Thinking About the Purpose of Mechanics from a Neo-Trad Perspective

[Darth Solo]

Wow.

The Six Cultures of Play is gibberish: the author suggests there's six cultures of play then also notes that someone who plays TTRPGs might belong to one or more cultures - which excuses how the author's descriptions of the six cultures tend to overlap (is "Classic" like "Trad" or "Trad" like "OSR" or "OSR" like "Classic"?)

You wrote:

The key I think, was that my background had primed me to not use mechanics to anchor my roleplay, and instead the system fit neatly to emulate physical space and conflict and answer the question of "should my character be able to do the thing." But it also needs to be said that despite a lack of mechanics that explicitly support roleplaying, my games were very much about roleplaying

Firstly, how do you define your use of the word "mechanics" here? Also, how do you define the word "roleplaying" as you're using it here?

How does 'RP happen independently of the game you're doing it in' and are you referring to any kind of game or just TTRPGs?

You wrote:

you don't need a game that produces heist fiction (thinking of Blades in the Dark) so much as you need a game where you can create a character who is a thief and lets them exist in that kind of thematic space, even if she doesn't actually pull of heists as often

Why isn't it easier to RP a thief when the game provides rules regarding what thieves DO? How do rules designed to inform a player of their character's abilities 'get in the way' of RP? Along this line, does being taught how to swim interfere with the act of swimming?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Wow.

The Six Cultures of Play is gibberish: the author suggests there's six cultures of play then also notes that someone who plays TTRPGs might belong to one or more cultures - which excuses how the author's descriptions of the six cultures tend to overlap (is "Classic" like "Trad" or "Trad" like "OSR" or "OSR" like "Classic"?)

You wrote:

Firstly, how do you define your use of the word "mechanics" here? Also, how do you define the word "roleplaying" as you're using it here?

How does 'RP happen independently of the game you're doing it in' and are you referring to any kind of game or just TTRPGs?

You wrote:

Why isn't it easier to RP a thief when the game provides rules regarding what thieves DO? How do rules designed to inform a player of their character's abilities 'get in the way' of RP? Along this line, does being taught how to swim interfere with the act of swimming?

This seems a bit too hostile to actually respond to, but giving it the benefit of the doubt-- six cultures of play isn't gibberish and the overlap isn't particularly damning as the same person can be influenced by more than one game over the course of their life, or community-- e.g. I started with message board roleplaying which was neo-trad, moved onto DND and learned some Trad, and tried some Story Now games along the way, and even picked up some OSR from the internet. They're just influences and ways of thinking about RPGs.

Roleplaying is the act of taking on the role of a character, you can see that easily enough in the example of play.

Mechanics are the load bearing rules of the game where you do things like roll dice or add up stats or follow specific instructions to participate in play in some other way, I contrasted them with etiquette style rules but otherwise its a fairly standard definition.

The reason it isn't (always) easier to RP a thief when the game provides rules for what thieves do is because there's more than one way to depict a thief, so if the given rules enforce one conception of thief-hood it might clash with another conception of thiefhood. For example, it might be harder to roleplay persona 5-esque phantom thieves using BITD because it migth feel off for the kids to have vices that bring problems into their lives that way. In your swimming example, it might be a requirement to do a front crawl preventing you from doing your breastroke or butterfly (though the analogy is tortured.)

 

[Faolyn]

you don't need a game that produces heist fiction (thinking of Blades in the Dark) so much as you need a game where you can create a character who is a thief and lets them exist in that kind of thematic space, even if she doesn't actually pull of heists as often.

Why isn't it easier to RP a thief when the game provides rules regarding what thieves DO? How do rules designed to inform a player of their character's abilities 'get in the way' of RP? Along this line, does being taught how to swim interfere with the act of swimming?

Butting in a bit.

With BitD--I've never played it, although I've read through the book. To me, the world is so interesting I want to do things other than have heists in it. But, for people who want to play a heist game, having a game dedicated to heists is actually really good. If it were D&D and I'm playing a thief, I might never get a chance to actually do the heist I wanted. D&D (and many other similar systems) is built for a larger number of things, and quite frankly, has options that make heists unimportant; they become smash-and-grabs, or at higher levels, games where you teleport in, grab the loot, and teleport out. With BitD, you don't become so powerful that you can just teleport in (I don't think), and while you may be the sneaky thief who can sneak in (edit: in D&D), your companions very likely aren't built in the same lines. It's hard to have a heist with a barbarian in the party.

So anyway, it's not that BitD isn't needed when you already have another game where you can do the thing, it's that you have two games that take different approaches to the same thing.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Butting in a bit.

With BitD--I've never played it, although I've read through the book. To me, the world is so interesting I want to do things other than have heists in it. But, for people who want to play a heist game, having a game dedicated to heists is actually really good. If it were D&D and I'm playing a thief, I might never get a chance to actually do the heist I wanted. D&D (and many other similar systems) is built for a larger number of things, and quite frankly, has options that make heists unimportant; they become smash-and-grabs, or at higher levels, games where you teleport in, grab the loot, and teleport out. With BitD, you don't become so powerful that you can just teleport in (I don't think), and while you may be the sneaky thief who can sneak in, your companions very likely aren't built in the same lines. It's hard to have a heist with a barbarian in the party.

So anyway, it's not that BitD isn't needed when you already have another game where you can do the thing, it's that you have two games that take different approaches to the same thing.

