Experimental RPGs?

[VienLa]

Hello! I was wondering a while ago about the possibility of experimental RPG systems. I couldn't figure anything out, however, and google search brought no avail.

By "Experimental" I mean something more in style of what an experimental book or comic would be, when compared to something nonexperimental; not something with a slightly different game mechanic, or using a deck of cards instead of dice, but a creation that challenges the whole idea of what a tabletop RPG is. An example would be a game where which, for example, changes the one GM + several players setup. Or the idea that a player controls one character and one character only.

Is anyone familiar with any game or concept like this (popular or not)?

[Arbane]

A few that might be worth looking at:

Everyone is John
Monsterhearts
Don't Rest Your Head
Donjon
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen RPG
normality
Fiasco

[neonchameleon]

A few that might be worth looking at:

Everyone is John
Monsterhearts
Don't Rest Your Head
Donjon
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen RPG
normality
Fiasco

All I recognise are good examples.

To give more detail and some of my favourites:

Tabletop RPGs should have a GM?
Fiasco
Monstsegur 1244

Tabletop RPGs need to be open ended?
My Life With Master
Grey Ranks

In a tabletop RPG you are in full control of your character?
Monsterhearts
Dog Eat Dog

In tabletop RPGs your characters' abilities are what is important?
Hillfolk
Smallville

In a tabletop RPG you control a specific character?
Microscope/Kingdom
Everyone is John

And this is without getting into wooly games like Baron Munchhausen.

[goto124]

Tabletop RPGs need to be open ended?
My Life With Master
Grey Ranks

In a tabletop RPG you are in full control of your character?
Monsterhearts
Dog Eat Dog

I'm honestly curious about how these games would work. Should anyone who values player agency play these games?

[neonchameleon]

I'm honestly curious about how these games would work. Should anyone who values player agency play these games?

Yes. Definitely. There's pretty strong player agency in all four games.

In Grey Ranks you are playing child soldiers in the Warsaw Resistance. At a macro scale nothing you do will change things. Warsaw will fall. The Resistance will fail. You can not change this. But although Warsaw will fall what happens to your character, and your resistance cell could be almost anything. Alive or dead. Grown up or broken.

In My Life With Master you are playing the henchmen of an evil master in a Gothic Horror setting. Again, the overall shape of the game is fixed. Sooner or later one of you will snap and get fed up enough to attack the Master, which starts the endgame. And then either that person wins or that person loses (and things go badly). Other than that simple "Someone is going to snap and attack the Master" what happens and how the whole thing ends is wide open.

In Monsterhearts you are playing a teenage monster. Think Buffy, Jennifer's Body, Ginger Snaps, Twilight, or Teen Wolf. As a teenage monster, you are a rolling mess of hormones and don't get to choose what turns you on or what brings out the worst in you. You can decide what to do about it. And the game is one about growing up and coming to terms with yourself and becoming not quite such a mess. (Or going off the deep end).

Dog Eat Dog is a game about colonial oppression, acceptance, and defiance. And the cost of defiance. I can't recommend it to anyone as fun - but it is intense, exhilarating, fascinating, educational, and really pushes the bounds of what RPGs are.

[Beta Centauri]

Then there's the traditional idea that the GM is in charge of every decision, and preps everything beforehand, and the players have no narrative control. Fiasco is one that sort of challenges this, as every game is improvised around a small number of semi-randomly chosen elements. Fate gives the players limited narrative control. But most games can be approached in this way, even while retaining someone in the position of GM. The GM's role shifts to one of a co-creator who doesn't have a character to be concerned with.

There's also a traditional idea that failure has to mean death. Again, lots of games subvert this deliberately, but most games in which it tends to be assumed can be played in such a way that it is not.

Dungeon World (and Apocalypse World, though I can't in good conscience recommend that) also counters the common though implicit idea that it's okay for a less-than-successful attempt at something to be flat and boring. Actually, lots of games subvert this to one degree or another. But, again, any game can be adjusted slightly so that failure isn't just a waste of a turn.

[Segev]

Tephra is an interesting system that uses a d12 as its sole die. It's closely tied to its setting, and is of the steampunk genre. The "feats" you pick up raise your stats, and you get a certain number per level. The levels are just a way of marking where your feat acquisitions occur, as there's really no such thing as a class. You do have a race, and that can have a lot of impact on your character, as culture is closely tied to race.

Some races have unique feats that do some really wonky things, too.


