A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[clearstream]

I think there could well be a ground that you are outlining in your discussion, in fact I think in GNS terms neo-trad might almost be analyzed as a form of 'simulationist' agenda in which the premise is formed by the players in regard to their characters and related stuff like the milieu they occupy, story arcs, etc. It then becomes interesting in terms of considering the ways in which RE considered sim/nar to be incompatible categories of agendas. You might develop analysis in a way to explain that (and to be fair, I think others have, post-Forge, already done at least some of that, as GNS really isn't all that current in Narrativist thinking these days).

You may recall that my thoughts on sim - or "neosim" as I labelled it - align with Eero Tuovinen's. What you're describing would be nearer to sandbox, which interestingly enough is what Harenstam's Forbidden Lands is most like. I'm always interested in links to the thoughts of others, if you spot anything relevant.

I don't think your ideas, mine, and say Ron Edwards' ideas are necessarily in conflict, that's true. Honestly, do your thing, I read the thread, which actually I don't read a lot of threads anymore, so I don't see it as a waste of time or counterproductive. I do think when I'm looking at actual questions of 'how do I run this' or 'how do I design this' that my conclusions will be more based on testing my thesis etc. than anything else. But maybe a manifesto is not meant to be operational? I don't know, I'm not sure. At a guess I would say the expectation is it provides a pathway to operationalization.

High praise indeed: I'll take it!

As for challenging your claim... Hmmmm. As I said above, there was a body of thought which would have classified what you are talking about as belonging in the category of 'incoherent designs' or 'incoherent play', but I think we've already moved beyond that, and not being a very good student of modern RPG theory as opposed to practice I don't feel very well-equipped to mount a challenge, nor do I even really think one is needed.

It does seem possible to draw that conclusion, although I decided against it. To my reading, GNS is only claiming that different creative agendas will be incoherent. And then Edwards is advocating designers to serve one agenda, but that doesn't make mixing techniques incoherent. The N in GNS somewhat conflates storygames with narrativism, when - at least in my view - they should be counted two different things. Storygames obviously wield/weld narrativism very strongly to their purpose, but narrativism isn't identical to that purpose.

Once you remove that bit of ambiguity, so that narrativism isn't mixed up with Edwards' interest in dramatic protagonism (not that I have any disagreement with the latter, it's only the conflation I resist) then nothing in GNS seems to predict incoherence between -trad and narrativism. There might be doubt as to whose creative agenda would fit the resultant play... even so, folk are observably embracing these games. And of course, while GNS in places relates certain techniques to one agenda or other, it doesn't predict that mixing techniques will lead to incoherence. Obviously mechanical coherence is a consideration for design, but GNS isn't so far as I recall making any claims about that.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is the part that concerns you in #270 this


The facets of @Manbearcat's two posts that I agreed strongly with were those making a connection between narrativism and neotrad, which I understand to be to do with the lusory-duality which is fundamental to games and results in ludonarrative rather than by one means or another overlaying traditional narrative onto games. I claim that only through recognising player as simultaneously author and audience can one achieve the new mode of narrative which is ludonarrative. Assumptions about narrative that didn't fully grasp the new medium led for a time to a rift between ludologists and narratologists. While on the other hand, embracing this idea allows development of appropriate new theories (which of course take lessons from broader narratology.)

On the other hand, this take about lowering difficulty... I don't see any convincing argument for it. As one example, the Year Zero Engine includes a push mechanic that can inflict attribute damage on characters. This is a death-spiral mechanic (you push because you need the success, or more successes, but then you become less likely to succeed next time.) I do not observe any lowering of difficulty in the resultant play. Or take the time to observe a lot of 4e play: there's no difference in difficulty between whether the group opts into neotrad or sticks with trad. (Perhaps someone can show rather than theorycraft it? but frankly, the community lacks sufficient, rigorous data on difficulty - or even an agreed construct for difficulty - to validate such a claim!) In the past I've heard folk suggest that storygames produce toothless consequences. Both are wrong.

