I'm not sure I understand the feeling of being locked into a path. Yeah Archetypes aren't quite as customizable as doing full level dips into other classes - but they allow you to open things up quite a lot. And retraining can allow you to "look back" and choose a new path fairly readily.
Personal taste but im not a fan of retraining. Its ok for newbs who find out their choice was not a preferred one, but im already seeing people respec things at different levels where its optimal to do so. Yuck. Also, retraining just takes you from one narrow path to another. There is not enough versatility in PF2 without variant rules, imo.
I guess I just don't feel those paths are all that narrow.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Got a copy of Razor Coast recently so I'm going to mix that up with Skull and Shackles (again), so that's Pathfinder Classic.
I also have a copy of Frog God's Razor Coast and I also have a copy of Green Ronin's Freeport: City of Adventure, both for PF1. Between those and the "Skull and Shackles" AP, there's a lot of piratical adventuring potential on my game shelf.
I've been thinking of using those alongside GR's Freeport Fate Companion to put together a pirates game using Fate Condensed as the ruleset...
Got a copy of Razor Coast recently so I'm going to mix that up with Skull and Shackles (again), so that's Pathfinder Classic.I also have a copy of Frog God's Razor Coast and I also have a copy of Green Ronin's Freeport: City of Adventure, both for PF1. Between those and the "Skull and Shackles" AP, there's a lot of piratical adventuring potential on my game shelf.
I've been thinking of using those alongside GR's Freeport Fate Companion to put together a pirates game using Fate Condensed as the ruleset...
If you need even more, Legendary Games put out a pirate campaign compendium that's a few hundred page hardcover I picked up as an add-on on one of their kickstarters. I think it was originally a bunch of side content for Skulls and Shackles with the serial numbers filed off. Might be worth snagging the PDF from them as they do top notch work.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you need even more, Legendary Games put out a pirate campaign compendium that's a few hundred page hardcover I picked up as an add-on on one of their kickstarters. I think it was originally a bunch of side content for Skulls and Shackles with the serial numbers filed off. Might be worth snagging the PDF from them as they do top notch work.Got a copy of Razor Coast recently so I'm going to mix that up with Skull and Shackles (again), so that's Pathfinder Classic.I also have a copy of Frog God's Razor Coast and I also have a copy of Green Ronin's Freeport: City of Adventure, both for PF1. Between those and the "Skull and Shackles" AP, there's a lot of piratical adventuring potential on my game shelf.
I've been thinking of using those alongside GR's Freeport Fate Companion to put together a pirates game using Fate Condensed as the ruleset...
Thanks! I already have PDFs of most of that LG Pirate Campaign content from before they compiled it all into a hardcover. And, yes, that book is "Skull & Shackles" bonus content with the Golarion world-lore removed or obviously renamed... much of which was written by the same authors as the AP itself.
Oh... and if you're looking for a rules-light, narrative-focused RPG about pirates in a fantasy setting akin to the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean film series: I highly recommend Rapscallion by Magpie Games.
In my Traveller game combat is really simplistic. Your distance from the target and whether they have cover or not is pretty much the only thing we need to know. Everything else is handled via initiative.
I do encourage skill use during combat and then its a narrative give and take between myself (GM) and the players. For example, a player might ask if they can hack a security system and try and trap a foe inside an office they are using for cover. I'll figure out what I consider a reasonable amount of time (rounds) and then the player makes a check at the end to see if it work out.
I try to live by rule of cool, but I dont agree with players are always right philosophy either. Im a "yes, but..." type GM.
Lighter mechanic systems do generally place less emphasis on exact distances and attacks of opportunity. One thing I've done in lighter systems is import the "Range Band" mechanic from Genesys into any theater of the mind descriptions.
So if we're in combat in a hallway I would describe the distance between your opponent and you as either being in
"Engaged" range where you are in direct contact with each other
"Short" range where you are in the range to easily strike each other
"Medium" range where you are a movement away being able to easily strike each other.
"Long" range where you are two movements away from being able to easily strike each other.
"Extreme" range where you are three or more movements away from being able to easily strike each other.
It doesn't have to be that specific description, but at our table this would act as an agreed upon description of distances that can remain abstract enough for both my mental picture of the scene and theirs.
Once you have a common lexicon like that, you use it in your action descriptions so that you can make the abstract as clear as possible.
