TheRPGSite

This 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.

However 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.

It 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.

For 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.

Personally 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.

So 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 appreciate the value of some diversity in game mechanics, and just general futzing around that I would call 'house rules' in most cases. But it got far out of control years ago and has now become something that is almost always a negative distraction. If I look through my entire gaming collection, there are probably 100 or more mechanically different ways to resolve an attack roll. That is just stupid, pointless, obfuscating bullshit. Given how badly our community has managed this issue, it is a mystery anyone plays these games at all.

Innovation for its own sake is distracting.

An innovative dice mechanic that handles a particular situation better than existing ones? Of course thats possible. And probably inevitable.

I always think that I'm done, then someone comes out with something clever that is really great to play (like the Cypher System) or can be used to make my life easier (the freakish combination of Dungeon Worlds Fronts and the 5x5 Dungeon Design method), or all of the cool fiddly bits of the Gumeshoe system, and then I'm impressed again.

I wrote a blog post with my opinion on "innovation in RPGs" -- while it was specially directed to the then debate over whether OSR games were innovative enough, it really in my opinion of innovation in in RPGs in general.

QuoteThe latest "great debate" going around the OSR blogsphere is about innovation -- as in are OSR games and settings innovative enough and/or whether settings or rules should be the focus of innovation.

I'm going to be a curmudgeon and say that I don't give a damn if a game or setting is full of innovative ideas or 100% derivative. All I care about is whether or not the result is something I'm willing to actually use. I'd rather buy a game or setting that is 100% derivative of everything that has gone before if it is something I like and will use than buy a game or setting full of innovative ideas that either turn me off or require a lot of work on my part to learn and/or use.

Innovation for innovation's sake is pointless. If your innovative ideas make the game harder to play, take longer to do things, make it harder for those who aren't into system mastery, make it more work to referee, are simply reinventing the wheel without really improving the wheel, or the like I'm simply not interested in the innovations. The same goes for settings -- if your innovative setting requires a lot of effort to understand or get involved in, chances are few people will actually use it in play. Tekumel is often held up as a example of an innovative setting. I happen to be one of the people who loves Tekumel and has ever since TSR published Empire of the Petal Throne in the mid-1970s. However, I've seldom been able to play in a Tekumel campaign and have only ran a few short campaigns set there in all these years. Getting committed players for it is hard as it takes quite a bit more effort on the player's part to get into than a more standard fantasy setting.

Remember also that true innovation in rules is rare. Many rules ideas I have seen listed as innovative recently were actually first tried back in the 1970s and 1980s. Advantage and disadvantage are often touted as innovative by D&D 5e fans. I tried (and rejected as they made lots of extra work for the GM) very similar rules back in the early 1980s in one of my homebrew rules sets. The D20 roll with ascending AC used in D20 games was seen as very innovative when D&D 3.0 was published, yet I first saw such a system published for D&D in Different Worlds circa 1980 in a two-part article by John T Sapienza Jr ("D&D Variant: Vardy Combat System" in Different Worlds #6 and #7). Chances are fairly good that your "innovative rules mechanic" has already been done.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not against innovation in either rules or settings. I'm simply not interested in games or settings that try to be innovative as one of their primary goals. I want good rules and good settings, if they are innovative without reinventing the wheel or pointless complexity/change, great. If they don't have a shred of innovation but work well for my needs, great. If their main claim to fame is "being innovative", I'm not likely to be interested.

My advice is to concentrate on making your rules or setting work well in for OSR play. If that requires innovation, innovate. But don't innovate simply to please those who seem to think that innovation is the be all and end all of good rules or setting design. There is nothing inherently right about innovation nor is there anything inherently wrong with innovation. The same, of course, is true of being derivative. Make the best rules or setting you can and don't worry about whether it will be seen as innovative or derivative.

---Innovation in the OSR? Who Cares? (http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2015/05/innovation-in-osr-who-cares.html)

An example (to me ) of innovation for the sake of it is "The One ring" RPG.

The combat mechanic is quite clunky and slow and doesn't really add anything.

I thought it was odd they turned traveling from a location to another location into a gaming mechanic, as they felt roleplaying traveling in between locations in game as a waste of time, which I disagree with.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed with ToR, although it was very pretty.

It was REALLY disorganised as well.

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

Yes.

QuoteIs that even really a desirable goal?

The answer varies depending on what you're going for.

QuoteIf 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?

Again, depends on your goals and what you can do with the existing templates.

I used to be all for innovation and big books with a legion of rules inside of it to try to master it.  I didn't think a game is good unless it has hundreds of options to pick from, or it does something unique in its mechanics.

Then I got older.  I figured out a long time ago that you don't need massive amount of rules, or innovation for the sake of innovation mechanics to make your game good.  You just run the game well and every thing else should follow.

If you could look at my early attempts to make a game system you could see that.  My early ideas which I thought up ten years ago, or more were using 3.5 DnD rules, nWoD with even more merits, or something that is too big for its own good.  Either way I ended up making a large cluster fuck of a mess and just giving up.  I am a shamed of myself for not going light sooner given how many years I spent on a fruitless task.

Now my idea had shrank down to some thing similar to a rules lite Dark Heresy.  You got your hit points, your percentage dice rolling mechanics, a few traits, and the major deal is assets.  Most of those things are just old, but proven mechanics that people can rely on.  The only reason why I made assets is because I don't want to write down a massive amount of abilities so I kept it free flowing like FATE aspects.  Hell the only reason I got three hit points was because I stolen it from d20 Star Wars and some DnD clone that is a mix of 3.5 and 4th editions.  Mainly heroic points is your buffer health and most important your energy pool which allows your character to pull off effects in the game.  What effects you can do is again determined by your assets.

About 20 years ago I was talking to a friend who played games and she asked "Have you designed the perfect RPG yet?" At the time I still thought it was possible to make a perfect game, not for everyone of course, but one that I would see as damn near perfect. I considered that question off and on over the years.

This hobby has been around for about 40 years. Now I wonder if just about everything that could be done has been done and it's just a matter of mixing and matching parts and choosing what you and your group prefer. Rolling stats vs. point buy; percentage vs. d20 or 3d6 or 2d6 or diceless; passive defense vs. active defense (or a bit of both); hit locations vs. general damage; classes vs. skills or a mix; using cards for random determinations, detailing a characters past at creation, etc, etc. Is there something that hasn't been thought up and included in a game system somewhere?

Silly BS aside perhaps the real question is "What mechanic do you want to see in a game that hasn't already been used?"

Quote from: danskmacabre;843199An example (to me ) of innovation for the sake of it is "The One ring" RPG.

The combat mechanic is quite clunky and slow and doesn't really add anything.

I thought it was odd they turned traveling from a location to another location into a gaming mechanic, as they felt roleplaying traveling in between locations in game as a waste of time, which I disagree with.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed with ToR, although it was very pretty.

It was REALLY disorganised as well.

Yeah that's how I felt about ToR, I really want to like it but it's clunky and the organization is shit. I hear they've put out a revised edition that's better but I'm not shelling out for another copy.

Quote from: Snowman0147;843205I used to be all for innovation and big books with a legion of rules inside of it to try to master it.  I didn't think a game is good unless it has hundreds of options to pick from, or it does something unique in its mechanics.

Then I got older.  I figured out a long time ago that you don't need massive amount of rules, or innovation for the sake of innovation mechanics to make your game good.  You just run the game well and every thing else should follow.

If you could look at my early attempts to make a game system you could see that.  My early ideas which I thought up ten years ago, or more were using 3.5 DnD rules, nWoD with even more merits, or something that is too big for its own good.  Either way I ended up making a large cluster fuck of a mess and just giving up.  I am a shamed of myself for not going light sooner given how many years I spent on a fruitless task.

