I've had some of my very best gaming experiences ever using the Nordic forms. It's strongly influenced my designs and I keep moving further in that direction anyway. I want to make the best, most compelling games I can.

I am super excited about building our own vernacular. Those guys have a ten year jump on us in some ways, but we've got a load of experience to bring to the task that is completely out of left field from their perspective. I want to establish and promote forms that will inspire and excite others!

Like Jason, I've been blown out of the water by some of my experiences with jeep and other free forms. I love the real world, character focus of the games and their strong, innovative techniques. Also some of my longest term play has relied on using descriptions and informal structures rather than mechanics, so I am drawn to these systems that use narrative, story structures and framing devices to drive play, rather than abstracted mechanical procedures.

I am fascinated by the ways that mechanics and story structures do function, and want to tease out how different ways of doing things, such as playing at a table vs getting up and acting things out, changes what happens and what is needed to play. I can't wait to find out what we discover, coming from radically different play traditions from the scandis who have done so much with this already! The overlap between jeep, scenario play, indie games and improv is a great place to be.

Me, I enjoyed playing THE UPGRADE at Dreamation, was excited by the form, and realized that a tabletop setting/situation/premise I had in TRUTH & JUSTICE might just work out better as a jeepform game than a table-top one EXACTLY because of the "real" character interactions, even in "unreal" situations.

Heck, maybe ESPECIALLY "real" reactions in "unreal" situations. That seems sweet.

Ponder doing THE MIST or THE FOG as a Jeepform. Or drifting ANNALISE jeepways. Or DOGS IN THE VINEYARD.

As far as I know, I coined the term "structured freeform" at some point in 2005-2006, to talk about game design / play styles that were:

1. All Drama resolution, in Tweet's sense (though I've recently become convinced that some Karma also happens)
2. Low impact, in the sense of resolution's intrusion onto characterization and description
3. Structured by formal guidelines that are consistently implemented, rather that the informal, internalized guidelines of traditional freeform play

I don't really know much about Jeep and, honestly, am not all that excited about the play content it typically explores (I posted about this over here), partially because I have zero improv background and don't feel that I'm very good at performing characters. Typically I invest in roleplaying at a more meta level, such as enjoying the overall narrative or enjoying the aesthetic or social experience of play. Consequently, my approach to structured freeform is rather different from the Nordic tradition, being much more based on American tabletop traditions and Eurogames. While none of my structured freeform "scenarios" (to use the Nordic term) have been published in print, they look a lot more like It's Complicated (which was influenced by conversations Shreyas and I had with Elizabeth) and Zombie Cinema (both of which, I would argue, are structured freeform) than The Upgrade or A Flower for Mara.

I'll probably start a thread about my approach to structured freeform later, so I won't go into that here, but my initial impulse was to design tabletop games for an audience that I felt was poorly served by traditional roleplaying and the existing crop of indie games: freeformers. Basically, all the freeform tabletop groups I knew of tended to lean towards certain games -- Amber, Changeling, Nobilis, In Nomine, Ars Magica, Mage, Exalted -- that strongly pushed setting and color, but then abandon most of the formal mechanics for the informal processes of the social level. This pattern was replicated in the online freeform communities that emerged with the rise of the internet. Before I joined the Forge, I was responsible for running a freeform PBeM "world," a series of connected PBeM games in the In Nomine setting, for an organization that began as a Star Trek / Anne McCaffrey fanfic roleplaying group. I never played D&D until 4E came out, so when I joined the Forge in the first place, I was coming from a different place and was interested in a different type of design, one that never really gained any attention on the Forge, unfortunately. So, basically, structured freeform, to me, was initially conceived as a way to better serve folks who were already playing games freeform. Instead of having to throw out the existing rules, they could be given formal structures that actually supported what they were already doing (there's where the Forge "system matters" stuff made a strong influence).

However, in the course of trying to develop these systems, I started with a bunch of smaller, experimental, test games to try out various structures and design principles to see if they would actually work in play. And that basically includes all of the design work that I've done so far. I have yet to put together a full set of formal guidelines suitable for my original goal of supporting long-term freeform play. But what I do have, interestingly enough, is a lot of short-form experiments that are similar in scope to the "scenarios" the Nordic folks have been running. And these basically look like full games now (though they weren't originally intended that way) now that indie folks are more excited about single-session play (another area that has been my design focus since about 2006).

So, basically, yeah, I've been doing structured freeform for a while now (at least 4 years), but it doesn't look anything like Jeep. Honestly, I'm excited that other folks are (finally) interested in this stuff and am looking forward to some fruitful cross-pollination.

Out of curiosity, do we have a basic set of short descriptions over in the glossary of: freeform play, traditional freeform play, and structured freeform play?

Nope, but we need one! I'm working on the wiki out of sight for now. When I've got a good framework I'll out it. In the meantime, any and all threads discussing and clarifying terms, like the secret history one, is 100% welcome in my book.

Yes, these are the kinds of terms I think we should start with over on the wiki. I've got a list of Jeep terms I want to post and paraphrase. If you're up for defining them on the wiki, Chad, have at it!

