A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[loverdrive]

I don't want to derail this conversation, but:
I'm lazily working on a game that from what I've gathered about what neo-trad is, more or less falls into what neo-trad describes.

There are two distinct "modes", "phases", whatever, of play: there are scenes where PCs are chilling on their base, bantering with each other, allied NPCs, work on their personal projects, etc. There are scenes where PC deploy to kick ass.

The base phase is played like any other traditional RPG, where players say what they want to accomplish, GM tells them what stat they need to roll (if any), and then narrates what happens as a result. Deployment phase is a straight up boardgame with rigid rules on what both PCs and enemies can or cannot do (which are, frankly, nonsenscial: what do you mean I can't shoot somebody who is in the same room as me?! why do I need to move to another zone to attack?!) and an objective that is unrelated to killing everyone.

The game is mostly driven by PCs, well, drives and GM is largely reactive. Player states the goal they want to achieve, GM says "cool!" and then places obstacles to achieve it with the sole requirement that any substantial progress can only ever be done through a deployment.

As the only example from test campaign (it was one-on-one, so I imagine with more players it'd be more different):

PC wants to woo his Manager (NPC) who just doesn't notice him. I shrug and ask: "Well, she doesn't notice you. How are you gonna attract her attention?", and he decides to bring her a cool gift.

The game transitions into Deployment stage, as player runs out of things to do in the base. Before a deployment, each player gets to ask the GM one question to be answered afterwards. If the deployment is successful, they'll like the answer. If not, well, they will not. The question was "what constitutes a cool gift?"

I will not divulge into details of deployment as they are unnecessary, but the player wins, and back in the base, I set up a scene where Manager gushes about a new prototype lazer gun Mitsuhama unveiled she has heard about, thus, answering the question: a prototype lazer gun definitely constitutes a cool gift.

The next deployment will probably be about stealing that prototype lazer gun from Mitsuhama.


Now, in a real game with a full table, there probably would a layer of interesting choice of what deployment to take on, like, whose goals will be served today, but that doesn't sound like a big problem for now.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Serious Question - why can't we have an rpg that is Simulationist, Gamist and Narrativist? I'm not seeing the hard lines there.

Its not impossible, but its hard not to see some of those working at cross-purposes at least some of the time. Simulationism (in the old-school RGFA way) sometimes demands anticlimax, for example, which could work against both the game elements being interesting and the dramatic elements being satisfying.

 

[kenada]

I would characterise it as difficult, or necessarily incomplete, rather than impossible, because imagined elements fall outside of the framework. This isn't a mystery unique to TTRPG or games, the audience response is always uncertain. Not hopelessly unguessable, but better described in terms of norms and probabilities, with acknowledgement of locally significant outliers.

Even in a system that allows the GM to decide a situation in whatever way, the decision is still about that situation. That is suggestive of certain dynamics. How the audience feels about that is the area of experiences not dynamics.

The point of a framework like MDA and DDE is to organize your thinking in a way that allows you to reason about your design. The separation of dynamics and experiences is purposeful to that end. It separates aspects you can control fully (even if indirectly) from those you can’t. Mixing those things together undermines the purpose of the framework.

I would speculate that the reason why it seems impossible to apply a framework like this to tabletop RPG design is due to certain assumptions and a lack of worked examples of how it would be done. I attempted to do some of the latter in post #245 to analyze 4e and PF2, but there are no examples of such a framework being applied systematically to design a whole game. The fact that this thread is in the top ten results on Google for “MDA tabletop RPG” is a reflection of the sad state of affairs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

An extra thought on this: there is a competitive element among the players, both to be the best hero in a conflict; and to control the party's decision-making (either by winning the context of leadership, or by spending a Bond with the leader to have them agree to your advice).

But I'm not sure these are robust enough to be the principal focus of play. But am curious as to any thoughts from @AbdulAlhazred or @Manbearcat.

I would say no, but I guess it could work if something in the system really highlighted it as a win. Then the question would be balancing expenditures to one up the other players vs the other goals, but the game is not that tightly tuned.

 

[Pedantic]

Its not impossible, but its hard not to see some of those working at cross-purposes at least some of the time. Simulationism (in the old-school RGFA way) sometimes demands anticlimax, for example, which could work against both the game elements being interesting and the dramatic elements being satisfying.

I don't think that's necessarily a problem in the gamist sense; it's on the game to be interesting, in active opposition to players who are motivated to simplify it. It's not a problem if that simplification works occasionally, that's just proving your decisions were correct. The real issue is when an an alpha strategy works consistently, rendering the situation no longer a game at all.

TTRPGs should actually have unique advantages over other kinds of games to both deliver the occasional casual victory and not devolve. Having repeated evaluation of victory and flexible player defined victory conditions allows for the game to keep changing, hopefully enough that no particular tactic can become dominant. I think the risk posed by simulationism for satisfying gameplay is more that you might end up in a forced situation where the players can't make meaningful decisions at all.

 

[Emberashh]

Even in a system that allows the GM to decide a situation in whatever way, the decision is still about that situation. That is suggestive of certain dynamics. How the audience feels about that is the area of experiences not dynamics.

The point of a framework like MDA and DDE is to organize your thinking in a way that allows you to reason about your design. The separation of dynamics and experiences is purposeful to that end. It separates aspects you can control fully (even if indirectly) from those you can’t. Mixing those things together undermines the purpose of the framework.

