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

[Fenris-77]

This isn't quite a contradiction. Publishing is something you do instead of playing at the tabletop - and game design isn't world building.

Entirely? No. But a huge part of design for published RPG material is world building, in one way or another.

Here I'd say responsibility isn't sole responsibility. The group, the game, and the current GM all have varying amounts of responsibility - and the responsibility any GM has shoots way up when they start complaining about a problem that they are the second best placed person to fix (behind only someone complaining but not stepping up).

I'd also say that a driver for the OSR is that Gygaxian D&D does a pretty good job (and far better than any subsequent D&D except 4e) of making GMing attractive

It's not so much that I disagree with you but that I'm not interested in blaming that individual GM for some kind of failure. I don't think that's helpful in any way. I have no interest in listening to the complaints of individual GMs either though. Sometimes, problems that stem from the group can be solved by finding a different group. Telling a GM that they're only stuck GMing because they've failed to manage their group properly doesn't seem to have a lot of juice in terms of anything we're discussing in this thread.

Gygaxian GMing is a subset of GMing, and a high-prep one. I think the amount of work it is almost certainly a barrier for a lot of people.

 

[pemerton]

I think to be fair I'm going to take some light issue with this.

Outrageous!

Lots of people play games that might be described this way and find it entirely effective and rewarding. I know you were speaking personally, but I think we'd be best to avoid on all sides our personal preferences to some extent. There's not a thing wrong with the heavy prep approach if everyone involved is enjoying themselves.

Problems arise when someone takes their preferred style of play and makes it central to a discussion of how RPGs generally work or should be played.

I'm not trying to make my preference central to a discussion of how RPGs should be played. But I am expressing an aesthetic preference, about what I think is most distinctive and valuable about RPGing as a medium.

 

[Fenris-77]

Outrageous!

I'm not trying to make my preference central to a discussion of how RPGs should be played. But I am expressing an aesthetic preference, about what I think is most distinctive and valuable about RPGing as a medium.

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that were doing this in any way shape or form. I was simply outlining what seems to be a standard 'move' in these kinds of discussions that inevitably leads to arguments and no actual useful discussion.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Gygaxian GMing is a subset of GMing, and a high-prep one. I think the amount of work it is almost certainly a barrier for a lot of people.

Gygaxian GMing is not low prep by modern standards. But dungeons are openly artificial and constrained environments where the PCs options are limited, but any sort of weirdness is fine. They can even be generated procedurally by the 1e DMG. It's a lot easier to do entertainingly than anything vaguely simulationist.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

We might not get very far, then, as I see the GM as being somewhere between a "player plus" and an entirely separate role; with the latter analagous to a referee or umpire's relationship to the players on the teams.

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.

While those things are certainly factors, even at the table during the run of play I see the GM as being a referee, arbiter, and (ultimately) the game's final authority. The "M" does stand for Master, after all...

 

[Fenris-77]

Gygaxian GMing is not low prep by modern standards. But dungeons are openly artificial and constrained environments where the PCs options are limited, but any sort of weirdness is fine. They can even be generated procedurally by the 1e DMG. It's a lot easier to do entertainingly than anything vaguely simulationist.

I didn't say it was? I also disagree that a strictly procedural approach is just as good at evoking great game play than a well-designed dungeon. I'm not sure how simluationism comes into it one way or another at this level.

There are games that that take OSR style play and render it in more-or-less procedural ways (Knave springs to mind). I wouldn't say that's better though, as I think that you need very high-level GM chops to really make procedural stuff shine as it lacks the connective tissue that makes a really well-designed dungeon shine.

 

[Lanefan]

Absolutely. The game is what happens at the table with all the players (minus holidays, illness, etc.). Design and prep is strictly a support function.

A rather vital support function without which the game likely collapses sooner rather than later, even if prep only consists of making it up on the fly.

Never mind the other typical away-from-table roles of the GM, i.e. recruiting players, hosting, scheduling, etc., without which the game is also fairly likely to collapse (or never start).

 

[Fenris-77]

We might not get very far, then, as I see the GM as being somewhere between a "player plus" and an entirely separate role; with the latter analagous to a referee or umpire's relationship to the players on the teams.

While those things are certainly factors, even at the table during the run of play I see the GM as being a referee, arbiter, and (ultimately) the game's final authority. The "M" does stand for Master, after all...

I think you should interrogate those assumptions pretty thoroughly. The tilt of the field toward the GM based on prep and 'mastery' of the setting is not something that's integral to RPGs generally, but rather a subset of RPGs that rely on deep prep and the unveiling of that prep. There's nothing wrong with that playstyle at all, but it's also not in any way the central or core version of what RPGs are to which everything else is 'other'. That's an appeal to history and a gross mischaracterization (IMO) of what a lot of newer games try to do vis a vis prep and world building.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that it is a real phenomenon but also a fading one precisely because making video games and mods scratches that itch far better than making RPG settings.

For those of you who have the tech and-or know-how to do so, perhaps.

I sure don't, on either count.

 

[Fenris-77]

For those of you who have the tech and-or know-how to do so, perhaps.

I sure don't, on either count.

I design (and sell) my own RPG stuff specifically to scratch this itch. Video games? Jesus no.