I’ve cleared away much of the recent rambling about design options. The comments received here and elsewhere have been useful in getting me to review lots of options.
The practical upshot of this is acceptance that it’s time to change course, as the tabletop RPG industry is not the place to make significant progress on reducing dependency on fixed narratives.
I’m planning on developing a solo game and a few other fiction projects. I’ll put what I’ve done of the Spinechillers and Silent Killers content into lists without commentary and stick them on DriveThru at some stage.
Will be interesting to see where this leads, to see what an
“un-fixed” narrative might look like if an impromptu rilegame
doesn’t fit the definition. Shall have to follow this blog more
closely.
Few RPGs get as fixed narrative as sitting down to watch a soap -
but RPGs moved so far from the original ‘making stuff up’ gameplay
that it’s a long way back. There are many players for whom player
choice, player skill, even coming up with something out of the blue
have never been part of their gameplay. Providing a bunch of
co-design resources for the few or the new makes sense – but
doesn’t get at how to encourage an interest in less spoon-feeding
in the first place. Concentrating on solo for a while also fits the
experimental bill, as it’s never really gone much beyond Fighting
Fantasy and Lone Wolf, despite a few attempts. Mythic or Treasure
in their own ways I suppose. And, I get to put a foot back in my
own world. The RPG industry has me as an outsider who is either
rocking the boat or inexplicable – some openly say so – and
sharing, linking, posting press releases, newsletter links and blog
posts in RPG media are all locked down. The wider publishing
industry has been more helpful in the past and may be again
Tabletop RPG content isn’t disappearing or anything. I’ve already
done 90% of the Spinechillers content and as Treasure already plays
solo and team it might have something to do with what’s planned.