For a truly bizzare game (one I am not sure is honestly playable), look for "Wisher, Theurge, Fatalist." Jenna Moran - authoress behind much of the 1e Exalted Fair Folk mechanics, as well as Nobilis - created it as an experimental system even by her standards. It's an entertaining read, if nothing else.

[aspekt]

I've been looking into Microscope lately. It has potential to be something you'd be interested in.

[Milo v3]

In Monsterhearts you are playing a teenage monster. Think Buffy, Jennifer's Body, Ginger Snaps, Twilight, or Teen Wolf. As a teenage monster, you are a rolling mess of hormones and don't get to choose what turns you on or what brings out the worst in you. You can decide what to do about it. And the game is one about growing up and coming to terms with yourself and becoming not quite such a mess. (Or going off the deep end).

This sounds amazingly awkward, painful, and confusing.... and hilarious.

[goto124]

as there's really no such thing as a class

How truly classless is it? I've played a game where the level of your existing skills impacted the effectiveness and difficulty of training other skills. For example, if your spellcasting skills are at high levels, you're going to have a harder time getting your fighting skills up, and they won't be as effective. Didn't help that training was long and boring.

It was a level-less, EXP-less system where you had to train in specific skills to get better at them. Want to get better at basket-weaving? Start weaving baskets. Want to learn climbing? Try that wall over there, and have a cleric nearby to heal all the injuries you get. It sounds fun in theory, but in-game it was a grind more boring than mindless kobold murder. Somehow.

[Knaight]

By "Experimental" I mean something more in style of what an experimental book or comic would be, when compared to something nonexperimental; not something with a slightly different game mechanic, or using a deck of cards instead of dice, but a creation that challenges the whole idea of what a tabletop RPG is. An example would be a game where which, for example, changes the one GM + several players setup. Or the idea that a player controls one character and one character only.

There are tons of these. To use your two criteria, here are some examples:
Changes the One GM + Several Players setup

• Shock: Social Science Fiction - At any given time, there is one GM, and several players. However, the GM role fluctuates based on what the party is currently doing. There might be one GM for a spaceship battle, but once someone surrenders and negotiations start, a different person is now GM.
• Fiasco - There is no GM, everyone is a player, and the mechanics revolve around the creation of characters and setting up scenes in which they do things.
• Microscope - There is no GM, everyone is a player, and the mechanics revolve around the non-chronological creation of a timeline. Alternately, there are no players, and everyone is a GM; that might be a better description.

Changes the One Player - One Character setup

• Ars Magica - I wouldn't even qualify this as experimental, but it does assume troupe play, wherein everyone has a roster of characters that get swapped out between sessions, some of which are common to all players.
• Microscope - A bunch of the stuff is done from a very top level perspective where there aren't necessarily even individual characters doing things. Narrated scenes involve one person with all the characters. Scenes involve everyone having one character, but there's no permanence to this, as new characters can be made for every scene (and sometimes have to be), and even if they aren't who has them changes.

If I had to recommend just one very experimental, very good game, it would be Microscope. It pushes the boundaries of what an RPG can be, and it does so in a way that it's actually fun to play fairly frequently. It also has a side use where you can play a game or two of Microscope, and then use the setting created by it for a more conventional game, guaranteeing that everyone both knows and is invested in the setting.

[neonchameleon]

This sounds amazingly awkward, painful, and confusing.... and hilarious.

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good summary of Monsterhearts. It's one of the deepest RPGs I've ever played (although I'd only recommend it with the right group) and I'd recommend everyone gave it a look. The design work is superb.

[Segev]

How truly classless is it? I've played a game where the level of your existing skills impacted the effectiveness and difficulty of training other skills. For example, if your spellcasting skills are at high levels, you're going to have a harder time getting your fighting skills up, and they won't be as effective. Didn't help that training was long and boring.

I'm operating from 4-5-year-old memory here, but there was definitely no "class" as such. You chose race, and then you chose "feats" at each level. The feats actually boosted your stats, rather than having stat requirements. Feats gave you pretty much all of your powers/abilities/whatever, and came in trees and categories.

You could argue that the categories of feats were "classes," as getting the best ones required a lot of devotion to a given category, but that's as close as it gets. At least, in the very-late-beta version of it I played one semester in college.

[Thrawn4]

In which way is Don't Rest Your Head experimental? The settings sounds nice though...

[Khedrac]

Oddly I am surprised no one has mentioned Amber - the diceless rpg.

