A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[hawkeyefan]

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 don’t think that your statement I was responding to offered any kind of viable solution. That everyone meeds to stop worrying about story and just let things happen. Why would that solve a problem for players who want there to be a story in their game?

Ah, but do you really though?

Yeah, mostly. I play several types of games. Currently I’m running a PbtA game and I’m playing in what’d fall into a Storygame according to the 6 Culture article. I’m also playing in a 5e game which I’d say is pretty neotrad, but that’s going on hiatus and we’ll be switching over to Delta Green, which I’d call pretty Trad.

I enjoy those games all for a variety of reasons. But the ones I like the most are the ones with no set story, where it emerges from play.

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.

No, not at all. You seem to assume I’m saying I personally enjoy adventure path play. And that’s not really the case. I simply recognize it as a huge part of the hobby, so huge that your statement:

It kinda cuts both ways; on the one hand, players, gms and colloquial players, need to be more willing to just go with what happens, and to let go of the obsessive desires to force stories to happen.

is just off. If there’s a desire for stories to happen, saying “stop trying to make stories happen” doesn’t help.

I’m capable of advocating for playstyles beyond those I enjoy. Crazy, I know.

 

[pemerton]

I’ve talked about this example in other ways before, but I think that the Background Features of 5e are very neotrad/oc in origin. At least, they are if taken as presented and not overruled by the GM.

It’s the granting of narrative authority to the players in a way that shapes the game world and isn’t (or shouldn’t be) subject to GM approval. It allows the establishment of a contact or favorable responses from NPCs and so on.

It’s reinforcing the player’s conception of their character more than the GM’s conception of the game world.

So I think one question for neo-trad design becomes how is the sort of thing that you describe to be reconciled/integrated with an overall GM-driven trad-ish RPG experience?

GUMSHOE is, perhaps, one model. What about others?

 

[tetrasodium]

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

Yes, it's a fairly significant difference and where so many of these neotrad/OC debates expose imply or provide cover for an unhealthy play expectation.

The gm carries a lot of additional duties and responsibilities that players do not. If you talk about reducing the gm's power/authority/etc to make them more like a player while talking up player authority all of those duties and responsibilities remain exclusively with the gm. If you talk about involving players in a collaborative shared narrative storygame where players have the ability to do things like make declarations and compels* or similar shares some of those duties and responsibilities with players who are expected to do nontrivial amounts of lifting with their own character, other player's characters, the world, and places they might intersect

But that's talking about a game that actually kind of embodies what may as well be an extreme example of the values Neotrad/OC tries to spotlight and neotrad/OC discussions tend to be about gameplay as if it were a thing that could simply be slotted into almost any system. That's where the focus on changing the gm's role carries a second punch by pinning blame to the gm for the inevitable breakdown and failure of trying to slot the square peg into a round hole. If the talk is instead focused on making players more like the GM the square peg is immediately called out over the various ways it will clash when a particular player's effort to import it into a poorly fitting system needs to be explained to the rest of the table.

* Both fate terms. I used it because they are simple and work the same both ways. Declarations spend a resource to declare a relevant detail into existence and compels force someone else to take some action unless they can explain why not and buy their way out of the compel.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's true. Earthdawn for instance spells out the whole rules-can't-cover-everything / make-the game-your-own-thing, even though it hasn't got anything labelled "rule zero" or "golden rule". The signal question is whether only GM as referee is expected to own that?


That is a darned good question. The easy answer might be that the "neotrad manifesto" targets traditional modes like OSR, sandbox, sim and trad; but surely one can point out in response that just about any RPG can hit situations no rule covers.

The innovation one would draw on then, would be those for permissiveness where rules don't apply, such as "say yes, or roll the dice". If it fits a rule, do what the rule says, otherwise say yes.* Words in AW position GM as player, but then encourages adding and revising rules. However, to my reading it makes that a thing anyone can do. The text addresses MC, but the examples reference a bunch of folk. I can't recall if it states it expressly, but my sense is that rules in play at session start would ride. In Avatar, all players - GM especially - are licensed to create custom moves - "you might be interested in creating moves of your own, especially if you're the GM!"

So another answer would be that a) you need a general rule that covers cases not covered by specific rules, and b) a procedure for adding/revising rules that any player can access.

I would argue that PbtA (at least those I'm familiar with) are 'open ended', the rules DO cover any possible situation that can come up. In Dungeon World for instance there's no case where the general "describe what you do and then the GM may specify a move if one is triggered" process of play is pretty much 'complete', you can't step outside that. I think this is a pretty general characteristic of a lot of Narrativist systems at least, though not all. For instance 4e is a system where things are more specific and RAW may not cover everything. It does have Page 42 and advice on altering color/keywords in order to extrapolate to otherwise unsupported situations, but DW, for instance, doesn't need that. I would say these complete systems don't even really NEED things like custom moves in PbtA. Custom moves are useful, but not required. The game will run fine even if you never define one.

 

[pointofyou]

Yes, it's a fairly significant difference and where so many of these neotrad/OC debates expose imply or provide cover for an unhealthy play expectation.

