What's the Next Great Leap Forward in RPG Mechanics?

[Zhaleskra]

You see: great leaps forward. Through my filter I see: gamers getting really lazy.

It's all groovy to like a mechanic or dislike it, but to see them as objectively better or worse for tabletop gaming as a whole just grinds my gears.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Though, actually, I think it is a valid question.

You want statistical proof that the whole OSR phenom happened. I don't think that's necessary. If you have any proof that there was something else going on in the hobby at the same time that completely overshadowed it, go for it.

As an example, consider my second question - what counts as "backwards looking"? I see people claim that the move to simpler mechanics is looking backwards. I think that's off. If we are thinking the past few years, then we are talking 4e-era and onwards. Well, "backwards" from 4e there's the OD&D line, which I grant is simple. But it also has 1e, 2e, and 3e, none of which really deserve the title of "simple".

I don't think any version of D&D deserves the title 'simple,' not even 0e and certainly not 5e - it's always been a relatively complicated game, so, yeah, I'd agree it's off. But, even if we grant that 0e & 5e are simple and other eds aren't, looking back to 0e 'simplicity' is still backwards-looking, that intermediate backwards steps aren't necessary less complex, notwithstanding - it's just looking /way/ backwards.

Really and honestly, the past has *all sorts* of games in it. So, saying that a game is "backwards-looking" does not seem meaningful.

When 5e was being developed, Mearls &co said, repeatedly, that they were looking back to the prior editions and trying to achieve a 'classic feel.' So, yes, 5e was backwards-looking, at past editions of D&D. What Traveler or RQ or WoD were doing in the past not being relevant. Likewise, whatever other games were doing in the 70s & 80s, recent re-boots of RuneQuest have harkened back mainly to RQ2. Storyteller has gotten high-profile 20th anniversary editions. Nor are they the only two classic games getting re-boots. The whole OSR thing is backwards-looking.

Sure, there are forward-looking indie games out there, but the big trend has been backwards-looking - and, probably, what industry growth that has been reported is being driven by that.

Has anyone really written out a list of the games that have come out in the past few years? I think it is a long, long list.

It probably would be. And it would have a lot of OSR games on it. But there's also the question of what games make a big splash - which is generally going to be biased towards new/innovative/surprising ones - and at what games are leading the market. Leading the market, right now, is 5e (backwards looking), PF (3.5 retro-clone), two of those '______ Age' games, also on the OSR 'simple'/old-school bandwagon, AFAIK, and the latest Star Ward licensee (and, even though it's not backwards-looking at Star Wars d6, mechanically, the Star Wars franchise, itself, has marginalized the extended universe and is harkening back to the original 3 movies in a lot of ways, too).

Or we can note that there are really only two big players - WotC and Paizo, and the only meaningful trend is that they both, with rather different design philosophies, seem to be doing well.

They are both crystal-clear examples of backwards-looking games. The only difference is how far back they look. PF looks back to 3e, a mere 8-16 years, while 5e looks back to the 20th century.

You see my point? I don't think anyone has actually presented a cogent view of "where the hobby has been going".

I see the point you're trying to make. I don't think you've come anywhere near supporting it.

*This is hardly a new argument, though usually I see it in the form of noting "old school" really seems to mean, "That stuff from the past that I liked," and wihtout noting that all the other new stuff one doesn't like was *also* represented in the same time period.

"Old school" is usually used to refer to the methods, maybe even mores, of a time in the past. In the context of gaming, that's the way we used to play D&D, not the details of the rulebook. And, it was a less connected world back then, so you didn't have a monolithic 'way everyone played D&D back in the day,' it varied with things like region and age group.

But, even if people don't have a clear or accurate or consistent vision of the past, looking back at it is a big trend right now. As demonstrated by the prevalence of that very argument you site.

 

[Umbran]

You want statistical proof that the whole OSR phenom happened.

No.

