Quote from: BedrockBrendan;968610I do agree plenty modern RPGs games borrow from Story Games. But that sounds a lot like the TORG drama deck (which came out ages before story games)

Looked it up to be sure. It was these.

If by storygames you're referring to things like Microscope and The Quiet Year, I think collaborative world-building is a thing that can be adopted by traditional RPGs to good effect.

Since the distinction is so hazy as to be near meaningless, I would wager the answer is probably yes.

If you count Fate as a storygame, I'd say I like adding its consequence regime to Mutants & Mastermind.

Quote from: John Scott;968583There's a trend lately some rpgs borrow ideas from board games with abstract game mechanics. Then again I might not understand the question. Can you define storygame and traditional?

That is not new. RuinsWorld and moreso Dragon Storm merged an RPG with a CCG. DiceMaster tried it with dice. But it lacked any real RPG element.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;968610I do agree plenty modern RPGs games borrow from Story Games. But that sounds a lot like the TORG drama deck (which came out ages before story games)

Think Lace & Steel had a similar approach with some sort of tarot-style deck in 89 Around the same time as TORG. So definitely not a new concept.

Quote from: Itachi;968616If by storygames you're referring to things like Microscope and The Quiet Year, I think collaborative world-building is a thing that can be adopted by traditional RPGs to good effect.

We used to call it sandbox RPing...  :cool:

Quote from: Omega;968620Think Lace & Steel had a similar approach with some sort of tarot-style deck in 89 Around the same time as TORG. So definitely not a new concept.

I had Lace and Steel. You could use a Tarot deck for character generation, but it wasn't like TORG where it was used in-play to add story elements. There was also custom deck of cards that came with the game, but it was used for resolving duels.

Quote from: Itachi;968616If by storygames you're referring to things like Microscope and The Quiet Year, I think collaborative world-building is a thing that can be adopted by traditional RPGs to good effect.

I've heard this term, but have never experienced collaborative world-building. Could you give me an idea how it works?

I found the various generation tables used in Fiasco quite useful for creating structured story ideas. Games like My Life With Master make for interesting reads, if you want to draw out some good themes in a scenario too. Microscope, honestly, I couldn't really find much use for ultimately.

In "The Mountain Witch", an indie RPG about a group of masterless ronin who have been hired by the central government to climb Mt Fuji and kill the Sorcerer living at the top, character generation is simple, you list a few "aspects" of your ronin ("Archery/Unarmed/Etiquette/etc"), and then based on a random draw you have a Trust rating for all the other ronin. Conflict resolution is based on highest player's d6 roll, with Trust allowing adding d6s or taking the highest. The winner of the conflict gets to narrate the basic outcome, so it starts with a bit of sharing the GM responsibilities.

The cool thing is that you also draw a "Dark Fate" at character creation, unique to each characters (out of a pool of quite a few). These often will be things like "Agent of the Sorcerer" or "Fated to Betray the Party". Players who invoke their dark fate can "take over" for the GM, adding world elements or other things into play. The GM then has to incorporate these things on-the-fly into the game. Players can even leverage certain mechanics (Trust, Dark Secret narration) _after_ their character has died!

Here is a good review of the game: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12162.phtml

I've GM'd a 2 session game, and it worked out pretty well. Very new idea to some of the folks who had only had previous D&D experience.

I would also recommend "Keys" from The Shadow Of Yesterday. Not the _exact_ implementation, but as a way to make things that are important to the player/character jump out at the GM.

http://files.crngames.com/cc/tsoy/book1--rulebook.html#keys

QuoteKeys
Keys are the primary method of increasing a character's abilities in The Shadow of Yesterday. These are goals, emotional ties, or vows a character has. By bringing these into the story, the player gains experience points (XP) he can use to advance the character, increasing pools and abilities, or learning new Secrets and Keys.

Again, an example will illustrate this better:

Example
Key of Conscience: Your character has a soft spot for those weaker than their opponents. Gain 1 XP every time your character helps someone who cannot help themselves. Gain 2 XP every time your character defends someone with might who is in danger and cannot save themselves. Gain 5 XP every time your character takes someone in an unfortunate situation and changes their life to where they can help themselves.
Buyoff: Ignore a request for help.

