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

[soviet]

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:

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

Yeah. I think 'intentional' is a pretty good descriptor of this but I agree that the antonym 'aimless' is pretty unfair.

'Curated' design versus 'broad' design? There's a sense in a lot of traditional games that of course you have a combat system and an encumbrance system and so on. Even if the game is ostensibly about something very different. Whereas more modern games might not only jettison such things but might have additional mechanical support for the power of friendship or the phases of the moon or something that would be wholly out of place in most other contexts.

I suspect the real answer is ultimately 'post-forge' and 'non-forge' but too many people get upset about such things.

 

[Lanefan]

I find the entire concept of general use games versus specialized games to be one of the more silly ideas in the hobby because it assumes gameplay has no real value on its own (and thus a "general use" game can be a substitute for a "specialized" game if used well).

If I'm designing a game system in hopes of reaching an audience greater than friends and family, I'm going to try my best to make that game be as general-use as possible; and leave it to individual tables to - maybe with help from some supplements or options - make it work for the specific style and-or genre of game they want to play.

This was the intent behind GURPS, as made clear by the very fact that the "G" there stands for Generic.

That, and the corollary intent that gameplay in GURPS would be vaguely familiar to the players regardless of genre - you could play zombies GURPS or cold-war-spy GURPS or medieval GURPS and the underlying system would still be familiar enough to avoid having to go through a big long learning curve every time you changed genres.

Given this, I'd say there's every bit as much 'intent' involved in designing a generic game as there is in designing a specific one, even if those intentions are different.

 

[pemerton]

PbtA have gone a completely different direction and have taken the indie game mechanics by storm, with tons of copycat games. This is a relatively "modern" conceit; the idea of narrative meta-mechanics and players forcing the game in a way that previously would have been the sovereign territory of GMs only.

What are the "meta-mechanics" in Apocalypse World?

 

[Aldarc]

If I'm designing a game system in hopes of reaching an audience greater than friends and family, I'm going to try my best to make that game be as general-use as possible;

Based on Kickstarters I've seen, "if I'm designing a game system in hopes of reaching an audience greater than friends and family," then I would hitch my TTRPG wagon to a popular IP like Cosmere, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, or Alien. This is assuming that I'm not just doing a random 5e book that sells like hotcakes.

 

[soviet]

I can't agree here; oD&D is primitive, not sloppy. Gygax and Arneson were working out things as they went and it shows. (It's also unclear). You need to wait for AD&D before the subsystems multiplied and the design got sloppy.

I would liken early D&D to a carpentered box. The initial design might not have been particularly planned, it was made from offcuts found around the convention centre, some of the measurements were wrong, and it uses three different types of wood, but over time it was lovingly shaped and sanded into something that just fundamentally worked and was sorta beautiful.

I think a lot of old trad RPG design was mostly along the lines of taking the same box and subtracting elves, or taking the same box and adding three shelves and painting it sci-fi. I think modern/post-forge design is a bit more akin to designing a box in a computer with full control over the design specs and pressing print on a 3D printer. More intentional, more focused, with perhaps less opportunity to be surprised by an unexpected interaction or wrinkle.

 

[billd91]

Yeah. I think 'intentional' is a pretty good descriptor of this but I agree that the antonym 'aimless' is pretty unfair.

'Curated' design versus 'broad' design? There's a sense in a lot of traditional games that of course you have a combat system and an encumbrance system and so on. Even if the game is ostensibly about something very different. Whereas more modern games might not only jettison such things but might have additional mechanical support for the power of friendship or the phases of the moon or something that would be wholly out of place in most other contexts.

I suspect the real answer is ultimately 'post-forge' and 'non-forge' but too many people get upset about such things.

Terms like thematic or focused design vs broad or generalist design can, I think, cover the differences in intention by the designers without characterizing a particular design intention as deficient, aimless, or lazy.
If we were to use a medical analogy, people usually don't characterize general or family practitioners as deficient compared to a specialist like a neurologist or nephrologist. They're just useful in different scenarios depending on the need of the patient (or, back to games, player).

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Yeah. I think 'intentional' is a pretty good descriptor of this but I agree that the antonym 'aimless' is pretty unfair.

