RPGs are a Big Tent
RPG's are a Big Tent
Roleplaying games are actually a family of many kinds of games, activities and traditions that have emerged from each other, influenced each other, and share many traits. They do have meaningful differences between them. A few try to insist that X game type is not an RPG. I do not subscribe to this idea. All of these games are RPGs. All of these games are in the family. All share a heritage. All belong in this tent.
What are some of these different experiences then? A non exhaustive list follows with a brief explanation of each.
Braunstein
Adventure Game
Cinematic/genre Game
LARP
Parlour LARP
MegaGame
Story Game
GMLess Story Game
Scenario Games
Solo RPG
and many more categories and subcategories exist. I will briefly define each, at least how I see them.
Braunstein
The earliest game in our RPG family is the Braunstein. An experience with numerous characters, each with goals, few rules, and a Judge (or referee). They can support dozens of players, and from this template RPGs were forged. Players have goals that put them at odds with each other. And play occurs both with and without the Judge’s direct supervision.
Adventure Game
Perhaps the most prevalent of RPG experiences, or at least the one many engage with first. Here, strange worlds are explored, lives are risked, and the world changed. A Game Master prepares the world and plays its inhabitants. The priority of gameplay is reflecting a world.
Players control characters who's influence is bounded by "reality."
Cinematic/genre Game
Cinematic and genre games shift is subtle. They change the game’s emphasis from one that is trying to emulate a certain kind of reality, to one that is emulating a certain kind of story. This may be trying to make the game feel more like what would happen in novel, in a movie or in a TV show. They might have a specific genre they emulate as well.
This often changes a GM's prep from preparing locations, to preparing people, factions and events. Players are expected to have their characters behave like they do in a story. Mechanics that give a charter some kind of meta-currency, often named plot points or hero points is common.
LARP
In these players embody their characters and carry out actual activities that their characters do. In some cases this extends to actually swinging a (padded) sword at your enemy. Other times various mechanics are used for such... disagreements.
Ref's and storytellers help setup major events and occurrences but otherwise players engage with each other freely.
Parlour LARP
For smaller groups then general LARPS, these are often more focused and embrace the location/environment they take place in more strongly. Mechanics tend to be less intrusive and organizers typically have more in common with every other player.
MegaGame
More structured than LARPS and usually one shots. These can be played with less embodying of the character, and a particular division of participants into teams or roles is usually a part of play. Like in a Braunstein organizers often assign roles and motives to participants.
Story Games
These are experiences where the game gives all participants mechanics to alter the story. The GM still adjudicates and typically does the most narration.
The game disperses authority to the rest of the players over the story/world. Spending a token, winning a roll, or simply using a certain procedure, will let a player introduce a fact, create or control a scene, narrate an outcome, or make an NPC.
GMless Story Games
The text of the game and its mechanics are more focused on the specifics of the story that can be told. GM responsibilities are shifted to the game itself while the rest are dispersed among the players. While this entails a great deal of co-operation on the meta level player characters and factions will certainly be at cross purposes.
GMless storygames are often one-shots and can feel more like a specific adventure. Some games may be better classed as GMfull games.
Scenario Games
May or may not have a GM or a specialized GMlike role. Suited to short term play varying from 1 to 3 sessions. Particular characters or archetypes are provided along with a specific scenario or adventure. Mechanics are aimed at supporting a very specific experience.
Solo RPGs
There are many segments within solo play RPGs. Some sort of oracle, prompt or randomly generated content is typical. Play might be journalling oriented or combative or reading through a story and making impactful choices. Duration of experience varies widely.
While solo RPGs are particularly popular in the last 5 years, there have been solo games in our tent since before we settled on the term roleplaying game.
Overlap is everywhere
Inside all of these categories are subcategories, and across all these categories are overlapping elements and exceptions.
RPG's are creative, and creative things mix ideas and cross boundaries.
All of the above share that most important trait that the RPG tent shelters at its centre: creativity.
Naysayers
Let us address for a moment those who disagree with this idea. I believe that largely this stems in part from a lack of commonly accepted term for their favourite type of RPG. I’ve split what are sometimes called traditional and classic RPGs into Adventure Games and Cinematic/Genre Games. Systems intended to be played primarily in one of these styles can often be played in the other. Why use Adventure Games -- this term was one of the contenders at the dawn of the hobby for what we would call RPGs. It was a term that Dave Arneson championed.
Instead of contentious gatekeeping saying “that’s not an RPG” I would strongly encourage folks to realize that the RPG landscape is broad, and to instead cheerfully endorse and champion the subset of games they do enjoy with more specific terms!
What do you think?
Are there some major or minor categories I’ve missed? Is there a weak definition or explanation?
How many types of RPG games have you tried?
About the Author
Joshua Kitz runs the Compose Dream Games RPG Marketplace helping get RPGs from a wide array of publishers into game stores and eager gamers hands.
His current work, Fabrication: A Game That Makes Games partially inspired this article. He’s published a number of other games. He’s been playing all manner of RPGs since 1999.
Comments
We're of the same mind that TTRPGs can take a lot of different forms and that excluding games for not fitting rigid definitions is needlessly reductive.
However, you're provoked the thought that most of what you've gone over here are really marketing terms, nebulous by design, meant to appeal to certain audiences, and less intrinsic definitions of TTRPG genres with graspable meaning. That's not necessarily a bad thing. This begs the question: who are we defining the genres (for lack of better term) of TTRPGs for? If it's for aid in marketing distinction and, in effect, what shelf to put them on in a bookstore, yes I think this generally works. But I wonder what a system of categorization would look like that uses the hinge points of actual system difference.
I think you just made me write a response blog post...
James Kerr
The article seems like a fine survey. I think there are many more nuanced sub categories within each. For example, you couldn't really touch on the entire OSR in this overview, and how these design categories develop out of iterations. And sometimes out of a countermovement. Occasionally there are brilliant shifts, such as how The Forge hit had an effect on design and how Apocalypse World really added a different design stream. There were what I think of as false directions, such as the Storyteller system, which was a false path of narrative, because it was still trad (where the GM held all narrative control, and the the game is largely focused on combat and creating superheroes).
I avoided the TT of TTRPG because I have included LARPS, and those don't generally involve a tabletop. Human RPGs perhaps? We need someone to chime in whose done more of those then I think either of us have.
I'm eager to read a blog response when you get to it.
The categorization here are about the broad nature of the experience. These will often inform the procedures, mechanics, and systems a game uses to facilitate play, but isn't chiefly about those systems themselves.
Any of the categories I covered could be in the genre of cyberpunk. Any of them could use playing cards in some part of the procedures of play. I might enjoy a cyberpunk game, that has a resolution system using cards in any of these categories -- but I would want to know when I sit down (or stand up) to play them what kind of experience to expect.