Pathfinder 1E Wizkids should take the Pathfinder 1.0 ruleset and publish their own RPG.

[Campbell]

And yet people take scenarios meant for one game and play them in another all the time.

This is generally done with games that are broadly similar or with significant alteration to fit the expectations of the game. If I am playing in a Dungeon World game and the DM tries to run a 2nd Edition railroad words will be had. That's not what I signed up for. Same thing if they did so in a B/X game. From my perspective this is just like if we are playing poker and you start taking tricks like it was euchre. That's not the game we're playing.

All games are built on social accords. We all agree that we are doing something together and agree to do it a certain way. We can agree to change that as a group if we choose to. Role playing games are not special in that way.

 

[Parmandur]

This is generally done with games that are broadly similar or with significant alteration to fit the expectations of the game. If I am playing in a Dungeon World game and the DM tries to run a 2nd Edition railroad words will be had. That's not what I signed up for. Same thing if they did so in a B/X game. From my perspective this is just like if we are playing poker and you start taking tricks like it was euchre. That's not the game we're playing.

All games are built on social accords. We all agree that we are doing something together and agree to do it a certain way. We can agree to change that as a group if we choose to. Role playing games are not special in that way.

This is a strange way to look at it for me: story is story, characters are characters.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I recall saying that a lot of them are not that some of them aren't.

I am at work so unfortunately cannot address all of what you wrote. But kindly address the above. At least word it in a way that makes more sense.

It's on the same juvenile level as when kids play freeze games where they are required not to move. One kid stands still and the other kid pedantically points out that the first kid was technically moving their chest when breathing or when they blinked.

I am not sure any of this is relevant for constructive and reasonable discussion.

 

[Campbell]

This is a strange way to look at it for me: story is story, characters are characters.

The experience at the table matters to me. This is a thing we are doing as a group. Part of what I am looking for when I play a game like Dungeon World or Masks or Apocalypse World is that we are all finding out what the story is together, including the GM. When I play these games I am not looking to be an audience member. This quote from Monsterhearts explains it better than me:

Keep the story feral.

The conversation that you have with the other players and with the rules create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. As you play, you might feel an impulse to domesticate that story. You form an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular. All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: you’d have to take control.

The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants. Nobody’s experience is enriched when one person turns the collective conversation into their own private story.

So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story emerges from wildness. Play to find out what happens next. Let yourself be surprised.

This is the kind of thing I am talking about when I talk about playing to find out what happens.

However, when I play B/X I am definitely not looking for a story. I am looking to play a game and play it skillfully. Story is what happens after play. This is a war game.

Under the right circumstances playing through a GM's story can be fun if I know that is what we are doing. I won't put the same energy into my character, but it can be fun. The Fifth Edition I am a player in is like this. Generally in these sorts of situations I am not going to play the game or my character particularly hard because neither is really a strong focus of play.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I recall saying that a lot of them are not that some of them aren't.

What.

As to whether or not being personally wowed is beside the point, how about you tell me? You are the one who first put forth the proposition "They are in fact innovating mechanics." I said in response that I didn't find most of these mechanical innovations all that innovative. It seems like the technical innovations that these 5e compatible systems put forth is comparatively marginal: set pieces, window dressing, and accessories. (Which is an apt summary IMO of what you highlight below.)

I hope you understand why I say your subjective opinion is besides the point. Whether they are innovating mechanics can be objectively quantified. If they are introducing mechanics that are original ideas and new and by that virtue something that has not appeared in 5e. Then yes that is innovation.

So let's be clear here, you are construing my earlier statement that "I have not seen all that much in the way of innovative mechanics come out of the 5e compatible lines. A lot of retreading of similar ideas with reskinned ideas and mechanics" as an absolute statement that there is nothing new such that this argument can be simply disproven by pointing out that any innovations at all technically occurred, but that's clearly a dishonest or at least a disingenuous reading.

