Expanding John Kim's Article: Where is RPG Design Headed, Today?

[Ruggs]

In his A Brief History of Fashion in RPG Design, John Kim suggests that game design is less modeled after evolution in some ways than it is a series of related artistic movements. That is, one often develops in response to another. Or, in his own words: "where there are trends which may die out, or classic fashions which may revive."

In his essay, he outlined nine major movements within RPG design:

1975-1980: Explorational Wargames
D&D, Melee, et al.

1978-1988: Literary Simplicity
Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, et al.

1980-1988: Rules-Heavy Worlds
RoleMaster, HârnMaster, et al.

1984-1993: Comical Rules-Lite
Toon, Marvel Superheroes, et al.

1986-Present: Universal Problem-Solving
GURPS and its imitators.

1987-Present: Fast Cinematic Action
Star Wars, Feng Shui, et al.

1991-Present: Dark Storytelling
Vampire: The Masquerade, et al.

1991-Present: Diceless Fantasy
Amber Diceless, Everway, et al.

2000-Present: Crunchy Challenge
D&D3 / D20, Rune, et al.

...however, the article stops at 2000 (or 2004, when it was published). It's now 2014.

In your own thoughts, where are we today, and where are we headed?

[thejeff]

2005(ish)-Present: Narrative mechanics
Dogs in the Vineyard and some of the other Forge games.

Only thing I can think of offhand that doesn't fall into one of the previous movements.

4e fits into Crunchy Challenge even more than 3.x does.

The Old School revival is probably the main current movement other than that, but I'm not sure how that fits in.

Kind of odd that there isn't really any place in the schema for AD&D(either edition) after 1980, though it really dominated the scene for at least another decade.

[Pan]

My hopes for where we are headed is modular design. I would like to see systems designed as tool kits that help the GM and players shape the game they want to play. (Without needing to be rules lite or a crunch-tastic nightmare of course.)

[Ruggs]

thejeff wrote:

2005(ish)-Present: Narrative mechanics

Dogs in the Vineyard and some of the other Forge games.

I think you have a point, here. Also, I believe he addresses DnD more indepth in the article, itself.

[yellowdingo]

The future is self build

[Matt Thomason]

I believe someone will have the idea of putting an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters, generating an endless pile of RPGs - somewhere in that pile is bound to be the one *you* want.

[yellowdingo]

Matt Thomason wrote:

I believe someone will have the idea of putting an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters, generating an endless pile of RPGs - somewhere in that pile is bound to be the one *you* want.

Thats the basic 'words are just twenty-six base numbers' idea that means there is a version of windows out there that was written by you concept. All you need is a huge hdd with pdf game manuals consisting of every possible letter combination and a very awesome spell checker to thin the product.