So, I've decided to begin a new project, a personal outgrowth of my ideas regarding RPGs and games in general.
This project is called(at least for now) CSI Games, which stands for Competitive(/Cooperative) Story Interaction(/Isolation) Games.
This is basically about Competitive RPGs, and ones which attempt to bring back the "Game" portion.

Whereas the Forge and other communities give you a place to share your designs and get feedback.
And whereas Socratic Design and other blogs give you tools to build your design.
I come to give you a direction for your game. Most likely, you'll already have your design direction, and when your direction will align with mine I will hopefully give you points to consider.

If you want to see more of "What (and Why)" look here. If you want to see my mission statement of sorts, and see further "Why" this is needed and "How" I hope to accomplish it then look here.
Our games are different enough that if we won't help one another develop them, they won't get made. We do not yet have a body of knowledge regarding these games, and we need to make one.

I plan to write a thorough "What is a CSI Game" shortly, which hopefully people will be able to use or build from in their books. I hope to get an artist to do a (pro bono) logo for CSI Games, an imprint that anyone could use, to mark his game as belonging to this group.
I have a PBWiki for this topic, not yet full of anything that will hopefully go live within a week or two.
I use my CSI Games Blog as the spear-head of my project.

I plan this to be a project where we contribute and help one another, I only try to get it up and running, once it does, it may very well be hands-off, unless we decide it needs someone to keep it on track.

If you have a game that you think fits the CSI Game, post it here, and I will compile a list. I will also help anyone who makes a CSI Game with its design, design goals and whatever else I could.
For those who do not make CSI Games, I will still try to suggest the competitive mode, or at least present it as a viable option("...But I'm afraid it'd make things competitive..." is not something that should be said without considering the other option as well).

Cheers,
Guy Shalev.

Hey Guy,

So, the idea is that in some roleplaying games the other players are a source of setbacks and/or aid at the mechanics-regulated metagame/creative level of play, within an economy that forces trade-offs, which makes these roleplaying games more "game like"? I can see that. Have you read Bacchanal?

Paul

Paul wrote:
Hey Guy,

So, the idea is that in some roleplaying games the other players are a source of setbacks and/or aid at the mechanics-regulated metagame/creative level of play, within an economy that forces trade-offs, which makes these roleplaying games more "game like"? I can see that. Have you read Bacchanal?

Paul

Hey Guy,

Yes, I wrote Bacchanal for last year's Game Chef as "M. Paul Buja". You can download it from the archives here:

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/Bacchanal.php

I'm not sure I'd characterize it as a "personal relationship type of game" myself.

Paul

A game with sex as a premise falls under that umbrella for me.
I'll try to look over it over the weekend. :)

Threads by Filip and Gnostigmata are also games whose creators agree, more or less, with the CSI Games idea.
Sydney Freedberg I suspect does too, but I don't want to put words in his mouth.
There are some other games I list on my blog, most of them fit, though a couple are more of "Games" like Conflict Erdinai and less Competitive between players.

I think Final Stand fits in the profile. It focuses on competition, but also introduces some story-building elements. These may be too sim oriented, though. And so, the question - do you consider narrativist qualities of the story important for CSI Games, or does pastiche still fit?

The project is interesting - it may help to promote gamist-focused designs with supplementar story-building tools in the community. In a similar way focused nar designs were promoted by the existence of the Forge itself. People who want this kind of game will instantly know what to reach for.

I'm not sure I'd characterize it as a "personal relationship type of game" myself.

I consider the story element important, so long it fits the other criteria, it is in.

Who is the maker of Final Stand, what is its home-page, etc? I tend not to click on direct-PDF downloads.

I have just posted The Definition of CSI Games. Sometime this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, I'd post how you review a CSI Game(give it a "CSI Game Score"), after which the basic building blocks of this project would all be in place and it'd be able to exist and evolve even if I dropped off of the face of the earth.

This definition post is also the place where you may argue for a different name, for those who had suggested so till now.

Who is the maker of Final Stand, what is its home-page, etc? I tend not to click on direct-PDF downloads.

This definition post is also the place where you may argue for a different name, for those who had suggested so till now.

Isolation is indeed not really needed there, it's included as part of me being a completist.
As you can see CSI Game stands for Competitive(/Cooperative) Story Interaction Game, with no actual mention of Isolation.

I'm going to have a slider along with definitions, I'd put "Old skool DnD" where you have the party acting as The Black Hand from KoDT on 1-2 out of 10, with most games on a solid 0 score.

If you have a game that you think fits the CSI Game, post it here, and I will compile a list. I will also help anyone who makes a CSI Game with its design, design goals and whatever else I could.

That sounds interesting Adam, I'll look into it :)

I have a question or two to Adam and other people who are standing a couple of steps along this route:

1) Do you "get" anything out of the current posts on CSI Games blog?

2) What kind of tools/topics do you wish were covered?

Cheers,
Guy.

All further discussion of this topic needs to go elsewhere. This is a Connections thread which has served its purpose by opening lines of communication.

Best, Ron

Guy PMed me with the valid question of whether this thread is still open for people to list games that fall into the category he's interested in. The answer is "yes." So it's not closed and should still serve its basic purpose. However, for discussion, shift to email or similar.

Best, Ron

I like where Guy is going with this.

I think my 3rd Ronnies entry The Dragon vs The Gun fits into this category. It's undergoing a pretty extensive re-write at the mo, but the 24hr version is still available.

The last basic(as in, forming the base of) post regarding CSI Games had been posted here.

The above questions and any thoughts you may have regarding the project(aside from its name which is discussed on another post) should be directed there.

If anyone wants to write a piece and have it displayed on CSI Games, PM me.
If anyone wants to see a certain relevant topic covered, PM me.

Cheers.

CSI, that's a good acronym. I was trying to come up with one myself for a very, very similar concept. I call it Miniatures Adventure Gaming. It compresses an RPG experience into a competative or cooperative, head-to-head gaming experience played-out with miniatures, but that still allows a great deal of story telling and creativity.

You can check it out here:

http://www.monsterrules.com/resources/Monsterv052106.zip

Guy,

I had a brainstorm just this last week and I am developing a game that includes all of your criteria. It's called House of Cards, and it is a game of power politics.

To those who keep track, the blog moved to Wordpress and can now be found Here

Adventure Game Engine from Kairos Creative screams CSI to me.

Thanks for the call Filip :)

I noticed that one too, but I think I'll let that specific discussion run its course before interjecting new material there :)