The RPG Medium
About
I love RPGs, and have played them for most of my life. Relatively recently, I found myself in possession of far more indie RPGs than I could reasonably play, and so my odd little brain demanded I categorize them. I started and quickly quit the project as I found more and more matrices on which to measure these games, and slowly found myself philosophizing about RPGs in aggregate.
The end result was the following tretise with the following theses: much like anime, we should really classify RPGs as a medium rather than a genre; All RPGs are personalized hacks rather than codified systems; and the conflict between an improvised story and a codified ruleset makes RPGs something both more and less than either games or stories.
The other result was a biting need to play more RPGs, as the more I studied each one the more interesting things I discovered.
Eventually, I needed to add an Errata section, as more and more things kept popping up. The medium continues to grow and evolve, as does my treatise…
The List
Errata
- Introduction
- Session Zero
- D&D Alternatives
- What Happens Next?
- Committed Relationships with Dice
- Maneuvers
- Double Classes
- Reskinning
- Discovery
- Troupe Play
- Competition
- Collaborative Competition
- Suffering
- Bargaining
- Random Difficulty
- Leveling Up
- Single Stories
- Personal Games
The Articles
- What Is This?
- Dungeons & Dragons and Defining our Terms
- What If We Kissed and the Great Divide
- GURPS and the RPG War
- Blades in the Dark and the Two Narratives
- FATE and Ludo-Narrative
- Lancer and Why We Play
- Endless Lands and There is No Such Thing As An RPG
- I Got Hit By A Meteor & Was Reincarnated as the Hero of a Tabletop RPG and Fiat
- Escape from Dino Island and Scions
- Cobwebs and GM-Less Games
- Runecairn and Video Game Influence
- Into the Woods and Practicing
- The Lighthouse at the End of the Universe and Writing It Down
- The Dreamer and Minimalism
- Heroes of Adventure and the Lie of Stats
- Into the Odd and Pretend Intelligence
- Fate of the Budayeen and Behavior Stats
- Of Grub and Grain and Skipping the Boring Bits
- After the War and Performing the End
- Badger + Coyote and Tactical Conversation
- Ironsworn and Clocks
- Knave and the Agency of Dice
- Parselings and Stacking the Dice
- d1 RPG and Determinism
- Fiasco and Defining Success
- Runaway Hirelings and Imaginary People
- King is Dead and Being Given A Role
- Mythic Mortals and Pretending To Be Yourself
- MΣTΔ and The Meta
- Call of Cthulhu and The Rules Of The Story
- Troika! and The Laws of the World
- Knights of the Kitchen Table and Game Tone
- Michtim and Emotional Numbers
- Liminal Horror and Forcing Emotions
- Alas Vegas and The Iron Screen
- Olaf Hits the Dragon With His Sword and Dice Stories
- Starlight Riders and Story Structure
- For the Honor and Media Influence
- Uneasy Lies the Head and Telling RPG Stories Wrong
- Lady Blackbird and Railroads
- QZ and Sandboxes
- Darkspace and Scripted Play
- You Awaken In A Strange Place and Playing To Find Out
- Mission Accomplished and Competition
- Noblesse Goblige and Minigames
- .Dungeon and Augmented Reality
- Sacrifice and Narrative Conflict
- Burnout Reaper and Economies
- Paris Gondo - the Life-saving Magic of Inventorying and Equipment
- Endure and Realism
- Cairn and Empowerment
- Sins and Horror
- Mothership and Death
- World Ending Game and Losing
- Mörk Borg and Ending the Game
- Betrayal at House on the Hill and Knowing It When You See It
- Apocalypse World and Sex
- Hopelessly Devoted and Sexual Roleplay
- Inspirisles and Inclusivity
- Session Zero and Session Zero
- Iron Edda Accelerated and Balance
- Highwinds and Constructed Challenge
- Mausritter and OSR
- I Have Gone This Far and Quitting
- Goblins? and Goblins
- Orichalcum and Map Makers
- Revels in the Heavenly Hall and FKR
- Paradox Perfect and Timing the Action
- Demon Crawl - Gothic and Realtime Combat
- Hero Quest and Legacy
- Do Not Read This Journal and Chain Letters
- Noumenon and Exploration
- Nowhere Kingdom and Public Play
- Wanderhome and Apocalyptic Hope
- Conclusion