A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[Thomas Shey]

This is possible, but I was thinking more of Dark Secret and Pride in Forbidden Land, which allow the player to declare something they want to see or hold true about their character in relation to the world. So I could declare my dark secret as "In my past, I worked with the Rust Church" and establish that I have a direct tie to that faction in the game world. Or my pride could be "My skill with the axe is unmatched", which would might be true or just something that my character believes to be true - but in any case it becomes part of the shared narrative.

And adjacent to that, you have things like Darkness Points in Coriolis, which build up through players wanting to improve their chances of success, but then give the GM permission to alter scenes in ways that would be considered bad style without such a mechanic (e.g. magazine of PC's gun is empty).

Honestly, in some games, many at least trad in nature, this is almost a given. Resistance to it seems to turn on scale and the degree to which the GM expects to control all elements of setting, and is notably less true in certain genres/settings. As an example, it isn't uncommon for characters in superhero games to add organizations, countries and whole planets to support their backgrounds, and the only time its a significant problem is if the setting is deliberately narrow in scope or the additional element cannot be easily reconciled with things the GM already has setup and established, but that's pretty rare. Similarly, in a fantasy game, the only reason for a player to not be able to add an organization or even another country in a fantasy game is because of similar limits.

(Note: Its helpful if such elements do not give the PC extra resources or problems without some other character creation element to represent that, but its not like that isn't a solved problem throughout most of the hobby).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In this post, I aim to present a "neotrad manifesto" driven by the ramifications of a contemporary trend in TTRPG design. Tomas Härenstam coined the term to describe his approach to design of Mutant Year Zero. Härenstam led design on Forbidden Lands, which also uses Free League's Year Zero Engine. Games I have in mind while writing this include The One Ring, Legend of the Five Rings (Fantasy Flight version), and D&D 4e, but be warned that no extant game text is presumed to fulfil the whole manifesto.

As a very general observation, neotrad game texts incorporate the results of innovation in indie games into any of the enduring modes of play. These innovations are very often sourced from what are sometimes called storygames. Three great examples are

• Scene-closure-systems such as "momentum" in L5R, "skill challenges" in 4e, and journeys in ToR. These are related to mechanics in "storygames" such as clocks in Blades in the Dark, vows in Ironsworn, and perhaps fronts in Dungeon World. The job done by these mechanics is to say when enough has happened or been done toward an ends. They form a contract between participants as to what equals enough. When have we done enough to navigate through the Forest of Neverlight, and so on. They constrain and compel... in partricular constraining and compelling GM. Desiring to do that is one sign of a neo-trad design: it's not just - no rule zero - it's here's some boilerplate for your negotiations.
• Flags as discussed here, for example dark secrets, pride and relationships in Forbidden Lands, or as stitched all the way through the game of twenty questions in L5R. These are related to mechanics such as beliefs, instincts and traits in Burning Wheel. Typically, flags are hooked into rewards (such as progression) and narrative force (so that when the player means it, their character means it). Players use flags to say what they want the game to be about. Sandbox GMs had grasped the notion of following player goals, but hadn't translated that into concrete mechanics.
• In the Brattit essay, is a one liner - "No rule zero, or golden rule . Self-explanatory." But that isn't self-explanatory at all. In fact, it blows up the whole premise of a GM who is not a player. Players are those who pursue goals having put rules in force for themselves, which they do for the sake of the play thus constituted. No rule zero, or golden rule brings GM into the fold. One way to say it is that it is only as a player that we can bind GM to do what the rules say, and another way to say it is that binding GM to do what the rules say makes them a player.

The ramifications - what is at stake - with design moves like those above can be laid out fairly easily:

Where GM is not a player, they are part of the lusory-means and do not have goals they play toward. Rules don't bind referees: they uphold them. It is referee who says what the rules mean constrained by standards of conduct and in light of best practices. This offers a general solve for a wide range of problems that arise in play that is about imagining things.​

​

Where GM is a player, they must adopt some version of a lusory-attitude and -goals, albeit asymmetrical ones. It implicitly makes conflict with adversaries of the player characters a case of PvP. That isn't a bad thing! Rules bind players, including players taking on the role of GM. One consequence for game designers is that the GM's behaviour can be shaped and foreseen.​

A hallmark of neo-trad design is the reappraisal of GM via principles and/or mechanics. In many cases, GM is plainly called out as a player (ToR and YZE are examples, and Cortex Prime depending how you read it.) In other cases, GM is still cast with traditional powers, and then these are constrained and compelled by the mechanics (L5R is an example.)

