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

[haqattaqq]

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.

Awesome! Thanks for all that info - I'll check out those games (and Blades in the Dark, Song of Swords and Inspectres, mentioned in other posts).

Re Star Wars dice - I played one campaign of edge of the empire and really liked how the dice had the "success with disadvantage" and "failure with advantage" outcomes... a lot like the "success with a complication" from PBTA games.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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?

How far back do you want to go? Because I'm going to give some selected highlights from the past 15 years; Baron Munchausen was first published in 1998.

2002, as far as I'm concerned, was just about the nadir of the RPG industry. The D20 boom was running like kudzu all over everything selling like hot cakes with no one else getting a lookin, and d20 certainly isn't right for everything and was seldom innovative (most d20 games were effectively Fantasy Heartbreakers). The oWoD had run out of steam - there is only so much metaplot you can sell.

Over the next two years, to very little fanfare, we have three massively influential games even if one of them is one very few have heard of. The obvious one is that the first published edition of Fate came out in 2003 - but that needs no introduction for you I think It's very good but there's nothing groundbreaking that I can think of. The second one is 2004's Castles and Crusades which was, I think, the first of the OSR games to get any significant traction. And the third was the critical darling My Life With Master in 2003. (There was also in 2003 D&D 3.5 popping the d20 bubble, and there was in 2004 Vampire: the Requiem and the New World of Darkness)

The OSR (Old School Rennaisance normally but there's some disagreement) are a group that said "The D&D game Gygax played and taught but never actually explained properly in the books was awesome and we want more of that and less of the post-Dragonlance fluff-and adventure paths. We're all playing this and have learned quite a few things since 1985". My strong recommendation from the OSR is Vornheim. And some of their advice is very good as well if you want to dungeon crawl. But it may be a dead end for you and I'm not the best person to describe it.

My Life With Master was the first genuinely innovative output of The Forge (and Paul Czege). To step back from there, The Forge is a now defunct web forum that was dedicated to two things. First incubating independent RPGs (Fate actually had support there). And the second half of the mission statement was something like "All those promises made by Vampire: the Masquerade and other games like it are brilliant and we want to play games like that. It's a pity it doesn't deliver them. Let's see if we can fix that." And after waffling a lot about GNS (don't ask!) and other things they did.

My Life With Master is built round a generic story plot ("You are minions of an evil overlord who mistreats you, and are looking for love or at least compassion. Sooner or later the evil overlord is going to mistreat you or the local NPCs until one of you goes pop and tries to kill them - running is futile.") The plot's a simple one, the rules are simple, and the mechanics push you in the direction of the plot. So no matter what the overlord is or the hapless minions are it's going to play out in a few hours with a very predictable three act story structure. It's awesome but not worth playing more than about three times.

And people looked at that and went bonkers. "IT'S NOT A ROLEPLAYING GAME IF YOU CAN'T PLAY ANY ROLE. AND AFTER YOU'VE FINISHED YOU CAN'T KEEP THE CHARACTER IN THE WORLD." Seriously, there were flame wars about whether it was an RPG so Czege (who was more interested in creating and playing games than the definition of an RPG) shrugged and said "OK. Let's call it a story-game then. I don't care." And if you see people talk about story-games that's the root of the term.

The one shot game "Dread" (whose ENWorld thread is on the front page) is one of the following self-contained limited time games that fit a genre rather than a setting, a survival horror game using a jenga tower as the mechanic. To try something complex pull a block or even several. Knock the tower down and you die, end of story. And the lead game in this group is probably 2010's Fiasco which is GMless and as much storytelling as RPGs as you in an hour and a half using a playset create a Cohen Brothers movie based round a fairly tight fit to the five act structure. Tabletop did a pretty good playthrough.

