A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[kenada]

I'm always in favor of general mechanics. In the current version of HoML everything coming at the PCs elicits a defense, and any dice rolling mechanism can apply to them. So practices can alter the type of check, a defense feat can be utilized, you can invoke the alternate consequences rules to accept an affliction as an alternative to damage, etc.

Skill checks are roll versus a target number. It’s static + factors. Combat works on the same basic math, but the target number is the target’s Armor defense (= Proficiency + Block / Dodge / Parry). The key difference so far is both sides take swings while PCs make skill checks. This change would align skill check with checks in combat in that both sides could make them depending on the circumstances. The big unknown is how well this works in play and whether my players will go along with consequences setting.

That’s an important part of the solution. As I mentioned in post #161, there’s a conflict of interest between being both an adjudicator and being a player. In most cases, which role to perform can be toggled by the rules with certain parameters on discretion. When you are initiating though, you can’t adjudicate your own action. That would create unwanted dynamics. Instead, the natural thing to do is to shift the foregrounding of consequences to the target. That should keep the dynamics intact while adding flexibility for when an NPC needs to make a move.

⁂​

To bring this back on topic, if I were looking at this from a perspective of “I’m making an X, which implies these kinds of mechanics,” I may not have considered this approach. It still could suck, but at least it’s something to try. That’s why I want to eschew manifestos and taxonomies. I don’t want to be constrained by rigid implications. Being able to reason about dynamics seems preferable to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Skill checks are roll versus a target number. It’s static + factors. Combat works on the same basic math, but the target number is the target’s Armor defense (= Proficiency + Block / Dodge / Parry). The key difference so far is both sides take swings while PCs make skill checks. This change would align skill check with checks in combat in that both sides could make them depending on the circumstances. The big unknown is how well this works in play and whether my players will go along with consequences setting.

That’s an important part of the solution. As I mentioned in post #161, there’s a conflict of interest between being both an adjudicator and being a player. In most cases, which role to perform can be toggled by the rules with certain parameters on discretion. When you are initiating though, you can’t adjudicate your own action. That would create unwanted dynamics. Instead, the natural thing to do is to shift the foregrounding of consequences to the target. That should keep the dynamics intact while adding flexibility for when an NPC needs to make a move.

⁂​

To bring this back on topic, if I were looking at this from a perspective of “I’m making an X, which implies these kinds of mechanics,” I may not have considered this approach. It still could suck, but at least it’s something to try. That’s why I want to eschew manifestos and taxonomies. I don’t want to be constrained by rigid implications. Being able to reason about dynamics seems preferable to me.

Yeah I think my reasoning was that in all cases in HoML the pattern is when something is at stake the player describes their intent and makes a check, the mechanics are applied and if the results were success the player describes that, otherwise the GM will describe a new fictional state where you don't get what you wanted, or there's some consequence. Usually if you are rolling a defense and fail it will be "you got hit" but you have the option to take an affliction instead of the normal consequences. This you can say, "well I dodged, and went clear off the cliff!" and the GM could respond with "wound, broken leg!"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly, I think @Manbearcat 's observation about 4e trending neo-trad when difficulty is low can apply to my game too perhaps. It is after all basically an extrapolation of 4e's design.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Separating roles has some historical base. I linked one such example in post #191. In practice, it seems that maintaining a split is pretty difficult. That kind of play is not (and presumably was not) typical.


I don’t think what you’re suggesting and what I’d like to see are incompatible. It may be that certain ones tend to go together or can’t be easily separated from a centralized design. The intent is to leave it up to game designers to figure it out. It only takes one to find a novel way of separating them that can move the state of the art forward.

Well, as I commented to Clearstream, there's some splitting there that seems like it'd only occur in somewhat specialized cases.

I don't expect too often you'll see a case where the GM functions are split out to dedicated participants who otherwise do nothing else, though I can see situations where it might be beneficial to do so (there may some intrinsic conflicts of interest in having, say, the enemy-combatant-controller, the rules administrator, and the world-director all be the same person), but its hard enough to find one GM, let alone two or three people to do the job.

But I can see cases where splitting off some of these to players might not be a terrible idea. If you have a principled player, there's no reason he couldn't be the rules administrator too, for example (I suspect I could do that job because I tend to be scrupulous about keeping my powder dry as it were in such things--I had a GM a couple times over the years look startled because I brought up rules corrections to my character's deficit, because I didn't think being fussy about the rules when it helped me but not when it didn't felt ethical) and if a group approaches it such that such a thing is expected (to limit the mentioned above conflicts of interest), I think they could keep the rules administrator's feet to the fire if he slipped, and the very fact he's not considered a general authority figure would make that easier.

And of course in some cases some functions may be simply unnecessary, or less necessary. If you're working with a pre-canned setting, unless its very lightly sketched, there may need to be less world-administrator present; there will still be some on a small scale, but the GM isn't really doing major world-creation in the first place, and smaller scale work could easily be spread around without harming the game in any meaningful way, since everyone is working in the context of the established larger framework.

 

[pemerton]

@kenada

Have you read Baker's blog on "IIEE with teeth"? http://www.lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/456

So although it is not possible for the rules per se to "coerce" players into following them, it is possible to design rules that, when followed, require not in a normative (hence optional) way but in a functional (hence non-optional) way the game participants to do <X>, where <X> is a thing that you want them to do to make your game work.

