D&D 5E Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

[Shardstone]

Got it.

What you describe here is how I’d describe OSR play. So what are the differences then? Between say OSR challenge-based play and neo-trad. Both use emergent play. Both create hooks and populate the world with interesting things for the PCs to do. Is it down the characters and their goals? Expected lifespan? The existence or not of character builds and char-op?

Difference is the characters matter more; conflicts often tie into some aspect of the character, like protecting a loved one or trying to pay off resurrection debt. The GM also creates challenges aligned with the narratives in play; if you have a sick son your character is based around, I will present an opportunity to cure them or raise the stakes by heightening their danger.

 

[jmartkdr2]

This thread has not helped me understand "OC" at all, except in terms of giving a name to.what CR does -- which is just D&D except Mercer makes sure the PCs are the protagonists in a literary way (which is not really something I do as the GM; players are responsible for making their PCs feel like the protagonists IMO).

OC (as distinct from even neo-trad) is when the focus is on making cool characters, then you put them in situations where they can show off their cool stuff. It's going right for the power fantasy and skipping the "boring bits" to get there.

It can be a bit like eating ice cream for dinner; more fun when you're young, but I wouldn't look down on it - some people only run a dungeon crawl with no plot, some people are here just for a skirmish game, and some people hate when they have to roll a die to see if their attack hits. All-i-n on one thing can be lots of fun if everyone's down for it.

Edit: put another way, it's when the genre of fantasy you're trying to capture is isekai.

 

[tetrasodium]

I too have not come any closer to understanding any player responsibilities or expectations a neotrad player can be assured to carry when it comes to "neotrad" as a result of this or any other thread I've seen it come up. I use that six cultures of play article as a filter & almost always need to boot a player when they proudly shift blame for their behavior onto "well I'm neotrad" before demanding all kinds of changes. I don't think that article accurately describes whatever neotrad is now because it seems to be an amorphous undefinable SEP shield that's too deep for anyone but people proclaiming to play neotrad to grasp.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'll try, but I thik you have a bad luck problem, or perhaps just the annoying-vegan fallacy.

I too have not come any closer to understanding any player responsibilities

Make a character - not just a build or a token, and not just a name and some attributes. They should goals, motivations, fears, etc. This is a character for a story that we're going to create together. The player is expected to help tell the other pcs' stories and get the same assistance in return - they'll talk and form connections and have heart-to-heart conversations about the crazy stuff that just happened.

or expectations

The character will be able to participate in story beats, but the dice may cause them to go in completely wild directions. They roll with it, and help other players tell other stories.

The overall story isn't really planned; the dm creates a setting and characters interact with it and something story-shaped emerges, but ideally not exactly what anyone was expecting.

they can be assured to carry when it comes to "neotrad" as a result of this or any other thread I've seen it come up. I use that six cultures of play article as a filter & almost always need to boot a player when they proudly shift blame for their behavior onto "well I'm neotrad" before demanding all kinds of changes.

Yeah, that's an uncool thing to do regardless of your personal style - I tend toward neotrad but it's on me to find games for that, it's not the dm's job to change their style to match my tastes. If it's a Traditional-Trad game I adjust my playstyle to match; if it's OSR I decline to play in the first place. The dm sets the style, not the players, unless the dm agrees to try to switch styles. (note: I've never seen a dm forced to switch styles who still managed to make it work; I have seen dm's decide to adjust their style after being exposed to how another dm does things.)

Are you trying to find players of many styles? That's... tricky, at best. It's probably better to just advertise your game as a specific style and only take players who want to do that.

I don't think that article accurately describes whatever neotrad is now because it seems to be an amorphous undefinable SEP shield that's too deep for anyone but people proclaiming to play neotrad to grasp.

I think the people you're running into are just entitled jerks; every style of play has those, but they're the exception everywhere. That's what I call the annoying-vegan fallacy: it's not that most vegans are annoying, it's that you don't even notice the not-annoying ones because they're just quietly eating carrots and corn and potato salad and not picking up a burger.

 

[zakael19]

This Tumblr post, linked in an earlier thread here on Neotrad games, is I think the best summation of "OC/Neotrad" play:

"And in a lot of games, you’re playing to create a blorbo, an OC, just a little guy, and the soul of the gameplay is the story of who your guy is and who your guy becomes."

I think we get a lot of the current shared play culture around that style of play from Tumblr and fic communities. There's a deal with the GM that you'll take into account the player's little backstories / flirtations with villains / extended IC back and forth as a core part of play, and integrate them into whatever plot is at hand. You get people who are very invested in their characters, commission artwork of them (or are not-unlikely to be artists themselves), quite probably write side fic about situations that had brief table time.

So, PC focused drama; space for players to freeform RP with minimal to no scene impact; backstories and espoused desires taken into account; and deep PC and PC -> NPC relationships. This may or may not involve power gaming / power fantasy implications, but if it does I think it's often indulged?

I have a couple OC focused players in a CoS campaign wrapping up. I felt it was a pretty straight mechanized outgrowth of free-form rule-less RP.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'll try, but I thik you have a bad luck problem, or perhaps just the annoying-vegan fallacy.

It's more than that. Neotrad screams to a certain type of problem player (lets call them Bob) who really bought into the role play side of rollplay vrs roleplay debates of old but it tends to actively go out of its way to avoid assigning anyone but the GM responsibilities or expectations to be upheld. That makes its presence in the six cultures post a great way to fast forward through the maze of unproductive discussion in order to arrive at "you need to find another table & gm" fast.

Make a character - not just a build or a token, and not just a name and some attributes. They should goals, motivations, fears, etc. This is a character for a story that we're going to create together. The player is expected to help tell the other pcs' stories and get the same assistance in return - they'll talk and form connections and have heart-to-heart conversations about the crazy stuff that just happened.