And there was a lot of innovation in the wave following that and a lot of questioning assumptions:

• When do you roll? - D. Vincent Baker with Dogs in the Vineyard (an amazing game about what you are willing to risk - or about Mormon Paladins in a West that never was) gave an answer by (instead of looking at task resolution) looking at where freeform roleplayers hand over the narrative and rolling at those points for minimal intrusiveness to newbies. (Vincent Baker's wife, a game designer in her own right, is first and foremost a freeform roleplayer and he knew he had a hit when she automatically reached for the dice).
• Is it possible to be successful at what you were trying to do but unlucky with it? Or fail and be lucky with it? (Answer: Yes! to the first, and sometimes to the second) How do you represent that without a hugely complex set of rolls? Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard uses opposed dice pools and overlaps for a game of consequences and risk. The Cortex Plus family of systems answered that with opposed dice pools in which you took the two highest but 1s were failures.
• Can we have more interesting relationships between the characters arising from the system than 'You met in the inn/are looking for work?' Fate 3/Spirit of the Century/Dresden Files had you write the other PCs into your backgrounds and vise-versa. Dread uses loaded questions based on the scenario. Smallville has the first session being drawing a large relationship map for the PCs and major NPCs.
• Can character development be other than straightforward numbers increasing while keeping the game open ended? Smallville (alas Out of Print) has the concept of "Challenging your own values" as the most powerful possible move - and after you've done that once in a session you have to re-decide and re-write what you hold dear. Apocalypse World is based on the idea that mechanically what you are is your position in the world - and your advanced move can be to change playbook/class - i.e. change your role within your society as a huge change.
• Can we make things easy for the GM? Or potentially even abolish the GM Yes - by providing asymmetric characters (NPC statblocks can be anything down to non-existent), partial successes provide inspiration and even the relevant degree of challenge. And you map the world as you play - with the GM preparing relatively little and shifting most of the load to the rules and to the GM.
• Building the world during play. Microscope is probably the big game here - but a lot of games have the world growing out of the choices of the table including Fate when in the 90s this was generally considered a no-no.
• How can we design for personal emotional engagement? Make the core questions relateable (not "can you loot the dungeon?"), give the PCs connections to each other and the world, and make the mechanics unintrusive (the longer you look at the mechanics the less emotionally engaged you are).

I could list other examples. And then D. Vincent Baker (who is for my money the best current RPG designer) drew it all together in 2010's Apocalypse World. As written it's a "marmite" game - either you love it or you hate it, in part because Vincent Baker's writing style was deliberately overwrought because people really hating your game is free advertising. But it brought all the above strands together into one coherent and fast and easily playing whole; Dungeon World is a watered down derivative. Monsterhearts meanwhile is a distilled derivative if you like the teen horror genre, and is a deconstruction of the genre in all the best ways. It also uses the concept of 'Broken moves' - most of the things you start off mechanically able to do even when they go well aren't quite what you intend. And because it does all this via a solid and incredibly hackable game engine, Apocalypse World has spawned a lot of hacks.

There was also a period where the biggest budget publishers were producing some very interesting work that some loved and some hated - in 2008 WotC came out with D&D 4e which went back to the drawing board and instead of the hacked tabletop wargame that D&D was made a hacked tabletop RPG/MMO (complete with conflict as well as task resolution). Fantasy Flight Games went all in on the succeed/fail vs lucky/unlucky by requiring special dice first with 2009's now out of print Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E (which also had inbuilt risk/reward mechanisms) and then 2012's Star Wars: Edge of Empire (and sequels). But no one else really has the budget to build on what they were doing and both D&D 4e and WFRP 3e have been abandoned.

The Heist genre has been looked at extremely effectively twice (three times if you count Fiasco) - Cam Banks' Leverage and John Harper's Blades in the Dark are extremely different games (Blades being much grittier than Leverage) but both of them superb.

There's also a trend towards microgames like John Harper's Lasers and Feelings which get everyone onto the same page pretty fast and can produce a session with no prep at all. I've played a few but have no idea which (other than L&F) the big ones are.

And of the oddballs The One Ring (getting Tolkein right) and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (magical realism/slice of life) are definitely worth mentioning.

