Quote from: rawma;970228Maybe you should be posting repeatedly on threads about distinctions that aren't the terms used by Distinction Deniers to derail distinction discussion, instead of on one that's guaranteed to go nowhere.

Or are all of the distinctions that interest you the same ones that Distinction Deniers revel in?

I do talk about other terms. This thread is about "traditional". That one's a dead end.

Quote from: CRKrueger;970233I do talk about other terms. This thread is about "traditional". That one's a dead end.

And yet you keep posting about it, empowering the Distinction Deniers.

Maybe "Traditional RPG" is what a "typical" fantasy heartbreaker could assume the reader would know about without being told. So, probably simplified early D&D mechanics (hit points, saving throws, to hit rolls, etc), and nothing about playing style.

"Traditional" is actually a bad term.

Do you mean "old-school"?  Because that's a thing, which you can then define based on period.

Or do you mean "Regular"? As in, an RPG that follows the structure of what RPGs are supposed to do?  Because that's a thing: you can define whether a game is a Regular RPG, or Not An RPG.

"Traditional" suggests that it's possible to have RPGs that don't do what RPGs are supposed to do and still get to call themselves RPGs. That's not correct.

Quote from: RPGPundit;971031"Traditional" is actually a bad term.

Do you mean "old-school"?  Because that's a thing, which you can then define based on period.

Or do you mean "Regular"? As in, an RPG that follows the structure of what RPGs are supposed to do?  Because that's a thing: you can define whether a game is a Regular RPG, or Not An RPG.

"Traditional" suggests that it's possible to have RPGs that don't do what RPGs are supposed to do and still get to call themselves RPGs. That's not correct.

I'm literally quoting posters on other threads who seem to have an idea of what a traditional RPG looks like and what it doesnt.

My main reason for positing the question was to understand what these posters meant and it appears that they don't really know themselves.

Quote from: HorusArisen;971037I'm literally quoting posters on other threads who seem to have an idea of what a traditional RPG looks like and what it doesnt.

My main reason for positing the question was to understand what these posters meant and it appears that they don't really know themselves.

I think there are central cases and edge cases. Everyone agrees original D&D is the exmplary trad RPG. There are storygames everyone can agree is not a trad RPG. There are RPGs with non-trad elements and then you get disagreement.

And this thread was about what are the trad elements, and some of us have different lists for that. Even when posting "I think X Y and Z are trad..." someone replies "but..." unless it's a really simple statement or people actually get tired of quibbling.

Isn't a traditional rpg a game in which the characters have attributes and skills? And storygames (and Fate) have mechanics in other places?

Quote from: S'mon;971087I think there are central cases and edge cases. Everyone agrees original D&D is the exmplary trad RPG. There are storygames everyone can agree is not a trad RPG. There are RPGs with non-trad elements and then you get disagreement.

Given its position as the first TTRPG I can definitely see the argument for D&D to be used as a baseline. Although I'd say that only applies pre WotC.

Quote from: HorusArisen;971121Given its position as the first TTRPG I can definitely see the argument for D&D to be used as a baseline. Although I'd say that only applies pre WotC.

Sure, hence "original D&D"

Quote from: HorusArisen;969645So I've seen the term 'traditional' RPG bandied on a few threads and that got me to thinking . . .

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Quote from: S'mon;971087I think there are central cases and edge cases.

Agreed. In my experience, one of the chief obstacles of this discussion is a search for hard dividing lines rather than looking at design tendencies and shared features.

There's also no getting around generational divides among gamers. Some years ago I recalled seeing a post on Big Purple which said that a 'traditional roleplaying game' is one which is centered on playing through linear adventures. My first impulse was to disagree, but on reflection, I think the poster has the right of it - the early days of the hobby dominated by sandbox play really only lasted about ten years at which point the design culture and refereeing advice began to skew more heavily toward exactly what the poster suggested was 'traditional,' roleplaying games as 'playing through a story' prepared by the referee. It's been the last decade that saw a return to 'play to find out,' largely driven by designers who 're-discovered' the 'old-school' playstyle some of us never abandoned.

And this come-to-Jesus moment these designers experienced thanks to the early OSR resulted in games like Torchbearer and Dungeon World. Make of that what you will.

For my part, this thread reminded me of something I posted over at BP earlier this year.

Quote from: Black VulmeaIt could be said that the traditional roleplaying game model of a referee creating and running the world is the 'odds favoring the house.' Could design goals such as more transparent rules or player-facing resolution be said to be a way of evening the odds?

So, dissecting my own scribblings, my conception of what's 'traditional' in roleplaying games could  be said to include 'referee-facing' rules and referee-centric creation and depiction of the game-world.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;971172Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.


Agreed. In my experience, one of the chief obstacles of this discussion is a search for hard dividing lines rather than looking at design tendencies and shared features.

