Its a sad thing that we still wee the same old mechanics and it has to do with the fact that in rpg design there is just not that much money to get and that RPG players have lot of nostalgia and dont like change. and also thst there is 1 game which has such a huuge market dominance that soo many people just copy it.
Why does it have to be nostalgia and dislike of change? Why can't it just be enjoyment of those mechanics? When I walk into game stores, I don't just see D&D on the shelves. I see D&D and several other RPGs from various companies on the shelves. Yes D&D dominates the market, but D&D has brought in so many new players since 5e entered the field that there's money to be had for smaller games with differing mechanics.
Well gamedesign overall evolved a lot the last 40 years. Yes some people still play monopol (often people who dont know many boardgames), but pretty mveryone who has played 50 or more modern games agrees that monopoly is just a bad outdated game with outdated mechanics.
Monopoly isn't a good game. It's also not indicative of how the game industry made games back in the day. You know what other old games I still play and enjoy with my family? Chess. Clue. Stratego. Gin. Uno. Life. And more. None of those games are built around Monopoly mechanics.
Monopoly is just the F.A.T.A.L. of board games.
Also often old things, even if they qre outdated, get new fans because they are still popular (at least in parts of society). People watch popular things and play popular things because others do it. Even chess, which is okish, would if released today be played by no one, because modern game design evolved so much. (Chess only works at all because it has 100 000s of players. Because it only is fun/makes sense to play in such a narrow skill gap that its hard to find similar level players. And the lack of variety even brought discussions into high level chess to change start setup)
Chess is actually a very fun game to play. It's not around and played by hundreds of millions of players worldwide because of nostalgia and dislike of change.
I am really glad that in boardgaming the players were not so averse to changey and allowed to have today 188× different boardgame mechanics, and we are not left with roll to move.
Boardgaming today is like RPGing today. There are giants in the room that makes more money than any of the others, yet still room for smaller companies and individuals to make money on other fun games. Monopoly Go hit 3 billion dollars in 2 years. The new game of Life sold 50 million copies in the US alone. I don't think that many games like Dune Imperium, Lost Ruins of Arnak and other really good games have pulled in numbers like that.
If players want old mechanic, why do they then need new games? They can just play the already existing old games with old mechanics.
Why can't you be happy with a single game with new narrative rules? People like variety, even if that variety is similar rules to other games that they play. Similar rule style =/= identical games. There will still be differences, new mechanics, etc. that entice people to play those games.
There's nothing wrong with new games having the same or similar mechanics as 40+ years ago, as well as new games having different player facing and narrative mechanics.
There were always games whigh looked into modern gamedesign and took some inspiration from there. Of course the big one was Dungeons and Drsgons 4th edition, which tried to apply precise gsme design to all aspect of it.
Using clear modern game design language for abilities, as is the game industry standard (MtG like wording which most modern boardgames and computer games use). Which includes use of keywords and tags.
Codyfing things, to make it clear design goals not just accidents like the roles.
Cresting a setting gameplay first. If its not needed or msde for gaming its left away.
Streamlining mechanics (like boardgames, modern eargames etc. Do). Like Having uniform representstion since that makes it easier to learn new classes. (Which is ehy this is used in all modern class based gsmesy shooters mobss etc). Reduving mumber of skills, making skills more defined to use (similar to hoe PbtA plsyer "moved" look).
Thinking about how to use mechanics to make it easier in play. (Cards for tracking "vancian spells" (and conditions eith the card), non eucledian movement, having squares directly not "feet").
The bad reception of its modern gamedesign in 4e (often by people who were not familiar with modern games) Unfortunately threw RPG design back by 10 years, glad 5.24 at lesst used again a bit more 4e influence
I think the problem was that it was 4e D&D rather than the mechanics themselves. An analogy would be the chess variants that are out there that while fun, aren't going to be well received by people many who really love classic chess. The better tactic is to release these fine games under different names, so that folks will just enjoy them for what they are, rather than looking at them with the baggage that comes along with the name.
Don't give me Battleship with all new rules. Give me Tactical Naval Warfare and use those rules. Then instead of liking the old Battleship and disliking the new one for ruining the game I like, I can like both Battleship AND Tactical Naval Warfare.
There's more than enough room in the game industry(Board, Computer, RPG, etc.) for new games with new names, rather than radically changing the rules to old ones.