Note: Smallville and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying are both part of the excellent Cortex Plus family but out of print after the licenses ended; the Hacker's Guide has the actual core rules used in both - and I'm looking forward to the Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG which will effectively be MHRP 2E from what I've seen (and we can produce all the official characters).

 

[Brodie]

I was into Fate Core pretty hard for a while; at the point I'd (re)discovered it, I was just craving a way to do actual storytelling whenever I had to run for my group. To say that Fate Core is flexible is an understatement. About the only down side is that when you want a really gritty fight (as in 'crunch' factor), Fate Core won't do. More than anything, Fate Core is about the characters and their stories so really the only way a pc can die is if the player makes that choice. (Don't get me wrong; I still love the game and I'm currently working on a setting of my own for it.)

Right now I believe that the best game out there right and most 'game-changing' is Shadow of the Demon Lord by Robert Schwalb. It allows for storytelling by being a little light on the rules, but when it comes to crunch... Well, you'll feel the crunch. Especially if you don't think in combat. It took me about half an hour to get my friends to wrap their heads around the 'Retreat' action (move half your speed without triggering an attack from an opponent) because it was, well, too simple. See, in combat there's Fast Turns and Slow Turns. On Fast Turns you can on do one thing, be it move, attack, cast a spell, etc. On Slow Turns, you get one action (see last sentence), but you also get a move action. Player characters always go first, then npcs. I'm getting a little ahead of myself, though.

Races are called Ancestries and the class system is divided into Paths (Novice, Expert, Master). With the numerous Paths and Ancestries in just the core book, no two players are likely to have the exact same character. You can build an optimized character by choosing complimentary Paths, or you can build a quirky character that, say, is a Clockwork that starts as a magician, becomes a ranger at expert, then finally takes bard as their master path. And those are options from the core book. There's numerous other PDF supplements that add more ancestries, expert paths, master paths, and even magic traditions.

Not including the spell cards, there's roughly 80 total PDFs available on Drivethrurpg. Most of them are adventures, but supplements include an alternate Mad Max-esque setting complete with cars and a campaign book designed to get characters from level zero to level 10. If they don't die. This game is more lethal than L5R.

If you're familiar with D&D you won't have too much trouble learning the rules. Schwalb was even one of the lead designers on D&D 5E. He also just launched a Kickstarter today for a Freeport supplement for Shadow of the Demon Lord that funded within an hour. I can't recommend his stuff more. Hell, I kinda wish I could get paid to promote the game.

 

[TerraDave]

When you have been around long enough, everything new can feel old again.

Story-telling has been a thing for a while now. As have indie games. As has retro-gaming. Rules-streamlined or rules coherent, usually better informed by actual game play, has also emerged as a multi-year trend (though it seems it takes a few tries to really get it right, and some people are never satisfied).

There is also the trend, mirrored across all media, of ever greater fragmentation and sub-categorization, with a few big names and brands cutting through the clutter and doing well.

The big wave right now is sci-fi, with starfinder, a new star-treck game, WOIN, revised alternity, and revised cyberpunk, joining star wars and traveller (and many other games). All are or look pretty crunchy. I am sure some new mechanical ideas will bubble up from these, but I wouldn't expect a big revolution.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I am very intrigued by the idea of an RPG that uses a Jenga tower to resolve conflict. It would be a fantastic way to play 'cops and robbers' with casual board gamers, and a good introduction to RPGs for a beer and pretzels sort of get-together.

Does anyone know of a published RPG that uses this mechanic?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I am very intrigued by the idea of an RPG that uses a Jenga tower to resolve conflict. It would be a fantastic way to play 'cops and robbers' with casual board gamers, and a good introduction to RPGs for a beer and pretzels sort of get-together.

Does anyone know of a published RPG that uses this mechanic?

Dread

And the ENWorld thread about the game

 

[aramis erak]

The most innovative game I've seen is the *Blood engine from John Wick; Houses of the Blooded was first, Blood and Honor second; 7th Sea 2E is clearly on the same design space, but not quite the same engine.