There's also no getting around generational divides among gamers. Some years ago I recalled seeing a post on Big Purple which said that a 'traditional roleplaying game' is one which is centered on playing through linear adventures. My first impulse was to disagree, but on reflection, I think the poster has the right of it - the early days of the hobby dominated by sandbox play really only lasted about ten years at which point the design culture and refereeing advice began to skew more heavily toward exactly what the poster suggested was 'traditional,' roleplaying games as 'playing through a story' prepared by the referee. It's been the last decade that saw a return to 'play to find out,' largely driven by designers who 're-discovered' the 'old-school' playstyle some of us never abandoned.

And this come-to-Jesus moment these designers experienced thanks to the early OSR resulted in games like Torchbearer and Dungeon World. Make of that what you will.

For my part, this thread reminded me of something I posted over at BP earlier this year.


So, dissecting my own scribblings, my conception of what's 'traditional' in roleplaying games could  be said to include 'referee-facing' rules and referee-centric creation and depiction of the game-world.

Yes, I agree with all of that.
From what I can see from eg White Dwarf magazine articles, the first era of D&D centred on true 'sandboxing' 'megadungeons' (two neologisms) & (to a much lesser extent) wildernesses was really only about 3 years 1974-1977. Then you get a transitional era when published 'modules' come to dominate play, but these are still placed in the independently-existing GM's campaign world. My own 1e AD&D campaigns in the 1980s were still sandboxes in the modern view - PCs could go anywhere, do anything - and hewed closely to 1e DMing advice, but with the frequent use of modules, lack of much hexcrawling, and lack of megadungeons they don't seem to have much resembled the 1974-77 play I read about in very early White Dwarf.

By the middle to end of the 1980s play was tending towards a kind of "series of linked sandbox adventures" - you see this in eg Chaosium Call of Cthulu, and the idea was cemented that players sit down to play "the adventure of the week", starting to become passive recipients of what the GM serves up. The GM's world becomes just a backdrop for the set adventures. Then you get linear series of linear adventures, and this laid the foundations for 1990s railroad & metaplot hell.

I definitely would not claim that "linear series of linear adventures"  is not "traditional" - it was a well-established tradition which both the Forge/Indy movement and 3e D&D were reacting against. Storygames reacted against it by ultimately becoming story-creation games, not immersion-based RPGs.

Quote from: S'mon;971178Storygames reacted against it by ultimately becoming story-creation games, not immersion-based RPGs.

I find this summary compelling.

It is also why when certain people around here (or more specifically, a certain person) babbled on about how the games our of the Forge were were about building pre-plotted stories I knew he wasn't worth taking seriously for a second.

Yeah, traditions coming in waves or eras definitely is true, which is why the concept is inherently subjective, because when you look for traditional elements, the first thing you need to define is, "Which Tradition?".

I'd say BV is on to something and I think it has something to do with the focus and output of creativity.  When I entered, during the B/X, 1e days, the creativity of the GM was focused on worldbuilding, NPC and monster creation, etc and the player creativity was focused on character action.  If you wanted to express your worldbuidling creativity, you stepped behind the screen and became a GM.

As the era of plotted adventure series and modules came about, GM creativity expanded more explicitly to include storytelling.  Sure, storytelling was always there to a certain extent, but it became more of a focus as pre-created settings and metaplot took over the worldbuilding to a larger degree.  Again, to express your storytelling creativity, the player shifted behind the screen.

As things moved from worldbuilding open settings to storytelling linear plots and metaplots, the player's chance to express creativity and out-of-box thinking as a character, became less and less.  As a reaction against railroaded plots, linear storytelling, canned settings with extensive metaplot, etc, the "Storygames Revolution" or whatever you want to call it, focused on removing that single focus of creativity and as BV says "even the odds", by allowing players an element of control over the storytelling aspect.

As the OSR became more prominent, and the indie/forge designers had their "OSR Road to Damascus" moment, then the focus started moving back to worldbuilding and focus on setting (to a certain degree), but keeping the shared collaborative aspect.

So, you have indie games now that are essentially Old-Timey 70's D&D, but with newer design elements allowing the creative spaces of storytelling and worldbuilding to be shared and collaborative.

Having done the Dungeon World thing in a year-long campaign, the player-creation dimension was integral to the process of play, but limited to setting, more than narrative control. Most player input came from me asking questions like, "You say you're from Mageswell. What does it look like?" or "Newman is your rival in the pipeweed trade. How did this rivalry come to be?" From out of that we got a lot of setting elements, and some back story. We NEVER had a situation in which a player could radically direct narrative elements via mechanics. Such things came in the traditional manner of characters making choices and acting upon them, combined with the results of dice rolls and GM interpretations (where the situation warranted it).

Anyhoo, what I basically got out of that experience was that there's no reason player creativity cannot exist with GM creativity, especially in initial world creation, and that you can incorporate that approach with just about any system (which I intend to do when I run my next campaign--if I ever run another...this waiting to sell the house and move thing is dragging on, man...).

Quote from: S'mon;971178I definitely would not claim that "linear series of linear adventures"  is not "traditional" - it was a well-established tradition which both the Forge/Indy movement and 3e D&D were reacting against.

Isn't it ironic that the most successful third party support product for 3e was exactly in this tradition?