The gm carries a lot of additional duties and responsibilities that players do not. If you talk about reducing the gm's power/authority/etc to make them more like a player while talking up player authority all of those duties and responsibilities remain exclusively with the gm. If you talk about involving players in a collaborative shared narrative storygame where players have the ability to do things like make declarations and compels* or similar shares some of those duties and responsibilities with players who are expected to do nontrivial amounts of lifting with their own character, other player's characters, the world, and places they might intersect

But that's talking about a game that actually kind of embodies what may as well be an extreme example of the values Neotrad/OC tries to spotlight and neotrad/OC discussions tend to be about gameplay as if it were a thing that could simply be slotted into almost any system. That's where the focus on changing the gm's role carries a second punch by pinning blame to the gm for the inevitable breakdown and failure of trying to slot the square peg into a round hole. If the talk is instead focused on making players more like the GM the square peg is immediately called out over the various ways it will clash when a particular player's effort to import it into a poorly fitting system needs to be explained to the rest of the table.

* Both fate terms. I used it because they are simple and work the same both ways. Declarations spend a resource to declare a relevant detail into existence and compels force someone else to take some action unless they can explain why not and buy their way out of the compel.

That's an awful lot of words that start from disagreement but actually agree.

 

[Emberashh]

Why would that solve a problem for players who want there to be a story in their game?

If they also insist on the game being a do anything sandbox, something has to give.

But, thats also why the other option is pursuing a true emergent narrative system, rather than the kinda-sorta thing that results from slapping a conventional literary or film plot into whats otherwise a sandbox.

This is a solution I've been looking into in my game.

If there’s a desire for stories to happen, saying “stop trying to make stories happen” doesn’t help.

The issue is that traditional stories don't work in interactive environments; games are about doing, not being a passive audience.

Thats the reason most video games that try to force a story through the game could just as easily done their story as a movie with nothing lost. The "story" is just movie scenes inbetween disconnected bouts of unrelated gameplay.

Meanwhile, games like Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, the Sims, and others are ones that go the other way, allowing story's to truly emerge from gameplay, and many others unlike those are heavily conducive to the same on a smaller scale, like DayZ or Bannerlord. They aren't stories that are even remotely similar to conventional narratives we see in movies or books, but thats okay, because games are a different medium.

The latter is more of what RPGs should be playing like, if we want to hold up the idea that they're games where you can do "anything".

As said, there's two choices. Either we go for an actual sandbox, which means players need to adjust their expectations, or we accept the idea that RPGs aren't games where anything can be done, and so the design and the players need to follow that assumption.

We can't have it both ways.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

I mean, my own preferences tend to run that way… I want story, such as it is, to be emergent from play. At least, I prefer that most of the time.

This past week in one of my games, our regular GM wasn’t able to make it, so another player stepped up and ran a one shot. That one shot was very much designed with a story in mind. And it was perfectly fine… we all knew that going in, and we were perfectly happy to take part. And it was enjoyable.

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.

Right, and this is why I've come to favor Narrativist play. Like in our Agon game last night at the very end of the island (adventure) my character described the outcome of the final conflict in a way which was not at all suggested by anything that had come before. I simply extrapolated my PC's abilities, and in keeping with the already established narrative of the conflict (It was a 'Craft and Reason' domain conflict) I crafted an item which provided a reasonable and (IMHO) satisfying narrative describing my success in resolving it. Honestly, going into the conflict I had NO IDEA that this would be the resolution. I selected dice to put into my pool based on various resources available to me, and then abided by the constraints thus imposed. I forget all the details of the dice pool, but my character is a highly accomplished crafter and also known for peacefully resolving conflicts. IIRC I invoked a bond with Apollo (big d12), which suggested use of knowledge, along with my 'Rune Master' primary Epithet (which I get a D8 for).

This is the type of emergent story that comes up in Narrativist play. The mechanics and ongoing fictional position suggest and create certain constraints and range of potential outcomes, and then a mix of rules/procedures/principles and creativity generally lead to the actual narrative. Agon is a bit different from, say, PbtA in the details of the process, but all these games aim for a similar kind of play.

I guess my real question is whether or not this is substantially different from any kind of process and outcome that would be expected to arise in putative 'neo-trad' play? I mean, is there actually a game which, according to @clearstream is NOT neo-trad but is Narrativist? I basically feel like, at most, neo-trad by this definition is a synonym for Narrativist play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, this is a player asking something about the world and the GM returning "I don't know. You tell us!"?

Right, which comes STRAIGHT OUT of Apocalypse World!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Emphasis mine.


Would you say then that labelling GM as player essentially has no meaning in TB2 and AW?

It certainly isn't something that I see as core to those games. In fact I can't even think of where in the text of either system that is stated, or even if it is! I can rattle off most of the agenda/principles/and techniques of play that AW2e and DW list (their lists are slightly different for obvious reasons, but pretty close). These are IMPORTANT, they form the 'backbone' of these games, along with the basic play loop and definitions. At no point does it make any difference, IMHO, what label, player or referee, the GM has.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So I think one question for neo-trad design becomes how is the sort of thing that you describe to be reconciled/integrated with an overall GM-driven trad-ish RPG experience?

GUMSHOE is, perhaps, one model. What about others?

I would argue that GUMSHOE is largely a Narrativist system! I mean, it is intended for a very specific sort of play, and is not a 'low myth' (at least in terms of what the story is) game, but it still largely follows a kind of 'play to find out what happens' kind of schema, doesn't it? I can see how that would vary depending on the attitude of the participants though, as if the GM assumes a very specific outcome to the mystery at hand, then they can probably 'make it so'. Or am I misrepresenting it?