Thus forming the manifesto: neotrad game designs ought to shift GM to or toward a role taken on by a player. At the least, a neotrad game text will contain rules that constrain and compel GM's voice in the ongoing negotiation of play... and GM cannot "rule zero" themselves out of that. No doubt the landscape is diverse and there are other hallmarks, too. I suggest that this one is central.

Honestly, I don't really find the 'GM is or is not a player' question to be very compelling. GMs in Narrativist play are expected to serve the agenda of play in their actions. Are these actions 'part of the game' or 'part of the rules of play'? I don't think this matters one bit! People do what they do at the table and such academic hair-splitting really doesn't change anything.

I'm also unsure about other aspects, scene-closure is a fairly common element in Narrativist games, but not a requirement. While PbtA designs have generally fronts, or even clocks in some cases, they don't generally have the hard closure mechanics of systems like BitD, TB2, or even 4e SCs. Its a technique, but not a hard requirement. I think the hard requirement is that the system binds the GM in some fashion, that it imposes a pattern on play that is largely lacking in more traditional play. Flags? I mean, sure, they're favored in pretty much all modern play, Narrativist or otherwise, even 5e tried to implement some weak ones.

Personally I think the most interesting analysis might really be looking more at the spectrum of play that ranges from hard classical Gygaxian challenge play on through more and more character-focused play which relies less and less on the GM as a referee and more as an orchestrator. I don't think this is any more or less 'player like' than ever. There's no hard dividing lines here, all GMs are GMs and not 'like' the (other) players, so really it isn't that important if you label the GM as such or not. They are what they are regardless!

 

[clearstream]

I'm also unsure about other aspects, scene-closure is a fairly common element in Narrativist games, but not a requirement. While PbtA designs have generally fronts, or even clocks in some cases, they don't generally have the hard closure mechanics of systems like BitD, TB2, or even 4e SCs. Its a technique, but not a hard requirement. I think the hard requirement is that the system binds the GM in some fashion, that it imposes a pattern on play that is largely lacking in more traditional play. Flags? I mean, sure, they're favored in pretty much all modern play, Narrativist or otherwise, even 5e tried to implement some weak ones.

Emphasis mine.

Personally I think the most interesting analysis might really be looking more at the spectrum of play that ranges from hard classical Gygaxian challenge play on through more and more character-focused play which relies less and less on the GM as a referee and more as an orchestrator. I don't think this is any more or less 'player like' than ever. There's no hard dividing lines here, all GMs are GMs and not 'like' the (other) players, so really it isn't that important if you label the GM as such or not. They are what they are regardless!

Would you say then that labelling GM as player essentially has no meaning in TB2 and AW?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The examples of neo-trad games this author gives are as follows


I'm lightly familiar with some of these games. My impression is that they allow for plenty of GM adjudication even in basic task resolution, but I could be wrong. What are games that you would consider neotrad?

Yeah, I did a pretty decent analysis of Cypher System, and the same applies to Numenera. These are thoroughly trad games without any real Narrativist device at all. Sure, they employ some mechanical conventions here and there which may be inspired by 'Indie' RPGs, but CS in particular is a totally trad GM-directed story with mapped-out plot type of game! It even presents specific points at which the GM can clearly introduce force. From an overall game technology perspective I would put it squarely in the same bin as 3e, 5e or other similar systems.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Mearls talked about their introduction with a "proto5e" ruleset during a 5 generations of d&d talk... I want to say it was around the 1:21:20 timestamp to the recording but could be gibberish numbers stuck in my brain too. That version of them had a rather pushy type compel attached to them to counterbalance things like "narrative authority" being placed in the hands of players. The shattered vestigial husk of implied unilateral authority that was left in place is not an example of good design.

Why not?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The issue tends to be rooted in the same sort of distrust in the rules of the game that causes fudging and railroading and all that.

That and it can also be abrasive if the solution involves making the game break if the GM doesn't cooperate.

