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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6288696" data-attributes="member: 87792">Hmm... I did a string of blogposts about this.  Movements start -  but they fade rather than die; none of the trends are BadWrongFun  (although I happen to not like some of them) and people quite happily  play older seeming games and develop them.<a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/tabletop-roleplaying-games-back-where-we-started/" target="_blank">Back Where We Started</a>  - the early 1970s and oD&D.  Play was "Pawn Play" (i.e. you treated  your PC in about the same way you would a boardgame piece).  And there  was a specific object to the game (rob the dungeon blind).<a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/tabletop-roleplaying-traveller-to-a-common-language/" target="_blank">Traveller to a Common Language</a>  - the late 1970s (starting about 1977 with Traveller) and other Fantasy  RPGs.  oD&D was about robbing dungeons blind.  But people wanted to  do more than that.  They wanted worlds, they wanted settings, they  wanted simulation.  Because that would enable them to do whatever they  like as if you simulate enough you simulate enough.  Building characters  to your exact specifications became a thing.  This was the dominant  strand in the 1980s - and made a comeback in the 00s with 3e and the d20  system.<a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/storyteller-tell-me-a-story/" target="_blank">Storyteller, tell me a story</a>  - this period is foreshadowed with the Dragonlance Saga, but really  starts around 1989 with Vampire: The Masquerade, and AD&D 2E.  In  this period there's only limited development of rules (there is  definitely some - but many genuinely believed that System Doesn't Matter  and you just threw extra rules on the pile).  You had two titans in the  industry, both churning out lots of material fast that made very good  bedside reading and inspiration but it got in the way of and cut across  the rules.  This aesthetic has also made a relatively recent comeback  with Pathfinder.<a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/forging-motivation-game-design-is-mind-control/" target="_blank">Game design is Mind Control</a>  - outside d20 there was Usenet and The Forge.  And a lot of these  people were not happy.  Games came in large hardback books, making them  hard to get into.  And above all the claim they were objecting to was  that "System doesn't matter".  If your system doesn't matter you might  as well replace it with rock-paper-scissors (some would say that that  made Vampire LARP much better than Vampire).  Game rules should at the  very least be light enough to not get in the way, and they should  preferably support you in what you are trying to do.  I'd currently  disagree with my blogpost and name the highlights from this period as <a href="http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core-downloads/" target="_blank">Fate</a>,  Fudge, and Unisystem, marking the start of the movement with Fudge (and  Fate being currently the most talked about RPG that isn't D&D  according to the Hot Games tracker).  D&D 4e took a lot of this aesthetic and approach when they were redesigning D&D from the ground up.Light, Tight, and Fast.  Commenting on the current cutting edge is always tricky - and I've <a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/weaving-worlds/" target="_blank">two</a> <a href="http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/we-are-the-loom/" target="_blank">blogposts</a>  that circle my current thoughts.  But most modern games, especially  most Indy games zero in on one type of game they want to produce.   Probably the best known of these games (and the one everyone should own)  is <a href="http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/" target="_blank">Fiasco</a> (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXJxQ0NbFtk%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">as featured on Tabletop</a>)  which with two handouts and a downloaded playset allows a group of  three to five moderately creative people to create their own Cohen  Brothers movie in the time it takes to watch one.  Although Dread (a  horror game using a Jenga tower), Grey Ranks, and My Life With Master  came at the start of the 2000s it's only in the last few years with  Fiasco, <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117419/Cortex-Plus-Hackers-Guide" target="_blank">Cortex+</a> and <a href="http://apocalypse-world.com" target="_blank">Apocalypse World</a>  they've really got motoring.  Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic  RPG with the setting created at the table that starts off with the idea  that freeform roleplaying is good but can be improved on.  Resolution  isn't complex (2d6+stat - 6- is bad, 7-9 is a partial success, 10+ is a  spectacular success), but comes at exactly the right time to not disrupt  the freeform flow.  Character creation is from predefined <a href="http://apocalypse-world.com/AW-basicplaybooks-legal.pdf" target="_blank">playbooks </a>that  are pure concentrated inspiration, and the moves point you at the sort  of thing you'd do in the sort of setting it's trying to evoke.  Because  it's both simple and tightly focussed, there are a lot of hacks out there - probably the best is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsterhearts" target="_blank">Monsterhearts</a>  which takes all the reasons the genre containing Twilight and Teen Wolf  is popular, throws out the mountains of crap, and creates one of the  most intense games I've played.  It's also a game that should come with  health warnings - and warnings to make sure you know your group first.   And I've even created three Apocalypse World hacks that are ready for  playtesting - <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XAJPvm4x_bSmwcp0CPKbKNi-gw_OeQFX-dH4WznDgyQ/edit" target="_blank">Silver Age Marvel</a> (<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oYz2f7zJ0hRP5itir45rVEkPzWpz7bnK1qnpR-xIgR4/edit" target="_blank">playbooks</a>), <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IZN2EYB5p96fdbIdY5kiRujanNZDgaYZuvX6FGQGIVM/edit" target="_blank">The Hunger Games</a>, and a tongue in cheek <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1avqZm0uZXEVLLki7OfvveyxEF4awjWSQ_62aABPO3Ko/edit" target="_blank">Harry Potter</a> game. I hope some of that helps <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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