Lighter mechanic systems do generally place less emphasis on exact distances and attacks of opportunity. One thing I've done in lighter systems is import the "Range Band" mechanic from Genesys into any theater of the mind descriptions.
So if we're in combat in a hallway I would describe the distance between your opponent and you as either being in
"Engaged" range where you are in direct contact with each other
"Short" range where you are in the range to easily strike each other
"Medium" range where you are a movement away being able to easily strike each other.
"Long" range where you are two movements away from being able to easily strike each other.
"Extreme" range where you are three or more movements away from being able to easily strike each other.It doesn't have to be that specific description, but at our table this would act as an agreed upon description of distances that can remain abstract enough for both my mental picture of the scene and theirs.
Once you have a common lexicon like that, you use it in your action descriptions so that you can make the abstract as clear as possible.
Traveller is exactly like this only it calls "engaged" personal and extreme distant instead. Its a simple move action to cover one distance.
Traveller is exactly like this only it calls "engaged" personal and extreme distant instead. Its a simple move action to cover one distance.
That is indeed identical.
One thing I've always wondered about in mechanics-lite or diceless RPGs: how do you deal with differences of the vision or fantasy of the narrative?
Just over this past weekend I struggled b/c my players couldn't visualize a hallway where we were having a fight. We're playing over Zoom but it's PF1 so tons of rules; where you are in a fight in proximity to your foes matters. As such he and I needed to absolutely be on the same page about what "square" his PC was in when the PC started to move sideways to heal themselves.
Now I'm not just saying for fights but just in general - how do you deal in less crunchy systems with one player envisioning a scene one way and the GM or another player seeing it differently? When I was a kid this was the primary thing me and my buddies argued about in D&D or Marvel games. We were fans of not using minis or maps, but as a result there were tons of "but that's not where I WAS!" or "I never said I was actually going IN the room..." or whatever.
At least when I'm running a rules-heavy game like 5e or PF1 I have some movement or skill mechanics to fall back on. I wonder if these are even issues faced in more narrative-heavy games or if they are how they're resolved.
It depends on the specific system, but the GM pretty much just sets the scene and the players react accordingly. When I GM, I very frequently use a technique called "Paint the Scene," where I give an overall description in broad strokes, and then I'll ask one or more leading questions to the players for them to fill in the details. And if they get excited about a detail they added, then I'll generally make it important, or at least interesting. That's part of the shared narrative structure that's inherent to narrative-focused games.
Most of the time, the GM doesn't have a map. Details come up as we play out the scene. But if I am using a map, I'll just show it to the players. I don't bother trying to hide bits they haven't seen yet.
As for positioning during a fight: Most of the games that I play that even have a combat system at all don't use exact tactical positioning. Players describe what their characters are doing, and the GM does their best to make sense out of it, usually by asking clarifying questions. For example, in Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, and Impuse Drive there are four ranges: Hand, Close, Near, and Far. These ranges are purely descriptive and deliberately a bit vague.
Hand = You're within arm's reach. Weapons with the Hand range tag might include fists, knives, blackjacks, brass knuckles, cattle prods, etc.
Close = You're within a step or two or your opponent. Weapons with the Close tag would include swords, spears, baseball bats, battleaxes, lightsabers, polearms, etc.
Near = You're close enough to talk in a normal voice, like across the room or across the street. Weapons with the Near tag include thrown weapons, pistols, tasers, shortbows, slings, etc.
Far = You're in shouting distance or farther, like across a field. Weapons with the Far tag include longbows, crossbows, rifles, RPGs, etc.
As for non-combat positioning: Again, it depends on the game. Generally, you describe what you're doing, and the GM figures out whether or how that triggers appropriate game mechanics. So, if your roguish character is looking for traps on the status of the demon, I'll ask "Okay: What exactly are you doing to look for them?" If you're going to spray fine powder at it through a blowtube to look for tripwires, that's going to have narrative and possibly mechanical differences than if you're walking up to it and poking it with a stick.
For a detailed description of the "Paint the Scene" technique, check out Jason Cordova's 2018 blog entry on the subject over at The Gauntlet Blog.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have learned a number of what I feel are powerful and effective GM techniques over the past few years. While these techniques have come out of the indie RPG scene and are intended for use in narrative-focused games, I've had excellent luck incorporating them when I run OSR and more rules-heavy trad RPGs like 5E or Pathfinder.
