thread: 2005-06-24 : John Kim on Craft and Innovation
On 2005-06-24, Chris wrote:
What's interesting about John's list is that most of the innovative breakout ideas basically are one-time things. The larger "name" games tend to stick close to what has gone on before. And much of the things that the general public touts as "innovative" are usually mash ups of previous innovations (Exalted = Storyteller + Feng Shui, D&D 3.0 = R. Tal games + Storyteller's Power lists).List aside, probably the biggest innovations in my opinion:
- Unified resolution mechanics (who did this first? anyone know?)
- Point build character creation, ability/spell creation, etc. (Build your own)
- Personality mechanics (I believe CoC started this)
- Dramatic modifiers to resolution
- Mechanics for social resolution
- Rock, Paper, Scissors style strategies applied towards mechanics
- Dials (modular rules, as a core concept, not as houserules)
- Directed Rewards (for something other than killing monsters or showing up)
- Instant Rewards (not end of session/campaign)
- Scene Framing
- Author/Director Stance as a part of mechanics
- Open table discussion (everyone can make suggestions) as part of rules text
- Player right to establish/introduce conflict
Um, basically, you can see most of the innovations revolve around Reward, GM/Player power, and Resolution. About half of these make regular appearances in mainstream games, though usually not all together.