I would speculate that the reason why it seems impossible to apply a framework like this to tabletop RPG design is due to certain assumptions and a lack of worked examples of how it would be done. I attempted to do some of the latter in post #245 to analyze 4e and PF2, but there are no examples of such a framework being applied systematically to design a whole game. The fact that this thread is in the top ten results on Google for “MDA tabletop RPG” is a reflection of the sad state of affairs.

Id wager the issue has more to do with what Zubek notes the model doesn't (necessarily) cover:

It doesn't detract from the model, theres just more elements that go into it that aren't rooted in mechanic or system design.

And I'd also wager that most game designers, even in tabletop spaces, actually are engaging with these ideas, because most are going to be concerning themselves with the experience they're trying to create, and they're going to tap into all these things to help them think through that. MDA as such isn't so much a radical idea but just the acknowledgement of what you'd already be doing.

Which is important, not only for new designers first learning how to think, but also for working through designers block.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think that's necessarily a problem in the gamist sense; it's on the game to be interesting, in active opposition to players who are motivated to simplify it. It's not a problem if that simplification works occasionally, that's just proving your decisions were correct. The real issue is when an an alpha strategy works consistently, rendering the situation no longer a game at all.

I dunno, I'm pretty gamist in orientation, and if I spend a lot of time setting up a situation and preparing for it and then there's no resistance, I tend to find that pretty disappointing. And of course the opposite where it turns out no planning or play was going to succeed is frustrating. If that's going to be the case I'd prefer the GM to just tell me so (in either case) and save me the effort.

TTRPGs should actually have unique advantages over other kinds of games to both deliver the occasional casual victory and not devolve. Having repeated evaluation of victory and flexible player defined victory conditions allows for the game to keep changing, hopefully enough that no particular tactic can become dominant. I think the risk posed by simulationism for satisfying gameplay is more that you might end up in a forced situation where the players can't make meaningful decisions at all.

I'd describe that as applying to both of my issues above.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Principally, because those words do not describe what distinguishes his RPG from many others. Rather, they emphasise what he wants you to do. In all RPG, when one is genuinely playing one is playing to find out. Neotrad shares Baker's desire that you indeed do that. Repositioning GM and centering players is not done to make players do the prep instead of GM, it's so you can play to find out.

Edwards passionately argued that for the narrativist, the story is not ludically-interesting unless one genuinely plays to find out. The premises are not addressed in the ideal way unless they are addressed through play itself.​

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For the gamist, the winning is not ludically-interesting unless one plays to find out. Mastery is not proven in an the ideal way unless it is proven through play itself.​

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For the simulationist, the subject appreciation is not ludically-interesting unless one plays to find out. Appreciation is not elevated in the ideal way unless it is elevated through play itself.​

Considering all that, I read play to find out less as description, than instruction.

You have to commit yourself to the game’s action’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the players’ characters. You have to open yourself to caring what happens, but when it comes time to say what happens, you have to set what you hope for aside.​

Sorry, I don't competitively play games to 'see what happens', that is a very forced way of putting it which is being proposed to make a rhetorical point, not because it is a natural way of speaking about it. Likewise to say we arrange matters in a specific way be use of 'finding out' is a very unnatural and forced way of putting it.

Read Edwards, his language is specific but natural and quite clear. Same with Baker, very NOT forced!

 

[Pedantic]

Sorry, I don't competitively play games to 'see what happens', that is a very forced way of putting it which is being proposed to make a rhetorical point, not because it is a natural way of speaking about it. Likewise to say we arrange matters in a specific way be use of 'finding out' is a very unnatural and forced way of putting it.

That's just not true. I spent years in competitive game communities, I have a weekly 4-6 hour game event, and I have a terrible win rate. We track it and everything, I am demonstrably the worst player by actual win rate. I'm certainly trying to win the weekly 18xx game, but I'm rarely actually doing it. Why do I keep coming back? Why do we keep trying different games with slightly different mechanics? Why am I more excited to play The Great Zimbabwe than Food Chain Magnate, even though the latter I am slightly more likely to win, based on historical context?

This isn't something I'm producing now, for this specific context! I've had this conversation and discussed this precise point with my regular board game group, utterly devoid of a TTRPG context. It doesn't take much introspection to realize the winning is less important than trying to win. I've used the same point to articulate preferences for some board games over others, and used the precise phrase "interesting board states" to general agreement.

 

[kenada]

Id wager the issue has more to do with what Zubek notes the model doesn't (necessarily) cover:

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It doesn't detract from the model, theres just more elements that go into it that aren't rooted in mechanic or system design.

I’ve been using them interchangeably because DDE positions itself as a reformulation of MDA, but it’s an explicit goal of DDE to incorporate those missing elements. It claims to be equivalent, but that’s really only true for gameplay.

And I'd also wager that most game designers, even in tabletop spaces, actually are engaging with these ideas, because most are going to be concerning themselves with the experience they're trying to create, and they're going to tap into all these things to help them think through that. MDA as such isn't so much a radical idea but just the acknowledgement of what you'd already be doing.

The question is whether it’s possible to apply such a framework to designing a tabletop RPG. That people may be doing so informally doesn’t help answer that question if they aren’t sharing their experiences.

Which is important, not only for new designers first learning how to think, but also for working through designers block.

That’s why it appeals to me. It’s not about process for the sake of process. It’s about the benefits of adopting a structured way of thinking my work, which is something I’ve experienced professionally with other methodologies.

One of the things I find frustrating about the state of tabletop RPG discourse is there is too much concern about which or what boxes things go into. If I’m going to have to figure at least some things out on my own, then I want tools to help me do that. Having a buffet of boxes does not provide the needed insights when none of the boxes does what I want.