Since the beginning, going all the way back to Braunstein, roleplaying games (RPGs) have had at their core, most often unintentionally, an improv game. Why this is is pretty simple to understand: if the game allows an open ended possibility space, its fundamentally incorporating improv. Its that spontaneous, open ended interactivity that, in its best form, begets a completely emergent story that couldn't merely be told, it had to be played. Thats the core of what Improv is, and so too are RPGs.
The issue of course is, not everybody sees it that way nor has identified these games as being such, even after 50+ years of discourse. Worst yet, many will have a very prejudicial mindset, rooted in what they believe improv to be, and will reject it outright. Others still will have their own ideologies and idiosyncratic beliefs about RPGs, which will naturally come into conflict with this idea, and will summarily reject it for its nonconformity.
All three of these are, I argue, essentially the same issue, and rooted in a simple explanation. No one noticed, and most don't want to. So the questions that come up are pretty clear: What makes RPGs improv games, and why does that matter?
Understanding Improv
Before we can answer the first question, what bears scrutiny is what is being referred to as improv.
The common assumption with Improv is that its in reference to Improv Comedy, with may be some knowledge that not all improv is comedic in nature. This is where that prejudicial attitude tends to come in, as improv comedy, as fun and entertaining as it can be, is kind of down low on the totem pole of entertainment, perhaps only slightly better than street magic, and for many in the RPG space, a want and desire for more serious gaming has been pretty evergreen throughout the last 50 years, and this certainly doesn't help alleviate the preconceptions.
As it happens, though, Improv is not all improv comedy. Its not even always improv theater, for that matter, despite the history behind it.
Improv in general has its roots in American Theater, with Viola Spolin's development of what she called "Theater Games". Most people tend to have a cultural idea of an actor or entertainer doing weird noises and other seemingly odd idiosyncratic things before they go on stage or camera; theater games are a more generally useful form of this, as they were originally intended as an early form of Gamification, where instead of intellectually teaching Actors how to Act, it is learned through play.
Why this works for Actors is that Acting as a skill is at its best when the actor can be fully present as who they are depicting, not pulling how they behave from a pre-planned source but from spontaneous intuition. While actors can do a lot to still pre-plan aspects of their characters (aka have a script), in order for the acting to feel authentic requires the spontaneous to come out of them; they have to be real, in other words, elsewise, the illusion of acting is lost pretty readily.
And this, as an aside, is why writers are so important, and why even the best actors can end up with absolute trainwreck performances, and why they can sometimes be the only the shining light in whats otherwise a disaster. Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man, for example, has pretty much never failed to be compelling, even when the film he's a part of isn't all that great; no one can say he was the issue with Iron Man 2, or that if only he was a better actor, the twist of Iron Man 3 might not have tanked the film.
But here's the key about this history and why it's being mentioned: During her lifetime, Viola Spolin received a lot of critique towards the idea that her techniques qualified as Games at all.
In time, we now know that of course they were games, as plenty of deliberately designed improv games have been born out of these original theater games, and many more are just plain brand new. This initial criticism though is important, because theater games aren't the only games that have had the critique that they "are not" games thrown at them, and a certain strain of RPGs that became popular in the 2010s were and still are big targets for this critique. We'll be coming back to this later.
Narrative Improv
So, as mentioned, there is more than one kind of Improv. While the term Improv Theater broadly encompasses most types people conventionally associate with the term, Improv now extends to conventional games, so Improv isn't just theater anymore regardless of how one feels about it in relation to RPGs. But, even within Improv Theater, we see no monolith. Improv Comedy is of course a staple, but we also broadly have Dramatic and Musical Improv, amongst dozens of niche, avant garde examples you can find if you dig deep enough.
But a key type of improv is Narrative Improv. The reason why is because this type is what RPGs follow on from, intentional or otherwise. What Narrative Improv is can be understood through the lens of "Forms". Shortform, Longform, and Narrative are generally speaking the three "levels", so to speak, of Improv.
Shortform is where Improv Comedy makes its bread, and as its name implies, involves scenes, skits, or what have you that are very short relative to session length. Minutes at a time at most.
Longform is where the Dramatic and Musical forms tend to be, but Comedy can often go longform as well. This is where we have a number of vignettes or scenes throughout the session, most often disconnected but self-referential at times. Up to an hour or two at a time.
Narrative continues the trend, as its name implies, is specifically tuned to tell a linear story through improv. Narrative tends to be the longest, up to several hours at a time, giving the performers time to develop the things that make up said story.
This handy dandy Blog covers the general idea of Narrative Improv and what it requires to function and, in the end, bring about an, at least somewhat, coherent story.
An Aside: What is a "Game" Anyway?
Before I continue, I think it prudent to discuss what a game actually is, and in particular why improv is a game.
In a nutshell, a game is a structured form of play, and play is itself a an intrinsically motivated activity pursued for recreational pleasure and enjoyment.
What's, sadly, often still contentious today is that games are also art, and more specifically, are an artistic medium for storytelling. While many I think can understand that on a surface level, not many get how games differentiate themselves from other storytelling mediums, but also tend to neglect what games count as being able to not just tell stories through, but generate them.
Games as a medium are all about interaction. If there is no interaction, there isn't a game. This is foundational to what sets games apart from writing, filmmaking, and music in terms of storytelling, as the medium used to its fullest potential will allow a story to emerge through interaction. Sometimes this can be very heavy handed and forced as part of the game's structure. Most video and board games do this.
But, this story can also emerge entirely organically from the interactions the game's structure provides for. In video games, games like Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, or Wildermyth are exemplary of this kind of "storymaking", but less intuitive is that multiplayer games are engaging these same dynamics.
While a given round of Call of Duty or Rainbow Six Siege isn't necessarily the same kind of story as, say, the Catcher in the Rye or Interstellar (2014), it is a story, and one that for many is quite compelling, if not more so. Most gamers can probably recall a number of times where the experience of play was so memorable that it sticks with you; this was a story being made, and your remembrance of it is how the narrative of that story comes together.
But even more unintuitive, sports are some of the most prominent kinds of storymaking games we have. The 1932 World Series, culminating in that legendary call by Babe Ruth where he pointed to the stands and knocked the ball out of the park right where he said he was going to put it, wouldn't be the legend that it is if the game of baseball couldn't make stories. Babe Ruth doesn't have a curse named after him if he hadn't become something larger than life, and what are characters in a story, if not exactly that?
The Miracle on Ice was the culmination of a single, dominating hockey team in the Olympics being faced with just the right team to defeat them in a legendary upset; one can argue this story, this legend, was so compelling it went on, alongside Rocky as the protoype, to inspire every underdog sports movie ever made, from the Mighty Ducks to Invictus. Games, some say, are not art? Total excrement.
