What Games do you think are Neotrad?

[GobHag]

Should have said trad games instead of design ethos specifically--Vampire is a Trad game and is played very Trad-like with its 'frustrated novelist' GMs(if we're being negative here) after all.

 

[GobHag]

This blogpost did a great job in putting into digital paper some of the 'techniques' and 'style' of neotrad, also shows off a less RAW-abiding version of Neotrad that doesn't uses the modern games that are built for it.

Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth - From a Dark Forest

Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tri...

jdcspot.blogspot.com

Some tl;dr(Please still read that blog)

1. D&D's preference comes not just from familiarity but also cultural context--memes, quotes, the languages of modern D&D--but also that 5e specifically allows for players to be quiet without the ability to derail or drag things out. Which is important for another thing elaborated later on.

2. D&D compels very positive connection co-op with each other, camraderie without a lot of fuss so to speak.

3. Since table talk and social techniques like Lines/Veils and content warnings are more accepted, players generally are more considerate of each others comforts and feelings.

4. Furthermore, they treat other players and themselves like an audience too. Playing things or moments for each others entertainment, and attempts to 'block' that kind of stuff is disliked. Forcing to roll for too much(Acrobat roll, then athletic roll then a con save) is considered gauche--just use a roll, and if it's high then it's good.

5. something specific in this playstyle is being a good audience, enjoying someone make a goofy or cool or dramatic decision and seeing how they play it out because you'll get your turn too. I remembered someone here said Quid-pro-quo with GMs regarding setting and players getting their arcs.

6. There's a bit more 'writing room' talk, since players here are more comfortable and willing to talk in heavy context then lighter ones are allowed; 'Hey let's make things scarier here.' 'How about having the boss her ebe your naughty word fairy ex?' etc, etc. More willing to step 'out of the magic circle' so to speak.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think we can push this is a bit harder, can't we? I mean, your profile says "OSR Enthusiast". I assume that the players who explore your persistent world are not just chilling, or going shopping. I assume that they have to struggle across the land (perhaps adjudicated via hex crawl play) and, when they get where they're going, are expected to confront challenges that the players are doing their best to defeat.

Rather that the land is full of things they can choose to struggle against. I offer possibilities and an environment. They decide what they want to do and how they go about it. My PCs go shopping, build churches, train armies, maintain their homes, engage in social events, and dive into tombs in unknown lands.

 

[TwoSix]

This blogpost did a great job in putting into digital paper some of the 'techniques' and 'style' of neotrad, also shows off a less RAW-abiding version of Neotrad that doesn't uses the modern games that are built for it.

Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth - From a Dark Forest

Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tri...

jdcspot.blogspot.com

Some tl;dr(Please still read that blog)

1. D&D's preference comes not just from familiarity but also cultural context--memes, quotes, the languages of modern D&D--but also that 5e specifically allows for players to be quiet without the ability to derail or drag things out. Which is important for another thing elaborated later on.

2. D&D compels very positive connection co-op with each other, camraderie without a lot of fuss so to speak.

3. Since table talk and social techniques like Lines/Veils and content warnings are more accepted, players generally are more considerate of each others comforts and feelings.

4. Furthermore, they treat other players and themselves like an audience too. Playing things or moments for each others entertainment, and attempts to 'block' that kind of stuff is disliked. Forcing to roll for too much(Acrobat roll, then athletic roll then a con save) is considered gauche--just use a roll, and if it's high then it's good.

5. something specific in this playstyle is being a good audience, enjoying someone make a goofy or cool or dramatic decision and seeing how they play it out because you'll get your turn too. I remembered someone here said Quid-pro-quo with GMs regarding setting and players getting their arcs.

6. There's a bit more 'writing room' talk, since players here are more comfortable and willing to talk in heavy context then lighter ones are allowed; 'Hey let's make things scarier here.' 'How about having the boss her ebe your naughty word fairy ex?' etc, etc. More willing to step 'out of the magic circle' so to speak.

Yea, that’s a pretty great blog post (and good summary). Digesting it still, but lots of things I’ve seen myself.

 

[TwoSix]

3. Since table talk and social techniques like Lines/Veils and content warnings are more accepted, players generally are more considerate of each others comforts and feelings.

It's interesting to consider this aspect of the newer player base in the context of Daggerheart (which certainly leans "neotrad") and the spirited discussion around its open turn combat system.

 

[clearstream]

This blogpost did a great job in putting into digital paper some of the 'techniques' and 'style' of neotrad, also shows off a less RAW-abiding version of Neotrad that doesn't uses the modern games that are built for it.

Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth - From a Dark Forest

Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tri...

jdcspot.blogspot.com

Some tl;dr(Please still read that blog)

1. D&D's preference comes not just from familiarity but also cultural context--memes, quotes, the languages of modern D&D--but also that 5e specifically allows for players to be quiet without the ability to derail or drag things out. Which is important for another thing elaborated later on.

