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

[aramis erak]

Theatrix. Man. There's a name I had forgotten....

Sadly, only one worldbook. Sure, it's a great worldbook... but not one that you can use in public... Ironwood.
Great adaptation of an excellent (if sexually explicit) comic fantasy adventure.

Theatrix is really two games in one... the totally diceless version, and the version using D100 by the outcome on the diceless tables.

 

[aramis erak]

EDIT: I guess the short version is that the high improv style doesn't seem to work well with prep.

There's a warning about that...

AGENDA
• Make Apocalypse World seem real.
• Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.
• Play to find out what happens.
Everything you say, you should do it to accomplish these three, and no
other. It’s not, for instance, your agenda to make the players lose, or to
deny them what they want, or to punish them, or to control them, or to get
them through your pre-planned storyline (DO NOT pre-plan a storyline,
and I’m not ⏹⏹⏹⏹ing around). It’s not your job to put their characters in
double-binds or dead ends, or to yank the rug out from under their feet.
Go chasing after any of those, you’ll wind up with a boring game that
makes Apocalypse World seem contrived, and you’ll be pre-deciding what
happens by yourself, not playing to find out.

There's an undercurrent in AW, it's more explicit in DitV... "Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes." (DitV p 91). {aside: while Vincent has the right to withdraw it from sale, DitV is really as important as AW in the storygame space.} AW doesn't say that, but largely implies that. All the soft moves are "Yes, and…" or, "Yes, but…" to the narration.

There is, per an interview I listened to, no allowance for GM nullification of a given player narration. And looking it over, I can only find a couple examples where saying no is mentioned: one of them is workshop… but that's calling out gatekeeping building behind multiple requirements. It doesn't read as permission nor encouragement for simple rejection.

If the MC is rejecting player narrations, then they're missing the point of Baker's games from that era. They're all grounded in borrowing from the Theatrical Improv tradition.

 

[thefutilist]

There's a warning about that...


There's an undercurrent in AW, it's more explicit in DitV... "Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes." (DitV p 91). {aside: while Vincent has the right to withdraw it from sale, DitV is really as important as AW in the storygame space.} AW doesn't say that, but largely implies that. All the soft moves are "Yes, and…" or, "Yes, but…" to the narration.

There is, per an interview I listened to, no allowance for GM nullification of a given player narration. And looking it over, I can only find a couple examples where saying no is mentioned: one of them is workshop… but that's calling out gatekeeping building behind multiple requirements. It doesn't read as permission nor encouragement for simple rejection.

If the MC is rejecting player narrations, then they're missing the point of Baker's games from that era. They're all grounded in borrowing from the Theatrical Improv tradition.

None of that really talks to my central issue. My issue was that introducing backstory on failure interferes with prep so why bother with the prep?

The prep is meant to pin things solidly in place, Specifically the backstory and personality of the primary npcs and their relationships to each other, (and the pc's) including what they're doing and plan to do in the form of clocks. And the resources they have and can bring to bear (such as weaponry and gang size).

You need all that stuff in place so you can roleplay the npc's and decide what decisions they would make in response to events.

introducing loads of stuff that ret-cons or interferes with the above seems contradictory.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry, but this is why the 'dead horse' of hit points keeps being brought up. Because the assertion that the rules of D&D serve only to model the world, and could not therefore have an agenda or a driving effect in play, is completely undermined by how hit points work. They are not even slightly realistic, they are a deliberate abstraction to allow characters to have regular fights (6 to 8 times a day!) while mitigating and making transparent the risk of defeat, and removing almost altogether the risk of maiming or long term injury.

Hit points have been around long before "6-8 times a day" was a thing, and you can absolutely use them as part of a sim mechanic provided they are used in tandem with a long-term injury system of some kind. In that case they become mostly stamina points outside of the occasional need for contact, like poison. The reason hit points are a problem is because it's impossible to actually be injured, and because everything that can possibly happen to you heals overnight. Deal with that and you can go a long toward hit points making sense.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I gave numerous examples in the post of mine you originally quoted, of ways in which I believe modern mechanics can drive play and directly contrasted that with other methods. I'm really not sure what I can add or where you feel I've failed to be clear in the drawing the distinction.

