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

[Thomas Shey]

These are all different sites of challenge-based play. Conversation about challenge needs to not assume one (which it so often does). It needs to correctly index which one, or ones, the game in question includes as a parameter for play.

I think this is absolutely dead on--but I do think expecting everyone to even admit some of those are what are going on, let alone acknowledge them as appropriate is going to be a disappointing process; some of them very much appear to be dysfunctional elements to various people.

 

[Pedantic]

None of those give expression to Gamist priorities. That is a either a separate axis entirely to these thoughts or a coefficient attached to each.

* How can the present situation introduce a maximally compelling and consequential tactical or strategic decision-space (?) > Introduce that content.

I don't think this definition is functional. Gameplay requires resolving tension, not just an increasingly dense decision space. The reward for overcoming variability in games is very often (and necessarily) a string of simple choices. There is an end here; you can't attempt to manipulate outcomes to make the puzzle thornier and thornier, at some point you must present a board state for navigation. The goal of a player is very often going to be constraining the possible board states that emerge, such that they are easy/straightforward to resolve, and while it's important to present an interesting challenge, gameplay is mostly about agency. Players need to know the available moves, and have a reasonable schema for projecting them onto the board so that they can try and find a winning line (and be able to analyze actual and theoretical outcomes of different choices).

It is not a question of making any given situation maximally tactically interesting, or rather, that isn't a first order gamist priority, it's a tertiary concern after ensuring a situation is gameable at all, and ensuring that player decision making is meaningful. Important, but not the first step.

 

[Voadam]

OK, so one extreme would be B/X D&D, lets say, where you just pick one of 4 or 5 classes/races and besides that you've got your equipment, and maybe spells, plus ability scores. I expect if we assume a 'put them in any order' on the ability scores, then you can build, at very low-fi, whatever character you envisage.

B/X was explicitly roll in order, with a limited option to drop two points from a non- dex, con, or cha stat (but not below a 9) to bump up your prime requisite by 1. Unlike AD&D it offered no RAW alternatives that can shape more to a predetermined priority of stats.

For the most part though I think stats are fairly irrelevant and you can roleplay most any personality and approach with any stats or class so I big picture come out to the same point as you. You want a Sean Connery James Bond approach B/X elf? It will work fine. Whether it will get successful results will depend entirely on the player's specific approach in the situation and the DM's adjudication.

You will run into problems with things like "Conan has all 18s" or some such with certain character concepts/ability score rolls, but that is maybe more a question of 'score inflation' than an actual problem with that system.

4e would kind of be the other extreme where you have tons of classes, MCing, hybrids, loads of feats, background, theme, and PP/ED, as well as proficiencies and power selection. As long as your concept isn't broken by some small detail of how your powers work or whatnot then you should be able to build something that's pretty expressive of the concept. It has the virtue over the B/X version of having a lot of 'hooks', but OTOH that also means mechanics are going to 'hook' you and that might not be what you want! Still, things like the Lazylord, for example, can be pulled of, which is kinda cool.

Personally I've built some pretty distinctive characters at both extremes, but then I'm not generally in the same sort of mindset as some of the more 'OC' people who want something very exactly a certain way. So, build options were never really, in and of themselves, something that either draws me to or repels me away from a system (though I admit, I can imagine there being too little, but still early D&D can be enough).

Well, I'm not ENTIRELY sure why Fate is the opposite pole there. I mean, maybe kinda sorta, but it depends perhaps on what you value in 'character stuff'? Like, 4e SUBSUMES what Fate does, in a sense, AND gives you loads of detailed mechanical stuff. I think of every item on the character sheet as both a mechanical unit of stuff and as a free descriptor! I also think that Original D&D meant its ability scores in much more of a free descriptor way than is now commonly understood. Like, in the original core 3 books there's ALMOST no rules associated with ability score (there are a couple, I think CON and DEX have some actual effects, and there's the prime requisite rules). Why is it good to be a strong fighter in that system? Because you can SAY "I'm strong, therefore..." Now, its true that bonuses got added pretty quickly, but it was still the case in a lot of AD&D play (ours for instance) that you could use ability scores, or class, or race, like a free descriptor and ask for stuff. Obviously Fate codifies all that!

Here I diverge. I think the lack of stuff in the older rules is not an indication that stats should be narrative guides to empower or limit stuff in games. I just took stats as things with a very few defined mechanical impacts.

Generally I think there was a lot of variation on this sort of stuff between individuals and groups.

I looked at B/X for instance and saw the intelligence score as describing prime requisite stuff and bonus languages known and that was it. I expected remembering stuff in actual play to be a player aspect and not something impacted by the stats for a DM gimme or a roll even with the B/X description of intelligence as the ability to remember knowledge.