I see that comment simply as a claim that @Manbearcat is making that has no relevance to my manifesto so isn't necessary to engage with. If it's intended to imply the superiority of some modes of play over others, that's patently rubbish. Is that on track, or is something else in @Manbearcat's post concerning you? (As an aside, you're not taking up with me the words of another poster, are you? Why not take it up with them?)

No it is not that part, it's the one you ignored...

Spoiler: this one

I think that it's being overly generous in the extreme to call the dog whistle laden murk a north star. Throughout this and the other threads the neotrad support walks and awfully fine line simultaneously avoiding outright embracing and outright drawing a line too far the sort of live vrs totally choreographed distinction made in 270. If anything the tapdancing around both draws attention to the incongruous focus on the gm role being adjusted rather than the players with ghost written PCs stepping up.

drawn out smokescreens like 329 over what should be a simple clear and explicit confirmation practically points a spotlight at the acknowledgement that one of those is accepted as unreasonable for a player to expect while dog whistling that they very much should use neotrad as a shield to shift blame for behaving negatively as if entitled to it.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Some of this reads like it is becoming quite hostile.

That's probably not going to end up constructive. Please tone down the hostility, before it has untoward consequences, please and thanks.

 

[pemerton]

by my lights -trad game designs that include features learned from indie-games, but remain -trad in play, are not neotrad. The inclusion of such features is necessary, but not sufficient. If one likes, this gives us weak and strong definitions of "neotrad". The weak version is any traditional mode game design that includes innovations first seen in indie-games. The strong version fits my manifesto.

This fits with my post upthread, where I conjectured that some games that might superficially seem neotrad don't count, by your lights. (That is, they are "weakly" but not "strongly" neotrad.)

What I am still a bit puzzled by is what a RPG actually looks like that counts as strong neotrad but is not just "story now".

I mean, if the players and GM are all playing to find out, in Baker's sense, we have a "story now" game. But if the players and GM are, in some fashion, pre-loading - so they are not "finding out" in the strictest sense because in their play they are exploring, in detail, whatever it was that they pre-loaded - then what has happened to the general RPG form? Eg are the players still declaring actions for particular characters located in particular situations presented to them by the GM?

 

[pemerton]

I think there could well be a ground that you are outlining in your discussion, in fact I think in GNS terms neo-trad might almost be analyzed as a form of 'simulationist' agenda in which the premise is formed by the players in regard to their characters and related stuff like the milieu they occupy, story arcs, etc.

I certainly think that most RPGs that tend to get labelled neo-trad are best understood as a form of high concept sim; but one in which - prior to play actually commencing, and perhaps also via out-of-game "meta channels" - the player is expected to have more input into situation, either directly or mediated via the way they build their PC.

To my reading, GNS is only claiming that different creative agendas will be incoherent. And then Edwards is advocating designers to serve one agenda, but that doesn't make mixing techniques incoherent.

Edwards repeatedly states - indeed, emphasises - that techniques are distinct from creative agendas.

That said, he also notes that certain techniques are well-suited to particular creative agendas - eg FitM is generally a better fit for narrativism or gamism than for sim, especially than for purist-for-system sim.

A technique that requires the participant who is deploying it to make a "meta"-influenced decision about some aspect of the fiction won't be a good fit for purist-for-system sim (because it is punting the system's job back onto the participant); and a technique that requires a non-GM participant to make that sort of decision won't be a goof fit for high concept sim, because it is shifting the GM-as-glue aspect of high concept sim onto the player, who is therefore doing more than just "being there", experiencing the fiction.

The previous paragraph, and especially the bit about high concept sim, is really a reiteration of my puzzle about where the space is for "strong" neo-trad that is not just "story now".

 

[kenada]

I'd advise not to draw constraining, rigid implications from the proposed manifesto. That's not it's purpose. My idea was to publicly declare a north star, without rigid instruction how to get there. I was aiming to be economical and provocative. The former to avoid saying to much, the latter to undermine assumptions.

Manifestos tend to be prescriptive. If it’s not, then what’s provocative about it?

