Trad/mainstream rpgs

#41

Apologies if I got it wrong, the example you used suggested to me a concern with the ability of a pass/fail mechanic to dead-end play - which I agree is a valid concern in some cases but one amenable to many solutions and fairly managed with trad-rpg play at this point.

The additional distinction I take from this comment, is the importance of player input on the “but” or “and” that follows the “Yes”. This is a difference, and in the context of what I was pointing out about pass/fail mechanics it’s important because it’s sort of shifting the player decision point to after the roll. To again usr the Han Solo example, it’s the GM saying “So you evade the space cops, but now your ship is in a dangerous situation - what happened?” as opposed to “The space cops are right behind you, their ships are fast, maybe faster then you. (Then maube a random table roll) There’s lumpy, oddly organic asteroids nearby, a field of radiation and a well armed alien freighter in range - what do you do?” Both potentially end with Han’ s ship in the mouth of the asteroid beast, but the ethos feels different. Does that seem closer to your understanding?

#42

Sorry, @Gus.L - I may have worded that rather more strongly that I intended to come across. I’m glad you didn’t take it the wrong way!

Your thoughts on dead-ending play aren’t wrong, after all - they’re just not the whole picture, either. It’s hard to talk about this definitively when each game is going to be different. The example you used makes sense, for example, but as gamers and designers we can fool around with who gets to say what: it can be a player narration technique, as in your example, or not (a game which uses non-binary resolution could still look like your “trad” play in your example, too, and many do).

These games do tend, generally, to be put together so that one dynamic situation flows into the next, which makes for fun and furious gameplay, and “yes, but” style outcomes create exciting and complex situations pretty reliably, which is quite enjoyable.

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#43

Lot’s of great stuff, but I want to focus in and clarify a bit from my experience and perspective.

There are a bunch of follow ups which take about gradients of success, and while I think results can be a spectrum and generally make things more interesting. To me, the important part here is not the multiple options but the last part about moving the story forward. For me, when I engage with a mechanism, especially one with a randomizer (like dice), I want the situation to change after the resolution of the mechanism. No matter what level of success. This can happen in a binary success/fail setup, this can happen in a tiered setup.

Going in with this mindset that the situation has to change no matter the roll, has made me think about what situations actually should have a roll. So, given the binary pass/fail setup, if pass doesn’t change the situation OR fail doesn’t change the situation, I generally don’t want the randomizer.

"Wait!", you say, what about saving throws? Can they dodge? Does the poison kill them? Can they open the door? Yup I don’t like any of those radomized situations. If you are just rolling again to see if the consequence takes effect, roll it into the consequence of the previous roll. Can they make a perception check? Nope, if there is no situation change for the failure, they just get the information; if there is no information to be gained, I just tell them so.

"Wait!, what about spending time as a resource as a consequence of a failure?" Hmmm, okay sure that can work… but, to me, a much more interesting thing is instead of abstracting it out as a nebulous, “it takes lots of time” actually show a consequence. Have guards/patrol find them. Use up a torch, make the ritual they are trying to stop finish, etc. If the situation is controlled, and there isn’t really any “risk”, figure out what the general idea of how the situation could change for each possible result.

To me, this is my problem with “trad” rolls. It’s not that they are binary, it’s that many (if not most) have “the situation is exactly the same” as the fail state.

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#44

This is a great explanation of “rolling with consequences”, @yoshi. Back in the good old days of internet debates over theory, this was often referred to as the difference between “task resolution” and “conflict resolution”. There are many other variables involved, of course, but distinguishing between those concepts really improved gaming for some people, and made more dynamic and exciting.

In general, I think that a lot of people who do well with “trad gaming” already do many of these things - e.g. making sure something happens on a failure - and therefore don’t see the problem, whereas those who don’t or didn’t experience a really dramatic improvement in their play with more “modern” mechanics. So, in a way, it’s more about your experience than about determining a “right or wrong” - both perspectives can be true.

