Things I like in Modern Design (let's have a friendly chat about it)

[Lessa]

Agenda:

- To talk about what we find interesting in modern design, sensibilities and genres.


Principles:

1. Be constructive, if not positive. Refrain from posting here just to crap.

2. Do not post about definitions of RPG x Storygames or whatever. If you do it, you'll be breaking the purpose of this thread.

3. By "modern", consider the new designs and sensibilities that came up or got popular in the last 10 years or so.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Lessa]

With that out of the way...

I think that what newer games benefit from is the clarity that comes with time. The fact that there are decades worth of design and discussion to draw from is beneficial to modern games. They get to state so simply what was often slowly disseminated across years worth of games and discussion.

So yes, while some of these things may seem incredibly obvious....isn’t it good to establish them so clearly and up front?

This is one of the best things about modern design; you can avoid the mistakes of the past, you can improve on presentation, and you can streamline your message. You see this across the spectrum, not just in the RPGs mentioned in this article, but in the OSR movement and mainstream games such as D&D.

I mean, think of how many games had that whole “what is a roleplaying game” spiel at the beginning. Yet I don’t think I ever saw it described so succinctly as in Apocalypse World where it’s described “Roleplaying is a conversation.”

I mean, that’s obvious, and of course there’s more to it...they’re not synonymous....but stating the obvious in that way was also enlightening. I’ve been playing RPGs since I was a kid and I never saw it described that way, and it really gave me a new perspective on the hobby and how I play.

Great point! Just as you, I think I never saw a game as succintly written and conscious of it's own agenda (and how to accomplish it) as Apocalypse World. It was enlightening to me the first time I read it. And I agree it's something the majority of games these days get right: Communicating intent.


Another point I really like in current design trends is the amalgamation/fusion of wildly different styles and concepts like what Mutant Year Zero does with it's hex-crawl + drama, or what the White Hack does with it's dungeons + freeformness. As I said before, I really like the most "wild" crop of OSR, like Beyond the Wall, Mothership or TROIKA!, for example, which I think does that to some degree.

That said, I'm still not convinced on 2D20 though, even if it does exactly what I'm saying here. My problem with it is the apparent complexity that it adheres to, meshing too many concepts together. I hope Dune can change this perception of mine, though. I'll give it a chance and see what happens.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I'm not sure what's technically "past ten years" because I pay no attention and just pick up stuff when I get interested, but stuff I like.

The heavy focus on gameable content. Even games with heavy setting content like Spire never forget that the purpose of a RPG is first and foremost to be something to be played, not to be read. (I really like Spire in general).

I like the wide range of games out there to suit lots of different playstyles. Many of them aren't for me but I'm glad that they exist for those that want them.

I like things on the fringes of the OSR, but slightly differently than you. I'm less interested in the gonzo and more interested in the games that take D&D as a base and use it to do something different; Apes Victorious, Esoteric Enterprises etc.

I heart the Bundle of Holding and I heart Allen Varney for giving me a way to get RPG collections on my limited budget and contribute to charity at the same time.

I love most of the stuff coming out of the BOSR. The new games (Romance of the Perilous Land), the games that use an old one as its base and twist it into something new and strange (TROIKA!, Warlock!) and the new improved editions of older games (Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Dragon Warriors, Maelstrom). It's allowing me to revisit old favourites, to develop new favourites and to revisit games like Maelstrom I never quite managed to grasp first time around.

Megagames aren't new by your metric, but they're new to me and giving me a lot of the same thrills I got when I first got into heavy boardgaming all those years ago. And there's really interesting design developments there. It used to be the case that almost all megagames were operational wargames and those are still run. But now we have a new crop of designers, experimenting with settings and formats. I played in Trope High, a megagame that aimed to recreate the feel of a high school movie. Being able to megagame again is one of the main things I'm looking forward to when lockdown finally ends.

 

[CRKrueger]

Different types of Blackjack mechanics have been around for a while, but I specifically like how Mythras uses it to resolve opposed d100 rolls. You want the highest roll that is under your skill. As long as the two success levels are the same (Success vs. Success, Critical vs. Critical) the highest roll wins. It’s much easier than figuring out who rolled under their score by the largest amount.

 

[Trippy]

Different types of Blackjack mechanics have been around for a while, but I specifically like how Mythras uses it to resolve opposed d100 rolls. You want the highest roll that is under your skill. As long as the two success levels are the same (Success vs. Success, Critical vs. Critical) the highest roll wins. It’s much easier than figuring out who rolled under their score by the largest amount.