Now my idea had shrank down to some thing similar to a rules lite Dark Heresy.  You got your hit points, your percentage dice rolling mechanics, a few traits, and the major deal is assets.  Most of those things are just old, but proven mechanics that people can rely on.  The only reason why I made assets is because I don't want to write down a massive amount of abilities so I kept it free flowing like FATE aspects.  Hell the only reason I got three hit points was because I stolen it from d20 Star Wars and some DnD clone that is a mix of 3.5 and 4th editions.  Mainly heroic points is your buffer health and most important your energy pool which allows your character to pull off effects in the game.  What effects you can do is again determined by your assets.

I went through a phase of trying to design the most Byzantine bullshit simply because I was convinced everything had to be ironed out, and worse I felt like it all needed to be "new and exciting!". I hit a point where I got sick of pointless complexity and I realized that there really wasn't anything new about anything I was doing.

Quote from: Doughdee222;843207About 20 years ago I was talking to a friend who played games and she asked "Have you designed the perfect RPG yet?" At the time I still thought it was possible to make a perfect game, not for everyone of course, but one that I would see as damn near perfect. I considered that question off and on over the years.

This hobby has been around for about 40 years. Now I wonder if just about everything that could be done has been done and it's just a matter of mixing and matching parts and choosing what you and your group prefer. Rolling stats vs. point buy; percentage vs. d20 or 3d6 or 2d6 or diceless; passive defense vs. active defense (or a bit of both); hit locations vs. general damage; classes vs. skills or a mix; using cards for random determinations, detailing a characters past at creation, etc, etc. Is there something that hasn't been thought up and included in a game system somewhere?

Silly BS aside perhaps the real question is "What mechanic do you want to see in a game that hasn't already been used?"

I feel the same way you do, I really think most everything that can be done has been done and now it's a matter of putting together in a way that works for you.

Quote from: Arkansan;843213Yeah that's how I felt about ToR, I really want to like it but it's clunky and the organization is shit. I hear they've put out a revised edition that's better but I'm not shelling out for another copy.

Being a LotR fan, I REALLY wanted to like ToR.
They got the mood right, meaning art and text etc.

But yeah, I remember doing a playtest session with a friend.
character gen was a nightmare, I was flipping all through the book finding the right section in various phases of character gen.

Combat was even worse and was such a pain to go through.

The slipcase and dice were pretty, but that's not enough for such a crap game.

Yes I heard they did a revised edition to make it more organised as well, but it was a pretty expensive RPG when I bought it the first time around.
No way I'm gonna buy a new version.
Especially as I just didn't like some of their game design decisions at all.

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

Sure it's possible. Though it is unlikely that anyone will come up with a mechanic that hasn't been used somewhere else. Even the goofy Jenga tower mechanic already showed up in Jenga, and Jenga was like building a house of cards in revers or like a 3D version of the kids game Operation.

QuoteIs that even really a desirable goal?

Innovation for its own sake does not benefit the game. There are three benefits to innovation.

(1) If the innovation does something useful in the game that existing mechanics can't do.
(2) If the innovation does something other mechanics do, but does it more simply or more elegantly.
(3) If the innovation somehow enhances the game experience in some other way.

QuoteIf 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?

Neither.

The only good reason from a game design standpoint to try to do something new is for one of the reasons above. Doing something different for the sake of difference just obfuscates what you are doing and makes the game harder to learn. Usually that's not a good thing to do design-wise.

The reason to use a template is because it makes your design easier or it makes your game easier to sell or for new buyers to learn.

Now a designer might be tempted by the intellectual challenge of trying to come up with a new, but not better, way to do things. That may be intellectually stimulating to the designer, but it's a bad goal for design.

Quote from: Bren;843221Innovation for its own sake does not benefit the game.

Many game designers need this burned into their flesh with the tip of a red-hot poker.

It's all such a waste of creative energy. I'd trade 5 solid 70's era pastel modules for 5000 pages of rules-y dreck.

You can always innovate, in any field. The problem with rpgs is about 95% of the time, "innovation" is used instead of "obfuscate shitty mechanics".

I mean, honestly, wtf are rpg mechanics, anyway? Roll some dice to see if an action with an uncertain outcome succeeds or fails. That's about it. At some point you'll run out of ideas as to how those dice are rolled and how they're interpreted and then you have to actually write a good game instead of just bamboozling people with your novel take on a die pool system (which was already perfected in WEG SW, anyway).

Also, I think if a newbie can't play with nothing more than the information on their character sheet, the game sucks.

Quote from: Arkansan;843213I went through a phase of trying to design the most Byzantine bullshit simply because I was convinced everything had to be ironed out, and worse I felt like it all needed to be "new and exciting!". I hit a point where I got sick of pointless complexity and I realized that there really wasn't anything new about anything I was doing.

You can't say it any better than that.  Seriously who ever thinks they are innovating the role playing game hobby with their mechanics need to shut up.  Innovation for the sake of innovation is a horrible thing to do with horrible results.

Hell reminds me of Dark Heresy 2.0 when they tried to innovate the combat system.  My group spent a hour trying to figure out the rate of fire rule.  A hour in the middle of combat to figure out how many shots we can fire from our guns.  No surprise when Fantasy Flight got back from a con they swiftly went back to the Only War rules because while it isn't innovated the fact is those mechanics had proven to work well.

In my view tabletop RPGs is in essence a pen & paper virtual reality that uses a human referee using a game as a tool to adjudicate the actions of his players.

Reality even fictional reality is so varied and diverse that the referee has to pick and choose in order to make a RPG campaign even possible. And after that you need the tools so adjudicate what happens when players make their choices as their characters.

It is possible innovate in RPGs sure it is. We haven't exhausted the possibilities, exhausted the ways that even the most popular genres and tropes can be presented and used in a pen & paper reality.

What important is that if you do something different and new that it is for a good reason. That whatever you trying to do is both useful to a referee and that it works as intended in implementing those aspects of the setting or genre the designer thinks is important.

Quote from: estar;843258In my view tabletop RPGs is in essence a pen & paper virtual reality that uses a human referee using a game as a tool to adjudicate the actions of his players.

Reality even fictional reality is so varied and diverse that the referee has to pick and choose in order to make a RPG campaign even possible. And after that you need the tools so adjudicate what happens when players make their choices as their characters.

It is possible innovate in RPGs sure it is. We haven't exhausted the possibilities, exhausted the ways that even the most popular genres and tropes can be presented and used in a pen & paper reality.

What important is that if you do something different and new that it is for a good reason. That whatever you trying to do is both useful to a referee and that it works as intended in implementing those aspects of the setting or genre the designer thinks is important.

Yeah, thats pretty much my thoughts. I always saw the referee's common sense and ability to improvise as an essential, if unspoken most of the time, part of the game mechanics. I mean when you have access to something as powerful as the human brain to take in the variables of a unique situation and adjudicate based on that to optimize the game experience, why not make use of that?

Which is why the modern trend of subjugating the GM to the role of "just another player" always struck me as so limiting and bizarrely self-defeating. It puts the onus on the system to be everything at all times, and in those cases, how is it not going to fall flat when compared to the computing power of a crpg?

A good many games could've been a whole hell of a lot better than they actually were if they weren't trying to very hard to twist their mechanics into a knot either to be O!S!R! and Just Like D&D! or OhHellNoNotD&DNoWay!!

Rules in tabletop are necessary for only three things:

1) What is it I can do and how good am I at doing it?
2) Am I allowed to do something or not? and
3) Did I pull off what I wanted to do or not, and how well did I do at it?

Every dice rolling mechanic ever devised does nothing more than juggle the probabilities.  d20?  Nice and linear in 5% increments.  3d6?  Bell curve in differing, but predictable increments.  Exploding dice pools?  Just a weird way to obscure the probabilities, which nonetheless are something I expect a mathematically inclined person with time on his or her hands could figure out.

No one is ever going to come up with an "innovative" probability-generating mechanic.  It'll be different, perhaps, but all it can possibly do is (a) change the increments and/or (b) make them more or less accessible to the players.

