" break down, because the culture you are describing existed as far back as the early 1980s just in what I'm aware of. In particular, I met a GM in the mid 1980s who refused to give players character sheets or access to the rules because he wanted to preserve the purity of and priority of "make believe" over interaction with the game.

You say things like:



And I'm not at all surprised, because how you think about playing the game is vastly more important than the actual rules of the game. The process of play (how you use the system) always dominates over the system.

This is an interesting idea and I think you're absolutely correct about childhood make-believe being a kind of patient zero for the behavior, but my impression of Nordic is that it's more focused on achieving the psychological bleed and then breaking it down afterward-- e.g. it's kind of high concept in the way creative writing exercises where you lie down and listen to a hypnotic narration is, and that the immersion focus in Neo-Trad is more centralized on affection for the character as an ongoing mask, rather than a somewhat novelty seeking emphasis of embodying it.

In other words, I think part of the goal here that's distinct is authoring a character that one is simultaneously a fan of, and maintaining enough creative control to curate their appeal, rather than exclusively immersion, with immersion being a tool for experiencing that creation in the way animation is a tool for the experience of a particular cartoons deal (narrative, theme, humor, action, etc.) a Nordic Larper is still hoping to be surprised-- hoping for experience itself, a neo-trad knows what their goal is and wants to revel in pulling it off, and perhaps wallowing in what they sought to create, in a more specific sense.

I do think that the message board thing (and certain other spaces) had the effect of essentially extending make believe into an area where people are more aware of themselves and others, and construct more elaborate etiquette, and more ambitious goals than kids tend to do in terms of make believe, we could see that as a kind of process of refinement as the activity itself deepens to accommodate maturing taste and depth-- which then produces the expectations that define the culture.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I feel like I've seen this dichotomy a lot in the wild and it's caused problems at some of my tables (and in other role-playing contexts). I think it comes off a little understated here, and you're describing two pretty different flavors of character/player relationship.

You have players that are coming to a scenario with a character that exists as a complete entity entirely in their mind already.

Then you have characters that are specifically looking to change. They tend to be more embryonic, having fewer defined traits, and often present hooks specifically to a GM, with the goal of encouraging specific story beats they want to react to.

And that may be an excellent question to ask at the beginning of the game. After "what kind of game do you want" you ask, "do you see your character's character growth more refinement or challenge based?" Is your character concept honed or tested?

 

[Celebrim]

This is an interesting idea and I think you're absolutely correct about childhood make-believe being a kind of patient zero for the behavior, but my impression of Nordic is that it's more focused on achieving the psychological bleed and then breaking it down afterward

As a lifelong GM I'm more interested in classifying the cultures by what they do whether than what they intend to create. That is to say, "What is the process of play?" If we described exactly what the group was doing and how they reached decisions, that to me would be far more descriptive than saying why they were doing it.

Intention in my experience is a very weak classifier, because a lot of people intend to do one thing and end up doing something else. I'm much more interested in what you are objectively doing, and I'm telling you that your described processes of play looked very much like processes of play I saw in the LARP community in 1992 to 1996 and especially in the online "LARP"/cyber community with its text based play. The essay talks about the first appearance of Nordic as a culture in essays written in 2000, but I can attest that up to a decade earlier than that, online LARPing communities were achieving (if not as a stated goal of play an actual consequence of play) so much bleed that it was at times a serious and real psychological hazard.

One of the hallmarks of that style of play was players who spent more time IC than OOC, that is to say, they were IC for 12 or more hours per day, until they began to self-identify by their character name and not their "real" name. Another hallmark of that era was there being little or no real distinction between roleplayed romances and in real life feelings. That is to say, the role-played crush was also often that person's first real life crush. Role-played romances were often equivalent to long distance romances. Is that enough "Bleed" for you? But again, to me that the process could create "Bleed" and that bleed is addictive especially to personalities with low self-esteem, and that at some point someone could identify "Bleed" as the goal of play, doesn't change the concrete process of play that was being performed whether or not it was being performed to achieve bleed and whether or not some players were experiencing or intending to experience bleed and others were not.

