Indie Games Are Not More Focused. They Are Differently Focused.

[Campbell]

Traditional/mainstream RPGs are definitely flexible from the perspective of GM storytelling or collaborative storytelling. Basically any mode of play that depends on a certain amount of pre-play or active curation at the table from either the GM or the group as a whole. That does not make them especially flexible overall from my perspective. Just well suited to their intended purpose.

What they make pretty much impossible in my experience are pretty much any mode of play that depend on a lack of active curation at the table. That require players have the ability to push hard for their characters' agendas. Where the entire point of play is the dance between audience and author or where the integrity of the challenge space is incredibly important to express and test player skill.

I don't think any mode of play deserves to be put on a pedestal. That's what the flexibility argument does in my opinion. It elevates RPGs as a vehicle for storytelling over the approach described in Play Passionately and skilled play of the fiction/game. A game that requires me to perform functions and take responsibility for things I would rather not be responsible for cannot really be especially flexible. Can it?

 

[pemerton]

UNO doesn’t make consensus the primary mechanic of the game.

<snip>

parts of any TTRPG are going to be determined by mechanics. In D&D the DM has authority to override the rules, but in practice that authority exists only insofar as the group consents to it. My ideal D&D , and thus the D&D i Play at my table, is one wherein that group consent dynamic is explicitly part of the rules, but I’ve never claimed D&D is perfect.

<snip>

Conversational resolution is IMO more flexible than prescribed or “if, then” resolution, with the trade off of being less focused and requiring more teamwork to get the most out of it.

My view is that a RPG that relies on consensus for action resolution is very unflexible at a point which is important to me as a RPGer: it can't produce action resolutions through a non-consensus method!

Whereas there are other RPGs that can do that. (They may not be more flexible, but they are not less flexible in respect of one dimensions that I regard as pretty fundamental.)

D&D 5e has optional rules that allow spellcasting to be more taxing, and the new rules for stress in VRGtR can also be applied to whatever the group wants, including Spellcasting in order to induce a more magically restricted game where you need to think before casting. To get to the level of the spellcaster passing out from a spell, you’d need to add a new rule.

To me, this is more versatile than if D&D only had the more restrictive Spellcasting rules, because it is easy to add those rules in and make them work with the existing rules.

Many RPGs have optional rules that can be added in and made to work with existing rules. Burning Wheel has the Monster Burner and the Magic Burner and The Codex which set out various optional rules plus give advice on how to build your own optional systems and game elements to do various things. As I already posted, Apocalypse World has a chapter all about this. Rolemaster has many, many supplements that set out optional rules for many parts of the game, including spellcasting.

D&D probably has more material published for it than any other RPG. But I don't think there is anything about D&D that makes it more amenable to having optional rules added than all these other systems.

I may be misremembering, as it has been years and I was only ever a player, but my memory of CoC is that you’d have to take actual base mechanics, equivalent to even more change than changing D&D to a pbta action resolution system, to make CoC not have the “you are less effective as you progress” dynamic and add in a feeling of pulp “plot armor” and “narrative threat of death” (ie you are only gonna die if you choose to).

CoC is just 'BRP with SAN', LITERALLY (the BRP book I own even lists the rules for SAN as an option you could use).

<snip>

BRP has only one leg up on D&D, it has a built-in (though optional) levels of success mechanism. That has the same issues as the 5e one though, since the game still doesn't engage with position and effect, consequences, nothing like that in any formal way (it is basically toothless, the GM still decides).

As AbdulAlhazred says, CoC is just BRP + SAN. If you don't want the horror aspect, you just drop SAN and the associated Cthulhu Mythos skill. If you want pulp-y plot armour, you add in a fate point system, or that zero hp is never more than unconsciousness unless a player has run up the death flag, or whatever.

There is no difference here from 5e D&D - they are both systems where PC build is stats + skills, and where action resolution is roll vs a target number with the GM deciding what follows from success or failure. For the purposes of this discussion, RM is also no different.

