History of RPGs:

[Mutant for Hire]

http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_131.shtml

I'll be curious to see what people make of the categorization of RPGs.

[zornwil]

Pretty interesting article. However, it would be nice to see this in the broader context of gaming in general, to see what parallels there are. It would seem, to me, that part of what this describes is a more generic drive towards simply better modeling as technology/tools and common understanding. We certainly have seen that in the computer game world, we saw it in contemporary tabletop wargames.

Still, this makes a dichotomy between character development and story telling which at least at first glance seems fair and is unique to RPGs. I think it ignores unfairly other differences in the handling of "realism", such as abstraction versus detail, granularity versus generalization. These have been powerful forces in both pubilc taste and philosophy of game design, and have been the major driver of randomness versus predictabilty (which isn't to say these aren't forces in their own right in some ways). Universality versus genre-specific is also an interesting and fair distinction this does expose.

It also (necessarily, given the limited scope and capability of such a work) ignores the design intentions, which would be illuminating in determining what was shaping the game designs over time, what issues were considered paramount as RPGs matured.

[ChaosDrgn]

Also under Universal he kinda glosses over that though Runequest, etc was the first, it was the Marvel Superhero game that brought it to the "masses" attention. The same rules for it was pretty much used for other TSR games at the time (Conan & Indiana Jones come to mind), showing them moving to a solid uniform system.

Also to me something that's missing is the brief hiccup that was using cards instead of dice during the game. I'd count Diceless but the Amber rpg is the only one that really comes to mind.

[Pattern Ghost]

There's also Nobilis. Took a while for another diceless system to gain any audience, but I think that Nobilis has been doing well. It has an actual conflict resolution mechanic, though, which Amber largely lacks.

[ChaosDrgn]

It has an actual conflict resolution mechanic, though, which Amber largely lacks

Personally I find Amber lacks any support from Phage Press but that's simply me :)

[Pattern Ghost]

Which is sad, considering it's their whole product line. AmberCons are fun, though.

[Doug McCrae]

Isn't Theatrix diceless, too?

[Phraze]

Part 2 of the series is now up. I'm having a lot of fun with the articles because, not having gamed in a long time, it's a nice trip down memory lane. I just recently remembered how much fun I had with Runequest, for example.