A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wrt to neotrad design: the thing I'm not sure I understand is where neo stops and trad begins.

Is Blades in the Dark with its character-driven narrative and plentiful fiddly bits a neotrad game? Yes? No? What if it had a dedicated combat subsystem? Yes? No?

I'm not stupid. I understand that there probably isn't a clear line, but there must be a sign that signifies "yeah, this totally isn't your mommy's indie rpg, this is neotrad land"

My test is where does the direction come from? In trad the direction comes from the GM, and maybe secondarily through some negotiated grant of permission, traditionally with very strict bounds, for the players. Players MAY get to pick some of the attributes of their characters, maybe some of their backstory, but generally gated by GM permission (witness the recent long thread about GMs insisting that they get to decide which classes and races players can use). That's trad. Once these things are decided, then fiction is presented by the GM, and player input is strictly limited to in-character descriptions, usually without any mechanical support for, say, testing their willingness to break their own code of conduct or something like that (IE D&D places the definition of alignment on the GM, the player simply plays to what they have declared and gets punished if they deviate in the GM's sole judgment).

Neo-trad moves the authority for WHO YOU ARE and possibly also other parts of the character's definition strictly to the player, and the primary orientation of play is towards the players enacting their conception. The GM provides fiction and other elements in such a way as to complement and support this effort. There are usually at least informal, possibly formal, means for the players to signal their requirements. Trad can certainly 'bleed into' this simply by dint of players getting their way, though there are some fairly well-known failure modes here where play becomes fairly degenerate. So, signaling and constraining elements usually exist in the structure of the game if it envisages this sort of play as its norm. As several people have mentioned, this is a type of play that isn't aiming at challenging the CONCEPTIONS of play, but of affirming them and enacting them.

Which leads to the final form on this continuum, Story Now/Narrativist play in which the premise(s) of play are supposed to be challenged. The GM's job generally becomes to frame these challenges, which players usually signal via various mechanisms. Here we find conflict resolved in terms of achievement of intention, the definition of consequences and rules for their imposition on PCs as part of the resolution of these challenges, etc. While any one of these features MIGHT be employed in Neo-trad play, it will be in service of whatever the player is doing, whereas in Narrativist play it will be true fallout, and often impacts the core perception of the character in uncontrolled ways.

This gets me to why we have held that PtFO is particularly an expression of Narrativist play, because it is ALL OF this kind of play. Neo-trad players are not playing to figure out what their characters and their relation to the world ARE, they KNOW THIS ALREADY. They play to find out what it feels like to make that story, and if there are things in doubt it is either A) doubts within themselves about their dedication to the concept, or B) small side issues, like maybe "which of the superheroines do I fall in love with?" or something like that. In Trad play the questions will be more like "did the party survive the encounter with the Red Dragon?" Sure, you can 'play to find out' these things, but ALL OF Narrativist play is fundamentally almost nothing else.

And honestly, I don't care about any one 'model', GNS is often used, its easy to understand and IT DOES REFLECT THINGS. I mean, if Vince Baker wants to come and have a discussion with us about it that's great, but there are fundamentally different games where people spend their time and energy on different things. All these games have a lot in common, nobody has ever disputed that, least of all myself. They still have some differences. I'm one thousand percent certain that my Dungeon World game is going to be substantially different from someone else's 1e AD&D game, and the difference is not just some minor variation of resolution mechanics. There are many narratives which WILL NOT ARISE in one which can in the other! (and here I will have to disagree with RE or VB or whichever of these guys said differently, they can sue me if they want).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Quite the opposite in fact, there is no assumption of goodwill and no assumption illwill.

Your constant bringing up of the question of what to do about misbehaving players seems to belie this.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well, Dogs in the Vineyard got postponed till tomorrow (hopefully!), so here is a quick post on the subject:

* Does your system/game feature the GM writing a series of scripted plot points that converge in their sequence to generate a story that the GM already knows about (sequence, outcomes, throughline etc)? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out...what the story is) game. The GM already knows (what the story is).