It is diceless unless the ref wants a random number generator.
There are no classes or levels.
The players can (it depends where they are) have a huge amount of say about the world they live on (right down to the color of the sky and the type of technology present)
.
As written, I don't really like the character creation and progressions rules, but as written, they fit experimental very well...

One gets (let's call them) experience points that one can choose to spend to improve stats or abilities.
As written, the player does not know whether the ability has improved, or by how much (or even how much is needed to be spent for improvement)!

Personally if I ever run it I will allow graded progression (as I think the reasons given for the unknown step progression are fundamentally flawed - there are other people in the multiverse)

[Knaight]

Oddly I am surprised no one has mentioned Amber - the diceless rpg.

It is diceless unless the ref wants a random number generator.
There are no classes or levels.
The players can (it depends where they are) have a huge amount of say about the world they live on (right down to the color of the sky and the type of technology present)
.
As written, I don't really like the character creation and progressions rules, but as written, they fit experimental very well...

One gets (let's call them) experience points that one can choose to spend to improve stats or abilities.
As written, the player does not know whether the ability has improved, or by how much (or even how much is needed to be spent for improvement)!

Personally if I ever run it I will allow graded progression (as I think the reasons given for the unknown step progression are fundamentally flawed - there are other people in the multiverse)

It hasn't been listed as it's not that experimental. Having no classes and levels stopped being experimental in the early 1980's, it's one of a number of diceless games, player involvement in world creation is rarer but still pretty ubiquitous, so on and so forth. The suggestion progression rule is pretty experimental, but that's about it.

[Joe the Rat]

It hasn't been listed as it's not that experimental. Having no classes and levels stopped being experimental in the early 1980's, it's one of a number of diceless games, player involvement in world creation is rarer but still pretty ubiquitous, so on and so forth. The suggestion progression rule is pretty experimental, but that's about it.

Character creation was certainly... unique. I haven't encountered another game where you bid for your stats - who's strongest, who's toughest, etc. Supposedly, the amount put into each stat doesn't matter, just where you are in relation to everyone else. Which breaks down as soon as you provide point values for every other character in the universe, at which point it effectively falls back into point-buy.

But they did do the bidding thing.

[Arbane]

Oddly I am surprised no one has mentioned Amber - the diceless rpg.

It's been out of print for quite a while, I think. There's a spiritual successor, Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, but I haven't tried it.

Nobilis is also diceless, and like much of Jenna Moran's work, is famous for being brilliant, innovative, elegant, and really hard to understand well enough to actually play.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think Swords Without Master would qualify: success vs. failure isn't the core interest of the resolution mechanic! Instead, it's more interested in whether your action was Glum or Jovial. How successful you were is up to you.

[Geostationary]

For a truly bizzare game (one I am not sure is honestly playable), look for "Wisher, Theurge, Fatalist." Jenna Moran - authoress behind much of the 1e Exalted Fair Folk mechanics, as well as Nobilis - created it as an experimental system even by her standards. It's an entertaining read, if nothing else.

Beat me to it! Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist (or WTF) is basically a deconstruction of rpgs. It divides the roles of GMing between the players (Wishers are good at adjucating the social contract, Theurgists are good at defining setting, and Fatalists are good at crafting the actual rules); at the same time it doesn't provide rules, but rather protocols by which to create rules. It's a very entertaining and very strange read (nowhere else will you find protocols to determine if you are, in fact, playing the game you say you are playing, amongst other things), but it's also really enlightening. It's also one of those systems where I really want to play it, but finding a group proves difficult to say the least. I know it's playable! There's at least one game that can be confirmed to have successfully happened!

Nobilis is also diceless, and like much of Jenna Moran's work, is famous for being brilliant, innovative, elegant, and really hard to understand well enough to actually play.

It only took three editions to reach an good level of understandability! Three I say! Two if you like mock-pretension.

--------------
Mystic Empyrean does some interesting things with the GM role, as who holds the role changes from scene-to-scene and and the creator of bits of content gets a certain degree of say in how other people execute it. Their card resolution system is also pretty interesting, along with how it influences PC powers/actions.

I'm not sure how experimental Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine could be said to be, but the xp system as roleplay tool/guide/plotting device is genius.

[Somebloke]

Hmmm. Dread uses no dice. Instead threats are resolved via a Jenga tower. It's a horror system designed to ratchet up tension.

[goto124]

Instead threats are resolved via a Jenga tower.