I’d say that is a Pendragon thing first, although I don’t know if any other game did it before.

 

[Ladybird]

I'm not sure what's technically "past ten years" because I pay no attention and just pick up stuff when I get interested, but stuff I like.

The heavy focus on gameable content. Even games with heavy setting content like Spire never forget that the purpose of a RPG is first and foremost to be something to be played, not to be read. (I really like Spire in general).

I really like the way games like Spire and Electric Bastionland present their settings; by feel and concept, and as guidelines for improvisation. I find that sort of "what we're going for" much easier to improvise at the table than a strict map, history, and list of facts for everyone to memorise.

 

[Necrozius]

Basically the core "success at cost" concept from Apocalypse World (although, in my case, it was Dungeon World).

i.e., Complete Success, Partial Success and Failure

However, coupled with "Fail Forward", I've brought this concept into just about every RPG that I run now. I know for SOME that this is nothing new, but I never encountered anything like it from when I started in the hobby in the mid 1990s all the way up until... what 2010?

So yeah, Sage LaTorra's creation of Dungeon World opened my eyes to a whole new... world.

 

[Lessa]

Different types of Blackjack mechanics have been around for a while, but I specifically like how Mythras uses it to resolve opposed d100 rolls. You want the highest roll that is under your skill. As long as the two success levels are the same (Success vs. Success, Critical vs. Critical) the highest roll wins. It’s much easier than figuring out who rolled under their score by the largest amount.

I think Delta Green also uses it?

And Mythras is awesome.

 

[Trippy]

I think Delta Green also uses it?

And Mythras is awesome.

Yep. So does Unknown Armies and Eclipse Phase.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Different types of Blackjack mechanics have been around for a while, but I specifically like how Mythras uses it to resolve opposed d100 rolls. You want the highest roll that is under your skill. As long as the two success levels are the same (Success vs. Success, Critical vs. Critical) the highest roll wins. It’s much easier than figuring out who rolled under their score by the largest amount.

I love blackjack mechanics. It is so incredibly clear and simple to explain, and makes opposed checks with varying skill levels about as simple as humanly possible. The only thing that might be simpler for opposed checks is SW style using a die size to determine your skill level, but that has less granularity of skill level.

 

[CRKrueger]

I’d say that is a Pendragon thing first, although I don’t know if any other game did it before.

I know Unknown Armies used it somehow.

 

[CRKrueger]

I love blackjack mechanics. It is so incredibly clear and simple to explain, and makes opposed checks with varying skill levels about as simple as humanly possible. The only thing that might be simpler for opposed checks is SW style using a die size to determine your skill level, but that has less granularity of skill level.

I know right? Which number is bigger?

 

[TristramEvans]

Basically the core "success at cost" concept from Apocalypse World (although, in my case, it was Dungeon World).

i.e., Complete Success, Partial Success and Failure

I think the first game to feature this was 007: James Bond in 1983

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I think the first game to feature this was 007: James Bond in 1983

I hate to play to stereotype, but En Garde! had that in 1975.

 

[TristramEvans]

I hate to play to stereotype, but En Garde! had that in 1975.

Fair enough, that is a game that I'm sadly unfamiliar with

 

[EmperorNorton]

While not new, I do think that there was a time period where everyone was working towards more "broad" games. I really like games that have narrow premises that lend themselves to running specific types of games. It felt like for a while, and probably because of the d20 glut of the 2000s, that everything was kind of "this is an all purpose system!"

But I love stuff like Ryuutama, which is just so specialized towards just journeying. Like that is what it does well. And it makes no attempt to be anything but it's premise.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

While not new, I do think that there was a time period where everyone was working towards more "broad" games. I really like games that have narrow premises that lend themselves to running specific types of games. It felt like for a while, and probably because of the d20 glut of the 2000s, that everything was kind of "this is an all purpose system!"

But I love stuff like Ryuutama, which is just so specialized towards just journeying. Like that is what it does well. And it makes no attempt to be anything but it's premise.

Totally agree with this. I hope it's not too far from the spirit of the OP to say that I'm really glad I know longer see a game that looks interesting and realise it's just a generic system with a few tweaks rather than a custom built one.