The Buyoff shown above is a special bit about Keys. Whenever a player has a character perform the action shown in one of the Buyoffs, the player can (this is not mandatory) erase the Key and gain 10 XP.

Unlike abilities and Secrets, the number of Keys a character can have is limited. A character can have no more than five Keys at one time.
...

Keys

Keys are the motivations, problems, connections, duties, and loyalties that pull on your character. To the player, they're highly important because they generate experience points. Creating new Keys may be easier than new Abilities or Secrets - they follow very simple rules.

A Key must involve a motivation, problem, connection, duty, or loyalty.
Keys come in two types:
Motivations. When the motivation is fulfilled in play, gain an experience point. When the motivation is fulfilled against good odds, gain three experience points.
Everything else. When the Key comes up in play, gain an experience point. When the Key presents a minor problem, gain two experience points. When it presents a major problem, gain five experience points.

All Keys have a Buyoff, which is a reversal from the Key by the character. All Buyoffs give the character 10 experience points. This Buyoff occurs only when you, the player, wants it to happen: you can lose a battle with the Secret of Bloodlust and still keep the Secret. If you want your character to undergo a change in his personality, though, adding to the story, you can take this Buyoff by fulfilling it. If you do take the Buyoff, you can never take this Key again.
As always, see the pre-made Keys to get a feel for creating your own.
Example Keys: http://files.crngames.com/cc/tsoy/book1--rulebook.html#open-keys

Here's a blog post about using Keys as FATE Milestones: https://rpgtweaks.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/tsoys-keys-into-fate-milestones/

Oh, and for me, games like Fate or Apocalypse World are not story games any more than any other RPG, really. They make some noise towards collaborative storytelling (which is fine), but ultimately players just narrate their character actions to a referee, with some dice/card/chip mechanism to neutrally resolve conflict - same as in any other RPG. At least in things like Fiasco, there is some material difference in approach.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;968617Since the distinction is so hazy as to be near meaningless, I would wager the answer is probably yes.

If you count Fate as a storygame, I'd say I like adding its consequence regime to Mutants & Mastermind.

What's the consequences regime?

Quote from: cranebump;968607I think today's RPG's already borrow a lot of aspects of storygames, some of may take the form of options or add ons. For example, I've used "story cards" (I think that was what they were called), that allowed players to play them to throw in a plot twist. I was a normal deck, and you could choose from the plot element (several were listed), or take a bonus to a skill roll. As it was created for d20, I think it must have been a Paizo product.

5E makes use of various personality traits, ideals and bonds, which, while not a mechanical element necessarily, do drive the adventure from a story standpoint.

yeah paizo plot twist deck. It's awesome (well, I like the twists themselves, as opposed to the mechanical bonuses)

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;968589It's tough but if I were to choose a definition, I'd go with the notion that many of them have mechanics that force your point of view out of your character, or require/empower you to take on some GM functions.

The thing with some of these games is that sometimes they have other mechanical bits that are interesting but don't have that side effect.

Milestones sounds like a good one, RunningLaser. Can you speak more about HQ's keywords?

Rpg's with narrative driven mechanics. Things can happen but you don't have to explain why following strict rules, just guidelines and usually an agreement between players and the game master as long as the action in question promotes the story or makes sense for the character etc.

Systems that empower players with various mechanics have sometimes interesting ideas, but at the same time ruin the whole concept of rpg which is at least to me unlimited options. You are "trapped" in said mechanics trying constantly to exploit the system, that is something that resembles board games.  

Honestly I can't think of a single thing that I find useful, maybe the collaborative world building idea, maybe.

Quote from: Nexus;968640What's the consequences regime?

Basically, if you are targeted by an attack and are out of "stress" (the more ephermeral/short term "hit points"), you would be taken out unless you take a consequence.

A consequence is a persistent complication, how persistent depends on how much damage you soaked up with it. -2 is a mild consequence good until the end of the session. -4 (moderate) and -6 (severe) take progressively longer to fix and usually require some sort of in-game intervention.

Mutants & Masterminds has "complications" which are drawbacks that you design into the character like "weak to kryptonite" or "becomes enraged". Consequences would be a way to tack on complications that are more temporary like "Iron man's boot jets out".