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

[bloodtide]

That’s not deep role playing, that’s a unique form of granular backstory. What is deep role playing to you? And where are these trad tables you see it at?

(The first part is a trick question - people have been struggling with it since the mid 1970s, back when strident arguments were made that any form of rules made it impossible to role play).

My answer is above.

And this is one of the pillars of Traditional play. Traditional play is the DM writing a novel with the PCs as main characters. So players need to act (deep role play) their characters.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Acronyms, in general, are out of control.

things are simply out of control in general, honestly.

 

[overgeeked]

That’s not deep role playing, that’s a unique form of granular backstory. What is deep role playing to you? And where are these trad tables you see it at?

(The first part is a trick question - people have been struggling with it since the mid 1970s, back when strident arguments were made that any form of rules made it impossible to role play).

Deep role-playing is when you don’t act on out-of-character knowledge. First-level novice adventurer with 0 XP and you don’t instantly attack the troll with fire? That’s some next-level enlightenment right there.

 

[CandyLaser]

Well, your not doing anything to the player . But it's not removing the character from the game, just effecting them. An archer with no bow can still go on the adventure.

This is disingenuous. I was referring to this:

I'm talking about when the character becomes a duck for several game sessions, maybe weeks or months in real life time.

I quoted that line and a few others. Turning a character into a duck for months radically diminishes and potentially entirely removes a player's ability to meaningfully play the game in a way that taking away a character's weapon, even their main weapon, does not. Honestly, I have trouble seeing the former as anything other than petty cruelty to inflict that sort of treatment on someone who I'm playing with.

As pointed out above, I never said "this never ever happens" or anything like that. I said it was rare in a Neo T game, yes. Any individual game can have bits and parts of others.

And here you're misrepresenting yourself. Let me quote you, once again:

But I would think only traditional has the events like the characters falling off a bridge into a raging river and loosing many of their items.

I've gone ahead and boldly the part where you say it's a feature of only traditional play.

Also I note your only talking about taking the characters gear away for a short time, and then saying they will get it all back

Again, completely mischaracterizing what I explicitly said. They've already been without for several real-life weeks and will continue to be without for at least a couple more. That's precisely the thing that you said was characteristic of only traditional play!

Also, also, you don't mention what the gear is...is it just like "a pair of sturdy boots" or is it like an archer losing their bow or a wizard losing their spellbook? Because that is what I'm talking about.

It is literally everything they owned, including their physical form. The character went from a physically strong magically-powered construct with rocket fists, teleportation powers, and lots of other tricks to a sentient cloud of expanding and cooling magical plasma. They got back a body relatively easily, but the body has none of their powers and just lets them interact with the physical world again.

Well, ok, that is that one specific game?

PBtA is short for Powered By the Apocalypse; it is not one game but a framework/engine for many games. It shares design elements with tons and tons of games that don't share its basic mechanics as well. But frankly, I don't see the need to educate you on the subject, and this isn't the place to do it anyway.

But if you have shared power and control...equally...then each player would have veto power. That is how "shared" works.

"Shared" does not entail "shared equally." When the Conservatives and the Lib Dems ran a coalition government in the UK, they shared power, but there was no doubt that the Conservatives had more power than the Lib Dems. Nor does equal sharing of power entail that everyone can veto. It might be that no one can veto. It might be that different players can veto different things. It might be that some things can't be vetoed and others can. A veto might involve a vote—anyone can propose something, and if a majority agrees, that's what happens.

And one game might involve more than one of these alternatives. I'm thinking here about systems where the party has some shared resource which a character can spend to benefit themselves. For example, the Outgunned system gives players a limited number of 'Plan B's' which can be invoked to 1) essentially guarantee success at a single action by a single character or 2) introduce a major narrative twist, like a fully armed helicopter gunship showing up to provide you covering fire in a risky firefight. Any player can spend a Plan B whenever they want, but to do so, they have to propose it. Then, if most of the other players agree that it's cool, it works. If they don't agree, the player who wanted to use the Plan B can go ahead and use it anyway—but as a consequence, they're not allowed to use any more Plan B's for the rest of the campaign, and they don't get any benefit from a Plan B used by anyone else either.

 

[bloodtide]

I quoted that line and a few others. Turning a character into a duck for months radically diminishes and potentially entirely removes a player's ability to meaningfully play the game in a way that taking away a character's weapon, even their main weapon, does not. Honestly, I have trouble seeing the former as anything other than petty cruelty to inflict that sort of treatment on someone who I'm playing with.

Yes, it is a big deal.....that is the point.

I get that you don't like it...and that's fine. But not when you make the leap from "you don't like it" to "it is wrong". Note there are many players that will just play through such an event, even if they don't "like it".

I've gone ahead and boldly the part where you say it's a feature of only traditional play.

Well, note "I would think" does make it not a hard stone fact or anything. Also like I said here is the bit of a false comparison. When I say losing items, as I said, I'm talking about the loss of major items that greatly effect the character and can not be easily replaced.

Again, completely mischaracterizing what I explicitly said. They've already been without for several real-life weeks and will continue to be without for at least a couple more. That's precisely the thing that you said was characteristic of only traditional play!

Well, you know Neo T does have elements of Traditional play. Still though, you are saying "gone for a bit and then coming right back" and not "gone forever" right?

It is literally everything they owned, including their physical form. The character went from a physically strong magically-powered construct with rocket fists, teleportation powers, and lots of other tricks to a sentient cloud of expanding and cooling magical plasma. They got back a body relatively easily, but the body has none of their powers and just lets them interact with the physical world again.

