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

[Thomas Shey]

This seems, again, to be nothing other than saying "Only a single, unified and narrow intent counts as being intentional.

I kind of am saying that, which is why I wanted to use the term "purposeful" for the other case. If you don't like the distinction I'm making there, there's probably little point in continuing.

This sounds like sophistry to me.

As I said, not much reason to continue then. It doesn't seem so to me. Its making a distinction I think is important, and I'm not interested in continuing an argument based on someone else fighting me on semantics here.

 

[soviet]

I think this misunderstands some if not most of the purposes of general use games.

It may well be that there's a theoretical design space for any given campaign one might want to run that would serve it better than a more general use game.

But that game may not exist, you may not be aware of it, or you may not want to take the time to learn it when you already know a game system that is "close enough."

No one will normally say a Swiss Army knife or multitool is a better choice than a dedicated tool. But people have the multitool with them all the time and its often sufficient.

This strikes me as a sequencing error though. I'm not clear to what extent people really think 'I'd love to play a game about moral judgement and escalation where the characters embody a sense of moral and legal authority', and then look for a game system to fit it. I think instead people see Dogs in the Vineyard and think 'oh that sounds interesting'.

Having such games exist is what creates the audience for them. They aren't necessarily scratching an itch anyone already knew they had. They aren't a slightly better way of playing a known kind of campaign that GURPS or Boot Hill would have already serviced to a 'close enough' standard. They are entirely different ways of playing for which GURPS or Boot Hill would be very poor substitutes.

If a person has a campaign where the choice of system is just whatever's 'close enough', then I suggest that campaign will be pretty mediocre at best.

 

[SableWyvern]

It isn't automatically. It can be in support of genre, instead for example. But as I said, I think using "intent" for any deliberate design ends up conflating things that don't go together.

If you don't want to use the word to cover the things it usually covers, then I'd suggest using a different word, or adding some qualifiers.

Why say, "A distinguishing feature of modern design philosophy is to design with intent*" and confuse people, when you could say, "A distinguishing feature of modern design philosophy is to design with a clear, narrow focus and mechanics that drive play in pursuit of that focus."

The former might be briefer, but it's also essentially wrong, especially if you leave out the footnote. There is no need to redefine a word to be used in an arbitrarily limiting way when there are better ways of expressing the point and, if you are going to use this special, limited definition which is not an established or understood piece of jargon, it is certainly your responsibility (assuming you wish to communicate clearly) to make your special, limited definition clear before you start using it.

So, sure, I agree that designing with intent* is an important feature of modern design philosophy and distinguishes it from some other types of games, but it is absolutely untrue that modern design philosophy has any special tendency to design with intent that isn't found in most games.

*"intent" here means only the intent to have a a clear, narrow focus and mechanics that drive play in pursuit of that focus, and not other types of intent as the word is commonly understood.

 

[Campbell]

I think this misunderstands some if not most of the purposes of general use games.

It may well be that there's a theoretical design space for any given campaign one might want to run that would serve it better than a more general use game.

But that game may not exist, you may not be aware of it, or you may not want to take the time to learn it when you already know a game system that is "close enough."

No one will normally say a Swiss Army knife or multitool is a better choice than a dedicated tool. But people have the multitool with them all the time and its often sufficient.

All I'm saying is that games are more than the fictional situation we are playing out. If I'm using Champions for a Hellboy-esque Campaign I'm not actually getting anywhere close to the experience of playing Apocalypse Keys. The play loops are different, the way we interface with the characters is different, the reward structure is different. Champions might have a looser premise, but that does not mean it's in any way going to replicate the experience of another game.

That's not a knock by the way. It's not failing us. It's just a different game.

We're not talking about tools. Apocalypse Keys is not a tool for exploring a premise - it's a game in which we do that has unique gameplay features that other games do not offer. The actual game matters and not just for how much fidelity it has to the premise.

 

[Campbell]

If you don't want to use the word to cover the things it usually covers, then I'd suggest using a different word, or adding some qualifiers.

Why say, "A distinguishing feature of modern design philosophy is to design with intent*" and confuse people, when you could say, "A distinguishing feature of modern design philosophy is to design with a clear, narrow focus and mechanics that drive play in pursuit of that focus."

The former might be briefer, but it's also essentially wrong, especially if you leave out the footnote. There is no need to redefine a word to be used in an arbitrarily limiting way when there are better ways of expressing the point and, if you are going to use this special, limited definition which is not an established or understood piece of jargon, it is certainly your responsibility (assuming you wish to communicate clearly) to make your special, limited definition clear before you start using it.

So, sure, I agree that designing with intent* is a feature of modern design philosophy, but it is absolutely untrue that modern design philosophy has any special claim to designing with intent.

*"intent" here means only the intent to have a a clear, narrow focus and mechanics that drive play in pursuit of that focus, and not other types of intent as the word is commonly understood.

Perhaps remove the "narrow" there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This strikes me as a sequencing error though. I'm not clear to what extent people really think 'I'd love to play a game about moral judgement and escalation where the characters embody a sense of moral and legal authority', and then look for a game system to fit it. I think instead people see Dogs in the Vineyard and think 'oh that sounds interesting'.

My experience is it can go both ways (though, honestly, I question whether they'd frame it in their heads in either case the way you did very often; I'd be willing to bet a non-trivial number of people who get attracted to Dogs do so because of the setting and conceptual color rather than thinking of it in terms of the ethical and moral questions is it raises. I'm betting in some cases once that becomes clear they're no longer interested, too).

Having such games exist is what creates the audience for them. They aren't necessarily scratching an itch anyone already knew they had. They aren't a slightly better way of playing a known kind of campaign that GURPS or Boot Hill would have already serviced to a 'close enough' standard. They are entirely different ways of playing for which GURPS or Boot Hill would be very poor substitutes.

If a person has a campaign where the choice of system is just whatever's 'close enough', then I suggest that campaign will be pretty mediocre at best.

I'd suggest your expectations and desires are not universal. Your "mediocre" is most certainly many people's "potentially long lasting and successful."

 

[SableWyvern]

Perhaps remove the "narrow" there.

GURPS has a clear focus -- providing the tools to simulate a variety of (usually reasonably grounded) worlds and settings with a consistent set of mechanics. The vast majority of games have a pretty obvious focus. If you aren't going to count them, then the "narrow' qualifier seems essential to me, unless you rely primarily on the "mechanics that drive play" portion of the definition.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If you don't want to use the word to cover the things it usually covers, then I'd suggest using a different word, or adding some qualifiers.

Which from my point of view I tried to do and you seem to dislike it. There's only so much effort I'm willing to put in here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

All I'm saying is that games are more than the fictional situation we are playing out. If I'm using Champions for a Hellboy-esque Campaign I'm not actually getting anywhere close to the experience of playing Apocalypse Keys.

And as with Soviet above, I'm suspecting that's because you care about some distinctions that for many people are just not that relevant. And that's very much about having the right tools for the job.

 

[Campbell]

And as with Soviet above, I'm suspecting that's because you care about some distinctions that for many people are just not that relevant. And that's very much about having the right tools for the job.

That some people may not want those experiences or value them does not mean they are getting them.