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I feel like this would be a really great basis for a forum-based RPG.

Unbound RPG - Rowan, Rook and Decard

https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/unbound/

Unbound is a universal, rules-light roleplaying game that puts the whole player group at the forefront of the world. Newly redesigned for its second printing, the book contains both the Cyberpunk and Urban horror expansions.

I really miss old roleplaying forums where instead of being more "gamelike" you would more write a story together and the rules were more of a self governing expectation that people wouldn't try to take over a story for themselves (which didn't always work as intended). I remember being on one's for everything from warriors to neopets. They were kind of like writing a collaborative fanfiction.

I feel like it could be kinda cool to encourage people to create a story together like this in an online written format again. This game system has:

light enough and more story based rules that could probably be adapted to a forum format
the setting/type of story is HIGHLY flexible, so each subforum or thread could be wildly different types of stories

Downsides:

the book costs money but also this is a small independent game maker and I'm not sure what the best way to encourage people to pay them would be in this context.
I don't know how to write bots but you'd probably want there to be some public/impartial dice roller (or in this specific case, a card-puller).

Any other thoughts or other systems that could work well for this or that could provide some guidance for a completely new model?

2 comments

peto

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The folk at RRD make some good stuff, though I'm not familiar with this particular system and I really need to stop buying new ones.

I think I'd probably look more towards Free Kriegspiel Roleplaying principles rather than anything especially solid. The games you described functioned more like a Braunstein than anything else and what you need (and as I recall, was something those forum often games lacked) are high trust independent referees with an interest in making the game good, rather than simply fun for their friends.

It would be interesting to see if that kind of thing could work under an OSR/NSR style of play though, the ones I have had experience of were much more s-game or neotrad orientated. You also might want to look at the west marches campaign model if you haven't come across it.

Apytele

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copacetic

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If you want a really simple ruleset, try matrix games. It is only 70 words.

Doesn't come with a setting though.