* Does your system/game feature players who have a strong conception of character before play whereby they either (a) expect that conception to be mapped upon play via GM curation or player-side railroading tools (including social contract) or (b) are able to assure that this conception is mapped upon play via either (i) an EZMode setting of the game or (ii) the systemization of trivially gameable trading out of low-stakes consequences for the certainty that high-stakes conflict resolve to the player's pre-play preferences? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out...who these characters are) game. The player already knows (who the character is).

Now...

* Are you running a system/game that features that first bullet point but not that second? If yes, you are running a Traditional game.

* Are you running a system/game that features both the first and second bullet points? If yes, you are running a Neotraditional game.

---

Upthread I expressed some thoughts about Agon after GMing it for like 12-15 sessions or whatever (a full game). Agon is NOT a Neotraditional game because the first bullet point is very much not true. However, the second bullet point kind of materializes in play due to the systemization of that (i) in that second bullet point. Despite the fact that the GM is only prepping situations and neither plot points nor throughline nor sequence nor outcomes, the game just doesn't generate an enormous amount of dynamism because there just isn't enough mechanical teeth to consequences nor ambient nor direct threat against the heroes to create a snowballing, dynamic narrative that emerges. The overwhelming amount of dynamism in play is downrange of (a) deft GM framing/decision-space affording to players in scenario design and (b) interesting player action declarations and emergent affiliations (with the micro-setting of the islands, with each other as PCs, and with the Gods themselves).

Consequently, the play often (though not always) feels a little "saw that coming-ey" on both GM-side and player-side even without any planning or curation. The contrast with a game like Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World (and certain others in that line), Blades in the Dark, Torchbearer (etc etc etc), and hardmode D&D 4e is significant.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, Dogs in the Vineyard got postponed till tomorrow (hopefully!), so here is a quick post on the subject:

* Does your system/game feature the GM writing a series of scripted plot points that converge in their sequence to generate a story that the GM already knows about (sequence, outcomes, throughline etc)? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out) game. The GM already knows.

* Does your system/game feature players who have a strong conception of character before play whereby they either (a) expect that conception to be mapped upon play via GM curation or player-side railroading tools (including social contract) or (b) are able to assure that this conception is mapped upon play via either (i) an EZMode setting of the game or (ii) the systemization of trivially gameable trading out of low-stakes consequences for the certainty that high-stakes conflict resolve to the player's pre-play preferences? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out) game. The player already knows.

Now...

* Are you running a system/game that features that first bullet point but not that second? If yes, you are running a Traditional game.

* Are you running a system/game that features both the first and second bullet points? If yes, you are running a Neotraditional game.

---

Upthread I expressed some thoughts about Agon after GMing it for like 12-15 sessions or whatever (a full game). Agon is NOT a Neotraditional game because the first bullet point is very much not true. However, the second bullet point kind of materializes in play due to the systemization of that (i) in that second bullet point. Despite the fact that the GM is only prepping situations and neither plot points nor throughline nor sequence nor outcomes, the game just doesn't generate an enormous amount of dynamism because there just isn't enough mechanical teeth to consequences nor ambient nor direct threat against the heroes to create a snowballing, dynamic narrative that emerges. The overwhelming amount of dynamism in play is downrange of (a) deft GM framing/decision-space affording to players in scenario design and (b) interesting player action declarations and emergent affiliations (with the micro-setting of the islands, with each other as PCs, and with the Gods themselves).

Consequently, the play often (though not always) feels a little "saw that coming-ey" on both GM-side and player-side even without any planning or curation. The contrast with a game like Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World (and certain others in that line), Blades in the Dark, Torchbearer (etc etc etc), and hardmode D&D 4e is significant.