The words we use can have many different meanings, depending on context and perspective, and I absolutely do agree that you could make a perfectly cogent argument from first principles that traditional mechanics also drive play. However, that hasn't been the way we traditionally described such mechanics and I'm not sure it's all that relevant to the actual points being made. As mentioned in an earlier post, I don't really care one way or the other about the actual terminology that is settled on, but it seems pointless to try and change the jargon at this point.

Pertinent sections of my previous post, where I feel I already addressed the questions you're now asking:

"the whole "success with a complication" as a central feature is one obvious thing to me. The mechanics are explicitly telling you, "the game needs to move forward and something interesting must happen at this point."

***​

"At a more basic level, the philosophy that "nothing much happens; the status quo is maintained" is an unacceptable outcome -- instead, any interaction with the mechanics must happen in such a way that doing so moves the game forward somehow.

***​

In a traditional game "the game mechanics themselves aren't intentionally being built to generate complications, challenges, dilemmas, demand action or what-have-you."

***​

"In a traditional game about political intrigue and fear of betrayal, the players make decisions, the rules ... provide outcomes, and everyone is just expected to play along with the premise. The rules themselves don't generate intrigue and fear of betrayal, they just assess what happens in an environment where those things exist.

"In a modern game, the mechanics might directly say, "you now need to make a hard choice: do you remain loyal, at a cost to yourself, or betray your patron in this matter?" Again, I'm not greatly positioned to elaborate on how all these mechanics might work, but my feeling is they would be designed specifically to create intrigue and fear of betrayal."

***​

"Note that, the participants' decisions actually drive play in both situations -- I'm not saying this responsibility is completely offloaded to the mechanics. It would be slightly more accurate to say that in the modern version, the mechanics mandate that play is always driven in the direction of the theme, instead of leaving it up to the players to ensure that happens."

So in a way, modern play is less driven by player action?

 

[SableWyvern]

So in a way, modern play is less driven by player action?

It's certainly not my intention to be making such a claim. I think my very last paragraph there is possibly the most important.

Note that, the participants' decisions actually drive play in both situations -- I'm not saying this responsibility is completely offloaded to the mechanics. It would be slightly more accurate to say that in the modern version, the mechanics mandate that play is always driven in the direction of the theme, instead of leaving it up to the players to ensure that happens.

Even if it is the case that it is less driven by player action, I'm not in a position to be the one making the claim, as I simply don't have enough experience with it. All I can say for sure is that I'm not generally interested in the ways modern games seem to want to drive play.

I'll also note, again, that I'm specifically referring to participants as I don't think another argument about player-driven vs GM-driven (and potentially adding system-driven) is going to go anywhere productive. Everyone is just going to claim that their style is the true player-driven version and the others are not (but that's OK, of course, no one is judging you for liking your totally-not-inferior, not-player-driven game...).

 

[loverdrive]

@soviet basically the above. Although my interpretation of, Apocalypse World at least, is that it's far more 'vanilla narrativist' than the culture at large interprets it as. In fact it's core mechanics are, ill considered, if you play it in the high improv way that seems to be the usual interpretation. I'm possibly just crazy though.

I'm so so so tired of people on the internet parroting about how you shouldn't prepare absolutely anything in AW. That's not supported by the text, hell, the game even explicitly tells you to exploit your prep!

But maybe we both are crazy.

 

[pemerton]

Pertinent sections of my previous post, where I feel I already addressed the questions you're now asking:

"the whole "success with a complication" as a central feature is one obvious thing to me. The mechanics are explicitly telling you, "the game needs to move forward and something interesting must happen at this point."

***​

"At a more basic level, the philosophy that "nothing much happens; the status quo is maintained" is an unacceptable outcome -- instead, any interaction with the mechanics must happen in such a way that doing so moves the game forward somehow.

***​

In a traditional game "the game mechanics themselves aren't intentionally being built to generate complications, challenges, dilemmas, demand action or what-have-you."

I've got a view on this: it's analytical and genealogical.

Classic D&D is, at its core, a game of puzzle-solving. At the start of the game, the GM has all the information (in the form of the map and the key), and the players have almost none (perhaps some rumours, not all of which they can rely on). Over the course of play, the players acquire more and more of that information - by moving through the dungeon and mapping it, by listening at doors, by using detection/scrying magic, by judiciously opening doors etc. They can then exploit this information to plan and undertake dungeon raids, in the way that Gygax describes in his PHB.