But now, coming back to Improv, we have to think of it in these terms. Is improv a game? Of course it is. Improv is nothing but interaction, and whether its a short comedic bit or a long, drawn out dramatic narrative, a story is being made in that interaction. All Games, of any type, are fundamentally story generators, and this is born out even when you isolate singular mechanics; there is no compelling mechanic that does not, through interaction with it, tell a story.
This aside is over now, but I do want to pose this question for you as you keep reading: If improv is a game, then surely, two different games can be combined?
Connecting the Dots
Now that we have all this primer stuff out of the way, lets connect the dots here. What makes RPGs an Improv Game?
I mentioned at the start that an easy shortcut to understanding it is by thinking of what RPGs fundamentally do. They present you an open-ended possibility space, and ask you "What do you do?" That interaction is where improv comes in, and there isn't an RPG that has ever existed that did not or does not do this.
But, this isn't terribly specific, and as I spoke to, there's an awful lot of skeptics out there. What I'll do, then, is link concepts together. Going off of the Blog I referenced earlier, we'll link each necessity for Narrative Improv to its equivalents in RPGs, and then I'm going to expound on why this matters, which will help to support these connections.
The Story Spine
The first step the blog identifies for Narrative Improv is what it calls the story spine. This is essentially meant to provide structure to the session, and ensure it doesn't strictly meander off without a satisfying, or at least obvious, conclusion. The author relates this in fairy tale terms, as wanting to have your "Once Upon a Time" to your "Happily Ever After", and everything inbetween.
Even though in recent times, particularly the past decade and a half or so, they have fallen out of favor, I do not think it is a coincidence the idea of a Module or Adventure Path became so ubiquitous in the hobby.
After all, the game fundamentally presents this open-ended possibility space, and while some activities within, like Combat, may have an obvious and intuitive beginning, middle, and end, the greater overall experience might not be so obvious. As has been said in the zeitgeist, most gamers aren't also actors or novelists. Hence, the idea of introducing a means of structuring a story into the experience becomes an obvious development, and lo and behold, we have Adventures we can play.
These APs and Modules are the effective equivalent of a Story Spine in the improv context. They do do more than a Story Spine would, often dictating a loose plot amongst other things, but mechanically they serve the same purpose. They give structure to what (could) otherwise be a completely open ended space, and thus not only lets the story begin, but also ensures it will have a clear conclusion.
Normalcy
The next key item is what the blog calls Normalcy. In a nutshell, the establishment of the who, what, whens, and where's of a story. As they relate in number 5, in improv this often has to come from rather clunkily introducing things as play progresses, and the ultimate point is that, even if has to be clunky, establishing these ideas is key to making the narrative work.
But what the blog doesn't talk about is that these details can also be established ahead of time, rather than directly in the improv. This is most often done through prompting, but depending on what you're going for, you can establish quite a lot ad hoc if you want to really focus the improv in a specific direction.
So where does the equivalent in RPGs for this come in? Easy! The Game itself, including, if it doesn't already have one, the Setting you introduce to it.
The setting of course contextualizes the game into a concrete reality, much like how narrative improv could set up props to use and even full on stage dressing, and the Game Rules provide structure to how interactions play out, most often focusing heavily on things that would be impractical or impossible to play out through improv (re: Combat), but as we've seen, you can also compact that out if one doesn't want the game to focus in on it. Likewise, plenty of examples of using Game Rules to govern the act of talking, despite the fact it comes naturally to most people and isn't at all impractical to do.
Some games, it must be said, don't need greatly elaborate rule systems. Some, like FKR, can do with nothing more than a simple conflict resolution system, and all others simply come in through Improv. Fiasco takes that a step farther, and pushes itself more towards being a conventional narrative improv game, rather than whats traditionally (or indie-ly, if we want to distinguish) considered an RPG.
The key here to remember, is that question I posed about the combination of two games. While necessity isn't really a thing in terms of whether or not a game should go with a "crunchy" rule system, it poses another question: if we can do minimalism, why not do it?
Identify the Protagonist
Our next key here is pretty straightforward, and its easy to see how the benefits translate over to RPGs. We're not merely identifying which humans we're calling the protagonists, we're identifying the goals of their characters, and this is the catalyst that brings a story out of the proceeding interactions as players try to achieve this goal.
This, ultimately, is why game mechanics even in their barest form tell stories. There's a goal, there's interaction, and theres a clear beginning, middle, and end to the interaction.
Something very key to note here though, that goes unstated in the blog, is that this identification also identifies what kind of protagonist we're dealing with, in essence, defining the genre of our story. We might recognize that a character's name is Bob, and that his goal is to rescue his sister, but its going to be a very different story between Swashbuckling Pirate Bob, Fanciful Shakespearean Bob, and Gritty Action Movie Bob. The How of the story, if you will.
This identification of genre is pretty important. Over in video game land, there was and still is a lot of discourse over the question of emergent narrative and how best to foster it, but at this point its more a question of engineering than of theoreticals. If you want a narrative to become emergent, you need these same elements that we identify in Narrative Improv. Goals, and a clear structure that tells us when it starts and when it ends.
While Video games pre-Holodeck spontaneous generation will, I think, always struggle with making something that is as fully emergent as improv allows for, we can see how such structures can be built. Ken Levine, of Bioshock fame, has a great GDC Talk on his take for this, which to toot my own horn, was an inspiration for me in my own design, where I adapted the ideas for that system into something very playable on tabletop.
But, that aside, what the identification of genre tells us, in relation to RPGs, is that these games can do quite a lot to establish genre, and if they can do that, they can also explore ideas related to narratives, and provide the means to foster them through interaction.
What is the thematic premise of a PBTA style game, if not precisely the same thing Improvisers do to guide and focus their narrative? Why do we instinctively know how to approach a dungeon crawling game, and why do we sometimes go wrong if a game breaks from our expectations? Makes you think...
Clear Consequences
Once upon a time, I used to get into overlong internet arguments over certain strain of video game RPGs, specifically The Elder Scrolls series and greater Bethesda gravity well, and the perceived de-RPGification of their games over time. One of the key points I always argued for why newer games, like Skyrim, Fallout, or Starfield had lost their roleplaying luster? The lack of consequences. Go figure.
The benefits of consequences, particularly in narrative improv, are pretty obvious in providing that narrative momentum to keep it moving forward, and prevent situations where things stall out, and nothing happens.
Now, I'd hope if you've read this far that me saying that hit you like a ton of bricks, and if it didn't, then I'll just point out that these two issues are an often contentious issue thats been reoccurring in RPG discourse for a very long time, and entire flavors of RPG have sprung up around avoiding them specifically. I have a few more examples of this phenomenon that we'll be taking about...right now!
