Is it an RPG?

[Onix]

I have two card games that I've been playing with friends. One is a murder mystery game, one is a Shark Tank like game with crazy inventions. They are not traditional RPGs in any sense. That's not what I'd like to talk about. What I would like to explore is how they act like an RPG in many respects. I think this is fruitful ground, because I play them with dozens of people that wouldn't sit down for a traditional RPG.

Both games start out with the player imagining themselves in a position they aren't literally in. There's a transformation that happens as they play though. Even though they have no character sheet, they develop a persona and finally a character in their own mind that they maintain through the rest of the hand. Funny voices and acting included.

The basic mechanic that I use is a set of cards with "facts" on them. Each player gets a card and has to figure out how they can make a sense out of them. In my murder mystery game, all the players (but one) are suspects in an investigation. Everyone tries to build an alibi based on their facts. This gets complicated because everyone is telling one story about things that revolve around a single event. This is a complex process that a lot of story telling games spend a lot of effort to try and create, but with three cards, I've got people doing it spontaneously. I admit to stumbling on this effect, I had no idea if it would work so I'm not claiming any genius here. I'm just happy my leap of faith in the mechanism worked.

What surprised me was in my invention pitching game, which does not require players to build a collaborative story, many players start building a persona that they use through the game and sometimes will adopt that same persona across games. No character sheet required, no specific mention of a persistent world required.

When shaken out, the murder mystery game is one where players take on a role of a fictionalized self and tell a collaborative story.

The invention game is one where players take on the role of a fictionalized self and tell specific stories. They sometimes spread that persona into a persistent world.

Are they RPGs? What other games do you know of that do similar things? I particularly want to know because there might be something in this to build on.

I think the key in both games is that players are often given what would seem to be self contradictory information. Most players react with disbelief at first that they could sort out the apparent contradictions but quickly learn to do so. A lot of the motivation is the ensuing comedy that results. It signals the players that it's ok to be ridiculous and that loosens up their imagination. I've been trying to think of ways to make a more serious game using a similar mechanism but I haven't come up with anything yet.

[Evil Scientist]

[Onix]

I agree, but what would push them into the realm of an RPG. Would an explicitly persistent world change your evaluation?

[Evil Scientist]

I think so, yes! It would definitely push the scale to the "yiss, RPG!" side.

[Onix]

Ok, I don't know how to do that yet, but I'll ruminate on it. Any suggestions?

[Evil Scientist]

In an RPG, the setting is persistent in the minds of the players and the GM, I think, they remember it and they want to "pick it up where they left off"... While in boardgames the game is "reset" each time you play. So if you create a boardgame where results from playthrough 1 carry over to playthrough 2, that can be considered a persistent gameworld?..

This can be something as simple as putting a paper in the box when you putting the game away with some notes on what was "changed" in comparison to day zero (e.g. the state you bought the game in).

For example, in a variant Monopoly, where players can set fire to properties, you might note that Boardwalk cannot be purchased any more, because it was burnt down by Jimmy in game session #3

Jokes aside, I can totally imagine a boardgame where the content of the game box changes after each playthrough. And this also gives life to many variants of the same game. You can play the game from Andrew's box, which has the dragon but no skeleton lord, but you can play the game box owned by Jenny, which has a super powerful skeleton lord, but the dragon was slain in game 1 by a lucky shot.



Would this be close to a RPG? Probably not... it still depends on what is exactly going on in the game; and is there any inherent freedom of actions. But it could be a fun experiment

[Onix]

There is a version of Risk that does this. I've never played it but always wanted to. You put stickers on the game board to signify the lasting changes.

[kylesgames]

I'd argue it's not so much about the world being persistent so much as players taking on the role of actors with agency.

Of course, it's hard to do this without a fleshed out, responsive world, but it is possible otherwise.

Of course, I'm somewhat flexible with my definition of RPG, where I know a lot of people are more purist with regards to terminology.

[Evil Scientist]

[Onix]