In classic D&D play, the most important categories of action are movement, listening/looking/detecting/scrying, fighting, and talking. Movement only requires mechanical resolution in special cases (eg climbing, perhaps some balancing, etc) and the resolution of that (i) follows common sense (eg unsuccessful climbing can lead to falling) and (ii) has as its more significant consequence that the movement doesn't occur, and hence the PC is not in the place that the player wanted them to be such that they could do whatever the thing is that the player wanted them to do (eg open a door).

Listening, look, detecting etc have a whole lot of baroque rules. Some permit retries (eg my recollection is that listening does, under a modest constraint, according to Gygax's DMG) and some of which are far more strict in this respect (eg looking for secret doors; or the flat inability of some detection magic to penetrate some materials). The significant consequence of failing these sorts of actions is that the information in question is not gained.

One important category of action that straddles both movement and looking is opening doors. Sometimes retries are allowed (eg opening an ordinarily stuck door) and sometimes not (eg opening a locked door). If a door isn't opened, then as per the general category of actions above, either the information is not gained or the movement is not accomplished. Thus the players either fail to progress in solving the puzzle, or fail to progress in their raiding of the dungeon. That is the appropriate complication for this game.

Fighting and talking are a bit different. Talking can produce complications (vis the reaction table; and the loyalty subsystem in the DMG can be seen as an offshoot of this). And so can fighting: the players' position can be set back by the loss of hit points, the loss of their retainers (if morale checks fail and retainers flee), etc. These complications can affect the ability of the players to achieve their puzzle-solving goals (eg if they fail to acquire information by talking, or if they are driven off in a combat) and also can produce consequences from their raids.

So I don't really think that classic D&D eschews a mechanics-complication connection. It's just that the goals of play are very different from (eg) Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel, and so what counts as a complication, and the way the mechanics mediate the introduction of complications, is different.

What makes the overall situation more complicated, in my view, is the retention - over decades of D&D design, at least until 3E and arguably since then with the exception of 4e - of variants on these mechanics, although the goal of play is no longer the puzzle-solving and raiding that is at the heart of classic D&D. And many other RPGs - eg Rolmeaster, just to pick an example I know well - hew relatively close to this pattern. I think it is in this sort of play that the idea that mechanics don't mediate the introduction of complications gains more plausibility. That falls very much to the GM, who generally does it by drawing on and/or manipulating the backstory that they have prepped.

I don't know about all modern RPGs, but there are certainly some (eg AW, BW) that very clearly and deliberately deviate from this pattern that has predominated in respect of D&D and similar RPGs.


This sort of play does not generally need mechanical resolution to drive it forward. It doesn't have a "forward", except in the sense of the players acquiring, and exploiting, more information. The important categories of action are

 

[SableWyvern]

I've got a view on this: it's analytical and genealogical.

Classic D&D is, at its core, a game of puzzle-solving. At the start of the game, the GM has all the information (in the form of the map and the key), and the players have almost none (perhaps some rumours, not all of which they can rely on). Over the course of play, the players acquire more and more of that information - by moving through the dungeon and mapping it, by listening at doors, by using detection/scrying magic, by judiciously opening doors etc. They can then exploit this information to plan and undertake dungeon raids, in the way that Gygax describes in his PHB.

In classic D&D play, the most important categories of action are movement, listening/looking/detecting/scrying, fighting, and talking. Movement only requires mechanical resolution in special cases (eg climbing, perhaps some balancing, etc) and the resolution of that (i) follows common sense (eg unsuccessful climbing can lead to falling) and (ii) has as its more significant consequence that the movement doesn't occur, and hence the PC is not in the place that the player wanted them to be such that they could do whatever the thing is that the player wanted them to do (eg open a door).

Listening, look, detecting etc have a whole lot of baroque rules. Some permit retries (eg my recollection is that listening does, under a modest constraint, according to Gygax's DMG) and some of which are far more strict in this respect (eg looking for secret doors; or the flat inability of some detection magic to penetrate some materials). The significant consequence of failing these sorts of actions is that the information in question is not gained.

