what's the new innovative RPG that's going to change everything?

[haqattaqq]

I got back into RPGs with 5e and though "wow, this is incredible - everything's so streamlined and well thought out!"

...then I started adding in 13th age tools (one unique thing, icons, etc) and thought "this is amazing!".

Lately I've been playing more narrative RPGs like FATE, dungeonworld and Baron Munchhausen... and they're again blowing my mind.

What are the new trends in RPGs? I've seen some of the kickstarters for different systems but nothing really stands out as being as innovative and "game changing" as the narrative RPGs.

Does anyone have anything they see as advancing the industry?

 

[MNblockhead]

If you like Baron Munchhausen and have a group of friends that like that type of game, check out Inspectres. While there is a GM to start of the story and resolve actions, the player's roles can allow THEM to say what happens in the game. Also, it adds in a reality-show confession booth mechanic that's fun. The crunch is light. It uses simple six-sided dice pools. It is heavily on collaborative story telling and a bit of acting.

I was introduced to it while watching a recorded talk given and one of the PAX conventions. I can't find it now or remember the title or the presenters' names, but it also introduced me to Dread and a Thousand and One Nights. Grin is an interesting horror themed game whose rules fit on one sheet of paper and use playing cards (though they sell a Grin-themed playing deck).

D&D 5e is my main game, but there are a lot of games out there that a great for one offs or to play with little planning.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

While we’re definitely moving in a more rules-light direction, I would say that distributed storytelling, where the players and GM work together to tell the adventure is one of the biggest growing trends. When hoary Shadowrun can jettison its rules-heavy approach for a rules-light narrative edition, that’s something.

 

[thefrickinpope]

I'm a big fan of the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars systems, they eschew dice with numbers to have dice with narrative results (success, failure, triumph, threat etc.), that really make the games a blast to play.

 

[Cruxador]

I've gotta say, Song of Swords is looking pretty good. The Riddle of Steel was revolutionary when it launched but not really polished so it only took off in niche circles. Song of Swords is way more polished, easier to get into, and the system they've built around the same core is just way better overall.

Plus, it has a very interesting setting, which is already a huge bonus over what Riddle of Steel shipped with. So Song of Swords is maybe more evolutionary than revolutionary, but if it gets people actually on the system, "streamlined and well thought out" is a good thing too. Especially considering simulationism, while not a new idea, has been dead for a while and pretty much stuck in, like, GURPS and stuff like that.

If you want something that's entirely revolutionary in a different way, you might be interested in some of the Japanese games that are getting translated. The focus on randomly rolling things (as opposed to designing a things and getting attached to them) actually harkens back to Gygax's table but it's pretty novel these days, especially when you see it in something extremely non-Gygaxian like MaidRPG.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Haven’t played it, but I dig what I’ve read about the Force dice concept, and how it simulates the temptation of the Dark Side.

I'm a big fan of the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars systems, they eschew dice with numbers to have dice with narrative results (success, failure, triumph, threat etc.), that really make the games a blast to play.

 

[aramis erak]

There is no "one revolutionary game" - the industry is broadening to encompass more styles mechanically, and those are incompatible styles.

D&D is slightly lighter mechanics in 5E, but is still the hoary old goat in the core.

Traveller has a new, just as clunky as ever, edition out, and a crunchy as hell edition out as well. Both have playerbases, and neither seems to appreciate the other. (And I say this as the admin of the official FFE-owned Traveller boards.) And the publisher still sells every other edition of the game, too.

 

[Campbell]

The two design spaces I am seeing the most innovation in these days is the OSR space and Powered By The Apocalypse games.

The move structure of Apocalypse World has provided a fertile design language that allows development through play, and the way it skews results towards success with a cost provides powerful snowballing of the fiction to keep things interesting. Some games to look at in this space include:

• Masks - A New Generation. Masks is a game about young superheroes coming into their own and learning to function as a team. Inspirational material includes Young Justice, Teen Titans, New Mutants, and Young Avengers. This is really a game about what it means to grow up. Its stats - called labels - can shift up and down depending on social influence from adults and peers. How you see yourself affects how capable you are of getting things done. Eventually you can set a label in place, cementing the way you see yourself. There are also some really cool 'Grown Up Moves' that reflect a character maturing.
• Saga of the Icelanders is a game of political and personal drama about Icelandic settlers in the 10th century. It has varying sets of gender specific moves that play up examining gender roles.
• Monsterhearts bears mentioning for being one of the most clear and vibrant texts in gaming. It also really tackles the emotional power struggles that teenagers can deal with on a day to day basis.

