Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7562013" data-attributes="member: 42582">The notion of "trad" RPGs is interesting and in my view somewhat contestable. Here are two examples to explain why I think that.Pre-2nd ed D&DD&D has its origins as a form of (semi-)cooperative refereed wargame. The "battlefield" is a dungeon which is mapped and detailed, but at the start of play only the referee has access to that map and its details.Unlike some traditional wargames, much of the play is direct engagement with the fiction with no mechanical mediation (eg I poke the wall with my staff - what does it feel like?). And unlike most/all prior wargames, the players' unit of play is a single figure. And it is this single-figure level of play that feeds into the way the referee reveals the map/details: rather than the bird's/general's eye-view of a traditional wargame, the player has an individual person's eye-view which is narrated by the referee.The challenges of refereeing this sort of game are obivous and well-known: the focus on the individual figure can encourage players to take the action in all sorts of non-wargaming directions (eg I propose marriage to the trapped princess - what does she say?), which aren't easy to adjudicate in a fair kriegsspiel fashion; even if the action stays focused on wargaming, the GM has to understand and be able to reason about a host of fictional elements, some of which never come up in traditional wargaming (most wargames don't care about the species or colour of grass on the battlefield) but suddenly become salient in a single-figure's eye-view game, especially one in which solving puzzles and beating mazes is an important part of the wargame.I don't think of this sort of D&D play as "Mother may I" by default, but thinking about the challenges it poses to a referee, it's easy to see how, under pressure, it can drift in that direction. Hence the GMing advice from prominent authors like Tom Moldvay, Mike Carr and (to a lesser extent in this respect) Gary Gygax emphasising the importance of fairness, impartiality, consistency, adhering to ingame logic, rewarrding skilled play, etc.This wargaming style of D&D can be contrasted with a GM-as-storyteller style which clearly existed from very early in the piece (Lewis Puslipher (@lewpuls) wrote essays analysing and criticising storyteller style in the late 70s) but became very prominent with the DL modules, and has (I would say) gone on to be the predominant mode of D&D play. This sort of D&D preserves some of the wargaming tropes (dungeons, fights against orcs and goblins, collecting treasure, etc) but the wargaming is not the (ostensible) focus of play but rather a series of interludes or (sometimes) transition devices in what is (again, ostensibly at least) a series of plot-related events which give context and meaning to the game.Because of the continuation of the wargaming tropes in the storyteller style, any given episode of play, or actual play post, or campaign, might lie somewhere on a spectrum and reasonably be considered to fall at least partly under both descriptions. Nevertheless, taken as a whole and considered in their "purist" forms, the two approaches are very different, as Pulsipher was pointing out about 40 years ago.So they can't both be trad RPGing.Classic TravellerLike many early RPGs, Classic Traveller (1977) suffers from some editing shortfalls (though nowhere near as bad as Gygax's OD&D or AD&D) and doesn't really explain how the game is to be played. I understand that its designer (Marc Miller) described it as "D&D in space", and it seems like it could be played as a wargame (it even has minis-readystarshp combat rules).But it also has many elements which suggest a non-wargame style of play. There is an example of PC creation in which the events that happen during the character creation process are used to establish a backstory for the PC which is certainly richer than any example found in a D&D book of that era. There is a system for random generation of patrons to hire the PCs for missions, and the implication from that table given the range of patrons (which can include Peasants, Playboys and Diplomats as well as Mercenaries, Terrorists and Scouts) is that adventures might focus on tropes and themes that go beyond travelling the galaxy in search of loot. There is also a reference to the GM's responsibility to establish encounters that will "further the cause of the adventure being played". That is the closest I know of a RPG book from this early era canvassing scene-framed play.Given the potential geographic scope of Traveller play (multiple worlds, complex socieities, etc) the limitations of traditional wargame techniques (maps, square/hex-based movement rules, etc) are obvious. Traveller works around this with a series of clever and (in my view) powerful procedural systems both for generating content and for adjudicating PC travel - the only weakness I have found in recent play experiences is the lack of an effective system for adjudicating onworld non-urban exploration/travel.There is little in either the Traveller referee advice or the systems the books put forward to suggest the wargame/kriegsspiel approach. Nor is there much to suggest the GM-curated storyline approach that comes to the fore in and after DL. Even when it comes to NPC interaction, there are brief but (again, in my view) powerful systems to handle reactions, dealing with bureaucrats, dealing with the underworld elements, etc which take the system much closer to contemporary scene0framed, conflict resolution play.Classic Traveller is 1977. Is it a "trad" RPG or not?</blockquote>

Verification