That's generally applicable to pretty much any ttrpg gameplay. You might as well include other low hanging fruit like accurately report the result of dice rolled

The character will be able to participate in story beats, but the dice may cause them to go in completely wild directions. They roll with it, and help other players tell other stories.

This might be the closest I've seen one of these threads ever come to admitting that neotrad doesn't invert the roles of worldbuilder responsible for running the world along with everything in it & individual with a single character within that world. It's a baby step though because neotrad needs to devote significantly more text to the player side of this than it does to players seizing GM responsibilities if & when they choose. Currently I can't say I've ever seen a description of neotrad do that in a way that I could point a player like Bob at

The overall story isn't really planned; the dm creates a setting and characters interact with it and something story-shaped emerges, but ideally not exactly what anyone was expecting.

Again this is something Neotrad desperately needs to be explicit about owning up to rather than providing a shield for misguided players to expect an [override the GM] button from neotrad.

Yeah, that's an uncool thing to do regardless of your personal style - I tend toward neotrad but it's on me to find games for that, it's not the dm's job to change their style to match my tastes. If it's a Traditional-Trad game I adjust my playstyle to match; if it's OSR I decline to play in the first place. The dm sets the style, not the players, unless the dm agrees to try to switch styles. (note: I've never seen a dm forced to switch styles who still managed to make it work; I have seen dm's decide to adjust their style after being exposed to how another dm does things.)

Absolutely true, but Neotrad encourages players to do it by being the only one of the six so poorly focused that it absolves the player from responsibility while blaming the GM. That problem is not helped by the way neotrad is again the odd man out that doesn't clearly lay out boundaries that would allow the GM to simply punt the claim out the door by pointing out that it's obviously not that type of game system/campaign/etc.

Are you trying to find players of many styles? That's... tricky, at best. It's probably better to just advertise your game as a specific style and only take players who want to do that.

I think the people you're running into are just entitled jerks; every style of play has those, but they're the exception everywhere. That's what I call the annoying-vegan fallacy: it's not that most vegans are annoying, it's that you don't even notice the not-annoying ones because they're just quietly eating carrots and corn and potato salad and not picking up a burger.

I've been GM'ing since 2e & top off player count from semiprivate games with frequently running public stuff in a population dense touristy area to further expand the sample size.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Boy, this thread is really pushing the boundaries of a + thread.

My read is that it's a game where both the players and the DM both help shape the fiction of the world. That does not need to mean "we're all kewl and focused on our own awesome selves, kapow, bang!"

Any time you ask your player "OK, describe your killing blow," you're asking them to contribute to the fiction of the world. If, as is suggested in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, you engage your players by asking them "what's something distinctive about this monster" or "what's unusual about this tavern you've just entered," you're doing the same.

Reducing this to "self-centered boobs who only want to be awesome" feels extremely unfair, especially as, I suspect, most groups have players contributing at least some of the fiction of the game world nowadays.

 

[overgeeked]

OC (as distinct from even neo-trad) is when the focus is on making cool characters, then you put them in situations where they can show off their cool stuff. It's going right for the power fantasy and skipping the "boring bits" to get there.

It can be a bit like eating ice cream for dinner; more fun when you're young, but I wouldn't look down on it - some people only run a dungeon crawl with no plot, some people are here just for a skirmish game, and some people hate when they have to roll a die to see if their attack hits. All-i-n on one thing can be lots of fun if everyone's down for it.

Edit: put another way, it's when the genre of fantasy you're trying to capture is isekai.

I think that’s where I’ve had problems. I’m not a fan of pure “I just win all the time” power fantasy.

What little isekai I’ve read or watched still has obstacles, setbacks, losing, etc all the normal things you’d expect from a story.

When I’ve played with OC/neo-trad players they’ve seemingly all wanted the former (“I just win”) without the latter (obstacles, setbacks, etc).

 

[Shardstone]

It's more than that. Neotrad screams to a certain type of problem player (lets call them Bob) who really bought into the role play side of rollplay vrs roleplay debates of old but it tends to actively go out of its way to avoid assigning anyone but the GM responsibilities or expectations to be upheld. That makes its presence in the six cultures post a great way to fast forward through the maze of unproductive discussion in order to arrive at "you need to find another table & gm" fast.

That's generally applicable to pretty much any ttrpg gameplay. You might as well include other low hanging fruit like accurately report the result of dice rolled

This might be the closest I've seen one of these threads ever come to admitting that neotrad doesn't invert the roles of worldbuilder responsible for running the world along with everything in it & individual with a single character within that world. It's a baby step though because neotrad needs to devote significantly more text to the player side of this than it does to players seizing GM responsibilities if & when they choose. Currently I can't say I've ever seen a description of neotrad do that in a way that I could point a player like Bob at

Again this is something Neotrad desperately needs to be explicit about owning up to rather than providing a shield for misguided players to expect an [override the GM] button from neotrad.

Absolutely true, but Neotrad encourages players to do it by being the only one of the six so poorly focused that it absolves the player from responsibility while blaming the GM. That problem is not helped by the way neotrad is again the odd man out that doesn't clearly lay out boundaries that would allow the GM to simply punt the claim out the door by pointing out that it's obviously not that type of game system/campaign/etc.

I've been GM'ing since 2e & top off player count from semiprivate games with frequently running public stuff in a population dense touristy area to further expand the sample size.

Honestly, your post reads as a gross generalization of a style of play based off your very mid experiences

 

[tetrasodium]

Honestly, your post reads as a gross generalization of a style of play based off your very mid experiences

I thought I was pretty clear about how neotrad needs to be proactive in suppling the missing specifics to those generalizations.