2. D&D compels very positive connection co-op with each other, camraderie without a lot of fuss so to speak.

3. Since table talk and social techniques like Lines/Veils and content warnings are more accepted, players generally are more considerate of each others comforts and feelings.

4. Furthermore, they treat other players and themselves like an audience too. Playing things or moments for each others entertainment, and attempts to 'block' that kind of stuff is disliked. Forcing to roll for too much(Acrobat roll, then athletic roll then a con save) is considered gauche--just use a roll, and if it's high then it's good.

5. something specific in this playstyle is being a good audience, enjoying someone make a goofy or cool or dramatic decision and seeing how they play it out because you'll get your turn too. I remembered someone here said Quid-pro-quo with GMs regarding setting and players getting their arcs.

6. There's a bit more 'writing room' talk, since players here are more comfortable and willing to talk in heavy context then lighter ones are allowed; 'Hey let's make things scarier here.' 'How about having the boss her ebe your naughty word fairy ex?' etc, etc. More willing to step 'out of the magic circle' so to speak.

Thank you for the link. The blog post summarised for me something that also came through in a very good post on OC here on Enworld (barring the mislabelling, obviously.) If you have not as yet, it's worth reading the OP from that post. I gained from it a strong sense of a group finding utility in a system based on their original ideas. A question that description of OC prompted for me is - how does one intentionally design for it? The blog you linked puts it rather pithily that

speaking overall the displayed belief of this cohort is that System Doesn't Matter, in the sense of the original essay.​

(Emphasis mine.) That chimed with the sense I get from passionate OC play, i.e. that groups seek game texts with utility to them. Which can be in ways tangential to design intent (one could even say design intent is unimportant, to such groups.) The post I linked described it as appreciating what wasn't there: the negative space. Again from the blog you linked, discussing what new players might have learned from watching streams

A GM is supposed to know that you really just make em roll Something, Anything, and if they roll high they do it and if they roll low they don't. (This is the only rule that actually exists in many/most of the most popular streams.)​

​

OC seems very clearly to be about what players do: a playstyle. It's much harder to say exactly how it is about what designers do: neotrad design is not guaranteed to supply utility - the desired negative space - for any given OC group. Rather I would say that the neotrad trend in design better centers players and positions GM within the ambit of the rules, which has a happy marriage with OC without being identical to it. OC adds something.

 

[thefutilist]

Thank you for the link. The blog post summarised for me something that also came through in a very good post on OC here on Enworld (barring the mislabelling, obviously.) If you have not as yet, it's worth reading the OP from that post. I gained from it a strong sense of a group finding utility in a system based on their original ideas. A question that description of OC prompted for me is - how does one intentionally design for it? The blog you linked puts it rather pithily that

speaking overall the displayed belief of this cohort is that System Doesn't Matter, in the sense of the original essay.​

(Emphasis mine.) That chimed with the sense I get from passionate OC play, i.e. that groups seek game texts with utility to them. Which can be in ways tangential to design intent (one could even say design intent is unimportant, to such groups.) The post I linked described it as appreciating what wasn't there: the negative space. Again from the blog you linked, discussing what new players might have learned from watching streams

A GM is supposed to know that you really just make em roll Something, Anything, and if they roll high they do it and if they roll low they don't. (This is the only rule that actually exists in many/most of the most popular streams.)​

​

OC seems very clearly to be about what players do: a playstyle. It's much harder to say exactly how it is about what designers do: neotrad design is not guaranteed to supply utility - the desired negative space - for any given OC group. Rather I would say that the neotrad trend in design better centers players and positions GM within the ambit of the rules, which has a happy marriage with OC without being identical to it. OC adds something.

At this point it just sounds like you're describing the White Wolf style from back in the late nineties. This is how I used to play and it's how Brennan lee-mulligan plays, how Matt Mercer plays, I thought it was the most common playstyle no?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me, this is like saying that "I don't consider the orbits of the planets and the falling of an apple to earth to be so close as to fall in the same category."

I mean, if the category is size of things in motion than of course they're rather different; apples are a lot smaller than planets. But if the category is effects of universal gravitation between massive bodies than they are instances of the same phenomenon.

Edwards is using "simulationism" to group, and explain features of, RPGing that foregrounds engaging with the imagined content for its own sake. That content can, itself, be various sorts of stuff. And he unpacks those variations in loving detail.

Right: at its heart all GNS said was you can have 3 basic flavors of what you're focused on. You can be focused on RPG-as-game, where the players are trying to find a way to win or beat each other, or at least where 'good' and 'bad' play are highly delineated and the rules and conventions allow the players to determine what 'moves' they should attempt in a fairly deterministic fashion.

Or you can be focused on the aspect of the PCs as protagonists within the narrative arising from play. Here the game is built around player's choice of situations to engage and a focus on their choices shaping the narrative at a deep level.

