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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6845783" data-attributes="member: 87792">Very different - it's time for a history lesson with one corner of RPGs.A bit of history. The Forge was set up in about 2000 by people (starting with the infamous Ron Edwards) who wanted games that fulfilled the promise of the Storyteller games - but that the Storyteller games were absolutely terrible at delivering because they were large, bulky, clunky, and at times impenetrably written.The first Story-game was My Life With Master by Paul Czege in 2003 - a deliberately closed-ended game about a gothic horror setting in which the GM plays the Master/Mad Scientist/Evil Vampire/Other Master and the players all play minions (frequently named Igor). And the Master mistreats the minions until one of them snaps - at which point the minion tries to kill the Master. The endgame is playing out the results of that fight, and discovering whether the minion is lucky enough and has learned enough before they snapped to succeed - or whether they have been ground down too far. It's an excellent little game with few mechanics that plays in a few hours and that when it's over you can't continue playing indefinitely.And people absolutely lost their cool. Claiming that it couldn't possibly be an RPG because it only modelled a few things and because you couldn't continue playing it indefinitely and even that you only ever got variations of one story out of it - so Paul Czege shrugged and basically said "OK. Call it a Story-Game then. I don't care." I'm more interested in inventing cool games than I am discussing what an RPG can or can not be."And thus started Story Games - small RPGs designed to be playable in a few sessions rather than run forever and be much more tightly focussed about what the game was about and that are designed to set up and play fast and come to a definite conclusion - and because of this more frequently end in tragedy than classic RPGs. Possibly ironically because the mechanics work them towards a conclusion they are less likely to be railroads than trad RPGs - there is no need for the GM to set a story and GMs (when there are any) are really encouraged not to. (Yes, Story Games are normally absolutely RPGs in my book). The one you've probably heard of round ENWorld is Epediah Ravenchol's Dread, using a Jenga tower as its resolution mechanic.For a quick list of recommendations: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The aforementioned <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/83854/Dread" target="_blank">Dread</a>.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco" target="_blank">Fiasco</a> - which lets you make a Cohen Brothers movie in the time it would take to watch one. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXJxQ0NbFtk" target="_blank">Tabletop playthrough</a> is excellent.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://theunstore.com/index.php/unstore/game/1" target="_blank">Dogs in the Vineyard</a> - Vincent Baker's first breakout game about Mormon Paladins in a wild west that never was. Which is a weird hook.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://thoughtfulgames.com/montsegur1244/" target="_blank">Montsegur 1244</a> - have we crossed the boundry into freeform LARP yet?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Apocalypse World - <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/226674021/apocalypse-world-2nd-edition" target="_blank">2nd Edition now on Kickstarter</a>. Vincent Baker taking everything learned from Story Games and feeding them back into an improv-heavy RPG that can be made ongoing and otherwise fits most Trad RPG patterns, other than a circumscribed GM. Most notable is how fast and freely it plays, the fact the GM never rolls, the characters growing and changing over time, and that it's possibly the first new truly class-based RPG since oD&D.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/monsterhearts/" target="_blank">Monsterhearts</a> - Avery McDaldno's brilliant hack of Apocalypse World to first deconstruct then reconstruct the teen horror genre of fiction. There's teenage sex in it (because that is so central to the genre) so I wouldn't recommend it for or with everyone, but I have never read or played a better game about growth and growing up and learning to overcome the ways you are broken.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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