Quote from: Brad;843256You can always innovate, in any field. The problem with rpgs is about 95% of the time, "innovation" is used instead of "obfuscate shitty mechanics".

Innovation for its own sake can be as helpful as devising your own system of spelling.

Quote from: Bren;843221Innovation for its own sake does not benefit the game. There are three benefits to innovation.

(1) If the innovation does something useful in the game that existing mechanics can't do.
(2) If the innovation does something other mechanics do, but does it more simply or more elegantly.
(3) If the innovation somehow enhances the game experience in some other way.

In my system I have various mechanics that I haven't seen before.

For example, I wanted stats to be random, but not to have some characters massively better or worse than others, so you choose a set of stats at random from a table.

The selling point would be that it's simple and achieves a purpose. I wouldn't sell it as "innovative" though as that has a "wow, look at this!" connotation, whereas the best game mechanics are ones where you're pleasantly surprised that they work nicely, then you stop noticing them and get on with playing the game.

I am always ad-libbing new system mechnaics (i just finished my third boardgame this year) so I am very interested in mechanics.
However, I am always looking for mechnics that drive the game rather than mechanics that are just interesting.

So take the wider game space the idea MtG had for Tapping a card to indicate that it was "exhausted' is great and so intuitive that now it's hard to build a game where things do stuff without just using tapping as the way to incate that. Its simple, inutitive and leads to a host of other mechnaics (untapping this out of sequence etc etc ..)

In RPGs I can think of a few from the James bond chanse system I tout constantly to Advatage/disadvantage which I have taken to extreme use cases in a space ship combat game I made up.

I wrote a mass combat module for my heartbreaker which condensed tactical advantages into poker chips the players could spend to add or subtract from die rolls. So the 6 barrels of gunpower they were able to acquire became 6 poker chips which when released at different points in the combat made their attacks or their oppoents defenses fail.
This linked an abstract intuitive process back to an in game resource.
We were able to have a battle between 2 armies of 1000 + in a complex city enviroment played out in 30 minutes of game time where tactical choices made a difference and without minis or a battle map (outside of a crudely drawn "map"). The battle felt like a battle the outcome felt like it was what should have happened and the players were proud they used resources wisely.
Have other people done it before? No idea. it felt innovative at the time but more importantly it worked.

The innovative ideas -
 
Point buy
Diceless play
Hero Points
Advantage/Disadvantage
Life Path chargen
Sanity
Chases
the logarythmic size scale used in Bunnies and Burrows
the combat sequence and attack model from En Garde

were all invented at some point.

If we could have innovative mechanics that covered

Resource tracking (foraging, hunting, scavenging)
Spell creation
Fear
Mind control
Exploration
Armour

I think they would be welcomed but only if they actually made the game better.

Quote from: danskmacabre;843199An example (to me ) of innovation for the sake of it is "The One ring" RPG.

The combat mechanic is quite clunky and slow and doesn't really add anything.

I thought it was odd they turned traveling from a location to another location into a gaming mechanic, as they felt roleplaying traveling in between locations in game as a waste of time, which I disagree with.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed with ToR, although it was very pretty.

It was REALLY disorganised as well.

The One Ring is probably a good example to show that "gimmicky" is not the same as "innovative" and that different systems for the sake of difference does not create a good game (however, great artwork and production values help to maintain an according illusion).

Of course, sometimes there are good ideas that become more popular nd wide-spread. The advantage/disadvantage system  of D&D 5e for example wasn't completely new, but it felt innovative (at least for me) in comparison to the way modifiers like these were handled before. It might not have been a huge eye-opener, but it was a decently implemented, good idea and that is actually a lot better than something completely new but basically gimmicky.

Innovation.
I claim my system is still innovative, but not really many has bothered taking a look at it.

It seems too simple to some I guess, but if someone looking for something really simple, like barely no skills or abilities at all, and magic and other rules that technically may be defined however the player like, but only really has one rule and one effect, then my rules are too "complicated" for them.

I offer detail where requested, not complications, but as everyone is into their own creations, including me, I guess "i shouldn't complain"".
(Passive-aggressive a lot? Yeah, I guess.)

Quote from: Catelf;843294Innovation.
I claim my system is still innovative, but not really many has bothered taking a look at it.

It might have something to do with the fact that having an innovative system and getting people to pay attention are two separate, mostly unrelated steps;). Sometimes the first one helps the next one, and sometimes it doesn't, really.

Also, just looked at your system, and while it's probably workable, it needs some more work.

As geek-related hobbies become more and more mainstream we'll get more and more fresh blood. That means new or different ideas than usual which means introducing different concepts, for good or ill.

But like any field, I think that basic usability will improve and mature. Technology plays a factor into this: I still see so many PDFs, meant for digital consumption, not print, still being designed with print in mind, which is frustrating and annoying (eg: blank pages to pad out the page count to an even number, huge watermarks, lack of bookmarking etc...). Some designers get it, though, and release their products as a package of electronic formats (eg: print quality, digital version with a smaller file size, landscape, epub etc...). To me, that's innovative for our hobby.

As 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!

I guess that I truly believe that we're in very interesting times, and things are changing, albeit gradually, as the hobby "gene pool" broadens.

Quote from: Ravenswing;843267A good many games could've been a whole hell of a lot better than they actually were if they weren't trying to very hard to twist their mechanics into a knot either to be O!S!R! and Just Like D&D! or OhHellNoNotD&DNoWay!!

On one hand you are right and on the other hand you are wrong. I think that the focus of the rules should be on implementing what important to adjudicate in a setting and should reflect the particulars of how that works in that setting.

However the design of the rules is of huge importance when it comes to personal preference and enjoyment of the game or creating things for the game. So I am not going to knock any author's choice of rules as the alternative would likely be that the work wouldn't be produced in the first place.

Quote from: Ravenswing;843267which nonetheless are something I expect a mathematically inclined person with time on his or her hands could figure out.

or just go to Any Dice
http://anydice.com/

Quote from: Ravenswing;843267
No one is ever going to come up with an "innovative" probability-generating mechanic.  It'll be different, perhaps, but all it can possibly do is (a) change the increments and/or (b) make them more or less accessible to the players.

Perhaps 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.

Quote from: TristramEvans;843262Which is why the modern trend of subjugating the GM to the role of "just another player" always struck me as so limiting and bizarrely self-defeating. It puts the onus on the system to be everything at all times, and in those cases, how is it not going to fall flat when compared to the computing power of a crpg?

My view is that there is adjudication and there is adjudication. Does there has to be a referee with the final say on things like hitting a monster with a sort, rolling to see if you made the wand of fireballs? No. There are other types of roleplaying games, like LARPS, that work fine without having a referee adjudicate specific actions of the PC.

My view is that making the referee "just another player" destroys the point of the game; which is to be some character interacting with a setting doing something interesting. You need a referee is because the players as their characters are not omniscience. Somebody has to decide how the unseen elements of the setting interact with the characters and that person is the referee. If you make the player omniscient then they won't ever act as if they are there as their character. The meta-game knowledge will distort their behavior.

You can't completely escape this as player will and can master the game like knowing what every spell, magic item, and monsters does. However trying to add more on top of this is just stupid in my opinion.

Yes, very possible.  Some things I started working with have now been used by published systems, but not all.  

And very useful.  Maybe not to everyone, but to my players.

Good mechanics represent better the setting and the type of game you want to play.   Every GM, setting and game match is different.  Ergo, the need for a slightly or radically different ruleset for each.

It's entirely possible to make new game mechanics. Look:

"Your character's attribute scores are determined by running your cell phone serial number through a hashing algorithm..."

And, since we all have different tastes, and even good proven mechanics can be picked, chosen, recombined, and applied to different settings, and many of us even like variety or to try new things, in general I think we always will be creating at least variations.

