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

[Thomas Shey]

Report you? You think that I'm talking about you?

If, instead, its about who I suspect, its just one of their quirks and one might as well just ignore them and move on if it bothers you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Somewhere over in another D&D focused thread I saw somebody saying their players were like "wait why should a wizard be able to do thing PC wizards dont have access to"

That was probably me, and I stand by it. Having PC and NPCs capable of acquiring the same abilities under similar circumstances is hardly "crap" to me.

 

[Aldarc]

If, instead, its about who I suspect, its just one of their quirks and one might as well just ignore them and move on if it bothers you.

It's naive to think that putting people on ignore stops someone from thread-crapping or thread derailing. You should know that.

 

[zakael19]

This assumes the game design doing this is automatically going to answer that question. Bold assumption on your part

It does so explicitly because with the exception of things like “rivals” that use trimmed down powers and are presented in the fiction as “just like you” the games I’ve played that have embraced the separation as a design pillar are explicit that NPC and players are different right in the player-focused sections. Generally with something like “player characters are exceptional.”

 

[zakael19]

Right, so another indication that modern means moving away from simulationism. It is not an aspect I like, and the PCs and NPCs working (roughly) the same is something I feel is a good thing. But it is true that this is becoming rarer. I was particularity disappointed when I learned this asymmetry is very strong in Daggerheart, as I was sorta in the market for D&D replacement but this was dealbreaker for me.

Yup. World simulationism is not a core facet of modern design, it’s probably as classic as you can get. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of games doing gentle refinement on the idea or still being published, but I don’t think anybody would consider them modern in a mechanical sense. In fact most of them are presenting themselves as openly backward looking or “retro” I think?

 

[zakael19]

Here are contemporary trends that I see in terms of modern approaches to TTRPG mechanics:

• Fiction First Gaming: this was something of a reaction against what some in the hobby saw as mechanics first approaches in 3e D&D and 4e D&D. (Whether or not you agree with that characterization of these games is not the point.) We see the pivot back to fiction first with things more in the indie scene, both on the narrative side (e.g., PbtA, Fate, FitD, etc.) and OSR side. I think that Mike Mearls tried to also move things back more towards fiction first with 5e D&D - keeping in mind that he had cited Dungeon World in this regard while working on 5e D&D - but the results are IMHO questionable.
• Freeform Narrative Tags for PCs: These are mechanics like aspects in Fate, traits in Cortex and Fabula Ultima, backgrounds in 13th Age, tags in City of Mist/Legend in the Mist, and experiences in Daggerheart. I mentioned these earlier.
• Mechanically Reducing GM Workload: Reducing the mental overhang for running the game on the GM side of things through things like rolling random charts in OSR games, NPC/difficulty generation in Cypher System, removing map and key play in Narrative games, etc. Were things like random charts there before modern games? Yes. But I also think that we see them now for the purpose of making running the game easier for GMs. Even Advantage/Disadvantage help in this regard.
• Anti-Railroad Revolutionaries: It's the advice. Prep scenarios, not plots. It's about "jaquaysing the dungeon." It's the randomized tables. You see it in narrative games and OSR games. The reemphasis on sandbox games. It's about draw maps, leave blanks. It's in the play to find out. All of these design elements are not coincidental. These are principles and mechanics that have been incorporated into the writing and design as a means to resist railroading.
• Consequential Rolls: Rolling is not for uncertainty but for consequences, meaningful situations, and called for with some rhyme and reason. Even 5e D&D says not to call for a roll unless there are meaningful consequences for failure. Even in OSR spheres, where some are okay with "nothing happens to the door," a roll may advance the timer, risk the wandering monster, cause you to lose torchlight, etc.

I thought I'd take a look at a NSR side game through these lenses: His Majesty the Worm - which is a bottom up design intended to take all the best ideas of the OSR blogosphere and "make dungeon crawling fun."