For new terms, I'd like us to work on them here first, in New Thoughts threads.

But crikey, free form vs traditional free form play? How do we distinguish? Free form is a chimera, too. Or rather, no--it's a hydra. I see it as a catch all term for playing roles without strict mechanical procedures, and that it happens in many different platforms (online, acting/live, tabletop etc.) and uses many different types of structures to temper the freeness of it. From scene framing like the future/past scenes in the Upgrade to non-quantified mechanics like the Sea of Doubt board in our improvised game at GenCon.

Hi, I'm Mike and I am a really bad roleplayer. I find that I am less bad in Jeepish games.

...and that's only a small part of my interest. I'm not feeling articulate about it all though. Basically I grew up inarticulately frustrated with what RPGs offered and didn't offer, and got re-engaged by the story-games-or-whatever thing. Structured freeform almost brings it back, for me, to the fascination I had when I left college with the possibilities of stories and dramatic spaces that people can enter together - I did some work on experimental hypertext fiction and academic MOOs. Making stories and making spaces, making spaces that make people make stories... it's all pointing to something really exciting in the distance that I can't quite see.

Damn, I need to get a look at Montsegur 1244.

I'm Brand, I play games and stuff. My relationship to structured freeform is complex enough I could probably write a jeep scenario about it in which the players take on the parts of various parts of my mind, unable to come to resolution, factious, divided, and now forced to write a post about what structured freeform means to the non-existent totality of "me."

So, some general statements that are more true than not in the moment.

1) Like Jonathan, I'm not hugely interested in Jeep. I did theatre and improv in university and left them because they weren't what I was looking for. Many of the impulses that others seem to find appealing in Jeep remind me of those things, and while I see the inherent beauty and possibility of them, its simply not the beauty and possibility that engages me.

2) Like Jonathan, I'm much more interested in table top. Perhaps unlike Jonathan, I'm interested especially in places where structured freeform and "aerobic narrativism*" overlap. Long term play that uses principled guidelines rather than mechanical inducements or subconscious zen to bring about joint creation from the players present at the table is a growing focus of my thought and play, and so I'm heavily interested in techniques and games that make it work systemically.

3) I'm interested in the creation of the players at the table, the folks I'm creating with. Games in the freeform tradition that privilege the author/designer are not where... how to say this and not be a prick? ... not where my joy is. My interest in play is in the emotional creative building of the foundational material of the story we're telling, not the more actor based explication of authorial vision. (Can you tell I used to be more the playwright than actor?) Obviously this is a fine and tricky line -- where does that division between acting someone else's story and creating your own fall in the vast spectrum of what StFr is capable of doing? I dunno right now, its more a "I know it when I see it" thing than something I can always predictably define, much less prescribe. Maybe this forum will help me with that.

4) Because of 2 and 3, and the very special place of joint creativity, I have a huge emphasis on emotional honest and foregrounded humanity in my play. This is something that I think Jeep has a lot to teach me about, despite my other reservations about the form, as it is a very central balliwick of the movement. However, while I'm heavily interested in emotional realism and humanity, I don't give any special privilege to "real world" situations over romantic, fantastic, of whatever else. Probably too much magical realism in my diet. ;)

5) I have two games I'm working on (Shhh! Don't tell anyone, I'm not supposed to be a designer. I hate designers!) that have structured freeform components in the rules. One of them will probably never be a fully StFr game, but the other, the more that I look at it, probably should be. So learning how to get over dice when dice are not needed to focus the game on the human interactions and applications of principled structures in a way that will make sense for those games is going to be something I'll be keeping a careful eye on.

(I'll post about the first of these games shortly, as I had my first AP with it last week.)

6) I've got a long background in creative studies, rhetoric, comparative literature and the like that often make me short hand things that may not be common knowledge. I honest to God do not want to do this as any kind of status play or similar nonsense. So if I start talking in jargon or name dropping, please feel free to tell me to knock it off and try to speak more plainly. I can't promise I'll always be able to put things simply, but I can not be a fuckwit status-player about it. (Hopefully.)

So that's me.

*Aerobic Narrativism: thematic play in which the issues and themes are allowed to grow, evolve, mutate, and resolve through the process of play over an extended period of time.

Hello, I'm Tim. I've come to this forum looking to learn more about a kind of roleplaying that I have been trying to do for quite some time. From reading the sticky threads and the other introductions, Structured Freeform looks to me like the direction I always tried to push my tabletop games towards, except that I didn't know what I was doing and couldn't articulate my actual goals to my fellow players well enough.

From 1992 to 2007 I ran a heavily drifted game of tabletop Vampire in which I excised virtually all of White Wolf's mechanics in favor of freeform and improvisational techniques: cues, reincorporation, player collaboration and description that focused on producing an emotional reaction in the players through their characters. The experience of running that style of game for so long, as well as several years of playing American indie and story games has fueled my interest in Jeep and Structured Freeform both for play and for game design.