To me, this “counts” as D&D flexibility because it isn’t actual mechanics. I wouldn’t be as comfortable changing the process of play in The One Ring, because it’s process of play is built into the rules text, not advice for ease of gameplay, and it has a culture of play that tends to reject even additions if they change the tone from strictly Tolkien fantasy, because it’s a focused game. Someone once made and shared a module that added more magic to the game, while still keeping it very low magic, and there were literally several people who were offended by it, and tons of others who just had no interest and/or told the author to just go play D&D instead.

Ive also seen that, on Twitter especially but also in the subreddits for those games and the general rpg subreddits, in response to actual play shows using an indie game “wrong”, and there being people legitimately offended by it. See, The Adventure Zone: Any non-D&D season, or any of Critical Role’s indie game one shots.

I rarely see such reactions to people changing D&D, even as someone who is very online and changes D&D all the time, and espouses a philosophy that there actually are no rules. I’ve seen it most on these forums, a little on Twitter, but even then I had people having my back on the legitimacy of modifying D&D and It still being D&D.

<snip>

Culture: IME, few people (pretty much only “very online” purists, an extreme minority) care about any idea of someone playing D&D wrong because they changed the tone, or the focus, or the genre, or whatever. Folks care if the core books change those things, not if you do so at your table. Not only that, vanishingly few people view a game as no longer the same game if you run the play a bit differently in order to make a heist adventure satisfying.

This last set of passages I've quoted is quite surprising to me. When I judge the flexibility of a game I'm not basing that judgement on whether other people whom I've never met and will never play with might approve or disapprove of what I'm doing.

 

[pemerton]

solid rules design allows us to throw ourselves into the game and not have to pull our punches. Without appropriate rules the kind of play I’m describing can quickly turn into social or emotional bullying. With the right rule set I know I can push as hard as I want because there are mechanisms in place that enable you to push back with equal force.

part of the reason we might not want consensus is that if we want to experience emotional bleed with the characters we are playing is that we do not want consensus because they do not have consensus. We want to feel the tension they feel.

This seems consistent with something I posted upthread:

In RPGing, I think there are things that can be done to increase the likelihood that playing the game will cause participants to feel certain things. These aren't limited to asking you to roleplay a certain stipulated mental state. For instance, Burning Wheel has various "fate points" that are accrued by evincing one's character in certain ways (roughly, by playing to or against Beliefs, Traits and Instincts) which can then be expended to improve the chances of success on checks. Some of them are also the buffer against PC death. And the basic principle of framing and check is always frame towards conflict (given PC Beliefs, Traits and Instincts) and say 'yes' if nothing relevant to PC Beliefs, Traits and Instincts is at stake; otherwise call for a check. So engaging with the action resolution system also means making choices about how hard to try, even if that means risking character death, in circumstances where the character's core being and commitments are on the line.

This is not the same as being asked to roleplay a mental state. It's nothing like your character is happy - portray that through you narration and action declarations! It's you - as your character - have this choice to make - now how do you choose? I think this is (at least in part) what @Campbell is pointing to in contrasting playing the fiction with improv storytelling; and also what is prompting his remarks about what social/table constraints are present. In order for Burning Wheel play to be viable, there has to be permission at the table to make those choices without concern about how they will affect "the story" or even the immediate situation conceived from a god's eye perspective.

A RPG can grant that permission in part via the social norms it establishes in its rulebook; but also via its action resolution system. For instance, one source of those permissions in Burning Wheel play is that other players can - via their PCs - intervene in the behaviour of a PC, by calling for a Duel of Wits to resolve their PC's attempt to talk down another player's PC. This structure of possibilities means that no one ever has to step outside the perspective of their character and ask, from that god's eye perspective, What would be good for the game?

The idea of players pushing one another via their PCs is really something I first encountered GMing Rolemaster. But it's system for social resolution is largely NPC rather than PC facing (not as blatantly as 4e D&D, but in that direction) and so we needed (i) a bit of "gentlemen's agreement"/shared understanding that it wasn't completely cool just to ignore a massive social roll made by one player in their PC's interaction with your PC, and (ii) mind influencing magic figured quite a bit in this.