Why This Matters
So, now that we've identified that RPGs and Narrative Improv are very close to each other, so much so that there's clear parallels, the question remains: Why does this matter? What does recognizing this do to help us design new games, or just have more enjoyable experiences with these games?
Well, as we saw with the issue of Consequences, that particular problem in Improv manifests in Roleplaying Games, almost identical in fact, to its original Improv context. But whats really important, is that the solutions we can employ in Improv to solve this problem, carry through to roleplaying games. And whats more, this isn't the only example of Improv Problems manifesting in RPGs, and many of them already have spiffy new names.
Railroading
Perhaps the single most ubiquitous and contentious one is that of railroading. While it can be alright if one approaches it with consent, as after all, who'd buy Modules if railroading was a universal negative, most often the railroad is unwelcome.
The line where a railroad becomes unwelcome is, quite simply, that of consent, informed consent in particular. But, what is the unwelcome railroad of improv?
As we've mentioned, narrative improv can establish things ahead of time to focus it towards a particular genre or story, and one could squint and see this as an equivalent. But that's only true if we, in turn, consider the presence of game rules a railroad in of itself; some people do, as it happens. But, there's consent to it, so we can't strictly say either is unwelcome.
Where the unwelcome railroad comes in in Improv, is whats referred to as Blocking. Blocking is best defined as the disruption of the improvisational flow, principally caused by the unilateral rejection of a player's input by another. If I introduce the idea that you're my dad, and you reject it saying you're not my dad, but a cop whose arresting me, this is blocking.
But, the key with Blocking is that it is contextual. If we're trying to be funny, that same interaction might not be blocking at all. If we've agreed ahead of time we want to explore the nature of police brutality on the mentally ill, we also wouldn't consider the rejection Blocking.
Likewise, if what we're doing is having a conversation, and I tell you to piss off, this isn't Blocking in of itself. The interaction has to continue, after all, and there's still context to it. If its been established that I'm sitting in a bar, and you stroll up asking about where to buy some drugs, of course I'm gonna tell you to get lost, you're a narc.
This doesn't mean you can't keep trying, and you should if I'm the only other person in the scene. If I continue to be obstinate with no shift in the narrarive, only then am I blocking.
Now, carrying these ideas back over to RPGs, we can understand how Game Rules and Setting are not blocking, nor, for that matter, is not getting what you want. But, as always, its contextual. Its one thing to end up on the undesirable end of a resolution mechanic, but its another entirely to be told you cannot go left when there's no established reason you can't. (Or worse yet, to be under an illusion that you had a choice in the first place, which is something thats actually unique to the improv dynamics of RPGs, which we'll also be talking about later on)
Since the late 80s, there's been a trend in RPGs where there's a desire to tell this long form epic narrative, and this can be identified as the general source of where this dynamic came from, as such clearly constructed narratives go quite a bit beyond the relatively innocuous nature of Modules or Adventure Paths, because its often imposed without the consent of all involved.
This basic issue of consent is pretty endemic to why railroads are bad, but also not bad. Consent is also pretty key to understanding why certain kinds of RPGs end up being so contentious.
There's a recurring refrain with PBTA style games, and others that followed out of the same design spaces, that you have to "get them" before you'll really enjoy them. It this because these games are some higher art form that only the enlightened will understand? Is it because they're so poorly designed that you'd have to trick yourself to get it?
I don't think so, in either case, even if overlong internet arguments can make it seem that way. I think it ultimately comes down to consent, because these particular kinds of RPGs, especially in the PBTA style, are enforcing a very specific railroad of thematic premise. It doesn't always produce a feeling of unwelcomeness, but its pretty normal to see how blocking manifests; its an expected part of these games to stop the game, disrupt the flow, and hash out how things work out, either in the narrative specifically or due to some mechanics issue, if not both. This is where the "Writer's Room" idea comes from, as this process often feels less like two improvisers smoothing over a hiccup and more like you're writing the scene.
Its quite unlike the plot railroad of more traditional games, but the effect is the same. If you aren't consenting, its going to feel unwelcome, and it can take a lot of effort to get to a point where you can have informed consent. Doesn't mean people can't just do it anyway, but it does mean accessibility is pretty low.
Why that is is a bit much to get into if we want to get analytical (particularly given this author doesn't beleive its an inherent problem, as not all examples have it), but I of course think it comes down to what this essay is talking about: these games are no better at recognizing whats at their core than traditional games are, despite doing a lot to incorporate improv solutions into their design, if unintentionally, and this impacts not just accessibility but enjoyment. The whole hobby is niche for a reason, after all, and I don't think its rooted in RPGs just being nerdy or geeky.
The Many Faces of Blocking
Now, the plot and thematic railroads are the most obvious ones we can point to in terms of how blocking manifests in RPGs. But there are quite a few more out there we can point to.
The Adventuring Day or the Martial/Caster Disparity of 5e DND, for example, are great examples of blocking coming from the game itself.
But less intuitive is that Players can actually Block their GMs, especially when the expectation was in fact set to follow a loose narrative, by refusing to let them participate and not differring to their direction. Shenanigans is of course innocuous in a vaccuum, but not if your group spends multiple sessions doing anything but engage the things the GM prepared for the group to play when that was supposed to be the point.
Another manifestation, also unintuitive, is that of Rule Zero; the humans blocking the Game itself by deleting rules and hacking it up.
Now, the thing about Blocking, is that it isn't fully negative. It isn't this terrible thing you're just not noticing. Much of the time, blocking is pretty invisible and doesn't impact the experience in any obvious way, and for some people, its manifestations just aren't associated with anything strictly bad.
A GM can be completely unphased by players who just screw around session after session, and the game of course has no choice but to suffer in silence, but it often still makes the issue known (as we see in DND when later editions start dismantling certain systems for no reason, like exploration, only for them to feel completely superflous). And of course, there's no shortage of people who continue to play 5e despite its myriad problems in this area.
The Unwelcome Extreme
Another good example we can point to of Improv problems in RPGs, is the unwelcome extreme. In Improv, this is when you push the scene so completely off the rails that it disrupts the flow; this isn't necessarily a matter of blocking, but it introduces the same disruptive effect.
That Guy is a pretty clear example that has become ubiquitous in the zeitgeist of the hobby. They don't necessarily block anyone elses input (though the varient Edgelords often do), but they are pretty clearly unwelcome in what they inject into the experience.
Another, coming from certain games, is the issue of HP Bloat, where the unwelcome extreme is in how a fight gets drawn out for no real benefit other than, may be, a perceived minimum amount of time spent that is already met. Sometimes this can be imposed unilaterally, as in its rooted in a weird hangup on part of the game designer, or perhaps the GM.
