Evolution of RPGs

And no, not the computer game kind. The tabletop versions. (Except not really, either. See why below.)

Honestly, this is a trumped up post in order to introduce a new flavor of hilarity I just discovered, known as "Action Castle."

Basically, think old text adventure game with crappy parser, played aloud with a GM as the computer narrator/parser and as many as 2-50+ players taking turns to do stuff.

It had a little time in the gaming spotlight when some guy caught the Penny Arcade fellows at a Q&A by surprise - though you can barely hear anything over the laughter of the audience. This was a slightly more organised PAX group that lined up to take turns.

I found it via casual browsing at RPGNow, which was being browsed not-so-casually and with some purpose because this weekend celebrates GM Day - a good excuse to slash prices off 25%. Not a major discount, but still a discount, which implied start browsing for cheap stuff that I might like, and/or one or two rare expensive stuff that I might not find for a long time at a discount.

Action Castle was 99 cents. Which seemed amusing enough to pick it up to flip through the few pages to see how it was supposed to be run and add it to my digital RPG collection. Now I don't have much hope of actually playing it, since this RPG is decidedly on the opposite end of the scale of RPG evolution. That is, social and meant for large groups, sort of party game-y or live action. (Of which, this Expedition with Mr Mirrors (in the same setting as Echo Bazaar's Fallen London seems to be the same sort.))

The kind of game that I've been playing (or want to keep playing) is on the other end. The solo - as in really one person solo - game. And maybe the duo eventually. And that's taken off too on the internet. Or at least folks have started to congregate on forums and talk about it and gather in an interest group for it (kinda ironic when you think about it, but basically people are sharing rules and variations and tweaks and then going off and having their own personal structured/random fun in their own worlds which may only interest them.)

To the point where others start to question the "fun-ness" value of it and indulge in the cheapshot version of "lol, you're on the internet, it's easy to find a game group"... Some interesting parallels with solo and group MMO play and their proponents could be made here.

Turns out there are board game solo variants too. And gamebooks are experiencing a new resurgence, especially with iPad Apps leading the way. Hell, the best news I've had in ages: say these with me now, Dragon Warriors and Fabled Lands.

Dragon Warriors is a set of books by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson. Yes, they of Blood Sword fame. They apparently wrote books about the Lands of Legend - which went out of print years ago, which I painstakingly downloaded and bittorrented over and over from the Underdogs (when it still existed) and other bittorrent sites. Then they went into print again, or rather in new revised pdf form. I rabidly pick them up because I want the authors to write more More MORE about the world which had a special place in my heart even before Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms.

Fabled Lands is by Dave Morris and Jamie Thompson. Now I have no idea if this Dave Morris is the same as the previous one (because there is apparently a UK and a US one, both of which wrote a number of gamebooks). I've never played their series of gamebooks before, but they were apparently revolutionary in terms of allowing one to explore an entire world. Solitaire. I picked up the Fabled Lands HD app and played it today on the iPad, and it is pretty fun. Too bad only one book is done.

If one cannot wait though, there is a lower tech, more true to the original text Fabled Lands App that runs right on your PC, and it is FREE. It looks pretty awesome too. Done with the blessings of the authors.

So yeah, solo to large group RPGs... they exist. And what a long way they've come. Let there be more ahead.

Also, for the ultimate in weird shit RPGs, indie RPGs toy with the craziest narratives and resolution systems ever. Just google.