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

[kermit4karate]

Since the question asked was "What do you think of as modern TRRPG mechanics?" I would say for myself...

• Roll higher than a target number, as opposed to roll under
• Include a mechanism for advantage & disadvantage
• Unified level advancement (same experience required for all classes)
• Lots of options for classes/subclasses/specializing
• Relying on fewer rolls to resolve roleplaying decisions (e.g. more simple stat checks and fewer skill rolls)

If this question were asking about collectible card games and board games, I'd answer completely differently though. While I see a trend toward simplicity in mechanics for TTRPGs, I see the opposite for other game formats.

 

[kermit4karate]

I have not read the entire thread, so this might have come up before - but the main thing I consider modern is attempt to reduce cognitive load during play. In particular in terms of math. Big dice pools, tables with numbers as entries, 30 fixed skills with individual numbers, stacking bonuses and even a d100 feels like relics of the past. Rather the more heavy weight games fill out their page count with qualitative content that fits neatly on a card MtG style - alongside a core mechanic that involves rolling at most 2 dice with at most 2 modifiers that is used in basically all situations.

Which is crazy to me because math doesn't have to mean hard. Adding 20+2 is elementary, but remembering when to use 4d6s instead of 6d6s and counting the number of 4-6s rolled is simply bizarre, IMO, but I digress....

Any mechanic becomes an issue when the number of inputs required to calculate what to roll exceeds 2-3, so like, when a D&D character's melee attack modifiers with their preferred weapon are 2+1+2+1+1+1, that is simply absurd, or when a dice pool system character rolls 2d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6, that's also absurd.

One shouldn't have to remember 6 different criteria to calculate a simple action roll. Strength modifier plus proficiency plus skill modifier plus magic weapon plus surprise plus partial cover. That's insanity.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have suspicion that what's really being seen here is the tendency of Forge-derived games and their descendants to drill down on a particularly narrow focus. Here is this one specific thing I really want the game to be about, focus on and do well, and every aspect of the game should feed back into that.

This is where I split Forge games from modern post-Forge games. Forge games themselves, like My Life With Master, Polaris, Wushu Open, or Dogs in the Vineyard tended to be about this one specific thing.

Modern post-Forge games have learned from that crucible but tend to be much broader. I mean I can see the designer's intent throughout say Apocalypse World or Daggerheart but neither is significantly less flexible than say D&D 5e or 2e or WEG Star Wars.

 

[NN]

“Modern” is meaningless.

 

[Composer99]

“Modern” is meaningless.

Which is why no one in arts or history uses the term to define distinctive periods in time that - oh, wait, yes they do. All the time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which is why no one in arts or history uses the term to define distinctive periods in time that - oh, wait, yes they do. All the time.

Modern art and history are defined terms that mean something. Also art and history have been around a lot longer than RPGs. It's not the same thing. It's just the same word.

 

[Aldarc]

"Contemporaneous" may be a better term than "modern," but it's really just all people playing pointless games of semantics in a thread of informal discussion.

 

[Umbran]

This came up in another thread and I wanted to spin it off for its own discussion.

When talking about TTRPG mechanics and how the medium has evolved and advanced over the last 5 decades, are there specific sorts of mechanics that you consider more "modern" than others?

I don't think I usually consider whether individual mechanics are "modern". I think that's more a quality of broader game design.

 

[Umbran]

“Modern” is meaningless.

All terms are meaningless if you don't define them.

 

[ezekielcroe9]

If we use "early 2000's" onwards as the line for modern, I would say concepts like meta-currencies, structuring rules around influencing the fiction rather than the minutiate of the objects in the game; earlier posts named them simulationists but I personally see traditional ways as more broadly like "object-oriented programming".

I also think there are two very big advancements over the past decade:

(i) "Wounds", "Stress", and higher-level abstractions of player points (i.e., character health), and
(ii) Initiative, turn-taking, unit resolution mechanics