Artsy Fartsy Games

[The Rose Dragon]

So, who else likes artsy fartsy games? A lot of flash games fall into the category, where the goal is not to win, but to experiment and to think. Of course, this being the Roleplaying Games forum, this is not about flash games. This is about tabletop RPGs.

Which artsy games do you know of that I can find online, either for free or for pay (which I prefer if I can get my money's worth)? I know there is Everyone is John, where everyone plays John, or some part of John, and Summerland, where most of the conflicts you can win is a background to your explorations and search for acceptance in the Sea of Leaves. But what else is there?

((Also, someone needs to start a site where they only sell artsy fartsy games so I can find them all in one place.))

[Yora]

I think Mouseguard looks pretty artsy to me.

Also Blue Rose, but at it's core it's just another d20 game put into a very artsy book.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

D&D can be with the right DM; I once played a Favoured Soul of a knowledge diety, and gave the character all sorts of out-of-character knowledge, including the knowledge that he was a character deterministically controlled by another being (and that his whole life was based on a series of equations which largely came down to random chance) and that his world was entirely an illusion; he also made literary and pop-culture allusions that he didn't get. We also had a paladin who got the saint template by breaking the paladin's code, thus sacrificing that which was dearest to him, in the name of good, and a barbarian whose rage wasn't at monsters or anything, but the future, in the hopes of beating civilization back so his culture could survive. After the Favoured Soul met a tragic fate, I rerolled a spy-esque rogue inspired by Foucauld.

Oh, D&D as played by Brown students.

[grimbold]

D&D can be with the right DM; I once played a Favoured Soul of a knowledge diety, and gave the character all sorts of out-of-character knowledge, including the knowledge that he was a character deterministically controlled by another being (and that his whole life was based on a series of equations which largely came down to random chance) and that his world was entirely an illusion; he also made literary and pop-culture allusions that he didn't get. We also had a paladin who got the saint template by breaking the paladin's code, thus sacrificing that which was dearest to him, in the name of good, and a barbarian whose rage wasn't at monsters or anything, but the future, in the hopes of beating civilization back so his culture could survive. After the Favoured Soul met a tragic fate, I rerolled a spy-esque rogue inspired by Foucauld.

Oh, D&D as played by Brown students.

i agree
really D&D can be anything
the other one that would work nicely if you want artsy fartsy (love that term btw) would be a version of FUDGE. also GURPS might work.

[The Rose Dragon]

D&D can hardly be what it's supposed to be. Trying to make it be anything else is a terrible idea (hello, d20 Modern!).

But no, I'm not talking about games that you can play artsy campaigns in. I'm talking about games that are inherently artsy, so much that trying to play anything else with them results in disaster, but which are great in their niche.

[Tyndmyr]

I don't know what an Artsy game is.

Sure, you've got those flash games where you don't have a win/lose scenario....but Everyone is John is very much a win/lose game. I don't know what they have in common.

[Totally Guy]

Anything by Jared Sorensen really.

Inspectres and Lacuna particularly.

Inspectres is a new way of doing mystery plots but with ghosts and worthless company stocks.

Lacuna is basically Inception. But was written way before Inception was a movie. It's uncanny! But I don't think there's a pdf of that one...

He recently did the Parsely games. They're so dumb. Basically the GM is a text parser and the players control a single character on a text adventure. There's a free one up at drive thru rpg.

Then there's FreeMarket. But that's a box set. You run a business on a happy, busy, competitive space station.

[Tyndmyr]

He recently did the Parsely games. They're so dumb. Basically the GM is a text parser and the players control a single character on a text adventure. There's a free one up at drive thru rpg.

That sounds like the worst idea ever. If you can quickly script it as a video game, there's no point in using humans to do it.

[Totally Guy]

That sounds like the worst idea ever. If you can quickly script it as a video game, there's no point in using humans to do it.

I said it was dumb! Pretty artsy though.

One weekend I threw a hot tub party. One of us suggested we run a role playing session in the hot tub. But what? We'd ruin the character sheets. Lose the dice.

In the end we played Parsely number 1: Action Castle!

[Doc Roc]

I think Mouseguard looks pretty artsy to me.

Also Blue Rose, but at it's core it's just another d20 game put into a very artsy book.

Artsy and incredibly good, a rare combo.

[Corrik]

I think Mouseguard looks pretty artsy to me.

Also Blue Rose, but at it's core it's just another d20 game put into a very artsy book.

Mouseguard is a really fun idea ruined by a terrible and horribly not fun system.

[The Rose Dragon]

Mouseguard is a really fun idea ruined by a terrible and horribly not fun system.

You are the very, very, very first person I've heard say a bad thing about Mouse Guard's system.

[DukeofDellot]

... Artsy Fartsy is a funny term.

I once ran a game where the players were epic heroes (every single one of them had the overconfidence disadvantage too) but they kept running away from battles. So I stuck them on a deserted island with no food or drinkable water and left them to die.

And we role-played it.

The result was pretty artsy fartsy I think. Very mellow, I was pretty surprised they survived. Let's see, they made it four weeks before a ship happened to pass by (I gave them a 2% chance each day).

[aje8]

Ok.... I'm really, really confused. What does 'artsy' mean in this context?

Because I also don't get the commonality between the listed games.

[wayfare]

Nobilis is both really challenging and really heady. When you play a character who can lift mountains or create an entire species with a flick of his wrist, the game is by necessity artful and role-playing centric.

[DukeofDellot]

Ok.... I'm really, really confused. What does 'artsy' mean in this context?

Something is "artsy" if it makes you feel.

[Mastikator]

D&D can hardly be what it's supposed to be.
[snip]

Bwahahahaha...


I'm playing a fantasy early medieval game where the troll art is heavily influenced by John Bauers paintings.

[meschlum]

Polaris?

Narrative driven Fair Folk?

[SurlySeraph]

The Wuthering Heights RPG is a good example.
Plenty of indie RPGs should work; the one I immediately think of is Dogs in the Vineyard, in which you are vaguely Mormon-ish law enforcement personnel. The mechanics involve emotion and narrative causality, and are vaguely like playing poker.