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.Certainly this is "Success with Complications" I can't recall a single game using this before PBTA, and if it did, it did it poorly. The idea of almost never failing rolls, but instead succeeding or succeeding with complications was never a thing that was embraced as a core main mechanic in any mainstream game I can think of. D&D = pass fail, GURPS = pass fail. World of Darkness = Pass fail. So so so many games were pass fail.
I should have said modern games are more likely to be designed with intention. And of course, there were older brilliant games that were designed with intention, but not enough designers back in the day learning lessons from Ars Magica and Pendragon.I do not believe that intentional design or careful thought is a new thing. Surely games like Runequest, Pendragon, Ghostbusters, Amber, Paranoia and Ars Magica are games designed with clear intent to support particular styles of play and were developed with careful thought by the designers.
Whether they are games you want to play, or designed to do the things you want, the ways you want, is another question. But I don't understand how anyone can suggest that the designers involved lacked an ability or willingness to use careful thought or to design with intent.
I'm not sure how this observation can even be applied to most games. Unless you're making a new edition or variant of an existing game, what non-fitting, beloved ideas are people generally keeping? Traveller, Runequest and Rolemaster are early games with a clear willingness to ditch D&D assumptions. RM specifically is an attempt to offer D&D while ditching and replacing basically every single mechanic and many fundamental underlying assumptions.. The history of the hobby is littered with attempts to remake D&D and, prior to the d20 boom, these games didn't typically retain much of anything of the original D&D mechanics and they did not tend to retain the so-called sacred cows that linger in the official line. Their selling point was, in general, the fact they were ditching such things.
Which, now that my thoughts are moving in this direction, makes me wonder -- are people's opinions on this subject being influenced by the glut of d20 and OSR products we have seen in the last 20-ish years, and perhaps even things like PbtA and FitD game families, and completely missing the fact that, once upon a time, every game was pretty much it's own thing?
These days, many new games are hacks and mods to existing, successful games. Once upon a time, this was not remotely the case. I would suggest that maybe what we're seeing is things coming full circle in some respects, except that people are accepting hacks of some games into the "modern" umbrella, so it's not just a matter of modern being a game that differentiates itself from others in some way.
It is equally true that with well-designed, older games, players are far less likely to feel let down by unkept promises. A well-designed game is a well-designed game, and a modern, well-designed game is not inherently better than other games by virtue of "modern" being appended to the description.
That's easy to assert, but I'm not sure there is any way show this is actually the case, as it sounds like a question of taste and perspective, to me.
I mean, it is probably true in general that "more games these days" do [anything you wish to state] simply because there are more games. But suggesting that more games, as a significant fraction of the total number, deliver what they're selling ... that seems highly unlikely to me, given the insanely low bar we have and the glut of products out there.
Edit: In summary, I reject any definition of "modern" games that attempts to claim modern games are somehow better designed, as opposed to differently designed, than games that fall outside whatever definition is being used.
Odd I did not type that....You are describing one game that has little in the way of modern design because of D&D tradition. And even then, your description of the game is biased and unfair because you constantly make assumptions that players just want to skip through adventures with zero challenge.
Is this even a question? Is not all game design intentional?I feel, as many have mentioned, that modern design is intentional.
Agreed. The vast majority of modern games come directly from some players having a very bad time playing, almost always D&D, back in the day. Then they grip a d20 tight and say "I can make a better game!" and do......The decisions in games like Drawsteel, Daggerheart, Shadowdark, Mothership, Into the Odd, etc. are carefully thought out, and the designers are willing to throw out beloved ideas if they don't fit the game's intention. His Majesty the Worm, for example is a deliberate desire to redo dungeon crawling. It's tight, strategic, old schoolish, without any mechanical trappings from D&D. Draw Steel states its elevator pitch clearly and closely hews to its purpose.
It does depend on the players.With well designed modern games, players are far less likely to feel let down by unkept promises. More games these days deliver what they're selling,which is why I have been buying more games than I'll ever actually get to run.
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.Is this even a question? Is not all game design intentional?
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?
Where do you draw the line at "modern"? Is it arbitrarily some year or the advent of some game? Or is there a qualitative to "modern" that transcends a clear line?
And with the dicsussion of "modern" -- are there games with mechanics ahead of their time? Are there "regressive" games now?
Finally, does it matter to you whether a game has more "modern" mechanics, for good or ill?