One important category of action that straddles both movement and looking is opening doors. Sometimes retries are allowed (eg opening an ordinarily stuck door) and sometimes not (eg opening a locked door). If a door isn't opened, then as per the general category of actions above, either the information is not gained or the movement is not accomplished. Thus the players either fail to progress in solving the puzzle, or fail to progress in their raiding of the dungeon. That is the appropriate complication for this game.

Fighting and talking are a bit different. Talking can produce complications (vis the reaction table; and the loyalty subsystem in the DMG can be seen as an offshoot of this). And so can fighting: the players' position can be set back by the loss of hit points, the loss of their retainers (if morale checks fail and retainers flee), etc. These complications can affect the ability of the players to achieve their puzzle-solving goals (eg if they fail to acquire information by talking, or if they are driven off in a combat) and also can produce consequences from their raids.

So I don't really think that classic D&D eschews a mechanics-complication connection. It's just that the goals of play are very different from (eg) Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel, and so what counts as a complication, and the way the mechanics mediate the introduction of complications, is different.

What makes the overall situation more complicated, in my view, is the retention - over decades of D&D design, at least until 3E and arguably since then with the exception of 4e - of variants on these mechanics, although the goal of play is no longer the puzzle-solving and raiding that is at the heart of classic D&D. And many other RPGs - eg Rolmeaster, just to pick an example I know well - hew relatively close to this pattern. I think it is in this sort of play that the idea that mechanics don't mediate the introduction of complications gains more plausibility. That falls very much to the GM, who generally does it by drawing on and/or manipulating the backstory that they have prepped.

I don't know about all modern RPGs, but there are certainly some (eg AW, BW) that very clearly and deliberately deviate from this pattern that has predominated in respect of D&D and similar RPGs.


This sort of play does not generally need mechanical resolution to drive it forward. It doesn't have a "forward", except in the sense of the players acquiring, and exploiting, more information. The important categories of action are

To me, a reaction roll is something I rely on to guide my behaviour when it's not clear how an NPC will react. While it may result in complications, the purpose of the roll isn't to introduce complications, it's simply to abrogate some of the responsibility for NPC attitude to the dice. I can see how you might draw parallels to modern mechanics, but I'm not sure I view them in the same way.

I'm more confused by much of the rest of your post. I don't really understand how you reach the conclusion that fighting can be reduced to a system for introducing complications via the outcome, but a moving manoeuvre check for crossing an icy surface or a static manoeuvre for palming an item is (apparently) not. Either they are all designed to introducing complications (although, again, see my comments to @hawkeyfan, that I don't think that would be consistent with the way we typically describe these sorts mechanics and if all mechanics are just adding complications, we just need to find a new way of describing what's so special about "yes, but") or none of them are.

Either way, I see no basis for assigning combat and injury rules some special "complicating" effect that other RM mechanics don't have. In each case, a moving manoeuvre, a static manoeuvre and an attack is a system for determining the outcome of a character's actions -- no more, no less.

 

[aramis erak]

None of that really talks to my central issue. My issue was that introducing backstory on failure interferes with prep so why bother with the prep?

[snip]

You need all that stuff in place so you can roleplay the npc's and decide what decisions they would make in response to events.

No, all I need for an NPC is their current motivations and current game stats. And half the time, the stats are overprep.

Giving them history is not a benefit most of the time. If they're not a major NPC, I only need their goals for the current scene or adventure. I'm far better off with an image than a history.

Then again, most of my NPCs aren't there for story, but for some level of realism. They're nameless and faceless unless and until the PCs interact with them. Most have very evident motivations for their place... The baker in a second millennium CE middle eastern setting isn't interested in buying your stuff, but is interested in selling you bread, getting thieves' hands chopped off, and not missing daily prayers. Not of need in that order. Transplant him to Arrakis in the Dune setting, one of the "city fremen", and you have much the same... For their role, that's enough on motivation. An image, and the NPC stats needed, and done.

Even a Major NPC, I mostly don't need their history save as it relates to their presence in the current story.

Then again, I've run John Wick's Blood and Honor, which is notable for many things, but the most important is that no character is immune from changes imposed by others in play. No NPC planning past their current state is useful; further, if you leave a blank on the character sheet of an NPC, players interacting with them can (and in my experience, will) fill them in. Its a great game; same engine as the slightly more popular Houses of the Blooded. Introduce an incomplete NPC, and you risk them being something you never imagined... but at the same time, players can, and sometimes do, add NPC villains for you.