There could be surprises, like at the very end of play when Tychon forged a mask for Medusa to restore her beauty as a resolution of her conflict with Poseidon and Athena. None of us saw it coming, but it definitely was enacting my conception of my character as a Son of Hephaistos and master craftsman, though it also engaged with the talent which arose through play for bringing people together. So I think there's definitely, as @loverdrive suggests, no clear boundary there. I mean, maybe this is the sense in which VB is denying agenda as a central thing; he just doesn't think there's enough distinction. Somehow I suspect there's other things behind that, but I've never thought that any one set of descriptors will do more than allow us to gain a general feel for a specific instance of game play, or style of play.

 

[clearstream]

But, what VB followed that with was Apocalypse World! In his subsequent discussion he emphasizes play as negotiation and draws an onion diagram of game structure. Now he's not claiming that onion is universal, but there's a strong implication that it's addressing fundamental concerns. Certainly he IS taking the position that all RPG play involves a conversation in which the imagined character experience is negotiated. It's in this context that PtFO is stated. VB doesn't call this 'narrativist' but it sure does comply well with that idea. I mean, I'm in no position to dispute with him, but I don't think it's necessary. The body of work and thought is actually quite consistent from Forge to now.

This was written after AW, as he says in his comments. He attributes AW to GNS and then says that he has moved on... for highly technical reasons that I'd love to know more about!

 

[pemerton]

There are many narratives which WILL NOT ARISE in one which can in the other! (and here I will have to disagree with RE or VB or whichever of these guys said differently, they can sue me if they want).

I don't think we're going to have to go as far as law suits!

Edwards' claim is that, from a transcript - or "story hour" - we can't tell whether play was narrativist, gamist or simulationist:

Go ahead and role-play, and write down what happened to the characters, where they went, and what they did. I'll call that event-summary the "transcript." But some transcripts have, as Pooh might put it, a "little something," specifically a theme: a judgmental point, perceivable as a certain charge they generate for the listener or reader. If a transcript has one (or rather, if it does that), I'll call it a story. . . .

The real question: after reading the transcript and recognizing it as a story, what can be said about the Creative Agenda that was involved during the role-playing? The answer is, ***absolutely nothing. We don't know whether people played it Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist, or any combination of the three. A story can be produced through any Creative Agenda. The mere presence of story as the *product of role-playing is not a GNS-based issue.​

The point is an abstract one, that there is no general, uniform relationship between creative agenda and events in the fiction - that to establish creative agenda you have to examine not the fiction but rather the play, which will not itself be set out in the transcript.

But he is not claiming that any given RPG, played in pursuit of a well-suited creative agenda, can produce any transcript at all. (Which is your point.) Nor is he saying that, as a matter of fact about RPG practices and preferences among the extent population of RPG players, that we wouldn't expect to see more subtlety or nuance or twisty-turny in a BitD transcript than (say) a CoC transcript. In principle, for any given BitD transcript, it should be possible to write a CoC-ish adventure that, if played through, will replicate that transcript. But in practice I don't think anyone thinks those modules are out there.

 

[clearstream]

Well, Dogs in the Vineyard got postponed till tomorrow (hopefully!), so here is a quick post on the subject:

* Does your system/game feature the GM writing a series of scripted plot points that converge in their sequence to generate a story that the GM already knows about (sequence, outcomes, throughline etc)? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out...what the story is) game. The GM already knows (what the story is).

* Does your system/game feature players who have a strong conception of character before play whereby they either (a) expect that conception to be mapped upon play via GM curation or player-side railroading tools (including social contract) or (b) are able to assure that this conception is mapped upon play via either (i) an EZMode setting of the game or (ii) the systemization of trivially gameable trading out of low-stakes consequences for the certainty that high-stakes conflict resolve to the player's pre-play preferences? If so, you are NOT running a Story Now (Play to Find Out...who these characters are) game. The player already knows (who the character is).

Now...

* Are you running a system/game that features that first bullet point but not that second? If yes, you are running a Traditional game.

* Are you running a system/game that features both the first and second bullet points? If yes, you are running a Neotraditional game.