Terms like thematic or focused design vs broad or generalist design can, I think, cover the differences in intention by the designers without characterizing a particular design intention as deficient, aimless, or lazy.

"Aimless" is my word in this conversation, and I agree there are better words, but I feel like I should mention that I wasn't using it to castigate specific design intentions or designs (nor did I mention any specific games) as much as describe a creative process that was particularly unfocused or without defined purpose. Although "aimless" might not be the best word, I'm not sure it's particularly unreasonable there.

Edit: removed spare "my."

 

[SableWyvern]

The problem that produces is that in a certain sense, a generic game system doesn't by itself have intent. What I mean by that is its not aimed at doing a specific thing; in fact its very actively aimed at not doing that.

This seems, again, to be nothing other than saying "Only a single, unified and narrow intent counts as being intentional.

Pick up Tactical Shooting, look through it for 90 seconds and try telling me with a straight face that the author's intention is unclear.

As best I can tell, the crux of your argument is that because Gun Fu was written with different intent, GURPS lacks intent. As I've stated repeatedly, this is false. It simply means it does not have a single, narrow, unified intent involving the way the mechanics drive play.

I think "intent" and "purpose" should probably be made more distinct for that reason here. A game aimed at a theme or specific of genre has an "intent"; its trying to get a specific kind of result. A generic game, or a game theoretically aimed at those themes or genres that doesn't do that lacks intent, but at least in the former case, may still have "purpose".

This sounds like sophistry to me. Tactical Shooting has a purpose, sure. But it doesn't have purpose in lieu of having been created with clear authorial intent. It is only able to serve it's purpose because someone formed the intention to make such a product and then carefully and skilfully crafted a range of optional rules that deliver on that intent. To suggest the author is lacking intent feels genuinely ludicrous to me. To suggest that Apocolypse World, the product, has both a purpose and inherent intent, while Tactical Shooting (and GURPS as a whole) might have purpose, but is unable to contain the very special Modern quality of intent, comes across as incredibly pretentious, and very silly.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Based on Kickstarters I've seen, "if I'm designing a game system in hopes of reaching an audience greater than friends and family," then I would hitch my TTRPG wagon to a popular IP like Cosmere, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, or Alien. This is assuming that I'm not just doing a random 5e book that sells like hotcakes.

You are correct. but... This goes soooo much deeper.

As Chaosium has found, even when you have a successful IP, i's hard to get out of, or heavily alter a system thanks to elder residual sales. Is BRP right for RuneQuest and Cthulhu? Maybe, maybe not. Is BRP the best system for Cthulhu or RuneQuest? Maybe, but probably not - but it does not matter. Changing either of those venerable games from their core systems by the parent IP owner would likely destroy the established fan base.

So then what? = Sell your IP to others and let them make sidereal games (as Call of Cthulhu does). Or publish IP content with no rules (as RuenQuest does) allowing players to use any version of the rules they like, but still come to you for the big IP sales.

....

And then we have Monte Cook games, selling a million dollar Kickstarter on what amounts to a GURPS system but with intent for bespoke alterations (which IMHO, is the very core reason why GURPS is a rather poor choice for most all games). They did make money on the Magnus Archives (big IP), but Invisible Sun did fine in its own right, with no grand IP source....

...
There are even more variants and sub parts to selling a game...

 

[RenleyRenfield]

This seems, again, to be nothing other than saying "Only a single, unified and narrow intent counts as being intentional.

...

I wonder if what they are getting at is more along the lines of = "No matter what gun you use in GURPS, the rules make all gunplay feel the same." action cars, spy missions, pirates, civil war, take your pick - the rules are the same with such small nuances that make no real gameplay different. The feel of interacting with the rules is the same, and the roleplay does not feel informed differently by rules for each, since the mechanics are the same - by definition of GURPS.

Where as gunplay in Apocalypse World versus Outgunned make for VREY different gunplay experience. And the rules give players very different play and interactions, not just a few nuanced differences - like sweepingly HUGE different gameplay that feel very much like mad max or die hard. and are in no way interchangeable.

A general purpose game like GURPS or Hero is not really being designed with a theme or even a tone intrinsically in mind; ...

yes yes? (see above)