Can you do it with a literal Jenga tower?

[AMFV]

Can you do it with a literal Jenga tower?

Having just researched the game, I can say that it requires a literal Jenga tower.

[goto124]

Having just researched the game, I can say that it requires a literal Jenga tower.

Suddenly, I'm wondering what a metaphorical Jenga tower is.

[AMFV]

Suddenly, I'm wondering what a metaphorical Jenga tower is.

It's sort of like a metaphorical house of cards, except with wood.

[SirKazum]

I'm a Pretty Princess! sounds rather interesting. Not sure how "experimental" it is, but anyway. It's supposed to be played with children, but I can certainly see using its basic framework for more adult stories (and I've used its opponent generation system to create characters for a horror story). It uses a coloring book for task resolution - each player (who controls a princess) has a paint-by-numbers picture of a princess, and has to color in something they use to overcome each challenge. A deck of cards is also used, both for task resolution and to generate which challenges await in each adventure location. Storytelling is more or less collaborative between the GM (or "Fairy Godmother") and players.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Hmmm. Dread uses no dice. Instead threats are resolved via a Jenga tower. It's a horror system designed to ratchet up tension.

Though, game resolution itself is rather traditional. It doesn't really push the boundaries of "what is an RPG?" in the way that some of these other games do. It does have some really neat design decisions.

For example, it's a game about progression, because there's only two ways to fail: you knock the tower down (and your character dies), or you chicken out and voluntarily fail. The typical rhythm of a session, however, is "succeed, succeed, succeed, etc., etc....and then someone FAILS <crash>".

[Beta Centauri]

RPGMP3.com is a great way to get introduced to new and different games. A few I learned about there are:

A Wilderness of Mirrors: The players plan a tactical operation of some kind. This planning is timed, and based on the time it takes to plan, the GM gets a certain number of complications in their budget. Onces planning is complete, the plan is "played out," and the GM gets to add complications, basically fouling up the operation, and play is about recovering it. I don't recall much about the actual resolution method, but I liked the setup and premise.

The Mountain Witch: What threw me about this recording was that everyone seemed to be drawing from some story or script they were all reading, because players would say things and everyone would play along. Later I learned that the game operates in part by the GM asking leading questions and the players answering them. There is also an interesting dynamic involving trust between characters.

A game in which character creation involves decorating a gingerbread man. I forget the name. Play is fairly standard, but one's resources consist of whatever the cookie was decorated with. Damage is represented by the player eating parts of the cookie.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oh, Wilderness of Mirrors reminds me that John Wick's other games tread some funky experimental ground.

In Blood & Honor and Houses of the Blooded, every roll works according to the same principle. First, you gather a bunch of d6es from an attribute. Second, you set aside some of those dice: these are wagers. Third, you roll the remaining dice and succeed on a total of 10+. Fourth, for each wager you made, you get to add a detail to the scene.

So, you have eight dice to throw at an investigation of the Shogun's murder. You wager four of those dice, and roll the other four: 2, 4, 2, 5. That's more than 10, and now you can describe four things that you find. "There's (1) a few threads from a fancy kimono caught on the door, (2) a discarded bloody knife with the Rokusen Clan's emblem, (3) the light smell of cherry blossom perfume near the killing site, and (4) a half-kanji written in blood by the Shogun's finger--it says 'Hana--'."

Vincent Baker's game A Doomed Pilgrim is a neat inversion of the typical RPG setup, and it leverages social media as part of its design!

Which reminds me--Viewscream is another really cool experimental game that actually specifically requires video-chat software like Google Hangouts to play! The premise is that everyone's only able to communicate via telecommunication, but they all need one another to fix their respective problems. Each player has a limited number of problems they can fix successfully, as well as a number of problems that they need other players to fix. Once you've got all of your problems fixed, you'll be able to survive whatever catastrophe is coming. Of course, there's usually one character who's there to throw a massive spanner in the works...

Here's an actual play of the game, although because it's scenario-based, it will have spoilers for that particular scenario.

Oh, and it's played entirely real-time, in-character, because the mechanics are simple enough that you don't need to drop character to use them.

[Terraoblivion]

I'd say that Chuubo's is pretty experimental as conflict resolution is pretty much irrelevant. Not even in the story game sense of working out how it ought to be resolved. Instead it is all about setting up objectives for how to structure the story around a specific narrative arc. That's what pretty much the entire system centres on.