---

Upthread I expressed some thoughts about Agon after GMing it for like 12-15 sessions or whatever (a full game). Agon is NOT a Neotraditional game because the first bullet point is very much not true. However, the second bullet point kind of materializes in play due to the systemization of that (i) in that second bullet point. Despite the fact that the GM is only prepping situations and neither plot points nor throughline nor sequence nor outcomes, the game just doesn't generate an enormous amount of dynamism because there just isn't enough mechanical teeth to consequences nor ambient nor direct threat against the heroes to create a snowballing, dynamic narrative that emerges. The overwhelming amount of dynamism in play is downrange of (a) deft GM framing/decision-space affording to players in scenario design and (b) interesting player action declarations and emergent affiliations (with the micro-setting of the islands, with each other as PCs, and with the Gods themselves).

Consequently, the play often (though not always) feels a little "saw that coming-ey" on both GM-side and player-side even without any planning or curation. The contrast with a game like Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World (and certain others in that line), Blades in the Dark, Torchbearer (etc etc etc), and hardmode D&D 4e is significant.

This accurately reflects "term of art" PtFO. The storygames version in which what is to be settled in play is dramatic protagonism.

It is observably be the case that for differing groups other subjects are to be settled in play. For example, when folk are ludically engaged with elevated appreciation of Gloranthan mysticism, it is neither dramatic story nor necessarily character identity that must be settled in play.

Essentially I am mirroring Edwards' concern, mutatis mutandis.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, basically? The GM's choices when playing as the antagonists and/or when creating elements of the setting are in trad play, in no way confined/defined by the PC's choices, and often confine the PC's choices. At the most basic, the GM might say you're all mercenaries of X social background, vs. a player indicates they are an ex-pat of a specific nation, which the GM then is obligated to fit into the setting.

The big dividing line is the mechanical formality of all that. I imagine it's considered reasonable practice in many trad games to incorporate player proposed elements into the setting, the idea of a neotrad design is that in some specific capacities, the GM is forced to do so by the rules.

At least, that's what it seems to mean in the sense this thread has covered.

To take stock, taking to heart VB's contention that

G, N and S were arbitrary, not reflective of real divisions in actual design or actual play. That while you can, if you want, assign a given instance of gameplay to G, N or S more or less consistently, you do so by asserting false similarities and ignoring some true similarities between other instances of gameplay. GNS is a convenient stand-in for what's actually going on.​

​

So making an attempt to avoid leaning on those constructs (a lazy habit I have!)

1. It feels like there is a high level of agreement that "neotrad" designs are game texts incorporating mechanical innovations from indie-games. They're game texts for which we can often see historical counterparts pre-dating those innovations, or in any event they import rather than invent them. On the whole, the innovations referred to were first found in "storygames" inspired by a common nexus of RPG theory: thus representing a wave of "new technology".​

​

2. It feels like there is a fair level of agreement that such innovations tend to constrain GM powers. Accompanying a shift in assumptions around GMing: GM may judge on rules, but works in accord with them. Rules can then compel and constrain GM. (This does not amount to arguing that it ought to be preferred.)​

​

3. There is strong agreement that players are centered on to an increased degree, relative to what is normally observed in the absence of the mechanics referred to. There is some level of agreement that 2. contributes to this, whether or not it is a necessary precondition. (This does not amount to arguing that it ought to be preferred.)​

​

4. I believe there is a high level of agreement that "neotrad" is a trend or shift in design. Something designers are seen to be thinking about and doing, resulting in a diversity of game texts incorporating the mechanical innovations referred to in 1. There is long precedent for designers "magpieing" this way; particularly in evidence following waves of new tech (innovative RPG mechanics, in this case.) Availing of mechanics prototyped in other games is an efficient design move, and for that reason if no other ought to be on the table.​

I have offered additional arguments that - i) that the innovations represent purposes that remain salient to the mechanics in their new contexts, and ii) that it is play rather than players that is forefronted (in particular, play rather than characters), however forefronting play naturally forefronts players and thus often characters. The second move is of significance, because it implies that "neotrad" isn't necessarily about Western dramatic tradition story even where it is using mechanics from storygames. (Something that could already have been noted from it's initial positioning by Härenstam.) It also separates neotrad from OC. Contradiction between i) and ii) is avoided by iii) counting all TTRPG into ludonarrative.

