Quote from: Arkansan;843194So is it really possible to "innovate" mechanic wise?

Sure. And I'll give you three recent examples.

Technoir found a completely new (and truly compelling) method for action resolution by using Verbs (which describe what a character is good at) to push Adjectives (which describe the outcome of their action) onto a target. Once this is coupled with the mechanics which determine how the improvised adjectives affect the target, the result is incredibly compelling. (Technoir also features awesomely innovative plot-mapping mechanics.)

Numenera gave us GM intrusions. Although superficially similar to luck points or Fate points, the unique aspect of the GM offering the intrusion and then the player choosing to either accept or reject the intrusion creates a simple, streamlined mechanical structure that allows the GM to take huge creative risks while being "protected" by a safety net which allows players to seamlessly rein them in if they go too far. I've found this to be absurdly valuable, and once you've mastered the art of the GM intrusion, you'll quickly find yourself wishing that EVERY game had this mechanic.

Blowback is a lesser known game by Elizabeth Sampat, but it created the Push Pyramid for managing the responses of large NPC organizations to PC activity. Kenneth Hite took this idea and turned it into the Vampyramid for Night's Black Agents, added the Conspyramid for running NPC conspiracies, and then laced in a ton of really cool and innovative mechanics by which the PCs can navigate through these structures.

Quote from: Necrozius;843562As for rules and dice mechanisms, well, we'll see. I like the Cypher system's idea of reducing difficulties instead of padding bonuses, which, to me, is kind of innovative in the wake of the d20 craze, but I feel that the difficulty number thing (1 to 10, multiply by 3) is a little kludgy. But getting close!

It's incredibly elegant, actually. If you decreased the size of the die, you'd lose the useful mechanics tied to specific natural rolls and you'd also lose the ability to occasionally provide smaller +1 modifiers to the die roll. If you increased the number of difficulty levels, you'd push the range of the difficulty numbers to a size that would make it psychologically difficult for GMs to assign them consistently and you'd lose the current simplicity of the skill-based difficulty adjustments (or you'd drastically reduce the effectiveness of skills).

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;843587I've heard that the jenga tower use in Dread is supposedly very appropriate for the horror and suspense genre. It sounds gimmicky though.

It's new to an RPG,* but it's not new. It's a mechanic that's long been used elsewhere. Obviously Jenga used it before Dread, but Jenga is like building a house of cards in reverse and also like a 3D version of the kids game Operation.


* Someone could argue that one could (and sort of does) play the kid's game Operation as a very focused RPG. But  that someone won't be me. The devil already called and he said he doesn't need an advocate today.

Quote from: Bren;843637It's new to an RPG,* but it's not new. It's a mechanic that's long been used elsewhere. Obviously Jenga used it before Dread, but Jenga is like building a house of cards in reverse and also like a 3D version of the kids game Operation.

The innovation of applying the mechanic to RPG task resolution is a little clearer if you genericize the innovation: Dread was, AFAIK, the first RPG/STG to progressively increase the difficulty of each resolution in order to ramp up the tension towards an inevitable point of failure. The use of the Jenga tower was a gimmicky (albeit effective) way of accomplishing that, but it would have been innovative regardless of the specific implementation of the general concept.

(IMO, anyway.)

Have fun playing. If that leads to something fun that seems novel, the fun part is what matters. If it leads to fun that seems like just a remix of what's been done before, the fun part is what matters.

Novelty is unpredictable, else it wouldn't be novelty.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;843650The innovation of applying the mechanic to RPG task resolution is a little clearer if you genericize the innovation...

We were discussing novel mechanics. A Jenga tower is not a novel mechanic. If you want to discuss novel ways run a game that's a different topic that is only tangential to the actual mechanics used.

Quote from: Bren;843714We were discussing novel mechanics. A Jenga tower is not a novel mechanic. If you want to discuss novel ways run a game that's a different topic that is only tangential to the actual mechanics used.

I can't tell if you're arguing that any mechanic which involves talking at the table can't be innovative because people have been talking for millennia or if you're arguing that the mechanics of Dread aren't actually mechanics.

Either way: You're wrong.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;843724I can't tell if you're arguing that any mechanic which involves talking at the table can't be innovative because people have been talking for millennia or if you're arguing that the mechanics of Dread aren't actually mechanics.

It seems like you are being intentionally obtuse. I said that the  Jenga mechanic in Dread is not a new mechanic. It obviously isn't and Dread wanting to promote some play style using the mechanic doesn't change that. Is that clear now?

Quote from: estar;843567Perhaps I would have agreed with your circa 1995 and then I ran into Fudge Dice which are distinctly different. Rolemaster exploding percentile with pretty nifty when it first came out back in the day.

My opinion that it not impossible to come up with new ways of rolling the dice but it is hard and not likely be better than other similar methods.

Emphasis mine, of course.

I don't call that "innovative," which I define as coming up with something no one ever thought of before.  Mechanics like RM's open-ended rolls don't qualify: the creators just thought that was cooler and snazzier than simply assigning similar results to '00.'  That's not an innovation, that's a gimmick.

Quote from: Bren;843731It seems like you are being intentionally obtuse. I said that the  Jenga mechanic in Dread is not a new mechanic. It obviously isn't and Dread wanting to promote some play style using the mechanic doesn't change that. Is that clear now?