A system like Duel of Wits, which is neutral as between PCs and NPCs; or the AW seduce/manipulate move that is sensitive to that distinction but robust in both applications; is building on that implicit promise of Rolemaster but making it more stable and workable.

I'm not saying that social resolution mechanics are exhaustive of what Campbell and Play Passionately are saying. But I think they are part of that bigger picture.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think this is about familiarity and expectations. D&D has been around forever (literally in the universe of RPGs). Many people misunderstand it, or mutate it in various ways, etc. However a fan of 5e need not be concerned that there is a general misperception of fundamental aspects of the game. Nor that if someone is misconstruing it that they will not be corrected, or at least that they will be exposed to the normative approach.

OTOH if you play some other RPG, pretty much ANY other RPG except I guess D&D-likes, that is unlikely to be the case. There is a very good chance that anyone exposed to such a misperception will NEVER encounter a situation where it will be challenged or where they will be exposed to the intended approach or best practice. So, if I go off and create some BS video about how to play Dungeon World that gets it all wrong, people will simply be misinformed forever. People who are fans of that game know this. I run into people all the time who know exactly one wrong thing about some Indie game or other less mainstream RPG, but nobody ever corrects them.

Also I don't think it is so much that people have high resistance to home brewing of other RPGs. I think it is more that its a different scenario. Whether 5e is 'more flexible' or not, you are more likely to find players if you hack it, than if you even play most other games straight. Beyond that people play niche games for what they are, not so much for what they are not. So there may well be a "why are you generating noise in our space, we play Middle Earth straight up here!" The assumption being, as the response literally said "you can play higher magic with D&D. We don't want to do that, or WE would play <insert game here> instead of One Ring." I think that's fair, though maybe a little insular. Now, if instead, you came back to say RPG.net Game Design Forum and posted "Hey, here's my OGL/CCSA high magic variation of One Ring, take a look at it." You would get a much different response. People would be interested in seeing what you did, why, how, etc.

Oh, I agree with all of this. I think this is a huge part of why D&D is socially more flexible, IME.

I don’t blame pbta fans for “correcting” a AW hack that rewards planning ahead. It’s a direct contradiction of a primary design priority of the game, and all of what you just said.

The worst I’ll get for doing the inverse to D&D 5e is “wait why not play a Blades or AW inspired game designed for story now dungeon crawling?” Amidst all the direct interest in developing the idea I’ll get.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This last set of passages I've quoted is quite surprising to me. When I judge the flexibility of a game I'm not basing that judgement on whether other people whom I've never met and will never play with might approve or disapprove of what I'm doing.

So now it’s that culture doesn’t matter. I’ll just leave it at “I disagree”.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find that the solution

Ah but the trick is that it isn't a game, its a part of another game, one that has fairly deep (ymmv by edition) combat resolution mechanics and a working skill system. The classic problem of freeform roleplaying is the "Godmode" or as we prefer here at enworld, the "Calvinball" where capability is arbitrary and character-to-player identification biases their sense of fairness.

But in my experience, its way less of a problem in social interaction than combat resolution. Probably because we can by blow a conversation by just doing it and there's very little meanjngful argument to be had since the only argument you could have is about how a character you didn't create mught respond, whereas a fight is more subject to subjective assesments of genre and such.

So to summarize, freeform social mechanics coupled with strict physical simulation mechanics is a design with a well supported basis and often feels right for many.

Exactly, yes. Combat is an area where consensus is less satisfying, at least the format for consensus used by 5e skills.

D&D 5E officially only has 3 levels of success

You then go on to talk about optional rules that might be in the DMG (fumbles) as if they count…but ignore that 5e has optional rules for mixed success and failing forward, which are degree of success rules.

