D&D 5E Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

[Paul Farquhar]

Sorry, I misread you.

I nearly said "all", but then I thought about it some more and realised that wouldn't be true.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The "classic" play cares nothing about the characters. Zero. They are a name and some stats on a page. And OSR is much the same. And the game rules are much more made this way. Did your 8th level character get bit by a simple giant spider....roll a save...maybe your character dies.

I played that, and while it's true that the rules don't care, players pretty always came to care about their characters, they game them names, they developed personalities over time, and were sad when they were died. You really think no one felt anything at all when their 8th level character died?!

 

[Aldarc]

The thing is that, at least in my anecdotal experience, OC/neo-trad players usually do not come from a TTRPG background. Instead, they come from text roleplay on places like deviantART originally, and nowadays on Discord. I participated in one of these recently and it's fascinating how they approach RP from a purely interpretative/experiential perspective. Many of these, the veterans told me, used to be diceless. Nowadays most of them use some dice mechanics, but the systems are so simple that they'd be at most rules-light under our usual definition.

What I am trying to say here is that style of play can be something different from RPG rulebooks/systems/etc. So while OC/neo-trad may be close to story games in design, I'd say that they come from different origins and, as such, it's interesting to recognize them as different variants of a common approach to roleplaying.

I would say that my partner probably falls into the Trad or Neo-Trad camp. They came from Star Wars fandom, particularly the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG. They didn't RP, but they drew fan art, wrote fan fic, and was active on Tumblr in this community. IME, I think that this shapes their approach to TTRPGs.

This is tangential to your point, but is it so buck-wild to me that the blog you linked there lists “no rule zero/golden rule” as a hallmark of neo-trad, and then just calls that statement self-explanatory and moves on. Maybe that’s self-explanatory to an audience who’s already familiar with neo-trad, but it sounds completely outlandish to me.

I mean, the idea of neo-trad is that the GM is no longer an utterly absolute, unquestionable authority. That's what "Rule Zero" cashes out as in trad play: whatever the GM says, goes. Neo-trad opens the possibility that not everything comes from unilateral GM declaration--that there may be rules that bind even the GM. Dungeon World has such rules all over the place, for example, telling me what I must do as GM (even though it's not, properly speaking, neo-trad.)

I agree with @EzekielRaiden's point, but (1) I do think that the author should have provided explanation, and (2) I don't think that the author is entirely correct.

Actually mention of Rule Zero is absent in a lot more tabletop games than I think many people realize. There is certainly an admission that from some authors/designers that they have no control over what you or your group do with the game at your table, but that's not really Rule Zero.

For example, I can't recall ever reading about Rule Zero in any of Free League's games. Fate doesn't really have a Rule Zero. (It does have a Silver Rule.) Fabula Ultima does not have a Rule Zero. There is an explicit expectation with both of these games that changes or occasions when ignoring the rules are decided collectively by the players at the table (e.g., Fate's Silver Rule). Likewise, there is also an expectation that you should try to play many of these games as written first before making changes.

Now, there are some games that don't have Rule Zero, but the spirit of it is still there. This is where I would disagree with the author of the article with their whole "No Rule Zero" bit, as some of the games they do list as Neo-Trad either have a Rule Zero or the aforementioned applies.

For example, Vampire: the Masquerade and Numenera are both mentioned as Neo-Trad games. However, Vampire: the Masquerade's Golden Rule ("there are no rules") arguably became the most influential view for Rule Zero. Numenera doesn't formally have a Rule Zero; however, as per Rob Donoghue (Fate), "This is without question a Rule Zero game."

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I played that, and while it's true that the rules don't care, players pretty always came to care about their characters, they game them names, they developed personalities over time, and were sad when they were died. You really think no one felt anything at all when their 8th level character died?!

That is why there was the move away from that style towards the Neo-Trad/OC style, and why the systems changed to incorporate that change. Players start to express their characters as people rather than pawns, with their own motivations, and start to value them more. Character actions, based on those motivations, start to affect the plot more. Because the players and story become more invested in the characters, it becomes harder and less arbitrary to kill them. Death becomes the result of bad decisions or multiple bad rolls rather than the plethora of "save or die" effects.

 

[pemerton]

For example, Vampire: the Masquerade and Numenera are both mentioned as Neo-Trad games. However, Vampire: the Masquerade's Golden Rule ("there are no rules") arguably became the most influential view for Rule Zero.

The Golden Rule is certainly something that is being excluded in that blog.

But V:tM would normally be characterised as hyper-trad, rather than neo-trad, at least in its "official" approach to play. When V:tM is listed at the end, I'm not sure if they're referring to 5th ed (which I think is neo-trad - I summon @Campbell to elaborate should he wish to) or the original trad version looked at through a retrospective lens.

