Slashdot Mirror

I wouldn't have corrected the grammar on its own, but since I was responding anyway... ;-) Besides, there are a couple of those phrases I see these days and consider a joke worth continuing. Yeah, I'm an asshole.

Well, as for levels, classes, and skills, there are discussions we could have over what's considered a class. In original D&D (the original published books, first edition, not the original computer game) your race and your class were the same thing. A dwarf did this while an elf did that. In other games, including later D&D editions, classes were separate (although sometimes still a race was limited to certain classes or vice-versa). A level in that class would give you a certain lump of new benefits. Then, there's the dual-classing in which you can get two different packages of stuff. Then there are classes in some games that only give bonuses or detriments to skills, attributes, or special abilities you gain by usage or by spending points. A class or archetype, or "career" in some games, may or may not have levels associated with it, depending on the game.

A skill-point system assumes your character trains in the skills in your downtime between adventures. Some games require that the player can only assign skill points to a skill that was used at least X times (as low as one) during the session. That gives a bit of the feel of a usage-based advancement system, but is more open. A pure usage-based skill advancement assumes the characters have no downtime between adventures in which to train, which for some settings and genres makes perfect sense. Either ties the advancement to the skill itself rather than some generalization about the character's job or title. They just allow the advancement to be tied more tightly (straight usage-based) or more loosely (point-based) to the flow of time the character is actually being role-played by the player.

Some games, like Dark Conspiracy from GDW for example, use a "career" template (or more, as Dark Conspiracy does) to give a starting skill set to a character but allows further development to be via a different mechanism (spending points in this case). Spending points makes sense in Dark Conspiracy, because most of the player characters in the genre have day jobs to support themselves and go on missions in their spare time. What they do on a mission wouldn't limit what they can study or practice between missions.

In a game in which the character's full-time activity is in the session and the characters pick up exactly where they left off from a previous adventure at the start of every session (which is how many computer-based RPGs are set up), the character only getting more skill proficiency by using the skill or actively training in it in the game session makes sense.

Either of these leaves the skills independent of one over character or class level. Even if a character is limited to what skills he or she can take by a class, the skills might be raised individually and not per level of the class.

If you're really interested in discussing RPG theory and how permutations of game concepts and rules effect game play in different genres and settings, then you'd probably want to check out The Forge where many game designers hang out and share ideas.

Don't forget The Forge, a great place to find off the beaten path games.

Oh, and, of course, Troll Lord games for those of us in the "get off my lawn" demographic.

If your cheap, you can wait a year until Free RPG Day

Of course, me? I prefer boardgames. (and card games).

People are doing this already and they are making lots and lots and lots of content. And i'm not just talking about OGL stuff, there are quite a few forums you can check out that will lead you to these games (much of it is free).

The folks at this forum are doing some really interesting stuff, much of which is nothing like D&D:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/

This forum is more D&D oriented:
http://www.rpg.net/

This forum is D&D centric:
http://www.enworld.org/

I think a lot of folks are just getting tired of the same stale dungeon-crawling that D&D has been pushing for the last 25 years, moving on to bigger and better things (like GURPS, as mentioned in the tags).

I'm very active in the Role-Playing Felllowship of Greater Boston and lately we've been trying many new things. Probably my favorite is a small indy system called Universalis, a GM-less collaborative roleplaying/storytelling system which uses a set of simple socioeconomic feedback mechanisms to regulate the narrative and resolve conflicts without any centralized authority. This has the effect of making the game much more about creativity and interesting stories (indeed the game itself "pays" you to create conflicts in the story) than about playing what is essentially a video game on pen and paper. In a manner similar to brainstorming, Universalis combines the intellectual and creative abilities of the players in such a way that other players act as randomizing agents on your ideas, taking characters and story elements in directions that you yourself would have never thought of. I think it's absolutely brilliant, and indeed a feasible system for brainstorming and generating new and unique stories.

If you live in the Greater Boston area, you should check us out. It's one of the few places you'll find roleplayers willing to try just about anything.

It's been done. It's just not in the games you're familiar with, apparently.

A magic system for Fudge which works much the way you describe
the system in Ars Magica is quite similar

Here are some discussions about magic systems:

a discussion of different systems
another discussion, led off by Ron Edwards of the Sorcerer RPG

Speaking of Sorcerer, its magic is something else entirely. It's a largely outcome-based game rather than specifically action-based, and the magic system in it is quite a neat play on that.

