Do you find that even if the procedures - the written mechanics - are closely similar; where there are other words in a game text that guide toward a use of those mechanics (a purpose, such as a story telling one) then the effect of those closely similar procedures in play - changes?
Yes. I think it speaks to the agenda and principles for running a game — even if they are not enumerated explicitly. I’ve tried going against the grain with several systems (5e, Pathfinder 2e, Worlds Without Number) and found they would always get in my way eventually.
In 5e, one of the players took Outlander, which meant that provisions were never a concern. Even if I wanted to run with a gameplay loop identical to B/X (ignoring any guidance to exercise discretion), the system provided the players with build options to trivially escape the gameplay loop. It’s the same issue one sees with the proliferation of racial options that provide Darkvision, so players can ignore the importance of light in a dungeon. Since 5e doesn’t advertise itself as providing the process I want, I can’t really fault it for providing those things. I’m using it in an unusual way to pursue an agenda different from the one it was designed to do.
Pathfinder 2e is very enumerative of its mechanics. Every skill has a set of actions associated with it. There are feats that players can take to alter how their skills work. Even though it’s ostensibly for AP play, I’d describe PF2 as a system more inclined towards gamist play. Combat in particular is very demanding that players step on up if they want to succeed. I eventually hit a point where it got to be too much. I didn’t feel proficient in the system even after running it for a year, and the amount of work it took to creating monsters and content didn’t feel worth it to me. I also found myself really disliking setting DCs (both ad hoc and especially when creating monsters/traps).
Worlds Without Number positions itself as a sandbox system, but it’s really a high concept sim game pretending to be a sandbox. It has bits and pieces from B/X, but it does not procedures like what you have described or
@Manbearcat shared in
post #1,769. Many of the procedures it does have undermine themselves (e.g., the game outright tells you to assume that water and firewood can be found automatically while traveling, undermining its privation loop). It has bespoke rules for projects and factions, but they’re incomplete or obtuse to the point of useless. I found myself supplementing its rules (going to the extreme of retrocloning it out of Old-School Essentials) with B/X, but I gave up on the system after the faction rules plain didn’t work.
That leaves Old-School Essentials (and B/X D&D), which does have the procedures and orients them the way I want, but my players bounced off it pretty hard. They wanted more class customization, but I think the more important thing is they didn’t like how weak their characters felt. I only have three players, and they’re not fond of
needing retainers to supplement their numbers. That’s what lead me to do a homebrew system, which started from a goal of taking my WWN retroclone and porting mechanics from WWN that worked well from us back to OSE, but it has evolved more into its own thing (while still keeping a goal of compatibility with B/X, so I can use adventures and monsters as needed).
As a thought experiment, if that same guidance that you find telling in ToA were in X1, then the procedure there would be changed in effect? And, conversely, if one erased the guidance from ToA, then the procedure there would, too, be changed in effect. I'm trying to understand the interaction between the guidance, and the bare procedure. Because on surface those bare procedures are near identical (or perhaps you can highlight the dissimilarities that stand out to you?)
The perception of the procedure and its intent would change. The problem I have with this thought experiment is don’t know what ToA says exactly, and the material outside of that is spread across multiple books and chapters. It doesn’t have a step by step checklist like B/X does, and just assuming their roles were switched makes the comparison seem unfair.
If one just looks at the raw mechanics, there’s nothing about 5e that makes it incapable of supporting the kind of procedure and play that B/X does. The details are different, but they’re both still D&D. However, systems aren’t just a compilation of mechanics without any context or intent behind them. If I really wanted to use 5e, I’d have to remain vigilant of every mechanic that could undermine my agenda and devise house rules to address it. Maybe some people are fine with it, but it’s not for me anymore. I also find myself really disliking the way 5e (and PF2 and other modern D&Ds) handle setting DCs for skill checks and saving throws. It’s a good tell for whether a system vests a lot of authority in the GM to decide how things should go.
