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

[pemerton]

charts for reducing GM workload have been present since 1977's Traveller (classic '77, to be specific) - Random Patron encounters, random person encounters, random weapons for said persons. We can push it back to '74 for the reactions table and treasure table, but I don't see the latter as making a GM's life any the easier; the treasure tables are often more effort than they're worth.

I am keenly aware that charts have been present prior to contemporary games

<snip>

However, I think that there has been something of a renewed interest in things like rolling on random charts. I believe that there are reasons for that. One is reducing GM workload. Another is something else I mentioned: that desire to resist GM railroads through emergent play.

That is good insight, though I am not as familiar with the quality of these older randomized tables. I am just glad that modern games took a renewed interest in them.

Reaction tables aren't (in my view) about reducing GM workload in generating content. They're an action resolution tool (if the players declare an action like *We greet the <NPCs>") or a framing/stakes tool (if the PCs are thrust into an encounter with some NPCs).

Treasure tables, and random encounter tables, do help generate content. I've found the Classic Traveller encounter tables helpful in play. I think the rules text isn't quite as clear as it could be, though. Here is the starship and on-world encounter text from Classic Traveller (1997 ed; Book 3, p 19; Book 2, p 36):

Non-player characters are frequently encountered by travellers in the course of their adventures. Such persons are manipulated or controlled by the referee; their actions and deeds influence and direct the activities of the actual player-characters in the game.

Encounters with non-player characters are of three general types: ordinary or routine encounters, random encounters, and encounters with patrons. When an encounter occurs, the identity or occupation of the encountered person or group is determined, their reaction to the adventurers is noted from the reaction table, and the players then indicate their activity in response.

Encounters with non-player characters serve as a vehicle for direction and input by the referee. They can offer information or assistance if their reaction is appropriate. They can hinder or redirect adventurers through the use of threat or violence. Encounters also serve as a method for players to gain comrades, weapons, vehicles or assistance where necessary. . .

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
Adventurers, as they travel about on planets, also have random encounters with an unpredictable variety of individuals or groups. Such individuals are themselves performing various tasks, which may complement, supplement, oppose, or be irrelevant to, the goals of the adventurers themselves.

Some random encounters are mandated by the referee. For example, a band may encounter a guard patrol at a building while in the course of visiting (or burglarizing) it. The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so.

Other random encounters are dictated by the random encounter process. Usually, a random encounter point with humans will occur once per day. There is a one third chance that a group will be met (throw one die: a result of 5 or 6 indicates an encounter). Encounters with persons are independent of the procedure for encounters with animals described in the animal encounter section.

When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances.​

This rules text moves between an in-fiction perspective (eg "individuals . . . performing various tasks, which may <be in various relations to> the goals of the adventurers") and a GM-decision-making perspective (eg "in many cases, <the referee> actually has a responsibility to <impose encounters>"). The last of the quoted sentences, dealing with starship encounters, manages to shift from the latter to the former perspective within the one sentence. But there is no real discussion of how the GM establishes "the adventure being played" or "if a newly entered system is in . . . turmoil", and how these random encounters relate to that (eg can they be input into that sort of decision-making?).

One thing that I think characterises modern rulebooks is greater clarity about how these sorts of tables work, and how the events/situations that they generate are meant to be incorporated by the GM. For me, again, Torchbearer 2e is a really good example.

 

[zakael19]

You also have some like really interesting random tables driving play in the most recent NSR games (I'm thinking like Electric/Mythic Bastionland, HMTW Meatgrinder examples, etc).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Having a given worldview in no way guarantees it's true. I can't give the best examples in detail, as they are current politics... Let's just say, a bunch of people are realizing their worldview in re their governments is unsupportable by actual events and how the government reacts to them.

Largely, yes.
You don't like people interfering with your backstory. I, as a GM, forbade any backstory longer than a paragraph, simply because past that, I'm invariably going to forget something and annoy the person, and I'm not into reading backstory.
If a player is generating more backstory than the game gives, and by more than a single paragraph, it's more than what I, as a GM, want to deal with. Further, I take cues from Mr. Wick quite often - a backstory hidden inside the player's head is boring bovid-excrement for the rest of the group - it adds nothing to their play experience, and often interacts poorly. A shared one, if short and succinct, adds to everyone's play...