No I am taking it at face value and I am approaching it from a fair and reasonable viewpoint. And I am giving examples where your statement is demonstrably incorrect. The examples clearly speak for themselves. Thinking my reply to be clearly a dishonest or disingenuous reading is a response in bad faith.

But I don't particularly find most of this stuff all that innovative, and we can go through the list and talk about it in further detail and even talk of the things I find more innovative, but that seems like a bit of a distraction. Is that a subjective sense? Sure. But trying to make this argument be about an objective sense where you somehow disprove my argumentation by demonstrating that innovation technically happened seems a bit inconsequential to me.

Sure we can discuss this further. And we can discuss why you find the examples I have given thus far are considered by you to be retreading similar ideas and reskinning ideas and mechanics. When they are clearly not. I can also find further examples.

It's on the same juvenile level as when kids play freeze games where they are required not to move. One kid stands still and the other kid pedantically points out that the first kid was technically moving their chest when breathing or when they blinked.

This is completely and utterly irrelevant.

I'm still seeing this as orthogonal to the issue - at least in the way that you are framing it - since a GM may prefer a tight game that only uses the official materials. Some GMs only prefer using the PHB only. Some permit everything, sky's the limit. I don't really think that this speaks to my concern about "5e material Borgifying the market." But you clearly want me to bite on this bait you have laid out, so why don't you spare us all the hassle and just pretend that you caught me in your clever ruse? At this point, I would prefer that you get to your point.

I am specifically asking you. There is no confusion in my framing of the question. I am asking about the players involved in your games. You are simply avoiding answering.

 

[Aldarc]

What.

I said that a lot of games (i.e., not all games) are just retreading similar ideas and reskinning ideas and mechanics not that some of them aren't innovating. You are attempting to falsify a different hypothesis than the one that was put forth, hence why I find your argument to come across as pedantic.

I hope you understand why I say your subjective opinion is besides the point. Whether they are innovating mechanics can be objectively quantified. If they are introducing mechanics that are original ideas and new and by that virtue something that has not appeared in 5e. Then yes that is innovation.

This is completely and utterly irrelevant.

I would have hoped you have understood why the analogy was not irrelevant - boy was I mistaken - because it is illustrative of the sort nitpicky, pedantic games that you are trying to play. "Ah ha! You are moving when you breath," is on a similar level as "Ah ha! There is a slightly new mechanic in this game so it innovated."

No I am taking it at face value and I am approaching it from a fair and reasonable viewpoint. And I am giving examples where your statement is demonstrably incorrect. The examples clearly speak for themselves. Thinking my reply to be clearly a dishonest or disingenuous reading is a response in bad faith.

It seems to me that if you were "taking it at face value and I am approaching it from a fair and reasonable viewpoint" then you wouldn't be trying to play these pedantic games.

Sure we can discuss this further. And we can discuss why you find the examples I have given thus far are considered by you to be retreading similar ideas and reskinning ideas and mechanics. When they are clearly not. I can also find further examples.

Sure.

Odyssey of the Dragonlords has epic paths.

When you look at it in detail, it's less of an actual mechanic and more story fluff that is meant to provide an in-game hook for your character. What is the actual impact of play for this mechanic? It's kinda underwhelming given the relative emphasis the Kickstarter had on this. You can find a more robust version of "Epic Paths" with Primeval Thule's "Character Narratives," which are also similar to the ladders you mention below.

Ultramodern5 has lifepaths and ladders. And of course takes a modern spin.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Ultramodern5 just the 5e update/conversion of Ultramodern4 that was written for the 4th Edition D&D OGL? And was it not this prior iteration of Ultramodern that innovated the idea of ladders that would coexist with your class choice? And aren't these ladders not an iteration of the Character Themes from 4e Dark Sun?

