Looking for Advanced Role-Playing Content

[Obryn]

An assertion supported by adherence to the definition.

Can you provide examples that support your claim?

Any joker can take a d20 table and expand it to a d100 or d1000 table. Anyone can add in stuff about wind speed, etc.

True artistry is when you can distill the theme down into a concise set of rules that enhances the sort of play desired, without getting in the way.

One of the best examples I can think of nowadays is Blades in the Dark.

 

[Simon T. Vesper]

There's quite a bit to discuss here, but I want to focus for a moment on just the one item, relevant to the topic:

These [terms] are meaningless without a goal, and if everyone's bringing their own goals, the meanings of each are going to change. For instance, Blades in the Dark is a successor to Apocalypse World with a narrow focus on playing scoundrels in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. It's set in a single city and has some really nifty relationship mechanics with the factions in the city, but has nothing but a blurb about each faction and no encounter tables at all. Is this advanced to you? Its also a Story Now style game so the core gameplay would probably look pretty alien to you.

(Emphasis is mine.)

It's not a matter of this example being "advanced to me." It's a matter of whether it fits the definition.

What are these "nifty relationship mechanics?" Are they built upon a knowledgeable background? Did the authors of this game do research into the social sciences or psychology? How much do these mechanics interact with other mechanics in the game? Is there a wide array of synergistic options for the players, explicit or otherwise? (Solid, reliable relationship mechanics is something I've been after for some time ~ I can see many ways that my game would improve if I had something... better ~ and you brought this up by happenstance, without specific prompting by me defining a goal. That makes this exchange a win. Thank you.)

Again, this isn't meant as a moral judgment. I don't mean to imply that non-advanced games are inherently inferior or that we shouldn't play them. I'm simply looking for RPGs, supporting content, authors, blogs, literature, etc., that can be accurately described as advanced.

If our audience isn't interested, that's fine too. But there are people out there who want something... more. I'm one of them ~ and by putting myself out there, asking the question, maybe I can help others find it.

 

[Simon T. Vesper]

Well, you're a prickly one. Did I continue that after you clarified, or did I engage you?

You did engage. You also managed to pull something out of your ass. I'm quite impressed.

You're still a prick.

You assumed I was being intentionally deceitful. When called out on it, you defend yourself with a, "why so serious?" comment. An appropriate response would be... how did you put it? ... humility.

I appreciate what little you've contributed. I don't think you'll need to worry about adding anything else.

 

[pemerton]

The "No Myth" style isn't a style ~ it's an acknowledgement of a thing that happens in RPGs.

The basic concept is that nothing exists unless explicitly stated. That is a fact. Until the GM says, "This thing is true," that thing is not true and can be altered.

Dead Gods and APs are not "no myth". The Dragonlance modules are not "no myth". As best I can tell from reading people's posts, most RPGing done by ENworlders is not "no myth".

Here is "no myth", as per the website I linked to under the heading "practical techniques"; I've grouped some points together because they are really elaborations of the same basic point, and I've replaced one infelicitous instance of "PC" with "player":

* Nothing about the world or the storyline is sacred. There is no preset plot; there are preset genre expectations.

* The GM should handle all PC actions by agreeing that they succeed, or working out a conflict with the [player] that they can roll dice for. Every die roll should be significant. Every die roll should have a goal and/or something at stake.

* Boring bits can (and should) be fast-forwarded through. Time should be spent on situations in direct proportion to how interesting they are.

* Players should try things.​

The above techniques are not things that are done in all RPGing. Nor are they consistent with all RPG systems. Just to pick some easy examples - all classic D&D rulebooks, 2nd ed AD&D rulebooks, all RM rulebooks, and the Classic Traveller rulebooks contain rules and advice that directly contradict "no myth" techniques in multiple ways: classic D&D has "sacred" dungeon elements; RM and CT generalise this to a lot of world elements; 2nd ed AD&D advocates pre-set plot; none advocates "scene framing" and, as per my post not far upthread, most have rules for handling the passage of ingame time that are inconsistent with "no myth" pacing techniques; none advocates "say 'yes' or roll the dice", and the only one of those systems that is easily driftable in that direction is CT. (Classic D&D spellcasting, in particular, is a long way from "say 'yes' or roll the dice", because the player never has to roll the dice!)

"No myth" is a term that recognizes the sovereignty of the GM when establishing truth in the game.

Not remotely. As per the second of my four dot points above, the essence of "no myth" is "say 'yes' or roll the dice". That is about as close to an anithesis of GM sovereignty that one can get while staying within the confines of something that is easily recognisable as RPGing.

