Much like the word “immersion,” the term “trad RPG” is one that I’ve lately seen confusing conversations more than illuminating them.
The key thing to understand is that “trad RPG” comes from at least three different places, all of them using it to mean different things.
First, storytelling games use it to mean roleplaying games. This arose because STGs – games primarily focused on narrative control mechanics instead of character-associated mechanics – referred to themselves as RPGs, but also knew that they were something different, and wanted (or needed) a term to describe all of the existing RPGs.
Then the Old School Renaissance used “trad RPG” to mean old school play — i.e., the traditional form of play which existed before various “new schools” of play. (With the OSR generally defining the first of these “new schools” as the linear-narrative play that came to domination RPG adventure design post-Dragonlance.)
Most recently, an essay called the Six Cultures of Play defined “trad RPG” as the linear-narrative play championed by Tracy and Laura Hickman in, among other things, Dragonlance. This article was notable for looking at the RPG hobby in terms of cultural behavior rather than mechanical or adventure design. It was filled with severe historical inaccuracies, but, unfortunately, this has not prevented it from being quite popular in online discussions.
And now you can probably spot the problem: You’ve got one group using “trad RPG” to mean pre-Dragonlance play and another group using it to mean post-Dragonlance play. So now “trad RPG” means literally the opposite of itself.
But it gets even more confusing! In response to the use of trad RPG to mean “Dragonlance-style gaming” some segments of the OSR now use it to mean “not the OSR,” which means they also include STGs in “trad” play.
Which means trad RPG now means:
- old school, pre-Dragonlance styles of play
- post-Dragonlance linear-narrative styles of play
- storytelling games
- not storytelling games
So, ultimately, what does “trad RPG” or “traditional RPG” mean?
Nothing.
It’s a term that I’ve used in the past, but one that I generally try to avoid using now. It’s unfortunate because it was a useful term and I haven’t found a reliable replacement, but the reality is that using the term now — no matter how you choose to use it — means that a pretty good chunk of people will end up thinking you meant the exact opposite of whatever you meant. The result, of course, is confusion and needless arguments.
Although, to be fair, what could be more traditional about RPG discussions than that?
Hi!
Long-time listener, first-time “caller.”
Honestly, when I read the title of this post, I was expecting a comment about how “trad” is used by the right-wing, conservative movement (see “trad wife”)
Any thoughts about “trad” being used ascode for “non-woke” RPGs?
This is why I have exited the TTRPG space. Words don’t mean anything and trying to nail anything down so you can talk about it gets you called a gatekeeper. The hobby has changed so much from the one I fell in love with there’s just nothing in common.
There’s usually nothing to discuss because there’s no common language and people’s idea of the very point of the activity has changed. The entire hobby has shifted to a group storytelling focus. That’s a totally different activity. I don’t mean storytelling games, those are still RPGs. I mean storytelling with an illusion, veneer or facade of game.
Funnily enough I tended to use ‘trad’ the same way that storytelling games do.
Trad RPG like Trad Catholic is when your RPG claims the holy see is vacant, the Vatican/TSR/Wizards is heretical and that only a lone cult leader in new england could be a real pope/author of D&D
I don’t disagree, though as someone who has read your blog first, then read the OSR blogs, and finally started to read blogs like indiegamereadingclub (which uses the self-admitted misnomers of “trad game vs indie game”)…I don’t know if I’m fully satisfied with boiling it down to RPG vs STG.
I can absolutely recognize a game like One Quiet Year or even Lady Blackbird as being distant enough from RPGs to go into a different category. But despite having many of the same ideas behind them, it’s hard for me to say PbtA and Blades in the Dark aren’t RPGs.
Even seemingly objective things like “dissociated mechanics” can get fuzzy–I’ve seen people claim Blades is a storytelling game because of flashbacks, and equally seen people claim (with some legitimacy IMO) that flashbacks aren’t dissociated because it’s still tied very directly to something your character decided to do. Even PbtA moves, which are often about incorporating genre-appropriate tropes into gameplay, are still usually from within your own perspective, except when they’re not.
So yeah, trad vs indie doesn’t make any sense, and ultimately any terms we try to use are always going to need explanation until we can mandate that everyone use the same lexicon. Still, I can see the differences between how D&D handles resolution and how PbtA and FitD do it, that would justify to me having *some* terminology that doesn’t result in banishing them to STG-land with the super experimental Ten Candles/Alice is Missing kind of game.
Could you expand on the “severe historical inaccuracies” in Six Cultures of Play?
“Trad” is a word that defines itself as something other than…something. d20? Dice pool games? Power gaming? 5e? Like the old definition of pornography, I can’t say exactly what it is, but I know it when I see it.
> A new rabbi comes to a well-established congregation. Every week on the Sabbath, a fight erupts during the service. When it comes time to recite the Shema […]The people who are standing yell at the people who are sitting, “Stand up!” while the people who are sitting yell at the people who are standing, “Sit down!” It’s destroying the whole decorum of the service, and driving the Rabbi crazy.
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> Finally, it’s brought to the rabbi’s attention that at a nearby home for the aged is a ninety-eight-year-old man who was a founding member of the congregation. So, in accordance with Talmudic tradition, the rabbi appoints a delegation of three, one who stands for the Shema, one who sits, and the rabbi himself, to go interview the man.
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> They enter his room, and the man who stands for the Shema rushes over to the old man and says, “Wasn’t it the tradition in our synagogue to stand for the Shema?”
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> “No,” the old man answers in a weak voice. “That wasn’t the tradition.”
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> The other man jumps in excitedly. “Wasn’t it the tradition in our synagogue to sit for the Shema?”
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> “No,” the old man says. “That wasn’t the tradition.”
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> At this point, the rabbi cannot control himself. He cuts in angrily. “I don’t care what the tradition was! Just tell them one or the other. Do you know what goes on in services every week – the people who are standing yell at the people who are sitting, the people who are sitting yell at the people who are standing …”
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> “*That* was the tradition,” the old man says.
the lack of a standard nomenclature has always hampered the discussion of RPGs. The lack of standard definitions, regardless of the finally chosen word to represent it, is what the real problem is. The punditry class needs to work on defining the concepts and leave the final window dressing of vocabulary to the teenagers, who will pick something we don’t understand. Let’s call them 6 7 games
I like the idea of categorizing Roleplaying Games and Storytelling Games as their own separate things. Sure, there’s a lot of overlap between the two, but I think it’d help people understand better what kind of experience you’ll be getting from each game. I know it took me a while to understand the difference, and I was always frustrated with how little I vibed with Storytelling games when I loved traditional Roleplaying games so much