My "formal" introduction to Structured Freeform and Jeep was a game of Under My Skin that Emily ran at Forge Midwest 2008. I plodded my way through the first half of the session with only a vague idea of the differences between this new 'Jeep thing' and other tabletop RPGs and LARPs. Then, in the middle of a scene with Tobias something clicked. It's hard to describe...separate from the deeply emotional connection I felt with my character, there was a feeling of familiarity. You'll have to excuse how corny this sounds, but this felt just like what I was striving for all those years with my homebrew Vampire game...a holy grail of sorts, sporadically glimpsed and rarely grasped.

I have since read all of the Jeep articles and blogs I could (in English) and just purchased Montsegur 1244 based on Dreamation reports. I'm still absorbing it all, but I'm anxious to keep learning all I can.

Mo-
Could you explain the difference between performative play and experiential play? Do you see your intimate, experiential play as supported by your improv experience and skills?

I ask because "performative play" doesn't sound very compelling to me either, but I don't want to jump to conclusions about what you mean by it.

Why are you interested in structured freeform?

At this point I'm not sure I am. While I find most of the games I've seen mentioned (Flowers, Jeep, Polaris, etc,) as structured freeform intellectually interesting and perhaps even beautiful, I'm not interested in playing them. I am however fond of what I called Traditional American Freeform in another thread, and have been having ideas over in that area, it might even be structured, but doesn't sound like what you folks are describing. At least that I've read yet, I'll keep digging. However, I may only be here to steal your goodies for my own purposes.

Welcome, Nathan!

Glad to have you here, Tim.

I'm Joe McDonald, and for the last year or two I've had a predominant play and design goal: make beautiful art.
Structured Freeform is the world where that most likely happens.

I'd submit that my game Ribbon Drive falls firmly in the realm of structured freeform. The rules govern who frames scenes and whether characters hold onto their goals or let go of them. There are rules for introducing obstacles, but these are far from central. It's a game about learning to live with purpose.

The catalyst to bringing me here is that I'm working on a game right now, called The Night It Died. It's definitely a tabletop game, which explores the breakdown of a community, and how it changes those involved. I'm drawing inspiration from SLC Punk!, Requiem For A Dream, (500) Days of Summer and Magnolia (the most fringe case in this list, perhaps). I started to write out a set of rules and procedures that was... stuffy and forced. I realized that in order to make this work like I want it to, I need to be exploring more freeform-ish space with it.

Hello there. I'm Christian, and most of you know me (some have even met me :). I either didn't know or completely forgot that you all started this, or I'd have been here a long time ago, definitely after I started working more seriously on my next game in February (Within Our Eyes), which most likely falls under the structured freeform definition. Though, not being here to discuss terms, I've since coined it an Interaction Game as opposed to a Resolution Game, which most tabletop RPGs are (with Ribbon Drive being an Interaction Game as well, under my definition). As I've talked about before as well, I have a lot of background in online freeform games that I've since tried to shape into a coherent tabletop/live experience.

So yeah, thanks for having me, and I look forward to checking out everyone else's thoughts and design ideas!

Hi, I'm James Brown.

I'm interested in jeep and structured freeform, because they have been some of my most memorable play experiences. I think that the concepts support powerful, human stories well, and that it's a poorly understood area of play in the general community.


James

Hey there Rp-- Interesting terms. Feel free to start up a thread to talk about how you've found them to come up in play, and how structured freeform might overlap. Nice to have you here. :)

As usual, I appear adept at killing both threads and fora.

Well, you all had some interesting discussions in the past that I've read, so there's that much at least.

Hi I'm Michiel from Holland.
I was mainly familiar with standard rpg. In my youth (I'm know 33) started with a Dutch version of Das Schwartze Auge. And ended with ADnD. Pretty rule based standard RPG.
After a while I got a bit tired of the rules. The references to English terms, broad sword, kinda sounds like brood mes, bread knife in Dutch. In short players started yoking, and did not get involved.
Recently I started searching for other systems, being fed up with the dicethrowing and page turning (as some one before me nicely said). A system, a game which did involve players in the story, and not start joking to keep the game enjoyable. (although I had some really nice sessions with D&D rules)
I have found some nice Indie games. And especially liked the rule setup of 'fudge', which is make the rules yourself as it serves your story best. Also I found the more storybased game World of Darkness very charming.

After getting to know theatersport, and other forms of on stage improv, I started to get the magnificient idea of combining rpg and improv. After a few weeks of floating in my pride of this wonderfull innovative, and thinking some rough guidelines; I started to wonder: maybe someone before me also has had this idea...

Actually I don't know that much from Jeep and Freeform, but what I read so far I like. Maybe I even done it myself lately, during a 'fudge diceless' tabletop RPG.

Currently I am reading books how to tell stories, and write stories and involve these techniques in RPG.
I am really a fan improvisation, and rather applying techniques than structuring.

In short: I'm was standard tabletop rpg fan. I give theater lessons, and am interested in the powerfull combination of rpg, storytelling and improv acting.
Hope to learn lots more, and share my ideas here!