I think though that focusing on whether something is new or not rarely matters. Doing what's fun, appealing, and interesting is what matters. People still compose classical music, and write stories, even if most of the themes and so on have been done before. It seems to me a peculiar and unfortunate obsession to quest for the new and avoid doing something that's been done before.

Within my own peculiar tastes as a lifelong gamer, I do find myself dismissing most games I encounter, but not because I've seen similar things before, unless I know from experience I'm not interested in that thing. In fact, for many new mechanics I see, I compare them to others I know, and often think the innovative ones are cute (or ugly) but will turn me off if I know a different old mechanic that I can tell I'd like better. As others have written, newness for its own sake might be semi-interesting, but seems more likely to make me not want to play that game.

In RPGs in particular, I've seen quite a few designs that seem like they are trying to be clever and fresh, but from my perspective just seem worse than what I already know how to do, or as a GM with decades of experience, I could do better by just making up mechanics or even rolling dice and intuitively dictating what they mean. It doesn't help me to see a new lightweight game system that claims to be about something fantastic, but actually reduces to a very low-grain low-detail low-content super-rough arbitrary offering, which feels like I'm a chef being offered the latest McDonald's novelty meal.

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

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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/9595/roleplaying-games/technoir-sequences-vs-skill-challenges). (Technoir also features awesomely innovative plot-mapping mechanics (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/10632/roleplaying-games/technoir-and-the-three-clue-rule).)

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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/35499/roleplaying-games/numenera-the-art-of-gm-intrusions), 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:

.

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:

.

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 ;-)

Quote from: JoeNuttall;843874Justin Alexander sees the innovation as

Oops. My bad typo. Thanks for catching the typo.

Re: ever increasing difficulty until failure, I've known DMs from the 70s who did that. Innovative is not the way most of us described that style of play.

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

If that's true then I really don't know why he was quoting and responding to me.

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

I didn't bother to parse it. It sounds too much like the semi-free form games like Hero Wars that just aren't my cup of tea. They impose system where I don't need system to do the work and they ignore system where I want the system to do the work.

The vast majority of what people claim as "innovation" in RPGs is either just a largely aesthetic or otherwise meaningless change in something that already existed, needless complication of something that already existed, or trying to supplant existing mechanical systems with pointless faddy gimmickry.

A Russian roulette mechanic would probably add much more tension to Dread than Jenga can. You'd put one more bullet in each time you have to roll the bullet chamber.

 That would probably count as an innovative use of an old game in RPGs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;844450The vast majority of what people claim as "innovation" in RPGs is either just a largely aesthetic or otherwise meaningless change in something that already existed, needless complication of something that already existed, or trying to supplant existing mechanical systems with pointless faddy gimmickry.

I do see a lot of people reusing or slightly changing what was done before.  But I also see the need for people to try to better match their setting needs to individually tuned mechanic.

It's remarkable how different the attitudes towards innovation are in the RPG hobby (or at least this corner of it) and the boardgaming hobby. Innovation has been responsible for boardgaming exploding tenfold as a hobby in recent years. I don't know that you'd find any boardgamers against innovation outside of a handful of 50+ year old wargamers clutching faded copies of Advanced Third Reich and D-Day. And even in the wargaming sub-hobby, the most popular games by far today use innovative mechanics that were introduced in the last 10 years.

Quote from: Haffrung;844474It's remarkable how different the attitudes towards innovation are in the RPG hobby (or at least this corner of it) and the boardgaming hobby. Innovation has been responsible for boardgaming exploding tenfold as a hobby in recent years. I don't know that you'd find any boardgamers against innovation outside of a handful of 50+ year old wargamers clutching faded copies of Advanced Third Reich and D-Day. And even in the wargaming sub-hobby, the most popular games by far today use innovative mechanics that were introduced in the last 10 years.

Good point.

Quote from: Haffrung;844474It's remarkable how different the attitudes towards innovation are in the RPG hobby (or at least this corner of it) and the boardgaming hobby. Innovation has been responsible for boardgaming exploding tenfold as a hobby in recent years. I don't know that you'd find any boardgamers against innovation outside of a handful of 50+ year old wargamers clutching faded copies of Advanced Third Reich and D-Day. And even in the wargaming sub-hobby, the most popular games by far today use innovative mechanics that were introduced in the last 10 years.

I'm going to suggest thats largely because in a boardgame the primary focus is on mechanics, while a great many roleplayers prefer that the mechanics remain invisible or as unobtrusive as possible, to the point of seeing them as simply a necessary evil.

We already had a role playing game that was innovated and was board game friendly.  It was called Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition which sold like...  Oh wait a minute the game bombed and was the shortest lived edition in D&D history.  Only lasted 2.5 years before WOTC had to go back to the drawing board.  It is as if role players had different tastes than board gamers.

Quote from: Haffrung;844474It's remarkable how different the attitudes towards innovation are in the RPG hobby (or at least this corner of it) and the boardgaming hobby. Innovation has been responsible for boardgaming exploding tenfold as a hobby in recent years. I don't know that you'd find any boardgamers against innovation outside of a handful of 50+ year old wargamers clutching faded copies of Advanced Third Reich and D-Day. And even in the wargaming sub-hobby, the most popular games by far today use innovative mechanics that were introduced in the last 10 years.

I do think some of the reaction against innovation in RPGs is knee-jerk. But I also think it is around some fundamental divisions on the point of play.

This is a much smaller hobby. We've had lots of innovation but somehow that hasn't translated into the huge explosion you see in boardgames. Part of me suspects this is because the rules themselves are not what drives interest in play. The rules are important and I don't think we should poo-poo innovation where it arise.

For me the ideal is we become a community that embraces both experimentation and innovation, but also allows approaches based on tried and true methods. One that is totally comfortable with OD&D and quirky indie RPGs existing without having to annihilate one another. I think what is killing our hobby more than innovation or lack of innovation, is the ideological divide where we see our way of doing things as the right way, and the other guy's as a blight.

Quote from: Snowman0147;844492We already had a role playing game that was innovated and was board game friendly.  It was called Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition which sold like...  Oh wait a minute the game bombed and was the shortest lived edition in D&D history.  Only lasted 2.5 years before WOTC had to go back to the drawing board.  It is as if role players had different tastes than board gamers.

Can you point to anything in my post that suggested RPGs should be mechanically like board games? Just because a game has mechanics doesn't make it a boardgame, or boardgame-like. You understand that, right? The 1E AD&D DMG is chock full of dozens and dozens of pages of mechanics, systems, and sub-systems.

Quote from: Haffrung;844500Can you point to anything in my post that suggested RPGs should be mechanically like board games? Just because a game has mechanics doesn't make it a boardgame, or boardgame-like. You understand that, right? The 1E AD&D DMG is chock full of dozens and dozens of pages of mechanics, systems, and sub-systems.

I suspect where he is coming from is how a lot of people look to board games as the model for innovation in RPGs (at least that is how it felt a few years ago, not so much anymore). I think people have begun to realize the key difference between the two is a board game's mechanics are kind of the point. If the mechanics are not fun, the game itself isn't fun (and the mechanics only superficially have to connect with the flavor material). Whereas RPGs need mechanics that enhance the flavor component. I don't play D&D to experience the thrill of rolling initiative. I roll initiative to experience the thrill of combat.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;844498For me the ideal is we become a community that embraces both experimentation and innovation, but also allows approaches based on tried and true methods. One that is totally comfortable with OD&D and quirky indie RPGs existing without having to annihilate one another. I think what is killing our hobby more than innovation or lack of innovation, is the ideological divide where we see our way of doing things as the right way, and the other guy's as a blight.

Frankly, that ideological divide is driven by two groups of people:

1) Indie hipsters who love innovation for innovation's sake but have trouble designing games people actually want to play.

2) Nostalgic grognards who have an idealized era in their RPG history that they're desperately trying to define and defend.