GURPS, Rifts, and D&D pretty much follow the mystical grimoire approach. Ars Magica, White Wolf's Storyteller Series (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, Hunters, etc), and some others take the combined skills approach. Still others have wholly different approaches. Here's a pretty good explanation of the theory of magic in Earthdawn which explains different ways magic can be used in that game, complete with disadvantages of some of them.

The Forge is very interesting reading material for anyone who's considered writing their own RPG. There's some advanced RPG jargon there so I'd suggest starting with the site glossary. It's not a site for arguing the merits or faults of different systems you've played although those might be used as support in discussing the design of new games.

Personally, I've played games with set spells, spell research to make new spells (as some versions of D&D let you do with the right GM). I've played ones that require a combination of skills (from two to five (five!) skills for every casting. Some require each spell being taken as a character advantage in an advantage/disadvantage slot balanced game. I've played on in which the game world has special words that are foreign to the players/characters that must be learned throughout the campaign which represent factors of a spell (speaking "large" + "fire" + "ball" + "at" + character's secret magic name results in that) and learning the words as an outsider is how to become a better mage. It becomes the whole point of some adventures.

I've even play tested one unpublished game in which the only magic was a link between two symbols dawn during a ritual trance. However, the link was so strong that whatever you did to one would happen to the other. You could talk into one, and someone in possession of the other could carry on a conversation with you. You could throw one safely in your fireplace while the other is inside an enemy's barrel of oil. You could lay one on the ground and step on it, and be transported to the other. However, if anyone unfriendly took over your other symbol, they could use it in reverse until one of the two was destroyed. If I ever give this game a name and publish a book, I hope you'll rush out to buy it. ;-)

So yes, there can be quite different magic systems in games. Many of them could be used in D&D, or you could try the other games.

The Saga edition's a nice evolution, it's rather far from the cutting edge of anything. For the real cutting edge in tabletop roleplaying game design go here: http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/home.php or here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/

My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated. My goal in this writing is to provide vocabulary and perspective that enable people to articulate what they want and like out of the activity, and to understand what to look for both in other people and in game design to achieve their goals. The person who is entirely satisfied with his or her role-playing experiences is not my target audience.

My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated. My goal in this writing is to provide vocabulary and perspective that enable people to articulate what they want and like out of the activity, and to understand what to look for both in other people and in game design to achieve their goals. The person who is entirely satisfied with his or her role-playing experiences is not my target audience.

It was a requirement before? The amount of fun you could have in a game was determined by how high a certain attribute was, as opposed to the interaction you had between the players and the GM? I guess if you measure success by "I can do more damage in less time than you, therefore my character is cooler and I win the game" it's a requirement...

I think what he's saying is that there's no longer a feeling that you have to play a certain type of character to feel "useful" in the party. If you're okay playing second banana all the time in a game, that's fine, but a lot of people feel unhappy if their character is always eclipsed by other members of the party.

A game that lets the smuggler and the princess occasionally shine as much as the Jedi isn't a bad thing. It's one thing to say that a game isn't supposed to be about the mechanics, but the mechanics of a game can place certain restrictions on how players interact with each other and the game world that can either enhance or limit fun. System does matter.

The d20 standard system is a gamist system. All its rewards are geared towards triumphing in combat. If you don't pay attention to that in character design, the game will not reward you as much as those that do. Hopefully, the system of the new Star Wars will make it less difficult to triumph without having to obsess over complex mechanics and in doing so stop punishing people who don't play maxed out Jedis.

You're forgetting about many indie rpgs that approach roleplaying from an improvisational, narrativist perspective.

I'm a programmer, and honestly, I'm not a big fan of optimizable rule-sets or powergaming. There's lots of people like me.

But it's important to remember that even more narrativist systems still impose constraints: The game has a setting, the game has a specific method of conflict resolution, the story that comes out as a result has still come out of a very structured process.

As an aside, I've found, when writing, that I can't write about anything, but when I put a challenge to myself (write a story about what you want for christmas, write a story about the queer way "An Inconvenient Truth" affected you), I am actually furiously productive.

I'm convinced that the skill to identify a target and to reduce that target to a series of steps is a critical skill in achieving anything of lasting value.

Of the games you've listed, only one (Don't Rest Your Head) came out in 2006. It's hardly news for nerds.

