What's the term for these type of RPGs?

[Ruin Explorer]

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?

Mostly I'd say "small experimental games" for these, but there is a sort of subset where the win condition thing is quite a major part, when it's generally absent from other indie and mainstream RPGs, and that honestly strikes me as something different and worthy of a name.

There's a guy on Twitter - NOT Grant Howitt, who writes very small but normal RPGs as 1-pagers - who does 1-page RPGs, but they're all basically win/lose focused and don't innately require any role-playing, nor, to my mind, really encourage you to RP much, and I think that's quite representative of a subset of these. Like basically it's just rolling some dice to see if you win, but you have few choices, if any, and your roleplaying is post-facto - i.e. you roll the dice as the game demands, and you could RP out what happened, but the roll isn't really happening because of your choice.

If the game doesn't have contested propositions in the traditional sense, my general term for them is "story games".

I don't think that's really generally right, because some of these have stronger win/lose-type stuff than "normal" RPGs.

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".

I've actually see several go the opposite way, and not just end up at "normal RPG", but blow past that and basically end in "almost a board game".

 

[GMMichael]

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

Tabletop role-playing game.

But that term also applies to discursive role-playing games, which left the tabletop a long time ago.

 

[Faolyn]

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).

I've never actually played those games, so I can't compare. Maybe it's a percentage thing. Arcane Academia was entirely mini-games, and Another Face in the Crowd was one directed experience, with RP around them, whereas other games are more RP with mini-games around them.

With combat being a sort of... "accepted mini-game," maybe, because it's been a part of RPGs for so long it's just expected to be there.

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.

I mean, you're playing a role... but I understand. I definitely have a hard time putting solo journaling in the same headspace as I would D&D or Fate or a PbtA game. I need that group experience.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

Heh, yeah. Most of the games I've looked at thus far are meant to go on for multiple sessions, but I have a hard time imagining my group wanting to try for a campaign.

It's probably the mini-games and board game-like aspects, which I imagine can be very repetitive. It would need to be a lot more open for different activities to be replayable.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I've encountered fan-run organized play groups which refer to games resembling Arcane Academia as "storytelling games." The category includes games whose main focus is free-form roleplaying and/or world-building based on story prompts and few, if any, rules. I imagine those groups would place journaling games into a "solo storytelling games" subcategory.

I haven't encountered a consistent name for the other games mentioned in the OP (the ones which occupy a space between somewhere between board games and traditional TTRPGs).

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

With combat being a sort of... "accepted mini-game," maybe, because it's been a part of RPGs for so long it's just expected to be there.

True that. I can remember 1970s wargamers sincerely arguing that roleplaying games were just miniatures rule sets with a bunch of odd chrome bolted on, based on D&D's Chainmail roots.

I mean, you're playing a role... but I understand. I definitely have a hard time putting solo journaling in the same headspace as I would D&D or Fate or a PbtA game. I need that group experience.

Ditto. I can play a role solo, sure, but who am I playing it for? Roleplaying's inherently performative to me, I at least want fellow "cast members" around or it feel hollow. I know it doesn't bother some folks at all, but I just can't get past it.

I imagine those groups would place journaling games into a "solo storytelling games" subcategory.

That's a really good take.

I haven't encountered a consistent name for the other games mentioned in the OP (the ones which occupy a space between somewhere between board games and traditional TTRPGs).

And then you've got the stuff that comes at it from the other side, board games like Descent where there's so many elements from traditional roleplaying that the experience feels so close that all you need to do is identify with your character a bit and the line fades away. And that's not new, SPI's ancient Swords & Sorcery game was a fantasy hex-and-counter wargame that also had rules for generating characters to go on quests with NPC leaders from the army game, either as their own scenarios or integrated with the strategic maneuverings. "Dungeoncrawls" doesn't begin to cover everything along those lines, but they're sure not trad roleplay either. Hard to affix labels and draw lines with some of this stuff.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Hard to affix labels and draw lines with some of this stuff.

In a way, that's good as it allows lots of room for creative ideas and experimentation.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

In a way, that's good as it allows lots of room for creative ideas and experimentation.

Agreed. Makes it a little more difficult to be sure everyone in a discussion is talking about the same things, though.

But lots of gaming terms are subjective. My "rules-light" probably does not look much someone who hasn't been playing for almost half a century, and very few things actually seem "high-crunch" to me after a childhood of stuff like FGU's Space Opera.

 

[Faolyn]

In a way, that's good as it allows lots of room for creative ideas and experimentation.

True.

I mostly wanted labels so when I do my reviews, I can say "this game is a <insert game type>."

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I mostly wanted labels so when I do my reviews, I can say "this game is a <insert game type>."

I can see the need. As Lovecraft taught us, you can only use the term "utterly indescribable" just so many times before people start to notice, especially if you then go on to describe the thing in question.