So Baker contrasts action resolution systems that can't be applied without rightward arrows, and hence without making "moves" in the fiction (DitV is an example) with ones that can be (eg In A Wicked Age). I actually think this is a strength of 4e skill challenge compared to Duel of Wits or Torchbearer 2e conflicts: the GM has to make moves in the fiction because they don't get to just roll dice.

 

[kenada]

@kenada

Have you read Baker's blog on "IIEE with teeth"? http://www.lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/456

So although it is not possible for the rules per se to "coerce" players into following them, it is possible to design rules that, when followed, require not in a normative (hence optional) way but in a functional (hence non-optional) way the game participants to do <X>, where <X> is a thing that you want them to do to make your game work.

So Baker contrasts action resolution systems that can't be applied without rightward arrows, and hence without making "moves" in the fiction (DitV is an example) with ones that can be (eg In A Wicked Age). I actually think this is a strength of 4e skill challenge compared to Duel of Wits or Torchbearer 2e conflicts: the GM has to make moves in the fiction because they don't get to just roll dice.

I hadn’t seen that before. Thanks for the link.

It’s interesting to think about in the context of the opposition skill check issue in my homebrew system I discussed in post #309. If you want certain consequences to be possible, you have to foreground them. Otherwise, it is bad play to try to do them anyway. For the proposed changes, that’s even more important since players would sometimes have that responsibility. It’s might not be as strong as DitV (though it’s been almost twenty years since I last played it, so my recollection is not great), but it seems more so than the In a Wicked Age mechanic discussed.

 

[pemerton]

I hadn’t seen that before. Thanks for the link.

No probs!

It’s interesting to think about in the context of the opposition skill check issue in my homebrew system I discussed in post #309. If you want certain consequences to be possible, you have to foreground them. Otherwise, it is bad play to try to do them anyway. For the proposed changes, that’s even more important since players would sometimes have that responsibility. It’s might not be as strong as DitV (though it’s been almost twenty years since I last played it, so my recollection is not great), but it seems more so than the In a Wicked Age mechanic discussed.

So if players have to foreground a consequence, what you want is an action declaration system that can't be operationalised without foregrounding a consequence.

An example - though probably not one that would fit your system - is that someone has to add a "consequence die" to their pool, and that can't be done until they tell us what the consequence is going to be.

 

[kenada]

So if players have to foreground a consequence, what you want is an action declaration system that can't be operationalised without foregrounding a consequence.

An example - though probably not one that would fit your system - is that someone has to add a "consequence die" to their pool, and that can't be done until they tell us what the consequence is going to be.

The other part is if someone doesn’t foreground consequences, then the one who wants something gets it.

It originally had two purposes: removing discretion over when a check can occur, and avoiding incongruous results that can happen when the referee has to come up with consequences on the spot. Now, if this works out, it provides a way for other players to signal whether they accept or contest an action. For example, if you don’t foreground consequences when someone tries to shake you down, then you must be acquiescing to it.

 

[clearstream]

To bring this back on topic, if I were looking at this from a perspective of “I’m making an X, which implies these kinds of mechanics,” I may not have considered this approach. It still could suck, but at least it’s something to try. That’s why I want to eschew manifestos and taxonomies. I don’t want to be constrained by rigid implications

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. Thus, revised to align with conversation so far -

Neotrad game designs ought to​

Promote the lusory-duality of players​

Shift GM to or toward a role taken on by a player​

Because play is more likely to deliver on the former given the latter​

It wasn't until @pemerton pointed out in their #253 that I realised I'd failed to join the dots all the way to that crucial point about centrality of players (I just assumed everyone had taken note of it.)

But you, @clearstream, seem to see at least some of the games falling under my third and last dot point as failures from the point of view of your manifesto - as in, they are really just "trad" with no genuine "neo".

The "failures" I perceived were with regard to

the idea of player centrality, which I connect with the narrativist comprehension of the lusory-duality (player as simultaneously author and audience.) I want to be able to observe the supposedly neotrad play and see something recognisably different from trad play, and the nature of that difference will relate to the lusory-duality.

And the importance of stating that outright become clearer after I read @Manbearcat's #270 and #274. I don't, incidentally, claim that this is all their should be in a neotrad manifesto, As I said

No doubt the landscape is diverse and there are other hallmarks, too. I suggest that this one is central.

tl;dr if you're reading it to be rigid, that's not what's intended. It is intended to challenge thinking and influence design in a certain direction.

Being able to reason about dynamics seems preferable to me.

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 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.

...and taxonomies. I don’t want to be constrained by rigid implications

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.

 

[clearstream]

I want to restate my advice just above about not drawing constraining, rigid implications from my proposed neotrad manifesto. That's not it's purpose. My idea is to publicly declare a north star, without rigid instruction on how to get there. I am aiming to be economical and provocative. The former to avoid saying to much, the latter to undermine assumptions.

Thus, revised to align with conversation so far, for reexamination and challenge -

Neotrad game designs ought to​

Promote the lusory-duality of players​

Shift GM to or toward a role taken on by a player​

Because play is more likely to deliver on the former given the latter​

No doubt this can be better wordsmitted (suggestions are welcome!) And maybe there are missing terms, such as around scene opening closing per #288 for example. Maybe it isn't obvious enough that shifting GM would entail deprecating rule zero. (Denoting GM "player" makes it more obvious, I think.)