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

[Aldarc]

Maybe another thread for rehashing How to Play Blades in the Dark?

 

[Thomas Shey]

What does reducing GM overload mean to you? Do you would describe reducing GM overload as a contemporary approach to TTRPG mechanics that you have observed?

Definitely. Its visible in both D&D 4e and 13th Age. Its most visible there because there are clear predecessors to compare them to.

In addition, as noted, you can have early examples of things that still have early examples that never "took" for various reasons, and as such as still largely modern approaches on the whole.

My interest is per the OP (with adjustment): "What do you think of as contemporary approaches to TTRPG mechanics?" I have made a number of dedicated attempts to focus my contributions in this thread on that topic.

To those ends, I am personally uninterested in discussions of "do I like this contemporary approach: yes or no?," even less interested in discussions of whether other people like these approaches to mechanics or not, and zero interest in people dragging their hatred of narrative games into each and every conversation. I am interested in explanations for these changes, such as why, when, and how these approaches have come into vogue.

I don't consider those two points entirely separable, so I'm afraid I'm not going to fulfill your desires here.

If we are having a discussion of "What is jazz music?," it's hard to imagine having someone whose primary contribution to discussion is just to periodically remind us how much they hate jazz and prefer country music has any intention to engage with the discussed topic in a productive manner.

When comparing to prior art, I don't think "This is unsatisfactory to some listeners for this reason" is a particularly unlikely thread to come up in context.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't consider those two points entirely separable, so I'm afraid I'm not going to fulfill your desires here.

Fulfilling my desires? I am only telling you about my approach in this thread and expressing my own disinterest in whether people like something or not.

When comparing to prior art, I don't think "This is unsatisfactory to some listeners for this reason" is a particularly unlikely thread to come up in context.

This is a difference than just the point coming up. At what point does it just become thread-crapping every single conversation about the topic? There is a certain point when you gotta realize that just because you dislike something, you don't have to voice your dislike about it anytime it comes up when people are trying to discuss it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Maybe another thread for rehashing How to Play Blades in the Dark?

Perhaps. Though it ties to the whole "intentionality of design" thing that a lot of people saw as indicative of modern game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd say you have cause and effect backwards. Doing something that added to the GM overhead inherently has a price and that price is (sometimes among other things) that it adds to the GM overhead. But most things that got into the GM's budget section had a reason and therefore don't have zero value.

As I note above, I don't think the arrow points only in one direction there. In some cases it was design choices to reduce load that had been there previously. At the least I don't think in some cases you can meaningfully talking the predecessors in design "adding" to GM load since that load was part of the system from the get-go.

Ars Ludi has done a recent couple of blog posts on the "GM star pattern" where the GM is running almost parallel games with the players; the more balanced pattern is both better and has a lower overhead.
View attachment 419304

And as an aside I have a theory that, thanks to some playtesting, mid level 2e, 3.X, and 4e are all about the same complexity at low level; they all started with a framework then added Stuff they thought was fun until their nerd playtesters started tapping out.

Some of the kinds of things I'm talking about were present from the bottom there. They became prohibitive over time (because they were married up to exception based design that was going to progressively more accumulative) but it was still things visible from the bottom end of the process.

As I mentioned, compare the way a 3e era monster was written up to a 13th Age one is. The difference is pretty pronounced. And I get why, but it did so at the price of being able to compare a monster to a PC in any direct sort of way. That's largely because the 13th Age designers concluded that was unimportant. But to what degree that's true is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fulfilling my desires? I am only telling you about my approach in this thread and expressing my own disinterest in whether people like something or not.

Which is why I mentioned I'm unlikely to make how you'd like the discussion occur. When you bother to mention that, if its not an attempt to discourage that field of discussion, I'm afraid I don't see the point in bringing it up.

But at what point does it just become thread-crapping every single conversation about the topic? There is a certain point when you gotta realize that just because you dislike something, you don't have to voice your dislike about it anytime it comes up when people are trying to discuss it.

When the majority of the thread considers it does. Otherwise, by all means feel free to report me on this.

 

[zakael19]

Considering that literally every "modern" game I've seen come out this year has been explicit about the separation between PC and NPC design I think we can say that's a core characteristic. Even 5e.24 did this to a degree.

Somewhere over in another D&D focused thread I saw somebody saying their players were like "wait why should a wizard be able to do thing PC wizards dont have access to" and not only does efficient design for GM ease of running help the flow of play but it avoids this sort of "the bad guys should be just like us" crap.

 

[Aldarc]

When the majority of the thread considers it does. Otherwise, by all means feel free to report me on this.

Report you? You think that I'm talking about you?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Considering that literally every "modern" game I've seen come out this year has been explicit about the separation between PC and NPC design I think we can say that's a core characteristic. Even 5e.24 did this to a degree.

The the scare quotes show a bit of the problem with this statement. As phrased this could be essentially a tautology.

Somewhere over in another D&D focused thread I saw somebody saying their players were like "wait why should a wizard be able to do thing PC wizards dont have access to" and not only does efficient design for GM ease of running help the flow of play but it avoids this sort of "the bad guys are just like us" crap.

This assumes the game design doing this is automatically going to answer that question. Bold assumption on your part.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Considering that literally every "modern" game I've seen come out this year has been explicit about the separation between PC and NPC design I think we can say that's a core characteristic. Even 5e.24 did this to a degree.

Somewhere over in another D&D focused thread I saw somebody saying their players were like "wait why should a wizard be able to do thing PC wizards dont have access to" and not only does efficient design for GM ease of running help the flow of play but it avoids this sort of "the bad guys should be just like us" crap.

Right, so another indication that modern means moving away from simulationism. It is not an aspect I like, and the PCs and NPCs working (roughly) the same is something I feel is a good thing. But it is true that this is becoming rarer. I was particularity disappointed when I learned this asymmetry is very strong in Daggerheart, as I was sorta in the market for D&D replacement but this was dealbreaker for me.