I posted in your thread, and have replied to your subsequent posts, because it seemed like it might be interesting. I have nearly 20 years experience GMing Rolemaster, which I think is undoubtedly an "advanced" game of the sort you are interested in (even if you happen not to like it's general - though not universal - use of percentile dice).

RM's approach to PC build, to action resolution, to initiative (across the dozen or so published initiative variants for the system), to encounters (including encountter tables which I think are of the general sort you are interested in), to buying and selling (which includes rules reflecting facts of economic geography plus other contributors to supply and demand), all seem to fit your concept of "advanced" RPGing. Even though I haven't GMed RM now for nearly 10 years, I'm still very happy to talk about it, and similar systems (though I don't know eg GURPS, Harnmaster as well as I know RM).

I'm also happy to talk about ways in which other systems differ from RM or AD&D - including mechanically complex systems like BW which could (on a casual read) be misatekn for something like a RM or RQ variant.

But it won't be a very productive discussion if yu aren't going to take seriously ideas about other ways of RPGing that differ quite a bit from the default approach of AD&D, RM and the like.

I'd say the most advanced rpgs right now - in 2018 - have very little to do with AD&D

I think if one had to identify, right now, a single most advanced trend in RPG design, PbtA might be the strongest candidate.

To get a complete negation og AD&D I think you have to go to a systyem like HeroQuest revised - no lists; pure free-descriptor PC building; total synthesis of the setting of difficulties and the needs of pacing; totally uniform resolution mechanics across all spheres of action declaratoin; etc - but I'm not sure it is as "advanced" as PbtA. Compared to PbtA (of which admittedly my experience is modest) I find Cortex+ Heroic, which is closer to HQrev than PbtA is, can generate heavy demands on a GM to make its system generate clear fiction-grounded complications with teeth. I think that HQrev would make this even harder. (But would certainly exhibit the free-flowing, open ended aspects that are the great strength of Cortex+ Heroic as a system.)

I think these demands on the GM - the fact that, in a sense, the system doesn't "play itself" right out of the bos - distinguishes these more fully-AD&D-negating systems from ones like BW, DitV and PbtA, and reduces their claim to be "advanced".

 

[Arilyn]

Any joker can take a d20 table and expand it to a d100 or d1000 table. Anyone can add in stuff about wind speed, etc.

True artistry is when you can distill the theme down into a concise set of rules that enhances the sort of play desired, without getting in the way.

One of the best examples I can think of nowadays is Blades in the Dark.

Yes, I agree. Elegance in design is a good example of advancement in rpgs. If you look at the history of our hobby, there has been a somewhat steady progression to more refined systems, except for some of the games in the 80s, which tried simulating reality to the detriment of playability.

Rules need to simulate the narrative of what the game is attempting to achieve, without getting in the way. When I think of advanced design, I think of aspects from Fate, fail forward, the investigative system in Gumshoe, techniques from Story Now, the narrative dice from Fantasy Flight, etc.

Haven't read Blades in the Dark, but sure have been hearing a lot of good things about it.

 

[Obryn]

BitD is a refinement and progression of the PbtA system. It takes the best parts and further expands the framework.

To me, this trend of paring down RPGs to their essential cores and streamlining them to put the desired genre front & center is what defines modern design.

There's not a thing in the blog linked by the OP that would have been out of place in the mid-80's. It's hard for me to think of it as 'advanced' when it's fundamentally stuck in the past.

RPG design is an iterative field. Games made now are made with a clear eye towards design principles and solid mechanics. Even modern OSR games have followed suit. Dungeon Crawl Classics, for example, has some very forward-thinking design despite its bluster to the contrary.

 

[Arilyn]

There are so many games PbtA that I've lost track of them. A lot of them have been taking the basic design in various directions. I've collected a fair number of them and the ones I've tried have been very engaging. I bet Vincent Baker didn't expect his Appocalypse World to spawn this many offshoots!

At one point I thought the pendulum might swing back to more rules heavy games, but now I don't think so. Even the more recent thick game books, like what Fantasy Flight or Modiphius are producing, have more fluff than rules and tables and nitty gritty details that add little to a game session.

 

[Riley37]

Let's declare "Blades in the Dark" as the most advanced TRPG currently on the market, and call it a day.
There are Youtube videos of BitD sessions, reviews, all kinds of free stuff available.
Personally I consider it a game so advanced that it has the bugs typical of an advanced prototype, and so advanced that it demonstrates certain defects of its approach.

