A post over on LivingDice.com caught my eye. In it, Trask (who’s stuff I enjoy reading), laments:
Most RPGs seem designed for 19-year-old students. This is not a scree about content or relative “maturity” of the game material, but an observation about the underlying assumptions of the designer.
to which I have to reply: I could not disagree more. Most RPGs aren’t made for students; it’s just that many mainstream RPGs produced by large publishers (e.g., WotC, White Wolf, etc.) give this impression. There is a huge selection of independent and small-press RPGs available that fit the busy, hectic lives of adults.
Take a look what Indie Press Revolution has to offer and you’ll find the vast majority of the games are designed for:
- Little to no preparation
- Adult players
- Self-contained, single session or short-term (~3-10 sessions) campaign play
- Mechanically elegant, easy to learn systems.
- Low player requirement (most work best with 4 or fewer players).
Best yet, they cover almost every conceivable genre possible.
Some of my top picks (and this is just the tip of the iceberg) would be:
- Primetime Adventures
- Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies
- Houses of the Blooded
- 3:16 – Carnage Amongst the Stars
- Mouse Guard
- Spirit of the Century
- Donjon
- Don’t Rest Your Head
- InSpectres
- Wilderness of Mirrors
- Mountain Witch
- Grey Ranks
- Dirty Secrets
- Ninja Burger
- Zorcerer of Zo
- Breaking the Ice & Shooting the Moon
- My Life with Master
- In a Wicked Age
- Dogs in the Vineyard
- Serial Homicide
- The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries
- Sea Dracula
- Shock
- Octane
- Mortal Coil
There, that ought to get anyone started – choose one or a couple (some sell for under $10 for the pdf).
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That is a solid list.
Blooded might be a little less pick up and play than the rest but a solid list.
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@Judd – I’d agree that Houses of the Blooded needs some prep (or at least forethought), but it’s so damn cheap ($5 for pdf is a steal) and definitely in the “adult” category for style and content.
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I have trouble with games being defined as “adult”. Is that due to curse words? Porn? Sophistication? Realism?
I think many kids movies are far more “mature” that movies that are rated R.
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In response to Tom’s response. I think there are many good reasons for a game to be defined as “adult” or “mature”. First of all, it’s good practice to let customers know up-front what they are getting. If a book contains anatomically correct nudity or extreme violence in its artwork for example, or if the subject matter touches base on what the majority would see as complex and sensitive social issues. I tend to think of “ratings” not as a medium of censorship, but rather as a marketing tool that can be used to say, “Hey, the publisher intends this game to be targeted towards (X) audience.” It’s up to the reader/player to decide if they correctly ascertained the context of the content.
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Thank you for the list!
Trask
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Nice list. Where is Savage Worlds? Most of the 30-something and 40-something and beyond, professional adults I’ve dealt with have fallen in love with the low prep not to mention the Fast! Furious! Fun! aspects of Savage Worlds.
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You’re right, Savage Worlds is indeed a candidate.
I didn’t include it on my list for a few reasons:
A) It not “adult” at all in content or style (though the games you play could be) – it’s very PG.
B) It’s not really set up for short-term play: You can play a one-shot of the game, but it’s improvement system is designed for characters to long-term play.
C) I personally find Savage Worlds so generic that it’s virtually flavorless for me. I realize some would view that as a strength but for me it’s very uninspiring. I want to like the game (really!) but every game I’ve run of it ends up boring me after just a couple sessions.
D) That same lack of setting and flavor makes it hard to use as a pick-up & play game unless you’ve got a GM who’s ready to create the situation on the fly.
All that said, Savage Worlds does deserve consideration if you want a simpler, less stat-line intensive generic game system to run.
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In addition to Indie Press Revolution I would suggest having a look at indie rpgs un-store (http://games.indie-rpgs.com/), assuming you can stomach dealing with Ron Edwards. Despite anything I may feel about his actions he’s an incredible game designer.
Games here I would look at here include:
It Was a Mutual Decision
1001 Nights
In a Wicked Age
MSG
Also occassionally a story-game slips out from a mainstream publisher. As an example ‘The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ was released last year by Mongoose Publishing under their Flaming Cobra label. It was actually produced by Magnum Opus Press but Flaming Cobra is Mongooses label for ‘out of house’ projects. ‘Baron Munchausen’ is an incredible story-game.