In case anyone might be interested...
The 7-3-1 Technique by Jason Cordova
Questions and Random Tables by Horst Wurst
Paint the Scene by Jason Cordova
Establishing Questions by Jason Cordova
Lessons from Online Gaming by Lowell Francis
Making Combat Interesting by Skyler Nelson
Sharing the Cognitive Load by Gerrit Renninghaus
Using Hard Moves to be Fans of the Characters by Kate Bullock and Jason Cordova
GMing for Theme and Motif by Alexi Sargeant
Perception Checks for Richer Narrative by Judd Karlman
Happy reading!
What do you do with fairly mundane, routine Perception checks that really don't have a consequence?
You don't call for a roll. Just tell them what they see.
(That's a general rule of thumb in my book: Don't call for a roll unless failure is interesting.)
Looking at your example: I'll be honest in saying that I don't really have a solution for you here. The sort of play your describe is anathema to both my GMing style and the sorts of RPGs that I prefer to play. I'm not saying that style of play is wrong, but it is not to my taste at all.
Playing a narrative-focused RPG requires a fundamentally different mindset and approach than does playing a traditional rules-focused RPG like games in the D&D family. Fundamentally: That's not how you even interact with the game mechanics. The "Notice Stuff" mechanics generally work on a completely different conceptual framework than Perception checks work in Pathfinder.
Let's take Dungeon World for example.
As a "Powered by the Apocalpyse" game, there is no "perception check". Game mechanics never happen passively: Everything is narrative until a character does something in the fiction that actively triggers game mechanics. Characters never make ability checks or skill checks: it's all in shared narrative until a character takes an action that triggers a move.
The "Notice Stuff" mechanic in DW is the move, "Discern Realities." Here's how that works...
Discern Realities
When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. On a 7–9, ask 1. Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.* What happened here recently?
* What is about to happen?
* What should I be on the lookout for?
* What here is useful or valuable to me?
* Who’s really in control here?
* What here is not what it appears to be?
Notes:
1) Triggering the move requires close observation. You generally have to interact directly with a location, object, or person to trigger the move: Pick it up and examine it closely; tap at the walls or floor and listen for echoes; peer at the seams with a magnifying glass; have a nontrivial conversation.2) It's a lot more than noticing odd details or picking up clues: This move give you answers about the bigger picture. Precisely how is up to the GM and is dependent on how the character interacted with whatever they're discerning realities about.
In DW, the GM always provides honest information about what the characters perceive and experience; when the GM answers the questions they must answer honestly.
Here's an example from the rulebook...
Player: I don’t trust this room—I’m going to poke around a little. I take out my tools and start messing with stuff. I pull candlesticks and tap the walls with my hammer. My usual tricks.
GM: Sure. That sounds like discern realities?
Player: Oh yes. *rolls* 12! I discern all the realities!
GM: Cool! Three questions.
Player: “What here is not as it appears to be?”
GM: Well, it’s obvious to you that the wall on the north side of the room has a hollow spot. The stones are newer and the mortar is fresher, probably a hidden alcove or passageway.
Player: Okay. “Who sealed the room.”
GM: That’s not on the list, so I’m going pretend you asked, “What happened here recently.” Looking at the stonework, you notice the wall actually bends out in places. The work is shoddy and awful—it looks to you like the work of goblins. The only way it’d get bent out that way, though, is if there was something pushing it from within.
Player: So either the goblins blocked it from the other side, or there’s something in there that tried to get out.
GM: Bingo. One more question...
Here's how your scenario above might play out with players on the same page...
GM: You stand at the top of a long stairwell, descending into darkness. What do you do?
Player 1: I can see in the dark. What's down there?
Player 2: I hold up my shield, which I've cast a Light spell on, so I should be able to see down there as well.
Player 3: I look down there too. Does my familiar hear anything?
Player 4: I'm guarding the rear in case anything tries to sneak up behind us.
GM: The stairs descend to a landing, maybe 30 feet down or therabout. It looks like they might continue down from the landing maybe in the opposite direction, but you don't really have a clear view from here. You don't see signs of anything trying to follow you. What do you do?
Nothing in that interaction triggered a move, so no dice hit the table.
