A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[Composer99]

Contra @overgeeked, it seems to me that players as well as GMs can just as easily declare they're ignoring the rules, with the same consequences: either the rest of the table assents and play continues, the player(s) who make such declarations are given the boot (whether temporarily or permanently) and play continues, or neither of those happens and play stops.

There are no rules in an RPG text that can compel any participant to obey the rules, and no outside authority that can enforce them: only social pressure, expectation, or opprobrium from the rest of the table can provide the necessary suasion.

That's as true for any non-GM player as it is for the GM, even in the most "trad" of trad games or the most FK-like of OSR games.

 

[clearstream]

I don't know what "OC" play or culture is.

A great thread to read on "OC" is the one I linked to. OC stands for "Orignal Character" and in a nutshell "focuses on player aspirations and interests and their realisation as the best way to produce "fun" for the players." You can also read the Six Cultures blog post for more, although I felt the thread here on Enworld does it better service.

 

[dragoner]

Too much discussion of rules bleeds into rules lawyering, I think my main consideration is "if it can't be fun, it can't be done" we skip over the boring parts. GM isn't another player, no GM, nobody plays. Plus the dramatic tension of the GM's rolls is lost without them rolling. I read stuff like this to see if there is utility, I mean my game is only 2d6 as a core. It's sci-fi so gear is important. Mechanics not so important, other than ease of use. Most of the players don't read stuff anyways, just the minimal. The one that does, is so sarcastic, it becomes difficult to parse if they are positive or negative about things anyways.

 

[clearstream]

Contra @overgeeked, it seems to me that players as well as GMs can just as easily declare they're ignoring the rules, with the same consequences: either the rest of the table assents and play continues, the player(s) who make such declarations are given the boot (whether temporarily or permanently) and play continues, or neither of those happens and play stops.

I think you are right. That's certainly one of my premises. Although I didn't take @overgeeked to be overlooking that.

There are no rules in an RPG text that can compel any participant to obey the rules, and no outside authority that can enforce them: only social pressure, expectation, or opprobrium from the rest of the table can provide the necessary suasion.

That's as true for any non-GM player as it is for the GM, even in the most "trad" of trad games or the most FK-like of OSR games.

There are probably articles in social psychology and game studies that cover much of what you point toward. (And which I would also agree with.) Regarding rule-following, a paper by Indrek Reiland is worth reading. In it, Reiland proposes that

a rule (or a set of rules) is constitutive iff:​

a) Authority: it is in force for one at a time if one enacts/accepts it at that time; and​

​

b) Content: it specifies necessary and sufficient conditions for the antecedently existing action to have the deontic status.​

​

c) Justification: it is enacted/accepted for the reason that doing so makes possible performing the new action.​

(Emphasis mine.) It can be considered together with Bernard Suit's notion of the lusory-attitude in "The Grasshopper: Games Life and Utopia" who suggests that

To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

I think you would be able to find The Grasshoper online somewhere, but a quick search didn't turn up a link for it. So far as I can make out, Suits was influenced by The Situationists who (among other things) "promoted the rise of a new social order – "the coming reign of leisure" – in which Homo Faber ("Man the Maker") would be replaced by Homo Ludens ("Man the Player")."

Anyway, the important idea is understanding games as a normally voluntary activity that requires players to accept or put rules in force for themselves in order to be able to play the game. As Suits puts it, they may accept less efficient means to achieve their game goals. So for instance, rather than just knocking my opponent's King off the board and declaring victory, I move my pieces and even allow my opponent moves according to the rules of chess. If you think about it, rules constraining and compelling a GM are requiring them to accept "less efficient means".

 

[clearstream]

Too much discussion of rules bleeds into rules lawyering, I think my main consideration is "if it can't be fun, it can't be done" we skip over the boring parts. GM isn't another player, no GM, nobody plays. Plus the dramatic tension of the GM's rolls is lost without them rolling. I read stuff like this to see if there is utility, I mean my game is only 2d6 as a core. It's sci-fi so gear is important. Mechanics not so important, other than ease of use. Most of the players don't read stuff anyways, just the minimal. The one that does, is so sarcastic, it becomes difficult to parse if they are positive or negative about things anyways.

It was hopefully clear that I agree that GM needn't be a player. Only that they can be, and that has some worthwhile ramifications. It's really down to purposes and preferences. I'm of course speaking to value I see in the neotrad trend in game design, but that doesn't mean that I don't see value in other approaches.

 

[the Jester]

What's up with the trend about starting essays but not providing definitions in the introductory materials?

Seriously. Tell us what you're talking about or watch us glaze over and lose interest.