To me the definitive proof might be something at the age you were involved you couldn't answer, but the definitive proof to me would be whether ERP ("TinyS*") was going on through private communication channels.

When you write a description of "Neo-Trad" play as:

"and is more centered on the ability for the participants to step into a thematic context and live out the identity of the character"

Then that's immersive play and whether or not Bleed is achieved isn't really to me the point. You're going to get Bleed from at least some of the participants in any immersive play, whether or not that's the goal of the whole group and whether or not anyone is trying to do that. The point is a concrete description of how you go about "stepping into the thematic context and living out the identity of the character".

For me I can identify what the essayist calls "Nordic LARP" by whether or not method acting techniques and self-identity as the character is occurring consciously or consciously as an aspect of "playing the character" and whether or not that thespianism is primary to play, and resolution of conflicts mechanically is secondary to that or even ignored in favor of allowing the participants to reach their own climax of feelings so that they feel the conflict is emotionally resolved. And that to me is something I've had described to me from middle school make believe play going back into the 1950s, where nobody had really figured out how to turn make believe into an RPG yet but they were still identifying with the character both in and out of the game and the lines between character and actor were blurred. And it differs IMO from FORGE Story Games because no one is using Fortune at the Beginning or Narrative Currency to tell you what you ought to feel or do with the scene. In other words, there isn't a narrative director assigning roles to the scene so that you are playing something more like traditional Theater Games with a way to manage role assignment.

I guess my larger point is that as someone who has been in the community more than 20 years longer than you have, the "Cultures" essay while interesting and having some kernels of truth in it, vastly understates the real complexity of the real RPing community.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

There's an expression that Collville turned me onto "The Map is Not the Territory" where it emphasizes that while a map is useful for navigation it doesn't necessarily describe the perfect reality of what it is attempting to depict. Collville was discussing how rulebooks and forum discussions can fail to capture the essence of what's happening around the table and can only approximate the game as actually played (which is itself different territories between tables) but I think what makes that idea so interesting is the way it intersects with the broader realities of how we discuss artistic movements in a critical context as lenses through which to examine particular works, commentaries, people, and their ways of thinking.

To my mind the difference in intention is important because it actively suggests a difference in culture, because why we did something is often more important than what we did-- when we talk about the romantics as a literary movement we talk about what they did (create a fictional and pastoral image of the past), but we also talk about what they thought they were doing (reaching back to a heritage that they believed had been lost as a salve for the emotional and spiritual death of contemporary life) because contextualizing their decision-making with their intentions can reveal much more about them and their art than defining it for them based on their results. If the goal of the discussion is to understand the movements themselves, we need to understand their underlying causes, what motivated them-- because that can actually show us parts of the process that happen internally, we can let our subject teach us how to read it.

But in a more brass tacks way, you're right about the fact that the communities experience bleed, in the context of those teenaged messageboards there was definetly an undercurrent of sexual tension between a couple of the participants, but that was very much a matter of (I have no idea if they were actually ERPing, but the people I'm thinking of were also like 12-16 at the time, thinking across a number of years, so that could easily go either way.) But the primary emphasis was often off of bleed, toward community, self-expression, and other considerations like narrative, or even skill in writing.

I think there's something to be said for the fact that people were looking for this kind of expression before the era outlined in the essay (like, I think 90's VTM larpers are most likely neo trad before this era), but that's also largely true of literary movements, so I think demanding that degree of precision is missing the forest for the trees (in the sense of missing the overall arc that there's a distinct movement being discussed) or missing the trees for the forest (in the sense that bleeding Nordic Larp into what we're discussing could actually prevent us from understanding what was unique about these other examples that make them worth considering separately) in other words, it might dilute the point of having a map at all, and I think when discussing what are essentially just lenses through which to examine different mentalities toward roleplaying-- its ok to accept that the lens we're using is imperfect, without disqualifying it, something special was at any rate, happening during this era.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, going back to neotrad and mechanics I think the interesting question is less 'what is it' and more what systems and techniques work.