What Games do you think are Neotrad?

[Emerikol]

One of the key elements amongst the storygames which makes them different is that most of them avoid the simulationist agenda; usually they have only two difficulties: automatic and needs a roll. they also prioritize player-centric adventure, and often incorporate in-party conflict in the intended playstyle.

I don't think Fate fits squarely into either Neotrad nor Storygame, but in a hybrid space between.

I think you can many games to different folds but it does seem like Fate is where you place it. I don't like plot coupons at all as for me they are dissociative so Fate points kind of force that upon you. I'm not sure it's easy to avoid them either. It's probably better to play a game like WOIN or GURPS where even if offered they aren't essential.

 

[pemerton]

One of the key elements amongst the storygames which makes them different is that most of them avoid the simulationist agenda; usually they have only two difficulties: automatic and needs a roll.

Prince Valiant is arguably the first RPG that sets out to provide for "story now" play; it calls itself "Prince Valiant: The Storytelling Game"; and it has difficulties.

Maelstrom Storytelling is another comparatively early entrant in the field. It has difficulties, though they are set via a combination of "simulationist" and non-"simulationist" considerations.

HeroWars is one of the first "contemporary" rather than proto- narrativist/"story now" RPGs. It has difficulties. So does its successor HeroQuest, though in HQ Revised the system for assigning difficulties is not "simulationist".

Burning Wheel has difficulties. They are crucial to the play of the game.

In part because I don't know what counts as a "storygame" I'm not trying to do a head-count. But I don't think this claim about "most of them" is true of some of the paradigm "story now" RPGs.

they also prioritize player-centric adventure, and often incorporate in-party conflict in the intended playstyle.

Player-centric adventure is pretty important to "story now" play. It can be done in systems that are "vanilla", such as AD&D and Rolemaster. I know because I've done it.

Conflict between PCs, and/or PCs who are not a "party", has been part of my RPGing since the early 1990s, and reflecting on now it even earlier than that - it was an intermittent feature of my AD&D OA play. It becomes easier in systems that smoothly ramify the consequences of one PC's actions to another without that needing to be mediated via physical proximity.

 

[S'mon]

...Or at least played in a Neotrad way?

I'm very, very interested in discussion in regards to this playstyle because I'm invested in it becoming more developed and mature despite it already being such a dominating force in TTRPGs

I'll copy the definition for Neotrad from the lbog wholesale(edit the original article in full; Six Cultures of Play):

I have a few disagreements on this(Power fantasy/Tyranny of Fun isn't needed--tragedy and such are very much common as long as that's what the player is looking for) but it's where the term come from so eh.

What I think are examples of Neotrad games:

1. DnD from 3e onwards basically sets the baseline for how most people think of 'Modern' TTRPG play, while NeoTrad crystalized during 5e let's not forget that CharOp is where it all started and the culture of discussing 'builds' and 'broken powers' puts a focus on putting the RAW over the DM's authority. I don't quite think they fit as NeoTrad games but many of them are certainly played in a very neotrad way
2. Fabula Ultima is the most recent example I can think of a game that's very much designed with NeoTrad assumptions in mind, It's High Fantasy supplement exemplifies this the most with it's suggestion on how to design it's settings(especially since Fabula Ultima has collaborative world-building) to be reflective of the characters and the optional quirk system being mechanized 'story moments' that's in the players hands.
3. Chuubo's Wonderful Wish-Making Engine is perhaps the most unique examples of a NeoTrad game system but I'd argue it's Arc system exemplifies the 'Player-led railroading' that NeoTrad is going for.
4. Chronicles of Darkness and Exalted(and the new classic World of Darkness), these two are interesting because they show how mostly Trad systems develop into this new TradOC style. One could argue that the superhero with fangs playstyle is an example of NeoTrad play, something I very much agree with.4.

4e D&D and 5.5/2024 D&D both seem like good examples to me, although some 4e advice assumptions still seem stuck more in a Trad pre-scripted storyline sort of paradigm. The actual mechanical design and stuff like the Epic Destinies, if treated as more than fluff, are highly supportive of OC play I think. 5e is much more ambiguous about its aims but tries to support this style. The 5.5 increased emphasis on player independence from the GM could be seen as supportive of this style, but there seems to be a defensiveness, common from WotC. If the Bastion system encouraged GM and players to work together to develop the PC's supporting cast and allowed the GM to RP Bastion characters, while admonishing the GM against arbitrary actions that went against the player's vision for the NPCs, that would support OC play more strongly than a silo'd mini game.

I think OC is clearly different from Narrativist play. The OC player is interested in exploring and developing their PC, but is rarely interested in Dramatic Premise or author stance. I think Anime (& thus Manga) serial fiction is often a very strong influence on this style. The player may well want to explore the background and inner life of their character quite extensively (so in this way it differs from traditional Western pulp/heroic fiction), but rarely wants the character to go through a fundamental crisis that might lead to significant character change.

 

[pemerton]

there seems to be a defensiveness, common from WotC

They don't want to be seen to be telling anyone that there's a single best way to play the guitar! It's heavy metal and golden oldies all the way down.

 

[S'mon]

I've only started reading this thread so apologies if this has been covered extensively.