Regarding lifepaths, they even say it themselves in the book that lifepaths are just an expansion of backgrounds. From what I can tell, lifepaths seem to repackage a similar idea from Traveller albeit stripped of any mechanical weight as it applies to generating a character's backstory fluff.

Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5e provides their own dread and insanity mechanics.

Didn't Imaro and Parmandur establish earlier in this thread that the DMG already has its own optional mechanics for this?

I can save you some time and say that I believe that Pugmire is probably one of the more innovative offerings because it crunches the game to 10 levels, streamlines some aspects of the game (though arguably not enough), and while also deconstructing the game and its character options. (It does reskin a lot though.) If it was decoupled from its somewhat charming anthromorphic setting and deconstructed further, then it would have a lot of potential as a 5e Accelerated or even as the basis for a revitalized 5e Modern.

I am specifically asking you. There is no confusion in my framing of the question. I am asking about the players involved in your games. You are simply avoiding answering.

(1) I have enough self-awareness to recognize that this answer is contextualized on the sort of game that I would want to run. (2) My players have never approached me as a GM requesting to use 3pp for 5e so it has never come up.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I have a request @Aldarc that you put forward your arguments without the need to resort to snide and sniping remarks. It would be better overall for the thread. Thank you.

 

[Umbran]

D&D tells us to make decisions as our characters would make them, and strongly condemns meta-gaming. FATE tells us to make decisions that will create a better story, with rules to encourage meta-gaming.

This is oft-touted, but does not ring true.

Let us be honest - to make this claim for D&D, we have to contort ourselves around making large swaths of game-rule information an in-game construct, such that every PC is actually carrying a copy of Mordenkainen's "Howe Thee Worlde Reallye Workes" in their adventurer's packs. That book looks remarkably like a PHB, classifying spells in levels, and not batting an eye on how Druid and wizard spells have exactly the same effects, discussing how adventurer toughness seems to be quantified in levels, their toughness modeled with dice of varying sizes...

And, of course, the assertion that we don't metagame flies out the window when you get to the folks who love the tactical wargame, detailed movement, and playing the detailed rules, where all the characters go about like a well-oiled machine, even though they aren't able to communicate in detail in six seconds what everyone is going to do....

Moreover, most adventuring parties would quickly fall apart if they weren't driven by the players understanding that unless someone gets really egregious in their behavior, we all have to get along. Belkar would not be tolerated if we didn't metagame, but strangely, we all have Belkars (or some other thing we compromise on what we will work with for the good of the game) in our lives. So, the platitudes of how D&D doesn't have metagaming are... platitudes, but not the general reality.

If you really feel that somehow you work without any metagame considerations.... well fine. Go you! How confident are you that, if we walked through any convention game hall, or into any FLGS in the nation, and watched a game, I'd not be able to point out a dozen instances of metagame thinking in a given session? I don't think you should be at all confident about that.

Given that, the question isn't about what the game encourages. It is about what the game will support. And, guess what? FATE will work fine if you limit yourself to non-metagame decisions. Your aspects can be chosen to describe entirely in-game abilities and backstory.

 

[Aldarc]

I have a request @Aldarc that you put forward your arguments without the need to resort to snide and sniping remarks. It would be better overall for the thread. Thank you.

Almost the entirety of what I wrote addresses what you asked of me and addresses your argument. That said, I do find your argument that you are putting forth to be pedantic and involve strawmen arguments where you are falsifying a different argument than the one made. @Umbran is above, and he has made comments already about this thread. If you believe that I am stepping over the line, then you are welcome to report me and make your case.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Almost the entirety of what I wrote addresses what you asked of me and addresses your argument. That said, I do find your argument that you are putting forth to be pedantic and involve strawmen arguments where you are falsifying a different argument than the one made. @Umbran is above, and he has made comments already about this thread. If you believe that I am stepping over the line, then you are welcome to report me and make your case.

I do not have an issue with what you write or your opinions. That has never been the issue. I and I think a few others in this thread have an issue with how you phrase your points.