I reread Six Cultures of Play recently and have a tentative theory on Trad.
Retired Adventurer makes Trad sound purely dramatist, and in its most railroaded form it may be so. But it was usually combined with gamist-simulationist systems like D&D (or Traveller, RuneQuest, or GURPS), and in its more thoughtful forms Trad gave an interesting synthesis with something for everybody. Most groups have players who favor different play styles of the threefold model, and contra Ron Edwards most are not purists, so the blend worked. That would explain both why Trad was such a popular culture of play and why it was the one that later cultures reacted against, strongly preferring one GDS play style over the others.
I am prepping a Mythras campaign to run for my friends next year some time. My own tastes lean pretty heavily simulationist, but the players are a mix. As I lay this next campaign on simulationist foundations, with sandbox and hexcrawl elements, I want to build something that will be fun for all of them.
I reread Six Cultures of Play recently and have a tentative theory on Trad.
Retired Adventurer makes Trad sound purely dramatist, and in its most railroaded form it may be so. But it was usually combined with gamist-simulationist systems like D&D (or Traveller, RuneQuest, or GURPS), and in its more thoughtful forms Trad gave an interesting synthesis with something for everybody. Most groups have players who favor different play styles of the threefold model, and contra Ron Edwards most are not purists, so the blend worked. That would explain both why Trad was such a popular culture of play and why it was the one that later cultures reacted against, strongly preferring one GDS play style over the others.
I am prepping a Mythras campaign to run for my friends next year some time. My own tastes lean pretty heavily simulationist, but the players are a mix. As I lay this next campaign on simulationist foundations, with sandbox and hexcrawl elements, I want to build something that will be fun for all of them.