- Fiction First Gaming: "His Majesty the Worm aims to make dungeon exploration fun. It forefronts what might otherwise be fringe rules for food, light, and time, and shines the spotlight on the visceral experience of the dungeon crawl." All the stuff about levels of information based entirely on the questions the players ask and what they declare their characters are doing, the inherent skills and knowledge and stuff that adventurers who know they're adventurers bring, etc. The fiction drives gameplay.

- Freeform Narrative Tags for PCs: Your character has motifs like "Gentleman thief" or "Morbid jester" that you use to Bid Lore or aid a Test etc.

- Mechanically Reducing GM Workload: The game is designed with the "Blorb Principles" as a core guiding light. The intent is "...creating a robust setting up front so that the GM has to do very little (if any) improv during the game." Via the Meatgrinder table you fill and draw on for each dungeon room, the interesting creature design, and NPCs with wants/needs/likes/etc when actually playing the game you should have very direct and obvious next steps built into the mechanics.

- Anti-Railroad Revolutionaries: All the OSR stuff about presenting interesting challenges with no expected answers, arbitrating with an eye towards generosity if an idea is plausible (or giving them a yes, but... lead), lots of information so they can make informed decisions on solutions, etc.

- Consequential Rolls: "Let player decisions carry weight. If the players come up with ideas that should work, you don’t even need to touch the cards. Their plan can simply work. What makes sense comes before the rules" and "The GM calls for tests of fate when the situation is tense and failure is interesting."

 

[Pedantic]

Anti-Railroad Revolutionaries: It's the advice. Prep scenarios, not plots. It's about "jaquaysing the dungeon." It's the randomized tables. You see it in narrative games and OSR games. The reemphasis on sandbox games. It's about draw maps, leave blanks. It's in the play to find out. All of these design elements are not coincidental. These are principles and mechanics that have been incorporated into the writing and design as a means to resist railroading.

I pulled this section out, because I think you're broadly right here (in that there's a rejection of adventure path style or sometimes even Hickman revolution altogether play structures) but the specific elements you call out are in incompatible tension. You can't both leave blanks and create a non-linear dungeon, and play to find out as it's usually used is incompatible with a sufficiently realized sandbox. Both are resistance to railroads, but in different ways and possibly different understanding of what a railroad is (or at least what about it is problematic).

Plus, that's all sitting alongside the improv informed actual play derived DMing advice that's completely embracing cooperative storytelling as the core of the activity. I think there's a core of modern play there that's actually closer to classic AP stuff, just with authority redistributed not just between the GM/players, but between the module writer and the people at the table. Players slide in and out of playing characters, writing arcs for those characters and making choices for those characters in response to the GM's material. Which of those modes is ascendent at any given moment is worked out by group understanding of the shared unfolding story.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's naive to think that putting people on ignore stops someone from thread-crapping or thread derailing. You should know that.

Neither does mentioning to them that's what you think they're doing. So I still stand by my opinion ignoring or reporting are your meaningful choices.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It does so explicitly because with the exception of things like “rivals” that use trimmed down powers and are presented in the fiction as “just like you” the games I’ve played that have embraced the separation as a design pillar are explicit that NPC and players are different right in the player-focused sections. Generally with something like “player characters are exceptional.”

You're missing the point. People aren't going to stop thinking that way just because a game tells them to. Some approaches to engaging with a game world are largely independent of a game. You don't have to like that, but its absolutely true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yup. World simulationism is not a core facet of modern design, it’s probably as classic as you can get. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of games doing gentle refinement on the idea or still being published, but I don’t think anybody would consider them modern in a mechanical sense. In fact most of them are presenting themselves as openly backward looking or “retro” I think?

Eh. I could name several of relatively recent vintage that are overtly simulationist that don't think they're "retro" and in some respects absolutely aren't. It may not be as popular an experience as it once was, but its still the most obviously appropriate way to approach some kinds of survival horror, for example.

In other words they may not be exceptionally modern, but they aren't explicitly retro, either.