Reasoning about play is something you'd do as part of TTRPG design anyway. How could you not? That may be organised like this.

Say what you want the experience of play to be. Design the play to enable that experience. Iterate.​

I think you can see at once that this is doing a different job.

The formalism is important. By adopting a specific way of approaching your process, you reap certain benefits. When I say I prefer reasoning about dynamics, I’m making reference to that formalism and finding it more valuable than prescriptions of what I should be doing.

The manifesto raises questions, without necessarily offering answers. Most of all it says - "have an opinion on this". Whereas this here is rigid instruction for design: do this, and then do this; repeat. On the premise that doing those things in that sequence will organise and ease the process.

I was assuming it did more than that. If it’s just raising questions without answers, how does one apply it?

Again, I don't (and based on comments in thread I feel confident TH didn't) see them as imposing rigid constraints. Although I absolutely agree with your sense that they can have that effect when imposed with authority or submitted to without challenge. A taxonomy organises the design space, so that the designer can address it methodically. It can, for example, narrow down the number of other games you will want to observe to understand design patterns that will most likely be valuable to your project. It can help you decide which audience you want to address, by seeing what kinds of folk are playing games of similar ilk; and what they care about. Taxonomies are just a tool of game design: rigid to the extent you allow them to be, or force them upon others without considering their take.

If we were talking about video games, I might agree with you, but we’re not. The taxonomies used in tabletop RPG discourse tend to be broad, and people seem rather invested in their having specific meanings. Would an OSR game without rulings be an OSR game anymore? If you keep all the dynamics of Story Now but drop the PC crucible, is it still Story Now?

I’ve been asked which of G, N, or S my homebrew system is, and I honestly don’t know. One could probably make an argument for any of those depending on how you look at it. What I do know is its outlook, and I try to avoid incorporating mechanics that conflict with it. Thanks to this discussion, I may try to do that more formally (by documenting the intended experiences and dynamics), but I’m wary of being forced into a bucket.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On the other hand, this take about lowering difficulty... I don't see any convincing argument for it. As one example, the Year Zero Engine includes a push mechanic that can inflict attribute damage on characters. This is a death-spiral mechanic (you push because you need the success, or more successes, but then you become less likely to succeed next time.) I do not observe any lowering of difficulty in the resultant play. Or take the time to observe a lot of 4e play: there's no difference in difficulty between whether the group opts into neotrad or sticks with trad. (Perhaps someone can show rather than theorycraft it? but frankly, the community lacks sufficient, rigorous data on difficulty - or even an agreed construct for difficulty - to validate such a claim!) In the past I've heard folk suggest that storygames produce toothless consequences. Both are wrong.

Well, I think the argument was more that if you take a story game type of narrativist 'push the PCs' framework and dial down the difficulty, then you arrive at a very neo-tradish sort of place. And then more specifically that one version of that would be something like FATE where you can earn FATE points in low-stakes situations, which you can then spend to obviate the consequences or change the fiction in higher stakes situations. That effectively brings the overall pressure on the PCs down a lot, AND lets the players dictate when and where they will confront challenges directly, and where they will just kind of push it off on some trait or other of either the PC or the situation.

In terms of 4e I think this also works. When the GM isn't REALLY pushing the PCs they can kind of just easy mode through a lot of stuff and do whatever they want without much compelling them to rise to the action. If they WANT to challenge themselves, they can, it's generally not that hard, but how and when and where that happens becomes entirely under their control.

Story Now play OTOH doesn't generally have this. The situation is NOT under the control of the players! They have a great deal of input into the NATURE of the challenges they will face, in a general sense, or how they will engage them, but the stuff is hitting the fan, you either rise to the occasion RIGHT NOW or else! And the stakes are likely to get crazy and profound, and include stuff you may not WANT to risk, except it's not a matter of a choice between risk and not risk, it's a matter of which unacceptable risk are you going to choose!? And how will you deal with the fallout. When you dial 4e UP, that's what you are likely to get.