A common trait to both groups is how many of them do not actively play RPGs, and instead have made a hobby of promoting their idealized notions of how people should play. The boardgaming hobby is not only much larger than the RPG hobby, but its participants are overwhelmingly people who are actively playing games right now. So any theory-crafting and nostalgia are swamped by the dizzying amount of actual play going on, and the shared experience of that play.

Innovation doesn't have to increase complexity or promote novelty for novelty's sake. The stunt dice in Dragon Age is an excellent example of simple, fun innovation. It's the kind of thing that would be shamelessly looted by boardgame designers and incorporated into new games that were suitable for stunts.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;844462A Russian roulette mechanic would probably add much more tension to Dread than Jenga can. You'd put one more bullet in each time you have to roll the bullet chamber.

Presumably, using a D6 rather than an actual revolver :eek:

Quote from: soltakss;844510Presumably, using a D6 rather than an actual revolver :eek:

I think he was facetiously suggesting a real revolver (the ultimate simulation of suspense and dread!).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;844503I suspect where he is coming from is how a lot of people look to board games as the model for innovation in RPGs (at least that is how it felt a few years ago, not so much anymore). I think people have begun to realize the key difference between the two is a board game's mechanics are kind of the point. If the mechanics are not fun, the game itself isn't fun (and the mechanics only superficially have to connect with the flavor material). Whereas RPGs need mechanics that enhance the flavor component. I don't play D&D to experience the thrill of rolling initiative. I roll initiative to experience the thrill of combat.

You hit the nail on the head.

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?

Ah. Okay. So we've confirmed that you were arguing that no mechanic involving talking at the table can be considered innovative because people talking was a thing which previously existed. Ergo, you're arguing from the position that no RPG has ever had innovative mechanics.

This nihilistic approach to the discussion is certainly "interesting", but I generally find the practice of redefining words so that they either apply to everything or nothing to generally be a waste of time. It is contrary to the purpose for which words exist in the first place.

The entire point of talking about "innovative mechanics" (as opposed to mechanics which are not innovative) is to draw a distinction between two different types of mechanics which actually exist. Your attempt to narrow the definition of "innovative" to the point where it describes nothing is pointless sophistry.

Quote from: Bren;843879I didn't bother to parse it.

That does generally explain your inability to contribute anything meaningful or relevant to the discussion.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;843874When I read that I can push Adjectives onto a target my brain refuses to parse the English ;-)

It's pretty simple: Your character's effectiveness at various types of tasks are defined as a rating in a Verb (such as Coax or Shoot). When you use your ability to Shoot things, you're attempting to create some specific effect in the target you're Shooting: For example, let's say you want to shoot a padlock in order to break it. The result would be a broken padlock. "Broken" is the adjective you're pushing.

For a verb like Shoot the results are generally pretty literal and not largely distinguished from other games (although it's notable that trick shots and the like are rendered from the system just as easily as basic "shoot to kill" outcomes), but where this core mechanic becomes incredibly powerful in actual play are the simple, robust systems which are built up around this core mechanic and allow various adjectives to interact with each other.

Quote from: TristramEvans;844480I'm going to suggest thats largely because in a boardgame the primary focus is on mechanics, while a great many roleplayers prefer that the mechanics remain invisible or as unobtrusive as possible, to the point of seeing them as simply a necessary evil.

Also the counters or game pieces and the game boards or maps.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;844516Ah. Okay. So we've confirmed that you were arguing that no mechanic involving talking at the table can be considered innovative because people talking was a thing which previously existed.

And that you haven't stopped beating your wife yet.

Apparently you are being intentionally obtuse. I’ve said no such thing. Also, the middle called and she said you make her very sad. Your attempt at reduction ad absurdum using your own straw man is sophomoric in the high school sense of the word.

QuoteThe entire point of talking about "innovative mechanics" (as opposed to mechanics which are not innovative) is to draw a distinction between two different types of mechanics which actually exist. Your attempt to narrow the definition of "innovative" to the point where it describes nothing is pointless sophistry.

Your attempt to broadly define the word innovative so as to include as innovative all preceding usages of not only a similar mechanic, but the exact same mechanic (e.g. Jenga) renders any discussion about innovation with you no more interesting that an examination of the publishing date of the latest game on your shelf.

I've come to expect more intelligence from your comments, but apparently you are having an off week or two or else you really, really love Jenga. Are you by chance posting from the beach after having a few too many piña coladas?

Most things are novel, in the sense of not having been used much or at all so far, simply because they have already been recognized as not so hot.

It might add "authentic ancient flavor" to replace dice tosses with reading the entrails of sacrificial victims, but man what a mess!

However, the views of many of us old-timers are sometimes different from those of folks who have more of a board-game ethos. That seems to dovetail with "narrative focused" -- as opposed to role-playing focused -- developments. So stuff that was dismissed in the past might become the latest hotness today.

Quote from: Phillip;844547It might add "authentic ancient flavor" to replace dice tosses with reading the entrails of sacrificial victims, but man what a mess!

Hey if you can't read the markings on a sheep's liver like a true Etruscan haruspex, you might as well stick to Candy Land.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;844548Hey if you can't read the markings on a sheep's liver like a true Etruscan haruspex, you might as well stick to Candy Land.

My son at 4 asked me how much damage Lord Licorice did.

Quote from: Haffrung;844505Frankly, that ideological divide is driven by two groups of people:

1) Indie hipsters who love innovation for innovation's sake but have trouble designing games people actually want to play.

2) Nostalgic grognards who have an idealized era in their RPG history that they're desperately trying to define and defend.

I disagree. I believe the ideological divide on innovation is driven by two groups that actually play RPGs but what they enjoy are very different.

One group likes mechanics and prefers to play games with interesting mechanics that they can manipulate.  The other group has little interest in mechanics and just wants them to fade into the background.  The first group likes innovation because it gives them new ways to play with the mechanics. The latter group generally only likes an innovation if it is easy to learn and makes the mechanics fade into the background more. (Yes, of course there is a middle, but it doesn't drive this discussion).

On Jenga:

If Dread was not the first published RPG-type rules set to use it, that's something I didn't know (and I suppose maybe neither did the makers of Dread).

On the other hand, if the argument for its lacking novelty is simply the prior existence of Jenga as a stand-alone game, then I think that makes too little of the novelty of adding it to an RPG context. D&D itself was not ex nihilo; all cultural developments build on what has been built already!

Jenga is something I would prefer to save for especially analogous situations, but pressing things into service and fitting them together is part of the fun I associate with the early years of the hobby. (There's really no reason it must be stuck in a more stereotyped form today, but that's how the culture has tended over the decades.)

Quote from: Bren;844538Your attempt to broadly define the word innovative so as to include as innovative all preceding usages of not only a similar mechanic, but the exact same mechanic (e.g. Jenga) renders any discussion about innovation with you no more interesting that an examination of the publishing date of the latest game on your shelf.

Okay, to review your (new) argument: A mechanic can use pre-existing elements (like dice or talking) and still be innovative... UNLESS that pre-existing element is a Jenga tower.

What makes a Jenga tower unique in this regard? You refuse to explain.

Quoteour attempt to broadly define the word innovative so as to include as innovative all preceding usages of not only a similar mechanic, but the exact same mechanic (e.g. Jenga)

Except you've already admitted that the mechanic in Dread is not "the exact same mechanic" as a Jenga game.

The only thing more ridiculous than the completely untenable argument you made is the way that you keep waffling back and forth on it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;844503I suspect where he is coming from is how a lot of people look to board games as the model for innovation in RPGs (at least that is how it felt a few years ago, not so much anymore). I think people have begun to realize the key difference between the two is a board game's mechanics are kind of the point. If the mechanics are not fun, the game itself isn't fun (and the mechanics only superficially have to connect with the flavor material). Whereas RPGs need mechanics that enhance the flavor component. I don't play D&D to experience the thrill of rolling initiative. I roll initiative to experience the thrill of combat.