See, you state your primary task, and everyone whose character is involved may join in the risk - by joining, you lose your PC immunity...

On a risk, each player uses a Stat, and some other abilities, to generate a dice pool. You then divide that pool (d6's in the case of HotBlooded and B&H) between raises and rolls - the wager dice are set aside for the moment, everyone rolls their roll dice, totalling them; if you rolled under 10, lose all your raises. (John's term is Wagers, but that's a bad term for it.) If you rolled over 10, you have some narrative say. If you had the highest roll total, you keep all your raises, otherwise, you keep half (round down, minimum 1 if you kept any). The high roller answers the question of the task; then, in descending roll order, each player with raises left makes a "Yes, and..." or a "Yes, but..." statement. If it does damage (or conditions), the number of damage steps is the raises cost; if it affects a stat or reputation, again, the cost is the double the number of points; if it's a conditional, or a discrete action, it's one raise. Once each person with raises has added, go back to the top roll with remaining raises, and another pass of spending raises. You can only make one statement per pass through...

It sounds complicated, but really isn't.

Joe, Fred, and Mark are playing Samurai, and Joe wants to make a caricature of the neighboring Daimyō while he's visiting in court...
Specifically, "I want to make an embarrassing but honest lampoon painting of him... to shame him into treating his peasants better."
Fred, whose character is in scene, wants to kibbitz, "make suggestions"
Mark, who owes that Daimyō a favor, is opposed to this.
So, Joe cobbles up a 10d pool, counting the 2d from the Daimyō's reputation, "Peasant Killer"...
Fred only gets 6 dice in his pool.
Mark cobbles together 7d in his pool

Joe splits 5 rolls and 5 raises.
Mark splits 4 rolls & 3 raises.
Fred wants to ensure he gets to use them, so puts 5 in the roll, and only 1 raise.
They roll:
Joe 2+2+2+5+5=16
Mark 4+6+6+4=20
Fred: 1+3+3+3+4=14

Mark won, so keeps his 3 raises.
Joe lost, but still broke 10, so keeps half of 5, which is 2.
Fred can't lose his last raise as he rolled over 10, so has 1.
The order is Mark, then Joe, then Fred.
Mark says, "It fails to convince him" (the original task), "And it gives Nobu a reputation as «too direct»" (spends a raise)
Joe, spotting an opportunity, "But he's pleased with it." And spends a raise.
Fred, unable to do any damage to his rep, adds, "And won't retaliate" just to put the safety space on...
Mark, noting a chance to turn things, "His Karo, however, is Furious," holds up 2 fingers, and adds a condition to the Karo's sheet, while spending 2 raises. Mark's out of raises.
Joe, still having 2 raises, spends them to add 1 to his "satiricist" rep.
Fred has no raises, so doesn't count.
No raises left, so end of risk.

Note that any character whose player participates can be affected by anyone in the risk. Zero immunity, save for the "no contradictions"...
Any NPC in the scene or targeted (or closely tangential) is also subject to add ons in a risk. Non-participating PCs have immunity, but can waive it if they wish.

Fred and Joe are dueling. Fred has 4 dice, Joe 5. The GM, playing their Sensei, has 12d...
Split is fred 3 and 1, joe 3 and 2, Sensei 3 and 9...
Fred: 256 = 13, keeps his 1 raise
Joe: 534=12, Joe keeps half his 2 raises, or 1...
Sensei 423= 9 - FAIL - loose all 9 raises.
Note that Katanas are special. They kill anyone with one raise, unless some third party spends one to describe how it didn't...

Fred: "I lose the duel," picks up a risk die, sets it aside, "Because the Sensei took my blade instead."
Joe, with his one raise adds, "And I hit you."
Fred's character and the sensei are both dead. No one had any raises left to convert the katana autokill to damage levels.

The innovation it presents is controlling who picks the outcome, not rolling for success/failure.