Finally if you live in Europe you may find the postage from the US a little high which makes orders from IPR look prohibitive. Can I recommend Leisure Games (http://www.leisuregames.com) to all those Europeans looking for a good source of games.
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I’m now going to confuse the whole issue. One of the reasons many adults cant game as much is because they have small children, and children are a large (but welcomed) commitment. One way round this is to look at the growing array of child friendly games and actually play with your children. These include games like:
Princes’ Kingdom
Mouse Guard RPG
Brick Battles
John Wick’s Cat: A Little Game About Little Heroes
The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men
Faery’s Tale Deluxe
WitchGirl Adventures
Meddling Kids
Zorcerer of Zo
Risus
Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game
Monsters And Other Childish Things!
Ninja Burger
Primetime Adventures
I know whats coming next. Someone is going to scream something like, “Hang on. Mike just claimed several of those games were adult friendly and now you are claiming they are child friendly! Those are complete opposites. How can this be?” Who is right? You or Mike? You might even go so far as to point out Princes’ Kingdom is just Dogs in the Vineyard with a slight tweak or two and a new setting.
The key point here is the needs of adults don’t deveate that much from the needs of little children. We like ‘Low Prep’ because we don’t have the time. They like ‘Low Prep’ because they can’t be bothered and don’t see the need.
We like Easy to Learn systems because they are ‘quick’ to learn and we only have limited time, children like easy to learn systems because they have shorter attention spans and like to explore new things.
Of course there comes a point where they outgrow these things and would rather be playing D&D 4e (or more likely would rather playing on their Wii, or out playing football or dating), but pick the right game and hopefully you’ll get several years where you have something you can share and enjoy with your children
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I would agree that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” is a good approach if you have kids. Of course, in my personal experience, it’s pretty tough to play the types of stories I crave with children. I’ve had a ball playing Marvelous FATE with my oldest son (he’s 7) but it’s a very different type of game. Similarly, bedtimes often conflict with games: My kids are in bed by 8pm (and yours should be too…that’s advice from someone who used to work as the clinical director of a sleep lab ;o) which makes it tough to include the oldest in a game. In fact, one of the reasons we schedule our Sunday night games the way we do is so that the bulk of the play happens after the kids are in bed. Of course, it helps, in this case, that my wife isn’t a gamer.
All that said, gaming with your kids can be really rewarding and is a good way to start “training” them to use their imagination – it’s one of the reasons I’ve really pushed the story-type games with my son: They require more use of creativity (especially description and narrative contribution) than many of the more mainstream, crunch oriented games.
Regarding the other places to buy: I have a follow-up article that goes in to a lot more detail on where to buy and categorizes games so stay tuned…
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Vintage child-friendly games might include Toon and Rocky & Bullwinkle, if you can get them (with the puppets intact).
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Interesting list, some I would not necessarily fully agree with, but some of that is only due to my perception. Mouse Guard and SotC I would not classify as no-prep, easy to learn systems, sure not as insane as D&D, Rifts, or anything. I think you are very much leaning on a total package game, with mechanics that are derived specifically for that setting, sort of an all inclusive deal.
I think you are blinded a little by that ‘love for indie’ light there M.J.
And yeah, wtf? No Risus? Six pages, man, SIX!
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I would strongly disagree snikle.
SotC is very easy to learn and the game is actually almost setting independent. As proof of that I’ve used it almost unaltered (no mods at all except the inclusion of the magic rules from ‘Spirit of the Season and the ‘Faster conflict’ rule from the ‘evil hat wiki’) to run high fantasy, cthulhu style horror, and a street-level cyberpunk. It does require a little prep though – actually quite a lot of prep before the first game (you have to read it after all) and almost zero prep after that.
Mouse Guard on the other hand – I don’t think I’d ever describe Mouse Guard as easy to learn. In fact I think its probably on the wrong list. It is a great game though deserving of recognition
(I hesitate to invoke the much overused ‘awesome’ word)
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Re: SotC & Mouse Guard: I think both are very easy to learn in the process of play. Both require an investment in time up front by the GM to read the book, but it’s not really fair to consider the act of reading the rules as part of prep.
I’ve taken completely new MG players (including some that had never played a RPG before) playing the game within just a couple of hours of starting play – the rules are intuitive once you actually start using them. Like Burning Wheel, unless you play the game, you’ll never gain an appreciation that it’s not nearly as complicated as it looks based on reading the rulebook.
