What's the term for these type of RPGs?

[Faolyn]

I've bought a bunch of charity RPGs bundles on Itch.io and have finally organized the games I've downloaded neatly into folders--and am now facing the daunting task of actually reading all thousand+ games. In order to make myself do it, I'm writing short reviews for my group's discord, on the grounds that hey, we might want to play them one day. My reviews aren't "professional quality," but at least they convey what the game is about and how to play it.

A lot of the RPGs I got are, IMO, somewhere between what I would consider a typical TTRPG and a board game. There's a fairly narrow purpose and win condition and while there's room for RP within those confines, there's very little to support it outside of them. For instance, I was just looking at one game called Another Face in the Crowd, a cyberpunk game wherein you have to perform a certain number of actions before the BBEG progresses a certain number of steps on a track. This feels very board-gamey, but you're also supposed to RP the actions you take.

Another game I got was called Arcane Academia--why yes, I am sorting through these games in alphabetical order--which is a "student at a magic boarding school" game. It consists of a series of mini-games, each one representing a class you take or something like mealtimes. Things like "write down your favorite quotes or lyrics or poem on a card, and describe the spell this created based on what you wrote down and the way you recited it" or "open up a real book, pick a specific passage, create a Rumor based on it, and then turn it into a worldbuilding element." This feels like a solo journaling game, except there's a GM, multiple players, and something akin to leveling up.

So, what's the name for games like these?

 

[Autumnal]

Narrativist. Or postmodern D&D - same thing.

Now I must flee before the mods catch me.

(And I actually will be interested to see if you get a good name for the category .)

 

[Fenris-77]

I'd probably just call them indie games. That seems to cover most of those small, creative and experimental games. Mostly they aren't my cup of tea, but sometimes there's some gold in the pan. I think they're an important way for people to be creative and express themselves via design in the hobby they love and its ok if there isn't a wide audience for some of those efforts.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

If there's a widely accepted term I've never heard it.

If I had to shove them into categories at all, the first might be "hybrid RPG" in the sense that significant chunks of the mechanics and gameplay integrate elements more associated with board/card/wargame designs. The problem there is where you draw the line, given that many RPG combat systems can be (and are, quite often) their own separate game, eg Traveller's Mayday, Dragonquest's Arena of Blood, TFT's Melee/Wizard, etc. Still be handy for something like classic Car Wars (which can certainly be used as to roleplay) or perhaps even Lancer (which has a rather large gameplay time imbalance between roleplay out of the mechs and playing a combat board game while in them).

The second category sounds like "co-op" or "collaborative journaling" would be right. I'm not 100% convinced solo journaling is even RP (as opposed to a creative writing exercise with a lot of prompts) in the first place, but making it a group activity with interaction and a GM feels more like an RPG to me. Admittedly I'm biased when it comes to solo play here - there are also a lot of CRPGs that don't seem to provide any kind of real RP experience to me despite their categorization, for ex. Emulating a group RPG's playstyle and mechanics without the group interactivity doesn't automatically make something an roleplaying game to me.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I'd probably just call them indie games. That seems to cover most of those small, creative and experimental games. Mostly they aren't my cup of tea, but sometimes there's some gold in the pan. I think they're an important way for people to be creative and express themselves via design in the hobby they love and its ok if there isn't a wide audience for some of those efforts.

I like this. Covers a lot of non-traditional type play and doesn't get into the weeds on mechanics or debates over subcategories. That's kind of how indie rock or alternative rock ended up being categories.

 

[GrimCo]

Oneshot wonders

They are usually wonderfull for one shoots to mix things up a bit now and then, but aren't really that great for long campaigns.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Oneshot wonders

They are usually wonderfull for one shoots to mix things up a bit now and then, but aren't really that great for long campaigns.

Fits, but might be a little broad for the OP. I can think of some older games that arguably fit that category too, eg Paranoia, TOON, Hol, Tales From the Floating Vagabond. Good for a break but not something I'd want to play week after week.

I'd probably just call them indie games. That seems to cover most of those small, creative and experimental games. Mostly they aren't my cup of tea, but sometimes there's some gold in the pan. I think they're an important way for people to be creative and express themselves via design in the hobby they love and its ok if there isn't a wide audience for some of those efforts.

That fits too, and I agree they certainly have some gems and open up a lot of space for innovation, but "indie" (both here and in music) is more subjective than descriptive. To paraphrase from the old porn ruling, I can't tell you what indie is, but I know it when I see it, if that makes sense?

 

[payn]

Im not sure how to separate these. They dont sound much different than D&D to me. Mark me as another for the "indie" game tag.

 

[Composer99]

I'd agree with either "indie" or "experimental".

 

[Celebrim]

So, what's the name for games like these?

If the game doesn't have contested propositions in the traditional sense, my general term for them is "story games". Basically you can tell a story game because the typical play loop doesn't involve rolling dice but talking things out. Alot of these can be recognized by the fact that if they have fortune at all they have fortune at the beginning where a fortune determines the outcome of the scene and you play out what has been decreed imaginatively. Amber Diceless in my opinion is a story game, for example.

If they go much further into unstructured play than that in that they have no real way to determine a winner or loser (except maybe by an Apples to Apples style vote) and you play just for the joy of roleplaying, then I tend to think of them as "theater games". Think of the sort of games they play on "Whose Line is it Anyway". Those are theater games.

If on the other hand they go the other way and you do have a traditional RPG proposition->fortune->outcome loops but they aren't open ended and aren't free form then I tend to agree with the consensus that they are "indy games" as they aren't really likely to have any particular mechanism in common, but are usually joined by the philosophy that a good game should do one thing and one thing only and deliver on that experience. Some story games are indy games, and some indy games are story games, but there isn't any required connection between the two.