Clocks are canon the moment they start ticking, in as much as what they work is defined then

Nice worldview... but the reality is a lot of game designs have been influenced by Theatrical Improv...
Such as most everything by D. Vincent Baker, Meg Baker, or half the Forge-inspired games.
"Yes, and…/yes, but…" is standard for theatrical improv. Anywhere you see that, you're seeing theatrical improv's influence.
If you want to see Yes, But in TI, happens about once per episode in the American version of Whose Line is it Anyway?... Ryan and Wayne use it a bit.

Traveller explicitly puts them in as a GM aid in play. Not a prep tool; traveller has a lot of those, too.
Charts for GM aid in play are nothing modern. They're almost as old as RPGs themselves.

Ah, but what if you don't care what Vincent Baker and his descendents have to say, or the Forge for that matter? Bothering with any of that is a choice, not a requirement.

 

[Campbell]

Ah, but what if you don't care what Vincent Baker and his descendents have to say, or the Forge for that matter? Bothering with any of that is a choice, not a requirement.

Then why are you getting involved in a side discussion about the finer points of Apocalypse World?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then why are you getting involved in a side discussion about the finer points of Apocalypse World?

Fair enough. I do think improv as you describe it isn't necessary to RPGs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just additional point, I think if Micah had said above a different response may have come, but Micah said reducing mechanical workload on DM is moving away from their preference, which seems clear that he doesn't want any further reduction (and may want increased workload), and that any risk of reducing the mechanical workload could be pretty important to them.
I think saying something like T20's less overs for cricket is moving away from my preference, strongly suggests that I dont want less overs, not that reducing overs isn't important to me, as suggests I could accept less overs if some other important goal was reached.

I'm not going to speak for Micah--we don't share that much in taste, though not nothing--but my feeling is that reducing GM overload always has a price. Its a price a lot of people are willing to pay, but the claim that doesn't happen only makes sense if you don't value what's lost. So the question is whether the yield is worth the price.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not going to speak for Micah--we don't share that much in taste, though not nothing--but my feeling is that reducing GM overload always has a price. Its a price a lot of people are willing to pay, but the claim that doesn't happen only makes sense if you don't value what's lost. So the question is whether the yield is worth the price.

What does reducing GM overload mean to you? Do you would describe reducing GM overload as a contemporary approach to TTRPG mechanics that you have observed?

My interest is per the OP (with adjustment): "What do you think of as contemporary approaches to TTRPG mechanics?" I have made a number of dedicated attempts to focus my contributions in this thread on that topic.

To those ends, I am personally uninterested in discussions of "do I like this contemporary approach: yes or no?," even less interested in discussions of whether other people like these approaches to mechanics or not, and zero interest in people dragging their hatred of narrative games into each and every conversation. I am interested in explanations for these changes, such as why, when, and how these approaches have come into vogue.

If we are having a discussion of "What is jazz music?," it's hard to imagine having someone whose primary contribution to discussion is just to periodically remind us how much they hate jazz and prefer country music has any intention to engage with the discussed topic in a productive manner.

 

[Aldarc]

Reaction tables aren't (in my view) about reducing GM workload in generating content. They're an action resolution tool (if the players declare an action like *We greet the <NPCs>") or a framing/stakes tool (if the PCs are thrust into an encounter with some NPCs).

I would put reaction tables, in particular, as a design element intended to facilitate "play to find out what happens" and "emergent play." But as is often the case, I don't necessarily think that mechanics are necessarily designed purely for one goal. Earlier, for example, I cited how power cards in Daggerheart are meant to assist player onboarding, speed up play, assist player learning and referencing, and providing a tactile element to play. There are multiple goals that cards help alleviate.