I understand what you're saying, but if anything mechanics vs theme is one of the great divides in boardgaming.  Modern boardgames are on a continuum rather than one or the other, so something like Imperial Assault can have a decent set of coherent mechanics AND be a strongly themed Star Wars mission/combat game.

I think where boardgames have scored is tight design (both mechanical and layout/graphical), ease of introduction and speed of play, and I fully understand that RPGs are meant to be more of a toolkit.

But there's room for tight design too.  You can see in a game like Torchbearer how the inventory layout and death spiral have picked up on outside influences.

Actually, Torchbearer's death spiral is VERY neat - it takes a bunch of character statuses/conditions, hardly a novel mechanic, and turns them into not just a death spiral but also a countdown timer and ties into the games resource economy directly.  All the same, it's more than a dungeon crawler boardgame.  Shame I hate the Burning X system so much...

Quote from: Phillip;844552On the other hand, if the argument for its lacking novelty is simply the prior existence of Jenga as a stand-alone game, then I think that makes too little of the novelty of adding it to an RPG context. D&D itself was not ex nihilo; all cultural developments build on what has been built already!

I agree most mechanics build on existing mechanics. I think there can be disagreement about where the bar for actually novelty should be. I don't see any value to novelty for its own sake so if the bar is too high, I don't see that as an issue. And the current fashion in our culture generally and RPGs in particular to value the new as an improvement in and of itself makes me more inclined to draw the bar too high rather than too low.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;844627Okay, to review your (new) argument: A mechanic can use pre-existing elements (like dice or talking) and still be innovative... UNLESS that pre-existing element is a Jenga tower.

You seem fond of reduction ad absurdum. Why don't we apply it to your point of view. You maintain that novelty is present regardless of similarity so long as something is just a little bit different. In that case every RPG is novel since the wording used to describe even a functionally identical mechanic is not identical.

No one other than you maintains that D&D was novel in using a six sided die to roll for something other than moving around a circular track like Monopoly or Backgammon. But using your criteria any use of a six sided die to roll something other than weapon damage or hit points is novel. And rolling a D12 with results of 1-3 =4, 2-6 = 2, 7-9 = 3, and 10-12 = 1 would, by your logic, be a different mechanic than rolling a D4 in the usual way.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;844627Except you've already admitted that the mechanic in Dread is not "the exact same mechanic" as a Jenga game.

As far as I am aware it is the exact same mechanic in the same way that rolling a six sided die and reading the side on top is the same mechanic in monopoly as it is in D&D. In what way does one pull blocks differently in Dread than in Jenga?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;843589Sure. 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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/9595/roleplaying-games/technoir-sequences-vs-skill-challenges). (Technoir also features awesomely innovative plot-mapping mechanics (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/10632/roleplaying-games/technoir-and-the-three-clue-rule).)

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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/35499/roleplaying-games/numenera-the-art-of-gm-intrusions), 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.



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).

These are fascinating. I'll have to make a mention of them back in my old Design Archive thread, I think. I may quote you directly if that's OK, since I'm not specifically familiar with the games in question.

The Jenga thing isn't innovative, it's gimmickry.

Heh. I must live in a different world than most people here then, because I see innovation happening everytime in the hobby. In fact, from the early 2000s till now we are in a innovation boom, with new games trying new things or new approaches to established tropes and styles almost every year, from Dread and its Jenga tower, to Apocalypse World Moves and Fronts and First-Sessions and "role playing is a conversation", to Sorcerer' Kickers and Bangs- based gameplay, to Technoir verbs-adjectives and R-maps based gameplay, to Dogs in the Vineyard escalation-based conflicts, to Shadow of the Yesterday's Keys concept, to Marvel Heroic's Milestones and Doom concept, to FATE's Aspects and Compels, to Burning Wheel Beliefs and Instincts, to D&D4e minis-integrated gameplay, to D&D5e distillation of old and new in a fast and coherent package, to OSR games that give new spins to old tropes (everything by Zak S is deliciously transgressive and/or lunatic in a way I don't remember reading in those old modules).

Come on boys, innovation is all around us. :)


*Edit*: Only now I see Justin Alexander already touched on similar points as me.

Quote from: Bren;844718As far as I am aware it is the exact same mechanic in the same way that rolling a six sided die and reading the side on top is the same mechanic in monopoly as it is in D&D. In what way does one pull blocks differently in Dread than in Jenga?

There have now been multiple people who have explained this to you.

You have quoted them doing so, so we know that you have seen those posts.

You have, in fact, directly acknowledged how the Jenga tower is mechanically used in Dread in a way that it is not mechanically used in an actual game of Jenga.

And yet, despite all that, you've somehow come full circle and are back to insisting that the mechanics of a game of Dread are identical to the mechanics of a game of Jenga because they both use a Jenga tower.

There's really nothing else to be said here. The most charitable interpretation is that you somehow actually believe that Jenga is a storytelling game. The rules are available online (http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/jenga.pdf), so if that's actually the situation you can quickly disabuse yourself of your mistaken belief.

If that's not the case, then any interpretation that a rational person could make at reading your dizzying posts in this thread would, perforce, be an intensely uncharitable one.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;845399I may quote you directly if that's OK

Go for it.

Thanks! Partly done (here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=753326#post753326) and here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=500021#post500021), with the latter also cross-linked from the 'NPCs' post).  While Tech Noir is currently under a general post on abstraction  I may split it off later  to a more specific section on universal resolution frameworks or somesuch (along with such things as DC Heroes universal APs). Hard to classify. It gets a mention under 'dice pools' also. Numenera I think I will have to check out.

Quote from: Itachi;846300Heh. I must live in a different world than most people here then, because I see innovation happening everytime in the hobby. In fact, from the early 2000s till now we are in a innovation boom, with new games trying new things or new approaches to established tropes and styles almost every year, from Dread and its Jenga tower, to Apocalypse World Moves and Fronts and First-Sessions and "role playing is a conversation", to Sorcerer' Kickers and Bangs- based gameplay, to Technoir verbs-adjectives and R-maps based gameplay, to Dogs in the Vineyard escalation-based conflicts, to Shadow of the Yesterday's Keys concept, to Marvel Heroic's Milestones and Doom concept, to FATE's Aspects and Compels, to Burning Wheel Beliefs and Instincts, to D&D4e minis-integrated gameplay, to D&D5e distillation of old and new in a fast and coherent package, to OSR games that give new spins to old tropes (everything by Zak S is deliciously transgressive and/or lunatic in a way I don't remember reading in those old modules).

Come on boys, innovation is all around us. :)


*Edit*: Only now I see Justin Alexander already touched on similar points as me.

Most of what you named aren't even RPGs.  The rest are creative elaboration on existing ideas, not innovation.

Note that the latter is generally way better than trying to 'innovate'.  Making a better, different, or cooler wheel is usually a more sensible approach than trying to invent a replacement for the wheel.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;846339There have now been multiple people who have [strike]explained this to [/strike] used a different definition of innovation than you.

You have quoted them doing so, so we know that you have [strike]seen[/strike] disagreed with those posts.

You have, in fact, directly acknowledged how the Jenga tower is mechanically used in the exact same way in Dread as in an actual game of Jenga.

And yet, despite all that, you've [strike]somehow come full circle and are back to[/strike] continued insisting that the Jenga mechanics of a game of Dread are identical to the Jenga mechanics of a game of Jenga because they both use the same [strike]a[/strike] Jenga tower mechanic.

There's really nothing else to be said here. The most charitable interpretation is that you still disagree with Justin Alexander's view of RPG interpretation.

You are having trouble following the discussion so I fixed your quote for you. Maybe you can understand someone else's words. This sums it up well.

Quote from: RPGPundit;846684Most of what you named aren't even RPGs.  The rest are creative elaboration on existing ideas, not innovation.

Quote from: Bren;847066You are having trouble following the discussion so I fixed your quote for you.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: Haffrung;844474It's remarkable how different the attitudes towards innovation are in the RPG hobby (or at least this corner of it) and the boardgaming hobby.