FATE OTOH honestly never seemed to me to evoke that sort of play. It may or may not cater to neo-trad play, but it isn't usually used in a Narrativist fashion from what little I've experienced of it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You may recall that my thoughts on sim - or "neosim" as I labelled it - align with Eero Tuovinen's. What you're describing would be nearer to sandbox, which interestingly enough is what Harenstam's Forbidden Lands is most like. I'm always interested in links to the thoughts of others, if you spot anything relevant.

Well... I don't think 'sandbox' is that much related to this. A sandbox implies a set of location-based challenges/adventures, but it says little at all about motives and stakes, if anything. I mean, I can imagine narrativist versions of sandbox, but they will have to incorporate additional elements. If that was neo-trad, maybe those additional elements are less important, but again I think neo-trad IS a form of simulationist play, and so is trad, generally speaking! Anyway, I was more wondering what the 'narrativist and neo-trad use a lot of the same devices' says about sim and nar as separate categories.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You may recall that my thoughts on sim - or "neosim" as I labelled it - align with Eero Tuovinen's. What you're describing would be nearer to sandbox, which interestingly enough is what Harenstam's Forbidden Lands is most like. I'm always interested in links to the thoughts of others, if you spot anything relevant.


High praise indeed: I'll take it!


It does seem possible to draw that conclusion, although I decided against it. To my reading, GNS is only claiming that different creative agendas will be incoherent. And then Edwards is advocating designers to serve one agenda, but that doesn't make mixing techniques incoherent. The N in GNS somewhat conflates storygames with narrativism, when - at least in my view - they should be counted two different things. Storygames obviously wield/weld narrativism very strongly to their purpose, but narrativism isn't identical to that purpose.

Once you remove that bit of ambiguity, so that narrativism isn't mixed up with Edwards' interest in dramatic protagonism (not that I have any disagreement with the latter, it's only the conflation I resist) then nothing in GNS seems to predict incoherence between -trad and narrativism. There might be doubt as to whose creative agenda would fit the resultant play... even so, folk are observably embracing these games. And of course, while GNS in places relates certain techniques to one agenda or other, it doesn't predict that mixing techniques will lead to incoherence. Obviously mechanical coherence is a consideration for design, but GNS isn't so far as I recall making any claims about that.

I am not entirely sure what a 'storygame' is in this context as opposed to a narrativist one. I would expect if a game is intent on telling a specific story or type of story, and doing so as an inherent part of its process, then it falls within the 'S' part of RE's model of play, which is "games which focus on producing/evoking specific types of play or outcomes." N focus games OTOH are concerned with characterization and playing to discover what sort of story arises out of the juxtaposition of character and situation. BUT I can agree that sometimes aiming for a particular KIND of story can overlap heavily with N play.

So, for instance, you will get a specific sort of stories out of BitD, for sure! However, while those stories will all have the sort of dark urban fantasy elements of BitD there are a wide range of possible outcomes and things that might become the focus in BitD, and that won't be much under anyone's specific control. A more 'S' type of game set in Doskvol would probably evolve in a more predictable way, the various factions and whatever would line up to bring about the desired storyline, etc. That might be dictated by the player's authority or by what the GM incorporates in the story, so it could partake of trad, neo-trad, etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The previous paragraph, and especially the bit about high concept sim, is really a reiteration of my puzzle about where the space is for "strong" neo-trad that is not just "story now".

Well, IMHO, wouldn't 'strong' neo-trad simply be a type of neo-trad play where the GM is simply used to play the NPCs and act out the parts which allow the PCs to fulfill the player's desires? I mean, there could also be somewhat of a split where SOME aspects of play are under true GM authority, but other parts are relegated to players to regulate. There then just has to be a mechanism for the two parts to be brought into harmony with each other (IE if the GM decides the city falls to the orcs, then the player's wish for his PC to build his clan's fortunes has to get worked out in light of that, maybe they ally with the orcs somehow?). Who or what brings about that harmonization would surely be a major point of design there!

But in any case I think that all could exist and NOT fall under "play to find out" which I think is the necessary signature of Narrativist play.