But it can also be imposed because the mechanical design of the game has reached a point where the amount of possible interactions would preclude full participation by all players. If a fight is over in just a few turns, what does that mean for the players more than a few turns away? Its a hard circle to square, but this handily segues into the next topic.
The Duality, and How we Might Make and Enjoy RPGs Better
Now, there's likely a question brewing by this point, that of how RPGs are improv games, when they do X,Y, or Z that is so utterly different from any given example of improv?
The answer here isn't complex. RPGs still are improv games; improv is the first and foremost mechanic after all. But they are also something else. We often see the distinction put as being both "RP" and "G", with roleplay as the bespoke implementation of improv dynamics, and the G as, well, everything else. What we would actually call "G" is kind of muddy, because over time Roleplaying Game as a descriptor has become so entrenched that its hard to use anything else.
What I would argue though is that the answer is that its a Playstyle Reinforcement game, combined with Improv. If you've been following along, I'd hope this just instantaneously clicked, but if not, lets recap:
1. Improv is a game
2. In order for Improv to work, players have to Interact with each other.
3. Improv must have Consequences, and must have Structure.
4. Game Rules are akin to pre-established Who, What, When, Where's, and even How's in Improv.
The Interaction between Players, Consequences, and the Players reactions is the answer here; this is a Gameplay Loop. Each Players individual Style is being reinforced by every other player and the emergent consequences of their collective choices. This loop is what produces the spontaneity that makes improv a compelling experience to engage in.
So, we already understand that this is how improv works, but where does "G" come into this?
Easy. The Game is a Player.
It's a wild thought, isn't it? But, think about it. What does the Game in RPGs do, if not provide Consequences? Well, they also React the same way Players do. Are the Moves of PBTA style games not reacting to the improvisations of tbe players?
Understanding this is the lynchpin of this entire essay. The Game is a participant in the Improv game, just as the GM and the (colloquial) Players are. The question this begets then, is what do we actually do with this information?
And that truly is the question. I personally have found that through this understanding I can actually get into pretty much any RPG I can get my hands on (short of ones that are just boring or rote anyway, but thats a separate issue), because now I pretty much cannot approach these games without informed consent of what I'm getting into.
I once said that Ironsworn and Fellowship were the only PBTA style games I could get into, and while its still true, as most of these games are just not what I'm particularly interested in, the reason why is because much more so than other games in this type, I could understand and consent to what they were doing. They align well with what I tend to most prefer narratively, and mechanically both games have fun toys.
Which, I'll say, is pretty key: the ability of the G to be inherently fun in of itself, even if stripped bare of any thematic premise. In other words, I can just play, and its fun, and I still get a story at the end as a kicker. This I think is important to understand not just why some people bounce off of those particular games, and why the critique that they "are not" games comes about, but also why recognizing the improv game is vital.
For one, these games still have it, and like all other instances of it, it is still as fun as ever. There's nothing about how these games work that makes improv not fun. As such, they are in fact games, because the improv game makes up a huge part of the experience. Almost all of it, as a matter of fact.
The G part of them, however, isn't always particularly compelling on its own, and this I think is a misstep in design. But this also goes in the other direction, for all its faults, the G of DND5e is fun and obviously compelling to millions of people, and yet, as we see when we go look at the criticisms of the game, the RP can be quite lacking for many. There's unfortunately many who are consider that half of the game so closed off that the instances of it that exists are labeled as bad things; DM Fiat in response to Improvised Actions, for example.
And it has to be said, these issues run so deep that there's a recurring idea that playing DND, or even RPGs in general, is something you don't learn from the book but by way of Oral Tradition, and this has been going on since Gygax and Arneson. For all the good things indie games have done to try and close the gap, that oral tradition persists into them. This isn't good, for while Improv ultimately has to be learned through experience, there's no reason a book can't get you started.
So, to bring this altogether, the key idea here is that recognizing the improv game can help us make better games; games that don't just recognize they're utilizing improv, but integrate properly with the reinforcement game that was constructed, and use both sides to their fullest potential. Games where all these common issues, whether we look at them as Improv problems or RPG problems, just never occur, and where the game can finally be approachable in a real, tangible way.
How that's done, is up to the would be designer. I personally have had a lot of ideas for how to approach this, and my game has been completely morphed by it. While unfinished, as the scope of the game is just quite vast given the genres I'm blending (epic fantasy + slice of life) and the depth I want Labyrinthian to support even more so, I've seen the ideas play out in real play, and they work.
I came up with a Tactical Improv system that, not only really makes you feel like you're in action movie, but integrates the depth of a Tactics game with the open-ended possibility space of Improv, entirely seamlessly, and this same blending is being carried through to other aspects of the game to bring it together as a unified whole, blending heavily systemic design, ala Immersive Sim video games, with improv.
But, I don't think my ideas are the only way, and admittedly much of the time my ideas are pretty specific to nature of my game, but even so, whats key is that I'm always approaching the game from a perspective of merging Improv with Systems, and ensuring they not only don't come into conflict with each other, but interact. In building my game I'm not just cobbling together what I think is cool, I'm building a Player that can go toe to toe with real life humans in an improv game.
It also goes deeper than that though, and there's a wide world of things yet to discuss here, because after all, there are two other participants here besides the game itself, the GM and the Players, and designing for them is just as important. Developing real gameplay for the GM in particular has been a pretty pressing revelation I've been exploring with my own designs, particularly due to the traditional nature of them as either dictating tyrant, benevolent or otherwise, or mere facilitator and referree, neither of which, in this author's opinion, is truly ideal.
Conclusion
In recognizing that roleplaying games are fundamentally improvisational games, we open the door to a deeper understanding and appreciation of both mediums. This realization underscores the importance of interaction, spontaneity, and collaborative storytelling inherent in RPGs. By viewing the game itself as an active participant—a player in the improvisational dynamic—we can design and engage with RPGs in ways that enhance both the gaming experience and the emergent narratives they produce.
Understanding the improvisational core of RPGs allows players to navigate common pitfalls with greater awareness, and lets us develop not just games that prevent them outright, but empowers players to work through it when it still happens. It emphasizes the need for consent, clear communication, and mutual support in creating a cohesive and enjoyable story. In doing so, we craft game systems that not only coexist with improvisation but actively facilitate it, leading to more accessible and fulfilling games.
Ultimately, embracing the improvisational nature of RPGs demystifies the art of roleplaying, making it more approachable for newcomers and enriching for veterans. It reminds us that improvisation is not an esoteric skill reserved for performers but a natural form of play inherent in all of us. All it takes is an environment that fosters that spontaneity and creativity, and games can, in fact, provide thst space, but only if we know what we're playing with.