So, I was discussing 4e vs B/X in more "what mechanical tools are there" because from my perspective they're all equal in the descriptors space (and then in that sense Fate IS the opposite of all D&Ds since it centers the mechanics on that descriptor thing, and gets rid of a lot of the other stuff).

Anyway, at the very least there are several dimensions in this space.

I see 4e as much more descriptor leveraging oriented. The skill system explicitly says to use trained skills to narratively empower cool cinematic thematic open ended moves. B/X has nothing explicitly similar. B/X says nothing one way or the other about whether your character can be an acrobatic anime ninja. 4e does.

I'm not sure how 'ad hoc' ability scores are in older D&D. Think of it this way. I have an INT of 15, that's roughly a 148 IQ. You ARE A GENIUS, not just 'kinda smart', and you can definitely play with that. Granted, old school D&D is not going to give you a formal label to put on your character "Scholar of Middle Cardolan History" to leverage, but there was a VERY active school of classic D&D that was doing this sort of stuff by 1976 at the latest. My point is, it isn't exactly subverting the rules, or even adding any new ones. Its more just 'how do interpret and adjudicate'. If "less rules/FKR whatever" means anything, then that's where it lives!

That is not a B/X description of a 15 intelligence.

Here is the sum total of the B/X intelligence description:

"Intelligence: "Intelligence" is the ability to learn and remember knowledge, and the ability to solve problems. Characters with an intelligence score of 13 or above should consider the classes of magic-user or elf. Intelligence is the prime requisite for magic-users, and one of the prime requisites for elves."

Intelligence:
Intelligence Score Use of Languages
3 Has trouble with speaking, cannot read or write
4-5 Cannot read or write Common
6-8 Can write simple Common words
9-12 Reads and writes native languages (usually 2*)
13-15 Reads and writes native languages, + 1 added language
16-17 Reads and writes native languages, + 2 added languages
18 Reads and writes native languages, + 3 added languages
* Humans know two native languages: the Common and Alignment languages (see Languages, page B13). Demi-humans know a number of native languages, as explained in the class descriptions (pages B9-10).

I view the less rules/FKR style as more just play the role you want without mechanics, not to use poorly defined mechanics as hooks for ad hoc mechanics.

More anybody can play most anything within whatever the assumed baseline is, not using stuff on the sheet to empower or limit actions.

The old games do not make stats as descriptors a baseline, though it is not precluded as an option for how a DM will adjudicate a situation.

Some used stats as descriptors. Others used the stats as their defined mechanics only.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think this definition is functional. Gameplay requires resolving tension, not just an increasingly dense decision space. The reward for overcoming variability in games is very often (and necessarily) a string of simple choices. There is an end here; you can't attempt to manipulate outcomes to make the puzzle thornier and thornier, at some point you must present a board state for navigation. The goal of a player is very often going to be constraining the possible board states that emerge, such that they are easy/straightforward to resolve, and while it's important to present an interesting challenge, gameplay is mostly about agency. Players need to know the available moves, and have a reasonable schema for projecting them onto the board so that they can try and find a winning line (and be able to analyze actual and theoretical outcomes of different choices).

It is not a question of making any given situation maximally tactically interesting, or rather, that isn't a first order gamist priority, it's a tertiary concern after ensuring a situation is gameable at all, and ensuring that player decision making is meaningful. Important, but not the first step.

I disagree. It is functional. What it appears to me that is happening here is you’re appending two provisos (see below (b) and (c), resulting in your personal sense of (a) when you were playing a particular game) to what I’ve said above and then assessing “not functional” downstream of that. And, my best guess is this is happening because of your one-shot session with Blades in the Dark where you felt that (a) you couldn’t assess your lines of play because (b) you felt the board state of Blades becomes increasingly dense and, therefore, (c) isn’t gameable.

To be clear:

* I’m talking about TTRPGs generally, not Blades.

* We aren’t examining the execution of any particular design, merely a design goal (functional challenge-based play) and the sites of challenge-based priorities available to design toward.

So assuming “failed design” misses the point and dashes the entire exercise on the rocks before it begins! Because of that, assume a prospective TTRPG that cares to be gameable and is designed around a particular site of challenge, in fact, succeeds in its design; it is gameable around the site of challenge it aimed for in its design.