If you're expecting Slashdot to become the shining beacon that highlights cutting edge indy RPG game design, well, you're a dreamer, I can respect that. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Compared to the front page of Slashdot, Games.Slashdot is small site. Compared to the normal video game focus of Games.Slashdot, tabletop RPGs are a microscopic market. To focus on the very small subset of indie games would lose even more readers.

I applaud your enthusiasm, but don't get your hopes quite so high. There is no renaissance. Worse, things are looking a little dark; the d20 boom has faded. The number of people making a living in the industry is going down. Profitable companies are going out of business or relying on donations to survive. Sales are down. Local hobby stores continue to close. If there is a historical analogy, you might compare it to the dark ages, except instead of turning to superstition and faith, they're turning to computer RPGs and Wizards of the Coast. Or maybe the fall of Rome; the once great society crumbling under it's own hubris, inability to adjust, and a bit of help from the barbarians of video games.

What you're describing is a nascent indie movement, largely pushed by The Forge. I'm glad it's out there. There is great stuff being done, including the games you mentioned. Experimental stuff has been happening since role-playing games were first created, but it does seem like the rate's increasing. If the RPG industry ends up a shadow of its former self, it's the indies who will provide much of the spark and drive that will keep it alive. This is what kept interactive fiction and hex-and-chit wargaming not only alive, but innovative. If the RPG industry doesn't fade away, the indies will provide the experimental, cutting edge stuff that the main industry will take years to adopt, a counterpart to the indie film scene, the sort of think Greg Costiyan is trying to push in video games with Manifesto Games.

The Forge booth was awesome this year (full disclosure: I worked the Indie Press Revolution chunk of it, running sales). The main draw, as ever, is that half of the booth is taken up by demo space with 10-20 minute tasters of all the games on sale run by the game designers, and the booth is hopping all convention long.

Although alone among exhibitors to publish sales results, the idea that the Forge came in third after WW and WotC is alas, conjecture contested by Paizo and probably Palladium - although who knows for sure? What we can say for sure is that year-on-year, the market for creator-owned independently published roleplaying games is growing, and shows no sign of slowing down.

Also, the games were fucking awesome this year - old and new. New titles like Burning Empires, 1001 Nights and Don't Rest Your Head sat deservedly proudly alongside the stalwarts of new gaming like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard and Breaking the Ice.

- Alexander

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/

Check the articles by Ron Edwards

Well, what type of discussion were you wanting from this subject? Something about how online PDF sales are seriously altering the RPG market? Something about the various theories about why people RP? A bunch of posts agreeing that those are good games and that everyone should play them? :)

It is rather too large and diverse of a subject for slashdot to cover well. You might want to go to a dedicated message board for rpgs. Check out the following links:

http://forum.rpg.net/
http://forums.rpgchat.com/
http://www.rpgconsortium.com/main.cfm
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/

There are many others. Go out there and search for ones you like.

• Kill Puppies for Satan: An Unfunny Roleplaying Game. "the system is minimal in the way that particularly irritates people who would rather be playing rolemaster or millenium's end. you have only six stats, for instance, and that's counting generously. one stat is how many people hate you"
• Dogs in the Vineyard. The Lord may be your shepard, but sometimes he can use a gnarly old Watchdog to help keep the wolves at bay.
• Primetime Adventures. Roleplaying games are about telling stories - why not make them about television shows instead?
• Polaris. Once upon a time, as far north as north can go, there lived the greatest people that this world will ever see. They are gone now, destroyed just as the world destroys all beautiful things.

Why are RPGers so snobbish about what games they'll call an RPG?

Welcome to the world of geekdom, where people have screaming arguments over whether vi or emacs is a better editor, what sci-fi series is best, and how any product that you like that competes with a product they like is a clear sign of your moral and mental inferiority.

Gamers who like one type of game frequently disparage the other types because of same sort of stupid pride that leads to platform and editor flamewars. Rather than admit that we all like different games and that that's okay, they'd rather go off about how people who enjoy something they don't are idiots.

This is unfortunately human nature and is only curable with maturity.

There's a site called The Forge that's been wrestling with what is an RPG (for table-top gamers) for a while that's come up with a good broad three categories for game types: Narrativist, Simulationist, and Gamist.

Narrativist games focus on a story.
Simulationist games focus on exploration.
Gamist games focus on overcoming challenges.

The main emphasis of The Forge for table-top gamers is to point out that games (and gaming groups) that try to satisfy everyone tend to satisfy no one and to increase awareness of alternative playstyles for people stuck in games that they find disatisfying.