As Viola Spolin eloquently put it:
Embracing RPGs as improv games invites us all to participate more fully, play more joyfully, and create, not just tell, stories that resonate long after the game is over.
The issue of course is, not everybody sees it that way nor has identified these games as being such, even after 50+ years of discourse. Worst yet, many will have a very prejudicial mindset, rooted in what they believe improv to be, and will reject it outright. Others still will have their own ideologies and idiosyncratic beliefs about RPGs, which will naturally come into conflict with this idea, and will summarily reject it for its nonconformity.
All three of these are, I argue, essentially the same issue, and rooted in a simple explanation. No one noticed, and most don't want to. So the questions that come up are pretty clear: What makes RPGs improv games, and why does that matter?
Understanding Improv
Before we can answer the first question, what bears scrutiny is what is being referred to as improv.
The common assumption with Improv is that its in reference to Improv Comedy, with may be some knowledge that not all improv is comedic in nature. This is where that prejudicial attitude tends to come in, as improv comedy, as fun and entertaining as it can be, is kind of down low on the totem pole of entertainment, perhaps only slightly better than street magic, and for many in the RPG space, a want and desire for more serious gaming has been pretty evergreen throughout the last 50 years, and this certainly doesn't help alleviate the preconceptions.
As it happens, though, Improv is not all improv comedy. Its not even always improv theater, for that matter, despite the history behind it.
Improv in general has its roots in American Theater, with Viola Spolin's development of what she called "Theater Games". Most people tend to have a cultural idea of an actor or entertainer doing weird noises and other seemingly odd idiosyncratic things before they go on stage or camera; theater games are a more generally useful form of this, as they were originally intended as an early form of Gamification, where instead of intellectually teaching Actors how to Act, it is learned through play.
Why this works for Actors is that Acting as a skill is at its best when the actor can be fully present as who they are depicting, not pulling how they behave from a pre-planned source but from spontaneous intuition. While actors can do a lot to still pre-plan aspects of their characters (aka have a script), in order for the acting to feel authentic requires the spontaneous to come out of them; they have to be real, in other words, elsewise, the illusion of acting is lost pretty readily.
And this, as an aside, is why writers are so important, and why even the best actors can end up with absolute trainwreck performances, and why they can sometimes be the only the shining light in whats otherwise a disaster. Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man, for example, has pretty much never failed to be compelling, even when the film he's a part of isn't all that great; no one can say he was the issue with Iron Man 2, or that if only he was a better actor, the twist of Iron Man 3 might not have tanked the film.
But here's the key about this history and why it's being mentioned: During her lifetime, Viola Spolin received a lot of critique towards the idea that her techniques qualified as Games at all.
In time, we now know that of course they were games, as plenty of deliberately designed improv games have been born out of these original theater games, and many more are just plain brand new. This initial criticism though is important, because theater games aren't the only games that have had the critique that they "are not" games thrown at them, and a certain strain of RPGs that became popular in the 2010s were and still are big targets for this critique. We'll be coming back to this later.
Narrative Improv
So, as mentioned, there is more than one kind of Improv. While the term Improv Theater broadly encompasses most types people conventionally associate with the term, Improv now extends to conventional games, so Improv isn't just theater anymore regardless of how one feels about it in relation to RPGs. But, even within Improv Theater, we see no monolith. Improv Comedy is of course a staple, but we also broadly have Dramatic and Musical Improv, amongst dozens of niche, avant garde examples you can find if you dig deep enough.
But a key type of improv is Narrative Improv. The reason why is because this type is what RPGs follow on from, intentional or otherwise. What Narrative Improv is can be understood through the lens of "Forms". Shortform, Longform, and Narrative are generally speaking the three "levels", so to speak, of Improv.
Shortform is where Improv Comedy makes its bread, and as its name implies, involves scenes, skits, or what have you that are very short relative to session length. Minutes at a time at most.
Longform is where the Dramatic and Musical forms tend to be, but Comedy can often go longform as well. This is where we have a number of vignettes or scenes throughout the session, most often disconnected but self-referential at times. Up to an hour or two at a time.
Narrative continues the trend, as its name implies, is specifically tuned to tell a linear story through improv. Narrative tends to be the longest, up to several hours at a time, giving the performers time to develop the things that make up said story.
This handy dandy Blog covers the general idea of Narrative Improv and what it requires to function and, in the end, bring about an, at least somewhat, coherent story.
An Aside: What is a "Game" Anyway?
Before I continue, I think it prudent to discuss what a game actually is, and in particular why improv is a game.
In a nutshell, a game is a structured form of play, and play is itself a an intrinsically motivated activity pursued for recreational pleasure and enjoyment.
What's, sadly, often still contentious today is that games are also art, and more specifically, are an artistic medium for storytelling. While many I think can understand that on a surface level, not many get how games differentiate themselves from other storytelling mediums, but also tend to neglect what games count as being able to not just tell stories through, but generate them.
Games as a medium are all about interaction. If there is no interaction, there isn't a game. This is foundational to what sets games apart from writing, filmmaking, and music in terms of storytelling, as the medium used to its fullest potential will allow a story to emerge through interaction. Sometimes this can be very heavy handed and forced as part of the game's structure. Most video and board games do this.
But, this story can also emerge entirely organically from the interactions the game's structure provides for. In video games, games like Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, or Wildermyth are exemplary of this kind of "storymaking", but less intuitive is that multiplayer games are engaging these same dynamics.
While a given round of Call of Duty or Rainbow Six Siege isn't necessarily the same kind of story as, say, the Catcher in the Rye or Interstellar (2014), it is a story, and one that for many is quite compelling, if not more so. Most gamers can probably recall a number of times where the experience of play was so memorable that it sticks with you; this was a story being made, and your remembrance of it is how the narrative of that story comes together.
But even more unintuitive, sports are some of the most prominent kinds of storymaking games we have. The 1932 World Series, culminating in that legendary call by Babe Ruth where he pointed to the stands and knocked the ball out of the park right where he said he was going to put it, wouldn't be the legend that it is if the game of baseball couldn't make stories. Babe Ruth doesn't have a curse named after him if he hadn't become something larger than life, and what are characters in a story, if not exactly that?
The Miracle on Ice was the culmination of a single, dominating hockey team in the Olympics being faced with just the right team to defeat them in a legendary upset; one can argue this story, this legend, was so compelling it went on, alongside Rocky as the protoype, to inspire every underdog sports movie ever made, from the Mighty Ducks to Invictus. Games, some say, are not art? Total excrement.
