NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8290507" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think this is highly dependent on a specific model of RPG. That is, sure, it wouldn't be that hard to add the 1e rules for wandering monsters, turn-based exploration, etc. to 5e (you might want to remove a couple of spells that make things like light sources trivial, reduce encumbrance maybe, not sure). Why? Because they are VERY SIMILAR RPGS! They follow extremely similar models and basically have pretty much the same design at a high level! There are 2 participant roles, GM and Player, the functions of those roles are very similar and can shade into each other, etc. It gets a LOT HARDER when you start into very different games. So, for example, try adding wandering monsters to your PACE game (you can find the rules online, but it is basically a diceless story game where you bid 'chits' to resolve conflicts in your favor). EVEN THAT GAME still has a lot of similarity to games like D&D though! How about adding wandering monsters and turn-based exploration to a LARP? That's closer to combining baseball and futbol!I think there is abstract and there is 'intangible'. Intangible things are not necessarily abstractions. I would not consider 'Love' an abstraction. Nor would I consider 'Shared Fiction' an abstraction, but both are intangible. Abstractions have a character in which they 'abstract away' some of the properties of various specific things such that those things can be lumped together to form the abstraction. I have a really good handle on this, I make my living doing it as a highly accomplished developer. I will build an API, a specification for how code can accomplish certain tasks. It can abstract away the differences between files, a database, some cloud-based storage, etc. and present it all purely in terms of naming things, iterating, finding, storing, and reading, without regard to the vast differences between the abstracted things. RPGs certainly have abstractions as well, maybe of a slightly different character, but pretty similar. 4e or 5e have skill systems where you roll a d20, apply some modifiers, and compare the result to a DC. Every application of skills works the same, that is an abstraction. If I invented a new skill for 5e, it would hook right in, just make a check, even though it might involve your character's ability to carve headstones or something instead of jump long distances reliably.I think Wandering Monsters is not a bad example, but I think the whole idea of starting with examples like that may be flawed. You touched at some point on agenda and such. I think you have to start there! What am I trying to accomplish? What are the principles of play? What is the process? NOW, knowing that, really understanding it, do I have a reason to add 'Wandering Monsters' to my non-classic-D&D game? What are they going to accomplish for me? OK, what is the whole process that needs to exist, how do the pieces of game engine fit together to produce my goal? Wandering Monsters are simply a mechanism, they are agenda-neutral in-and-of-themselves. So, maybe my hypothetical game needs an exploration process, and I have some reasons within that to add these monsters as a mechanic, OK.LOL, you kinda ninjaed me on this one. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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