Oh... in DW, some characters can have the ability, "Darkvision: You can see in the dark." That's it. That's the rule. There's also no differing levels of light. Sighting distances are up to what makes sense in the situation. Magic is vaguely-defined: There may very well be magical darkness that darkvision can't see through or torches can't illuminate, but if so, that would be strange and wondrous, and under the purview of the GM.
And as for when to decide for when dice hit the table: Don't roll unless failure is interesting. And players should never roll unless the GM calls for it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Dark vision is a cool concept, but im not sure about low light. Combine that with the light cantrip and Ive given up on darkness in PF.
Crunchy systems are going to promote skill play over narrative play. I've found that players who are really proficient with a rules system like PF, need to leave it to break those habits.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I ran across a Twitter thread by Indonesian indie RPG designer Zedeck Siew that really got at the differences between indie/rules-light RPGs and traditional/rules-focused RPGs in terms of how the rules are written:
For those who don't want to go to Twitter...
My fave RPG rule texts are ones that trust players. Games like Knave and Troika! set their ethos by what they *don't say*, as much as the rules they provide:
"You are sharing a cool experience with friends, here's a scaffold, climb all over it and build something together"
PS: Troika! still has, in my estimation, the best "what is an RPG?" section ever written. Basically:
"Oh wow you are getting into RPGs for the first time, here's what it is, don't be scared, just go for it, I'm so excited for you!"
Image: Text from Troika! rulebook
Modern-edition D&D is pretty much the opposite of that.
Look at how spells are written. Generally, a spell's entry in 5E spends more words telling you what it *can't* do and in which situations you *can't* use it.
It's a rules text that expects bad-faith rules arguments.
And imho a rules text that tries to preempt bad faith disputes by attempting to remove the possibility of human interpretation *causes* bad faith disputes.
D&D's "defensive" rules writing *attracts* the rules lawyers that want to break it.
Writing this way also warps the imagination possible in a game into weird robotic shapes.
Take 5E's conditions. They are written so that there are clear, unambigious definitions and mechanical boundaries for "incapacitated" vs "prone" vs "paralyzed".
I hate 5E's conditions. There are too many to easily remember. Quick: tell me the mechanical differences between 'restrained' & 'grappled'!
At the same time they don't cover enough. I have heard D&D rules-as-written types say: "Oh, don't worry about being 'deafened', it's meaningless."
So why write a list of conditions like that?
Why not just let being deaf, or knocked over, or paralyzed, mean what those words mean, and trust that players / referees at the table will figure out a way to make that meaningful at the table?
They're taking specifically about 5E, but the principles apply to pretty much any modern traditional RPG.
I'd never really thought about it in those terms, but that's the primary reason I've switched to indie/rules-light RPGs: They're written and designed from a perspective of trust rather than defensiveness.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I ran across a Twitter thread by Indonesian indie RPG designer Zedeck Siew that really got at the differences between indie/rules-light RPGs and traditional/rules-focused RPGs in terms of how the rules are written:
For those who don't want to go to Twitter...
...My fave RPG rule texts are ones that trust players. Games like Knave and Troika! set their ethos by what they *don't say*, as much as the rules they provide:
"You are sharing a cool experience with friends, here's a scaffold, climb all over it and build something together"
PS: Troika! still has, in my estimation, the best "what is an RPG?" section ever written. Basically:
"Oh wow you are getting into RPGs for the first time, here's what it is, don't be scared, just go for it, I'm so excited for you!"
Image: Text from Troika! rulebook
Modern-edition D&D is pretty much the opposite of that.
Look at how spells are written. Generally, a spell's entry in 5E spends more words telling you what it *can't* do and in which situations you *can't* use it.
It's a rules text that expects bad-faith rules arguments.
And imho a rules text that tries to preempt bad faith disputes by attempting to remove the possibility of human interpretation *causes* bad faith disputes.
D&D's "defensive" rules writing *attracts* the rules lawyers that want to break it.
Writing this way also warps the imagination possible in a game into weird robotic shapes.
Take 5E's conditions. They are written so that there are clear, unambigious definitions and mechanical boundaries for "incapacitated" vs "prone" vs "paralyzed".
I hate 5E's conditions. There are too many to easily remember. Quick: tell me the mechanical differences between 'restrained' & 'grappled'!
