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

[Micah Sweet]

And I wasn't talking about what people would do now with decades more of accumulate, but my attitude toward it back then. So here we are.

It's interesting from an academic point of view (which I do appreciate), but I don't see what real value it has now for game designers in 2025. We do have decades more accumulate.

 

[thefutilist]

One of the things people miss about Apocalypse World is just how good the pacing is. Vincent Baker's background is as a tabletop roleplayer - but Meguey Baker's is as a freeform roleplayer and has been (at least since Dogs in the Vineyard) his first and most important playtester when she's not his co-author. And most freeform roleplayers have a hard time adapting to tabletop (and indeed find tabletop crawls) because they need to go stop-start into the mechanics when they make skill rolls. Moves in Apocalypse World are written the way they are because they come in when freeform roleplayers would naturally hand over the narration, so they don't actually break the flow of freeform, just make the handover slightly clunkier but a lot more interesting with it.

Apocalypse World is frequently played, for this reason, as freeform plus rules and dice (which, yes, is high improv). And it's this pacing element (which was inherited by many of the better PbtA games but not IME by e.g. Blades in the Dark) that means that Apocalypse World works better than even lighter trad games like Fudge or Risus for high improv games. The mechanics are well considered but not considered at the same angle you're looking at.

And as an aside in actual practice a PbtA GM has, in my experience, significantly more actual practical power in the moment than a D&D GM does. Both a DM and an MC can basically do whatever they want offscreen and then bring a giant monster onto the screen. Or just say "rocks fall and everyone dies". But if they start doing things because they'd be funny or ironic every time the players turned around they'd soon lose their table although they can on every natural 1. Meanwhile the MC gets an opportunity to do this on every miss - every roll of six or less is a hard move. The normal D&D rule on a failed roll is "do diddly squat" which the DM follows; the PbtA rule is "escalate within reason however you think is appropriate for the situation and here is a list of appropriate suggestions, including splitting up the party, capturing a PC, taking away their stuff, or ironically reversing whatever they tried to do".

So what I mean when I say high improv is that the resolution mechanics can introduce characters and retcon motivations and effectiveness.


Here are some examples:

Fred is trying to prevent an audit of his ghost hunting business. He's arguing with a city official and trying to persuade them that they've already filed their paperwork (because they have). They roll the dice and fail and the GM introduces a fact, the official knows there are dodgy goings on because they were tipped off by Fred's ex-boyfriend.

In a basic resolution system we're just seeing if Fred persuades the official. We're not introducing the fact about the ex-boyfriend in response to the roll.


Later on Fred is fighting the Vampire Count. he goes to stake him and rolls and fails. This time the GM narrates that the stake does pierce the Vampires heart, killing him BUT the doors of the mansion are thrust open and the counts coterie of fledging Vampires starts swarming the place.

In a basic resolution system we're just seeing if Fred stakes the count or not. Whether there are other Vampires would have to be determined by the GM, ideally before Fred even arrived at the Counts mansion.


If you're playing Apocalypse World in the high improv way as opposed to the basic way. It means a lot of the resources (effectiveness) the characters have might not matter. Prep stuff like tracking gang size or writing up the detailed history of NPC's or creating countdown clocks also doesn't seem to fit within that style all that well. It seems like you'd be throwing a lot of that stuff out.

EDIT: I guess the short version is that the high improv style doesn't seem to work well with prep.

 

[soviet]

The GM is not mechanics. And the actual mechanics serve to model the world. It's that world, and the PCs interactions with it, that drive the game, not the mechanics themselves.

I'm sorry, but this is why the 'dead horse' of hit points keeps being brought up. Because the assertion that the rules of D&D serve only to model the world, and could not therefore have an agenda or a driving effect in play, is completely undermined by how hit points work. They are not even slightly realistic, they are a deliberate abstraction to allow characters to have regular fights (6 to 8 times a day!) while mitigating and making transparent the risk of defeat, and removing almost altogether the risk of maiming or long term injury.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Are you arguing that both types of system work essentially the same way, or just arguing about the choice of wording?

If the latter, feel free to pitch a better phrase. I'm not attached to any particular verbiage; I took the "drive play" phrasing from people who want modern mechanics explaining what they want and like about them. It seems to fit for me, but if you want to consider any instance of the rules telling you what happened as driving play, that's certainly your prerogative. It just seems like pointlessly muddying the waters of the discussion, though, given that everyone else -- both those who want modern mechanics and those who don't -- seems to be on the same page with this.

I’m trying to maybe narrow in on the difference. Not saying they do exactly the same thing… but there are similarities, and mechanics producing results (which is how I see the idea of “driving play”) is one such similarity. So is “the players make decisions” that drive play.

I’m trying to home in on where the distinction you’re touched on actually happens.

I'd think that would be table specific (my use of the word "participant" rather than "player" was entirely intentional). In my own games, I generally fall into the "GM sets up situations, players deal with and interact with them in play as they see fit" philosophy. But I'm not interested in rehashing a couple-thousand pages of arguments from the conservatism in gaming thread about what constitutes a player-driven game.

I’m not looking to do that either. I think it may be table dependent. Or game dependent (assuming people adhere to the rules as presented for whatever game).

It seems to me that the outcomes of actions is where the distinction comes in, and your description above of GM setting up situations and players interact with them doesn’t touch on the outcomes of the interactions.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The GM is not mechanics. And the actual mechanics serve to model the world. It's that world, and the PCs interactions with it, that drive the game, not the mechanics themselves.

I didn’t say the GM was mechanics. I said that the way in which you’ve described the GM, I wouldn’t expect resistance from you about the idea that the GM helps drive the game.

