My first experiences with role playing were with West End Games Star Wars (as a player). Eventually, I would step behind the GM screen with Mayfair’s DC Heroes. Neither of these systems seemed overly complex and were easy on GMs as far as needing to memorize numerous situational rules and modifiers. This is probably why, at least back then, I didn’t warm up to Dungeons and Dragons or any such “rules heavy” systems. I held onto that perception and bias for many years, refusing to give deeper, more complex systems a chance.
Then, back in the early 2000’s, the D20 system was made available, thanks to the Open Gaming License, to anyone wanting to create a game using the rules made popular by Dungeons & Dragons. This seemed to lead to a flood of games into the market, many of which were intriguing, but which I ultimately rejected because of the system. I eventually gave them a chance, but despite great games like Mutants & Masterminds and Pathfinder, many of those early OGL games seemed to have faded into obscurity.
In recent years, I noticed something similar happening since the inception of the highly successful FUDGE or Fate system; more and more games are adopting a rules light and more narrative game designs. I was first introduced to the system when a friend of mine brought over a copy of the Dresden Files RPG. While some of the concepts were difficult to grasp at first, I began to see some of the appeal and enjoyed the refreshing new take on game design.
The idea of a narrative system seemed unique, seemed to make the game “special.” But as more and more games are published using this idea, more and more games like it are flooding the market, the idea seems less unique. To quote one of my favorite villains, “When everyone’s super… no one will be!” Not that I’m denouncing narrative systems, just the opposite I really enjoy them! But I see the current trend as, possibly, a response to the flood of those games of the past that were using the rules-heavy D20 system.
Assuming that’s the case, then with the swelling numbers of narrative games, such as Fate, Valliant, Cortex Plus, and FFG Star Wars, I worry that the market will once again be overwhelmed and the novelty will ware off, once again giving rise to overwhelming systems of crunch requiring GMs to memorize an encyclopedia of rules, tables and situational modifiers, rulers, protractors, yard sticks, measuring tape and a calculus degree just to create a character! Oh, the humanity!!
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just being a paranoid old grognard sitting in my rocking chair with a blanket on my lap, ready to tell any youngster how when I was a young gamer, we had to whittle our dice out of wood and roll them uphill, on uneven streets, covered in snow, IN THE DARK! Sorry about that, where was I? Oh yeah; maybe I’m wrong, but if you think about it, the most popular games in the market now are narrative, and while the older styles of game are still strong, there are even older games like D&D who are now embracing the current trend!
No matter what style of game you enjoy, they’re all out there for the taking. I for one am very interested to see how these market trends play out and where the hobby goes from here. Will another new idea come along, or will we return to older style games? For now my friends, gather your books, collect your dice, assemble your friends and tell stories of brave heroes in their fight against impossible odds! Take a moment to look at your bookshelf. What types of game have you been collecting lately?
Alex Montoya
Latest posts by Alex Montoya (see all)
- Retro Review: Cyberpunk 2020 - November 25, 2016
I myself have been thinking about this for some time –probably a year or more. I think I don’t like the narrative heavy games, lately. I’m not sure why… Maybe it’s because they’re so popular, lately, that it has me swinging in the opposite direction. That tends to be an issue with me… But there’s something else about it. The simplicity of it seems almost to make the magic of the game vanish–might as well play Toons. And sometimes the games give too much power to the players. To such an extent it’s like GMing oneself. That might be cool the first or second time, but after a while it gets old. Where’s the surprise and chance in the game? Yeah to be honest, the last couple of days I’ve been swinging so far to the rules heavy games that I’ve been thinking about dusting off my Hero System books and GMing with them again.
In your article you mentioned that Dungeons and Dragons is now embracing the narrative trend. I partly agree with you. But I would say, D&D co-opted the narrative idea, much like the Catholic Church co-opted magic and paganism. I think “embrace” is too strong of a word.
The future is an unknown, but I too am curious. I myself am hoping for something that mixes the two together to make a beautiful (almost said perfect) hybrid. Cortex Plus was awesome with its Marvel game, but lacked in character creation and character growth in the long durée… By the way, anyone read the Cortex Hacker’s Guide? Maybe the answer is there. Oh shoot, did I just swing back to the narrative system? Ugh…
While there’s certainly some pendulum movement to the rules vs narrative continuum, I think what we’re seeing is primarily a return-to-center after the overwhelming force of the D&D ‘wargame’ mentality. D&D dominated for so long that a lot of gamers just learned from their start to expect heavy tomes of rules. The current narrative movement (which used to be the ‘indy game movement’ but is now embraced by more or less everyone, indy or corporate) is a reaction to that and a return to the past, but not necessarily implying a future swing back to the rules-heavy. I think the current narrative is more of a synthesis of the old narrative games like WEG with the more clear understanding of how the rules need to operate, gained through rules-heavy gaming.