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#45

That’s an interesting take yoshi, and seems in line with Paul T.'s - it seems like the suggestion is that the important distinction between these mechanics (which there must be because a lot of people are commenting on it) is the way the mechanical test (die roll) interacts with story The “Yes, but…” test (which may sometimes involve failure?) mechanic is perceived as always moving “story” forward while the “Pass/fail” mechanic is viewed as creating story stasis.

The specifics I see mentioned are the locked door and the way a failure at a skill check involved leaves the situation unchanged (and yes, if you’re making people roll lockpick checks when there’s no resource management mechanics [themselves useless without meaningful encumbrance mechanics] or random encounters it’s not worthwhile - especially if they only get one chance per door.) Now as I’ve argued above, a failed player scheme requiring a different scheme - or in the case of the classic dungeon crawl a new route on the map, itself a major puzzle in a play style about resolving puzzles - represents a story change in that it builds risk and tension when used with related mechanics (e.g. resource management and random encounters). This idea doesn’t seem to have currency with those who reject pass/fail mechanics - and I’m thinking about why?

Part of that may be that more recent trad games (see my comments on 5E above) largely dispense with a resource intensive dungeoncrawl ethos while retaining legacy mechanics, sometimes in frustrating ways.

If I can guess I think the binary and non-binary resolution mechanic distinction is largely a distinction in play style - with non-binary mechanics a means to get more story propulsive results in play styles where setting and world design aren’t location/map based/spatial - back to Han solo on the run again…

If Han’s space chase exists on a map with mechanics that allow for incremental movement and various marked encounters (or randomly generated ones perhaps) that the player can decide to hazard to escape (the hungry asteroids, the rad storm, the pirate base etc.) then the various pass/fail mechanic to determine the success in a particular encounter or of a particular escape scheme don’t create a dead end or other drag on story - because there are obvious alternate routes to continue the story.

In a system or game that’s more scene based (especially if it’s improvisational to a significant degree), without a prepped space map or space escape table, a pass/fail mechanic risks ending the story a roll that determines “Does Han Escape?” is the limit of binary story possibility (as opposed to where does Han choose to hide and how does he face the individual challenges of the various opportunities to hide (1) ) because the player lacks prior knowledge of potential escape routes. The “Yes, but…” mechanic (or a “No, but…” one presumably) allows the post-facto addition of a story details that allow the adventure to continue in the face of failure (or likely flow into a new obstacle in case of success) and it also at least to some degree removes these details form the GM’s total control - the dice say what degree of consequences exist better allowing for player input and potentially disrupting ‘railroading’ tendencies of a GM narrative.

The intent is the same, the infrastructure of play and prep are different. Now I can see objections about curtailing player choice/promoting GM fiat raised to either type of mechanic here - and that’s a discussion for a different day (at least for me). Again thanks for the thoughtful answers - I obviously come from one tradition of play, and am trying to understand the hows and why of another, so these kind of answers even when they seem obvious or confused are very helpful for me.

(1) I note the obvious opportunity for sharing narrative control here by directly asking the player this question.

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#46

I’d say you pretty much nailed it! Well said.

It’s worth remembering that most “trad” (but not OSR) games fall into the category you describe.

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#47

I’ve only played Lovecraftesque once and it provided s great one-shot. I think we played it pretty loose so I’d like to have some time to fully understand some of the mechanical framework that is, I think, intended to make it a little less loosey-goosey.

Cthulhu Dark was a revelation when I discovered it I haven’t played the native rules yet, but have hacked it for WW2. It is a very elegant set of rules that are deceptively simple and there are some good APs on the Gauntlet YouTube channel … or it might be in Jason’s. It’s also the root for Trophy which I have yet to play but a lot of people whose view I respect rave about it.

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#48

I think there may be a pool of players as they’ve been about for a long time and people sometimes prefer to stick with what they know. There may also be more at the early entry level as they are often the only one that are easily available to parents/ relatives who don’t know how much else is out there, perhaps.