Yup, or an example on this forum, you might find that even if you want a heist game BITD doesn't fit your needs because your conception of a heist game includes way more strategic planning and execution-- like playing Payday 2 or something but in tabletop RPG form.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The reason it isn't (always) easier to RP a thief when the game provides rules for what thieves do is because there's more than one way to depict a thief, so if the given rules enforce one conception of thief-hood it might clash with another conception of thiefhood. For example, it might be harder to roleplay persona 5-esque phantom thieves using BITD because it migth feel off for the kids to have vices that bring problems into their lives that way. In your swimming example, it might be a requirement to do a front crawl preventing you from doing your breastroke or butterfly (though the analogy is tortured.)

Putting it perhaps a bit more broadly, the mechanical structure of the game may, in one fashion or another, push what you can do into a zone that is different than your particular conception of what a character of the sort you're imagining can do. This is not limited to systems that use classes and the like, either; something as simple as the practical realities of what the stealth rules do or do not permit can impact this strongly.

 

[Faolyn]

Yup, or an example on this forum, you might find that even if you want a heist game BITD doesn't fit your needs because your conception of a heist game includes way more strategic planning and execution-- like playing Payday 2 or something but in tabletop RPG form.

Exactly. It depends very heavily on whether you enjoy the action part or the planning part more.

 

[niklinna]

Butting in a bit.

With BitD--I've never played it, although I've read through the book. To me, the world is so interesting I want to do things other than have heists in it. But, for people who want to play a heist game, having a game dedicated to heists is actually really good. If it were D&D and I'm playing a thief, I might never get a chance to actually do the heist I wanted. D&D (and many other similar systems) is built for a larger number of things, and quite frankly, has options that make heists unimportant; they become smash-and-grabs, or at higher levels, games where you teleport in, grab the loot, and teleport out. With BitD, you don't become so powerful that you can just teleport in (I don't think), and while you may be the sneaky thief who can sneak in (edit: in D&D), your companions very likely aren't built in the same lines. It's hard to have a heist with a barbarian in the party.

So anyway, it's not that BitD isn't needed when you already have another game where you can do the thing, it's that you have two games that take different approaches to the same thing.

Blades in the Dark is about scores, one kind of which is the heist. There's plenty you can do in Blades in the Dark that isn't breaking in and stealing something. My group performed assassinations; infiltrated organizations; cleaned up the aftermath of supernatural disasters; took turf from rival factions; took out rival factions; took over rival factions; rescued the spirit of an initiate who failed his exam in the most extreme way possible; rustled horses; engaged in political, social, and religious intrigue; journeyed across the deathlands to do a frontal assault on a doomsday cult; performed a lost ritual to ingest the essense of a demonic leviathan; and much more, all using the same flexible & scalable mechanics. Some of the combats in those scores were round by round, some were resolved in single rolls, some in a couple of midscale back-and-forths.

By the endgame, two of our crew could in fact teleport, one arbitrary distances from one fire to another, and my character anywhere in sight within a block, or directly through a door or wall. There's also an abililty to go ethereal and just phase through doors & walls, which my pet ghost/zombie had.

D&D (5e), in my experience, is built for tactical combat, and pretty much punts on everything else, including in terms of play time devoted to non-combat activities.

 

[niklinna]

Yup, or an example on this forum, you might find that even if you want a heist game BITD doesn't fit your needs because your conception of a heist game includes way more strategic planning and execution-- like playing Payday 2 or something but in tabletop RPG form.

Now this is on point. Blades in the Dark is all about coming up with the shenanigans as you go, albeit with firm rules about how many things you can pull out of your, er, hat. But it actually wouldn't take much hacking to make it so you have to pick your exact gear and do other prep before starting the score.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

2) My use of (in combat) as the exclusive site of challenge-based priorities was intentional. There certainly seems to be a play agenda-spanning, uniform priority to freeform outside of combat and eschew noncombat conflict resolution. This seems to me that because, at some point, if allowed to resolve without some form of intervention (GM Force or player protest), there is a clear and imminent danger to the integrity and promotion of a given player’s character conception (circle back to the novelty seeking via structured discovery of “Play to Find Out”).

I could see this being a theme in BitD play maybe. Like, I want to conceive of my character a certain way, but as soon as I go into a score, I have to give up a lot of control. I mean, the game is pretty much 100% geared towards chewing up my character and spitting out a, possibly quite mangled, version on the other side! It definitely would NOT work for Neo-Trad, but more than that, even for some narrativist players it might be a bit too radical.

Like, Dungeon World, OK your character could get chewed, but really what's going to change? His bonds? That might be significant, but the player has a lot of control there, and gets to create new bonds that can probably serve the same role in defining what he's after/about. So its a lot less intensively remaking your character than BitD is, where lots of stuff can change quite a lot (though admittedly you have your abilities and class features that probably won't change much).

 

[niklinna]

I could see this being a theme in BitD play maybe. Like, I want to conceive of my character a certain way, but as soon as I go into a score, I have to give up a lot of control. I mean, the game is pretty much 100% geared towards chewing up my character and spitting out a, possibly quite mangled, version on the other side! It definitely would NOT work for Neo-Trad, but more than that, even for some narrativist players it might be a bit too radical.

Like, Dungeon World, OK your character could get chewed, but really what's going to change? His bonds? That might be significant, but the player has a lot of control there, and gets to create new bonds that can probably serve the same role in defining what he's after/about. So its a lot less intensively remaking your character than BitD is, where lots of stuff can change quite a lot (though admittedly you have your abilities and class features that probably won't change much).

I didn't feel that my character in Blades in the Dark was intensively remade. Oh sure he racked up a few traumas, but I didn't really make all that much use of them and they fit pretty well into the general personality I'd already come up with. If anything, he became ever more like I'd originally envisioned him after a very confusing first session. Except for the whole becoming a demon leviathan thing at the end, that was a fun surprise!