Six Cultures of Play within TTRPGs

[@QuestingBeast]

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[@etexpatriate]

Inevitably, and despite the writer of the blog *explicitly* declaring it doesn't make sense to use it that way, people are going to apply this as a allegiance chart.

[@Grimmlocked]

savages savages, barely even human!

[@mythicmountainsrpg]

As a model, I've found this really useful. I've found that 90% of all conflicts I observe between people in tabletop are related to them misunderstanding the underlying different assumptions about how play should work. The model of groups as different "cultures", and even then not necessarily perfectly within boxes and categories, has helped me have a more open mind and move farther away from "this is the right/wrong way to play." This has especially been the case in the OSR. There's a general misunderstanding about the OSR that views a part of that crowd as antagonistic or worse, and part of the conflict comes from two cultures who are overlapping but doing very different things. The classical crowd uses different terms for things, so for example, they wouldn't call Knave or Cairn "OSR." This may *seem* like gatekeeping, but the truth is that sometimes, this is just a completely different way of framing things. To them, the OSR is something they love and they have a different view of what the "R" is as you said. In fact, I used to describe the friends I had that played OD&D and AD&D in a gamey way by-the-book as "OS without the R." I can see how labelling people in ways that they don't want to be labelled can cause conflict. I have this conversation frequently within my classical gaming circles. When they say that Shadowdark is a bad game, they are saying that from the point of view of a single play culture with distinct goals. I find I have to say, "Shadowdark isn't classical D&D and isn't trying to be. It's not trying to meet your measure of a 'good' game." I have the same conversation with modern OSR people who say that "long empty corridors that terminate at a dead end are bad dungeon design" or "B/X is full of fiddly rules that have no meaning and is a bad game/we've moved past that." I have to say that, "people who play and run OD&D are not trying to cut out the connective tissue of dungeoneering checks, for them it's an important feature of the game not something outdated or boring." And for the past couple of years in these conversations I tend to point to this article.

[@rynowatcher]

Meh, this is just another guy arbitrarily saying, "you have to do a, b, and c to be an x type of game." I am not sure what this adds as all the metrics are arbitrary. Even in a given rule set there are a lot of variations of play style; "Dingo Doodles" did an animated version of her "rules light 3e campaign" and 1e, 2e, and becmi rules got pretty dense and granular. Everyone always played how they wanted and a lot of the story vs play focus was a debate, even back in the day.

[@PanicSatanic]

> As a model, I've found this really useful. I don't know what your profession has to do with anything, Fabio.

[@matthew7419]

When I pointed this out to someone as a source of mismatching goals it didn't go over very well.

[@rynowatcher]

@@matthew7419 it is an attempt to intellectualize a preference, so yeah. Kind of like one of those horoscope type categorization of people who like vanilla ice cream being more patient or something. Categorizing the intents of a group without data is just writing fiction.

[@rynowatcher]

@@nekiddo in order to analyze you need data, which this is lacking. Even that silly Bear or man study Princeton did got a large sample size, accounted for statistical deviation, got representative groups of the over all population they wanted to study, and were clear about the limited scope of the population (ie, they conducted this in a single country in the western culture so you cannot apply the same results to China or Nigeria). The data was also presented, peer reviewed, and they were as transparent as possible to allow other people to analyze the data to check for errors or biases of the researchers. Horoscopes are not made without the cultures that made them running in and dealing with people, after all. They were not made in a box without human contact but by people that said, "you know what, a lot of people I know born on x do y a lot... must be true of everyone always as these two people I know in this one area and culture is a great base line for all humanity for all times." Hence the comparison. This is some dude arbitrarily putting people into categories as they understand their small group.

[@DUNGEONCRAFT1]

Great video. In my experience, every group is its own culture of weirdos. That said, different systems lend themselves to different styles of play.

[@QuestingBeast]

Very true!

[@Agelesslink]

Love your work friend! I’ve been trying to acquaint my critical role influenced players with grimdark style of play.

[@SSkorkowsky]

This is a fantastic breakdown, man.

[@QuestingBeast]

Thanks Seth!

[@FernandoSardenberg]

The Myth is here!

[@monkeymule1286]

At my table, I have a HIGH crunch player whose almost entire source of enjoyment is proficiency with the rule set and the exploit of the close reading and stacking of mechanics, AND a HIGH narrative player who works almost entirely in story and gets surprised when there's a rule that arbitrates. The evolution of our play culture so we all want to keep playing, has been kind of a beautiful thing.

[@Sanguivore]

That describes the table I grew up DMing for quite well! It was a fun and challenging time. :D

[@paxtenebrae]

What game do you feel like has facilitated that the best so far?

[@Sanguivore]

@@paxtenebrae I play my own TTRPG nowadays (Mythomancy-I’m working on releasing a playtest version of it soon); but my game is a little less heavy on the crunch than most now so it doesn’t really fulfill that role anymore. That said, back when I played with that table, we played a heavily-homebrewed 3.5. I think something like 3.5 or PF2E should work well enough, in that someone interested in the game/systems/crunch will likely have enough to manipulate without (hopefully) getting bored, while those more interested in the story and the world won’t be *too* overburdened by the level of crunch (ideally). Add much more crunch than that, and I think you’ll chafe the story players. Less crunch than that, and you likely won’t have enough moving parts to keep the interest of the ones who wanna make a game of creatively fiddling with the system itself. Any other suggestions, I’d love to see! :D I’m likely forgetting quite a few games that would fit the mould.

[@monkeymule1286]

​@@paxtenebrae For that table games like pathfinder and Into the Odd, were too far out on their respective tails of the curve, clearly favoring a particular styles of play. Savage worlds and Symbaroum have served us well, and I'm currently delving into Crown & Skull wondering if it could hit that sweet spot. Playing lots of games at lots of tables is the answer! My favorite play thus far was a burning wheel campaign with a masterful dm and a cadre of committed players, a deep ruleset for narrative games, it would never fly at the table I mentioned above.

[@Ellebeeby]

@@monkeymule1286I desperately want to make Savage Worlds work, but getting physical copies is a goddamned nightmare! For the love of God, PEGINC, let me buy your products!!

[@macoppy6571]

The terms do not lend themselves to use in marketing, but understanding the differences of the six cultures will aid designers in reaching their audience.

[@beardyben7848]

I, for one appreciate the lack of marketability. I suppose for two different reasons: The first is, the people who want to use classifications as branding are typically not going to be thoughtful enough to read this piece carefully, and wouldn't use the terms in good faith anyway. The second is, I don't want to see a Kickstarter branded off of a term from an academic type think-piece. I want people to do the hard work of description, and I want the thorough descriptions of the play style and vibe, not a buzz-word-salad. God can you imagine this new 6e describing itself as a game that embraces "Modern" and "Traditional" play-styles and is "best played on our App" ? 🤮

[@bark_madly]

Great and interesting analysis! Perhaps a new category is "Comedic Play / Beer & Pretzels." A few times, I've DM'd for an interesting group that just wanted goofiness, jokes, word play, and improvising the most ridiculous things to do. No concern with story, challenges, character development, progression, etc. Purely for beer and pretzels and laughter 😂

[@AdrianHague]

Sounds like they would love Paranoia!

[@galeguy]

If that maps to any of the 6, I think it maps most closely to Classic! Classic has the least emphasis on story, and the most emphasis on *being a game*. The ideal balance of Classic keeps it mostly simple and convenient to play through--there's no need to stop the fun of killing trolls and cracking jokes for petty things like character development! 😛

[@bark_madly]

​@AdrianHague OMG, just googled Paranoia! And I couldn't read it without laughing 😂. This looks great! Gonna see if I can get a PDF of it. Thanks for the recommendation! ❤

[@bark_madly]

​@@galeguy ooo, that's interesting! Yeah, it kinda makes me redefine what "immersion" means in a TRPG. Immersion could be players having a blast, being silly, and fully engaged with the game, even of they have zero character development 😂. Thanks for the idea! ❤

[@mrmiffmiff]

@@bark_madly There's currently a great Paranoia bundle on Humble Bundle with some of the better editions and a lot of supplements.

[@Greymorn]

For me, one of the key takeaways from GNS theory and the Forge was that there is no single 'correct' form of TTRPGs. Players bring agendas to the table, and when those agendas clash they get bogged down arguing over specific mechanics while their real issue is they disagree about *what this game is for*, ie they are seeking different play experiences and different kinds of fun. Great video. This is a nice update to those early discussions 20 years later.

[@AndrewJHayford]

OSR and Story games seem the most attractive to me as a DM. They seem the easiest to DM. They both share elements of being "colaborative" and putting emphasis on the players being more active participants in the game than just riding along for whatever the DM has made. The concept of Neo-Trad just exhausts me. It seems like its asking the DM to do all the heavy lifting for the players with the expectation that they cater to the wants and needs of the player without them really having to do anything besides show up each week. Trad is fine, but having run that style of game for a while, it does get exhausting as a DM and frustrating when what you prepare/develop doesn't really resonate with what they players want.

[@LoganCrazyBoy]

I've always noticed this strange little connection between the OSR and Storygames like PbtA, especially when you have stuff a bit farther from retroclones like Into the Odd, ICRPG, or Errant. It seems like both of them drink a lot from the same well, but go about it in different ways. I myself personally enjoy PbtA games and OSR ones, even though thematically and mechanically they feel like they could not possibly be more different hahaha

[@drunkendelver1966]

​​@@LoganCrazyBoyThat's the interesting thing to me. I think OSR and PbtA games are more alike than most of their advocates would like to admit. Nothing causes conflict quicker or deeper than someone who's just like you in a lot of key ways, but irksomely different in so many others. The dissonance causes you to conclude that you're nothing like them. Personally, I think both groups could learn a lot from each other.

[@monkeymule1286]

There's the tension. At the extremes, I've had players who wanted a story but expect the plot to move forward inextricably almost like triggered cutscenes (outward facing but passive), and other players who only want to use the game as rendering engine for their high fantasy icecream shop (inward facing but active). Getting table culture sync'd is the real trick.

[@LeFlamel]

​@@drunkendelver1966 trying to make a hybrid game accommodating the two, it's interesting work.