One thing that I think characterises modern rulebooks is greater clarity about how these sorts of tables work, and how the events/situations that they generate are meant to be incorporated by the GM. For me, again, Torchbearer 2e is a really good example.

Agreed.

You also have some like really interesting random tables driving play in the most recent NSR games (I'm thinking like Electric/Mythic Bastionland, HMTW Meatgrinder examples, etc).

One game that I had in mind for how randomized tables reduce GM overload are the tables for monster actions in Dragonbane. Monsters hit automatically, excepting if the player uses their action that round to try evading the attack. But the GM rolls on the monster table to see what the monster does. It's usually just a 1d6 table. I have found that in practice, it tends to make games run pretty quickly on the GM side of things. I'm not spending much time thinking what the monster should do. I roll in front of the players, narrate the results, and see how the players react.

I haven't read Daggerheart, but I am inferring that experiences in Daggerheart are similar to the backgrounds in 13th Age: free descriptors that play a similar role, in resolution, to skill bonuses in 3E and onwards D&D. Have I got that right?

That is correct. But I would say that they sit somewhere between Aspects and Skills. There is not a set list of experiences. They can cover backgrounds, characteristics, specialties, skills, or phrases. Examples in Daggerheart, however, tend to be shorter and a little one-note: e.g., Assassin, Observant, Sharpshooter, Repair, Catch Me If You Can, etc.

Experiences confer a +2 bonus when activated. They are not "always on" in the way of 13th Age backgrounds.

Experiences require the player spend a Hope point to gain that bonus before making a roll, assuming it's applicable. As you have likely picked up, it's not dissimilar to Fate points; however, in contrast to Fate, Hope isn't generated from GM compels on player experiences; instead, they are generated from the Hope/Fear die mechanic.

I suspect the reason experiences are not "always on" has more to do with the flatter progression math of a PbtA-inspired system. Daggerheart also advises GMs to consider a PC's experiences when deciding when rolls are called for or optionally let the player mark Stress for their character to succeed at the task without rolling.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not going to speak for Micah--we don't share that much in taste, though not nothing--but my feeling is that reducing GM overload always has a price. Its a price a lot of people are willing to pay, but the claim that doesn't happen only makes sense if you don't value what's lost. So the question is whether the yield is worth the price.

I'd say you have cause and effect backwards. Doing something that added to the GM overhead inherently has a price and that price is (sometimes among other things) that it adds to the GM overhead. But most things that got into the GM's budget section had a reason and therefore don't have zero value.

Ars Ludi has done a recent couple of blog posts on the "GM star pattern" where the GM is running almost parallel games with the players; the more balanced pattern is both better and has a lower overhead.

And as an aside I have a theory that, thanks to some playtesting, mid level 2e, 3.X, and 4e are all about the same complexity at low level; they all started with a framework then added Stuff they thought was fun until their nerd playtesters started tapping out.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I suspect the reason experiences are not "always on" has more to do with the flatter progression math of a PbtA-inspired system. Daggerheart also advises GMs to consider a PC's experiences when deciding when rolls are called for or optionally let the player mark Stress for their character to succeed at the task without rolling.

Here I disagree. I think that as with many things in Daggerheart there are multiple reasons they aren't always on.

From a simple balance perspective experiences are not equally applicable because they are freeform; peerless polymath is going to be more applicable more often than underwater basket weaver. Which means that (as with Fate Aspects) you need to balance on how/when they trigger, and spending a Hope (or Fate Point) to get the dice modifier does this. Niche aspects? You can still spend your hope on helping others, tag team rolls, and abilities

From a roleplaying perspective needing to spend the hope reinforces that you are physically doing something and draws more description about how it is effective, reinforcing the character.

And from a mathematical perspective Daggerheart tries to use very 5eish numbers for target numbers to make things easy to switch. But the Duality Dice are pretty close to d20+3. (Not perfect but pretty close in range, variance, and outcomes) so you need to pull three points back somehow; at level 1 your primary stat is +2 not +3 and there's no proficiency bonus because the duality dice provides that. Mathematically Experiences are closer to Expertise.