Re: RISUS and other super-lite games – I have intentionally left them off the list for one reason – they’re so setting and rules light that most people new to story games are not going to have a clue what to do with them. All of the games I’ve listed provide plenty of examples and a concrete enough setting that a group can just pick up the game and play. Stuff like RISUS, PDQ (the free, rules only version), etc. all take a certain amount of comfort with the creative process to really use. Otherwise, I’d say they’re all awesome choices, especially since they’re free!
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I was thinking about this.
The only actual zero-prep game I know of is “A Penny for my Thoughts”. Even this isn’t quite prep free. You need a character questionaire for each player, five slips of paper, some pencils, a box and a bowl of pennies. Gathering these is definitely prep, but that is the extent of the prep. You don’t even need to read the rules – they are laid out in a read as you play format, and work perfectly that way.
Is this the only zero prep game?
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The aforementioned “Adventures of Baron Munchausen” is about as close to zero-prep I’ve seen. If you know the rules (which can be explained to a group of drunk adults in less than 2 minutes), and are ready to call someone “The Baroness of West-Chester by the Sea”, you are ready to start playing.
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Zombie Cinema is not only a zero-prep game, but it’s a gm-less game, so no one has to take on “that” role. You need to know a couple of rules before you play, but then the rest of the real rules are printed on the board that you move your pawn as the Zombie Horde looms ever closer.
I think overall though that most story games are zero-prep, and that is a big draw of why those of us with mortgages, lives, maybe kids, and not a lot of free time love them so much. I still play D&D once a week, but I’m much less invested in it now than when I was in college and ok with only 2-3 hours of sleep a night. And I’m completely converted to 4.0 because it requires so much less preparation and time consumption. With story games, if one person knows the rules and can act as the GM, for the rest of the party it’s a pretty painless and quickly-paced entry to the game.
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PTA is certainly a zero prep game – if you’re the producer and are spending time prepping, you’re not playing the game by the rules.
The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries is also a zero prep game. GM-less games by definition need to be zero prep.
Hmmm, what else? In a Wicked Age is zero prep. I can’t imagine how you’d prep that game unless you skip the oracle part which is half the fun. IaWA reminds me of PTA in the way that group setting & story creation occur.
My Life with Master is also very little to no prep. I guess the Master could prep but the game encourages improvisation and with the narrative contributions minions have, I’m not sure how much prep actually would pay off.
3:16 is also practically zero prep. A GM could prep before hand but doing so means you’re missing part of the point of the game & it’s “critique” of the genre.
Wilderness of Mirrors by definition needs to be zero prep since the group decides on the obstacles and mission during the planning phase.
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But most of those games (Adventures of Baron Munchausen, PTA, Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries, In a Wicked Age, My Life with Master, 3:16 and Wilderness of Mirrors) require you to read the rules first.
It looks like ‘A Penny for my Thoughts’ (and Zombie Cinema from the description) are the only two truly prep free games that you could just pick up and play.
For those unfamiliar with it ‘A Penny for my Thoughts’ begins with the words: “To make this procedure as simple as possible, the instructions are designed to be read aloud right away, without reading the entire chapter before proceeding. Choose one person to be your group’s Reader. Beginning with the next section, the Reader will follow the reading instructions to direct you through the treatment.’
That’s it – absolutely totally zero prep
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All the usual Indie / Storygames are mentioned whether low-prep or not.
Kind of a misleading title for the list…
Stuart´s last blog ..Making Custom Thomas the Tank Engine Trains
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My criteria were (as described above):
1. Little to no preparation
2. Adult players
3. Self-contained, single session or short-term (~3-10 sessions) campaign play
4. Mechanically elegant, easy to learn systems.
5. Low player requirement (most work best with 4 or fewer players).
Every game in the list meets at least 4 of those criteria, most all 5. Of the games listed, most are no to low prep – the exceptions are Houses of the Blooded, Mortal Coil, Zorcerer of Zo, and Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies, although all of those require far less prep than most RPGs. As for “all the usual” the list is nowhere near comprehensive – there are dozens of more games that could easily have been included. I’m not really sure what is misleading about the title.
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I would definately add Zombie Cinema to this.
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