One feature of NeoTrad/OC play to my mind is that the OC player typically has a strong desire to immerse in their character. They want the experience of being their OC, they don't want to be thinking in terms of "I'm writing a story about OC". Mechanics designed to support story creation, such as a no PC death without player consent rule, go against this. If the player is saying "I make a Surrender move" or "I make a Heroic Sacrifice move" they are no longer thinking as their character, but as the player. The OC player typically wants technical GM authority, including the technical possibility of PC death, but in service to their vision of the character. So actual PC death is normally extremely unlikely within the normal scope of play.

 

[S'mon]

A big challenge in OC play is effective player-GM communication. Because OC is primarily Sim not Nar. The player probably does have an idea of how they want their character to develop, but in play they want to be immersed in their character, not thinking in terms of story creation. Some OC players are ok with stuff like submitting OOC "magic item wish lists" or a "requested character arc", but thinking about these kind of things can also take the player out of the experience of "being" (their expy of) Batman/Goblin Slayer/The Witcher/Driz'zt. Something like suggesting a 4e Epic Destiny well in advance can work pretty well here, it's both diagetic and tells the GM what the player is looking for.

Edit: For games that seem designed to support OC play, Broken Empires looks promising -
Also I ran Cyberpunk Red for several months recently, and it seemed a great system for play with an OC focus. Especially if you stick to the very generous encounter building rules, which seem designed to avoid accidentally killing PCs. The actual adventures and the Cyberpunk adventure creation advice are very much Trad-Trad, though, and for me don't really connect to Pondsmith's much more NeoTrad vision of the game, inspired by Streets of Fire, which in turn inspired a lot of the Anime from which a lot of OC play assumptions derive.

 

[thefutilist]

I've only started reading this thread so apologies if this has been covered extensively.

One feature of NeoTrad/OC play to my mind is that the OC player typically has a strong desire to immerse in their character. They want the experience of being their OC, they don't want to be thinking in terms of "I'm writing a story about OC". Mechanics designed to support story creation, such as a no PC death without player consent rule, go against this. If the player is saying "I make a Surrender move" or "I make a Heroic Sacrifice move" they are no longer thinking as their character, but as the player. The OC player typically wants technical GM authority, including the technical possibility of PC death, but in service to their vision of the character. So actual PC death is normally extremely unlikely within the normal scope of play.

Do you consider there to be a difference between OC play and what Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan do?

I don't think there is one but I basically grew up with that style (before I moved to Narrativism) so it's always seemed the predominant mode of rpg play.

 

[S'mon]

Do you consider there to be a difference between OC play and what Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan do?

I don't think there is one but I basically grew up with that style (before I moved to Narrativism) so it's always seemed the predominant mode of rpg play.

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.

 

[thefutilist]

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 think I'd kind of agree. I used to do OC (or something similar) before I went Narrativist. The GM style I was closest to was Brennan (maybe why he annoys me now hah). At the time I saw OC play as just good trad play and it's still hard for me to parse the difference.

I currently lump PbtA play and FATE play into the OC category but that's mostly because I am now a snarky Narrativist. If you'd asked me twenty years ago I absolutely would have said the difference between PbtA and OC was due to immersion, author stance and all that stuff.


I would have 100% agreed with what Brennan's saying back then:

 

[Manbearcat]

I've written in this thread and elsewhere that the biggest differences I see between Neotrad and Narrativism is the pivot points of how much say does the system have over the nascent trajectories of play?

* If players come to play with a high resolution to immutable conception of their PC and that is expected to be mapped onto play, then that is a Neotrad orientation to play.

* If a GM comes to play with a high resolution to immutable conception of plot points/way-stations/nodes or a course that charts inexorably (even if not exactly sequentially) toward a high percentage endpoint, then that is a Trad orientation to play. 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.

* Important to both of the above agendas is that system does not have the means to perturb that player preconception of PC nor that GM charted course or in-woven character arcs.

* 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...whereby situation-states cascade emergently as a matter of course and the nature of the pieces in play have to be, at least in significant part, discovered. That is a Narrativist orientation to play.

---

So by my reckoning, its always the magnitude and frequency of "system's say" that is the demarcating influence here. You'll hear a principle like "hold on lightly" or a directive like "generate conflict-pregnant situation, provoke, then react...there is no the story" in one form of systemization. You'll hear a lament like "I just want the rules to get out of the way" or "the tyranny of rules" or a principle like "the rules should be in service to fun and to the story...not the other way around...you're the final arbiter of what happens, so overrule the rules when there is a clash with fun and rewarding story" in another form of systemization.

There is one other axis here though (and I've mentioned it upthread). Its how gamable the system is. Fate where minor complications can be trivially endured to buy-off major complications later, thus ensuring a desired trajectory is one form of this. 4e D&D with easy encounter budgets and/or Skill Challenges that aren't sufficiently threatening/punishing (and therefore don't infuse play with dynamism) is another. The contrast between low Tier Blades in the Dark and end-of-Tier 3 and beyond is another contrast. These contrasts generate a pretty stark divergence in both the experience of play and its attendant outcomes between a game that is a powerful vehicle for Narrativism and the same game that suddenly becomes a powerful vehicle for Neotrad priorities.