Maybe Vesper will enjoy BitD, maybe not, but let's just give him what he *says* he's asking for.

If he wants the most advanced D&D, however, then that's the Unearthed Arcana material for 5E. So far as I know, that's the D&D which builds on the shoulders of the largest previous body of established D&D.

And then by all means, let him go to a gun forum and ask which firearm is the most advanced in existence. I'm sure there will be one answer on which everyone promptly agrees, because "advanced" is such a concrete, clearly applicable term.

 

[Riley37]

Do we need to discuss additional examples in order to establish clarity?

Well, have you tried it? Have you tried walking into a library, and asking the librarians for their most advanced book?

What happened?

 

[pemerton]

BitD is a refinement and progression of the PbtA system. It takes the best parts and further expands the framework.

To me, this trend of paring down RPGs to their essential cores and streamlining them to put the desired genre front & center is what defines modern design.

I hadn't read your posts about BitD when I wrote and posted my comment about PbtA as "advanced", but it seems that we were thinking along similar lines.

My takeaway here is that you consider "effective scene framing" ~ i.e. the ability to close out one scene and move to another ~ to be an important end-state; that the tracking and accounting of AD&D inhibits that goal; and that Burning Wheel offers a mechanic that enables that goal.

Assuming that is an accurate interpretation, thank you. I will take a look, see what I can learn from it.

OK, thanks for this more productive reply!

I fail to see how removing something from any game makes it more advanced. Not that you should keep something that gets in the way of a game's flow ~ i.e. the steady progression from one player action to the next ~ no, if there's something about the rules or process that keeps mucking up the game and you can't justify keeping it, then throw it out or modify it until it doesn't cause those problems.

But simply removing a problem rule doesn't make a game advanced.

I don't think I agree with this. I think it's not correct even if one confines the focus to more "traditional" RPGs. For instance, Rolemaster takes away the various resolution systems of AD&D (which I think [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] mentioned upthread - d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 or d100 for feats of strength, depending on the STR score and the details of the feat; different rules for different sorts of perceptual endeavour,; etc) and replaces them with a single method of skill/ability checks.

To approach the issue more generally: what is the purpose of a rule? In AD&D, many rules exist simpluy to answer a discrete question (Can I open the door? Can I hear what' on the other side of it? Can I find a secret door?). Provided the list of discrete questions is kept relatively short (ie the questions one might ask while playing a dungeon-exploration wargame) then this approach may not cause issues, and may even be good design if it helps each different aspect of dungeon exploration feel unique.

In RM and RQ, however, the list of questions is in principle unlimited - because they self-consciously establish a vista for play that goes far beyond dungeon-crawling - and so the rules get reframed: the rules address questions like How well can I see? How well can I sing? How well can I climb?, and the resolution systems are intended to provide generic answers to these questions of "how well"?

In a "story now" game, the list of questions is also, in principle, unlimited - although particular games may confine the list on a genre basis (like BitD that [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] has referenced) - but the rules answer a different sort of question again: What happens when I respond to a challenge by searching? What happens when I respond to a challenge by singing? What happens when I respond to a challenge by climbing?

It may be possible to move from AD&D through RM/RQ to (say) BW without actually changing the rules that tell us a thief's Climb Wall number, while having the meaning of the rule change: in AD&D it answers the question Can I climb this wall?; in more RM-ish play it answers the question How well can I climb?; in BW-ish play it answers the question What happens when I respond to a challenge by climbing. Bot to achieve those changes you would have to change a lot of other stuff about how you approach and play the game: different framing of challenges; different ways of interpreting outcomes; different ways of establishing consequencdes (both for success and failure); etc.

And likewise an AD&D thief might have Climb Walls 90%, a RM character Climbing +90, and a BW character Climb 6D; but these aren't just different examples of the same game element with nothing but mathematical converrsions required to move between them.

The conclusion I want to draw from this discussion is: you can't just talk about "removing a problem rule" as if it was self-evident what that means. You need to consider what purpose the rules serves, what questions it is meant to answer, and how answering those questions feeds into the dynamics of play. Cortex+ Heroic (to pick an example) isn't just AD&D but with all the duration and money accounting elements stripped out. It involves an extremeley different approach to everything from the meaning of Climb D6 or Supreme Sorcery D12 on a character sheet or statblock, to the meaning of Wealthy as a character desriptor, to the meaning of "Every time you acquire gold from an enemy, earn 3XP" in a Milestone list.