I’ve speculated about whether they also provide a gateway because while the rules are not ‘simple’ they are straightforward and cover most circumstances a new GM might encounter with a rule &/or die-roll, while more indie/narrative/story games require more improv and judgement calls from a GM and players.

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#49

Cthulhu Dark seems a very elegant basis for all those CoC books/pdfs that I never quite got to the table for the reasons you describe … and the frustrating ‘you need to find clue X to proceed’ situations.

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#50

I haven’t yet played Cthulhu Dark, and it’s very high on my “Want to try” list.

That very problem is why Trail of Cthulhu and the whole GUMSHOE system exists!

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#51

I play a fair amount of FFG Star Wars with my face-to-face group. (I don’t run it myself, but two of the other part-time GM:s do.)

It’s a decent game, fairly streamlined mechanically, and character creation and advancement is fun. There are several drawbacks as well - there’s tons of species and equipment to keep track of, for my taste it’s a bit too (small-s) simulationist to get the proper Star Wars feeling - but the two big ones are that the latency is way too big (from declaring your actions to having resolved it fully there’s a lot of time spent assembling your dice pool, going back and forth with the GM about spending Destiny points, reading your dice, choosing how to spend your advantages etc) and that the abstract positioning doesn’t work very well with complex situations. Houseruling in some very basic rules for movement and range using miniatures actually made combats faster for us because you can see what’s going on and don’t need to ask what is where all the time. Also, space combat is a bit naff.

So, uh, that’s a lot of drawbacks. But it’s still fun enough to play, and as long as you don’t sweat the details too much it flows well. Honestly, the biggest hurdle for me is the dice rolling - it produces good results, but getting there is such a slog compared to PbtA style 2d6+stat or even a typical D&D d20 plus mods vs DC.

I will say it does Jedi and other Force users very well, though. They get access to all the cool abilities, but they’re expensive enough that while the Jedi is mastering his ability to toss around things with their mind or manipulate the weak-willed, the smuggler will get an equal amount of pilot tricks and the alien with the massive gun will get even better at massive gunning. We’ve run several mixed parties without any issues.

So that’s my current big trad game. We used to play a lot of D&D 4E and we’ve talked about getting that going again, but there are some issues with that game that I’ve spent several years trying to get to grips with.

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#52

What are the big classic published campaigns for various classic RPGs?

I’m thinking like the Great Pendragon Campaign for Pendragon, the Enemy within for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the Darkening of Mirkwood for The One Ring, etc.

I imagine there are a few for DnD but for me it’s the extended Queen of the Spiders series that runs from Against the Giants through the G, D and Q modules.

I’m particularly interested in identifying the classic campaigns for Runequest, Earthdawn or Mech Warrior if they exist.

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#53

IMHO, the classic Runequest campaign is called, Pavis, Gateway to Adventure

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#54

For me, as for Hopeless Wanderer, the defining RQ campaign was the Pavis Campaign but supplemented by the River of Cradles set.

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#55

Yes, I should have mentioned River of Cradles too. The final module is an important capstone for the whole Glorantha world vision.

#56

Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu for sure.

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#57

Yep, good suggestion.

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#58

I’m a pretty big fan of the Temple of Elemental Evil mega-campaign for D&D that starts with the level 1 Village of Homlette.

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#59

I’m fairly new to ttrpg’s, and I’ve basically only played 5e. And I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s probably due to the availability/accessibility.

That being said, I’ve really loved the spotlight given to storytelling by other systems. I like the way that travel is run in Dungeon World (which I have yet to actually play - I’ve only heard it from listening to We Hunt the Keepers), and I’ve been toying with the idea of working that into our 5e game.

Getting back to the original question, I play 5e because that’s what currently gets me and my friends around the table; though, I’m sure they’re up for any system.

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#60

Ohhhhh! Hommlet … I’d forgotten about Hommlet … It was a VERY long time ago, though. Oldies but Goldies.

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