I think this and @hawkeyefan's post get at the question that is more interesting, which is the question of attitudes towards the role of rules/system both in play and in the minds of designers. EGG et al envisaged their game as simply a toolkit, at least at first, and we see basically a steady evolution towards a stance in which a particular game system is seen as a 'done thing', something that you run as it is; maybe with some supplements or a few house rules, but primarily in a way which was envisaged by the designer. Dave and Gary would, in 1975, have laughed at the idea that there's a 'wrong way' to play D&D, but it would be pretty reasonable for Vince Baker to argue that you can play Apocalypse World 'wrong' (not to say he attaches any opprobrium to that).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IMHO, one of the places where the influence of story games is apparent is with regards to how players earn experience in these games. Here is the criteria for Alien:

These XP incentives are primarily story-based that are meant to encourage players to adopt certain character behaviors in order to gain XP. I know that there are also similar questions for Forbidden Lands.

This is entirely consistent with a lot of XP questionnaires at the end of a session, much like in a number of PbtA games. For example, here is the advancement questionnaire for Avatar Legends:


This is just about XP, off the top of my head, but I am fairly certain that there are other influences from story games.

Although I would point out that, by this measure, 2e is neo-trad! I don't think that's likely to make a lot of sense. So there must certainly be stronger criteria if the definition is to survive meaningfully.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thank you for that link. It's worth pasting the text from TH's OP here in it's entirety (Google translate, I'm afraid.) This was from 2012.



Writing today, over a decade later, I would say that the neotrad compulsion to integrate innovations from indie games (largely, storygames) into enduring modes has payoffs beyond doing so only for sim. That said, we may have different ideas of what constitutes sim play, and have observed differing utilizations of neotrad game texts. One obvious challenge would be to show that the innovations have utility only to sim.

Elsewhere, I have suggested that "neosim" falls within the envelope of neotrad; an intuition influenced by Eero Tuovinen's updated understanding of sim. (From 2020.) As TH added in comments back in 2012

Interesting... but I question its relevance outside of the context in which it was written (IE Swedish RPG scene of 10-15 years ago). Obviously I have no first-hand knowledge of that scene, so I defer to the author of the post, but it IMHO is a very ad-hoc breakdown which is more meant to give a quick summary of the 'scene', like telling people what sorts of games to expect to see out there and who plays them, vs much about game design or even culture of play.

 

[pemerton]

Story in an RPG should be the outcomes of the PCs' actions and decisions.

I feel everything else is missing the entire point of RPGs.

Well, Adventure Paths - which pre-package the story - seem to be pretty popular. CoC is an enduring RPG, and a typical CoC module is a pre-packaged story. Back in the day there were the DL modules, and Dead Gods, and the like.

I think saying that all these things miss the entire point is a bit strong. I mean, they're not to my taste (and apparently not to yours either), but for a lot of people this sort of play - the players "being there" in the story via their PCs - is the point of RPGing.

EDIT: mostly ninja'd by @hawkeyefan in post 77 upthread.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My aims are toward a manifesto rather than a prescriptive definition. I'm discussing what TTRPG designers may and ought to be doing. In respect of which, individual game texts are glimmers illuminating parts of a vast design space.

But if I had to achieve a definition, then I would first filter for every game text I understood to fit a traditional mode of play (OSR, sandbox. sim, trad) and then I would filter for just those that also integrated innovations from indie-games (largely storygames) with a particular concern for how they treated GM powers and centered player authorship. (Hence calling attention to scene-closure-systems, flags, and striking rule zero.)

Does that help at all? My motives for suggesting that this ought to lead to repositioning GM as player are technical ones, around what rules are and what rule-following amounts to. EDIT Actually, there's another more important motive: I believe best practice design will not spatchcock a grab-bag of innovations into their game text, but be thoughtful about what those innovations mean! Why did they arise? Why did they matter to those who designed them? What project are those innovations intended to drive toward, and what form ought that project to take in the neotrad design?!

OK, so in terms of an activity aimed at establishing a kind of approach to gaming, that is defining it as "if the RPG has these parts and is used in this way, then its an X game" I don't have problems with what you are saying (I mean, not that I'd have problems with whatever you want to say anyway, but you know what I mean).

I am not sure how diagnostic it is of anything, but yes I think you can bin certain games/play within a box that you have defined. I'm not sure if you will find the contents of that box to be particularly coherent, but I guess every pudding has its proof, right? lol.