Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Umbran]

Which is why it can afford to largely ignore the rest of the hobby. It used to be more intertwined with it back before 3e, probably because it wasn't assumed it was going to cover all ground (even though TSR had other games in other genres).

I am not sure if you are referring to "the hobby" in terms of other games, or in terms of people. Nor do I know what you mean by being "intertwined".

Though, to be clear, with some short-term exceptions, all indications I know of are that D&D has always been the lion's share of the hobby. This is not new, or a change, so it is difficult to see how that could be responsible for a change between 2e and 3e.

I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that, as the hobby got larger overall, D&D became seemingly less responsive, or more slow to respond, to customer feedback, especially as we started experiencing generational change. Doubly so as they reduced the pace of releases with the current edition.

I think the reality is that D&D has had to start listening to more diverse voices as it grew, and that will leave folks who would have favored a more traditional approach a bit wanting.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am not sure if you are referring to "the hobby" in terms of other games, or in terms of people. Nor do I know what you mean by being "intertwined".

Well, to some degree both, but I was primarily thinking in terms of other games. Even though even back then it was the biggest fish in the pond, TSR tended to acknowledge there were other fish; note that Dragon use to do reviews of other games.

Though, to be clear, with some short-term exceptions, all indications I know of are that D&D has always been the lion's share of the hobby. This is not new, or a change, so it is difficult to see how that could be responsible for a change between 2e and 3e.

I believe in part it was because the D20 explosion functioned to make them even more visible. A much bigger part of things were seen though the systemic lens of D&D, if not the specific genre. You still see that with the number of 5e games. While D&D of course had influence on the rest of the hobby, depending on how you count the slightly odd case of Rolemaster, fairly direct D&D knockoffs were not routinely in the second or even third tier of non-D&D games prior to 3e.

I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that, as the hobby got larger overall, D&D became seemingly less responsive, or more slow to respond, to customer feedback, especially as we started experiencing generational change. Doubly so as they reduced the pace of releases with the current edition.

As I noted, I'm not qualified to judge prior to 3e or from 4e on, as I'm not involved in that market.

I think the reality is that D&D has had to start listening to more diverse voices as it grew, and that will leave folks who would have favored a more traditional approach.

Probably impacted to some degree or another by a lot of more traditional people fleeing into the OSR, even if 5e did attempt to recapture some of them.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that, as the hobby got larger overall, D&D became seemingly less responsive, or more slow to respond, to customer feedback, especially as we started experiencing generational change. Doubly so as they reduced the pace of releases with the current edition.

I think the reality is that D&D has had to start listening to more diverse voices as it grew, and that will leave folks who would have favored a more traditional approach a bit wanting.

Clearly the solution is that the non "traditional" gamer be cosigned to a lower status position within the D&D world and their desires be oppressed!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Clearly the solution is that the non "traditional" gamer be cosigned to a lower status position within the D&D world and their desires be oppressed!

I know it isn't rational, but honestly sometimes it feels like that's already happening.

 

[Umbran]

Clearly the solution is that the non "traditional" gamer be cosigned to a lower status position within the D&D world and their desires be oppressed!

If by "solution" you mean, "thing that will get D&D consigned to irrelevance quickly", then sure, I guess.

 

[Professor Murder]

The thing that made my table and I bounce off the 2d20 Star Trek system was too many overlapping metacurrencies.

 

[VHawkwinter]

So no Inspiration, Luck tokens etc in your game? Because they count for that IMO. Its nothing coming from the character and in-universe narrative. The player got it as reward for good RP, cool idea etc., not the character. And they use it as a "divine intervention" from the meta/player layer to change the result of a dice.

Very no, for me. Not unless there's an in-world explanation and they're used in-character. Like someone who has Domino's luck powers; or a character who is just lucky or has a divine blessing that makes events which would seriously harm them less likely to happen, which the player does not activate, but which are triggered in particular citcumstances, with a prebaked mechanical process to determine whether they have to roll again. - Like x% of the time, or x times, recharged by seeing a full moon.

 

[zakael19]

Supernatural resilience.

My current 5e narration is that "classes" are universal (multiversal?) archetypes that exist within the Astral; when a soul aligns with one of those archetypes, it gains power through that resonance, which is where class powers originate from. The supernatural resilience is because Astral archetypes are ideals, and resistant to being changed; that lack of mutability is extended to the physical housing of the soul.

By the time a character is mid-levels, their biological trappings are more suggestions than actual function; their existence is being sustained by their soul much more than their body.

Have you read Greydon Saunders’ Commonweal books? It’s focused mainly on what it would really mean to have the sort of world-redefining magic D&D-esque fantasy presupposes but doesn’t interrogate much and builds upon that. In order to become sorcerers of significant power, the characters must complete a metaphysical transition such that their physical forms are more of a representation of convenience and social presence then anything else.

Really cool books, come for the “what if pike and shotte style military actions but it’s massed ritual magic” and stay for the “how do we maintain a genuine communal polity ringed in by a world that exalts the powerful.”

 

[Lanefan]

Who among us really wants to put forth that our prsonal observations represents "the hobby as a whole" in any real way? Hm?

My experience back in the AD&D era wasn't sim. Nobody I knew played sim. We were 12 - 18, and wouldn't know "sim" if someone slapped it in our faces like a dead fish.

Even as early as the mid 80s we'd have some arguments in our crew about when to "turn off (or on) the reality simulator", between those who wanted a closer-to-reality feel and those who either wanted a more gamist feel or just didn't care either way.

 

[Nytmare]

I read it over, because I love Marvel, but all the stuff you mentioned took the game too far away from Sim for me to enjoy it. Even though I'm ok with genre emulation in supers games, MHR took those narrativist mechanics too far for my comfort.

Egads. I know that there are almost 40 more pages of discussion ahead of this that I still need to chew through, but this reminded me of the first metacurrency I remember seeing.

In some early 90s version of what was probably DC Heroes, one of Batman's super powers was that the player could, X number of times, just say that Batman had planned ahead and was packing the exact right gadget needed for the problem at hand. Boomerang gun? Check. Mirror covered mask? Got it. Shark repellent? He's got two.

That's not taking anything away from the sim. A human player, pretending to be Batman, is not Batman. There is no amount of realistic, simulative planning ahead that a normal human being could do to prepare for the unexpected the way that Batman does. You don't have to fly in real life to pretend to be Superman. You don't have to be able to read other people's minds to pretend to be Professor X. You don't need to be strong enough to lift a tank to pretend to be the Hulk. That's a metacurrency that is LETTING you play the game as a simulation.