Discussion
My hope is that this article will serve as a single landing-point for folks curious about what I mean by "High-Trust Trad" roleplaying, or HTT.
https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2026/08/whats-forever-for.html
But, I know about hope, and the Internet. 😁
@SJohnRoss Is it essentially just "the GM poses a problem with no preconceived idea of the solution"?
@sbszine No, it's really easy, in that case, to present problems that are unrounded. HTT problems are very much _designed_ to the necessary standard, in terms of complexity, rounding, and value-tension.
@sbszine To put it another way, and just sticking to rounding, these two sentences are the contrast:
This is a problem with no optimal solution.
This is a problem that might have an optimal solution, dunno.
... and then, there's still the rest, the value-basis and other issues.
So it's just problems, but it's problems designed for a set of jobs.
@SJohnRoss I'm none the wiser as to which you are advocating! I'm guessing the first from the mention of tension earlier.
@SJohnRoss I think I'm a High Trust wannabe GM without quite enough skill and not enough players who want that.
@DejahEntendu Honestly, if it's not something you've got players _craving_ ... if they're happy with the current impact of their roleplaying, etc ... it would be almost rude to slap an HTT scenario down except as a change-of-pace outing. 😁
Because it really does rip agency away from players and gives it to the characters. And some players do NOT want that.
Many players are fine with whatever.
@SJohnRoss I totally recognized one of my dearest friends in your description of LTT. But the group is a sliding scale... I always thought of it as roll vs role players. Though they have enjoyed the move from highly scripted to more reactive to their actions.
Reading what you wrote did help me see where maybe I was being too sand-box-y for them. And that's a big help. Thanks, as always, for your thoughts.
@DejahEntendu If you've got a mix, you can sprinkle in a little something for everyone now and then. ☺️
I think that's always been where some of the best campaigns live!
@[email protected] the mention of combinatorics reminded me to finally post about something: bonfire.mavnn.eu/pub/objects...
@SJohnRoss I think that’s great, and it matches the understanding I’d gained from your writings so far. Although what *really* made it crystallise for me was watching Familiar Sights.
And now I just have to deal with my current table being stuck in Medium-to-Low. ☹️ Try as I might, I can’t get them comfortable with tactical infinity. I think it’s because they’re worried about “losing”, which might be my fault for putting too high-stakes problems in front of them?
Stephen J. Anderson My current game is just my family game, so I’m hyper-flexible with rules, contexts, and outcomes, and have even explicitly told everyone that there is no death in the game. I gave them outright permission to lose fights, with the knowledge that there will be no direct consequences to their characters.
They don’t care. It’s not their characters they care about, it’s the very concept of losing. They’re just not psychologically prepared to accept being bested.
I do not grok this in the least. My concern in losing is always the loss of my character, because I tend to project a lot of myself onto the character. But I also crave a comeback story. Everyone else at the table? Their characters are just avatars, and the loss is theirs directly. They’re not interested in the Rocky lose-regroup-win storyarch, they’re just there for the power fantasy, and that falls apart if they find themselves confronted with a challenge they’re not completely capable of besting.
Hell, the youngest got upset and threatened to walk away from the game when I attacked him more than once, even though his character was the only one in range.
For people like these, the whole point of the game is radically different from what many of us with more of a history of or focus on roleplay are used to.
@utterfiction Some folks just don't crave it!
Some because they're not in love with roleplay.
Some because they want "the roleplaying parts" to be mostly reflective and free of stakes.
Some because they're passionate about the boardgame stuff and don't want to lose that focus.
_Many_ because they want story.
HTT is for weirdos. Even by RPG standards!
Scary stakes MIGHT make roleplay seem less worth it. I haven't seen that but, maybe? Maybe try smaller doses of HTT at the edges.
@SJohnRoss
What bugs me most about the direction of a *certain* game is that a bit over a decade ago, it introduced a bit of (very thin and basic) fuel for characterization... aaand then emphasized styles of adventure design where those tools did not matter *at all*. In the most recent revision, they unsurprisingly proceeded to remove the characterization-encouraging bit of the game design — and, for that matter, tried to write the rest of the rules to be as detached from lore as possible.
@pteryx For better or worse, and in so many different directions, a lot of creative RPG work goes into fulfilling the many promises certain others games made or implied, but never kept ... 😮
@SJohnRoss
In this case, your article makes me suspect you'd appreciate the idea of a system getting you started with "I have this quirk, value this abstract concept and this physically real noun, but also think this wrong way"... and *also* lament that they wasted a perfectly good idea.
Oh! Almost forgot, it encouraged "I start with this mysterious flavor object" too. No idea if that survived the revision... probably not, as the surrounding adventure design didn't lend itself to that either.
@SJohnRoss Excellent! That explains a lot. Thanks!
@skippy You're welcome! And now, I must flee to my bunker, before Reddit arrives with pitchforks. 😂
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