* While I appreciate your articulation of your thoughts on the issue in the prior posts (truly I do), we do not agree on Blades nor will we. I can’t be swayed by your cognitive state in the one-shot you’ve played nor your assessment of the game based off of that experience (an experience where I’m deeply skeptical of all of (a) the GM’s exactitude in running the game, (b) the reality that one-shots aren’t remotely representative of actual games, and (c) the players onboarding Best Practices and understanding the game’s meta; which, of course is pointless anyway if (a) and (b) are confounders). I have probably 4000 hours of GMing Blades that inform my counterfactuals to your sense of the game. The board state doesn’t interminably regress, nor does it become endlessly dense, and the game is 100 % gameable when the engine is executed by all parties.

 

[The Shadow]

I think this is absolutely dead on--but I do think expecting everyone to even admit some of those are what are going on, let alone acknowledge them as appropriate is going to be a disappointing process; some of them very much appear to be dysfunctional elements to various people.

You're definitely right there, as I think it's highly questionable whether the second and third items on his list ought to be regarded as appropriate or functional. I certainly would find anyone who used "conversation traps" to be unbearably toxic. Is there some rationale I'm not seeing why I should change my mind?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I think one very important element to understanding neo-trad and gamist priorities is that contests of skill that have multiple approaches, builds, etc can be an avenue of further expression by playstyle. When you sit down to play a fighting game or an RPG or a MOBA, each character has their own powers and the way those powers allow them to address problems and flow are a major part of the texture of playing them, a big part of their vibe.

It makes sense to me that neo-trad as a collective is ambivalent about gamism for this reason, while it can function as a block to freeform expression, "how my character fights" is also a major avenue for expressing them-- take Lancer and Gubat Banwa for instance, there's so much room to fight in radically different ways, and they all intersect with the game's lore such that it becomes another language you can use to describe that character. Some players are more willing than others to accept that dynamic, and I think we see both because they're two ways of serving the same core idea.

So I can see how granularity would let a player speak with more specificity about their character's skill as well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You're definitely right there, as I think it's highly questionable whether the second and third items on his list ought to be regarded as appropriate or functional. I certainly would find anyone who used "conversation traps" to be unbearably toxic. Is there some rationale I'm not seeing why I should change my mind?

I've expressed my own opinion about "playing the GM" before, so I'm not that far from you. However, their statement can be broadly correct even if you find some of the elements they're presenting unacceptable presenting. Some of them are, at the least, extremely cynical, but that doesn't make them in the broad sense not game elements; just ones I suspect most people if they examined them dead-on would not find desirable.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think one very important element to understanding neo-trad and gamist priorities is that contests of skill that have multiple approaches, builds, etc can be an avenue of further expression by playstyle. When you sit down to play a fighting game or an RPG or a MOBA, each character has their own powers and the way those powers allow them to address problems and flow are a major part of the texture of playing them, a big part of their vibe.

It makes sense to me that neo-trad as a collective is ambivalent about gamism for this reason, while it can function as a block to freeform expression, "how my character fights" is also a major avenue for expressing them-- take Lancer and Gubat Banwa for instance, there's so much room to fight in radically different ways, and they all intersect with the game's lore such that it becomes another language you can use to describe that character. Some players are more willing than others to accept that dynamic, and I think we see both because they're two ways of serving the same core idea.

So I can see how granularity would let a player speak with more specificity about their character's skill as well.

As I've got a leg in both the Trad and Neotrad camps (being entirely coherent in what I want out of games has not ever been my strong suit), I can at least somewhat speak of the desire to have the character described in mechanically relevant detail (because the places where that stops--and it always does somewhere--have given me a psychic itch more than once when representing character ideas) while realizing that there are people where the mechanical engagement is as much of a detriment as I find it a benefit.

I'm tempted to unpack some of my experience MUSHing here in terms of what it taught me about the borders of this problem, but it'd be long enough I'm not sure either I or the potential reader would have the energy, and I'm not certain is entirely relevant to a tabletop case (since it was considerably closer--though not all the way--to purely text roleplaying).

 

[Pedantic]

I am somewhat confused, and feel like I'm missing some kind of linking post or stream of ideas that I can't find. We did not seem to be discussing Blades in the Dark or any particular mechanical implementation at all, but you seem to be reading what I wrote in reference to a very particular game.

I disagree. It is functional. What it appears to me that is happening here is you’re appending two provisos (see below (b) and (c), resulting in your personal sense of (a) when you were playing a particular game) to what I’ve said above and then assessing “not functional” downstream of that. And, my best guess is this is happening because of your one-shot session with Blades in the Dark where you felt that (a) you couldn’t assess your lines of play because (b) you felt the board state of Blades becomes increasingly dense and, therefore, (c) isn’t gameable.

This is unrelated. I generally took your argument that there is in fact a gameable board state introduced at a different layer of the game that I did not experience on faith, but regardless I'm really not talking about BitD here, nor was I trying to reference that earlier discussion.

