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

[pemerton]

Given that a particular set of RPG mechanics, in conjunction with a particular set of processes of play, really can only provide a relatively distinct experience, intending anything else seems like it is aiming at the impossible.

I think it is simply aiming at providing something else that is not as tightly controlled. Not every game tries to force players into a narrow theme, and not all that do not try that are ‘old’ to me

Your description makes it sound like you envision TTRPGs as giant state machines, I do not

What do you mean by "players having control over the fiction". Players in OD&D and AD&D, who play in the manner set out by Gygax in his rulebooks, exercise a lot of control over the fiction. But those are not modern games, I think basically by definition!

they have control over their character’s actions, they have no control over worldbuilding, and I agree that AD&D / OD&D are not modern games

The class defines abilities the character has, the playbook goes beyond that, it tries to drive a narrative / define the narrative role of the character.

The class-character can also attempt stuff that is not covered by an ability of their class. The playbook one has to stick to the moves of its playbook. That is why I mentioned TRRPG as a giant state machine earlier

I guess that is my point, AW is more prescriptive (a rule for resolving any declared action), D&D leaves more up to DM fiat

@mamba, I've quoted a series of your posts. And am trying to work out what your position is.

At some points, you seemed to be talking about players' power: to declare actions, to avoid a narrow theme, etc.

Now, you seem to be talking about a GM's power to decide what happens next without regard to mechanics or other rules.

I don't see how all this is connected, or consistent. And that's before getting to its accuracy!

My view is that, in classic D&D - OD&D, Gygax's AD&D, B/X - resolution is not all or even predominantly GM fiat. For instance, if the players declare that their PCs move X distance down a corridor; or that they open a door; then the game tells the GM how to say what happens next: in the first case, consult the map-and-key and tell the players what their PCs see and hear as they move through the dungeon; in the second case, call for an appropriate roll to open the door, and then consult the dungeon key to tell the PCs what they see and hear, and what (if anything happens), when they open the door.

If the key contains secret information - like a pit trap half-way down the corridor, or a locked door - then the GM will draw on that information to tell the players what happens as the PCs do their things. But the GM is not at liberty to just make this stuff up! Eg the GM can't just decide it would be fun to have a pit here, and so narrate a PC triggering a pit trap. The GM has to be faithful to their map-and-key.

These constraints on the GM, that arise from their fidelity to their map-and-key and to the associated rules for how to resolve actions like PCs moving, listening, opening doors, etc, are what makes "skilled play", of the sort that Gygax describes in his PHB, possible.

The rules in AW are pretty different in their content from the classic D&D ones. They don't reference a map-and-key for resolution. They give the GM pretty different instructions about what prep to do. But these rules also constrain what the GM can say happens next. And whereas in classic D&D, players exercise control by (i) performing low-stakes actions (mapping, listening, etc) as preparation for then (ii) choosing which scenes to "trigger" by opening doors; in AW they exercise control by declaring actions that will trigger certain moves, that can oblige and constrain the GM in various ways. While the players are declaring actions that don't trigger moves, the GM has much more liberty to say what happens next, consistent with the general principles for making soft and hard moves.

I agree that there is an approach to D&D, or actually a couple of approaches, that do give the GM a lot of freedom to just make up, or stipulate, what happens next. One of those is the GM-as-storyteller, more-or-less in the style of Dragonlance. The other is GM-as-world-mediator, where the players declared actions for their PCs serve as prompts for the GM to reveal and to extrapolate from bits of the "world". But while these seem to be popular approaches, they are only one possible way of approaching RPG play, and they don't even cover the field of D&D play.

 

[pemerton]

An addendum to the above post: upthread someone talked about sim vs "gamism" in the context of classic Gygaxian D&D.

For the game to work as a game - that is, for the players to be able to do the "skilled play" thing - it has to be possible for the players to reasonably infer things about the fiction. Eg what will happen if they try and open a door, or if they topple a great statue, or take off their armour so they can swim across a lake, etc. This is where a degree of fidelity to common sense comes in; it makes players' reasoning possible.

Where "tricks" come in, as a concept in classic D&D game play, is that they undercut some of that common sense reasoning. Eg walking through an archway doesn't take the player to its other side, as common sense would suggest, but rather teleports the player to someone else in the dungeon. Too much of this sort of thing, and the game becomes unplayable. But a bit of it, judiciously done and riffing on past play in ways that players can reasonably make sense of and respond to, make the game more challenging and more fun.

