Jeepform
Jeepform is a style of freeform, story-oriented roleplaying from Sweden.
In Europe, roleplaying appeared on the scene as an import from the US. It didn't evolve out of the wargaming scene the way it did in the US, and roleplaying in Europe has always been more artsy (or less war-sy) than over here. It also means that D&D never held dominance over the field the way it has in the States. By the time D&D arrived in Europe, it already had competitors in the form of other RPGs, some of them native and some imports from the US. Creative people like to hate corporate dominance, but what the predominance of D&D allows in the US is a game convention where you can play your favorite RPG and find lots of other players to play with. You can even take your character from one convention to another, acquiring XP and treasure as you go. Not possible in Europe. So artsy Nordics responded with LARPs and with freeform tabletop play. With rules-light systems, a bunch of gamers can share a game even if they don't all play the same RPG at home. Out of this environment has come Jeepform.
Jeepform is a particular style of roleplaying: a very simple, small-scale larp with a particular emphasis on story and on an uninterrupted narrative. For example, instead of interrupting the in-character dialog to say "Suddenly you hear a big crashing sound," the game master would just yell, "What was that!?"
Jeepform is for creating a new story. It's not for taking any fantasy world and bringing it to life. It doesn't claim to be able to handle any setting or story, the way d20 claimed to handle any tabletop setting. For example, Jeepform requires a small group of players who are always together (no split parties).
Jeepform excites me because I've been messing around with story-oriented RPGs, freeform play, and small-scale larping for a long time. So have a bunch of other game designers. But when I messed around with this sort of game, I never got to the point at which I developed a coherent new vision for what we were doing, or a slew of tricks, techniques, and guidelines to make it all work. Jeepform represents real effort to do something with freeform storytelling.
Check out the Jeepform web site.
In Europe, roleplaying appeared on the scene as an import from the US. It didn't evolve out of the wargaming scene the way it did in the US, and roleplaying in Europe has always been more artsy (or less war-sy) than over here. It also means that D&D never held dominance over the field the way it has in the States. By the time D&D arrived in Europe, it already had competitors in the form of other RPGs, some of them native and some imports from the US. Creative people like to hate corporate dominance, but what the predominance of D&D allows in the US is a game convention where you can play your favorite RPG and find lots of other players to play with. You can even take your character from one convention to another, acquiring XP and treasure as you go. Not possible in Europe. So artsy Nordics responded with LARPs and with freeform tabletop play. With rules-light systems, a bunch of gamers can share a game even if they don't all play the same RPG at home. Out of this environment has come Jeepform.
Jeepform is a particular style of roleplaying: a very simple, small-scale larp with a particular emphasis on story and on an uninterrupted narrative. For example, instead of interrupting the in-character dialog to say "Suddenly you hear a big crashing sound," the game master would just yell, "What was that!?"
Jeepform is for creating a new story. It's not for taking any fantasy world and bringing it to life. It doesn't claim to be able to handle any setting or story, the way d20 claimed to handle any tabletop setting. For example, Jeepform requires a small group of players who are always together (no split parties).
Jeepform excites me because I've been messing around with story-oriented RPGs, freeform play, and small-scale larping for a long time. So have a bunch of other game designers. But when I messed around with this sort of game, I never got to the point at which I developed a coherent new vision for what we were doing, or a slew of tricks, techniques, and guidelines to make it all work. Jeepform represents real effort to do something with freeform storytelling.
Check out the Jeepform web site.