At the same time they don't cover enough. I have heard D&D rules-as-written types say: "Oh, don't worry about being 'deafened',
Trust is a classic debate in TTRPGs, particularly D&D and its derivatives. This is the heart of the rulings over rules philosophy that started early in D&D. There was only a basic ruleset, enough to make D&D a game, and anything outside of those parameters the GM was encouraged to arbitrate. This allowed for a really interesting puzzle box experience on both sides of the screen. It also had a tendency to be inconsistent and make trust difficult to achieve and maintain.
Early on, D&D groups were fairly static and groups went through the typical norming, storming, forming process. This works for home tables, but once organized play hit the scene, it made for a difficult experience. Consistent experience across tables became a valued goal in RPG design.
The modern "defensive" design could also be seen as the sportification (yeah I just made up a word) of TTRPG. The idea was to define a set of parameters that the game lives within. Think of it like a baseball diamond. The rules let both the GM and players know whats a fair ball and a foul. This began with a laser focus on the combat side of the game, however, as the new editions have dropped more focus has been placed on sportifying the other pillars (social, exploration) too.
I'd like to say trust and defensiveness are trends like a pendulum, but I just dont see sport like design leaving D&D style TTRPGs. Which I think is fine, indie games keep proving their is room for both types of design and play experiences.
I don't mean to imply that traditional RPG design is wrong. I understand perfectly well where that design comes from.
When you present a bewildering array of character design components for the players to mix-and-match so they can build their characters to have the specific mechanical advantages they want, you pretty much need to design this way. And some players LOVE the character-building minigame: You only have to look at other sections of these forums to find "character building guides" and "theory-craft builds" to see that a lot of people really like this kind of play.
And when you get all of these available components, especially when they're coming from different designers or teams of designers, gamers are going to find exploits that give their characters an outsized game mechanical advantage... and that's where the designers need to start designing defensively. To some extent, it becomes an arms race.
This sort of defensive design isn't exclusive to the D&D family of games, either: It's a feature of any ruleset with moderate-to-high complexity and a large number of character build options. So, it applies to traditional games like GURPS or Champions, and even to indie games like Burning Wheel. (BW is a major exception to the "indie" = "rules light" assumption... it's at least as complex as D&D 5E, but in completely different ways.)
Again, I'm not saying this is wrong or bad design. I am saying that the resulting games tend not to be to my taste.
And to a certain extent, this is about table culture as much as game design.
What was interesting in a lot of early AD&D groups was the implicit spread of house rules as "the rules." Partly due to the early emphasis on players not reading the DMG or Monster Manuals and on learning to play from other experienced players rather than from books.
A lot of house rules either developed as interpretations of vague or confusing printed rules or to fill in gaps within the rules, but were taught as just the way the game was played with no reference to them being house rules. In some cases without the GMs even realizing that their interpretation wasn't universal.
This led to much assumption clash when people from different groups played together and just went with they way they'd always done things.
That was very true back in the '70s, '80s, and early '90s.
And I don't think that's much of a danger now.
Because of the Internet, gamers from different play groups are able to communicate far, far easier than in the days of analog communication. Gamers compare notes on forums and Discord. People watch/listen to others play on Twitch, YouTube, and podcasts. It's also far easier to communicate with the game designers: Back in the '80s, you could write a letter to Dragon or White Wolf or The Pyramid and hope that Dave Arneson or Roger E. Moore or Steve Jackson would print your letter and reply to it, but that's about it. Now, you can follow Mike Mearls or Jason Buhlman or Vincent Baker or Robert Schwalb on Twitter.
Consequently, you get far more consensus about how to play a given game now than you even could back when the only people you ever played with were the same insular group of friends. Individual groups are now much less likely to develop house rules at the table that make it difficult to play with people who'd developed different house rules.
I dont think the intent was "DMs up, players down" so much as reading the DMG and monster manuals was akin to spoiling the adventure. That knowledge gives players a leg up on adventuring. Despite a lot of the adversarial DM stuff that came about. Originally the DM was supposed to set up a dungeon (of various challenges) and simply adjudicate the players exploring of said dungeon. The whole "rocks fall, PCs die" thing was never intended.
Some folks will point to Gary's Tomb of Horrors and say what about this impossible dungeon. Well, it was written specifically as an extreme challenge. The point is to see how far the players can get. Not that the actual dungeon is expected to be completed and survived at any reasonable rate. This nods heavily towards the old school skill play.
