A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[kenada]

Ultimately, everything really comes down to what you want to accomplish with a game. Once you have determined that, you can start thinking about the best way to get there through game mechanics. Applying game mechanics or more abstract rules because they are good practice won't really get you anywhere.

Any game design has to be goal oriented to produce useful results.

When thinking about good design principles to support neo-trad play, it first has to be established what exactly you are trying to accomplish.

There seems to be multiple definitions of “neo-trad” being used in this thread. For supporting a certain style of play, I can see a list of common patterns or approaches being useful. However, I’m failing to see the purpose of a “manifesto” for a particular type of design. Why should a designer want or be interested in such a thing?

According to the definition of “neotrad” in post #42, my homebrew system would count as a neotrad design. While it does incorporate ideas from traditional and indie tabletop RPGs, it also has influences from board and video games. I look at a manifesto as being too rigid and constraining, but it also seems like it risks being a source of dissonance should something it prescribes be at odds with the goals I have for my game.

 

[Emberashh]

Why should they be forced to change if they’re enjoying what they’re doing?

Well, that just begs the question doesn't it? The premise here is that there's a problem that needs to be solved; that theres a disconnect between what different Players want out of these games that isn't being resolved through group dynamics or just playing something else. Your question doesn't really address that.

I want story, such as it is, to be emergent from play.

Ah, but do you really though?

Likewise, you seem to be advocating for removal of adventure path games… which is one of the most popular play modes in the entire hobby. Saying that folks really need to be willing to stop playing this way… I can’t agree.

Given this, it'd seem that your two statements are at odds. Traditional adventure paths are certainly not conducive to emergent narratives; nor, for that matter, are the games that use them without extensive intervention by a GM.

My objection to referee as bound by the rules stems from the fact that for RPGs to function the referee must exercise their own judgement, even when that contradicts the rules. I've played, collected, ran, and otherwise engaged with the hobby for about 40 years. I read widely in RPGs and I've yet to see a single RPG that's so perfectly designed that the referee's role as arbiter is not required for the game to run.

This is why I've been pretty set on emphasizing the idea that RPGs are, partially, improv games at a fundamental level. Because you can, in fact, embed the arbiter functions into the rules, and should. Improv is already a game, so it can in fact be successfully hybridized with other kinds of games, but to do so requires recognizing the rule system as a Player within that Improv game, otherwise that system is going to inadvertently cause blocking.

Which in turn, often leads to all these things we consider problems like railroading, fudging, ignoring the rules, and so on.

Its either that, or we don't pitch these games as games where you can do anything. The actions you can take are only whats explicitly listed in the rules. Because if we do pitch the games like that, we are introducing the improv game into a rule set that, in pretty much all cases (given the ubiquity of not wanting to see these games as improv), wasn't designed with improv in mind.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Though I think it's fairly unambiguous that this is highly controversial within the Classic play style. It's a position that you have to defend against strong opposition, which I would regard as strong evidence of it not being part of the culture itself.

Well, at the very least, it ran heavily against some gamist desires where people were uninterested in striving against a moving target. On the other hand, it may well have been the sign of proto-traditionalist thought, where making the game more interesting was a major virtue (I think its kind of a corrupt or at least potentially corrupting way to do it, but I don't doubt that was less than obvious to many of the GMs doing it).

 

[Thomas Shey]

"Play the dozens"? I googled it and even with the slang described still not sure I get what you are trying to convey... Especially coupled with your talk about the gm having "unneeded powers" because giving the gm's power to players is very much admitting that it is needed power.

"Playing the dozens" is an insult game. Your characterization of players who expect GMs to play by the rules was, bluntly, insulting in the extreme.

And sharing the ability to do something reduces the power concentrated in one place, which parts of this hobby are incredibly hostile to; on the surface of it, you appear to be among that group.

Take this example "Thus forming the manifesto: neotrad game designs ought to shift GM to or toward a role taken on by a player. At the least, a neotrad game text will contain rules that constrain and compel GM's voice in the ongoing negotiation of play... and GM cannot "rule zero" themselves out of that. No doubt the landscape is diverse and there are other hallmarks, too. I suggest that this one is central." That reads very much like"someone needs to be in charge, that someone should be me the player", it only omits "but players still need a gm to be responsible for making the game work and be fun"

I think this ignores the potential for the group as a whole being in charge, which is why I say what I do above.