A game that relies less on the players to reason about the fiction to solve problems and make plans can get away with more departures from common sense. Instances I can think of from my own RPGing are Marvel Heroic RP (super-heroes and common sense are perfect strangers!), and high-level 4e D&D. Even Classic Traveller to a degree.

EDIT: An addendum to the addendum: classic D&D doesn't generally make PC emotional state a factor in anything (it can effect some monsters, eg dragons defending their children, and some NPCs too, eg via morale and loyalty rules). Common sense suggests that this should be a factor, but given that players don't need to make inferences about how their PCs will respond to action declarations - their PCs are very much the players' pawns - common sense does not need to apply!

This is an illustration of why I think it's a mistake to infer from those elements of fidelity to common sense that are found in classic D&D, to any sort of genuine sim agenda.

 

[Aldarc]

So are we past the premise of the OP now?

 

[Neonchameleon]

@soviet basically the above. Although my interpretation of, Apocalypse World at least, is that it's far more 'vanilla narrativist' than the culture at large interprets it as. In fact it's core mechanics are, ill considered, if you play it in the high improv way that seems to be the usual interpretation. I'm possibly just crazy though.

One of the things people miss about Apocalypse World is just how good the pacing is. Vincent Baker's background is as a tabletop roleplayer - but Meguey Baker's is as a freeform roleplayer and has been (at least since Dogs in the Vineyard) his first and most important playtester when she's not his co-author. And most freeform roleplayers have a hard time adapting to tabletop (and indeed find tabletop crawls) because they need to go stop-start into the mechanics when they make skill rolls. Moves in Apocalypse World are written the way they are because they come in when freeform roleplayers would naturally hand over the narration, so they don't actually break the flow of freeform, just make the handover slightly clunkier but a lot more interesting with it.

Apocalypse World is frequently played, for this reason, as freeform plus rules and dice (which, yes, is high improv). And it's this pacing element (which was inherited by many of the better PbtA games but not IME by e.g. Blades in the Dark) that means that Apocalypse World works better than even lighter trad games like Fudge or Risus for high improv games. The mechanics are well considered but not considered at the same angle you're looking at.

And as an aside in actual practice a PbtA GM has, in my experience, significantly more actual practical power in the moment than a D&D GM does. Both a DM and an MC can basically do whatever they want offscreen and then bring a giant monster onto the screen. Or just say "rocks fall and everyone dies". But if they start doing things because they'd be funny or ironic every time the players turned around they'd soon lose their table although they can on every natural 1. Meanwhile the MC gets an opportunity to do this on every miss - every roll of six or less is a hard move. The normal D&D rule on a failed roll is "do diddly squat" which the DM follows; the PbtA rule is "escalate within reason however you think is appropriate for the situation and here is a list of appropriate suggestions, including splitting up the party, capturing a PC, taking away their stuff, or ironically reversing whatever they tried to do".

 

[Agamon]

So are we past the premise of the OP now?

I certainly regret making the terrible attempt at humor that started this lol

 

[Thomas Shey]

I fo it to make the game I want. Is there another reason?

The question at that point, especially back in the OD&D days, was why not just do it from the ground up.

 

[Deset Gled]

I'll bite. How do XP facilitate playing to find out what happens?

Well, my intent was more broad and not focused specifically on "play to find out". It was intended to more directly respond to the comment that a play style or a narrative ideal have no mechanics in D&D. I'm saying that XP is that mechanic in D&D. It a rule that enforces a play style or a narrative ideal.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Well, my intent was more broad and not focused specifically on "play to find out". It was intended to more directly respond to the comment that a play style or a narrative ideal have no mechanics in D&D. I'm saying that XP is that mechanic in D&D. It a rule that enforces a play style or a narrative ideal.

Ah, okay. I'm with you on play style (like XP for gp does encourage a certain type of play) and a little ambivalent about the effectiveness of post hoc awards to prop up narrativist intentions. Lots of games have more detailed schemas for that than D&D, and I both don't love how they feel in use and don't know what would be better off the top of my head. I'm still inclined to no mechanics being necessary and perhaps might shade into any mechanics are just about as good as any others. But that's an idiosyncratic position, and I might just need more coffee.

 

[Aldarc]

I certainly regret making the terrible attempt at humor that started this lol

I wasn't paying attention to the cause.

 

[dbolack]

“In the end”? Nothing ever ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

Maybe I purged the memory.. Ironwood, was it?