The GM was elevated because they were/are the final arbiter. It was up to them to not only make sure the rules are applied correctly, but to adjudicate situations outside the rules (rulings over rules). After many years of adversarial behavior, players wanted more consistent rules to cover as many situations as possible to protect them from inconsistent DMing (rules over rulings).
Though, its important to understand that the roots of D&D and their impact on the system. The story was just background noise to the real challenge, which is facing traps and monsters and living through the experience. Modern tastes have moved away from this ideology and towards character development and plot narration. Those original roots run deep, and its not something that can be excised out of D&D easily as multiple editions can attest.
Old School games were often written in puzzle box fashion, yes. Usually there were fail states that allowed the game to progress. For example, getting a chest open correctly and safely will allow you to get all its content. However, if you fail to get the chest open safely, and instead smash it open, then some or all the contents are destroyed. So there is usually an easy way forward and a hard way. Not so much that you must solve a Fibonacci sequence or you cant progress any further. Sometimes GMs would do this, but it was considered bad play to do so.
Since, as Hoover points out, not all players enjoy this sort of exercise, rule systems have been created to short cut some of the process. For example, the new search/perception skills are a simple roll applied to searching a room. A good result gives you the best response, a middling gets you some, and poor one gets you nada. This prevents the gotcha element that was common in old school gaming. "You said you searched the desk, but not under the desk..."
Modern crunchy games still challenge the players not the characters though, but they challenge the players ability to master the game mechanics, both in character building and in tactical and strategic use of those abilities.
Right the rules knowledge player skill. There are many examples of players looking at their character sheet, specifically class abilities and feats, to determine what they can do in any given situation. Rules over rulings promotes staying within the box. Sure, you can try and do things not tied to the game mechanics, but they are usually an inferior choice. The rules stick smacks the player back into the box, but it also smacks the GM back into the box too, so everybody is ideally on the same page.
Pretty much what TheJeff mentioned: Back in the early days of the hobby, there wasn't a clear demarcation between player knowledge and character knowledge. Getting past a trick or a trap, for example, required the player to describe what the character was specifically doing: Generally there was a "right" answer in the adventure (and consequences for doing specific "wrong" things), so solving it was usually a matter of trial-and-error where the player had to keep thinking of new approaches until one worked (or until a trap sprung... which was nearly always "save or die.")
Some puzzles in the old days required specific player knowledge that would be unreasonable to assume that their characters would even know. I can think of one puzzle from the AD&D tournament adventure S2: White Plume Mountain (1979) where the PCs encounter five stone golems, each with a number painted on their chests. A magic mouth says, "Which one does not belong? Choose correctly, and you may pass." The golems had the following numbers each painted on them: 5, 7, 9, 11, 13. The "correct" answer is "9" because it's the only number in the list that isn't a prime number. (If you choose poorly, all five stone golems attack... which will almost certainly result in a TPK if the PCs stand their ground and fight.)
I've played a fair amount of contemporary "Old School Renaissance" OSR-style games, and I'm going to disagree with TheJeff's assertion about how the above applies to OSR game design. TI've found that modern OSR design generally doesn't rely on player knowledge: Things are still presented in-game for the characters to solve... although there is still a fair amount of the "tell me how you're interacting with it" level of simulation rather than relying on Perception checks of the Find Traps skill.
Another aspect of Old School play is that combat is extremely dangerous and best avoided. There's no concept of "challenge rating". Your second-level characters could end up facing off against a red dragon, or a beholder, or a vrock... and there's no winning that fight! In OSR play, PCs are well advised to avoid combat encounters whenever possible by negotiating, tricking, sneaking past, or running away from monsters.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Modern crunchy games still challenge the players not the characters though, but they challenge the players ability to master the game mechanics, both in character building and in tactical and strategic use of those abilities.Right the rules knowledge player skill. There are many examples of players looking at their character sheet, specifically class abilities and feats, to determine what they can do in any given situation. Rules over rulings promotes staying within the box. Sure, you can try and do things not tied to the game mechanics, but they are usually an inferior choice. The rules stick smacks the player back into the box, but it also smacks the GM back into the box too, so everybody is ideally on the same page.
One of the mantras of OSR-style play is, "The answer is rarely on your character sheet."