Eastern / console RPGs are narrativist games that focus primarily on the telling of a good story and in getting you emotionally involved in the plot. Western / PC RPGs are simulationist games that have an open-ended world to explore and let you shape a character into anything you want. The only purely gamist games with little emphasis on plot and exploration might be a few Strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem and Makai Kingdom and some action RPGs like Shining Tears. All RPGs have some element of all three play styles, but all workable RPGs tend to strongly reward one of the three player goals over the others.

People just need to recognize that tastes differ and quit falling back on the "no true Scotsman" argument.

Based on his little diatribe, it seems that he's an antisocial, competitive gamer who has good reflexes and thinks that skill should trump all and that something isn't a good game unless it lets you dominate some other player. His argument is essentially that if a game doesn't cater to his particular gaming desires then it is meant for intellectually / morally inferior gamers. Some of us actually like interacting with other people. Some of us don't exactly have great hand-to-eye coordination but are good at other things. According to him, we shouldn't be allowed to have fun because all games should be made for him and not for us.

Screw him and the high horse he rode in on.

There's a website where table-top game designers and players gather to discuss the theory of gaming -- specifically focused on what makes games fun called The Forge. A lot of what they say there applied quite well to PC and console games as well. In particular, there's a theory of three types of gaming goals that a player typically has. Broadly defined, these are:

• Gamism -- The enjoyment of defeating challenges.
• Simulationism -- The enjoyment of exploration.
• Narrativism -- The enjoyment of stories.

(If you have any interest in table-top gaming, I highly recommend that you read the site's articles section, starting with System Does Matter and the much more long-winded GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory after having some time to think about and digest the first short article. I digress, though...)

Players of games usually have one of these three goals as their primary definition of "fun," though many people can appreciate more than one type. Generally, if you're not getting what you want out of a game (challenges, exploration, or stories), you're not having fun.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft are primarily focused around exploration with light challenges placed primarily to add difficulty to exploration. Fighting monsters in general is not as much fun as fighting new monsters until you get to high levels. Then the game shifts to cooperative challenge-oriented play once you've already explored most of what the game has to offer in terms of your character, equipment, monsters, and geography. There are skills required to master Level 60 play, but they're very different from the twitch-reflex skills that the author of the article has (and it requires a lot of patience and teamwork to get to these parts of the game). They're strategic skills which he may or may not appreciate.

Anyway, this was a very long way to go just to illustrate my point. There are different goals that gamers can have, and this guy is an arrogant jerk for slamming everyone else for having fun doing things that he doesn't like. There are more than enough games out there that satisfy his style of play, and he should realize that not every game has to be made for him.

Based on his little diatribe, it seems that he's an antisocial, competitive gamer who has good reflexes and thinks that skill should trump all and that something isn't a good game unless it lets you dominate some other player. His argument is essentially that if a game doesn't cater to his particular gaming desires then it is meant for intellectually / morally inferior gamers. Some of us actually like interacting with other people. Some of us don't exactly have great hand-to-eye coordination but are good at other things. According to him, we shouldn't be allowed to have fun because all games should be made for him and not for us.

Screw him and the high horse he rode in on.

There's a website where table-top game designers and players gather to discuss the theory of gaming -- specifically focused on what makes games fun called The Forge. A lot of what they say there applied quite well to PC and console games as well. In particular, there's a theory of three types of gaming goals that a player typically has. Broadly defined, these are:

• Gamism -- The enjoyment of defeating challenges.
• Simulationism -- The enjoyment of exploration.
• Narrativism -- The enjoyment of stories.

(If you have any interest in table-top gaming, I highly recommend that you read the site's articles section, starting with System Does Matter and the much more long-winded GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory after having some time to think about and digest the first short article. I digress, though...)

Players of games usually have one of these three goals as their primary definition of "fun," though many people can appreciate more than one type. Generally, if you're not getting what you want out of a game (challenges, exploration, or stories), you're not having fun.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft are primarily focused around exploration with light challenges placed primarily to add difficulty to exploration. Fighting monsters in general is not as much fun as fighting new monsters until you get to high levels. Then the game shifts to cooperative challenge-oriented play once you've already explored most of what the game has to offer in terms of your character, equipment, monsters, and geography. There are skills required to master Level 60 play, but they're very different from the twitch-reflex skills that the author of the article has (and it requires a lot of patience and teamwork to get to these parts of the game). They're strategic skills which he may or may not appreciate.

