What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

[RenleyRenfield]

I don't know if you consider this relevant, but Synnibarr has a DM challenge mechanic to give players agency over DM rulings. It was formally published in 1991, but predates that by a number of years as a self-published game. So, no, PbtA was not first to the market with that idea, nor is it quite that modern (time wise) .

No, you are incorrect. Synnibarr has no such GM limiting mechanic. Fate (the GM) literally has a sentence that says "Fate has absolute control over the roll, and interpretation of the rules." at most, players can challenge a GM if they think the GM was not using the rules. That is ENTIRELY not the same thing as "The system makes the ruling, not the GM". See PBTA moves for reference.

As I stated earlier = "What makes a modern mechanic is that its part of the majority of design and mechanic principles now".

Most every game made since 2018 is now incorporating success with complications, fail forward, no failed rolls (see Draw Steel), and a very large number of GM no-roll games - where the GM no longer even rolls dice. Again, some of these things were bits and bobs in the past, but none of them were the standard of play, nor were they common. By such a wide margin that some of those games can't even be found anymore, let along still have a market impact.

Heck, just the idea of Player Agency is a term designers and mechanics are striving for and to define, which was not part of the vernacular or process in 1992 across any major group. GURPS and Vampire the Masquerade is good proof of that.

Think also about the push for typical concepts "This game is deadly" = again by a wide margin - very few new players want this. It is seen in the last game polls that most all new players voted overwhelmingly that they don't like super deadly systems. Yet that was a common design practice in 1992. So its a "Modern mechanic to make characters far more survivable and powerful". This is a modern push, a modern goal by the industry overall. Where as in 1992, this would have been greatly reversed, because the old goal was to make games lethal.

 

[payn]

Other than intentional design how would one describe designing from a vision and only including mechanics that contribute to the realization of said vision (and that actively contribute to play)? What do you call the process of design that answers these three questions:

I could see the vision in two ways that come to mind framed from the discussion so far.

1. What is the game about?
2. How is the game about that?
3. What behaviours does the game incentivise in the players?

Generic

1. Cyberpunk
2. It has general rules for body augmentation, hacking computers, various near future combat.
3. XP systems for advancement

Specific

1. Emulating the film Bladerunner in the cyberpunk genre.
2. It puts the players in the Bladerunner shoes deciding bewteen carrying out their duties and caring about their humanity
3. Mechanics reward both doing the job, and siding with their humanity. The player is forced to walk between the two to capture the feel instilled from the novel and film.

 

[Aldarc]

Meh.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I could see the vision in two ways that come to mind framed from the discussion so far.

Generic

1. Cyberpunk
2. It has general rules for body augmentation, hacking computers, various near future combat.
3. XP systems for advancement

Specific

1. Emulating the film Bladerunner in the cyberpunk genre.
2. It puts the players in the Bladerunner shoes deciding bewteen carrying out their duties and caring about their humanity
3. Mechanics reward both doing the job, and siding with their humanity. The player is forced to walk between the two to capture the feel instilled from the novel and film.

CyberPunk 2020 is a good example of design and mechanic working to empower a theme and gameplay.
I am not sure what version you are mentioning here. But there is even more to CP2020 than how you phrase it in your 'specific' section =

1. What is the game about? = Every page and every book title oooozes with "Cyber and Punk or both". From "Listen up you primitive screwheads" being an actual book you can buy, to chapters on Friday night fireight and all things dark and cyberpnk. In short = there is no page in the 2020 book that you can pick which dose not barf forth cyberpunk.

2. How is the GAME about that? The game, the rules, the MECHANICS = and in 2020 its a ALL about it. The game is made deadly the rules for combat maim characters fast and easy, so that you have to get cybernetics to survive and the rules on cybernetics are extensive for all your needs, but cybernetics cost money and get you in debt with the corps, so you have to be a punk and rage against the machine they are trying to grind you into but interacting with the money rules. So you take jobs to pay the debts and screw the man.