Sounds very Traditional.

Deep role-playing is when you don’t act on out-of-character knowledge. First-level novice adventurer with 0 XP and you don’t instantly attack the troll with fire? That’s some next-level enlightenment right there.

Most just call that not metagaming, right?

 

[CandyLaser]

Yes, it is a big deal.....that is the point.

I get that you don't like it...and that's fine. But not when you make the leap from "you don't like it" to "it is wrong". Note there are many players that will just play through such an event, even if they don't "like it".

Yes, and knowingly inflicting treatment on someone that they don't like, for months on end, during an event they ostensibly do because they want to enjoy it, seems performatively cruel to me. Telling me that people will endure it doesn't make it less of a bad thing to do to them.

Well, note "I would think" does make it not a hard stone fact or anything.

I understand that you are stating your belief. That belief is indeed not a hard stone fact, because it's just false. Because I can draw inferences from past events, I don't expect that having this pointed out to you complete with counterexamples to your claim will really affect this belief, but hope springs eternal I suppose.

Also like I said here is the bit of a false comparison. When I say losing items, as I said, I'm talking about the loss of major items that greatly effect the character and can not be easily replaced.

I also understand that you are talking about inflicting a significant loss on a character. That is why my counterexample is a counterexample.

Well, you know Neo T does have elements of Traditional play. Still though, you are saying "gone for a bit and then coming right back" and not "gone forever" right?

It is "gone for a bit and eventually replaceable, after a month or more of real time." You know, exactly the thing you said was found in only traditional games.

Sounds very Traditional.

And we cap off this display with a classic No True Scotsman. I really dislike acting like one of those guys who thinks naming a fallacy is some sort of rhetorical deathblow, but it's clear that you're trying to imply that the game I'm running isn't really an example of neo-trad play, rather than acknowledge that the very things you say are characteristic of traditional play are found in neo-trad play as well, and are thus not characteristic of traditional play.

I don't think further discussion on this topic is appropriate for the thread or likely to be productive, so I'll bow out of this digression from the intended topic at this point. I'm happy to talk more about what I like about neo-trad play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

methinks your perception of the isekai genre might be slightly skewed if you think the point of the entire genre is being powerfantasy wish fufilment, i don't deny there's a disproportionate amount of powerfantasy isekai but it's not the point of it.

I am considering this in the context of the current cultural malaise Japan is experiencing. Being a sarariman slaving away for The Company is...not exactly a pleasant experience. There's a reason they have a word for death from overwork (karoshi).

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I get that you don't like it...and that's fine. But not when you make the leap from "you don't like it" to "it is wrong". Note there are many players that will just play through such an event, even if they don't "like it".

 

[zakael19]

Yes, it is a big deal.....that is the point.

I get that you don't like it...and that's fine. But not when you make the leap from "you don't like it" to "it is wrong". Note there are many players that will just play through such an event, even if they don't "like it".



Well, note "I would think" does make it not a hard stone fact or anything. Also like I said here is the bit of a false comparison. When I say losing items, as I said, I'm talking about the loss of major items that greatly effect the character and can not be easily replaced.

Well, you know Neo T does have elements of Traditional play. Still though, you are saying "gone for a bit and then coming right back" and not "gone forever" right?

Sounds very Traditional.

Most just call that not metagaming, right?

What are you even here for? Neotrad games just don't do that level of character de-protagonizing without working it out beforehand. Newer systems built specifically to accommodate this style of gameplay in-rules either don't provide that sort of option, or specifically tell the GM they need player permission. Again, look at the death systems in Fabula Ultima + Daggerheart - both require player permission for true death to happen (although in the former at least, there's no coming back - you go out in a narrative + mechanical blaze of glory and your soul rejoins the lifestream).

Instead of taking the player's ability to play their character away, narrative setback happens - a favored NPC dies, the villain's plans move forward, their home village is razed, etc - something that the GM has telegraphed as a potential badness. When the goal of the game is to find out how the heroes are going to win (I think this is a pretty default assumption of neotrad too?), narrative setbacks add richness and further play.

So, anyway, what has all your posting here to do with what people like or find fun about Neotrad? You just seem to be telling us that we don't do things and trad is better?

 

[CandyLaser]

What are you even here for? Neotrad games just don't do that level of character de-protagonizing without working it out beforehand. Newer systems built specifically to accommodate this style of gameplay in-rules either don't provide that sort of option, or specifically tell the GM they need player permission. Again, look at the death systems in Fabula Ultima + Daggerheart - both require player permission for true death to happen (although in the former at least, there's no coming back - you go out in a narrative + mechanical blaze of glory and your soul rejoins the lifestream).

I know I said I was done on this topic, but I did want to chime in once more after all. I think this is largely correct, and one might wonder how to square that with my example, from a supposedly neo-trad leaning game, of the GM inflicting that level of consequence on a player without first asking if the player was cool with it. In this case, it was because it occurred in a context in the game where the GM is explicitly licensed to do that. In Fellowship, if the villainous Overlord the PCs are trying to stop is in a scene and takes out a PC, they can offer that PC a life-or-death deal; if the PC rejects it, then the GM (in the role of the Overlord) can inflict whatever consequences they want. There are other situations where it could happen, but generally it would have to be heralded in some way or other; the player would have to know it's on the table as a possibility.