Thirdly you could be focused on the content of the imagined play for itself, its qualities, topics it incorporates, etc. PFS is included here in that it focuses on play-as-process and how the game generates things like setting details and choices.

Edwards also groups ALL of these under 'Exploration', there's no separate agenda for that, you are 'exploring game play', 'exploring narrative/premise', or 'exploring setting/system/milieu'.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

At this point it just sounds like you're describing the White Wolf style from back in the late nineties. This is how I used to play and it's how Brennan lee-mulligan plays, how Matt Mercer plays, I thought it was the most common playstyle no?

Yesn't, in the sense that you are completely correct about it being very common, and those people playing in (something approaching) that style, its largely been conflated with trad until recently, and largely rejected by the Story Now movement (which does raise some Chomskyish concerns for me about the semiotics Forge deploys and its utility in producing non-Forge outcomes, I see that language as being very particular to the values of that movement.) You can see a lot of this in recent controversy about Brennan Lee Mulligan's comments about needing game rules because he can't intuit the flight of an arrow in the same way he can intuit a conversation.

Edit: To back up the potentially controversial statement a little, to my mind, this little FAQ statement in the simulationist essay recently being discussed, is a fairly offhand rejection of what I regard as Negative Space:

Another serious problem is the ideal of "transparency," especially as applied to the High Concept approach. I cannot help but be blunt: System is experientially inescapable. One cannot make Character, Setting, Situation, and Color "go" without it. Drama-driven systems are just as System as any other, for instance. (See the Transparency entry in the Glossary.)

Really to remove System requires that anything and everything that happens during play be mediated solely through the Social Contract, without any formalized method even to do that. I think that such play would be awfully difficult, requiring so much negotiation regarding how to play per unit of play as to be hopeless. (Again, I am not discussing well-organized systems based mainly on Drama, which are perfectly wonderful and not subject to these criticisms.)

Edwards veers back to this here:

For play really to be Simulationist, it can't lose the daydream quality: the pleasure in imagination as such, without agenda. For game design to promote this goal, it must be openly valued and its virtues articulated, not assumed (as it often is) to be "good role-playing" by anyone's standards and hence left unstated. Design should be inspiring and elegant in its own right, promoting the desire to see this Setting or Character unfold, or to see this System do its stuff...

and here:

Well, here it is. Before getting bent out of shape, remember that each mode is gonna get one of these. Role-playing is a hobby, leisure activity. The real question is, what for, in the long term? For Simulationist play, the answer "This was fun, so let's do it again," is sufficient. However, for how long is it sufficient? Which seems to me to vary greatly from person to person. Is the focus on Exploration to be kept as is, permanently, as characters and settings change through play? Some say "sure" and wonder what the hell I'm talking about, or perhaps feel slightly insulted. Or, is Drift ultimately desirable? Is play all about getting "it" to work prior to permitting overt metagame agendas into the picture? Some might answer "of course" and wonder why anyone could see it otherwise. So! Is there an expected, future metagame payoff, or is the journey really its own reward? Is Simulationist play what you want, or is it what you think you must do in order, one day, to get what you want? I judge nothing with these questions. I think that they're important to consider and that answers are going to vary widely, that's all.

I think what's very interesting in discussing Neo-trad utilizing this language, is that OC/Neotrad (without commentary on their separation) can be understood as the position that play-mediated-through-social-contract IS the core form of play at work in the TTRPG. I think, this cause and effect chain isn't represented historically in the wargame roots of the game (though its probably represented historically in the roots of wargames) but is represented in the personal story of play in adopting system for purpose.

System arising as an enhancement of that play, is naturally constrained to solving the problems he attempts to identify as being endemic to social contract based play-- but whereas he flattens the distinctions between the needs of each moment in his discussion of negotiation, Mulligan's comments (which I regard as admissible to a Neo-trad canon) about the arrow emphasize the importance of those distinctions in the necessity of procedure in comparing differentiated moments of play.

This further induces a kind of breakdown in the difficulty of simulation, as simulation itself develops a level of gamism that arises naturally from the activity that engendered it. You could see this as "If we were to add rules to our FKR to make it better, how would we go about doing that" you wouldn't add something unfun (although someone else might find your fun, unfun) to that because then you'd simply sand it back off using the control group of social contract negotiation (how willing my friends are to put up with my ruling about whether they hit when they shoot a bow.)

 

[clearstream]

At this point it just sounds like you're describing the White Wolf style from back in the late nineties. This is how I used to play and it's how Brennan lee-mulligan plays, how Matt Mercer plays, I thought it was the most common playstyle no?

Do you mean that those others I quoted seemed to you to be describing that style?

I think the blog may do to an extent, as it is expressly outlining a style informed by streamers.

Have you read the post here on Enworld that I linked? Do you really feel it describes such a style?