I'm arguing that your assertion about what makes a good game is incomplete, based primarily on my experience playing games, mostly board and card games, which dwarfs my TTRPG experience. I take "game" to mean the same ludic enjoyment that I get from those, which I generally find underrepresented in TTRPGs.

So assuming “failed design” misses the point and dashes the entire exercise on the rocks before it begins! Because of that, assume a prospective TTRPG that cares to be gameable and is designed around a particular site of challenge, in fact, succeeds in its design; it is gameable around the site of challenge it aimed for in its design.

Are you responding to me or someone else here? I didn't use the phrase "failed design" and took your assertion here:

None of those give expression to Gamist priorities. That is a either a separate axis entirely to these thoughts or a coefficient attached to each.

* How can the present situation introduce a maximally compelling and consequential tactical or strategic decision-space (?) > Introduce that content.

to be a proposal about how to best express Gamist priorities, which I don't think is sufficient to the task. The two additional criteria I proposed were, roughly:

1. Board states must resolve to a point players can attempt to navigate them.
2. Action/resolution should be clear enough that players can analyze and articulate preferences for differing lines of play, both predictively and in retrospect.

I was positing those as general necessities for a Gamist agenda, in addition to the question you proposed. Are you arguing that these two things are not necessary, or that they're implied/required by fulfilling your question, or something else altogether?

* While I appreciate your articulation of your thoughts on the issue in the prior posts (truly I do), we do not agree on Blades nor will we. I can’t be swayed by your cognitive state in the one-shot you’ve played nor your assessment of the game based off of that experience (an experience where I’m deeply skeptical of all of (a) the GM’s exactitude in running the game, (b) the reality that one-shots aren’t remotely representative of actual games, and (c) the players onboarding Best Practices and understanding the game’s meta; which, of course is pointless anyway if (a) and (b) are confounders). I have probably 4000 hours of GMing Blades that inform my counterfactuals to your sense of the game. The board state doesn’t interminably regress, nor does it become endlessly dense, and the game is 100 % gameable when the engine is executed by all parties.

This is a conversation from a thread like a month ago, that I'm not clear is directly related to what we're talking about here. My relationship to "games" as a concept and my developed understanding of what makes them interesting doesn't live in relationship to a specific TTRPG I played once. Why would this be about that?

 

[Malmuria]

But outside of fighting, the roleplaying ecosystem was actually quite lovely, we did relationships, story arcs, action sequences, comedy, mysteries without any actual need for mechanics. Instead individual people would take point in 'leading the story' by introducing elements that the other characters would react to, prompt each other in ways that seemed interesting. Sometimes the RPs had strong plots, sometimes they didn't, character was the single biggest factor of these stories, particularly if they didn't have a strong ingroup who were driving a deeper narrative for the other players to react to. As a result, the stories were really about group dynamics. The participants, I would later learn, were mostly teenagers at that time, even fewer years older than me than I had assumed in those days of aggressive anonymity.

Thank you so much for this post! I find this fascinating. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this form of role play emerged with no particular reference to Dungeons and Dragons or other TTRPGs, and was more akin to a kind of collective fan fiction writing. The way this ethos feeds into contemporary ttrpg play culture is really interesting, especially when/if it can be divorced from 5e as a fiction generator. It also raises the question of what constitutes the "game" part of rpgs. The retired adventurer article describes it thusly:

The term "OC" means "original character" and comes from online freeform fandom roleplaying that was popular on Livejournal and similar platforms back in the early 2000s. "OC" is when you bring an original character into a roleplaying game set in the Harry Potter universe, rather than playing as Harold the Cop himself. Despite being "freeform" (meaning no die rolls and no Dungeon Master) these games often had extensive rulesets around the kinds of statements one could introduce to play, with players appealing to the ruleset itself against one another to settle disputes. For the younger generations of roleplayers, these kinds of games were often their introduction to the hobby.

In your experience, did participants regard this process as being a "game." It would be interesting if they did, but even if they did not, it speaks to the way that creating characters and working within genres/styles of writing involves aspects of play or of gaming. Even with your combat example, the element of play seems to be a kind of virtuoso in writing.

While I see why the article lumped neo trad with OC, this also speaks to some important differences. Notably, in my mind I tend to associate neo trad with character optimization and powergaming, which relies on some mathmatical resolution system for the sake of 'system mastery.' While the focus is on character, that type of character building seems quite separate from the OC style you describe.

I can't find it now, but I know Jay Dragon has talked about the influence of OC play in their games, and I feel like Wanderhome, a GM-less game with hardly any mechanics, is maybe a kind of spiritual successor to this style.