Do you think the GM plays a part in driving the game?

I didn’t comment on the purpose of mechanics… whether they serve to model the world or not, they still drive play.

Do you think that mechanics can help drive play in a more traditional approach to RPGs? Use the attack and damage example I mentioned, or the dungeon turns and random encounter checks of early editions of play as another.

 

[SableWyvern]

I’m trying to maybe narrow in on the difference. Not saying they do exactly the same thing… but there are similarities, and mechanics producing results (which is how I see the idea of “driving play”) is one such similarity. So is “the players make decisions” that drive play.

I’m trying to home in on where the distinction you’re touched on actually happens.



I’m not looking to do that either. I think it may be table dependent. Or game dependent (assuming people adhere to the rules as presented for whatever game).

It seems to me that the outcomes of actions is where the distinction comes in, and your description above of GM setting up situations and players interact with them doesn’t touch on the outcomes of the interactions.

I gave numerous examples in the post of mine you originally quoted, of ways in which I believe modern mechanics can drive play and directly contrasted that with other methods. I'm really not sure what I can add or where you feel I've failed to be clear in the drawing the distinction.

The words we use can have many different meanings, depending on context and perspective, and I absolutely do agree that you could make a perfectly cogent argument from first principles that traditional mechanics also drive play. However, that hasn't been the way we traditionally described such mechanics and I'm not sure it's all that relevant to the actual points being made. As mentioned in an earlier post, I don't really care one way or the other about the actual terminology that is settled on, but it seems pointless to try and change the jargon at this point.

Pertinent sections of my previous post, where I feel I already addressed the questions you're now asking:

"the whole "success with a complication" as a central feature is one obvious thing to me. The mechanics are explicitly telling you, "the game needs to move forward and something interesting must happen at this point."

***​

"At a more basic level, the philosophy that "nothing much happens; the status quo is maintained" is an unacceptable outcome -- instead, any interaction with the mechanics must happen in such a way that doing so moves the game forward somehow.

***​

In a traditional game "the game mechanics themselves aren't intentionally being built to generate complications, challenges, dilemmas, demand action or what-have-you."

***​

"In a traditional game about political intrigue and fear of betrayal, the players make decisions, the rules ... provide outcomes, and everyone is just expected to play along with the premise. The rules themselves don't generate intrigue and fear of betrayal, they just assess what happens in an environment where those things exist.

"In a modern game, the mechanics might directly say, "you now need to make a hard choice: do you remain loyal, at a cost to yourself, or betray your patron in this matter?" Again, I'm not greatly positioned to elaborate on how all these mechanics might work, but my feeling is they would be designed specifically to create intrigue and fear of betrayal."

***​

"Note that, the participants' decisions actually drive play in both situations -- I'm not saying this responsibility is completely offloaded to the mechanics. It would be slightly more accurate to say that in the modern version, the mechanics mandate that play is always driven in the direction of the theme, instead of leaving it up to the players to ensure that happens."

 

[Campbell]

"Note that, the participants' decisions actually drive play in both situations -- I'm not saying this responsibility is completely offloaded to the mechanics. It would be slightly more accurate to say that in the modern version, the mechanics mandate that play is always driven in the direction of the theme, instead of leaving it up to the players to ensure that happens."

There definitely is a difference. To this last part I would add that traditional game mechanics often ended up pushing play away from the thematic concerns we were all trying to keep our focus on. It did not just leave it up to us, but often both setting and mechanical concerns often fought us every inch of the way despite having tables full of people dedicated to thematic concerns.

 

[SableWyvern]

There definitely is a difference. To this last part I would add that traditional game mechanics often ended up pushing play away from the thematic concerns we were all trying to keep our focus on. It did not just leave it up to us, but often both setting and mechanical concerns often fought us every inch of the way despite having tables full of people dedicated to thematic concerns.

I would be very hesitant to allow for a broad generalisation that traditional mechanics hamper play in the way you describe, but have no issues with the idea that they can or do for some groups.

That said, it also occurs to me that one of the reasons this has never really been an issue for me is that I have a tendency to be very particular about what system I use for what setting/style and I approach every game as a toolkit. This being the case, by the time a system hits my table, it's likely I've already modified anything that isn't going to work the way I want it to. I have a tendency to be pretty generous towards what some people would consider faulty, sloppy or incomplete rules, because I never approach a game expecting it to just work out of the box in the first place. All of which I say simply to highlight some of my inherent biases, which probably have a pretty big influence on the way I approach the entire topic.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The GM is not mechanics. And the actual mechanics serve to model the world. It's that world, and the PCs interactions with it, that drive the game, not the mechanics themselves.

I think this in many case puts the cart before the horse. In an ideal world you're probably right, but at the end of the day, most players are going to play on what results they expect the mechanics are going to give them; if that's at odds with what the world theoretically would tell them, the world isn't going to be the one that wins regarding their decision making, because its what's not going to yield expected results.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's interesting from an academic point of view (which I do appreciate), but I don't see what real value it has now for game designers in 2025. We do have decades more accumulate.

Well, thats' true of people who are kitbashing a game now, but for genuine designers it still begs the question if you're going to do a new design at this point why D&D is going to be your model unless its intended to be fishing in the specifically D&D pond (that is, to specifically be appealing to D&D players like Level Up). At least if you're at all trying for a more simulationist game, I'm hard pressed to see why someone actually producing a game intended to stand on its own would do that; most of the most strongly gamey elements are what have survived there, and has gotten, if anything, less lean in to simulation over time.