What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree. Modern as applies to RPG mechanics means little outside of academic discussions of gaming history, and is dangerous to boot, as people tend to associate the word with quality.

Y'all stuck with modern gaming?

I only play post-modern TTRPGs. Currently, the party is working to obtain the Schwarzgerät by assiduously engaging in not obtaining it through a recurrent and cyclical process that involves deep psychological examination and silly songs that intersect with the inherent structural connections between Mickey Mouse and the application of genetic algorithms to solve np-complete problems.

 

[payn]

Y'all stuck with modern gaming?

I only play post-modern TTRPGs. Currently, the party is working to obtain the Schwarzgerät by assiduously engaging in not obtaining it through a recurrent and cyclical process that involves deep psychological examination and silly songs that intersect with the inherent structural connections between Mickey Mouse and the application of genetic algorithms to solve np-complete problems.

Im still rockin Diplomacy in my mid-century modern gaming.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It would depend on the specific game, but part of the intent is obviously to allow a variety of settings and/or styles to be played. At a baseline and speaking broadly, I don't think it's controversial or requires much effort to identify that the intent of GURPS is to simulate a variety of reasonably grounded worlds. To allow players to engage in a variety of settings and styles with a consistent underlying framework.

I don't see how someone could argue in good faith that GURPS' was designed aimlessly, without thought or clear intent. Gun Fu and Tactical Combat may have each been designed with different intent, but they each, individually have a clear and unambiguous intent.

The question itself seems, to me, to presuppose that intent, by default, requires narrow focus and a single clear theme, and that the only valid intent is to create systems and mechanics whose purpose is to drive play and engagement with the thene; for some reason intending to create mechanics whose role is to simulate a world or simply to insert or resolve uncertainty seems to be treated as not really intentional at all.

Yeah, I see a lot of, "this is better than that" thinking here.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Im still rockin Diplomacy in my mid-century modern gaming.

Diplomacy- Still the best way to start a Friday night with five friends and end on Sunday afternoon with no friends.

 

[SableWyvern]

I agree they have a worldview--as you say, its why you can run the same campaign with GURPS and Hero and get a pretty different play experience--but I'm not sold that's actually a support of theme.

We're talking about whether or not someone is designing with intent, or aimlessly.

Here you appear to be explicitly stating that it is impossible to have a valid intention other than to have mechanics tied to the overt support of a single clear theme. That Steve Jackson designs aimlessly and without intent, because his game lacks an adequate theme.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's hardly dangerous to call something "modern" in an informal online discussion, but claiming that doing so is "dangerous" is certainly hyperbolic.

To echo what SableWyvern said earlier:

Dangerous in the sense of generating conflict when your phrasing suggests one thing is objectively better than another. No one benefits from that IMO.

 

[Aldarc]

Dangerous in the sense of generating conflict when your phrasing suggests one thing is objectively better than another. No one benefits from that IMO.

Do you think that this is what @Reynard was suggesting in the OP?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I only play post-modern TTRPGs. Currently, the party is working to obtain the Schwarzgerät by assiduously engaging in not obtaining it through a recurrent and cyclical process that involves deep psychological examination and silly songs that intersect with the inherent structural connections between Mickey Mouse and the application of genetic algorithms to solve np-complete problems.

I could not be more here for this. I feel like there's a good Over the Edge or Lacuna Part One game to be had riffing on Pynchon.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you think that this is what @Reynard was suggesting in the OP?

No, but I do think it has been suggested by others since.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's a good point, and I definitely agree with your last sentence. When I wrote that last night, I was thinking of the difficulty of designing by committee or having external pressure from folks not working on the design to do certain things for reasons outside of what would serve the game (including things for marketing purposes or corporate reasons).

Well, that's a different set of problems; you see it often with game systems that are D&D 5e based where you ask if there's a real reason for that in actual design rather than marketing and familiarity, but I've seen some PbtA based games where I had to ask if they really thought about whether that was the best choice for what they were trying to do, too (and to be clear, some others where it absolutely looked like a good choice--I understand perfectly well why Monster of the Week is, for example).