Boardgame rules are a much larger component of the experience than they are for RPGs... you can port any RPG setting to a different set of rules, for better or worse... but you can't play Monopoly with the rules for Risk. If I'm really happy with a particular set of RPG rules, know them well, it's going to take some doing to convince me that I NEED to try this new 'innovative' rule set.

I'm not big on novelty for novelty's sake, but Bren's apparent conclusion that therefore it's not novelty is a novelty that makes my brain hurt.

I am open to new fun mechanics (and new takes on old ideas). I don't enjoy narrative style play so innovations in those games usually don't port over to my GMing style.

I like the Icons rules in 13th Age.

I love the Funnel in DCC RPG.

Of course people would care.  You're changing their perception of their game, even if it's peripherally, or tangentially.  And by golly, they can't have that!  Have you seen some of the D&D threads on this very board?  The explosion of bile and fear is something to see if you even dare suggest the very thing!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;847830Of course people would care.  You're changing their perception of their game, even if it's peripherally, or tangentially.  And by golly, they can't have that!  Have you seen some of the D&D threads on this very board?  The explosion of bile and fear is something to see if you even dare suggest the very thing!

(shrugs)  Strange though it may seem to some, there are people who like what they like.  If you tell me that you like TexMex and want no part of South Asian cuisine, I'm not going to presume you're lying to me and drag you kicking and screaming into an Indian or Thai place.  If you tell me that you're a dyed in the wool classical music fan and anything written after the Napoleonic Era bores you to distraction, I'm unlikely to send you a Rolling Stones Greatest Hits collection for Christmas.  I'm not going out of my way to convince you that Oreo ice cream is better than your favorite flavor, or suggest that you're reacting out of "bile and fear" by not wishing to wear orange or yellow clothing when I've never seen you wear anything but ice colors.

But I know that while this syndrome -- the one where sticking to a preference in the face of someone insistent that you Have To Try This New Thing is considered hopelessly dull at best -- is common in all walks of life, it seems particularly acute in RPG circles.

I've been playing fantasy for forty years now.  I've done other genres, but I know what I prefer.  I've been GMing and playing GURPS for thirty years, and that's the system I prefer.  My willingness to go out of these comfort zones has diminished with every time someone talks me into trying a new campaign, and laboriously learning a new set of rules, only for the group to maybe make it as far as a second session ... and this has happened each and every time I've done so in the last decade.

I'm not "afraid" to try something new: that sort of chickenshit catcalling is what bullies do on elementary school playgrounds.  I just don't feel like it unless there's a strong probability that it's worth my while to do so, and I'm not going to conclude that it is for no better reason than you think it's a Phat Kewl New Thing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;846684Most of what you named aren't even RPGs

What?

Quote from: Frey;847924What?

As mind blowing as it is, there are games marketed as RPGs that are not RPGs. Not games where the focus is on the players playing characters interacting with a setting as their characters where their actions are adjudicated by a human referee.

In general what makes a game not an RPG is the use of meta-game mechanics. Mechanics that force the player to think of the game (or activity) as a player and not as his character.

It not a hard and fast line but a blurry grey continuum. In general the more meta-game mechanics a game has the less of an RPG it is. Because the focus is more on what the players are doing rather than what the characters are doing.

Also because a game sucks as an RPG doesn't mean it sucks at a game. That the not point being made. I for one view many of the game as being better off if they forge their own category and develop in their own way free of the strictures of tabletop RPGs. I could never figure out why people would think why the wargames that lies at the heart of traditional RPGs would make for a good foundation for game about creating stories.

Tabletop RPGs are excellent for creating experiences. The story part is afterwards when the participants try to describe what they experienced in a coherent and entertaining way.

As a mechanism for creating stories directly, tabletop RPGs suck monkey balls. Due to the same problem we get people try to describe travelling to a destination. Sometime there is an interesting story, but most of the time is boring as hell to listen to what happened. However for most people what they experienced was exciting as heck. Good experiences and good stories don't go hand in hand.

Innovation is a term used after the fact.  In fact, innovations are things we often take for granted because they tend to seem like natural progressions, despite being, some times literally, game changers.

In Video Games that was in the introduction of the 'Joypad' replacing the joystick.  It's something so simple, and yet, it profoundly changed that medium.

Sadly, I admit to not being that versed in RPG lore to make any sort of judgement for anything in this hobby.

Quote from: Frey;847924What?

I don't know what he intended with that statement either, as all those games are clearly RPGs to me. And Estar explanation didn't help much. It would help if the games that are supposedly not RPGs were cited, so we had concrete examples to help understand the point.

Sometimes innovation is just a matter of taking something known and repurposing it to do something different.

Like... d8+d12 instead of d20 rolls. Saw some use a long time ago. Similar probability distribution to 2d10, but more center-weighted. Fell out of favor. Pity. You could use the d8 for hit locations or something.

Quote from: Cave Bear;847997Sometimes innovation is just a matter of taking something known and repurposing it to do something different.

Like... d8+d12 instead of d20 rolls. Saw some use a long time ago. Similar probability distribution to 2d10, but more center-weighted. Fell out of favor. Pity. You could use the d8 for hit locations or something.

d8 for hit locations is interesting but watch out for weird side effects like you get with Reign where you never hit anyone in the legs when they're wearing good armor :)

Quote from: Daztur;847999d8 for hit locations is interesting but watch out for weird side effects like you get with Reign where you never hit anyone in the legs when they're wearing good armor :)

Doesn't Reign use One Roll Engine?
(That's a pretty innovative system; not one I've had the pleasure of using though.)

Quote from: Cave Bear;848000Doesn't Reign use One Roll Engine?
(That's a pretty innovative system; not one I've had the pleasure of using though.)

Yeah and the hit location rules for that (for example) make so that if you're blind you can never ever hit anyone's legs but your accuracy is unimpaired otherwise.

Quote from: Daztur;848001Yeah and the hit location rules for that (for example) make so that if you're blind you can never ever hit anyone's legs but your accuracy is unimpaired otherwise.

Weird.
I much prefer the hit location mechanic in Nechronica. You roll 1d10 for your attacks:
1-5; Miss
6; Target chooses which Location is hit
7; Legs
8; Torso
9; Arms
10; Head
11+; Attacker chooses which Location is hit

I think the last innovation on the hobby was more conceptual than mechanical: this "new school" of sorts that mixes traditional and narrativist sensibilities (see FFG Star Wars, Mutant Year Zero) has become a trend these days, even infecting D&D (see 5e inspiration prompts) and the OSR (see Beyond the Wall).

Not that it hasn't been done before (see Pendragon), but it was more of an exception, or anomaly, back then.

Are we still accepting definitions?

Because to me, an "innovation" isn't just doing something differently. It's something that enables something that could not previously be done. Inventing the air plane is an innovation. Writing a new song with a unique combination of words and melodies is not.

There are endless numbers of potential new mechanics. On the other hand, the King of the Hill episode where Peggy creates her own game Spin the Choice kind of says a lot. That's really what every game boils down to.

You know what I would consider an innovation in RPGs at this point? A sort of Rosetta Stone of RPGs that enables me to quickly and easily port in content from different systems.

Quote from: Lunamancer;884868You know what I would consider an innovation in RPGs at this point? A sort of Rosetta Stone of RPGs that enables me to quickly and easily port in content from different systems.

That straightforward just think how the new content fits in your setting. Then come up with a way adjudicating it with your game's mechanics. Most problems with conversions stem from folks trying to focus on rules and mechanics first. By stating the new content in natural language you can quickly gauge whether it will work with how your setting operates. If you can't do that then don't bother with the trying to do the work coming with a way of adjudicate it. It won't make sense in terms how of your campaign works anyway.

Innovation simply means to be different, rather than an improvement, nowadays.

