I think your 'evolution' perspective is good. I mean, surely wargames came first, and then 'Free Kriegsspiel', which included open-ended refereed elements, and that idea was then incorporated into hobby TT wargaming sessions, resulting in the first gen RPGs, which all feature a centralized structure with the referee describing the scenario, arbitrating the action and rules, and then describing outcomes. So, yes, modern 'Story Game' RPGs, which are 2nd or maybe 3rd generation games obviously started with the central RPG concept that was present in Arneson's games and blended that with ideas from other spheres (theater perhaps).
Sounds good to me.
However, I think there's not as much space between the structures of play as some people propose. Role Play, and thus the centrality of the fiction, and of the narrative that spins out of the frame, act, arbitrate, frame loop is pretty much the same in Dungeon World, for example, as it would be in Holmes Basic, which is utterly classic early D&D. I agree that you could play Holmes Basic in 'pawn stance' and it works, whereas DW really won't, so they aren't identical, but they both produce the same basic result, which is a narrative description of characters in a fictional world depicting actions selected and described by game participants according to a process and rules structure with an open-ended character.
Well you can throw Dungeon into that mix, or a later boardgame that similar Tomb. You can include the CRPG Moria or later Diablo like games. All of these produce the same basic result when recounted as a narrative later. But the experience of play are vastly different between all of these. Which is why I consider them related but distinct forms of gaming, with different creative demands.
And to stress an earlier point I made which I is why I learned to explained not only why I wrote a work but explain at various why each subsection is in there. Because there is a lot of ways to produce the same basic result. But hobbyist generally have preference over how that result is achieved. Thus my explanation help in deciding whether my approach is for them.
It been my experience people playing DW style RPGs don't generally find only a small subset of my material useful. Which is OK.
I think that speaks to your kit-bashing point. I wouldn't use that term myself, because I think the process is more generative of new elements and often a lot less informal than just wiring stuff together until it 'works'.
It how games are created. The polished games that appear to be a seamless whole are that way because the author spent the time refining their idea. But nearly every account I read about how these games created is that it started out as a kitbash. The author was playing a RPG, though "Hey wouldn't it be neat to do X." Trying it out, then kept refining it until it was it 100% own thing. Of course experienced authors with a firm handle on what they do creatively can start with a blank page and go from there. But that the exception not the norm in my opinion.
I think it is plain that modern Indy RPGs, regardless of where they fall on the techniques and rules structure side of things, incorporate a LOT of theory and analysis in order to produce robust, well-functioning systems.
Whatever works is my mantra. But why these games are not for me is that my experience many modern Indy RPGs limit agency and scope. In my opinion Blades in the Dark sacrifices just about everything about a RPG to make a finely tune game to help a group recreates a heist movie. Sure general idea behind BitD can be used to for other situation but you would have to write a whole new version while related is also it won finally tuned game that recreates X. Similar to the relationship between AW and DW.
I am not sold on the theory and analysis part. My approach is refinement through actual play. Try something, see how it works and go from there. Do this campaign after campaign until you have something to share. When you share it listen to the feedback and refine it again. Until get something that based on the feedback achieves one's creative goals and in a form accessible to other hobbyists.
The downside that it is time consuming beyond belief. And to work requires to you go with how things actually worked out rather than how you think they ought to work out. Which is why I only have a handful of products after ten years of publishing on my own.
D&D itself I would describe as a 'kit bash'. I mean, it literally is an amalgam of Survival, Chainmail, and some structure taken from the Blackmoor and Great Kingdom wargame/Braunstien-like campaigns. There is obviously a bunch of novel stuff in it, and taken as a package it surely represents a qualitative step into a new paradigm, but I would say something like PbtA is vastly less of a 'kit bash' than that!
OD&D released in 1974 is definitely a product of the kitbash culture that existed in miniature wargaming hobby of the Upper Midwest in the later 60s and early 70s.
but I would say something like PbtA is vastly less of a 'kit bash' than that!
I haven't read any account by Baker about the genesis of AW but Dungeon World is definitely a kitbash. I believe he said
The idea is to create a mega-dungeon packed with all the stuff I like, and extract rules....
DW deliberately and consciously emulates D&D in terms of taking a few elements and recontextualizing them (classes, races, ability scores, hit points, genre elements) but one should not mistake that for simply picking up found pieces and jimmying them together. Instead the designers went through a long process of analysis and creating a conceptual framework, from which they extracted principles. '
I think taking genre elements welding them onto a completely different system is part of the very definition of kitbashing. Your definition of kitbashing is too narrow. It not just taking the rules of a miniature wargaming and welding to a board game about Wilderness Survival. Kitbashing can be about welding together idea as well as more tangible things.
Those principles were then applied to construct a core framework of a '3rd generation RPG' (and if you look at Apocalypse World you will see that it owes only its general structure as an RPG to D&D, not any particular mechanics or other elements). Dungeon World might fool you because it goes back and picks up D&Disms DELIBERATELY and reworks them in the context of this new framework and principles.
It not a 3rd or any generation RPG. It just one more game that increases the diversity of games within our hobby. At best it can be part of or the center of family of related games. Which is why you are calling it a 3rd generation because a bunch of Indie authors started sharing ideas in the 2000s and from that arose a family of games with similar very broad creative goals, and within that subfamilies of games related by mechanics like PbtA or Fate. But it not a successor whatever it is you think 2nd generation is.
As the Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson shows once the idea that a fun hobby could be had by playing individual character interacting with a setting with their action adjudicated by a referee took hold, the diversity of what was offered immediately started expanding. And only increased since. But any game is as fun or easy to play today as it was back in the day or yesterday. It not technology.
Continually been calling various game modern or latest generation. My Majestic Fantasy RPG was published in 2020 which makes it a later generation than Dungeon World. But using modern in reference to my system is a useless adjective. Doesn't encompass any of the things that makes the MWRPG the same as other RPGs or different than other RPGs. The MWRPG is just one more systems in a sea of other systems.
So it isn't helpful to the discussion. If there something distinctive about what YOU consider to be 3rd generation RPGs then state that distinction rather than use easily misunderstood jargon.