3. What behaviours does the game incentivise in the players? = beyond what I stated above = the IP (XP) mechanics are based on players engaging with the game in new and inventive ways that push their character. The chart on how many points to award is based on Style, Ambition, and Results... even more so if its a key skill the character has to get the task done. This is a actual game mechanic and has a page of rules to enforce it.

 

[payn]

CyberPunk 2020 is a good example of design and mechanic working to empower a theme and gameplay.
I am not sure what version you are mentioning here. But there is even more to CP2020 than how you phrase it in your 'specific' section =

Generically speaking of a Cyberpunk game. If you want an example though id go with Carbon2185 reskin of 5E.

 

[loverdrive]

The word "modern" is an indication of placement in time, not of quality. It is an era, not a spectrum of greatness.

Then within a discussion of tabletop games, such a definition is useless, it describes nothing. Time has no relation to quality, or even substance of the mechanics -- in every era, there were wildly different game systems (and interpretations of the same game systems).

What's there even to discuss about "modern mechanics", if it's only about time? Masks: The New Generation came out in the same time period as Level Up 5E, basically incomparable games.

(but even then, games that came later, broadly, tend to have more effort put into clear and concise wordings, layouting and presentation in general, so to take an old system and make it "modern" is to clean up the presentation)

 

[Umbran]

Basically, knowing the difference between a general purpose tool and a special purpose one just can't seem pretentious to me.

There's a bit of a gap between "knowing the difference between them" and "actively denigrating one" though.

General purpose tools are not "aimless", and dismissing them as such does come across as pretty condescending or pretentious. Sorry.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then within a discussion of tabletop games, such a definition is useless, it describes nothing. Time has no relation to quality, or even substance of the mechanics -- in every era, there were wildly different game systems (and interpretations of the same game systems).

What's there even to discuss about "modern mechanics", if it's only about time? Masks: The New Generation came out in the same time period as Level Up 5E, basically incomparable games.

(but even then, games that came later, broadly, tend to have more effort put into clear and concise wordings, layouting and presentation in general, so to take an old system and make it "modern" is to clean up the presentation)

I agree. Modern as applies to RPG mechanics means little outside of academic discussions of gaming history, and is dangerous to boot, as people tend to associate the word with quality.

 

[SableWyvern]

How do you view generic systems in this context? Or, as @Campbell referenced upthread, games that have, from lack of a better term, a topic, but don't really seem to have a theme, or at least the mechanics aren't set up to support that theme particularly?

It would depend on the specific game, but part of the intent is obviously to allow a variety of settings and/or styles to be played. At a baseline and speaking broadly, I don't think it's controversial or requires much effort to identify that the intent of GURPS is to allow for the simulation a variety of reasonably grounded worlds. To allow players to engage in a variety of settings and styles with a consistent underlying framework.

I don't see how someone could argue in good faith that GURPS' was designed aimlessly, without thought or clear intent. Gun Fu and Tactical Combat may have each been designed with different intent, but they each, individually have a clear and unambiguous intent.

The question itself seems, to me, to presuppose that intent, by default, requires narrow focus and a single clear theme, and that the only valid intent is to create systems and mechanics whose purpose is to drive play and engagement with the thene; for some reason intending to create mechanics whose role is to simulate a world or simply to insert or resolve uncertainty seems to be treated as not really intentional at all.

 

[Aldarc]

I agree. Modern as applies to RPG mechanics means little outside of academic discussions of gaming history, and is dangerous to boot, as people tend to associate the word with quality.

It's hardly dangerous to call something "modern" in an informal online discussion, but claiming that doing so is "dangerous" is certainly hyperbolic.

To echo what SableWyvern said earlier:

But it's this ludicrous academic perversion of the term modern that actually makes me OK with it in this context. If people are using modern to literally mean, "things being produced at the moment" then Modern mechanics and philosophies run the full gamut, and the term really is meaningless.

If, instead, it refers to a design philosophy that seems to be reasonably popular at the time the phrase is becoming popular, then it works just fine.