But now, coming back to Improv, we have to think of it in these terms. Is improv a game? Of course it is. Improv is nothing but interaction, and whether its a short comedic bit or a long, drawn out dramatic narrative, a story is being made in that interaction. All Games, of any type, are fundamentally story generators, and this is born out even when you isolate singular mechanics; there is no compelling mechanic that does not, through interaction with it, tell a story.
This aside is over now, but I do want to pose this question for you as you keep reading: If improv is a game, then surely, two different games can be combined?
Connecting the Dots
Now that we have all this primer stuff out of the way, lets connect the dots here. What makes RPGs an Improv Game?
I mentioned at the start that an easy shortcut to understanding it is by thinking of what RPGs fundamentally do. They present you an open-ended possibility space, and ask you "What do you do?" That interaction is where improv comes in, and there isn't an RPG that has ever existed that did not or does not do this.
But, this isn't terribly specific, and as I spoke to, there's an awful lot of skeptics out there. What I'll do, then, is link concepts together. Going off of the Blog I referenced earlier, we'll link each necessity for Narrative Improv to its equivalents in RPGs, and then I'm going to expound on why this matters, which will help to support these connections.
The Story Spine
The first step the blog identifies for Narrative Improv is what it calls the story spine. This is essentially meant to provide structure to the session, and ensure it doesn't strictly meander off without a satisfying, or at least obvious, conclusion. The author relates this in fairy tale terms, as wanting to have your "Once Upon a Time" to your "Happily Ever After", and everything inbetween.
Even though in recent times, particularly the past decade and a half or so, they have fallen out of favor, I do not think it is a coincidence the idea of a Module or Adventure Path became so ubiquitous in the hobby.
After all, the game fundamentally presents this open-ended possibility space, and while some activities within, like Combat, may have an obvious and intuitive beginning, middle, and end, the greater overall experience might not be so obvious. As has been said in the zeitgeist, most gamers aren't also actors or novelists. Hence, the idea of introducing a means of structuring a story into the experience becomes an obvious development, and lo and behold, we have Adventures we can play.
These APs and Modules are the effective equivalent of a Story Spine in the improv context. They do do more than a Story Spine would, often dictating a loose plot amongst other things, but mechanically they serve the same purpose. They give structure to what (could) otherwise be a completely open ended space, and thus not only lets the story begin, but also ensures it will have a clear conclusion.
Normalcy
The next key item is what the blog calls Normalcy. In a nutshell, the establishment of the who, what, whens, and where's of a story. As they relate in number 5, in improv this often has to come from rather clunkily introducing things as play progresses, and the ultimate point is that, even if has to be clunky, establishing these ideas is key to making the narrative work.
But what the blog doesn't talk about is that these details can also be established ahead of time, rather than directly in the improv. This is most often done through prompting, but depending on what you're going for, you can establish quite a lot ad hoc if you want to really focus the improv in a specific direction.
So where does the equivalent in RPGs for this come in? Easy! The Game itself, including, if it doesn't already have one, the Setting you introduce to it.
The setting of course contextualizes the game into a concrete reality, much like how narrative improv could set up props to use and even full on stage dressing, and the Game Rules provide structure to how interactions play out, most often focusing heavily on things that would be impractical or impossible to play out through improv (re: Combat), but as we've seen, you can also compact that out if one doesn't want the game to focus in on it. Likewise, plenty of examples of using Game Rules to govern the act of talking, despite the fact it comes naturally to most people and isn't at all impractical to do.
Some games, it must be said, don't need greatly elaborate rule systems. Some, like FKR, can do with nothing more than a simple conflict resolution system, and all others simply come in through Improv. Fiasco takes that a step farther, and pushes itself more towards being a conventional narrative improv game, rather than whats traditionally (or indie-ly, if we want to distinguish) considered an RPG.
The key here to remember, is that question I posed about the combination of two games. While necessity isn't really a thing in terms of whether or not a game should go with a "crunchy" rule system, it poses another question: if we can do minimalism, why not do it?
Identify the Protagonist
Our next key here is pretty straightforward, and its easy to see how the benefits translate over to RPGs. We're not merely identifying which humans we're calling the protagonists, we're identifying the goals of their characters, and this is the catalyst that brings a story out of the proceeding interactions as players try to achieve this goal.
This, ultimately, is why game mechanics even in their barest form tell stories. There's a goal, there's interaction, and theres a clear beginning, middle, and end to the interaction.
Something very key to note here though, that goes unstated in the blog, is that this identification also identifies what kind of protagonist we're dealing with, in essence, defining the genre of our story. We might recognize that a character's name is Bob, and that his goal is to rescue his sister, but its going to be a very different story between Swashbuckling Pirate Bob, Fanciful Shakespearean Bob, and Gritty Action Movie Bob. The How of the story, if you will.
This identification of genre is pretty important. Over in video game land, there was and still is a lot of discourse over the question of emergent narrative and how best to foster it, but at this point its more a question of engineering than of theoreticals. If you want a narrative to become emergent, you need these same elements that we identify in Narrative Improv. Goals, and a clear structure that tells us when it starts and when it ends.
While Video games pre-Holodeck spontaneous generation will, I think, always struggle with making something that is as fully emergent as improv allows for, we can see how such structures can be built. Ken Levine, of Bioshock fame, has a great GDC Talk on his take for this, which to toot my own horn, was an inspiration for me in my own design, where I adapted the ideas for that system into something very playable on tabletop.
But, that aside, what the identification of genre tells us, in relation to RPGs, is that these games can do quite a lot to establish genre, and if they can do that, they can also explore ideas related to narratives, and provide the means to foster them through interaction.
What is the thematic premise of a PBTA style game, if not precisely the same thing Improvisers do to guide and focus their narrative? Why do we instinctively know how to approach a dungeon crawling game, and why do we sometimes go wrong if a game breaks from our expectations? Makes you think...
Clear Consequences
Once upon a time, I used to get into overlong internet arguments over certain strain of video game RPGs, specifically The Elder Scrolls series and greater Bethesda gravity well, and the perceived de-RPGification of their games over time. One of the key points I always argued for why newer games, like Skyrim, Fallout, or Starfield had lost their roleplaying luster? The lack of consequences. Go figure.
The benefits of consequences, particularly in narrative improv, are pretty obvious in providing that narrative momentum to keep it moving forward, and prevent situations where things stall out, and nothing happens.
Now, I'd hope if you've read this far that me saying that hit you like a ton of bricks, and if it didn't, then I'll just point out that these two issues are an often contentious issue thats been reoccurring in RPG discourse for a very long time, and entire flavors of RPG have sprung up around avoiding them specifically. I have a few more examples of this phenomenon that we'll be taking about...right now!
Why This Matters
So, now that we've identified that RPGs and Narrative Improv are very close to each other, so much so that there's clear parallels, the question remains: Why does this matter? What does recognizing this do to help us design new games, or just have more enjoyable experiences with these games?