[@drunkendelver1966]

@@LeFlamel I tried something similar for a bit, but my version ended up a little bloated mechanically. However, as an example, I think Dungeon World, along with some tables from OSR retroclones could be used to run a classic style westmarches campaign very well. I've been wanting to try it with my friends.

[@agender7052]

This article is one of the best to come out of the OSR blogosphere (which by and large is the culture of play into which the Retired Adventurer blog itself tends to fit, tho I know him and he has dabbled in 'em all), and one I am constantly referencing people to who haven't read it. Happy to see it get the additional reach your channel affords it, it's a worthy post for a video to be made on!

[@torinmccabe]

Simulation play. Story telling. Method acting. Group story telling. Group gaming. Player fantasy fulfillment. Classic = realistic world rules first. Trad = GM's story (narrative fiction) first. Nordic LARP = whole team high dramatic immersion first. Story Games = whole team group story telling first. OSR = emergent experience based on rules, rulings and random tables. OC = player enjoyment first (players want to feel powerful/cool and be entertained by the story, if the game is not pleasing the players then something is wrong)

[@quantus5875]

Great summary!

[@PersonalityShaman]

I read that article when it came out and, setting aside the absurdity of many aspects of this division, I remember the proposed classification as follows: Classic = arbitrary balancing of the world's challenges to the current level of the characters, characters consistently growing in power Trad = emphasis on "narrative", playing scenario-based games, playing scenes previously prepared by the GM, also emphasis on "immersion" - playing by candlelight, making strange voices, going to another room because of "secrets at the table" Story Games = primarily playing by the book, the belief that playing according to the textbook will provide us with the experience, dispersing the traditional power of the GM onto the game rules, games with a narrower thematic scope, to tell a specific story Nordic LARP = WTF, why is this even here, NL is NOT a role-playing game culture, the author apparently did not read too much into the NL discourse, refers to the Turku Manifesto, which is purely a LARP manifesto OSR = player agency, world exploration, playing with fictional positioning in mind, emergence, modularity between systems, a high culture of house rules and DIY OC = WTF, why is this mixed up with neo-trad and why is it a separate culture? Neo-Trad = Trad but with a greater transfer of GM power to the game rules, character stories, not GM stories, greater emphasis on character agency, mechanics from Story Games implemented in traditional games

[@quantus5875]

@@PersonalityShaman Yes, another great summary. I like your summary. I agree with you this guy's theories aren't bad but also not great (they do form a useful base for conversation) - I agree there are some holes and some weird buckets like you're right - Nordic Larp?? - and I think Neo-Trad -- should be renamed something like Player Fun or Player Enjoyment (or something better). In the end this guy is essentially documenting the trends and the evolution of the game which kind of does like this CLASSIC --> NARRATIVE (like Dragonlance, although I'd argue people only partially adopted this play style -- i.e. more of an emphasis on story telling -- but almost no-one liked the real railroad type stories) --> (Some experimentation in Story games -- I'd argue this is a very niche area and a style of play I don't particularly care for) --> (OSR - Many people went back to Classic but with some changes especially around player agency) --> (And lots of modern people -- do want player fun). IMO a useful article, but still needs a little more work, and still I argue most players don't fit into these exact buckets but are a combo of these. So, the article should talk about this and address this point.

[@quantus5875]

Plus, I'd also argue almost every style of play borrows at least a bit from the player fun category. Like I always do max hit points per die at 1st level -- just absolutely no fun playing a fighter with 1 HP. Little changes that make characters a little more survivable. 😂 I also like the idea of getting something at every level of advancement -- even if it's something small. No fun to advance a level and not get anything. Almost everyone that I know that plays OSR adds these kind of rules.

[@daxrunner2072]

> classic = realistic world rules first. How the classic was realistic world rules??? Except in case of food ration compute and things like that.

[@Trokkin]

Wow, I've been preaching about this theory ever since I've read the blog back in 2021. I was in a huge argument with my friend about whether a system should give the players any control over the narrative (like it is in PbtA and the like) -- I was stubborn on the idea that players always struggle to "win" the game. The sole idea that there *_*are*_* different genres opened my eyes. It's so helpful to call out by names what people are trying to achieve in their games, when they don't see past the default D&D 5e + PF 1-2 systems. You're right noone's playing the genres by this definition. I myself seek to mix (neo?)Trad with OSR. That is to have a PC-relevant story and power growth, but in a low fantasy world that I only care to truthfully simulate (random encounters included), so no balance, high lethality, and no railroading the story.

[@LeFlamel]

I think you can do this relatively easy with OSR and a modicum of GM effort to craft an interesting railroad disguised as a sandbox.

[@Loot-Loot]

I feel it hit the mark except I feel that Neo trad can be split in two. There the fiction side where players really focus on fulfilling character goals and the fact side of neo trad where players really focus on fulfilling rules goals. I have played on many tables with either paradigm. Generally they don't mix. If you wish to make a good build, story isn't a priority. It's nice if it has storytelling potential, it's possible to join the fiction and shape it, but mostly number go up is their motivation. If you wish to focus on the story, you aren't as focused on the rules. LANCER tries to stop this by having one character sheet for your mech, for the fact side and one for thd pilot for the fiction side

[@jaksida300]

That’s a fair point. The player who showed up with a long backstory expecting to hit a certain character arc by the end of a campaign is different than the player who shows up a build he saw on Reddit that he wants to break the game with by the end of a campaign. I know groups who haven’t had combats for long stretches of time and some who would whine if they didn’t get one every session.

[@colbyboucher6391]

That's a very good point about LANCER actually...

[@originaluddite]

I feel like this corresponds to the old distinction between a power-gamer and a more character-focused player (or "roll-playing versus role-playing" as some would disparagingly say of the power-gamers). That is nothing new.

[@juliempankinn]

tl;dr: got carried away describing how much i personally hated playing Lancer with its separation of pilots and mechs --- Thanks for mentioning lancer, combined with this article i now really understand my personal preferences better. I was a player in a group running an official campaign module I was bored to tears during mech combat - there was just nothing to do but attack dudes. For a couple missions in a row the only roleplaying I managed to squeese out was convincing enemies to surrender, which seemingly is not how designers or most players imagine handling combat encounters. I was extremely disappointed when i finally realized that mechs aren't unique to the character at all and are just swapped whenever. Mechs, giant machines of war, are like dragons in my mind - they have to be at the center of the story, you can't make them expendable! But in Lancer, they are, and they immediately became boring to me. Giant robots that go boom boom pow. Boring. How is that even possible. i had way more enjoyment just messing around as a pilot but could barely find any mechanics for me to interact with - Lancer's designers seem to think that fewer mechanics means more freedom. I was the most active roleplayer at the table by far. Almost all moments of roleplay were prompted by my character doing something. Not giving myself credit, one other player actually found this annoying - "It seems like your character doesn't think this mission is very important". And at times i felt like i was stressing out the DM by trying to talk to random characters or constantly ignoring the "story that way" signs - not that it's a bad thing, just saying that he had to come up with... a lot of stuff that wasn't provided. i guess, looking at all this, i gravitate towards a "Narrative" school of play. I have no interest in witnessing a pre-written story unfold, unless it's just lore, and also very, very little interest in mechanically dominating the game. I also really like thinking of characters as people, even when playing OSR i think a lot about personal motivation, relationships, mood, etc. unfortunately, it seems to me that despite designers loving narrative games (PbTA in particular), there actually aren't that many dedicated players of that school. i am usually the only person like this at the table, which is especially sad when i GM and the players just won't. fucking. roleplay.

[@direden]

Something I really appreciate about the article: It makes a distinction between traditional and OSR. Something I've said for years... OSR games aren't "THE WAY" old D&D was played. OSR is its own play style. So, while OSRevival is more like traditional its not exactly the same. And OSRenaissance is definitely its own style. As someone who grew up playing AD&D in the 80s, I can tell you there we're many different ways to play back then. The Gygaxian style of the 70s and early 80s is certainly different than OSRenaissance. But even in the 80s, every table was different. No one I knew played AD&D rules as written... everyone cherry-picked rules... even Gary himself. Plus, every B/X DM I knew added some things from AD&D. Even in my own gaming group... I ran a more narrative style with lean rules, while one friend ran a narrative style but with AD&D closer to RAW. While, another friend ran a very Gygaxian style. All three of these were different games played in the 80s, but None of these would be considered OSR.

[@direden]

@@Nobleshield 100%

[@thomasohara5926]

There's something very freeing for me about understanding these categories. There's so much goddamnded advice out there for a GM, and so many horror stories about bad groups and bad games, but it really feels like this framework is like... the secret key for parsing all that. Like, if you don't have any language or any sense of your own play culture or your own play tastes, then every piece of advice you find is just another thing on THE BIG PILE OF STUFF YOU SHOULD BE DOING. But once you have these categories, you can begin to sift through all the information out there and pick through it - to see what's relevant to the way you actually like to play, and what isn't. I've been running games for 16 years and this really feels like it rearranged my entire goddamnded brain lol.

[@cephyn11]

Pretty good blog post - I really appreciate him separating Classic and OSR, and pointing out "The early OSR had Grognardia to provide it with a reconstructed vision of the past to position itself as the inheritors of," - far, far too often I've run into OSR folks who seem to believe that they are playing the same game as the Classic players, with the same philosophy, though it's demonstrably untrue. Anyone who actually reads B/X and the 1e DMG will see, in black and white, the advice given to DMs about fairness, balance and not allowing unfairness to emerge from die rolls. OSR is not Classic, but that delusion causes a ton of misunderstandings. I definitely run games as a mix of these styles....I strongly believe in the Classic concepts of scaling difficulty (to a point) and keeping the game fair. I think Trad games had great contributions on story and narrative, and really making sure the WHY of the world matters. Story games did great things about marrying mechanics and theme - a big disagreement I have with some OSR folks is that their games are all about avoiding combat at all costs, when D&D is -at its heart - a combat game. That's dissonant to me. But I strongly identify with OSR thoughts on things like random tables and emergent narratives. The biggest weakness of this article is indeed the OC/Neo-trad section....his understanding of this "type" of play is very fuzzy. You absolutely do not see Critical Role fans coming into the game worrying about character optimization....they are far more concerned with character backstories and narrative arcs. Often the mechanics of D&D get in their way, but it may be the only RPG they know. I also don't think he's fully understood the role of the DM in those games. While yes, the DM has a much bigger obligation to bring in character backstories and arcs, I don't feel that it deprioritizes their role as creator - the players know that their desired character arcs are going to be challenged, and potentially changed, by the player's response to the DM's challenges. If anything, the optimizer and organized play crowd hearkens back to the Classic style of play more than anything else - make sure your character is able to stand up to any challenge (at your level) and tackle every adventure as a problem to be solved (not a story to be experienced). The game is a puzzle to them, like RPGA tournament style play. That's wholly separate, even anathema, to someone who is playing D&D with their only experience being Critical Role.

