What Games do you think are Neotrad?

[aramis erak]

NeoTrad in particular is almost never pure and Trad rarely is, and this is a strength of both - while the mechanical focus is different. (There's a lot of OSR mechanically in 2e). And that's why I mentioned routinely using the mechanics; 5e has the flaws, ideals, and bonds (and whatever the fourth was - virtues?) but they almost never get used in actual play IME.

they did in the games I ran of 5e. A few players were upset by me asking about those elements in AL play; I found them useful in understanding whatthe player is likely to respond to; less useful in AL than home games,

 

[pemerton]

I think any game that could support trad could support neo-trad. Story games do benefit from different rules though you could probably just play with a certain perspective even in D&D and make it a story game.

Not while actually using the rules.
Otherwise, Every RPG is usable as a storygame... just ignore everything past character gen. Which, if that's one's rhetorical bent, makes discussion of rules utterly meaningless, and shifts Trad, Neotrad, Storygame, etc to playstyles.

I don't really know what makes something a "storygame" - given that I see it used to describe RPGs as different as Apocalypse World and Fate, I don't find it a very helpful category.

I can report, from experience, that it is possible to use AD&D and 4e D&D to run a "story now" game. And Ron Edwards has talked about using 3E D&D to run a "story now" game. 4e in my view is very robust for this purpose. AD&D is not, because both it's resolution rules and its approach to framing scenes (I say "approach to" rather than "rules for" because it's a bit loose to count as rules) are a bit unreliable as far as establishing clear stakes, and resolving them, are concerned.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't really know what makes something a "storygame" - given that I see it used to describe RPGs as different as Apocalypse World and Fate, I don't find it a very helpful category.

A Storygame was originally created to refer to non-open ended games (and My Life With Master in specific) that had arcs and limited numbers of sessions.

For the record Monsterhearts calls itself (and IMO is) a Storygame and I consider Apocalypse World to be one. Fate is pure distilled NeoTrad. Apocalypse World after character creation is frequently almost trad as well as being a Storygame although character creation is NeoTrad.

I can report, from experience, that it is possible to use AD&D and 4e D&D to run a "story now" game. And Ron Edwards has talked about using 3E D&D to run a "story now" game.

Storygames go waaaay beyond story now; story now without a specialised ruleset is NeoTrad

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really know what makes something a "storygame" - given that I see it used to describe RPGs as different as Apocalypse World and Fate, I don't find it a very helpful category.

I can report, from experience, that it is possible to use AD&D and 4e D&D to run a "story now" game. And Ron Edwards has talked about using 3E D&D to run a "story now" game. 4e in my view is very robust for this purpose. AD&D is not, because both it's resolution rules and its approach to framing scenes (I say "approach to" rather than "rules for" because it's a bit loose to count as rules) are a bit unreliable as far as establishing clear stakes, and resolving them, are concerned.

Well to be fair, "scene-framing" is not really what anyone was trying to accomplish at the time. A good number of folks don't see that term (or even that concept) as part of their gameplay of D&D and its relatives now.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would think a lot of this though relates to DM intention. If the PCs just up and kill the King, in one sense the spotlight will be upon them. I don't think though that is what is meant. For me, I'm guessing it means "Can this DM designed campaign house many groups over the years with vary levels of impact?" or is it "This campaign is designed top to bottom to spotlight a particular chosen group with a special destiny in the world?"

Yeah, but some of the things like contacts, allies, and enemies are going to do some of that unless the GM utterly ignores them. Remember, as the poster above said, the part of a campaign the characters are actually in can end up largely rotating around them without them necessarily having large reach. In fact its easier if they don't.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hero I consider like GURPS - a toolkit with both Trad and NeoTrad tools but some assembly required.

I think given your examples you'd have to actively avoid some of the tools to avoid some NeoTrad tendencies though; Hunteds, DNPCs, Contacts and a lot of the other social-connection elements.

 

[pemerton]

Storygames go waaaay beyond story now; story now without a specialised ruleset is NeoTrad

Well this is something I can understand, and very strongly disagree with.

Story now and neo-trad are completely different agendas of play. In the lexicon that "story now" is part of, neo-trad is (at least predominantly) a form of high concept simulationism. The players play to "be there" (primarily to be there in the story of their character). For elaboration of this point, see post 68 upthread.

When I say that I used AD&D to play a story now game, I'm using "story now" in that same sense; which is also the sense that Vincent Baker uses it in the AW acknowledgements when he says that the whole game follows from the essay "Narrativism: Story Now".

(Of course at the time I didn't have the vocabulary to describe what I was doing. I'm applying the label in retrospect.)

Well to be fair, "scene-framing" is not really what anyone was trying to accomplish at the time. A good number of folks don't see that term (or even that concept) as part of their gameplay of D&D and its relatives now.

They weren't using the label. But the opening and closing of scenes was a thing that mattered: in classic dungeon play, doors are pivotal to this which is one reason why there are so many rules about doors.

 

[GobHag]

Maybe the game styles bleed together at some point. But I'm thinking Game of Thrones is mostly trad whereas Lord of the Rings is clearly neo-trad. Epic fantasy is neo-trad in it's assumptions. Whereas perhaps Fafrd and Grey Mouser are more trad.

So a compelling subplot involving a PC is not enough to be neo-trad I wouldn't think. Those things happen in trad games too. The difference is whether the goal is for the PCs to be overwhelmingly important in the world or not.

I would not consider LotR to be NeoTrad imo. Maybe Hobbit.

But really, if people want to understand neoTrad, I'd suggest they play Final Fantasy 7--I think that's the most archetypical inspiration on what NeoTrad is imagined to look like for players, even the ecletic aesthetic sensibilities that those not into the scene or playstyle complain about.

 

[TwoSix]

Well this is something I can understand, and very strongly disagree with.

I agree with your disagreement.

To my mind, "story now"/storygames and Neotrad are alike in that they both explicitly foreground character concept and development as the focus of play, whereas trad and OSR/NSR play emphasize setting exploration.

Where storygames and Neotrad differ, for me, is that Neotrad games will also have a focus on more detailed mechanics, especially around character building. A game where characters are differentiated primarily by fictional tags and keywords (a la FATE) I see as one falling out of the Neotrad classification.

The reason so many games can slip between the Trad and Neotrad paradigms is because those games share a focus on granular character creation and growth, such as modern D&D.

 

[aramis erak]

One of the key elements amongst the storygames which makes them different is that most of them avoid the simulationist agenda; usually they have only two difficulties: automatic and needs a roll. they also prioritize player-centric adventure, and often incorporate in-party conflict in the intended playstyle.

I don't think Fate fits squarely into either Neotrad nor Storygame, but in a hybrid space between.