Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Fair enough, but obviously I consider the payoff worthwhile.
I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism
- Thread starter Shades of Eternity
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
What that makes me think of is that I'd really like to see a simulationist RPG like Rolemaster (in conceptual thesis), but built from "first principles", without assumptions, without "Well this is how Rolemaster did it so...", and with modern design knowledge, modern design standards (which are inarguably better than say, 20+ years ago), proper understandings of things like usability, statistics, and so on.
As far as I know, we haven't had a real modern simulationist RPG that wasn't just derivative or attempting to replicate/build on an existing RPG.
And I think if you had a skilled design team, like actually committed to the concept, and throwing out all preconceptions about how simulationism "should" work mechanically (i.e. rather than conceptually), you could probably come out with something incredibly interesting.
Like, we've got our "modern design narrative-influenced fantasy game" with Daggerheart, we've got our "modern design OSR/NSR-influenced fantasy game" with Shadowdark, we've got our "modern design tactical-influenced fantasy game" with Draw Steel!, we've got a bunch of cool D&D variants with A5E, DC20, ToV and so on, all of them of sort of primarily gamist with some nods to simulation and narrative and tactics (as 5E itself is and both 13th Ages), but where's our "modern design simulationist-influenced fantasy game" which real dials up that simulationism? And it sure isn't stuff like Against The Darkmaster or Mythras, which are cool but just streamlined older designs a bit, rather than designing towards the concept from "first principles" or in a more open-minded way.
Rainbow Scissors
Achaewomenid
Why is "modern design" automatically assumed to be a good or preferable thing?
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Older design was often or even typically not well-informed by actual understandings of how to design things to meet specific goals. It often didn't think about what actually worked or how it worked and frequently just indulged a creator's whims mechanically, or arbitrarily did things a certain way because the creator just made assumptions about how it could be done. Often designers didn't understand the math they were working with very well too (I think this is part of why d20 and d100-based systems have typically survived better, because the math is more straightforward).
You can like old design, right - a lot of older RPGs still work pretty well (or have been updated so they do) - but it's different approach, it's one that more driven by instinct and guesswork and less by careful thought and understanding of all the possible different ways you could go. We have so many more mechanical approaches to draw from in 2025 than we did in say, 1985, and since about 2010, designers have been more and more conscious in how they design systems to meet their goals (really it starts earlier, but it's by 2010 that it's become a big part of TTRPG design).
Also, it doesn't have to be preferable for you, frankly.
Nothing in my post says "U MUST AGREE NEWER IS BETTER!!!!" does it? So if you want to argue with that sentiment, go find to someone else to argue with! Sorry! But I'm expressing a desire to see someone at least attempt to do that, which is, AFAIK, something we've not even seen attempted (correct me if I'm wrong - there may well be RPGs out there who attempt this but that I'm not aware of - but certainly most modern RPGs using simulationist principles seem to be using certain approaches "because that's how it's been done" rather than stopping to say "but why?"). Nor I am making an "automatic assumption", btw - quite the opposite - that's part of why I want to see an attempt at this! Will it be better? Can simulationist approaches benefit from modern design approaches and the much larger and better-understood toolbox we have now? Maybe they can't! But it is, AFAIK, an untested hypothesis.
EDIT - Also, let's be real - Daggerheart, Shadowdark, Draw Steel, and a lot of D&D variants are clearly pretty damn good at achieving their goals, design-wise and creating fairly compelling packages. I want to see someone do the same for a simulationist RPG, if it's possible.
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Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I don't think you really understood what I am saying. It wasn't the specifics of the setting that I was talking about.
Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms both have details about them that enrich the experience. A specific player may not care about FR vs. Greyhawk, but both will appreciate the added depth the details of those campaigns offer in game play. It doesn't matter if it's the Zhentarim or the Scarlet Brotherhood, but having details like that present and usable in the campaign adds to the depth of play and makes it more enjoyable than a game without details to draw upon. At least in my experience.
In that manner, the setting details are cared about by the players, even if they don't know that they care. Some players will absolutely care about the lore of specific settings as you note, but those aren't the ones I'm talking about. There's a difference between going to details already in the setting(whatever setting it is) in response to a question or action declaration, than in coming up with one on the fly.
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
(Note: this post is about the behavior of groups of NPCs. It's not about ASIs, and it's not about how individuals behave, especially PCs.)
I don't think we need to be absolutist and say that it's impossible for some species to have hard-wired behaviors, which may or may not be an evolutionary result of different physiology.
It's just that so many attempts to do this in RPGs have failed to be very creative, and instead have ended up as some variation on the way Europeans have traditionally described people they want to subjugate, and in the game this has been a shorthand for "It's ok to kill me!".
So I think by trying to avoid bioessentialism, and trying to rely on cultural explanations for group behaviors, we can avoid lazy characterizations that evoke actual evil. (That's the irony: relying on some tropes as shorthands for evil, we are actually mirroring genuine evil.)
I don't think we need to be absolutist and say that it's impossible for some species to have hard-wired behaviors, which may or may not be an evolutionary result of different physiology.
It's just that so many attempts to do this in RPGs have failed to be very creative, and instead have ended up as some variation on the way Europeans have traditionally described people they want to subjugate, and in the game this has been a shorthand for "It's ok to kill me!".
So I think by trying to avoid bioessentialism, and trying to rely on cultural explanations for group behaviors, we can avoid lazy characterizations that evoke actual evil. (That's the irony: relying on some tropes as shorthands for evil, we are actually mirroring genuine evil.)
Yeah, but... you aren't doing most of the work, now are you? You don't have skin in the game design, and it is not your product that flops if it doesn't pay off for enough people.
The questions, "Do I personally find this a cool thing to play?" and "How seriously should I consider this as a design for the game I am making?" are two very different questions.
Aldarc
Legend
Crimson Longinus
Legend
I'm not sure that if it is significantly better if racist tropes are applied to a culture rather than species. In fact, that's closer to the real life.
And yeh, "these people are born evil" or equivalent is literally the stupidest and laziest way to show that the species tends to have certain type of temperament, and that is definitely not what I mean when I say that species with different biology might also behave differently.