[@cephyn11]

This seems the epitome of "modern" or "OC" style DMing - and it has nothing to do with the DM being subsumed. I think this video is full of really good advice for this style of play. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJaqm6Z4mLdmqKc

[@hozie6795]

I'll say that the conventional OSR wisdom that "balance doesn't matter" is mostly a recycled cliche, not an actual fact of play. Nearly everyone intuitively understands that balance does matter, insofar as everyone gets that dropping a bunch of 1st-level characters in a dungeon where every inhabitant is HD 20 wouldn't be much fun, and also if you designed a game where Class A has 100 starting HP and the ability to walk through walls, fly, and shoot 4d6 laser beams from their eyes and Class B has 1d4 starting HP and can only wield daggers and staves that wouldn't be much fun either. I think broadly OSR-types believe there should be a wider potentiality of imbalance within an area than newer D&Ds usually permit. I don't think this is entirely alien to the games they claim to be emulating-I have Moldvay Basic open right now, for instance, and in the official Wandering Monster table for the 1st level of a dungeon the potential encounters range in HD from 1 to 24+24 (12 2+2 wolves). Comparatively, my experience with 5e has been that every encounter is expected to be geared to feel difficult but manageable to the party at the point it encounters it, with "boss enemies" being graded more difficult but still intended to ultimately be defeated at the time they are encountered. Similarly, the "combat should be avoided at all costs" truism is rarely taken as seriously as it would seem from how much people repeat it. My experience has been that most games understand combat as a risky endeavor, but one that can resolve a situation quickly and without much use of mental resources (constantly plotting ways to cleverly evade combat can be exhausting, and constantly blocking off corridors with burning oil or evading into hidden passages can send you on time-consuming detours that might not have happened if you'd just squared up). Most groups I've played with are quite happy to throw down when they think the risks aren't too terrible. I'd say the general attitude is more that discretion is the better part of valor-because of the aforementioned broader range of danger permissible within a single adventure site or scenario, people understand that not every encounter set before them is automatically winnable or important content to be experienced, and therefore are more willing to avoid battles they think are too costly or dangerous.

it's valuable to have have theory written on the practice of play. it's a reflective moment for us all to look back at our hobby to try to understood why some books succeeded and others failed (for our group). This blog post need not be accurate for all of us, it is subjective and is also subject to when it was posted, it needs to only have been posted to be a marker in this moment of what an individual thinks is true of our hobby. What i find personally interesting, is that over the years (i've been GMing since '85) and over the groups I've run, we've gone through all these styles of play... or cultures... as they're group dependent (and time dependent). My players now expect to have some control on their narrative, but back in the day (30+ yrs ago)... they were only too happy to be part of the ride. Last point, the game system suggests the style of play. While you can certainly bend any system to your whim and change it to be how you want to play, there is some intrinsic "this is how the game is played" codified in it. So, as the article points out... some of the cultures are in response to the predominance of a successful system, either because of their success or in spite of it. This has also had an effect on how groups of friends play over the decades of the hobby.

[@YouTubdotCub]

His theories about the neo-trad/OC style of play are spot on with my experience of WotC editions of D&D and Pathfinder play culture, and not just those games either given the broad impact of those games on the hobby generally. I think it also emerges at least in part out of online freeform OC-focused roleplay on forums and pre-social media websites that laid the ground for social media, like LiveJournal. My first D&D edition was before WotC took over the IP and I've been there for all of that (the freeform OC play online and the 3.x/4e/PF/5e culture shaping), so it is definitely something that tracks for me when I think about how that particular culture emerged and developed over time. I also think they are the culture least likely to want to be pigeonholed as being in a particular culture of play as compared to other cultures of play...idk if it's just "wanting to feel special" leanings in their play orientation having influences on how they view themselves as players and not just characters, but everyone I've shown this article to in the past who roughly belongs to one of the other cultures of play has found it illuminating and impressive...with the exception of neo-trad/OC types who tend to fall into one of two camps: being able to admit it describes them but protesting about how their style of play is phrased and framed, or straight up denying they fall into the camp and acting like they're in some Unique Camp of Their Own (then describing the style of play in the article when I press them for details about what their game is like).

[@jeffreyquigley]

I can definitely see this culture in my current group. I DM my games in more of a Trad style with some OSR elements thrown in. Interestingly enough, we are currently using the 5e rules system (which I'm not a fan of) and two of my players were recently killed in a combat. One accepted it and moved on to make a new character, the other quit the game. Why? Because he's a huge 5e advocate and has been sucked in by the modern style of gaming via KZbin. He was attached to his character obviously, but the real kicker was he could have retreated from the fight that ended up killing him. This is a big problem with this OC playstyle. The characters assume that they won't die and that they are supposed to win every fight. IMO, this will only get worse as this play style is encouraged more and more by WotC. The rift between OSR and OC players will get even bigger IMO, and 5e will likely struggle with attracting more DM's, or just phase them out via AI.

[@gunararayhanramadhan2304]

Why is the bigger rift between osr and OC a problem? Why should blues and heavy metal be made more similar?

[@jeffreyquigley]

@@gunararayhanramadhan2304 oh it's not a problem. I'm glad it exists actually.

[@YouTubdotCub]

@@gunararayhanramadhan2304yeah I wouldn't say it's a problem, it's good that people who enjoy different things can enjoy those different things with likeminded folks, and dip their toe in different ponds at their leisure

[@originaluddite]

@@jeffreyquigley"No, not Black Leaf, no, no, I'm going to die!" :)

[@laguaridadelgremlin]

It's funny to me because my style of game is absolutely "neo-trad" and has been for 16 years, despite me learning (and playing with) the Red Box Basic Set until well into the 2000's. I've always run my games focused on slow build-up and long term gratification and exploration/decision making instead. And now I get why my players always seem hesitant and impatient when our adventures start, because while I am clearly playing to the current trend, I'm taking this one step against it that confuses their expectations.

[@elijaholiver526]

Don't know about you, but these are my stats. Six Ability Scores: Classic (CL): -2 Traditional (TR): -1 Nordic Larp (NL): 0 Story Games (SG): +2 OSR (OS): +2 Neo-Trad (NT): +1

[@mythicmountainsrpg]

Fun!

[@juliempankinn]

You don't know me, but CL -1 TR 0 NL -1 SG +3 OS +2 NT -2 it might be a weird build but i never minmax

[@bobbycrosby9765]

I find it kinda interesting that both OSR and Neo-Trad de-emphasize the DM when compared to their primary historical influences (classic & trad).

[@adamgalloy9371]

I won't speak for Neo-Trad, but I don't think the OSR de-emphasizes the DM, it de-emphasizes the need for a strict plan or story to be prepared before the game begins and that's very different to me. The OSR, if anything, is one of the cultures that is most supportive of DM's using their own rulings to drive the game forward rather than strictly adhering to RAW (rules as written). Most OSR games are intentionally minimal in rules precisely because they assume a trustworthy DM will run them and use make the most out of those rules with their own rulings. The OSR also emphasizes a philosophy of "the world as a character" and puts that fully within the DM's domain. Like Classical, the OSR is also a culture that emphasizes challenges and a challenge inherently requires some sort of push-back against the players (which requires a DM). The DM is perhaps a bit more reactive than the other cultures, but I think is still emphasized in a number of ways. If I had to argue for a culture that most de-emphasizes the DM, I'd say it's the immersion focused Nordic Larp since immersion is inherently something achieved within the players own mind. The Nordic Larp website linked in the article even says "all participants take equal part as players in a game with a shared responsibility for the atmosphere, story and experience" which kind of implies a DM-less game to me, but I'm not entirely sure. If multiple people are immersed strongly enough in the same fantasy, then there really isn't a need for a DM to govern that fantasy since they will have achieved a shared understanding of the world and what they are capable of doing in it. Sexual role-play is a particularly intimate example of how something like this can occur without a DM.

[@sportyeight7769]

@@adamgalloy9371 Thanks. Now because of you, i'm imagining a Sexual Role-play using dice and a DM...

[@ADT1995]

I'm classical, one of my DMs is neo-traditional and while I enjoy his games man do we have completely different ways of approaching it, feels like a completely different game even if we are using the same system (Pathfinder first edition). And since there's a lot of cross pollination in our groups (we play in each other's games) you can really tell the difference in philosophies. I think the best description is once I told him I was jealous of how good he was at weaving a story, and he told me "I may be a good narrator, but I would much rather play in a dungeon you designed than one I designed." I also noticed once when I was talking to a guy at work asking me about how I make my stories and my big bad and I was like "I don't, I usually plop them in a town and tell them there's a dungeon nearby and the rest just happens naturally." To me the dungeon is like 90 percent of the game, I have a tendency to tune out when we aren't in a dungeon.

[@legionofyuri]

Oh I've read this on the blogpost. It was really helpful in helping me define my own style of play even after a decade of playing already. I highly recommend people read the article and ask themselves which style they're interested in and try to indentify systems and groups that facilitate that style better than others as this will help you out a lot when looking to dive into new games/groups.

[@quantus5875]

My problem is my play style is a mix of classic, trad, and osr. The model is useful, but I feel many people don't fit in a single bucket.