Well, as we saw with the issue of Consequences, that particular problem in Improv manifests in Roleplaying Games, almost identical in fact, to its original Improv context. But whats really important, is that the solutions we can employ in Improv to solve this problem, carry through to roleplaying games. And whats more, this isn't the only example of Improv Problems manifesting in RPGs, and many of them already have spiffy new names.
Railroading
Perhaps the single most ubiquitous and contentious one is that of railroading. While it can be alright if one approaches it with consent, as after all, who'd buy Modules if railroading was a universal negative, most often the railroad is unwelcome.
The line where a railroad becomes unwelcome is, quite simply, that of consent, informed consent in particular. But, what is the unwelcome railroad of improv?
As we've mentioned, narrative improv can establish things ahead of time to focus it towards a particular genre or story, and one could squint and see this as an equivalent. But that's only true if we, in turn, consider the presence of game rules a railroad in of itself; some people do, as it happens. But, there's consent to it, so we can't strictly say either is unwelcome.
Where the unwelcome railroad comes in in Improv, is whats referred to as Blocking. Blocking is best defined as the disruption of the improvisational flow, principally caused by the unilateral rejection of a player's input by another. If I introduce the idea that you're my dad, and you reject it saying you're not my dad, but a cop whose arresting me, this is blocking.
But, the key with Blocking is that it is contextual. If we're trying to be funny, that same interaction might not be blocking at all. If we've agreed ahead of time we want to explore the nature of police brutality on the mentally ill, we also wouldn't consider the rejection Blocking.
Likewise, if what we're doing is having a conversation, and I tell you to piss off, this isn't Blocking in of itself. The interaction has to continue, after all, and there's still context to it. If its been established that I'm sitting in a bar, and you stroll up asking about where to buy some drugs, of course I'm gonna tell you to get lost, you're a narc.
This doesn't mean you can't keep trying, and you should if I'm the only other person in the scene. If I continue to be obstinate with no shift in the narrarive, only then am I blocking.
Now, carrying these ideas back over to RPGs, we can understand how Game Rules and Setting are not blocking, nor, for that matter, is not getting what you want. But, as always, its contextual. Its one thing to end up on the undesirable end of a resolution mechanic, but its another entirely to be told you cannot go left when there's no established reason you can't. (Or worse yet, to be under an illusion that you had a choice in the first place, which is something thats actually unique to the improv dynamics of RPGs, which we'll also be talking about later on)
Since the late 80s, there's been a trend in RPGs where there's a desire to tell this long form epic narrative, and this can be identified as the general source of where this dynamic came from, as such clearly constructed narratives go quite a bit beyond the relatively innocuous nature of Modules or Adventure Paths, because its often imposed without the consent of all involved.
This basic issue of consent is pretty endemic to why railroads are bad, but also not bad. Consent is also pretty key to understanding why certain kinds of RPGs end up being so contentious.
There's a recurring refrain with PBTA style games, and others that followed out of the same design spaces, that you have to "get them" before you'll really enjoy them. It this because these games are some higher art form that only the enlightened will understand? Is it because they're so poorly designed that you'd have to trick yourself to get it?
I don't think so, in either case, even if overlong internet arguments can make it seem that way. I think it ultimately comes down to consent, because these particular kinds of RPGs, especially in the PBTA style, are enforcing a very specific railroad of thematic premise. It doesn't always produce a feeling of unwelcomeness, but its pretty normal to see how blocking manifests; its an expected part of these games to stop the game, disrupt the flow, and hash out how things work out, either in the narrative specifically or due to some mechanics issue, if not both. This is where the "Writer's Room" idea comes from, as this process often feels less like two improvisers smoothing over a hiccup and more like you're writing the scene.
Its quite unlike the plot railroad of more traditional games, but the effect is the same. If you aren't consenting, its going to feel unwelcome, and it can take a lot of effort to get to a point where you can have informed consent. Doesn't mean people can't just do it anyway, but it does mean accessibility is pretty low.
Why that is is a bit much to get into if we want to get analytical (particularly given this author doesn't beleive its an inherent problem, as not all examples have it), but I of course think it comes down to what this essay is talking about: these games are no better at recognizing whats at their core than traditional games are, despite doing a lot to incorporate improv solutions into their design, if unintentionally, and this impacts not just accessibility but enjoyment. The whole hobby is niche for a reason, after all, and I don't think its rooted in RPGs just being nerdy or geeky.
The Many Faces of Blocking
Now, the plot and thematic railroads are the most obvious ones we can point to in terms of how blocking manifests in RPGs. But there are quite a few more out there we can point to.
The Adventuring Day or the Martial/Caster Disparity of 5e DND, for example, are great examples of blocking coming from the game itself.
But less intuitive is that Players can actually Block their GMs, especially when the expectation was in fact set to follow a loose narrative, by refusing to let them participate and not differring to their direction. Shenanigans is of course innocuous in a vaccuum, but not if your group spends multiple sessions doing anything but engage the things the GM prepared for the group to play when that was supposed to be the point.
Another manifestation, also unintuitive, is that of Rule Zero; the humans blocking the Game itself by deleting rules and hacking it up.
Now, the thing about Blocking, is that it isn't fully negative. It isn't this terrible thing you're just not noticing. Much of the time, blocking is pretty invisible and doesn't impact the experience in any obvious way, and for some people, its manifestations just aren't associated with anything strictly bad.
A GM can be completely unphased by players who just screw around session after session, and the game of course has no choice but to suffer in silence, but it often still makes the issue known (as we see in DND when later editions start dismantling certain systems for no reason, like exploration, only for them to feel completely superflous). And of course, there's no shortage of people who continue to play 5e despite its myriad problems in this area.
The Unwelcome Extreme
Another good example we can point to of Improv problems in RPGs, is the unwelcome extreme. In Improv, this is when you push the scene so completely off the rails that it disrupts the flow; this isn't necessarily a matter of blocking, but it introduces the same disruptive effect.
That Guy is a pretty clear example that has become ubiquitous in the zeitgeist of the hobby. They don't necessarily block anyone elses input (though the varient Edgelords often do), but they are pretty clearly unwelcome in what they inject into the experience.
Another, coming from certain games, is the issue of HP Bloat, where the unwelcome extreme is in how a fight gets drawn out for no real benefit other than, may be, a perceived minimum amount of time spent that is already met. Sometimes this can be imposed unilaterally, as in its rooted in a weird hangup on part of the game designer, or perhaps the GM.
But it can also be imposed because the mechanical design of the game has reached a point where the amount of possible interactions would preclude full participation by all players. If a fight is over in just a few turns, what does that mean for the players more than a few turns away? Its a hard circle to square, but this handily segues into the next topic.