Folk can obviously gauge their agreement with the above 4-point description of "neotrad" without buying into my additional arguments. There is some precedent for believing mechanics can be ported to new contexts and acquire new purposes in those contexts, leaving their original motivating intents behind. I don't think that is happening here - rather I observe failures to make the mechanics sing - but others might. Alternatively, you might resist iii) or say that it doesn't have the implications I draw relating to the lusory-duality and playing to settle your crux lusory-goals. That would create a contradiction between i) and ii) without any proposed resolution. I think if you do so, then you're forced to assume the mechanics can take on new purposes.

One consideration in design is efficiency. Validating mechanics innovations is costly (takes many iterations, with some percentage of misses rather than hits.) It is efficient to avail of mechanics prototyped in other games. As a designer, you can efficiently equip yourself to take part in this second wave - the extended "neotrad" shift - by reading, playing, and observing play of, games in which the innovations are found. Whether you need to understand the original purposes of the innovations would depend on your view of my additional arguments, which if right (and followed) would predict an increased likelihood of impactfully deploying them.


@kenada @loverdrive @AbdulAlhazred the above may be of interest to you - as designers - whether or not you agree with my additional arguments (or indeed, any of it!)

 

[clearstream]

Wrt to neotrad design: the thing I'm not sure I understand is where neo stops and trad begins.

Is Blades in the Dark with its character-driven narrative and plentiful fiddly bits a neotrad game? Yes? No? What if it had a dedicated combat subsystem? Yes? No?

I'm not stupid. I understand that there probably isn't a clear line, but there must be a sign that signifies "yeah, this totally isn't your mommy's indie rpg, this is neotrad land"

In my #478, I suggest that our only real way to tell is if the game in question is one that made the innovation. Or one that imported it. BitD is one that made innovations. Forbidden Lands imported them. You could readily judge your game on that basis.

There has just past been a sweeping wave of design innovations from a common nexus of inspiration. New technology. There is now a second wave of design recognitions and exploitation of those gains. It's hardly naughty word surprising.

 

[tetrasodium]

. Neo-trad players are not playing to figure out what their characters and their relation to the world ARE, they KNOW THIS ALREADY.

I'm going to cut past the preamble and cut to the heart of the matter... This is a meaningless declaration of power and control with no responsibility. You do not even alluded to basic obvious ones like working with other players to avoid stomping on each other's toes right out of the gate.

They play to find out what it feels like to make that story, and if there are things in doubt it is either A) doubts within themselves about their dedication to the concept, or B) small side issues, like maybe "which of the superheroines do I fall in love with?" or something like that. In Trad play the questions will be more like "did the party survive the encounter with the Red Dragon?" Sure, you can 'play to find out' these things, but ALL OF Narrativist play is fundamentally almost nothing else.

Again this says nothing about responsibilities or expectations of players.All you've done is declare that Mary Sue and gary Stu is the goal.

And honestly, I don't care about any one 'model', GNS is often used, its easy to understand and IT DOES REFLECT THINGS. I mean, if Vince Baker wants to come and have a discussion with us about it that's great, but there are fundamentally different games where people spend their time and energy on different things. All these games have a lot in common, nobody has ever disputed that, least of all myself. They still have some differences. I'm one thousand percent certain that my Dungeon World game is going to be substantially different from someone else's 1e AD&D game, and the difference is not just some minor variation of resolution mechanics. There are many narratives which WILL NOT ARISE in one which can in the other! (and here I will have to disagree with RE or VB or whichever of these guys said differently, they can sue me if they want).

This is all more empty noise that draws attention to the failure to make even the vagueist hint of even a single responsibility expectation or duty expected of players by neotrad