On an unrelated note: As much as I'm not a big fan of D&D 5E or WotC, I just ordered a copy of the new 5E hardcover Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.
1) I LOVE the Ravenloft setting.
2) The editor of this book was one F. Wesley Schnieder
3) The authors include a good number of indie RPG designers and designers from marginalized communities.
The "tell me how you're interacting with it" approach slides right into player knowledge and skill with little difficulty and is generally very different from narrative approaches, which generally don't rely on the player actually figuring out the right solution, but on describing what they do and how it works out based on a roll.
Honestly, that's one of the biggest differences between contemporary narrativist-style play/design and OSR-style play/design.
My sweet spot these days is where those two styles intersect, overlap, and synergize. Probably the best example of an RPG designed to be both OSR and narrative-focused would be the Trophy family of games, particularly the dungeon-crawler Trophy Gold. (TG is probably my favorite RPG at the moment... it's certainly the game I find the most fun to GM!)
The "tell me how you're interacting with it" approach slides right into player knowledge and skill with little difficulty and is generally very different from narrative approaches, which generally don't rely on the player actually figuring out the right solution, but on describing what they do and how it works out based on a roll.Honestly, that's one of the biggest differences between contemporary narrativist-style play/design and OSR-style play/design.
My sweet spot these days is where those two styles intersect, overlap, and synergize. Probably the best example of an RPG designed to be both OSR and narrative-focused would be the Trophy family of games, particularly the dungeon-crawler Trophy Gold. (TG is probably my favorite RPG at the moment... it's certainly the game I find the most fun to GM!)
I think this is why the system journey is so important. A lot of folks worry that D&D doesn't work for them. It might just be the edition, or it might just be the brand of TTRPG. You wont know until you explore.
I think this is why the system journey is so important. A lot of folks worry that D&D doesn't work for them. It might just be the edition, or it might just be the brand of TTRPG. You wont know until you explore.The "tell me how you're interacting with it" approach slides right into player knowledge and skill with little difficulty and is generally very different from narrative approaches, which generally don't rely on the player actually figuring out the right solution, but on describing what they do and how it works out based on a roll.Honestly, that's one of the biggest differences between contemporary narrativist-style play/design and OSR-style play/design.
My sweet spot these days is where those two styles intersect, overlap, and synergize. Probably the best example of an RPG designed to be both OSR and narrative-focused would be the Trophy family of games, particularly the dungeon-crawler Trophy Gold. (TG is probably my favorite RPG at the moment... it's certainly the game I find the most fun to GM!)
Exactly! The OGL/d20 family of games are at their heart tactical combat simulators that lay out in the open D&D's origins as a miniatures wargame. The other subsystems are all subservient to combat: Two-thirds of the page count of rulebooks for such games are about combat and healing/recovering from combat.
The skill system in OGL/d20 games is present, but isn't particularly robust or comprehensive... and the lion's share of the skill descriptions are, again, how to use them in combat.
If you want to play a fantasy adventure that *isn't* focused on fighting monsters and taking their stuff, the out-of-the-box D&D rules don't provide a whole lot of support. The GM is on their own to either wing it or to bolt-on yet more subsystems of their own invention or from other sources.
Or... you could run a different game system that's designed for that style of play. But if you only know d20/OGL games, you may not know what's available. Or, if you do know that other games are out there, you might assume that other systems are as complex and/or have the same steep learning curve as D&D. (Most don't.)
Exploring RPGs as a journey puts more tools into your toolset as a GM. The journey can also cause you to look at RPGs from a very different perspective and take radically different approaches to play, both as GM and as a player.
There are some adventure concepts that really can't be run using the D&D ruleset. For example: If you wanted to run an adventure about fighting an evil sentient planet, like in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. D&D isn't designed at all to run that sort of game. But this scenario is exactly the sort of game that the RPG Ten Million Hit Point Planet is intended to be!
Lots of other expectations were different as well. Rolling for stats was normal, and it was expected that you would work with what you had, rather than designing everything to perfectly match some mechanically optimized ideal. Optimization generally came from in-character with thought towards tactics and strategy, amd it was expected that if you rushed headling into combat, then you'd probably die because that is a really stupid tactic. Nowadays, if you can't rush headlong into combat, modern players complain about it being too hard.