 

[TristramEvans]

Totally agree with this. I hope it's not too far from the spirit of the OP to say that I'm really glad I know longer see a game that looks interesting and realise it's just a generic system with a few tweaks rather than a custom built one.

I wish this were the case for games based on IPs that I find interesting. Instead it seems that 2D20 and D&D 5th edition seem to be attempting to corner that market recently.

 

[Trippy]

I know Unknown Armies used it somehow.

Yeah, but Pendragon is from 1985. It’s been around for a while.

 

[CRKrueger]

While not new, I do think that there was a time period where everyone was working towards more "broad" games. I really like games that have narrow premises that lend themselves to running specific types of games. It felt like for a while, and probably because of the d20 glut of the 2000s, that everything was kind of "this is an all purpose system!"

But I love stuff like Ryuutama, which is just so specialized towards just journeying. Like that is what it does well. And it makes no attempt to be anything but it's premise.

The only issue I have with "purpose built" games is that the added mechanics, at least in today's design climate, usually are...
1. Hyper-focused to the point of being One Trick Ponies, which is fine for every once in a while.
2. Achieving this purpose built state via mechanics not invoked by the character.

I see game focus broadly along this spectrum

• Universal Games meant to be an All-Comer type of game, meant to be compatible with nearly every type of game, but specifically supporting nothing.
• Hyperfocused Games which are about "that one thing" that have huge support for that thing, but are incompatible with anything else.
• Platform Games which have an overall framework that can be broadly applicable, which can then be dialed down all the way to Hyperfocus if you want in its various expressions.

A lot of the work on Platform Style games is done on the Narrative RPG side, 2d20, PbtA, Cortex+, but you also see more traditional examples like WOIN and FFG40k and Mythras. I think the Platform Style system is going to be the dominant paradigm for several reasons.
You get an ecosystem of games that are broadly compatible and all can be supplements/advertisements for each other instead of competitors. This plays into Brand Identity (yes, the world is corporatized). They strike a good balance between the "make your own system" aspect of the Universal Systems like Hero and GURPS and the "change the topic, change the game" aspect of Hyperfocused Games.

 

[CRKrueger]

Yeah, but Pendragon is from 1985. It’s been around for a while.

Just saying I know they did it too, not that they were first.

 

[Ladybird]

A lot of the work on Platform Style games is done on the Narrative RPG side, 2d20, PbtA, Cortex+, but you also see more traditional examples like WOIN and FFG40k and Mythras. I think the Platform Style system is going to be the dominant paradigm for several reasons.
You get an ecosystem of games that are broadly compatible and all can be supplements/advertisements for each other instead of competitors. This plays into Brand Identity (yes, the world is corporatized). They strike a good balance between the "make your own system" aspect of the Universal Systems like Hero and GURPS and the "change the topic, change the game" aspect of Hyperfocused Games.

Personally I like platforms for just this reason - it's easier to understand what to do with a generic system, what to use / tweak / ignore, with a worked example than just being given a big book of STUFF and left alone to work it out.

 

[AsenRG]

I’d say that is a Pendragon thing first, although I don’t know if any other game did it before.

Yes, but it got popular in the last 10 years or so, I can confirm. And the OP did state "which appeared or got popular".

Me? I like the attention paid to grappling rules from GURPS: Tactical Grappling onwards. I think that counts, right?
I mean, the principle Tactical Grappling is based on is actually present in Twilight: 2000 grappling rules, but who remembers those?
Well, except me, obviously, but then I only read them in the last decade, too!

 

[PolarBlues]

Generalisations are of course always wrong, but here's how I see it.

If I look at old school D&D and that generation of games, I see a clear emphasis on how the game is meant to be played. There is a clear risk/reward model, rewards for long term play, a clear turn structure and steps for the GM design and stock a dungeon. There may be way too many pole arms and the amount of ad-hoc rules might look messy, but the underlying model is rock solid.

If I look at the Forge-inspired indie scene circa 2000, I see a whole bunch of games which, while not sharing the same wargame roots as D&D, nonetheless place the same emphasis on how the game should be played. They may be a little fiddly and sometime pretentious, but there is a real sense of purpose in those game designs.

In between these two extremes, we had decades of games in which we're given rules to resolve actions and some cool setting fluff, and then left to figure out put it all together by outselves.

I have to say I am kind of torn. In practice I am rooted in the "here are some rules, figure out the rest yourself" generation. The "figuring out for ourselves" in a sense is one of the more interesting aspects of GMing but it is, at least for me, it can be a lot of work and not always that reliable. As such I have a lot of admiration, even a bit jealousy, for games where the structure of play has been really sorted out and just works.