Anyway, this was a very long way to go just to illustrate my point. There are different goals that gamers can have, and this guy is an arrogant jerk for slamming everyone else for having fun doing things that he doesn't like. There are more than enough games out there that satisfy his style of play, and he should realize that not every game has to be made for him.

Based on his little diatribe, it seems that he's an antisocial, competitive gamer who has good reflexes and thinks that skill should trump all and that something isn't a good game unless it lets you dominate some other player. His argument is essentially that if a game doesn't cater to his particular gaming desires then it is meant for intellectually / morally inferior gamers. Some of us actually like interacting with other people. Some of us don't exactly have great hand-to-eye coordination but are good at other things. According to him, we shouldn't be allowed to have fun because all games should be made for him and not for us.

Screw him and the high horse he rode in on.

There's a website where table-top game designers and players gather to discuss the theory of gaming -- specifically focused on what makes games fun called The Forge. A lot of what they say there applied quite well to PC and console games as well. In particular, there's a theory of three types of gaming goals that a player typically has. Broadly defined, these are:

• Gamism -- The enjoyment of defeating challenges.
• Simulationism -- The enjoyment of exploration.
• Narrativism -- The enjoyment of stories.

(If you have any interest in table-top gaming, I highly recommend that you read the site's articles section, starting with System Does Matter and the much more long-winded GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory after having some time to think about and digest the first short article. I digress, though...)

Players of games usually have one of these three goals as their primary definition of "fun," though many people can appreciate more than one type. Generally, if you're not getting what you want out of a game (challenges, exploration, or stories), you're not having fun.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft are primarily focused around exploration with light challenges placed primarily to add difficulty to exploration. Fighting monsters in general is not as much fun as fighting new monsters until you get to high levels. Then the game shifts to cooperative challenge-oriented play once you've already explored most of what the game has to offer in terms of your character, equipment, monsters, and geography. There are skills required to master Level 60 play, but they're very different from the twitch-reflex skills that the author of the article has (and it requires a lot of patience and teamwork to get to these parts of the game). They're strategic skills which he may or may not appreciate.

Anyway, this was a very long way to go just to illustrate my point. There are different goals that gamers can have, and this guy is an arrogant jerk for slamming everyone else for having fun doing things that he doesn't like. There are more than enough games out there that satisfy his style of play, and he should realize that not every game has to be made for him.

Based on his little diatribe, it seems that he's an antisocial, competitive gamer who has good reflexes and thinks that skill should trump all and that something isn't a good game unless it lets you dominate some other player. His argument is essentially that if a game doesn't cater to his particular gaming desires then it is meant for intellectually / morally inferior gamers. Some of us actually like interacting with other people. Some of us don't exactly have great hand-to-eye coordination but are good at other things. According to him, we shouldn't be allowed to have fun because all games should be made for him and not for us.

Screw him and the high horse he rode in on.

There's a website where table-top game designers and players gather to discuss the theory of gaming -- specifically focused on what makes games fun called The Forge. A lot of what they say there applied quite well to PC and console games as well. In particular, there's a theory of three types of gaming goals that a player typically has. Broadly defined, these are:

• Gamism -- The enjoyment of defeating challenges.
• Simulationism -- The enjoyment of exploration.
• Narrativism -- The enjoyment of stories.

(If you have any interest in table-top gaming, I highly recommend that you read the site's articles section, starting with System Does Matter and the much more long-winded GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory after having some time to think about and digest the first short article. I digress, though...)

Players of games usually have one of these three goals as their primary definition of "fun," though many people can appreciate more than one type. Generally, if you're not getting what you want out of a game (challenges, exploration, or stories), you're not having fun.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft are primarily focused around exploration with light challenges placed primarily to add difficulty to exploration. Fighting monsters in general is not as much fun as fighting new monsters until you get to high levels. Then the game shifts to cooperative challenge-oriented play once you've already explored most of what the game has to offer in terms of your character, equipment, monsters, and geography. There are skills required to master Level 60 play, but they're very different from the twitch-reflex skills that the author of the article has (and it requires a lot of patience and teamwork to get to these parts of the game). They're strategic skills which he may or may not appreciate.

Anyway, this was a very long way to go just to illustrate my point. There are different goals that gamers can have, and this guy is an arrogant jerk for slamming everyone else for having fun doing things that he doesn't like. There are more than enough games out there that satisfy his style of play, and he should realize that not every game has to be made for him.