Characters also have much better tools and resources to face combat challenges head on in modern gaming. Some folks like kicking in the door and facing down an encounter. They have a right to complain if combat is too difficult to face when its a design expectation. It's ok to have different playstyles and preferences.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Another aspect of Old School play is that combat is extremely dangerous and best avoided. There's no concept of "challenge rating". Your second-level characters could end up facing off against a red dragon, or a...Again, that last is mostly an revival thing - though it's always been around as part of the sandbox style. "Challenge rating" is officially a 3.0 creation, but even the oldest modules had suggested levels and plenty of necessary combat. The AD&D GMG had plenty of advice about keeping the nastier monsters on lower dungeon levels or deeper into the wilderness. Sandbox play, whether dungeon or wilderness based, would certainly let you run into anything if you're stupid, but even then both players and GMs needed and had an idea of what was going to be too dangerous to fight. Nor were all games in the old days sandbox games.
Gaming in the '80s was very insular: Unless you went to cons, you and your play group didn't often get exposed to other groups with varying play styles and table culture. I remember getting a big dose of RPG culture shock when I went to college and joined the RPG group there. My high school group rarely if ever used printed modules, where they were pretty common at my college group. And play culture at college was much more collegial and collaborative than it was at my high school table.
You're right about dungeon-delving having a concept of appropriate challenges. Generally, the deeper you went into the dungeon, the more dangerous were the monsters you would encounter. The rule of thumb was you shouldn't go deeper into the dungeon than your character level: While there was more treasure the deeper you go, the monsters are tougher.
In the 1979 edition of AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, Appendix C: Random Monster Encounters there's a series of tables that define ten "Monster Levels" (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X) [Gygax really liked Roman numerals -ed.] and which monster level table to roll on depending on which dungeon level the party was on. Creatures on Monster Level I included giant ants, orcs, skeletons, zombies, and goblins; Monster Level V included displacer beasts, quasits, 7-headed hydras, and cockatrices; Monster Level IX included stone golems, storm giants, pit fiends, and ancient dragons. It was possible for PCs to encounter creatures from Monster Level X when they were on dungeon level 8... so your 8th-level character could encounter Demogorgon himself as a random encounter.
Random wilderness adventures didn't have monster level tied to them in any way: It was purely be terrain type. Characters of any level could encounter creatures of nearly any level. Yes, our party of second- and third-level characters once encountered a huge, old red dragon as a result of a random encounter roll. (We ran.)
And, back in the day, I know my group (myself included) regularly used the "random dungeon generator" section of the DMG to create the dungeon on-the-fly, and would just roll on the appropriate tables for encounters, traps, treasure, etc. It was a wild time! [Plot? What's that?]
Gaming in the '80s was very insular: Unless you went to cons, you and your play group didn't often get exposed to other groups with varying play styles and table culture.
Unless your place of residence in the '80s had a gaming store that had tables that had multiple groups playing there, both wargames and rpgs. So I guess cons wouldn't be the only way.
Characters also have much better tools and resources to face combat challenges head on in modern gaming. Some folks like kicking in the door and facing down an encounter. They have a right to complain if combat is too difficult to face when its a design expectation. It's ok to have different playstyles and preferences.I disagree, rather the expectations have shifted such that even lvl 1s are supposed to be heroes far above normal people, and the designs are entirely centered around this direct style. So much so, that trying to use intelligent tactics or to make use of the environment is difficult because there isn't any support for it.
The more modern designs like of2 and 5e are entirely built on the "combat as sport" to the point that they fail to support the "combat as war" styles. You can't use "real world" logic at all because the rules design are so strongly built on gamer logic.
I certainly agree that different styles are okay to have. My problem is the popular styles are opposite of the style I truly want, and yet present themselves as the way to play.
I once had a discussion with a paizo staff member who made it quite clear, the only experience they are supporting is that of epic fantasy heroes that play into player's power fantasies. That's it. According to that staff member, they have zero intention of making pathfinder good for anything else. And 5e's design implies wotc has similar ideas.
I dont think 5E is as similar to PF2 as you. Though, the good news is you will always have 3E and PF1.
I dont think 5E is as similar to PF2 as you. Though, the good news is you will always have 3E and PF1.
I admire your willingness to engage despite knowing where this leads.
I do find it striking how in a thread about the journey, we do seem to keep getting pulled back to discussing with the person who seems ardently opposed to taking that journey.