 

[Necrozius]

Just saying I know they did it too, not that they were first.

Yes, but I’m arguing that it only really became a thing with the more “mainstream” hobby more recently.

edit: I had only played “popular” rpgs from the 90s on. WFRP, D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Old World of Darkness and Rifts / Palladium / Robotech / TMNT. None of those games had anything but binary pass/fail, at least the way everyone that I’d met in my life had played them.

 

[Trippy]

Yes, but I’m arguing that it only really became a thing with the more “mainstream” hobby more recently.

I dunno, did it? I mean, there have been lots of percentile/roll under systems over the years. When people cite Mythras, it should be noted that it was previously written as editions of RuneQuest, and they were using that mechanic from about 2006 in any case. Is it really that unusual in mainstream games?

I mean, I wish they had used it with the latest edition of Call of Cthulhu - rather than the whole full/half/fifth structure - along with matching dice for crts and possibly flip-flops (from Unknown Armies) rather than bonus/penalty dice. But either way, I’m not sure I regard any of this as particularly new in a trend setting way. Then again, people thought that spending Luck points was an innovation in CoC7E, when you can see the same rule previously in Aquelarre and Marvel Super Heroes (Karma) too.

I guess my question is what things are new trends in the last 10 years or so that really weren’t around before?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t know if there are a lot of individual mechanics that are brand new in the past few years, although I’m sure there are some. I think it’s more about how different elements are combined and about design approach.

So the Alien RPG uses d6 dice pools. Nothing new there. But what happens as the game moves along is you start to roll additional dice as part of your pool, Stress Dice, which you accumulate by Pushing or some other means. So these dice increase your chance to succeed at your tasks, but carry the risk of panicking if any of the stress dice show a 1.

If you roll a 1 on a Stress die, then you need to check if you Panic. This can have all kinds of negative effects, from fleeing the scene to putting others at risk or even harming them, to death by heart attack.

The most Stress dice you have, the greater the risk of aome thing bad happening if you Panic.

It’s a fun mechanic, easy to play, and really evokes the ratcheting tension of the Alien movies. I like when rules really suit the elements they’re designed to represent like that.

 

[Lessa]

I don’t know if there are a lot of individual mechanics that are brand new in the past few years, although I’m sure there are some. I think it’s more about how different elements are combined and about design approach.

That's how I see it.

Eg: degrees of success exist since ever, but the way PbtA uses it to inform/parse it's gameplay is new.

That kind of thing.

 

[0qualifications]

Definitely player facing rolling. I basically need them in a game at this point, otherwise I just won't run it. Luckily, it's pretty easy to hack in most of the time.

I think games have moved away from having a lot of nitty gritty modifiers, and gone with more streamlined difficulty adjudication. This has made my life a lot easier. Love it.

Layout has gotten so much better in the last few years. I feel like it's leaps and bounds better than it was. Games are a lot easier to run, and learn as a result.

I really like using the Jenga tower from dread as a periphery mechanic in my games. I think it adds so much tension to the game. Great stuff. I've been experimenting with this sort of game design lately, but it's hard if you're only able to play online.

I like the more condensed skill lists I've been seeing lately because they keep characters specialized, but make it so that I don't have to memorize them everytime I learn a new game.

I really like the GM prep tools in more recent games like Stars Without Number. They're so helpful in making a world feel alive.

I like the shift to faster combat where every roll has an impact on the game. Much prefer systems where you take damage when you fail your melee combat roll. It just ramps up the tension so much more.

I don't really have a favourite game or anything, so I don't really have anything specific to Stan for.

I haven't played some of the newer stuff like forged in the dark though.

 

[xanther]

Fair enough, that is a game that I'm sadly unfamiliar with

En Garde' is set in the musketeer time of France, IIRC (not sure if can dig up my copy from way back) it has an kind of abstract action system where you are vying more for social rank (getter into better clubs, literally) and getting mentioned in dispatches was a big thing, kind of like going viral. A really fun little game, like one little 64 page booklet or so, again IIRC.

 

[xanther]

I really fundamentally like the dice pool/count success mechanic...although it can be implemented in such a way as to be awful....as can any mechanic. It is my favorite by far, though late to it, when done well it solves every "problem" ever had with ARPG mechanics.

