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

[Micah Sweet]

I've made my position on this clear; a game that serves the interests of a GM at the price of making extra overhead for the players constantly is not serving itself very well, and even the number of GMs that is going to appreciate the dynamic I discussed isn't large. If you want to argue "It makes sense to make a game design that serves a small number of GMs and essentially no players is a good idea" you can do that, but I can't follow you there.

Fair enough, so long as neither of us are claiming objectivity in our statements.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fair enough, so long as neither of us are claiming objectivity in our statements.

I think, given the specifics I spelled out my statement was relatively objective; what I won't insist is that you consider the priorities I'm presenting are legitimate. Because insisting on that would be dumb.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think, given the specifics I spelled out my statement was relatively objective; what I won't insist is that you consider the priorities I'm presenting are legitimate. Because insisting on that would be dumb.

I always get confused by statements that read to me as, "if these subjective things are true, then the claim is objective".

 

[pemerton]

In the specific case you mention the most common reply I've seen is that the GM adjudicates consequences based on character actions and changes the setting appropriately. Obviously, this sounds like framing without calling it framing and has been something I've argued with folks about quite a number of times.

I think it's clearly framing - I mean, there's no magic in the label, but any RPG needs a process for establishing what is it that we all agree on as the content of the shared fiction, and we may as well call that "framing" and "consequences" as anything else.

My concern is with RPGs that don't tell you how to actually do this: "adjudicates consequences based on character actions and changes the setting appropriately" covers consequences but not other framing contexts (eg what does the GM tell the players their PCs see when the PCs wake up from a night's sleep?), and is really just an injunction to the GM to make up something that they think "makes sense".

That's not something that I associate with modern RPG mechanics and systems.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think it's clearly framing - I mean, there's no magic in the label, but any RPG needs a process for establishing what is it that we all agree on as the content of the shared fiction, and we may as well call that "framing" and "consequences" as anything else.

My concern is with RPGs that don't tell you how to actually do this: "adjudicates consequences based on character actions and changes the setting appropriately" covers consequences but not other framing contexts (eg what does the GM tell the players their PCs see when the PCs wake up from a night's sleep?), and is really just an injunction to the GM to make up something that they think "makes sense".

That's not something that I associate with modern RPG mechanics and systems.

I'd agree that framing is quite often handled poorly or not at all in many RPG texts.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think one would need to be a whole lot clearer about what 'serving the interests of the GM' actually means if one wanted to make claims about games that do that (or not). I mean really, the GM is running the world, it's a much bigger job that any of the players take on, so at some level I would expect most systems to 'serve the interests of the GM' to some extent. I suspect though that in using this phrase something more particular is meant.

 

[pemerton]

Not even close. I can not think of one legend (although there probably is one) where he broke out the healing magic or turned undead. Friar Tuck's job or background is friar but his D&D class is either fighter or rogue.

D&D is its own genre with its own genre tropes and traits, and D&D clerics are especially divergent from their historical and associated mythological forebears.

I think that D&D clerics and paladins, as originally presented, are two mechanical variants on the one idea: a heavily armed and armoured worker of miracles (heal with a touch, dispel evil spirits, etc). The miracle-working knight (or king) is something that is found in mediaeval legend. D&D immediately makes them weird, though, by having them enter dungeons in search of loot, rather than doing the sorts of things that mircale-working knights actually do in the legends that they belong to.

The introduction of variant clerics, from DDG on and especially with the old "specialty priests" that have informed both 3E and 5e, resulting in not all clerics being heavily armed and armoured and some clerics being more like variant MUs (invokers, in 4e terms), has largely severed the connection between the class and the original archetype/exemplar/trope.

 

[pemerton]

I'd agree that framing is quite often handled poorly or not at all in many RPG texts.

And I would add to this, analysed/explained quite obscurely in many RPG discussions.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that D&D clerics and paladins, as originally presented, are two mechanical variants on the one idea: a heavily armed and armoured worker of miracles (heal with a touch, dispel evil spirits, etc). The miracle-working knight (or king) is something that is found in mediaeval legend. D&D immediately makes them weird, though, by having them enter dungeons in search of loot, rather than doing the sorts of things that mircale-working knights actually do in the legends that they belong to.

The introduction of variant clerics, from DDG on and especially with the old "specialty priests" that have informed both 3E and 5e, resulting in not all clerics being heavily armed and armoured and some clerics being more like variant MUs (invokers, in 4e terms), has largely severed the connection between the class and the original archetype/exemplar/trope.

I think the cleric has the least connection to significant literary or historical exemplars for sure, and is, far more than the other classes, a product of the designers.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I always get confused by statements that read to me as, "if these subjective things are true, then the claim is objective".

I considered the relatively objective parts of my statement was "These things are largely only visible to GMs" and "Only a subset--and likely a small subset--of GMs actually care that much about the simulationist part of this". The rest of it--that this means aiming deisgn at that subset of GMs alone is normally not going to be viewed as useful--is subjective and/or a question of priorities. I think the first of my two objective statements can be demonstrated clearly, and while the second is an educated estimate, its going to be difficult to prove in any broad way, because, well, how could someone? But I don't think that makes in subjective, it just makes it hard to demonstate in an authoratitive way.