 

[overgeeked]

This goes part and parcel with @clearstream 's proposition that neo-trad design pushes the GM---at least partially---into a role/space where they are viewed as a player, with the same constraints in regard to those areas. If the GM chooses to break those portions of rules that constrain them, it would need to be done with the full consent of the rest of the group. The GM cannot in good faith unilaterally ignore those agreed-upon constraints.

That's part of the problem, it's assumed the referee is constrained by the rules, but that's not true. The referee enforces the rules but is free to change the rules as they are the one running the game. And players constantly ask them to change the rules. It's one of the central benefits of having a living human referee instead of playing a video game. The referee is the final authority and arbiter of the game, not the rules, not the rule book, and not the players.

You put light on a significant point! Something to reflect on is how the rules can force players to do anything?

Literally nothing. The rule book is an inanimate object. The rules are text on a page. Neither can ever do anything to force the players to do anything. However, the referee, in their role as referee, can. The players either follow the rules or they bounce. The rules don't do that. The rule book doesn't do that. The referee does. Equally, the players can walk away from the game. Or the players can ask another player to walk. But at no point can the players force the referee to do anything. Yet the referee can eject players from the game. That's part of the role.

This the same loop the topic always falls into. The best I can make out is it's mutually exclusive first principles.

Contra @overgeeked, it seems to me that players as well as GMs can just as easily declare they're ignoring the rules, with the same consequences: either the rest of the table assents and play continues, the player(s) who make such declarations are given the boot (whether temporarily or permanently) and play continues, or neither of those happens and play stops.

Which again goes back to the main issue being skipped over. Without the referee, there is no game to be played. Granted, without the players, there is no game to be played. But that ignores the fact that you only need one referee and multiple players for the game to work. The referee booting a player has a nearly endless supply of players waiting to play. The players booting a referee have...not so much. It also ignores the massive disparity between the roles of player and referee, the massive disparity between the responsibilities involved in those roles, and the absolute dearth of referees compared to the overwhelming number of players. Players are more easily replaceable than referees.

There are no rules in an RPG text that can compel any participant to obey the rules, and no outside authority that can enforce them: only social pressure, expectation, or opprobrium from the rest of the table can provide the necessary suasion.

That's as true for any non-GM player as it is for the GM, even in the most "trad" of trad games or the most FK-like of OSR games.

Except this ignores the wild disparity of authority possessed by the referee compared to the players. There's nothing to force the referee to follow the rules, except for an empty table. There's the referee to force the players to follow the rules, if they want to play a game.

 

[the Jester]

A great thread to read on "OC" is the one I linked to. OC stands for "Orignal Character" and in a nutshell "focuses on player aspirations and interests and their realisation as the best way to produce "fun" for the players." You can also read the Six Cultures blog post for more, although I felt the thread here on Enworld does it better service.

It would be far more useful, IMHO, if you were to define your terms in your first post instead of basically asking readers to do some homework before participating in the discussion.

 

[dragoner]

It was hopefully clear that I agree that GM needn't be a player. Only that they can be, and that has some worthwhile ramifications. It's really down to purposes and preferences. I'm of course speaking to value I see in the neotrad trend in game design, but that doesn't mean that I don't see value in other approaches.

I agree, being GM can be a real burden, though I would like to see more issues addressed such as how to kick out problematic players? That is the part I hate. Getting players to interact with each other, and not trying to play only to the rules and GM? The grandstanding player that hogs the limelight? The player that wants to talk about the latest Jordan Peterson video they watched? Not only do I generally find the ideas repellent, trying to shift gears to suddenly have to think of ways to refute them sucks the life out of the game. We do about 10 to 1 social encounters to combat, I mean one combat, a PC was killed, and in turn two of the players gunned down their patron, and everybody was arrested. I could have quantum ogred it, and sent them to the crashed smuggler ship in the jungle filled with alien art, but that would have been kind of a railroad. Plus there had to be mucho social encounters on the way, at least they dealt with the military tribunal ok. Better ways to run social encounters is high on my list. Having to arbitrate between player disputes is a burden. Also the sort of player that is mismatched, they don't want to do what everyone else wants to do, or do gear lists like everyone else, or they want to do like superheroes. Finally the all time favorite of everyone messaging you with complaints, and so you have to take that guy aside and have a private talk. I have fully ended things by just saying I'm not having fun anymore, I'd rather somebody else run something.

 

[clearstream]

It would be far more useful, IMHO, if you were to define your terms in your first post instead of basically asking readers to do some homework before participating in the discussion.

I can add brief definitions of "OC" and "neotrad" in my opening post. Tomorrow, probably.