A lot of these lessons are really just traits of the game system. A game system will encourage a certain style of play and if that style is not something you can groove to, then the experience won't be that great. So perhaps the real lesson here is use a system that rocks, and your game will be great.

For an intresting article on this concept please read http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_ma tter.html

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why you need any "mechanics" to handle anything but the combat. Why do I need "rules" to govern anything other than what happens when I try to stab someone with a pointy stick?

For the most part, that's true. Most RPG rule-sets are defined by their combat rules because conflict is the root of all stories, and RPGs trace their lineage from Chainmail, the first fantasy, miniature wargame. D&D is particularly tied to combat since all the rewards for play in D&D come from combat. The experience system, the collection of treasure, and the ability to use 90% of your character's "crunchy bits" and powers all flow from combat. In the terminology of the gaming theory website The Forge, it's a heavily Gamist RPG -- one that focuses on and rewards the defeating of challenges. Read System Does Matter for a better idea of the terminology I'm using. It was sort of a watershed moment for me when I read that essay in the back of the RPG Sorceror.

There are other fine RPGs out there that reward different sorts of play and have rule-sets that encourage them. The RPG "The Dying Earth" lets you get into the world of a Jack Vance novel, where the people are venial, corrupt shysters trying to get maximum benefit for minimal work. The system has a schtick based "paper-rock-scissors" combat system that also has an analouge for fast-talking (and being fast-talked). Players are expected to play along and believe (at least until disproven) whatever their characters get talked into. The system also has a set of resistances to various forms of tempatation that all characters have to try to resist (and usually fail) to reflect the veniality of the typical character. There's also bonus experience points for using phrases handed out by the GM in a session to get people into using the wordy, convoluted way of speaking of Jack Vance's stories.

The Indy RPG "Dogs in the Vineyard" is set around playing enforcers of community and morality in a Wild West people of the faith setting vaguely reminiscent of the early days of the Mormon faith. It's a highly narrativist game (a game that focuses on character development and story). Stats in the game are attributes, skills, items, relationships, and vices -- all of which contribute dice to a pool for conflicts. Conflicts can be verbal, fisticuffs, or gunplay with each for contributing larger and larger dice to roll on a fallout table at the end of combat which determines how badly the conflict shaped a character (with death being very rare). In the end, the system rewards the growth of relationships and vices a little more than attributes, skills, and items because the whole goal is character building. It has a mechanic for adding to the difficulty of a situation as the sins of the community are revealed (to encourage players to handle things before they get out of control).

Some games facilitate the kind of play where PCs get to imagine living in a particular setting or situation. These games enforce rules that tie one into the settings whether that setting be "realistic" like the burdensome Rolemaster rules set or cinematic like Feng Shui's rules set. Rolemaster makes people roll for keeping their footing in slippery situations and to avoid diseases through proper hygene because players want that sort of "realistic" actions have consequences sort of play. Feng Shui gives a +! damage bonus on a shotgun if you take a small interval of a combat round to cock it and say "schk-chkt!" and penalizes sorcerors who use repetitive magic or who do not give flashy names to their spell effects because that enforces the Hong Kong action movie feel.

There are all sort of uses for rules in games. Even games not based on Fortune mechanics (mechanics that involve die rolls and other randomizers) have rules for certain things. The game Nobilis is a resource-based system where Sovereign Powers can cast li

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why you need any "mechanics" to handle anything but the combat. Why do I need "rules" to govern anything other than what happens when I try to stab someone with a pointy stick?

For the most part, that's true. Most RPG rule-sets are defined by their combat rules because conflict is the root of all stories, and RPGs trace their lineage from Chainmail, the first fantasy, miniature wargame. D&D is particularly tied to combat since all the rewards for play in D&D come from combat. The experience system, the collection of treasure, and the ability to use 90% of your character's "crunchy bits" and powers all flow from combat. In the terminology of the gaming theory website The Forge, it's a heavily Gamist RPG -- one that focuses on and rewards the defeating of challenges. Read System Does Matter for a better idea of the terminology I'm using. It was sort of a watershed moment for me when I read that essay in the back of the RPG Sorceror.

