clearstream
(He, Him)
In this thread I aim to make two arguments. In this first post, I aim to disambiguate neotrad and OC. In brief, I'll argue that "neotrad" labels a design trend, while "OC" is a culture of play. That will obviously relate to an excellent thread about OC play. Nothing in that thread other than choice of label is contested here. In an immediately following second post, I will outline a neotrad manifesto that represents not what any one game text or blogger necessarily says today, but a direction of movement for TTRPG design.
Turning first then to semantics: the label "neo-trad" has sound provenance to a game designer's characterisation of their design approach.
In that interview, Härenstam also said that
The conflation of OC with neotrad was introduced by the author of Six Cultures of Play, who on later reflection wrote that
Differentiating between a culture of play and a TTRPG design trend clears the semantic ambiguities that could otherwise bedevil post two, following this. I will be focusing on neotrad - a design trend - and not OC - a culture of play.
Without wishing to over-commit on definitions, in a nutshell "OC" stands for "Orignal Character" and "focuses on player aspirations and interests and their realisation" while "neotrad" design integrates innovations from indie-games (largely storygames) into enduring modes of play such as trad and sim.
Turning first then to semantics: the label "neo-trad" has sound provenance to a game designer's characterisation of their design approach.
In 2015, Tomas Härenstam speaking about his Mutant: Year Zero roleplaying game, defined it “neotrad” game for the first time. “it’s got the production values, ease of use and plentiful campaign material of a traditional RPG, combined with the kind of clever and thematic rules design usually found in the indie games”, he said.
In that interview, Härenstam also said that
This "close link with the game itself" implemented into a design delivers strong utility to OC, but neotrad designs can also demonstrably favour non-OC play. An apposite example is Härenstam's Forbidden Lands, which favours sandbox/OSR-ish play with a lethality that works against OC play.Players Characters are created with a specific mission or assignment, or other meaningful tasks to fulfill in the game. They are not simply created as part of the fictional world, they have a close link with the game itself.
The conflation of OC with neotrad was introduced by the author of Six Cultures of Play, who on later reflection wrote that
(Emphasis mine.)If I were to go back and rewrite the essay, I would have avoided linking to the Brattit essay this time around. The author there is talking about a school of designing games, whereas I'm talking about a play culture in my essay. I originally put it in to show that people were using the term at all, but I think it confused more than it helped.
I agree with your characterisation of the neo-trad school of design as basically taking mechanics from story games and integrating them into more traditional RPG systems. My take is that it's not a new play culture, but still part of trad culture. It's a good expression of the permeability of the cultures, how they're not about specific mechanics, but about the goals of play. Methods developed in story games can be adopted and used in trad play, and vice versa (IMHO, a good thing for all involved).
For the play culture, one reason I proposed using the term "neo-trad" was to highlight that it's a closer evolution from the trad play culture than most of the other successors (story games, etc.). I've taken to mostly calling it "OC" after a number of people shared the confusion over the school of design vs the play culture, but haven't altered the original essay to avoid rendering a couple hundred comments using the term unintelligible. When I'm eventually able to write the follow-up, I'm probably going to suggest uniformly calling it "OC".
Differentiating between a culture of play and a TTRPG design trend clears the semantic ambiguities that could otherwise bedevil post two, following this. I will be focusing on neotrad - a design trend - and not OC - a culture of play.
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