D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

[Micah Sweet]

Aww, but how can people crap on the Forge for being the worst thing ever, if they have to accept that it actually grew out of the existing tradition and discussion of TTRPGs?

Because it was overwhelmingly biased in favor of Narrativism, while presenting itself as a neutral classification system?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because it was overwhelmingly biased in favor of Narrativism, while presenting itself as a neutral classification system?

That was not my read on it, and I neither had any particular skin in that game, nor have a particularly strong preference for narrativism. (I, in fact, like all three things described there, and I find fault with its characterization of what it calls process sim and genre sim as being two halves of a singular whole. I consider them to be distinct but related, just as process sim has many things in common with the extremely gamist roots of the hobby, but is still quite distinct. Gygax's whole "if time records are not kept" screed is a point of intersection between gamism and simulationism, even if neither side would necessarily be comfortable with that.)

 

[mamba]

I would bet that if D&D moves in a way that Mearls' post implies, it would split the difference between 5E and Shadowdark

it definitely would not go anywhere near as far as SD. I guess it would stay more around the 3/4 mark towards 5e than in the middle

I wonder where Mearls’ game will fall on that spectrum

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I also think the user experience and general layout of games from publishers like Necrotic Gnome, Arcane Library and Questing Beast are a huge leap in usability when compared to the 5e era WotC books, but the definition of the 4th and 5th generations are too vague in comparison to the first three... I wouldn't call it "generations" in a linear sense, just different publishing approaches heavily influenced by market, scale and business goals.

I am not familiar with the publishers you reference and will accept your claim, but I think that the new 5e core and Dragon Delves is a big leap forward in usability for WoTC.
I have reverted to using the physical books for reference at the table, even though I am playing on VTT and I have been using stuff from Candlekeep and Dragon Delves recently, and I find the latter easier to comprehend the adventure, even if I still want to change elements.

 

[Kinematics]

If I were to create my own generational progression chart, I'd look at it like this:

1) Combat Sim, growing out of the original wargaming background. Location, line of sight, movement, attack, evasion, armor, etc. The basic fundamentals. Wargamers.

2) Setting Sim. Whether trying to replicate existing properties, such as Conan, or building new worlds, such as Greyhawk, the game grew from individual battles to an entire world that people wanted to recreate. Writers.

3) Detail Sim. So many things can happen! What is a hit point? How effective is your armor? How charming is the bard? What is a crit? Rolemaster crit tables! GURPS power lists. Battletech everything. Nerds.

4) Genre Sim. Computers are a thing, and started showing that they do the detail sim a lot better than books and charts. Quit making the humans do the hard work, and let them focus more on having fun playing the game. Atmosphere is the key. An expansion on Setting Sim. Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, Dark Sun, Shadowrun, Castle Falkenstein, etc. Theater kids.

5) Regression to Detail Sim because computers became such a big part of our lives. 3E/3.5E/Pathfinder/4E. Excel, the Roleplaying Game. Computer nerds.

6) Character Sim. Remembered that Detail Sim is a stupid amount of work, so trying to tone it down. Time in Detail Sim has let people learn how to optimize away a lot of the detail. However Genre Sim is a bit passé. Fanfic dominates, and story scope contracts to be more personal, rather than cog-in-the-machine. Tumblrites.

7) Sharing. The internet has made showing off your creations and your games easier than ever, though it's not enough to just share; people have to actually notice. You want games that make the presentation and sharing of those things as seamless, yet unique, as possible. Simplification, but with flair. Twitch streamers.


Note that none of these ever stops. There's still Combat Sim and Detail Sim and Setting Sim, and so forth. It's just that certain aspects rise and fall based on how well the foundation has already been established, and what tools facilitate what you're trying to do.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I found this blogpost to be irredeemable nonsense. It's so far off compared to my own perception of the evolution of RPGs that there is nothing to discuss, I'm just here to express my disappointment.

 

[Piperken]

Some of the responses elsewhere I've encountered with this article, is that Mearls' attempts to set up game iteration based on the conceit of generation, but cites examples that are supposed to be definitive, yet are ones that had been in use decades prior to when he places them-- just not in table top games.

One that stood out for me were the layout and format used in published modules. The "OSE" house format for example isn't new, it was a common form that had been around in graphic design space for quite some time.

Some readers did wonder how it is that someone who should be steeped in roleplaying games (not just D&D), comes across as not having played many systems or seems to not recognize where clear intersections occur between roleplaying games and other craft spaces (video games, graphic design, etc).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is an interesting list but it understates how some of these things occurred in parallel and some were reaction to other developments.

If I were to create my own generational progression chart, I'd look at it like this:

1) Combat Sim, growing out of the original wargaming background. Location, line of sight, movement, attack, evasion, armor, etc. The basic fundamentals. Wargamers.

2) Setting Sim. Whether trying to replicate existing properties, such as Conan, or building new worlds, such as Greyhawk, the game grew from individual battles to an entire world that people wanted to recreate. Writers.

3) Detail Sim. So many things can happen! What is a hit point? How effective is your armor? How charming is the bard? What is a crit? Rolemaster crit tables! GURPS power lists. Battletech everything. Nerds.

4) Genre Sim. Computers are a thing, and started showing that they do the detail sim a lot better than books and charts. Quit making the humans do the hard work, and let them focus more on having fun playing the game. Atmosphere is the key. An expansion on Setting Sim. Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, Dark Sun, Shadowrun, Castle Falkenstein, etc. Theater kids.

None of these things are in my opinion generational or even waves. They were they in part from the start, but different part of the hobby and different version of D&D and other game of the period were exploring these elements and reacting to other attempts at this kind of exploration.

5) Regression to Detail Sim because computers became such a big part of our lives. 3E/3.5E/Pathfinder/4E. Excel, the Roleplaying Game. Computer nerds.

I think that this had less to do with detail sim as a reaction to the DM extremes of the DM as adversary and the Monty Haul DM.
The rules should cover everything but the PC should have agency.

6) Character Sim. Remembered that Detail Sim is a stupid amount of work, so trying to tone it down. Time in Detail Sim has let people learn how to optimize away a lot of the detail. However Genre Sim is a bit passé. Fanfic dominates, and story scope contracts to be more personal, rather than cog-in-the-machine. Tumblrites.

7) Sharing. The internet has made showing off your creations and your games easier than ever, though it's not enough to just share; people have to actually notice. You want games that make the presentation and sharing of those things as seamless, yet unique, as possible. Simplification, but with flair. Twitch streamers.


Note that none of these ever stops. There's still Combat Sim and Detail Sim and Setting Sim, and so forth. It's just that certain aspects rise and fall based on how well the foundation has already been established, and what tools facilitate what you're trying to do.

Mostly agree here.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Note that none of these ever stops. There's still Combat Sim and Detail Sim and Setting Sim, and so forth. It's just that certain aspects rise and fall based on how well the foundation has already been established, and what tools facilitate what you're trying to do.

I don't think he's saying anything stops, just that the crest of the design wave -- through a very D&D-centric viewpoint -- moves on over time.

You can still buy Hero and GURPS today, and people are playing them, but I don't think anyone would seriously argue that they represent a large or influential part of the RPG design space today.

 

[Gradine]

Er, are you saying that the Forge classifications are useful? Because that's what this implies. Being a lot less useful than something that is nearly useless, for example, would be very difficult. Being a lot less useful than something which is very useful is easy.