Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

[niklinna]

Class. Level. Zero to Hero. Readily available magic. Thousands of monster species. Multitudes of PC races.

Elaborate package deals of any kind, really. Add to this weirdly-specific spells that bundle together damage type, damage amount, range, duration, and other effects, with no obvious correspondence to power level.

I understand the appeal of quick character creation, but that can be done à la carte if you keep things reasonably simple.

 

[billd91]

Game designer egos, loaded language in rules that cast subtle (or not so subtle) badwrongfun aspersions at other games, and game designer celebrity.

 

[Professor Murder]

Combat being a distinct and separate system for resolving conflict/solving problems.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's a little more than just a dice pool to determine success, though. I love this sort of thing, where you can trade off the binary or scalar success for side effects!

I think the closest I've seen to this with a single die roll is in 13th age, where if you roll an even number you get to do something extra? But that's clearly not the same as having the option.

Well, I went with it because it's difficult to model. I would have gone with Blades, but then we'd have the "it's easy to convert a 4 die poll to a straight roll" conversation because you can just map the probability of success, even the success with complication. But you can't use that sane model for a 3 die pool because it doesn't change linearly. Or what if you push or take a devil's bargin? So you'd need a chart for every combination to convert.

It's just an odd claim.

 

[pemerton]

On the dice pools thing: in systems like Prince Valiant, Burning Wheel or Torchbearer it is always possible to fail (by rolling sufficiently few successes). This is not trivial to map onto a "roll + add" system.

 

[Li Shenron]

"RPGs as a whole - what does the hobby/industry in general seem too attached to."

Collectionism, officiality and novelty. None of which the RPGing hobby truly need.

But since it sounds like you are a publisher, it is impossibile for you not to look at those as opportunities.

But it actually sounds like you're trying to find an idea for removing or replacing a core rule or mechanics mainly. Nothing wrong with creating a new game or variant, I would always welcome variations of the gameplay, and if you're lucky you can create a successful longlasting branch of the main.

No levelling is for example one thing I'd be looking forward to, as I've said many times that I find the typical fast levelling of RPGs a distraction from the actual game for many players. I myself often tell my players to forget levelling up until the current adventure is over, so that they don't make in-game decisions in anticipation of what new abilities they should acquire next, or do silly things like going on a rats hunt for XP.

 

[Lord Shark]

This sort of thing was really common in 90s games: skill lists that cover every single thing a character might possibly want to do, regardless of whether it might make sense for the game or genre. Gotta have that Underwater Basketweaving skill in there!

 

[Jmarso]

I can live without sexy orcs and goblins as PC's. Let's all get back to Tolkien, here.

 

[Yora]

Other than pointlessly specific skills that no player has real reason to ever take, none of the things listed here are inherently bad. They all can be useful tools for specific purposes.

Using poor tools for the wrong purposes is a bad practice, but that's one no game designers ever did on purpose or plan to continue doing.

 

[MNblockhead]

The answer the main question, no. I see no reason to let go of any traditions in terms of game mechanics or play styles. I perfectly capable of enjoying radically new and different systems while still enjoying my traditional D&D with all its clunky bits.

The only traditions I've been happy to see go are social: gatekeeping, nerd and geek being pejorative, lack of diversity at the game table, etc.