In a way, it is both "new" but it is also real old school, also pre-D&D. That is the base mechanic is one used in miniature war games, just you didn't have much else to do besides attack or defend. On a 6 you get a hit (aka success). I dream at times if Dave & Gary hadn't been so attracted to the new shiny polyhedral dice, and said, you know, why does a 6 hits in Chain Mail just have to be a hit, why not a defense, or even movement? When we say a Hero is equal to 5 men, let's go with that meaning 5 dice and expand a "hit" into the concept of "success."

If anyone knows the province and the earliest gems to use a dice pool/count success type system would love to be educated.

 

[TristramEvans]

In between these two extremes, we had decades of games in which we're given rules to resolve actions and some cool setting fluff, and then left to figure out put it all together by outselves..

I don't think decades, I think one decade - the 90s. The 90s had a very specific approach to RPGs that was mstly cram a bunch of setting stuff together with a "generic" rules system (attributes = skills + merits/flaws) and go....

not that there wasn't exceptions, there's always exceptions, but once the millenium hit you had a few years of D20 dominating and destroying the market and then the rise of the online indie gaming revolution and the OSR.

 

[TristramEvans]

En Garde' is set in the musketeer time of France, IIRC (not sure if can dig up my copy from way back) it has an kind of abstract action system where you are vying more for social rank (getter into better clubs, literally) and getting mentioned in dispatches was a big thing, kind of like going viral. A really fun little game, like one little 64 page booklet or so, again IIRC.

Oh yeah, I certainly know of En Garde, I've just never owned it or gotten to play.

I never even managed to get Castle Falkenstein campaign going, not for lack of trying for several years.

 

[AsenRG]

I dunno, did it? I mean, there have been lots of percentile/roll under systems over the years. When people cite Mythras, it should be noted that it was previously written as editions of RuneQuest, and they were using that mechanic from about 2006 in any case. Is it really that unusual in mainstream games?

I'm saying it became popular in the last 10, not that it didn't exist before. I know full well it did.
But then it was just MRQ2, maybe UA2 as well. In the last 10 years? After that, you have it in Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, RQ6/Mythras and UA3, I think...and probably in some other games I'm forgetting.

I guess my question is what things are new trends in the last 10 years or so that really weren’t around before?

They were, I'm talking about the time when it became popular - in my experience. Because experience is always subjective with RPGs, since nobody is playing all of them at once.
And you're getting really philosophical here, almost like a man deprived of access to strong spirits by familial and/or doctor intervention!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I haven't played some of the newer stuff like forged in the dark though.

Based on the things you listed that you like, you probably want to check FitD out.

 

[Trippy]

I'm saying it became popular in the last 10, not that it didn't exist before. I know full well it did.
But then it was just MRQ2, maybe UA2 as well. In the last 10 years? After that, you have it in Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, RQ6/Mythras and UA3, I think...and probably in some other games I'm forgetting.

And Pendragon as mentioned above. And I’m not sure it is really expanding into the realms of major popularity when you are just listing later editions of the same games, is it?

 

[TristramEvans]

I think defining "popularity" in this hobby is kinda a fool's errand. I'm just taking the OP to mean, stuff that's extant in games being played now.

On an unrelated note, a catalogue of RPG system elements and actually when they were innovated seems like a cool idea for a website though...

 

[Voros]

I dig playbooks, when well designed they are so concise and communicate what the genre or style of play is. For a lot of the better PbtA games you hardly need to look at the core rules, it is almost all there right in the playbooks.

 

[TristramEvans]

I dig playbooks, when well designed they are so concise and communicate what the genre or style of play is. For a lot of the better PbtA games you hardly need to look at the core rules, it is almost all there right in the playbooks.

I really like the idea of, and aesthetic of playbooks. I'd like to see them utilized by a game other than PbtA

 

[AsenRG]

And Pendragon as mentioned above. And I’m not sure it is really expanding into the realms of major popularity when you are just listing later editions of the same games, is it?

"Reaching critical mass" is what I was going to base my answer on, given that Pendragon has never had a great popularity AFAICT. But as I said, popularity is hard to determine.

I think defining "popularity" in this hobby is kinda a fool's errand. I'm just taking the OP to mean, stuff that's extant in games being played now.

You are probably right, but then what would we discuss about?

I really like the idea of, and aesthetic of playbooks. I'd like to see them utilized by a game other than PbtA

Like Beyond the Wall?