Traditional/mainstream RPGs are definitely flexible from the perspective of GM storytelling or collaborative storytelling. Basically any mode of play that depends on a certain amount of pre-play or active curation at the table from either the GM or the group as a whole. That does not make them especially flexible overall from my perspective. Just well suited to their intended purpose.

So they’re only flexible (and I disagree, but ignoring that for now) in…an enormous swath of ways in which people like to play TTRPGs?

 

[pemerton]

"D&D has no rules for managing the state of relationships between different characters, for instance. Nor for modelling factions, as another example of something you might want. "

My instinct is actually that I don't need a system for managing the state of relationships between different characters, nor do even the newest of GMs. That is more suitably handled by the GM's own sense of how the narrative elements might naturally progress.

I don't think anyone doubts that there are these differences of preference. But at least for my part, the absence of a system for managing relationships between characters means there is a type of RPG experience that the game can't deliver.

For example, a system in which the GM decides, by intuition and extrapolation, how those interpersonal relationships might naturally progress will not produce the same experience as the use of the Circles and Duel of Wits mechanics in Burning Wheel: I'm thinking of a session where my PC had tense and fraught encounters with family members - I as the player was tense and felt the fraughtness!; and less emotionally laden but also something which differed in play experience from "GM decides", when a PC was able to persuade a giant king in part because a giant shaman took the PC's side, mechanically that being the result of a player-side decision about resource expenditure.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I don't think anyone doubts that there are these differences of preference. But at least for my part, the absence of a system for managing relationships between characters means there is a type of RPG experience that the game can't deliver.

For example, a system in which the GM decides, by intuition and extrapolation, how those interpersonal relationships might naturally progress will not produce the same experience as the use of the Circles and Duel of Wits mechanics in Burning Wheel: I'm thinking of a session where my PC had tense and fraught encounters with family members - I as the player was tense and felt the fraughtness!; and less emotionally laden but also something which differed in play experience from "GM decides", when a PC was able to persuade a giant king in part because a giant shaman took the PC's side, mechanically that being the result of a player-side decision about resource expenditure.

Is that sort of 'gotcha' relevant? The specific mechanics of specific games will of course produce a specific experience that a broader game can't fully replicate, but that experience is fractional relative to the volume of experiences it can create. It can also create them at the same time, within the same overall story, which is to my mind where the flexibility comes from-- BITD lets me do heists and skullduggery, and Torchbearer lets me do delves, but Dungeons and Dragons lets me do both with the same characters in the same storyline and the same game, maybe even a cross between the two, and then turn around and do court intrigue in the mix as well.

Nevermind that the systems you're discussing can be deployed in modular ways, Victory Points in Pathfinder 2e are very much like progress clocks in BITD, for instance, and there are subsystems for intrigue and research, factions, etc. I wouldn't be shocked if something like a duel of wits could be emulated as well. My personal chief frustration with 5e is that it doesn't make good on its flexibility by actually offering the modular system it could.

 

[pemerton]

The specific mechanics of specific games will of course produce a specific experience that a broader game can't fully replicate, but that experience is fractional relative to the volume of experiences it can create. It can also create them at the same time, within the same overall story, which is to my mind where the flexibility comes from-- BITD lets me do heists and skullduggery, and Torchbearer lets me do delves, but Dungeons and Dragons lets me do both with the same characters in the same storyline and the same game, maybe even a cross between the two, and then turn around and do court intrigue in the mix as well.

I don't see what D&D brings to this that Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, Rolemaster or RuneQuest is not. I don't know DW quite as well, but don't see why it can't also handle heists, delves and courtly intrigue just as D&D can.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I don't see what D&D brings to this that Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, Rolemaster or RuneQuest is not. I don't know DW quite as well, but don't see why it can't also handle heists, delves and courtly intrigue just as D&D can.

Couldn't tell you for all of those systems, thats a lot of rulebooks I've never read after all but something like BITD would probably need to shanghai it into a score, which is fine but would also turn it into a heist. Else you could break from the structure of the game and just do it, but then you're kind of lost in the ether without generic conflict resolution mechanics to fall back on.