 

[Yora]

I feel like rather than making the GM more like a player, isn't this really about giving more GM functions to the players instead?

 

[Thomas Shey]

That cuts both ways though.... How does the player know that the gm changed the vampire on page xx out for a wraith or whatever unless they are somehow metagaming? Even if the player is innocently using knowledge from having played or run it before, the gm can simply state that as the reason he or she decided to change it to something else from the outset pending judgement of how much value players were getting out of previously playing the module.

First of all, even if they're metagaming that doesn't mean they're wrong; its entirely possible they've had reasons from data they acquired to have a pretty good idea what the source of the problem they're addressing is. While its possible for this data to be wrong, if it ends up being so repeatedly, it doesn't take a lot to figure out the GM is patching after the fact (and this isn't even like the more obvious cases such as frequent addition of reinforcements).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I feel like rather than making the GM more like a player, isn't this really about giving more GM functions to the players instead?

As I said, this assumes there's a hard line between the two--or should be--in the first place.

 

[pointofyou]

I feel like rather than making the GM more like a player, isn't this really about giving more GM functions to the players instead?

Is there a functional difference between "making the GM more like the players" and "making the players more like the GM?"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In this thread I aim to make two arguments. In this first post, I aim to disambiguate neotrad and OC. In brief, I'll argue that "neotrad" labels a design trend, while "OC" is a culture of play. That will obviously relate to an excellent thread about OC play. Nothing in that thread other than choice of label is contested here. In an immediately following second post, I will outline a neotrad manifesto that represents not what any one game text or blogger necessarily says today, but a direction of movement for TTRPG design.

Without wishing to over-commit on definitions, in a nutshell "OC" stands for "Orignal Character" and "focuses on player aspirations and interests and their realisation" while "neotrad" design integrates innovations from indie-games (largely storygames) into enduring modes of play such as trad and sim.​

Turning first then to semantics: the label "neo-trad" has sound provenance to a game designer's characterisation of their design approach.


In that interview, Härenstam also said that

This "close link with the game itself" implemented into a design delivers strong utility to OC, but neotrad designs can also demonstrably favour non-OC play. An apposite example is Härenstam's Forbidden Lands, which favours sandbox/OSR-ish play with a lethality that works against OC play.

The conflation of OC with neotrad was introduced by the author of Six Cultures of Play, who on later reflection wrote that

(Emphasis mine.)

Differentiating between a culture of play and a TTRPG design trend clears the semantic ambiguities that could otherwise bedevil post two, following this. I will be focusing on neotrad - a design trend - and not OC - a culture of play.

So, do you have examples? I mean, frankly, I'm not super convinced. I think everything in the '6 cultures' discussion is about cultures of play, none of it bears much on design, and nor does the GNS framework that you seem to be pushing against without really saying so. They are all about PLAY!

In the end we can talk about the employment of different games in view of specific agenda, and which are more or less suitable for specific ends, and even point out how games like AW incorporate 'agenda awareness' into the design of the game itself, which then brings people to the point of considering these elements as part of game design from the start, or of being ROOTED in game design instead of actually being rooted in forms of play. As an argument in favor of this thesis I point out that many of those playing PbtA games are NOT really playing in a Narrativist fashion, they're enacting some form of trad-like play. Thus we see that agenda really is a different thing from game design, though they are certainly related (IE you would be much better off starting with DW if you wanted a Narrativist FRPG play experience vs using 5e).

 

[Thomas Shey]

This function does not need to be solely the GM's responsibility. A number of games, such as Fate and Fabula Ultima, talk about having the GM discussing these matters openly with the players and the table deciding together. The GM may make the final call, but others at the table are also exercising their own judgment.

Even in cases where some elements are going to be kept "under the hood" in the intent of allowing for a greater degree of mystery and surprise to the players, that hardly requires all such traditional GM-call elements to be kept hidden and/or made unilaterally by the GM. It also doesn't mean that you can't retroactively have the players as a group declare it a bad call once they see it and its purpose.

Edit: Notice the language used in Fate's Silver Rule, which speaks to making judgments that contradict the rules:

Yes. The idea that the GM is the only one at the table who can, or should be allowed to make such judgments is an assumption; its not a necessity, and there's nothing intrinsic that makes it a superior choice. Many players may not want to be the deciders in that situation and that's fine; I'm not in the least sold that GMs simply deciding it should be their and only their option is similarly fine.