It's just like asking on this BBS what is a cool gritty fantasy RPG. You'll end up with 50 answers from 50 posters. Geeks here love to mention/add games for a growing list in a tread because it makes them feel intelligent naming a game no one else has yet. Even if it's a game that no one cares about.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;884895Innovation simply means to be different, rather than an improvement, nowadays.

It's just like asking on this BBS what is a cool gritty fantasy RPG. You'll end up with 50 answers from 50 posters. Geeks here love to mention/add games for a growing list in a tread because it makes them feel intelligent naming a game no one else has yet. Even if it's a game that no one cares about.

+1.

It's somewhat amusing to see not only the babbling about the Hawt Noo Indie Game de Jour, not only the fanboys sneer at anyone who's stuck in their same old lame d20, but how often the HNIGdJ changes and the old one left in the dust.

When I first started on TBP (in 2003), the HNIGdJ seemed to be Feng Shui, and to the indie cognoscenti, lack of familiarity with -- or interest in -- it just meant you were a hopeless loser.  Of course, the bottom dropped out of the game immediately after that, the company published something like one supplement after 2004, and you wouldn't find a Feng Shui thread for love or money by 2005.  No, by then the Kewl Kidz were playing Buffy or Wushu or Dogs in the Vineyard.  And so it went, down the years.

Quote from: estar;884876That straightforward just think how the new content fits in your setting. Then come up with a way adjudicating it with your game's mechanics. Most problems with conversions stem from folks trying to focus on rules and mechanics first. By stating the new content in natural language you can quickly gauge whether it will work with how your setting operates. If you can't do that then don't bother with the trying to do the work coming with a way of adjudicate it. It won't make sense in terms how of your campaign works anyway.

I'm kind of yes and no on this.

In the yes sense, I do appreciate the use of natural language. One of the things that occurred to me on the topic of innovation, or lack thereof, in game mechanics is that however we choose to "spin" it all boils down to a probability matrix of various possible outcomes. In natural language, we typically express probabilities in terms of percentages. So this is a pretty big plus for a percentile-based system, as that is one big step to the game being in plain English.

In the no sense, one thing I like about old school D&D is that you can have a fighter who is powerful enough to slay a dragon, but that fighter will get his ass kicked by say 20 hobgoblins. And 20 hobgoblins will be slain in one blast of the dragon's breath weapon. Obviously you can describe what I just said in natural language. In fact, I just did. But if D&D instead of creating mechanics had instead just gone about describing creatures only in natural language, there's no guarantee that this thing I like would have been communicated. It might not have occurred to the author that's what I was looking for. It might have just been left at "Well, the dragon is as tough as 8 hobgoblins and the fighter is as tough as 12 hobgoblins." Kind of how we talk about engines in terms of horse power.

Going 100% natural language loses something just as surely as going 100% math.

Quote from: Bren;843221Innovation for its own sake does not benefit the game. There are three benefits to innovation.

(1) If the innovation does something useful in the game that existing mechanics can't do.
(2) If the innovation does something other mechanics do, but does it more simply or more elegantly.
(3) If the innovation somehow enhances the game experience in some other way.

2 and 3 though, as far as RPGs are concerned, are subjective.

There is no perfect game, but there can be a perfect game for you.

I'm not favorably impressed by the usual business of coming up with yet another way of tossing dice, then applying that to a rehash of a bunch of familiar premises. I'm but little more interested in the fixation on "build balancing systems" for characters and encounters. All that ends up seeming to me a lot of work for little value (but of course YMMV).

Where I think innovation becomes really worthwhile is in the situation being played. Just the differences from typical "D&D with the serial numbers covered with masking tape" found in Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha and RuneQuest were a step ahead. To the extent the OSR goes beyond compiling house-rules sets with only subtle variations, to presenting distinctive worlds to explore, I think it a progressive rather than merely nostalgic enterprise (while at the same time reclaiming a spirit of creativity that perhaps required a renaissance).

The more we get different individual visions thrown into the mix, the more the diversity in the greater number of remixes.

I think it a very good development that publishing is now easily available to ordinary hobbyists, not just big firms that must act conservatively rather than risk disappointing market returns. If you and your friends have a lot of fun actually playing something, that's a pretty good indication that some other folks will as well. Indeed, I reckon it's more likely to be (for the right group) truly excellent than is a safe commercial bet concocted outside the context of actual play.

In the D&D-ish field, I have always found especial pleasure in new monsters and magics. That said, many creations fail to justify themselves in my eyes, being rather boring ringings of the changes.

The greatest creations come with a context of mythos that has depths to tap, rather than being just another set of stats.

Likewise the greatest scenarios are more than just a set of encounters to run through. They open up further potential ramifications, add to the campaign's richness beyond a handful of sessions.

Quote from: CRKrueger;8849822 and 3 though, as far as RPGs are concerned, are subjective.

There is no perfect game, but there can be a perfect game for you.

Simple is quantifiable. But elegance and game experience are both subjective.

I disagree that a subjectively perfect game can exist. But there can be a subjectively best game for any given person.

I think that the best innovation seems like a natural extension of tried and true mechanics.  That's part of why the OSR does such good design.

Quote from: Bren;885099Simple is quantifiable. But elegance and game experience are both subjective.

I disagree that a subjectively perfect game can exist. But there can be a subjectively best game for any given person.

That's the point of subjectivity...if some guy subjectively states "This is the perfect game for me."...it is.

Quote from: CRKrueger;885946That's the point of subjectivity...if some guy subjectively states "This is the perfect game for me."...it is.

Whereas  I'd say he doesn't understand the meaning of perfect.

Quote from: Bren;886122Whereas  I'd say he doesn't understand the meaning of perfect.

:huhsign:

2 seconds with Webster proves you wrong...
"having all the qualities you want in that kind of person, situation, etc."
"satisfying all requirements"
"lacking in no essential detail"

There's a number of valid uses of perfect that include subjective or personal evaluations, all of which could apply to a RPG in someone's estimation.

Jesus, just those three alone I quoted meets the definition of half a dozen GMs I know who have spent years tinkering with their own homebrew and have got it right the way they like it and have stopped tinkering.

Yeah, yeah lemme guess... "that's not really perfect, they just haven't thought of the next change yet"...whatever. :hand:

Talk to Katsumoto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDYBL70eReo) :D

You have confused adequate with perfect.

There is space in the hobby for new mechanics and new ways of doing things but in terms of something "Wow!" innovative , not as much

Even games that are considered state of the art like FATE have roots in the first decade of gaming (it and Ars Magica are derived from Melanda from 1981 )

Also a great many games aren't terribly different than old games GURPS is similar toMan to Man from 1985 that there is basically a negligible learning curve  or with a more moderate one Melee from 1977! and D&D 5e is pretty close to older D&D

Also attempts at serious innovation can backfire . 4e D&D was neat and innovative in many ways but it was a flop in many peoples eyes.

Quote from: Bren;886235You have confused adequate with perfect.

Talk to the people who make dictionaries, there might be something about them you may have missed.  :D

"Innovation" that just re-invents a wheel that is weirder and/or works worse than the original wheel is just dumb.

Yes, it is possible. I am myself still looking forward to a rules - lite horror system that'll still manage to keep fighting on the edge, will have something similar to GUMSHOE's approach to investigative part hard - coded into the system, while still having an easy system for checks needing actual dice rolling.

Quote from: RPGPundit;885512I think that the best innovation seems like a natural extension of tried and true mechanics.  That's part of why the OSR does such good design.

"You can get the mechanic in any variant you like, provided you like D&D"

Quote from: CRKrueger;885946That's the point of subjectivity...if some guy subjectively states "This is the perfect game for me."...it is.

Which is of course what people mean 99,99% of the time they say something's perfect (even if in their slightly more idealistic mindset they truly believe in objective perfection). But what'd be forums without arguing semantics.

QED: Perfection discussion, where no doubt the Platonian ideal of ideal ideas will soon fight the practical, dictionary definition of the term "perfect."