[@JeremyMacDonald1973]

@s5875I came to the same conclusion and know why. Classic was all there was when I started and that is what I played for just long enough for this to be how I thought one GMed and along comes Ravonloft and Dragonlance and just blows me away with how awesome I think this stuff is. At this point I consider myself a Trad GM with strong classic underpinnings.

[@euansmith3699]

The title, "Nordic LARP", got me giggling. I was totally bemused when I played "Dragonlance". I do miss the Forge.

[@duseylicious]

I LOVE this - so much better than material that assumes a certain play style is better - it’s all about context, and what any given group is trying to achieve. ❤️

[@emjtucson]

Thanks for highlighting this blog; I will mine it for more of his wisdom. I'm entirely into the OSR style of play. I wonder if it's because I started playing AD&D in the summer of 1979 when I was 10.

[@jasonnewell7036]

I've always thought that the mechanisms for advancement or experience, whatever they may be, are incredibly important in how they influence playstyle and midset. A game that awards xp for every gold piece value of treasure found and nothing else is going to foster a very different play culture than a game that awards advamcement for specific character achievements. Something to consider in this metric.

[@alflundgren8138]

Excellent point. Something I'd never thought of before.

[@jasonnewell7036]

​@@alflundgren8138it makes sense. If you reward players for killing monsters, they will lean towards violence. If you reward looting treasure, then they will lean towards sweeping areas clean of all valuables.

[@drunkendelver1966]

I think I fit somewhere in between story gaming and OSR. I love using tables to generate a setting, locations and enemy/NPC encounters, and letting the dice establish how things go for the players. I also like hearing player suggestions for set dressing and random small bits of worldbuilding that I might not have considered on my own as the GM. As long as the suggestions are applied with sensible restraint, of course. To me, the collaboration between the GM and the players can create a much richer and more fulfilling world for the group as a whole. And then when the dice and some tables get involved, looking back and seeing how what started out as a string of random events and logical rulings in regards to mechanics has created a coherent story is magical. That to me, is the best thing about RPGs and the styles of play I like to mix.

[@Biltzeebub]

I recently had a conversation with 2 of my players as they want cantrips in the OSE system. I told them yes, with a twist. In the spirit of emergent gameplay, they can use their equipped spells as cantrips (used infinitely) with weaker effects and an emphasis on utility such as having the fireball spell and using it's "cantrip" version as a torch light. Or, using an entangle cantrip to grow spikes on their staff increasing melee damage (basically shillelagh in 5e). I think this allows for two pillars of gameplay, emergent and "rulings not rules". I always remind my players "when in doubt, tell me your intent and I will create a ruling the is fair for you and the world you interact with."

[@a232-i9v]

I think he sort of touches on this a little bit in the article but doesn't really fully acknowledge it - the OSR play is actually a lot like the original play of the game in many ways. What is called "Classic" in the article is, by the author's admission, the style that D&D transitioned into after Gary decided that for tournament play it needed to be more locked down and systematized, and less freeform and spontaneous, in order to have consistent module scoring when groups at Gen Con played against each other, etc. The thing is, when reading into the early history, watching Secrets of Blackmoor, etc. it occurs that the OSR as it has developed over time has tended to lean much more towards Dave's playstyle than Gary's (or at least Gary's later one, since I think it's also pretty widely acknowledged that he was quite spontaneous himself in personal games / early play). Dave did a great deal of inventing things on the fly, didn't really seem to care at all if encounters were balanced from what I've read of him (which is reflected in the fact that most older editions give experience for "overcoming an encounter" - not only for killing an enemy, which can mean avoidance, parley, etc.) and indeed didn't seem to tell his players any more of the rules than he felt they needed to know. Heck Dave Wesley's Braunstein / Free Kriegsspiel games seem very close to the modern OSR in many respects, and I think he's increasingly coming to be acknowledged too as one of the conceptual creators of RPGs (even if his were never published as such). I just feel it's kind of misleading to act like the disregard for strictly balanced games is somehow a modern innovation of the OSR, when really it's more of a divergence with the later-Gygaxian focus on tournament play and strict definitions (which was arguably moving into the Trad category anyway). I'd rather see Classic identified with Dave Arneson and the earlier playstyles of OD&D (and imo B/X and BECMI as well), and 1e / 2e acknowledged as sort of a gradual building away from that style and towards the roots of the trad movement that would solidify with 3.5 (even though there are some major differences between 3.5 and AD&D). Otherwise, I do think this is a neat framework.

[@jordanwhite8718]

The more I read books about dungeons and dragons the more I realize that Dave artisan is the actual hero of Dnd. Gary always struck me as a huge asshole, who actually made things harder for the hobby to develop.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@jordanwhite8718 I mean, most people early on seemed to agree considering there were zines that pretty much went "Oh look Gygax is trying to tell us how to play again, none of us care, right?"

[@jordanwhite8718]

@@colbyboucher6391 I always found it funny that he never even bothered to learn more about the business side of TSR. The fact that Lorraine Williams was so easily able to out maneuver him really showed that while he might’ve been a decent game developer he was terrible at dealing with people. From what I remember, a lot of people seem to be very fond of the products that came out during that time when Lorraine Williams was running things. Wasn’t that when plain scape and dragon Lance came out? Sorry if I got any of this information wrong. I’m going off of my memory of a book I read.

[@jerryharris6342]

I thought the OSR was a reaction to the release of 4e, with its video game-like mechanics, and the death of Gary Gygax, which occurred at about the same time.

[@quantus5875]

OSR started well before 4Ed. Castles & Crusades (2004), OSRIC (2006), Labyrinth Lord (2007), etc. The OGL (Open Gaming License) was the "enabler" that got OSR underway.

[@sunwalkyr]

"He probably had it coming" for the cthulhu t-shirt had me imagining a cultist's take on Chicago's Cellblock Tango

[@Obsiduction]

I wonder where FKR would fit into these 6 schools of play. It may be considered closer to storygames, or OSR, iguess but i feel it's kinda its own thing

[@QuestingBeast]

Good point! "Ancient School" could be its own thing

[@quantus5875]

Free Kriegsspiel Revolution - maybe a 7th style. 😂

[@trollishmc2920]

I'm fully in the Classic/OSR camp myself. Interesting for sure!

[@thecaveofthedead]

I really enjoyed this post. Although I'm not super plugged into the online discussions, it really helps me identify threads in my own play, in the history of it over time, and what I want most out of games. And it will vary from time to time. I think I've enjoyed aspects of all of these except that, strangely, trad play never really seemed to stick the landing for me. You'd focus a lot on following the story the GM laid out but I personally never really experienced really euphoric story moments compared to the spontaneous emergent ones. And this piece made me reflect that while I have enjoyed moments of total character immersion sometimes - as per Nordic Larp (I didn't previously realise that this was an explicit intention of play for many people) - other people seem to view the very notion with deep suspicion.

[@nathandsomegames]

Just posted a video that covers the four styles of play based on these cultures and what I've observed at tables. I would recommend this to anyone in this hobby. Spend time thinking about your experiences and how they relate to these styles. This will help you understand compatibility with others when sitting down to play.

[@lawrl777]

basically what im getting is that it's not player types, but a history of roleplay, roughly: gamism (classic) giving way to published modules and metaplots (trad), which then split into people who think the story should come from the GM (still trad), the rules (story games), PC backstories (neotrad), or player choices (OSR), then there's also the "immersion" crowd (larp) i guess the problem with this model is that pretty much everyone i meet with strong opinions on the nature of roleplay is a mix of at least two

[@Putoaduh]

I had no idea how close my playstyle was to OSR. The kinds of games I run and play in are very sandbox and freedom focused, without concern for a player's level. If they want to engage something far overleveled for them, it's their funeral.

[@ts25679]

Another reminder to discuss your expectations when joining a table

[@Gnarrkhaz]

To me player freedom, an open world mentality and lethality are important, but also strict adherence to rules. Rules are always subject to change though. I think the players have just as much to say about these things as the GM does.

[@andrewsnee]

It feels like the main question each style tries to answer is: "How do you de-emphasize random chance in a game that uses dice?" The answer is either the game should be perfectly balanced, or the story should be on rails with a predetermined outcome, or the players should have a strong hand in determining outcomes, or the rules should create certain arcs by design, or rolling dice should be so dangerous that everything is best settled through conversation with the DM. (I'm not familiar with Nordic Larp. Are dice even used?) Yet when you sit down to read the rules of a game, they are mostly about "When do I roll dice?" and "What do I need to succeed?"

[@daxrunner2072]

Very insightful article and video. The main problem with it IMHO is that it's essentially about most vocal proselyting ttrpg cultures (and dnd-centric especially). People who just play and people who write articles about how to play with skill of literature major - very different kind of people. So we have 5 out of 6 DnD cultures and some interesting info for indi game designers. Essentially DnD fan who is indy DnD game-designer that want to sell its product wrote article :)

[@hozie6795]

I talk to Retired Adventurer (the blogger) occasionally and as far as I know he doesn't sell any of his work? He's mentioned that he's had some offers to write up some stuff in the past for publication, but I don't think he's ever actually done it, and basically all his blogging is just about RPGs in general or talking about the specific campaigns he's run and the settings and rules he's invented for them. A lot of this also doesn't have much to do with D&D. Classic and OSR play are both strongly enmeshed with D&D, and OC/Neo-Trad exists mostly in the context of the wildly popular 5e boom, but "Storygames" and Nordic Larp have nothing to do with D&D at all, and he talks a lot about Trad in the context of VtM, Call of Cthulhu, Glorantha, etc... Finally, the article specifically states that nearly everyone who's actually playing the game doesn't fit neatly into one category and is instead probably mixing and matching techniques, preferences, etc..., and that he's mostly trying to categorize "networks of practice," i.e., groups of people who are talking to each other about how best to play the game, exchanging techniques, instructions, and tips, so on and so forth. So the fact that he's describing groups that are actively proselytizing is not only not an error but in fact actively the whole point of the article.

