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

[Thomas Shey]

Just to clarify, as I think I've lost track a bit here: when you say "harder on your players" are you speaking of harder to actually play (as in, greater rules complexity, more player-side effort, etc.) or are you speaking of harder to play successfully (e.g. high character lethality, few-and-far-between in-game rewards, etc.)?

Depends on how they view it. If they expect the lethality and the slow rewards, the latter is a non-factor. If they don't want it--then again, wrong game or wrong group at the least.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Also worth noting that "the players" are not a united block. There's no reason to assume that something the GM wants is against the interests of all the other players

It was, however, part of the premise to my answer of the original question, and I think with the criteria I gave (no useful extra output, no extra meaningful input) its probably going to be the case with most. Again, I chose those as examples carefully. They were explicitly things that weren't going to be meaningfully beneficial at the player end (including even those interested in simulation, since the benefits there are invisible at that end) while being more difficult.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It was, however, part of the premise to my answer of the original question, and I think with the criteria I gave (no useful extra output, no extra meaningful input) its probably going to be the case with most. Again, I chose those as examples carefully. They were explicitly things that weren't going to be meaningfully beneficial at the player end (including even those interested in simulation, since the benefits there are invisible at that end) while being more difficult.

But without a specific example, I can't visualize your hypothetical. There's no practical application.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But without a specific example, I can't visualize your hypothetical. There's no practical application.

Sorry. I don't have a specific case that you'd consider relevant. I can simply imagine designs where it would, because the components to produce it exist in separate games I can name. As I said, lots of games have pretty opaque skill modification rules in-play, which makes input similarly opaque unless there's constant back-and-forth between them and the GM (and the GM is actually willing to give them a hint whether something is useful) and binary output games are all over the place.

So while the specific example is hypothetical, its not a big reach to imagine a game that loads on a lot of mechanics without it being meaningful at the player end.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry. I don't have a specific case that you'd consider relevant. I can simply imagine designs where it would, because the components to produce it exist in separate games I can name. As I said, lots of games have pretty opaque skill modification rules in-play, which makes input similarly opaque unless there's constant back-and-forth between them and the GM (and the GM is actually willing to give them a hint whether something is useful) and binary output games are all over the place.

So while the specific example is hypothetical, its not a big reach to imagine a game that loads on a lot of mechanics without it being meaningful at the player end.

If no real example exists, then I can't take your claim that "if it did then I would be right" as all that relevant to my interests.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's a balance in there somewhere: the GM isn't necessarily just there to serve the players but at the same time the players aren't there just to serve the GM, which IMO is also a valid concern.

I think 'serving' is a terrible way to characterize RPG play. I think it's more useful to start with the idea that everyone at the table is a player, with the GM just having different tasks. I haven't seen any evidence that valorizing the GM role (or the player role) is in any way useful in discussing the form and execution of RPG play.

Positions that want to privilege the GM role usually end up having to hang a lot of argument on what happens away from the table - i.e. prep and whatnot, especially setting design. I prefer to start conversations with what happens at the table, because that's the heart of every RPG, while heavy prep loads are more of a choice and a feature of just a subset of RPG games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think 'serving' is a terrible way to characterize RPG play. I think it's more useful to start with the idea that everyone at the table is a player, with the GM just having different tasks. I haven't seen any evidence that valorizing the GM role (or the player role) is in any way useful in discussing the form and execution of RPG play.

Positions that want to privilege the GM role usually end up having to hang a lot of argument on what happens away from the table - i.e. prep and whatnot, especially setting design. I prefer to start conversations with what happens at the table, because that's the heart of every RPG, while heavy prep loads are more of a choice and a feature of just a subset of RPG games.

It's the subset I engage with though, so from my perspective it matters that the GM has more to do. Play at the table may be the heart of every RPG, but design and prep are the brain. Who's to say which matters more? No one who can claim objectivity IMO.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Modern is not necessarily better. Modern is not necessarily better. Modern is not necessarily better. So we are reminded ad nauseum. Modern mechanics, regardless of whether they originate in older games, seem required to justify their existence or any claims that they are better. And yet I have sometimes likewise noticed that this does not seem to apply to older mechanics and their fans. What makes older better?

Modern is not necessarily better. Modern is necessarily fresher and modern games come with subjects that haven't been chewed to death (and there's always someone willing to defend ideas that are IMO outright wrong like descending AC being as good as ascending).

However older games generally have survivor bias in their favour. The tiny handful of them we talk about are the cream of the crop and I can only think of one I consider that gets talked about but has nothing to recommend it mechanically. (If anyone is wondering it's AD&D 2e which is trying to use the exploratory dungeon crawling rules of 1e for heroic fantasy adventure better done by 4e, 5e, or Daggerheart, or dozens of other systems; it's the mismatch between the rules and the intended playstyle I have a massive problem with).

Modern games are in dialogue with the more worthwhile older games and there's rarely a rule that wasn't created with a reason, building off what came before. However while sometimes those rules are improvements (ascending AC) other times they throw the baby out with the bathwater (throwing out the AD&D saving throws in favour of Fort/Ref/Will).

For myself I like the current (post 2009) era and its hard shift away from the conceptually simple but mathematically fiddly sim games that turn the GM into a second rate computer handling mechanical minutae, and their associated piles of paid by the word splatbooks and in favour of both post-Forge narrative and O/NSR games that focus on what make tabletop RPGs more interesting and more fun than CRPGs and MMORPGs

 

[Fenris-77]

It's the subset I engage with though, so from my perspective it matters that the GM has more to do. Play at the table may be the heart of every RPG, but design and prep are the brain. Who's to say which matters more? No one who can claim objectivity IMO.

Design and prep by the GM? I think that might be true of some games, but certainly not all. Any argument that says prep is more important than players, or more important than play at the table is completely missing the point. A conception of what RPG play is or does that begins with 'my job is the most important job' is a wank.

 

[pemerton]

I think 'serving' is a terrible way to characterize RPG play.

Absolutely. For me, it's up there with "trade offs" as a completely unhelpful framework for making sense of a voluntary leisure activity driven by a shared interest in game play and genre aesthetics.

I think it's more useful to start with the idea that everyone at the table is a player, with the GM just having different tasks.

<snip>

Positions that want to privilege the GM role usually end up having to hang a lot of argument on what happens away from the table - i.e. prep and whatnot, especially setting design. I prefer to start conversations with what happens at the table, because that's the heart of every RPG, while heavy prep loads are more of a choice and a feature of just a subset of RPG games.

Yeah, these things too.