There are other fine RPGs out there that reward different sorts of play and have rule-sets that encourage them. The RPG "The Dying Earth" lets you get into the world of a Jack Vance novel, where the people are venial, corrupt shysters trying to get maximum benefit for minimal work. The system has a schtick based "paper-rock-scissors" combat system that also has an analouge for fast-talking (and being fast-talked). Players are expected to play along and believe (at least until disproven) whatever their characters get talked into. The system also has a set of resistances to various forms of tempatation that all characters have to try to resist (and usually fail) to reflect the veniality of the typical character. There's also bonus experience points for using phrases handed out by the GM in a session to get people into using the wordy, convoluted way of speaking of Jack Vance's stories.

The Indy RPG "Dogs in the Vineyard" is set around playing enforcers of community and morality in a Wild West people of the faith setting vaguely reminiscent of the early days of the Mormon faith. It's a highly narrativist game (a game that focuses on character development and story). Stats in the game are attributes, skills, items, relationships, and vices -- all of which contribute dice to a pool for conflicts. Conflicts can be verbal, fisticuffs, or gunplay with each for contributing larger and larger dice to roll on a fallout table at the end of combat which determines how badly the conflict shaped a character (with death being very rare). In the end, the system rewards the growth of relationships and vices a little more than attributes, skills, and items because the whole goal is character building. It has a mechanic for adding to the difficulty of a situation as the sins of the community are revealed (to encourage players to handle things before they get out of control).

Some games facilitate the kind of play where PCs get to imagine living in a particular setting or situation. These games enforce rules that tie one into the settings whether that setting be "realistic" like the burdensome Rolemaster rules set or cinematic like Feng Shui's rules set. Rolemaster makes people roll for keeping their footing in slippery situations and to avoid diseases through proper hygene because players want that sort of "realistic" actions have consequences sort of play. Feng Shui gives a +! damage bonus on a shotgun if you take a small interval of a combat round to cock it and say "schk-chkt!" and penalizes sorcerors who use repetitive magic or who do not give flashy names to their spell effects because that enforces the Hong Kong action movie feel.

There are all sort of uses for rules in games. Even games not based on Fortune mechanics (mechanics that involve die rolls and other randomizers) have rules for certain things. The game Nobilis is a resource-based system where Sovereign Powers can cast li

Independent RPGs fo' life, yo!

http://www.findplay.anvilwerks.com/ http://www.accessdenied.net/ http://www.rpgregistry.com/ http://www.rpg.net/ http://www.indie-rpgs.com/

D&D is certainly going strong and chugging along, but I've been most excited about the huge boom in small press RPGs over the past 5 or so year, much of which is fueled by the internet. When game authors can market and sell directly via the web, many things become possible.

Some really good stuff to check out:

Burning Wheel:
Dogs in the Vineyard
With Great Power
The Shadow of Yesterday
Primetime Adventures

Surprised no one mentioned this so far, but there's one development that has grown in influence over the last few years, and that's the Forge Booth. In a nutshell, this is a Gencon booth run by regulars at The Forge, a website devoted to discussion of RPG theory and how to make games that are coherent, instead of a jumbled mishmash of things put in either because they were "cool" or because "that's how RPGs are supposed to be."

It is pointless to make more and more complex games, when computers can do a much better job of tracking complex rule systems than people can. Not to mention that no one wants to play "Physics: The Calculating". Simulating reality is therefore kind of pointless. Instead you have to focus on the non-wargamey parts of RPGs, i.e. the story.

The Forge people get this and design their games accordingly. They have a laser-sharp focus on their subject matter and often produce amazing game sessions.

Two Forge games that are universally critically hailed are Dogs In The Vineyard and My Life With Master.

Dogs is set in a mythical west, where the PCs are a bit like Templars with six-guns. The game addresses the question of "how far are you willing to go to have your vision of righteousness made manifest?"

Master, on the other hand, addresses the premise of "Can you survive through love?" It is set in an anonymous central European town, where all the PCs are minions of an evil Master, a la Dr. Frankenstein/Igor. They have to try and gradually work up the courage (via forming relationships with the townsfolk) to overthrow the Master. Of course we know that eventually the Master will be overthrown (just like we know this in the movie, or we know that in D&D the PCs will slay the dragon); the excitement is in how it happens and what happens to the Minions prior to, and after, this event.

Now of course these games will never achieve the commercial success of D&D, or even one of the 2nd- or 3rd-tier of popularity like Vampire or GURPS. But in 5-10 years (mark my words!) this approach to RPGs will have sneakily infiltrated the mainstream.