And, please don't tell me what I want. *ASK* what I want. Because the internet is a truly pathetic medium for telepathy. And, because telling me what I want is *rude*: in doing this you have set your own mind on a course, and possibly the minds of others, and now it will take extra effort on my part to disabuse you of your mistaken notion. And, even if I take that action, you are still likely to stick to your original appraisal, despite any and all evidence in the contrary. Because you are a human being and by stating this as a fact, you are very likely to feel some emotional need to defend that fact, even though it is absolutely dead wrong. We are thus set up to have an argument, rather than a discussion.

So, really, don't tell people what their positions are. It is Not A Good Move.

I do not doubt that the "OSR Movement" happened. Nor am I, overall, for or against the OSR. I do, however, question discussions of relative size or importance of that (or any other trend) as compared to other observed trends in the hobby. I question your, or anyone else's, ability to stake out who is the Biggest and Most Important without something like a good definition and evidence.

And, really, I don't see why you should be trying to evade that. If you have good basis for the assertion, you can only enhance our belief by handing it over. On the other hand, if you don't have it, it will save a great deal of wrangling to admit that is really just your personal feeling. It is fine to have personal feelings on matters, so long as we acknowledge the difference between them and supportable facts. Do it now, and there's no harm, no foul.

I don't think that's necessary. If you have any proof that there was something else going on in the hobby at the same time that completely overshadowed it, go for it.

You haven't even properly *defined* it! I have already asked several posts ago what counts as "backwards looking", and given reason why it looks like this is a meaningless term*. You think I'm going to wrangle with a ghost, step into a situation where I can't even show that goalposts are moving, because their location was never given in the first place?!? That's, "land war in Asia," level bad strategy. Not gonna happen.

I will, however, point out the vagueness and fluidity of the statements, to demonstrate that, at least as given, they don't have clear import.

I see the point you're trying to make. I don't think you've come anywhere near supporting it.

Shifting the burden of proof, sir! *YOU* made the assertion on what the biggest trends were. *YOU* have to support that. You do not get to say, "My assertion stands unless you can prove otherwise."

You can start by stating how you think, "backwards looking," is really a meaningful term. Then you can give the measure on which your assessment of the size, scope, or importance of the trend is based.





*The past had examples of so many designs and playstyles, that you can look at pretty much any modern game, and draw an analogy, and claim it was 'backwards looking".

 

[Tony Vargas]

No.

And, please don't tell me what I want. *ASK* what I want.

There was supposed to be a question mark at the end of that. Sorry 'bout the typo.

I do not doubt that the "OSR Movement" happened. Nor am I, overall, for or against the OSR. I do, however, question discussions of relative size or importance of that (or any other trend) as compared to other observed trends in the hobby.

Cool. Compared to other observed trends, like?

Honestly, from within the D&D echo chamber, it's hard to even tease out another trend for comparison to all the nostalgia, backwards-looking, 'old school' or whatever you want to label the come-back D&D is currently enjoying.

You can start by stating how you think, "backwards looking," is really a meaningful term.

I it that vague, really? When the guy who designed the #1 selling RPG, has come right out and said that he looked to past editions when doing so, and tried to capture the 'feel of the classic game,' where's the ambiguity? How is that not a very clearly example 'backwards looking?' When old games are being re-booted, sometimes repeatedly, how are they not looking back to those games' pasts?

The past had examples of so many designs and playstyles, that you can look at pretty much any modern game, and draw an analogy, and claim it was 'backwards looking.'

I suppose one could get that pedantic - I suppose I have been, in a sense, in pointing out that things like Attunement date back to RQ. But, I don't see how anyone could think OSR games, retro-clones, re-boots, and, most of all, 5e, draw from their past versions by mere coincidence.

