What Games do you think are Neotrad?

[thefutilist]

However, this becomes a Neotrad orientation to play if the expectation is the players' preconception of character is woven into this GM metaplot (or Adventure Path) with roughly codified character arcs.

That makes sense. So I've only ever done neo-trad until I shifted to Narrativist play. That's what I figured but it's easy to become myopic about styles you haven't really experienced or don't understand.

 

[GobHag]

Now what if system does have the means to perturb the conception of Player Character to significant degree such that its an inevitability that participants find out through play who these characters are? What if system does have the means to perturb all trajectories for play such that charting a course is a fool's errand...

How would stuff like CofD splats humanity meters or 'character arc classes' ALA Chuubo work into this?

 

[Manbearcat]

That makes sense. So I've only ever done neo-trad until I shifted to Narrativist play. That's what I figured but it's easy to become myopic about styles you haven't really experienced or don't understand.

How would stuff like CofD splats humanity meters or 'character arc classes' ALA Chuubo work into this?

I'm not familiar enough with new WoD or CofD products etc or 'character arc classes' in Chuubo to comment on those.

However, I would say that it depends upon implementation of the kind of concepts that I think you're pointing at. Let me point at the Carved By Brindlewood Bay games (if you're familiar) and kindred implementation of a potential arc where you've got the following features:

* A playbook with a very clear theme and premise.

* The ability to mitigate or outright shut-down consequences by checking one of 12ish limited theme/premise resource boxes where each box has an attached question which establishes new fiction about your character which then burdens or enlightens the evolving situation-state of play. Further, some of them have mechanical impacts/interactions. Further x 2, you can potentially get new theme/premise boxes as rewards in the course of play.

* Once the final box is checked (either willingly by the player or unwillingly because a GM move imposes that particular consequence), the PC suffers a playbook-derived fate and is retired from the game.

I would say there are multiple reasons why this systemization (when played in the orthodox fashion which means aggressive framing and following-through by the GM) is Narrativism rather than NeoTrad:

1) There isn't a featured metaplot or a setting tourism aesthetic which imbues the trajectory of play with much/most of its energy and direction.

2) The situation-state is going to cascade and story will emerge organically without pre-authorship (by any table participant) merely by following the procedures of play and everyone playing their respective role with aggression and passion. System has a ton of "say" and neither GM nor players have a veto over that say.

3) While players have a ton of "say" over when their playbook theme/premise resource boxes imbue play and which particular box they choose and what the implications of that chosen box are (how the answers to their question imbue and inform subsequent play), (a) it is a million miles away from the sort of "player-side railroading" that is constitutive of Neotrad/OC play (where PC preconception gets mapped onto play collaboratively) because of (b) the dynamic nature of everything working in concert and (c) it is nearly impossible for players and their PCs to "escape the (character conception perturbing) unwanted."


Hopefully that giant pile of words lands.

 

[S'mon]

I remember a discussion possibly here about Critical Role. I think the view I agreed with was that Mercer was a regular Trad GM at least initially, but his players like Mulligan were very much OC. I watched the first couple episodes of the cartoon and it was striking how the prologue first episode, not derived from play, was pure OC; it then went into a much more Trad direction as it got into the actual game-based material.

I haven't watched much CR but it seemed to me to be pure OC players (with eg very little interest in rules mastery but a ton of interest in developing PC personalities & relations) and GM who was Trad-trained and ran a pretty straight up Trad sort of campaign, but could adapt to suit his players especially once it had been a TV show for a while.

I remember a long time ago there was a lot of outrage in the CR fan base about a PC death. This looked like a clash of agendas, Mercer was GMing in a pretty Trad style I think, the sort of thing you'd expect from eg a Paizo Adventure Path GM, where failure is an option if not common. The fans who complained were pure OC and saw the PC death as a GMing failure.

This also reminds me of the accusations by haters/anti-fans that CR and similar shows are pre scripted. I think that shows a pretty clear failure to understand how OC style play works.