RPG Systems Family Tree?

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah those both seem like glaring oversights.

Even though Gumshoe seems to only birth more Gumshoe games, that’s still interesting: a branch of the tree that is straight with no offshoots.

I've been told there's actually enough variance within games identified as "Gumshoe" that its more that the term is used fairly broadly (as I recall, I only own two (Mutant City Blues and Night's Black Agents) so its hard for me to tell.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't see Gumshoe or Cortex on there at all.

They're both on the original version (in the upper-right quadrant); I suppose she might have removed them from the expanded cosmology, but that'd be rather odd.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The Forge space seems sparse — The Riddle of Steel and Sorcerer seem like the two obvious omissions. And the inclusion of the 1st edition of Burning Wheel, rather than Burning Wheel Revised (flip it with Dogs in the Vineyard), is interesting.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah those both seem like glaring oversights.

Even though Gumshoe seems to only birth more Gumshoe games, that’s still interesting: a branch of the tree that is straight with no offshoots.

I think thinking of "birth" is a touch myopic. There is a broader question of influence to consider.

For example: any later game that takes the position that what the characters do with information is more interesting than the mechanical challenge of gaining information probably owes that in part to Gumshoe.

 

[kigmatzomat]

White wolf is mechanically a derivative of Shadowrun. Pretty sure it was Tom Dowd who designed the dice pool system for WW after working on SR1.

 

[Joshua Randall]

For example: any later game that takes the position that what the characters do with information is more interesting than the mechanical challenge of gaining information probably owes that in part to Gumshoe.

And these games are…? Because I can’t think of any that instantiate that belief system into an actual game mechanic.

Said game mechanic being either Gumshoe’s greatest strength, or its most obvious and uninteresting house rule in game mechanic form, depending upon how I feel that day.

 

[Reynard]

I think it might be a little limited to talk only about how games influence future games. A lot of new game design comes not out of previous game design, but out of deep community discussions involving game design in general. The Forge is the most obvious example, but there are all kinds of communities where ideas cooked for a long time before any games appeared.

 

[Umbran]

And these games are…? Because I can’t think of any that instantiate that belief system into an actual game mechanic.

Maybe you are thinking a bit to strictly, rather than philosophically?

As an example, Scum and Villany turns investigation activities into a downtime clock. When the clock is filled, the player gets to ask questions on the topic.

In Tales of Xadia (a Cortex game), there's an example of the characters trying to track down a valuable book from a library. The entire investigation being handled in a single Challenge (what D&D players would probably think of as a Skill Challenge) - the investigation step is abstracted, and any PC with a narratively plausible approach can contribute.

In Leverage (an earlier Cortex game) new information is generally handled as twists and complications to the scene/scenario, such that the focus is not on finding it, but in reacting to it. In the case of complications, that information didn't exist until the complication arose.

In Atomic Robo (a Fate game), the big super-science secrets of the game are not determined by the GM! The GM merely puts a big super-sciencey thing in the game, and if the players want to figure things out about it, there is a brainstorming process in which the players make up how the thing works.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Fair enough... I suppose we could argue (or try to determine historically) if those were "derived" from Gumshoe, vs. "parallel development", or whatever.

Ultimately the family tree / cosmology / whatever is impossible because it's a giant cloud of uncertainty like some kind of quantum thingy. IMO!

 

[Wolfpack48]

Fair enough... I suppose we could argue (or try to determine historically) if those were "derived" from Gumshoe, vs. "parallel development", or whatever.

Ultimately the family tree / cosmology / whatever is impossible because it's a giant cloud of uncertainty like some kind of quantum thingy. IMO!

I dunno. As long as there’s enough room in the tree, you could show games that were developed in parallel or branched off from each other. And then we can all argue about what spawned what.

Those arguments will, of course, be the most intense around any Forge games. It’s more a visual of the cloud thinking and would naturally evolve rather than be the 10 commandments carved in stone.