On Numenera, I can say nothing useful.

EDIT: By rule zero/golden rule the blog is not talking about houseruling; they're talking about the GM suspending action resolution rules when they see fit. (I think we're agreed in this reading of the blog.)

 

[Aldarc]

The Golden Rule is certainly something that is being excluded in that blog.

But V:tM would normally be characterised as hyper-trad, rather than neo-trad, at least in its "official" approach to play. When V:tM is listed at the end, I'm not sure if they're referring to 5th ed (which I think is neo-trad - I summon @Campbell to elaborate should he wish to) or the original trad version looked at through a retrospective lens.

On Numenera, I can say nothing useful.

EDIT: By rule zero/golden rule the blog is not talking about houseruling; they're talking about the GM suspending action resolution rules when they see fit. (I think we're agreed in this reading of the blog.)

My point being that the author's list of Neo-Trad games, regardless of whether they are or not, are not consistent with list of the "recognizable elements" of Neo-Trad games.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That is why there was the move away from that style towards the Neo-Trad/OC style, and why the systems changed to incorporate that change. Players start to express their characters as people rather than pawns, with their own motivations, and start to value them more. Character actions, based on those motivations, start to affect the plot more. Because the players and story become more invested in the characters, it becomes harder and less arbitrary to kill them. Death becomes the result of bad decisions or multiple bad rolls rather than the plethora of "save or die" effects.

This was very early. When I started around 1982 it had already happened. I think it’s human nature to identify with playing pieces. You see it in chess, beginners can be too attached to pieces and not want to sacrifice them.

But that doesn’t mean characters can’t die. characters are important in my game, but they still die sometimes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Note this is a [+] thread. If you don't enjoy this style of play, that's great, but there's no need to drag this thread down. It's okay to let people talk about what they like.

I'm using the definition provided in the Six Cultures of Play article.

Sorry, but I don't get it. My preferences run squarely in the old-school, OSR, and NuSR veins. I like challenges and I'm fine with randomness and character death. Almost literally the opposite of everything I've seen, read, or heard about OC/neo-trad. This isn't me ragging on OC/neo-trad. This is me explaining where I am coming from in hopes of making the conversation easier.

So, for the people who enjoy OC/neo-trad style play. What's the draw? Where's the fun? What's the joy? Etc.

Honestly. Please help me understand because I don't get it.

Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

No, seriously, that's the main difference I see between Trad and OC/Neo-Trad; Trad was what a Gen X/Elder Millennial audience found cool in the late 80s and 90s (complete with katanas, trenchcoats, and pink mohawks) and OC/Neo-Trad is what a group of Younger Millennial/Zoomers found cool in the 2010s and 2020s.

And the Storygames section is terrible; it explains the where/when but not the what or why. Storygames are mostly a group of originally Trad but now leaning neo-Trad designers getting together and going "We're all adults with jobs, and scheduling is a bigger enemy than any BBEG. Wouldn't it be nice if we could create our characters from a start of not knowing the rules in under an hour, give them shared backstories and histories, and have character stories and arcs that pay off in half a dozen sessions rather than a year? Oh, and the GM has a life and a job of their own, so let's make sure they can do their between session prep in ten minutes flat. Oh, and that we know it's only going to last half a dozen sessions gives us the freedom to burn this entire fictional world to the ground or kill each other off at the climax without spoiling anyone else's fun."

But really all of them are people, generally nearer the theatre kid end of the math nerd - theatre kid spectrum wanting to play as cool fictional characters (for their value of cool) in a shared fictional universe. And if the Yoof of today find different things cool to people their parents' age, that's normal.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But really all of them are people, generally nearer the theatre kid end of the math nerd - theatre kid spectrum wanting to play as cool fictional characters (for their value of cool) in a shared fictional universe. And if the Yoof of today find different things cool to people their parents' age, that's normal.

Can’t people be both? I was a maths kid, am far from being a yoof (very dated term), but I still played D&D so I could be a cool fictional character.

But a cool fictional character who spent their time on exciting adventures, not agonising over personal relationships.

 

[Shardstone]

Can’t people be both? I was a maths kid, am far from being a yoof (very dated term), but I still played D&D so I could be a cool fictional character.

But a cool fictional character who spent their time on exciting adventures, not agonising over personal relationships.

No one is saying you can't be both. The only reason to make this comment is because you're trying to, for some reason, disprove neotrad by saying that you can't be described by labels. That's fine by you. Most players can't be described by purely just one label, and categorizations like these are a footnote for a style of PLAY, not a style of PLAYER.