When you make a new game that has some sub-systems or some style that's arguably derivative, sure, you may not have been consciously or intentionally evoking that past game (or have even be aware of it, if it was obscure even back then). But when you do a 20th anniversary edition of an old game, you sure as heck are calling back that old game. When you set out to re-assemble a new edition from the best bits of the old, and aim to re-capture classic feel, you are most certainly not looking back to those past editions by accident or re-inventing their wheels.

 

[GMMichael]

And yet with 5e WotC have released both the free-to-play Basic rules and the framework-like SRD under the OGL.

You're right, but the way I read it was, "WotC should make a free core ruleset for people to build on" but what we got was a slimmed-down version of the full product - basically a trial period download. The basic rules don't help much with designing classes or monsters, but you're welcome to use the ones provided. So yes, 5e is a "framework," but maybe we'd rather see more of a "workshop" in the future?

 

[Bedrockgames]

These kind of flame wars and discussions are way more entertaining if you imagine the Robocop soundtrack playing in the background.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Given how many RPG mechanics cycles D&D has always been behind I wouldn't look there for innovation. (Probably the biggest demonstration of this was Ryan Dancey's notorious review of WFRP where he praises the mechanics as taking inspiration from d20 when everything he points out had been in WFRP 1 in 1985.

For years now, the biggest trends have been backwards-looking. OSR, for the biggest, most obvious instance. Popular games from the 80s and 90s keep getting resurrected by Kickstarters.

I don't thin the OSR is bigger than the story-games crowd - and they are definitely moving game design onwards. I think the only period we've had a bigger improvement in RPG design than the last decade (starting in 2003 when the Forge actually started producing good things) was the decade that started in 1967 with Braunstein 1.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Double

 

[innerdude]

In relation to the OSR conversation, I don't know that you can necessarily say that something isn't "innovative" just because it's based on existing properties / mechanics.

"Innovation" can often be a reconfiguring of an existing thing into something that makes it greater than the sum of its individual parts. For example, Fantasy Craft is clearly "retro" in the sense that it looks to "core" D&D 3e-isms as the starting point for its inspiration --- but Fantasy Craft radically deviates from that starting point. Fantasy Craft to me is a vastly more coherent, greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts representation of "D&D 3e." It feels very innovative in that regard.

But there is also that sense of innovation in bringing something to effect that simply didn't exist before. None of us knew we really wanted an "iPad"/tablet until we saw it as a working concept and said, "Yeah, actually, we all really want that."

To me one area that could use more innovation is in social conflict resolution. I realize there are probably games out there with excellent social conflict mechanics, but none of those have been imported into a "popular" game.

But that also brings up a point --- have we all just accepted the fact that trying to mesh or import competing types of resolution mechanics into different systems just creates chaos? For example, would anyone be willing to import a fantastic social resolution mechanic into D&D if, when using those mechanics, it abandoned the d20 and instead used a 3d6-roll-under* just for that subsystem? I think [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] brought this up earlier; we seem to be very tied to the notion of "unified mechanics" as somehow being the most elegant, or "user-friendly" way of developing systems.


*I personally dislike GURPS-style 3d6-roll-under mechanics, but that's another story.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Given how many RPG mechanics cycles D&D has always been behind I wouldn't look there for innovation. (Probably the biggest demonstration of this was Ryan Dancey's notorious review of WFRP where he praises the mechanics as taking inspiration from d20 when everything he points out had been in WFRP 1 in 1985.

Sure. D&D was the first RPG, remains the only RPG with mainstream name recognition, and was the #1 RPG for decades, it hardly seems like it would need to innovate - and, the one time it did, it lost that #1 spot.

I don't thin the OSR is bigger than the story-games crowd - and they are definitely moving game design onwards. I think the only period we've had a bigger improvement in RPG design than the last decade (starting in 2003 when the Forge actually started producing good things) was the decade that started in 1967 with Braunstein 1.

Is 'story games' somehow significantly different from the storytelling trend in the 90s, led by WWGS? The classic Storyteller games are also making a come-back, is that part of it, or separate?