[@daxrunner2072]

​@@hozie6795 Let me re-pharse. I see article as a Map of cultures - and more specifically for me as GM it help understand clashes between them. Many Player conflicts are essentially conflicts of those cultures. I see this Map lacking in places that I navigate even if in some places - i.e DnD world - it is good. 4 major visible DnD crowds are there. Yes, this 6 cultures more like 6 navigation stones and most real tables are somewhat in-between. But I think some cultures are missing and it too much DnD-centric (and probably usa-centric). For example IMHO mentioned in comments 90s DnD cryosleep with allergic reaction to Trad create unique playing culture(s) that DnD embrace in 3/3.5. Essentially article sound like that only DnD and Larp create meaningful player cultures. Other systems exists, but, you know, just for mentioning them, paying lip-service. To not look "non-inclusive". Now to the your points. You don't need to be semi-successful (published author) to be part of indi gamedesign culture and share it's POV. As you describe RA he/she is like Questing Beast but more blogger and theorist. > but "Storygames" and Nordic Larp have nothing to do So 4 out of 6 not 5 out of 6. "Storygames" culture is very weird in that taxonomy, logically speaking. It is more like 99% of specific ttrpg game theory and 1% of stating desired outcomes. It can be applied to playstyle of any other play culture except maybe nordic larp - but with probably different 1% of desired outcomes. Is is independent culture or its is just trad/other but "better"? In that case it is one of DnDs, at least partially. > So the fact that he's describing groups that are actively proselytizing is not only not an error but in fact actively the whole point of the article. Why? I mean "six main play cultures" at beginning of the article not mean "six most vocal tribes of indy game designers" or "six most vocal tribes of flamewar warriors". Or is it?

[@hozie6795]

​@@daxrunner2072 If you don't think the distinction is finely-grained enough, that's alright. Propose your own expanded taxonomy! I don't understand how you read the article and came to the conclusion that he only mentioned other systems to not look "non-inclusive"-he goes into a fair amount of historical detail as to how they factored into the development of the genre, and I know the author is a big fan of Mythras/BRP systems and plays them maybe more than D&D. It sort of seems like you're just guessing. An individual person does not a culture make. A culture is created by people sharing and reinforcing a set of communal norms, values, and practices. The most vocal groups are the ones who are most proactive in circulating, codifying, and defending their communal norms-ergo they're the ones that are easiest and most important to analyze, since more and more new players and GMs are learning their craft via internet advice. I'm sure there are many interesting micro-communities that are developing and playing games outside or on the edges of the main types he describes (I'm in one of them! For the past two years nearly all of my gaming has been in sprawling 20+ player domain games adapted heavily to take advantage of the Discord platform and using a hack-of-a-hack-of-a-hack-of-a-hack-of Basic D&D which has since mutated wildly from its original form). But those communities don't have a 600k subreddit called "DM Academy" dedicated to teaching new players how to "correctly" play TTRPGs in accordance with their style.

[@daxrunner2072]

@@hozie6795 > If you don't think the distinction is finely-grained enough, that's alright. Propose your own expanded taxonomy! You don't have to be cook to say that this scrambled eggs have pieces of shell in it. I think it is not not-finely-grained. I think some big pieces of map just missing. And I am not qualified (at least now) to develop other taxonomy as a part of complex paper with multiple links. > I don't understand how you read the article and came to the conclusion that he only mentioned other systems to not look "non-inclusive" 4 out of 6 (or even 5 out of 6) are DnD. Article is good at describing known DnD crowds - 1 is old grognards + living legends (but it is less useful as marker because it is time of legends), 2 is Tracy Revolution, 5 is wannabe grognards and 6 is Mercer wannabes. Funny thing through - its not mentions 3.5 crowd. The crowd that essentially was created by 3ed - the edition that embrace not-DnD 90s. I feel that author have some kind of blindspot here. And around Trad in general as people mentioned in the comments about VtM and its (not)Trad nature - even if VtM creator says otherwise. > -he goes into a fair amount of historical detail as to how they factored into the development of the genre, Was in any time situation when non-DnD people created player culture and DnD embraced it? Nowhere? That's exactly my point. I think he omit some crucial developments - essentially 90s. Why? I don't know. > and I know the author is a big fan of Mythras/BRP systems and plays them maybe more than D&D. It sort of seems like you're just guessing. Well this is actually sound like author own player culture maybe even one of those missing fundamentals but not mentioned at all at his work. Something like that actually happens with many creators. Matt Mercer play 5e not because he liked it - but because its popular. When he create "for himself" its not DnD-alike. > An individual person does not a culture make. A culture is created by people sharing and reinforcing a set of communal norms, values, and practices. Of course. > ergo they're the ones that are easiest and most important to analyze You are essentially saying that we should search for our lost keychain under the street light. No, we should search of our lost keychain in the dark of micro-communities -sometimes. Or like in the dark of big but not so crasy-vocal communities. If we like to find keys, you know - and not a nest of flame-warriors :D

[@spikespiegal2655]

Hi Ben, a small point of nitpicking: Story Games, understood as defined in Ron Edwards’ essay “Story Now!” are not about creating an “emotionally satisfying story”, they are about players addressing a Premise (ie a question or problem pertaining to human behaviors) and developing it into a Theme via play (Theme = a judgmental statement about how to act, behave or believe)

[@robertbengel2689]

I agree that the foci of the different stories are very different. When I DM, the game is much more about overcoming obstacles, whereas when my friends run the game, it is much more about "the story." Appreciate the video

[@blainetaggart6736]

Thank you for sharing this. This articulates much of what I have experienced but never intellectualised.

[@Drudenfusz]

Fascinating, I never thought of V:tM as a game that is advocating for the GM to run a story, I always saw it as character driven and not plot driven. And that is how I had run that game for years. I have seen people like Ron Edwards making claims about V:tM, but nothing in the actual books is telling people to do this Trad approach or culture of play. And well, it comes not as surprise that I felt at home in Nordic LARP and used those techniques in my table games. I also tried a lot of story games, but was not always happy with the results. Probably because most story games still go with a focus on what the character is capable of doing and not who the character is, which I find more important to experience the character and express a character beyond mere competency.

[@douglasphillips5870]

I have three broad types of play in TTRPGs. 1 Survival is based on the players in a more open world surviving the various dangers. 2 Simulation which is closer in some ways to the miniature battle simulations that were the forerunner of early RPGs or the set piece adventure modules in d20 and 4th ed. The role of the player is to accomplish some goal set by the GM. 3 Storytelling is focused on the RP part of RPG. It can be more GM or player driven, but it works best with cooperation between them.

[@jollyrogerquill]

Interesting article and video! I have mostly GMed Modern, but I've been shifting into OSR for the last couple of years. As a player, I have mostly played Modern and I have been bamboozled into playing "Trad" with the guise of "Classic" and "OSR" 😂, and sadly I have rarely played some real OSR. Hey, what about an other subculture, the "Beer & Pretzels" one. Mostly one shots that are really -really- rules lite and they are designed to be wacky and not take the table very seriously, I can think of games like Kobolds Ate My Baby and I have hacked some GHOSTBUSTERS to be played this way (using EZD6).

[@dwightgrosso5481]

I'd say I'm a mix, because I have played every edition of D&D starting with Holmes Blue Book. The one constant is the use of miniatures in my games. I think that aspect really does get overlooked as the game had it's origins in miniature wargames. Gygax himself felt the Elastolin figures he owned were splendid heroic types. That being said, I would add the wargamer as another type. I have heard from another old schooler that he knew of a group that still used Chainmail to play D&D! I think the visual and contextual appeal is what satisfies me the most.

[@orly444]

I would say that my style of DMing is interposed between what the author describes as "traditional and "neo-trad" but I feel like I have taken bits from the OSR. Typically when I have my players create characters I tell them to keep their backstories basic. I do expect them to have some sort of backstory because I use their ideas as springboards for ideas of my own. However, I don't want each character to have some sort of "grand character arc", because I encourage the players to expect their characters' growths to come from working together to solve problems and synergizing as a party. Their character's "growth" comes more from what their characters experience together rather than what the players are expecting or hoping to happen.

[@TheBreadPirate]

Cool analysis!! I land in the Classic style, but am leaning towards the OSR style more and more.

[@MelonJoose]

Fascinating read and watch. My background in tabletops is almost exclusively D&D, but I have dabbled with almost every edition. As a kid, I rolled a few characters and played a couple of sessions of 3.X with my friend and his brother, but we never really got anywhere. Then for most of my childhood, the majority of actual hours spent playing D&D were spent playing a homebrewed version of AD&D at the local rec center. When I had my first job I bought a bunch of the 4th Ed books and spent hours pouring over them but spent very little actual playtime, and really it wasn't until starting a 5e group with some work friends and some friends from that same AD&D scene. This video really helped me put into frame exactly what feels so different between my expectations and the actual reality of what playing with my group is like. My group doesn't fit neatly into one of these buckets, but it does have a much bigger emphasis on capital r Roleplaying than I'm used to, and so it has forced me to become more of an actual roleplayer, which I think is a good thing. With that said, I do have a bit of a craving for more hack n slashy, dungeon crawly, wandering monster type stuff that just doesn't seem to happen too much, and I wish there was a cleaner marriage between Classic RAW balance and moment to moment dungeon crawling and Neo-Trad ideas about character fantasy fulfillment.

[@jrpipik]

I'm grateful you made this video. My browser didn't want me to go to the original blog.

[@Quarter324]

As the blog's writer states, these categories are broad classifications of what are usually very fluid game-table cultures. At my table of 8 players/DMs, we lean toward OC/Neo-trad as many of us, excluding myself (not that I dislike CR I just never got around to watching it; too long!), watched Critical Role before getting into 5e. Even though we all invest time and effort into building interesting characters with backstrories and potential arcs, we have come to a mutual understanding that the DM still maintains authority in how those stories will play out - it is *their* world after all. As a player, once you hand your character's backstory to the DM it falls to their discretion when and how they will materialize that player's story. I think it's a nice arrangement for both players and the DM. I, as a DM, value and respect my player's character's and whatever aspirations they have within the game. However, their story will take a different shape depending on how the game world I, or another DM in the group, created the conditions of the world.

