A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[clearstream]

Football referee's are bound by the rules. They aren't players. They even make judgement calls that can often seem very arbitrary.

To say it a little more clearly - 'Players follow the rules pertaining to them. Refs follow the rules pertaining to them - rules which typically require them to serve as a player rules enforcer', but sometime the rules may also pertain to how they are required to do things as well.

I think referring to referees as players just because games typically have rules around the referee role only serves to muddy the waters. However, there is a way the GM is like a player (a way that the football ref isn't) and it's got nothing to do with following rules - it's about them playing the opposition.

I distinguish between GM as referee and GM as player. So never refer to referees as players. (At least not intentionally.)

 

[clearstream]

OK, so in terms of an activity aimed at establishing a kind of approach to gaming, that is defining it as "if the RPG has these parts and is used in this way, then its an X game" I don't have problems with what you are saying (I mean, not that I'd have problems with whatever you want to say anyway, but you know what I mean).

I am not sure how diagnostic it is of anything, but yes I think you can bin certain games/play within a box that you have defined. I'm not sure if you will find the contents of that box to be particularly coherent, but I guess every pudding has its proof, right? lol.

What I'm kind of implicitly critical of is importing mechanics without importing the full intent of those mechanics.

One thing I failed to spell out in my OPs is my "particular concern for how they... centered player authorship". I may feel driven to edit it at some point to get that in. It was always assumed and folk picked up on it, but it is better to spell out one's assumptions. Even in my earliest ideas about neotrad, I was thinking in terms of (what I described internally as) player fiats over narrative.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not sure where compels fit into this landscape. I mean, they are certainly a mechanical pathway to altering the fiction. What FATE missed was the central concept of defining agenda and building from that. You CAN play a pretty Narrativist FATE game, but it hasn't been classically considered a true Narrativist system. I have no idea how it would fit within Clearstream's taxonomy.

Troubles are self-selected by players as the lightning rods for GM-created complications and compels. Troubles are essentially the problems, bad karma, and downbeats that the players want/expect their character to experience via Compels.

 

[Emberashh]

Which games? You talk about the burden of proof… tell us about this game.

FKR and its derivatives for example, as well as any game that adheres to a ruling over rules framework.

But I am talking about what games are about

Then don't respond to me as though you think thats what I said.

 

[hawkeyefan]

FKR and its derivatives for example, as well as any game that adheres to a ruling over rules framework.

Okay, so then I think what you’re actually talking about is more along the lines of player freedom. Which means “do anything” is describing the ability for the player to declare whatever actions they like for their characters, within the bounds of what’s been established, what’s possible in the setting, and what the GM deems is possible.

In this case, your very literal interpretation of “do anything” is inaccurate. The player is not free to declare things outside their fictional situation, outside the setting, or anything the GM deems impossible.

Then don't respond to me as though you think thats what I said.

I didn’t. My comments apply to what you’ve said.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I do intend making GM a player to imply that players may become more like GMs. Once a GM is a player, then it is the case that GM powers are held by players.

I ... don't find this to be a useful way to discuss things, for the simple fact that the idea that there is a long-standing practice of having a "GM role" that dates back to the first RPGs, and has continued ever since.

At the beginning, there was the "referee." Regardless of the various shifts of nomenclature since then (referee, DM, GM, etc.), the idea that there was a specific role that was differentiated from the players has continued in almost all games, to the extent that we can actually describe certain games that do not have that role as a specific (and very small) subset of RPGs. Fiasco would be an example of a game without a GM.

To use the common analogy, a game of basketball has a referee. If you were to play an informal game of pickup, you might say that all the players are empowered to make calls (subject to the other players), but you wouldn't say that the players are referees.

For this reason, it is more useful to think of two different roles in RPGs- GM and player. However, different games might have different divisions of authority. The usual debate (which is a recurring, and tiring debate) is over the amount of authority over the fiction that these roles might have. There are other debates as well (the amount of authority over the rules, or the amount of authority over the players' declarations), but it's all about the division of authority inherent in the role.

In the most traditional RPG model, the GM has sole authority over the rules and the fiction, while the players have sole authority over the players' declarations. Other models have different (often shared) authority over the fiction and/or the rules.

I don't think it is helpful to confuse the issue to say that the GM is a player.

 

[Emberashh]

Okay, so then I think what you’re actually talking about is more along the lines of player freedom. Which means “do anything” is describing the ability for the player to declare whatever actions they like for their characters, within the bounds of what’s been established, what’s possible in the setting, and what the GM deems is possible.

I cannot fathom how you could have possibly interpreted what I said any other way.

The player is not free to declare things outside their fictional situation, outside the setting, or anything the GM deems impossible.

Aka, the games aren't actually designed for what they're being pitched as.

My comments apply to what you’ve said.

I never said anything relating to what a given game is about.

You can't claim that its only what you were talking about only to then, 5 minutes later, assert its somehow related to what I said.

It isn't. Its a non-sequitur and you're doubling down on it. Let it go or respond to what I actually said, and leave your non-sequiturs out of your replies to me. Thats not an egregious request.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That doesn't stand up to scrutiny; the burden of proof is on you to show that a given person is being unreasonable by taking the pitch at face value.

Given I've literally never seen anyone do that--no one acted the least surprised that there were expectations when they got into a game based on general setting and genre--I'm not buying it. Even the people who see to think a game isn't an RPG unless its an open sandbox expect borders of some kind on the experience.

Meanwhile, there factually are games where you can do anything, so the pitch is not absurd hyperbole, just because it might be inconvenient.

Extreme outliers are just that. Unless you can demonstrate they're otherwise, you're presenting that as though it says anything about the general hobby experience. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I'm kind of implicitly critical of is importing mechanics without importing the full intent of those mechanics.

One thing I failed to spell out in my OPs is my "particular concern for how they... centered player authorship". I may feel driven to edit it at some point to get that in. It was always assumed and folk picked up on it, but it is better to spell out one's assumptions. Even in my earliest ideas about neotrad, I was thinking in terms of (what I described internally as) player fiats over narrative.

Well, I am with you there in the sense that I want games to be deliberate and intentional in their use of structure, mechanics, allocation of authority, etc. So it is best if they're explicit about that, at the very least in the design phase. I have also never been much enamored with games which obfuscate that at the presentation/play stage either, but there at least might be aesthetic arguments in play there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

While I agree with much of what you are saying, this is a no go. The only reason the referee has that power is the group has given him that power. The referee alone cannot boot anyone from the group.

Well, in some cases, that is a practical consequence of no one else being willing to GM.