The OSR space is really interesting to me. Key areas of innovation include some very targeted games, character creation techniques that focus on providing a strong setting context for PCs, and almost FATE like fractal design to represent everything from factions, mechs, starships, and settlements as if they were characters. Some games that I find really interesting in this space include:

• Beyond the Wall. This is a game that places players in the role of young adolescent adventurers. It focuses play around the village all the PCs are assumed to grow up in. It provides a set of playbooks that use a set of random tables to generate a lifepath that ties characters to their village and the other players' characters. The interesting thing about the game is that rather than focusing on dungeon crawls it's adventures are all about the impact that the supernatural has on their village. They focus on problem solving and working together. It's also extremely low prep. While players use their playbooks to generate characters GMs are supposed to use a scenario pack to randomly generate the adventure, Scenario packs include tools for utilizing information about the village being developed through character creation.
• Stars Without Number is an extremely cool game traversing the stars, and making your own place in the cosmos. It utilizes a very streamlined D&D clone with extremely flexible classes. Stars utilizes fractal based design for everything from starships to mechs to factions. It utilizes this fractal extremely well to create dynamic play for factions that can be used for GM prep and at higher levels domain management. This faction turn provides GMs with some lonely fun and increases setting dynamism. It also provides powerful modular systems for creating space aliens, factions, and even an entire sector of space. Planets, factions, and the like are assigned a set of descriptive tags that create a low resolution setting that can be developed through play.
• Godbound puts players in the roles of powerful demigods. Like SWN it utilizes random tables to generate interesting material for use in sandbox oriented play. It utilizes the same faction rules as SWN, but it does provide an interesting preconstructed low resolution setting that primes play for divine conflicts. Godbound does a very good job of letting players define their characters in extremely different ways without becoming unwieldy.

 

[Campbell]

Blades in the Dark is a killer app. It approaches design from a place that makes use of the techniques utilized in both the OSR and Powered By The Apocalypse design spaces to create a focused game about playing a group of daring scoundrels making a place for themselves in the underworld of Duskvol, an industrial city built on occult technology.

Key features include:

• A unique setting that combines industry, rampant criminality, swords and sorcery elements, and conflicting factions. The setting material is focused on a singular city where play is focused. The setting is presented in focused bits that are primed for play including strong districts with their own identity, and factions with direct and immediate plans that play groups can opt to oppose or speed along. Even if the PCs do nothing that status quo will not stay the same. Duskvol is a pressure cooker. In many ways Duskvol functions like a dynamic dungeon for players to pursue their ambitions in.
• Blades is focused on group play. Players are not just part of a group or adventuring party, but a crew that will hopefully outlive them. They are building something. To focus play on the group and to breathe life into the crew as a character in the setting Blades provides a playbook for the crew with its own special abilities, territory to gain and lose, and advancement. Each crew type shapes play in different directions.
• Character and crew creation provides players with an immediate context in the setting. Before play even begins you are making decisions that uniquely position the characters in the crew in Duskvol. You will have a heritage, a background, enemies, allies, friends, rivals, and contacts. This is all found on the character playbooks, crew playbooks, and faction sheets the game provides. It keeps the details sparse so you can develop this fiction in play, but all characters have a place in Duskvol. They belong.
• Fiction First. Blades is a game that cares very deeply about fictional positioning. It provides a set of tools to communicate fictional details that provides a context for every action. Each action has a position or risk and effect level determined by what is actually happening in the game world. Harm is specific rather than quantified. Count down clocks provide a fluid way to show consequences and progress.
• Blades innovates in presentation. It is a game designed by a visual artist, and it shows. Character and crew playbooks deliver all the information you need to play the game. The setting material is crisp and easy to use. There are tools to handle improvisation including score creation, NPC generation, and environmental descriptors.
• Structured low prep play. The way that scores, territory, and down time work make it incredibly easy to run the game off the cuff. John Harper, the game's creator says that he regularly runs Blades with no prep at all. Once you understand the setting and principles of the game it is extremely easy to run.
  

I'll have more later, but it probably deserves its own thread.

 

[LordEntrails]

Monopoly Jr.