[@CharlesMorehouse-zt3rb]

Let me say first that I dmed white box D&D for years and have played first edition D&D, but very few sessions of later versions. One good view of OD&D is pasta and sauce. The strands of pasta are the stories and the sauce is all the other stuff going on. Players had to locate the stories. A player sitting down at the table for the first time is not yet even in a story, let alone the protagonist of one. Players finding a story arc and making it their own was very satisfying for them; it had become more their story than mine as DM. on game balance, dungeons had levels and wilderness areas had reputations. Players knew, or could find out, that there were hobgoblins in those hills, minotaurs in that forest, and giants in that ravine. The difficulty of encounters were largely a matter of player choice. on character growth, going from 4th level to 8th level as a fighter involved doubling the experience required. The rate of experience gained increased some, but much less in proportion. Level growth slowed over time. My understanding of D&D 3 (and later editions?) is that level growth over time remained steady or increased. i don't remember Ravenloft, but I do remember the Dragonlance modules and novels. That corresponded in chronology with my abandonment of D&D for Runequest and Pendragon. This video is an excellent explanation of why that happened. I find it amusing that that play style is here referred to as traditional, where for me it was terminal. When I was introducing D&D to new players (almost all players in my game then had no previous experience with a role playing game, or any cooperative game), was that the goal was for your character to be a good subject for a biography. Also, have fun and try to help the others to have fun as well. I knew only a few people who wanted to use episodic television as a model. My response at the time was that if I (or any of my players) wanted to watch TV, we could do that. We would not be at a D&D table if there was something else we would rather be doing. D&D, 45 years ago.

[@KyriosHeptagrammaton]

This is awesome. Instead of being frustrated and thinking other people are playing RPGs wrong, I can now say in what way they are playing wrong!

[@Greymorn]

RE: The success of PBtA games. (1) The Baker's cred with the Story Game community and skill with story-focused game design. (2) Core mechanic enables/demands collaborative storytelling. (3) Designed to be hackable from the ground up, and the designers encouraged people to hack it, creating an ecosystem not unlike D&D.

[@AndyReichert0]

i'll take his word for it on most of them, but as an OC/neo-trad player, i will say that the "emphasis on realization" isn't the best way to put it. it's more like "the difference between a railroad and agency is having an informed choice that matters, so if you tell me the rules, and i use the rules to win, don't punish me for playing by the rules."

[@walldogification]

Apocholypse world dominates the "Story Game" space because early playtesters realised the power and flexibility of its core mechanics. Its first two clones; Dungeon World and Monster Hearts were in development before Apoch. had even released. So very quickly, there were 3 PbtA games that appealed to a wide market and demonstrated the flexibility and ease of development PbtA offered. It snowballed from there, each game reinforcing PbtA as the default engine of "Story" games.

[@Lycaon1765]

Oh, i ran across this post a while ago like last month, nice to see it here!! OC/Neo-trad maps fairly well to things such as 5e/pf2e in my experience. However, in speaking of those two systems and their communities specifically, for 5e the adherence to RAW is quite variable whereas for pf2e RAW is sacrosanct. 5e people tend to be much more willing to dropkick RAW in the face. As far as I've seen it's a not uncommon sentiment of exasperation from pf2e players that "gods I'm so glad that people actually want to play the game as it is, not what they imagine what it is like in 5e". This is about these specific games tho. But some online talking heads for other games who give advice do seem to have quite a similar disposition to the post's description. Imo anyway.

[@DrStuff142]

I think the lowered adherence to RAW in 5e is just a natural result of it being the default most current popular system, and less popular systems are played specifically because the dm/players find the ruleset more attractive. You play Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition to play a medieval fantasy tabletop game. You play Pathfinder 2nd Edition to play Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

[@dezopenguin9649]

@@DrStuff142 Agreed! Most non-market-leader systems are going to be a reaction to "the system I know doesn't play the experience I want to create well enough." Heck, highly variant D&D settings like Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer were hybridized products halfway to being a different system.

[@BoredToBoard]

Advanced Adventures off the back of OSRIC had ads in the back that refer to Old School Revival circa 2006. Only later did revival switch to renaissance which makes since considering the timeframe

[@donovanpeterson837]

*sense. I remember both being used even back in the 2000's.

[@iofish__]

Yeah this matches my experience. There are wildly different expectations and assumptions among rpg players. I was introduced to the hobby 6 years ago and we played the trad style with my friend pretty much writing the entire session beforehand as a branching narrative. I've played PbtA games which are fun but don't have staying power and don't scratch the problem solving itch at all. I have a friend who loves to give me updates on his Curse of Strahd campaign and the intricate character relationships between PCs and NPCs. And I've tried to run OSE with a group where players would talk to me between games about how they wanted their character arc to unfold and asked me to make plans to facilitate those arcs. What OSR promises to deliver is fantastic but its very hard to do this if you don't have a player group that is equally excited about playing in this style. I would say that even having open-minded players who understand the principles of OSR isn't enough. The players need to want to play in this way. But there are other styles of play as well. For instance, I've played with a group where the story didn't really matter, the rules didn't matter and there weren't really any challenges. It was just improvised comedy where the GM set the scene.

[@sethb3090]

I got some insight from this. It helped me put into words the idea that yes, I'm invested in my character and want them to reach their goals, but I don't want it cheapened by the need for gratification. It explains why I feel a disappointment at finding a stack of powerful items, and why I'll unconsciously start to push back if my character gets something it doesn't feel like they've earned yet. Do I want them to succeed? Yes. But embracing that success without embracing the flaws and failures and accepting that some things might be out of their reach feels hollow.

[@christianstraubhaar339]

Great article, great video. Definitely helps make explicit the often implicit assumptions about how people want to play and does good work to de-stigmatizing difference. Not "you're wrong" just "you're interested in a different kind of play". Helps people find the points of difference to just agree to disagree and the points of similarity to compare notes and learn from each other with minimal conflict.

[@Simon-et4hu]

Really interesting! I will definetly read the original article. Our play group has 4 DMs lol and we each have our own styles. We know what to expect when we switch games. Back when I ran shadowrun 4th ans Blade of the Iron Throne I guess it was a mix of storytelling and OSR with a little bit of neo-trad (even if jt did not exist at the time). I wrote a lot of background from the world based on my players’ characters (which we created all together). We made sure we filled a lot of different roles and while it was not pure sandbox, the “operations” were very sandboxy and unbalanced. But my players liked that :) When we were at the “run” phase of shadowrun, my players went into a place that I designed with as much believability as I could muster but I had no idea how they would run things. And a lot of secondary characters and locations popped up instantly or gradually based on their questions and the preestablished way that this particular game/ world worked. So it was like a bunch of small sandboxes linked linearly with potential branching paths.

[@matthew7419]

I liked that article a lot because it was useful, and clarified things for me (especially Classic vs. Trad. vs. OSR). I think it is awesome you did a video on it. I appreciate your commentary. I also think that the various "cultures" can be problematic. It's inevitable that people separate themselves into groups and have different preferences, so there's nothing wrong with that per se. The main issue is that becoming strongly conscious about having a specific "approach" or "preference" (OSR, OC, etc.) causes a lot of conflicts. Recognizing the existence of "cultures" can mitigate this by making people aware of the tendencies. On the other hand it can also put too much emphasis on theoretical preferences, when the primary concern really should be that everyone is getting along and having fun together. - I'm "Dex" from Traveller.

[@qinop]

Vampire mentioned! It is my favorite storytelling game, especially when you run werewolf and mage afterwards

[@Shakesthewizard]

God this is fascinating. I think one thing I disagree with is the casting of neo-trad style as being focused on character powerment over a short period. While I agree that a lot of modern play takes place over shorter campaigns, I don't think it's a preference, so much as a product of circumstance. People have less time to play than we maybe ever have before, and if we want to see a story finished, there's a lot of pressure to get it done before schedules drift and the table falls apart. I also disagree with the idea that the focus is on empowerment, specifically. In my experience, people coming into the hobby and engaging on the level of their OC don't *necessarily* want that character to be cool and powerful. Lots of us do, but lots of us don't. I distinctly remember a 5th edition game I played one-on-one years ago, where the entire adventure was to put my character through a series of torturous games. It was this dark experiment where the goal was to see who that character was as they lost the things they - and I - saw as central to them. Really, I think the big focus of "oc" play is that it has a huge focus on giving characters satisfying arcs, whether those be heroic, tragic, or comedic.

[@gunararayhanramadhan2304]

The best way I can describe it is that Neotrad player looks for that tragedy. They have an outline of a character arc already in mind(or a build idea if they're more powergamey)

[@matthewconstantine5015]