The Duality, and How we Might Make and Enjoy RPGs Better
Now, there's likely a question brewing by this point, that of how RPGs are improv games, when they do X,Y, or Z that is so utterly different from any given example of improv?
The answer here isn't complex. RPGs still are improv games; improv is the first and foremost mechanic after all. But they are also something else. We often see the distinction put as being both "RP" and "G", with roleplay as the bespoke implementation of improv dynamics, and the G as, well, everything else. What we would actually call "G" is kind of muddy, because over time Roleplaying Game as a descriptor has become so entrenched that its hard to use anything else.
What I would argue though is that the answer is that its a Playstyle Reinforcement game, combined with Improv. If you've been following along, I'd hope this just instantaneously clicked, but if not, lets recap:
1. Improv is a game
2. In order for Improv to work, players have to Interact with each other.
3. Improv must have Consequences, and must have Structure.
4. Game Rules are akin to pre-established Who, What, When, Where's, and even How's in Improv.
The Interaction between Players, Consequences, and the Players reactions is the answer here; this is a Gameplay Loop. Each Players individual Style is being reinforced by every other player and the emergent consequences of their collective choices. This loop is what produces the spontaneity that makes improv a compelling experience to engage in.
So, we already understand that this is how improv works, but where does "G" come into this?
Easy. The Game is a Player.
It's a wild thought, isn't it? But, think about it. What does the Game in RPGs do, if not provide Consequences? Well, they also React the same way Players do. Are the Moves of PBTA style games not reacting to the improvisations of tbe players?
Understanding this is the lynchpin of this entire essay. The Game is a participant in the Improv game, just as the GM and the (colloquial) Players are. The question this begets then, is what do we actually do with this information?
And that truly is the question. I personally have found that through this understanding I can actually get into pretty much any RPG I can get my hands on (short of ones that are just boring or rote anyway, but thats a separate issue), because now I pretty much cannot approach these games without informed consent of what I'm getting into.
I once said that Ironsworn and Fellowship were the only PBTA style games I could get into, and while its still true, as most of these games are just not what I'm particularly interested in, the reason why is because much more so than other games in this type, I could understand and consent to what they were doing. They align well with what I tend to most prefer narratively, and mechanically both games have fun toys.
Which, I'll say, is pretty key: the ability of the G to be inherently fun in of itself, even if stripped bare of any thematic premise. In other words, I can just play, and its fun, and I still get a story at the end as a kicker. This I think is important to understand not just why some people bounce off of those particular games, and why the critique that they "are not" games comes about, but also why recognizing the improv game is vital.
For one, these games still have it, and like all other instances of it, it is still as fun as ever. There's nothing about how these games work that makes improv not fun. As such, they are in fact games, because the improv game makes up a huge part of the experience. Almost all of it, as a matter of fact.
The G part of them, however, isn't always particularly compelling on its own, and this I think is a misstep in design. But this also goes in the other direction, for all its faults, the G of DND5e is fun and obviously compelling to millions of people, and yet, as we see when we go look at the criticisms of the game, the RP can be quite lacking for many. There's unfortunately many who are consider that half of the game so closed off that the instances of it that exists are labeled as bad things; DM Fiat in response to Improvised Actions, for example.
And it has to be said, these issues run so deep that there's a recurring idea that playing DND, or even RPGs in general, is something you don't learn from the book but by way of Oral Tradition, and this has been going on since Gygax and Arneson. For all the good things indie games have done to try and close the gap, that oral tradition persists into them. This isn't good, for while Improv ultimately has to be learned through experience, there's no reason a book can't get you started.
So, to bring this altogether, the key idea here is that recognizing the improv game can help us make better games; games that don't just recognize they're utilizing improv, but integrate properly with the reinforcement game that was constructed, and use both sides to their fullest potential. Games where all these common issues, whether we look at them as Improv problems or RPG problems, just never occur, and where the game can finally be approachable in a real, tangible way.
How that's done, is up to the would be designer. I personally have had a lot of ideas for how to approach this, and my game has been completely morphed by it. While unfinished, as the scope of the game is just quite vast given the genres I'm blending (epic fantasy + slice of life) and the depth I want Labyrinthian to support even more so, I've seen the ideas play out in real play, and they work.
I came up with a Tactical Improv system that, not only really makes you feel like you're in action movie, but integrates the depth of a Tactics game with the open-ended possibility space of Improv, entirely seamlessly, and this same blending is being carried through to other aspects of the game to bring it together as a unified whole, blending heavily systemic design, ala Immersive Sim video games, with improv.
But, I don't think my ideas are the only way, and admittedly much of the time my ideas are pretty specific to nature of my game, but even so, whats key is that I'm always approaching the game from a perspective of merging Improv with Systems, and ensuring they not only don't come into conflict with each other, but interact. In building my game I'm not just cobbling together what I think is cool, I'm building a Player that can go toe to toe with real life humans in an improv game.
It also goes deeper than that though, and there's a wide world of things yet to discuss here, because after all, there are two other participants here besides the game itself, the GM and the Players, and designing for them is just as important. Developing real gameplay for the GM in particular has been a pretty pressing revelation I've been exploring with my own designs, particularly due to the traditional nature of them as either dictating tyrant, benevolent or otherwise, or mere facilitator and referree, neither of which, in this author's opinion, is truly ideal.
Conclusion
In recognizing that roleplaying games are fundamentally improvisational games, we open the door to a deeper understanding and appreciation of both mediums. This realization underscores the importance of interaction, spontaneity, and collaborative storytelling inherent in RPGs. By viewing the game itself as an active participant—a player in the improvisational dynamic—we can design and engage with RPGs in ways that enhance both the gaming experience and the emergent narratives they produce.
Understanding the improvisational core of RPGs allows players to navigate common pitfalls with greater awareness, and lets us develop not just games that prevent them outright, but empowers players to work through it when it still happens. It emphasizes the need for consent, clear communication, and mutual support in creating a cohesive and enjoyable story. In doing so, we craft game systems that not only coexist with improvisation but actively facilitate it, leading to more accessible and fulfilling games.
Ultimately, embracing the improvisational nature of RPGs demystifies the art of roleplaying, making it more approachable for newcomers and enriching for veterans. It reminds us that improvisation is not an esoteric skill reserved for performers but a natural form of play inherent in all of us. All it takes is an environment that fosters that spontaneity and creativity, and games can, in fact, provide thst space, but only if we know what we're playing with.
As Viola Spolin eloquently put it:
Embracing RPGs as improv games invites us all to participate more fully, play more joyfully, and create, not just tell, stories that resonate long after the game is over.
