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Four categories of TRPGs

I’ve started to see four categories of gameplay when it comes to tabletop roleplaying.

  1. Where the goal is to create a story at the table (Fiasco and other post-Forge “story games”).
  2. Where the goal is to face diegetic challenges (old school dungeon crawling).
  3. Where the goal is to face mechanical challenge (system-mastery games).
  4. Where the goal is to play a part of a story written by GM or publisher (Giovanni chronicle).

Often, some of these goals overlap. When we overcome (or succumb to) diegetic challenges in an interesting way, bam, we’ve created a story. Some games designed around creating story also include interesting diegetic or mechanical challenges.

Some games are also deliberately designed to accommodate multiple of these goals, and some games accidentally support multiple goals.

Many roleplayers also like several of these goals.

I’d like to seek consensus of names for these four goals.