Ever since I started hearing about the OSR, I was always left a bit confused. A lot of (often younger) folks were talking about playing "the way they used to," but what they were describing didn't sound anything like what we were doing in the 80s & 90s, nor anything anyone I knew who'd been gaming since the 70s was doing either. This separation of "classic" from "OSR" makes that make a bit more sense. I think another problem, especially for folks who came to the hobby in the age of 5e, even if they aren't necessarily into 5e, is that they sort of perceive everything through the lens of D&D in its various incarnations, like it was the default game in the hobby. It sort of makes sense, because D&D (arguably) started it all and has remained a presence in the hobby for 50 years. But I don't think a lot of folks know how largely irrelevant it was for at least 20 of those years. In the mid to late 80s, pretty much up until 5e, with a bump around 3rd Ed, D&D wasn't the big dog on the block. Working at a game store through the 90s, D&D was only a small section of our RPG area, and mostly just frequented by a handful of old diehards. We had RPGs, sometimes several different games, being played in the store every night of the week, and I don't think in nearly 10 years I saw any variation of D&D played more than 4 or 5 times. Most of the time, when people talked about TSR (except for the novels, which were very popular), it was with derision, because they seemed like a dinosaur that refused to grow or change with the times. They were still putting out books with art that catered to horny 12 year old boys when other companies had realized that women and LGBTQ people existed. That's part of why I was so dismayed when I came back to the hobby in 2019 after a 15 year break and found D&D 5e and Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) to be so completely dominant. It felt like the hobby had taken a giant leap backwards. Yet, in the shadow of that colossus, so much great new stuff was and is being made. I would say most games I saw, ran, or played in the 80s & 90s were mixes of "Traditional," "Story," and what now would be dubbed "Old School Renaissance." Usually GMs would pitch a general idea, setting, or game. Once players were on board, the GM would come up with an initial premise, NPCs, locations, etc. And maybe a vague idea of where things might go, or what would happen if the PCs weren't there. Then, as the players interacted with those things and made choices, the GM would change and adapt based on those choices, rolls, etc. In the meantime, the players might do things like introduce background ideas, or have out of session conversations about things they were interested in doing/seeing/exploring, for the GM to build on. Of course, very few people I knew were using adventure modules or the like as anything more than guidelines and idea mines, because they were often written in too rigid a way, making far too many assumptions about what players would do or how successful they'd be. Until I ran Portal Under the Stars for Dungeon Crawl Classics sometime in 2020 or 2021, the only published scenario I'd ever run in nearly 20 years of GMing was a heavily modified (read: almost completely re-written) version of The Haunting for Call of Cthulhu. I remember my dad talking about this group jumping ship on D&D as soon as RuneQuest came around, because it facilitated the kinds of character/story based games they were trying to play better than D&D, which at its heart has always been a game about killing monsters and looting the bodies, no matter how much extra stuff they try to tack on to pretty it up. I also don't know about "fairness" in the "classic" era. A lot of the published material from that era seems arbitrary and dickish; the classic "adversarial DM" problem. It was player VS DM, not player character VS DM's world. I was reading one of Gygax's modules recently, and it both rewarded and punished you for the same of action, seemingly at random. If you investigate in Room 1, you get zapped into oblivion. No roll. You're dead. If investigate in Room 2, you find an amazing artifact that you need in order to "win" the dungeon. If you do anything at all in Room 3, you're poisoned and die in three rounds, unless you found the cure potion under a pile of trash at the bottom of a well that you could only find if you reached your arm into a tiny hole while holding your breath for 10 seconds. "What?! You didn't KNOW you were supposed to do that? Fool!!!" It's no wonder folks quickly made their own games and took the hobby in a different direction.

[@Boricuapsico24]

I played with a group of 8, and they and the DM were Trad-LARP hardcore, sometimes going a bit melodramatic for my tastes, but I always prefered elements of Classic and OSR, though I share the emotional enjoyment of the LARP. Never really a problem with DM Fiat, but it started to become clear to me that my character was never in a real risk, outcomes were set, and it all became predictable.

[@ruskerdoo1539]

Thank you for this video Ben! I had actually read the 6 cultures of play article, but I didn't really understand it. Too much jargon, too many inside terms, too many assumptions about what the reader already knew... and I didn't know enough to understand. Your video really clarified the different cultures for me in an accessible way. So thank you!

[@JoesphEKerr]

Yeah I too have experienced these - and usually its a sort of mix of them cause I think most people don't sit down and analize what kind of D&D game they are going to run ahead of time - but I think this is useful for reading your group and helping picking a game to play - kind of like choosing a genre to read from. Thanks for sharing that-dudes names to all these styles - great work Questing Beast - I'd give you 👍👍 if I could!

[@mightystu49]

Gotta disagree on calling Call of Cthulhu a story game. When it is done true to game, investigations can fail, clues can be missed, and important NPCs can die. Honestly it is much more in tune with OSR principles: balance is not important and investigation is much more about how the character interacts with the world than it is about telling a hyper specific story. Many Call of Cthulhu games end in every PC dead, insane, or never going near the mythos again, so it really isn’t something designed to tell just one story.

[@SkittleBombs]

We could probably split these 6 into a few more charts. Like game play style and their expectations of the gm and their relationship with the rules, expectations of the player and their role in the gameplay/story, and expectations of the rules and their role to create an experience/feeling/ game loop. For example are the rules focusing on balancing progression so lvl3 vs lvl3 feels max fun/fair, to facilitate max bleed/RP, to facilitate a a class progression toward maximum power fantasy, rules to facilitate emergent story telling or rules to facilitate maximum player skill requirements to overcome obstacles .

[@ikaemos]

You've made a fairly opaque article make a lot more sense, thank you! I remember stumbling upon it and having it fly over my head a bit. I still think it misses a few other cultures by focusing on the big ones (fantasy d20 games, their cognates in the OSR, their competitors in the form of CoC and VtM, and their contrasts in the storygame scene). Take, for example, the "grim & perilous" games (1st, 2nd and 4th edition of _Warhammer Fantasy RP,_ and their retroclone, _Zweihänder)_ - they are crunchy, but not overly concerned with balance; they have extremely granular character progression, but a flat power curve; they have dangerous, random gameplay, but character death is rare; they simulate everyday life in great detail, but aren't really "cozy" games. The idea of grim & perilous games is to evoke a heightened parody of life in the Early Modern period - you play a common person in a society that is emerging from a "simple" age of nobles and knights into one of increasing complexity, ever-bloating bureaucracy, political and religious strife, mercantile interests, technological change, and the inhumane horrors of industrial warfare. And then the designers supercharge all of those themes to a comedic degree. You don't get to die, because death is a _mercy_ - you will live, and go about your everyday business, only to be marked by wounds, plagues, corruption, persecution, until you are completely unrecognizable. Welcome to modernity! As the character creation chapter of Zweihänder says, "This is not a story about people changing the world; it's the story of a world that changes the people within it." And it's usually quite the funny affair. I'm not sure what I would call this kind of gaming culture. It has the "drive your characters like stolen cars"-attitude of storygames, but it's also full of crunch and accounting (sometimes literally, depending on your character's Career); it has the grimness of the OSR, but not much of its focus on agency (in fact, it can be thematically important to accentuate how little agency you actually have over the state of the world). It's one of the only subgenres in gaming where comedy (not usually of the full-bellied variety, but rather a kind of satire) is essential to the experience.

[@phaedruslive]

I also use Revival in a way that pedants don't like when referring to the OSR. I just feel that the word contains a lot more energy and life and optimism. It seems more celebratory to me. It's a melting pot where creative freedom and nostalgia meet and have been coalescing into new and exciting things. I'm glad I'm here for it all, I don't think we've even reached the golden age yet.

[@MemphiStig]

Definitely reading that article. There were certainly different styles of play when I started in the 80's, and I met different groups with whom I didn't always gel because of these differences. But it seems early on, a big part of it was also how "rules as written" you were. My first group was fairly by-the-book, they only used "official" rules (so, for example, Unearthed Arcana was not allowed), and they did have a few situational house rules, but nothing "game-changing." And that's mostly the way we played all the rpg's back then. Just stick to the rules, it's easier that way.

[@davidholman6709]

Very useful to consider the "culture" or how a game is played as distinct from the ruleset. Consider two groups who each switch games. One group might bend the new ruleset to match their already existing culture. Another group may adapt their culture to better align with the new rules (at least while they play the new game). Both are valid!

[@steambub]

There is the immersion gaming. It's where you play pretend as your player character with TTRPG rules and not someone who just rolls dice for a character. Black Lodge Games covers the topic better in the "Stop PERFORMING and Start ROLE PLAYING" video they did.

[@dragonboyjgh]

That just sounds like the Nordic larp stuff

[@steambub]

@@dragonboyjgh is it though? The very little I looked into of Nordic LARP, I only found LARP content, not TTRPG play.

[@peterc2448]

I would say that there are many fusion cultures of play as well. And if I remember correctly, he talked about this in the essay as well. I tend to run a mix of trad, OSR, and story games at my table. I like to be creative because that’s largely what I enjoy doing, so trad is important to me there. Id also say my table practices OSR and story games through a trad lens. This is also because, as mentioned in the essay, trad involves taking inspiration from other forms of media, and my main inspiration for my games includes video games, epic fantasy novels, and OSR play in it of itself. I like to create an experience for my players, but I want it to be interactive for them and satisfying as well while still generating an emotionally satisfying story. Of course, this can’t all be done all at once. So for me, it’s a very difficult balancing act. I guess the lesson here is that I’m a trad GM whose inspiration is story games and OSR, which means those cultures inevitably find their way into my games.

[@direden]

I agree with the general assessment from a historical perspective. And yes, I agree that the OC/Neo-traditional style is fairly accurate, too. I've been playing 5e since launch, and I've run organized play games. However, there are exceptions, obviously. My DM style certainly fits neo-traditional, and it's been that way since the mid-80s. So, I arrived at the style independent of historical or cultural developments. For whatever that 2 cents is worth.

[@garyburnett1977]

Very helpful summary of all of this! I just updated the Wikipedia entry for the OSR with your description of "Revival" or "Renaissance" in that term.

[@olobosk8585]

This really helped me analyse the behaviour of my players from previous campaigns - which i think is incredibly useful! Specifically - ive certainly had some players at my table who came with expectations of Trad and Neo-Trad style games and were disappointed when i ran an OSR style game. Some of those players ended up leaving and i felt as though i let them down. Looking back on it - this would have been a fantastic way of clearing up expectations before starting a new game. Also - i wonder if i could try running a Neo-Trad style game and what that would be like - it doesn't sound like something i would want to play - but perhaps it would be a good stretch of my Refereeing skills! Great Video Ben!

[@MinorLG]

I'm a Nordic neo osr person. The kind of world I make, it's a very overly detail the living world, with a rich npcs, that I let players Wonder through however they wish, but when they're in a seaside city, I'll have Mediterranean food, to immerse the player into their character.

[@jago2503]

I think on a scale of 1-5 where 2 is "a standard level of influence" and 5 is "committed to this style" I'm probably: Classic 1 Trad 4 Nordic Larp 3 Storygame 1 OSR 3 Neo-Trad 2

[@ShadowsofArchonia]

This is really interesting stuff. I look forward to reading this article a using it to help refine my understanding of my own game.

[@Dom2Wan]

Fair comment, especially when injected with your experience and personal insight. I'd bookmarked this blogpost sometime back but have only skimmed through it so your read through was especially welcome.