If you remember your times long past playing D&D fondly - heck, if you're still playing it - you really owe it to yourself to check out some independent roleplaying game producers. They're cheap, they're great, they're a break from THAC0 and saving throws and god only knows what else. A great place to start is with The Forge, which specializes in such games.

And while you're their, a shout out please for Lumpley, an old friend of mine, and the author of kill puppies for satan: an unfunny roleplaying game. (I'd link directly to his site, but I doubt it could take the slashdotting. Still, I must advise folks to look him up. And send him money.)

Personally, I think that the gaming industry cares smeg-all about the artistic merits of games, and only what sells. This wasn't always the case, but seems to be the overwhelmingly prevalent attitude coming out of the industry today.

This /. discussion has so far focused exclusively on computer games, and in that field you're probably right -- though a few folks like Warren Spector are definitely interested in pushing the form forward.

But if we broaden the topic to include other games, there's definitely a strong starving-artist-in-garret mentality in indie RPGs -- the tabletop paper kind. Check out The Forge discussion boards, and the many odd small-press RPGs those designers post on the Web. They're all convinced roleplaying games can be an artform, and they don't care if their work earns a dime.

I worked in the adventure gaming field from 1984 until 1997, and then sporadically thereafter. I started at Steve Jackson Games, editing Space Gamer magazine under Warren Spector, and later freelanced for many paper game companies. This article does a decent job, for its length, of conveying the broad development of "core game design" mechanics. But I notice some odd oversights:

• RuneQuest. The article's slighting of the first significant skill-based system (unless you count Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls) is a grave distortion. Steve Perrin's RQ is a landmark in RPG mechanical design, for many reasons beyond its "universal model" aspect.
• TOON and Paranoia. From the article: "Traditionally, since their advent in 1973, RPGs had offered up the idea that the rules were the ultimate authority in a game and couldn't be spontaneously added to on the spot. Ars Magica (1988) was one of the first games to change this." Not even! Greg Costikyan's TOON, The Cartoon Roleplaying Game (developed by Warren Spector and me) and Paranoia (which Greg developed with Eric Goldberg and Ken Rolston from a setting by Dan Gelber) both appeared in 1985. They completely blew away the "rules authority" attitude in a way Ars Magica never matched. Both sold tons more copies than Ars Magica, too, at least in its first couple of editions. This installment of the article glosses over Paranoia (calling it a "storytelling game" -- really?) and ignores TOON completely.
• Weird White Wolf views. Of all the reasons to single out Mark Rein-Hagen's breakthrough Vampire: The Masquerade as a "consistent model" pioneer, this article chooses how it "break down the artificial distinction between attribute and skill rankings." Uh, okay. I know the article focuses on "core game design," but trying to establish the state of the art in RPGs on the basis of "the exact same scale for skills, relationships, personality traits, magic, combat, and even items" is nearsighted and excessively reductionist. On that basis, the author should have discussed instead the one-table systems of the mid-'80s, such as Greg Gorden's DC Heroes and the Pacesetter line.
• "Character Modeling Games." From the article: "[T]he first branch of the RPG tree was a style of game that lasted only a couple of years as a serious design meme, and which was eventually totally overcome by character development games. These early character modeling games placed as their goal the accurate portrayal of some character in a game environment. There was no opportunity for growth or change, simply a static existence. There's very little to say about this branch, because it so quickly dead-ended." Insofar as this distinction has merit, I could argue that, functionally, all the GDW roleplaying games (Twilight: 2000, Dark Conspiracy, etc.) amounted to this kind of design, whatever arbitrary advancement mechanics the designers tacked on as afterthoughts.
  But even if you disagree, the field has always enjoyed a tremendous ongoing current of small-press one-shot RPGs, what you might call the "short stories" of the form. Nowadays you find many such designers active on the Forge, the Burgess Shale of modern small-press RPG design. See, for example, the much-praised Little Fears, Universalis, The Riddle of Steel, and Sorcerer, as well as curiosities like Bedlam, Courts & Corsets, octaNe, and Nicotine Girls. And for a twisted mix of horror, humor, and emotion both high and low, check out Paul Czege's My Life With Maste

WotC's having a hard time of it, but it's been indicated that they plan to just use more freelancers - they've already done this with some people they laid off, like Monte Cook. Between this and the Open Gaming License, support for D&D will always be available.

That said, the biggest progress in RPG's lately has been from smaller, independent creators. Check out The Forge - tons of people all working on their own creator-owned games.