I'm missing some subtle distinction here. Some dice mechanics are considered innovative, but rolling dice is not new either. Isn't the innovation in how the old mechanic is being used? And is the "how" a new mechanic in of itself, or not?

And the hair-splitting and quarrels about definitions have begun!

Quote from: Arkansan;843194This was something I was thinking about the other evening. I think at some point anyone who has been into rpg's gets the idea to write their own. Many of the folks I have known, myself included, have this first reaction of wanting to do something as novel as possible.

That desire normally passes as soon as you find a half-way decent system that ticks most of your boxes.

What then happens is a never-ending desire to tinker with that favourite system instead.

Quote from: Arkansan;843194However the longer I have thought about it the more I'm not sure that's A. really even possible at this point nor B. particularly desirable.

Oh, it is possible, I just no longer see the point. Unless the new system is a lot better than a favourite system, why bother creating the new one?

Quote from: Arkansan;843194It seems to me that we have sort of hashed out all the major ways any given die or dice can be used to generate "friction" in a given game play scenario. Nearly any mechanic you can think of will likely have a given analog somewhere or another.

Ah, but the thing with innovation is that nobody sees it, until someone shows them it, in which case they say "That's obvious", or "That's clever", or "That's good".

I am sure there is plenty of innovation that is left to do. How much can be applied to other games and how much drastically improves games, I have no idea.

Quote from: Arkansan;843194For the most part in my experience I have seen systems that were too wrapped up in trying to do something different. Often it seems convoluted or forced.

Doing something different for the sake of being different is not particularly good.

Quote from: Arkansan;843194Personally I have realized over the years that what makes or breaks a system for me is rarely mechanics but more often presentation, play-ability(I suppose this is a mechanical issue), and how well the system seems to fit the genre it's taking on.

Having simple mechanics is better than overly complex mechanics, in my opinion. Consistent mechanics are also a god idea. I like D100/RQ/BRP/Legend, for those reasons, the mechanics are simple and consistent, by and large.

Quote from: Arkansan;843194So is it really possible to "innovate" mechanic wise? Is that even really a desirable goal? If someone were to set out to write a new game should they even make the attempt at "wholly" new or just work from some existing template to fit the intended setting/genre?

I think that it is possible to innovate and it is a good idea. However, I leave it to younger, cleverer people than me to do, allowing me to use their wonderful ideas in my games.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;843802I'm missing some subtle distinction here. Some dice mechanics are considered innovative, but rolling dice is not new either. Isn't the innovation in how the old mechanic is being used? And is the "how" a new mechanic in of itself, or not?

We were discussing using a Jenga Tower, not rolling dice. I don't see a Jenga tower as innovative since it is really just adding the game of Jenga to the middle of an RPG. Most innovations aren't. They usually just popularize something that is already in use. Apparently Justin Alexander doesn't agree and sees a Jenga tower as a big innovation. :huhsign:

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I think we are quibbling over definitions here. Personally I do think innovation still happens and is still possible. People have already pointed to some things like Numenera and other systems that are more experimental. That doesn't mean everyone will like the innovations, or that they are good on their own. But they certainly seem to happen. I welcome innovation. I think it's fine as long as it doesn't become the only way. There is room for people to stick to tried and true methods with slow incremental improvements, and for folks who want to truly think outside the box (if the latter happens to produce a new mechanic that others can use, that's great). In my experience though, innovation tends to be best when it is produced to respond to a particular need or concern (rather than simply being done for its own sake).

I see innovation as not just being about mechanics. You look at things like adventures and adventure structures and people are constantly doing interesting things there. I've seen lots of interesting procedures, tools, etc in this respect. Zak Smith has been doing some things with tables for example that are pretty clever (and I've seen others follow suit).

Quote from: Bren;843857We were discussing using a Jenga Tower, not rolling dice. I don't see a Jenga tower as innovative since it is really just adding the game of Jenga to the middle of an RPG. Most innovations aren't. They usually just popularize something that is already in use. Apparently Jason Alexander doesn't agree and sees a Jenga tower as a big innovation. :huhsign:

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I don't know. I think when you find a new use for an existing thing, that can be called innovation. Personally I have no interest in Dread, I don't like the Jenga tower mechanic, but I would be dishonest if I didn't acknowledge it was clever and an interesting way to build tension (it just happens to be a way that feels too disconnected to the characters to work for me). Again, I suppose we are quibbling over definitions. If you don't think innovation can include using pre-existing things and Justin Alexander does, then you guys will be arguing till the end of time over this.

Quote from: Bren;843857Apparently Jason Alexander doesn't agree and sees a Jenga tower as a big innovation. :huhsign:

Justin Alexander sees the innovation as

Quote from: Justin Alexander;843650Dread was, AFAIK, the first RPG/STG to progressively increase the difficulty of each resolution in order to ramp up the tension towards an inevitable point of failure.

He wasn't arguing that the use of Jenga itself was innovative.

What Justin said that I don't understand is

Quote from: Justin Alexander;843589a completely new (and truly compelling) method for action resolution by using Verbs (which describe what a character is good at) to push Adjectives (which describe the outcome of their action) onto a target.

When I read that I can push Adjectives onto a target my brain refuses to parse the English ;-)