[@Cubics_Rube]

Thanks for the summary video. I got recommended this article, but found it hard to follow due to the lot of fluff and unnecessary name dropping by the end. Two things I noticed. 1. I find it funny that the same terms can be used to describe completely different things. I move in some LARP circles and "Nordic LARP" means something... well not *completely* different, but different enough that it doesn't fit 1:1 how this article describes it. The term I heard mostly thrown around with Nordic style is "Play to lift" - meaning the goal of the game is to collaborate with others and forge a story together, and not necessarily chasing your own goals. I do not agree that the heavy focus on immersion and bleed is what separates Nordic from other styles, because the same can be said of Neo trad in some aspects... or almost all styles to some degree. (Funny note: "Bleed/Bleeding" is another LARP word they use differently in the LARP circles I know) I think the article doesn't do a clear job of explaining what exactly separates this style from say Story Games. Because it is very similar, and for Tabletop games in particular, I would dare say it could be a sub-genre of Story games, rather than it's own style. What separates Nordic LARP games at the tabletop? Is "Fiasco" Nordic or is it a Story Game? Is "Ten Candles"? "Wanderhome"?? 2. I do not agree with Neo Trad for the most part. It feels... outdated for me, to some degree. Organized play and things like Adventurers League for D&D 5e is super North America-centric, and not really representative for the rest of the world... other than major English speaking countries - maybe. For my example, I GM D&D 5e for the most part, so by definition I probably play Neo Trad, right? But while I have player's with characters and there aspirations and let them live out there stories, I still have stories and conflicts I come up with, and that are not just there to confirm to my players wishes. I encourage players to have their own story and enjoy the one I present rather than bringing over-optimized powerhouses designed to dominate my challenges. By this definition, I don't think what I play is Neo Trad then, so what is it? Also, I think Neo Trad probably came before OSR emerged. I know this article is about the emerging styles from the history of (english) rpgs, but there are still many hazy boundaries that could use some more refining, maybe adding new or sub-categories. And at the end of the day, it still comes down to player preference. I have players in my group who's play-style can be put all over this list, yet they still come together to enjoy a game night together.

[@pez5767]

Given our (human) proclivity for catagorization and the inherent flaws in both thinking catagorically and being human, this is actually a pretty useful framework as a means of discussion. I think the true value of thoughts (catagorization) like this lies in the potential for allowing self reflection. As a GM if your inherent preferences lay within one of these catagories, it's useful to know that and embrace what you enjoy. Furthermore, it's even better if you can express those wants/preferences to your players, so they can understand the experience you (as the GM) are currating for the group. Regardless of style of game, the GM is the one currating the experience, thus the opening musing that the same system can feel entirely different based on the GM. It's not the system, it's the GM. Ideally, the GM is using a system that supports their style (preferences), so that there is minimal dissonance between the rules and the experience the GM is trying to provide. As for the players, it's all about 'fit'. Does the player match (want to engage with ) the experience the GM is providing?

[@joegaylord87]

I'm mostly a trad gamer with some OSR and Neotrad tendencies. I do think there should be something like a "port" style of play for people who specifically like RPGs as a kind of wargame or puzzle. These are the people who love finding weird rules interactions and min-maxing their "build". It's not my vibe, but I have a sense of it being popular in the scene.

[@skoosc]

I really liked this article and agree with you that perhaps it's most useful contribution is giving the community the words to describe what they like and what they're trying to achieve in their games. One of my criticisms of 5E is that I feel it tends to try to be many of these cultures all at once while many of these cultures are in conflict. It's why I think a lot of 5E community groups have DMs asking for advice on how to manage the dissonance that comes with these cultures conflicting in their games at their table. And why the advice often tends to also fall into one of these cultures at the expense of another.

[@7mmScout]

As a long time GM and sometime player, I listened to this twice. Twice, because in my first run through I was not attracted to any of these "cultures". Second time confirms it. None of these describe what I seek or how we play. They may be data points on the continuum, but they don't describe the continuum, or the bits of interest to me. GNS seems simpler and more satisfying.

[@Wraithing]

Thanks Ben! Fascinating, and extremely useful. In my 40 years of playing, I've definitely experienced and enjoyed all of these - although the dedicated LARP thing is my least favourite by itself - because I've definitely experienced and run games that have amalgamated two or more of these play 'cultures.' It's kinda cool to look at this to work out in which style I'd like to run my next game. Feels like an interesting lesser gathered and defined set of game controls that can be tweaked to adjust potential outcomes and table mood. Neo-trad/OC (I love this definition- makes so much sense), would seem to have been heavily influenced (at least, to my mind) by at least two generations of RPG players being used to linear character design options and levelling-up in PC and Console games. Thus, the player character destination and autonomy - the goal of the game - often delimited within 'authored' official RAW options from the books (and or apps) becomes extremely important. This seems more likely to be a more ubiquitous and deeper cultural factor than official organised play groups. If organised play is actually the main defining influence, I wish I'd lived in one of those many gaming Meccas with such an abundance of groups.

[@masterderol]

I've been doing a mental exercise with these differents styles, and I found that there's one culture that I think is not addressed by those described on the article: The "Tactical Simulation" culture, as embodied in D&D since its 3rd edition (Peaking in 4th edition) and Pathfinder. In this style of gaming, story often takes a TRAD approach of DM creating a story the characters must follow, but the emphasis is usually about the different powers and options available for the characters, how they get them and how they use them to overcome obstacles, usually in cool and tactical ways. Things like min-maxing, character builds and such evolve because the focus is more into the gaming aspect of the game than on the narrative. I think it's similar to the neo-TRAD, but with less focus on character arcs and more on power-building. Don't know if you'd agree.

[@gunararayhanramadhan2304]

Technically speaking its just another form of Neotrad by the author's admission and they are close. But imo there's a good argument that they are different, i prefer calling it Neoclassical because it's taking Classic's challenge based approach but using mechanics as the way a character solves the challenge

[@ruolbu]

Very cool article, thanks for bringing it up and adding commentary. Personally I would like to mention one niche that is not really a major style on its own but imho does not really fit into these categories. I would call it clockwork mystery. The GM does not offer a fair dungeon crawl (classic) nor a satisfying & locked-in narrative (trad), the play does not focus on bleed and characters (nordic larp) and neither on generating a narrative (story), it's not old school creative overcoming of challenges (OSR) and also not the modern attempt to fulfill character fantasies. The core is a very compact scene, maybe a building or a village, something a person can fully traverse in a realtively short amount of time. This scene might be broken down in a dozen or so specific locations, points of interest. Furthermore there is a schedule. The game takes place over a set amount of in world time, perhaps a day. In that time frame prescripted events will happen, NPCs will do certain tasks, be in certain locations. This could be broken down into specific time slots. The players are confronted with some sort of mystery that their characters care about. The idea is that the players are supposed to investigate this entire scene, figure out what the schedule for different NPCs will be, what they say is going on, what they claim to be doing later on and find out the inconsitencies. Spending time on some interactions will eventually advance the time leading to other interactions just being missed. Over the course of the game, if the players don't engage with the world, a scripted narrative will take place, usually to everyones detriment. The goal is to change that outcome by recognizing crucial elements and interacting with them. It's similar to trad games in that a coherent setting needs to be written up beforehand, but unlike trad any attempts to derail the initial setup are encouraged. It's similar to story games in that an unknown plot is supposed to unfold, but unlike those games, the framework is limited and known to the GM, it's not up to the players. The focus is really much less on combat or player agency to do what they want, it's more directed, it's about uncovering how this scenario will unfold and trying to have a positive influence with the limited toolset that are your character abilities. Since different elements, NPCs, events are supposed to interact and als react to how players change the schedule, it's much easier to do this in a compact scenario that does not balloon in complexity.

[@jacobi2393]

Yay! Now the people I talk to who insist on _never_ reading anything I share as a conversation starter can finally engage with this subject! :D

[@odolowa1]

I think this made me think of the similarity between Story games and OSR. While they can run against each other (particularly in terms of lethality) their approach to storytelling and things from the GM side is quite similar. It explains how there's actually crossover games between the two such as World of Dungeons, Offworlders, and FIST.

[@KingShinyRotom]

I personally think there's one big missing faction here, and that's the players who play for the crunch itself. I'm not talking about rules lawiering and rules exploiters, but about those who like the mechanical aspect of the game. They like the granularity, the possibility of customization via their stats and abilities, and want to use what's on their sheet to proceed. For these players, the story of the game is just the narrative tracks on which challenges appear and they have to surpass. This is not to say they don't care about the story or they don't want player agency and emotional involvment; but they have the most fun when tinkering a build or when they face a new mechanic, either for them or by an enemy. All of this of course required detailed rules with lots of options to choose from. A mean way to look at these players would be to see them as "videogame players" or "boardgame players" that only care about numbers and stats, but that is not true; they care aboit their stats because with them they can create a character and advance in a story: they use the crunch as a basis for the narrative itself, instead of a later-applied restriction. And of course this can be true for the GM, also. Some examples of systems that support this kind of game philosophy are 3e D&D (of which I'm sure a sizeable subset of players belonged to), "old" d100 system and ferraginous systems like GURPS, and a good amount of JRPG-inspired games (for example Fabula Ultima) and "TableTalk RPGs" , which are one of the ways the RPGs were absorbed in the culture of east asian countries like Japan and SEA islands. But of course many other system can be played this way, it depends on the players and GM themselves. At least, that's my two cents on the matter.

[@SavageGreywolf]

I don't know if any of these really speak to me. The OSR mindset appeals the most, however, It's been my experience with OSR players, whether they consider themselves 'revival' or not, that they feel there must be a rules compatibility with B/X in order for it to 'truly' be OSR, and my group has been quite resistant to trying B/X based systems. My very first encounters with play were with trad play in the late 90s playing Vampire- and there was a lot to dislike about it. I would say that most of the time my play experience has been somewhere between trad and nordic though I've been trying to inculcate more of an OSR mindset into the game I've been running in 5th edition, though I suppose since I'm running out of an official WotC module that it's closer to trad/nordic overall. My players have generally seemed to follow the 'intended' path for the adventure I'm running even though I've not been trying to point them to it, and I've let them wander quite a bit if they try.

[@LB_adventurer]

I would say that the Call of Cthulhu (Basic Role-Playing System) is the most successful story teller system. It's the 2nd most popular TTRPG in the world and it's most definitely a story based game.