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

[Umbran]

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

(i) doesn't seem to me to be a development of the last decade - most of those concepts are older. Fate's approach with "Stress" is 20+ years old now. I was playing with "wound point" variants in D&D 2e.
(ii) OD&D has initiative. What do you mean by this?

These are parts of why I think of "modern" in terms of overal design, and not individual mechanics. We often learn that individual mechanics are often not new at all - their rise to prominence as part of overall design approaches is what is new.

 

[Sausages]

chipolatas

 

[Arilyn]

I think Masks is a very good example of a game that wouldn't have been created until relatively recently. A superhero game focussed more on teen angst and identity than actual super battles?

It took some time, or maybe not so much time, depending on your point of view, for the hobby to spread out and discover all the things it can do. And over the decades designers have been adding to the toolbox, refining, experimenting, rediscovering, polishing old ideas and creating new ones. And discarding ideas that failed.

We have more zooming in on specific design goals with games like Drawsteel, Household, Wildsea and Cairn. Designers are also getting more skilled at designing more flexible systems as well. Daggerheart is proving to be able to encompass a wide variety of fantasy and perhaps even modern, occult or science fiction. PbtA has a huge catalogue of very different genres and flavours.

So yes, I think more game designers are thinking about the goals of their games and making a more deliberate effort to choose appropriate tools from the toolbox, and in some cases, creating new ones, if nothing quite fits. This is in no way throwing shade on older games. Some have stood the test of time extremely well. Designers, past and present, have contributed to RPG design knowledge. Little bit like science. We keep learning, stumbling, refining and growing.

 

[ezekielcroe9]

(i) doesn't seem to me to be a development of the last decade - most of those concepts are older. Fate's approach with "Stress" is 20+ years old now. I was playing with "wound point" variants in D&D 2e.
(ii) OD&D has initiative. What do you mean by this?

These are parts of why I think of "modern" in terms of overal design, and not individual mechanics. We often learn that individual mechanics are often not new at all - their rise to prominence as part of overall design approaches is what is new.

i) I personally am seeing more advancement in these areas in that there are more rules built around or to support these components. I see FATE's Stress mechanics as like the "prototype" of the wounds and stress mechanics of today.

ii) It's a good point. Nothing really that new under the sun, but how we organise and put together these design elements that make things feel more modern.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Burning Wheel (2002)
Inspectres (2002)

I am stating that Burning Wheel and other such games are obscure, not mainstream, and don't do any of the mechanics I suggested as well or as clear as PBTA does. The point of me saying that is "what is Modern mechanics" and that is = one or two old obscure games dont matter. There are tons of oddball rules, such as Amber diceless, which are old games. But their overall design was still old, and presented towards old terms. They are old games, and the rules they made were addressing old design theory. Even if the mechanics held a few bits from modern era design.

Modern mechanics are not "a newly invented rule" = they are rules that define a new era of playstyle. And PBTA does that in spades.

Cortex could have, but it got fumbled.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

While your main point relates to success with complication as a main focus, I think it's worth noting that degrees of success rather than binary pass/fail is not remotely unusual. Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest and Rolemaster all implement degrees of success as core components, as just a few early examples.

First off, degrees of success have absolutely nothing to do with my post. maybe you meant to quote someone else?

Second, now that you mention it, degrees of success are absolutely NOT modern game mechanics. They are old design that is kind of related to success with complications, but not usually. Most every degree of success game sets it up as fail, success, success with degrees of bonus. And in rare cases, fail with degrees of worse fail. but I can think of less than three gams which also have a mixed success with complication as one of its 'degrees'. Success with complications is a good example of old design mechanics that didn't work as well as they sound on paper. it just made more fatigue for the GM to consider what a little bonus, medium bonus, and major bonus might be... exhausting!

 

[RenleyRenfield]

ii) It's a good point. Nothing really that new under the sun, but how we organise and put together these design elements that make things feel more modern.

This ^ this is the point I was mostly making.

Modern mechanics are about that fact that there are rules being used in new ways to encourage new styles of play.

I mean, Dread tried to make a game where you feel the panic of your character... however successful you might consider its mechanics to have done so.

 

[pemerton]

I think of "modern" more as pertaining to a RPG's overall design, rather than its mechanics. To me, a game feels "modern" if (i) it is clearly not a wargame or wargame variant, but (ii) it does not rely on unmediated GM curation/decision-making to ensure that the game "goes".

The earliest RPG I know of that is "modern" in this sense is Prince Valiant. Though Classic Traveller can get pretty close, if read and played through a more contemporary lens.

 

[SableWyvern]

I am stating that Burning Wheel and other such games are obscure, not mainstream, and don't do any of the mechanics I suggested as well or as clear as PBTA does. The point of me saying that is "what is Modern mechanics" and that is = one or two old obscure games dont matter. There are tons of oddball rules, such as Amber diceless, which are old games. But their overall design was still old, and presented towards old terms. They are old games, and the rules they made were addressing old design theory. Even if the mechanics held a few bits from modern era design.

Modern mechanics are not "a newly invented rule" = they are rules that define a new era of playstyle. And PBTA does that in spades.

Cortex could have, but it got fumbled.

My point was simply that the mechanics referenced seem seem to owe the Forge a great deal for their development. If we're defining a design style, then how that style emerged certainly seems relevant to me.

First off, degrees of success have absolutely nothing to do with my post. maybe you meant to quote someone else?

You noted a number of games and didn't highlight lack of success with complication, but specifically called out their use of binary pass/fail. As I mostly see pass/fail mentioned to contrast with degrees of success, and other posters in this thread have seemed to think degrees of success are a new invention, I addresses this. As I mentioned, I did not think that degrees of success generally was what you were trying to address.

 

[Neonchameleon]

My point was simply that the mechanics referenced seem seem to owe the Forge a great deal for their development. If we're defining a design style, then how that style emerged certainly seems relevant to me.

This is why I tend to refer not so much to "modern games" as "post-Forge games". The actual Forge games are barely remembered and a lot of what the Forge itself produced was fertilizer (and I mean that both ways) but good things did grow out of that design school.