In 2016, the "steaming factory", which started by paying attention to popular overseas gameplay, found another business opportunity in this blue ocean - script killing.
By the end of 2019, script killing had faintly surpassed mobile games to become the most popular entertainment project for young people, but fate put the brakes on this rocket-like development industry.
Recently, many relatives and friends have talked to Uncle Monster about the prospect and origin of script killing, and I found an interesting thing when I looked back on the past; That is, the "paper game" we talked about is very similar to scripted killing, and this kind of game has long spawned a small circle called "running group" (TRPG/tabletop role-playing game).
The difference between running a group and a script kill
I believe that many players who have been exposed to script killing have experienced an awkward atmosphere when playing, your imaginative thinking is difficult to gain respect in script killing, and you feel that you are either a "tool person" or a "marginal person" when you are constrained everywhere, but the narrator who drives the rhythm of the whole scene is more like the protagonist than you.
Actually, your feelings are not wrong.
Due to the homogeneity of gameplay and fixed identity positioning, the freedom of script killing to play the role is very low, and the part that players can participate in is self-defense and discussion, which makes it difficult to have a sense of substitution. (Just like video interactive games, there is often only one real ending)
Although there are some fixed rules for running groups, please keep in mind that the purpose of these rules is not to let the player deviate from the topic, not to draw a black box to trap the player inside;
You can think of the rules of running groups as a singularity, and you can develop brain holes infinitely from this singularity, but you can't get out of this singularity.
To talk about the difference between script killing and running groups in a simple way, that is, the purpose of the game of script killing is for players to find an answer together, while the purpose of running groups is for players to build a story together.
Script kills are usually fast-paced, and the duration of a game is rarely measured in hours; Running groups are difficult to figure out due to their randomness, and a round can be hours or decades.
Have you seen those super long online novels with millions of words and words at the starting point and horizontal? The details described in the running group are more detailed than these novels.
(Running group plot in "The Big Bang Theory")
The origin of the running group
According to information searched on the Internet, the game of running groups may have originated in 1971 "Chainmail" based on chess.
Chainmail transitioned from strategy board games to role-playing, and when two game enthusiasts (Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson) noticed that board games could also be RPGs, the most influential game in board game history, Dungeons & Dragons, was born.
Dungeons & Dragons quickly brings together a very viscous circle of small circles that players usually spontaneously establish a set of unspoken rules that everyone will consciously follow;
When a single piece of content can no longer bring players an interesting experience, players spontaneously start to build their own TRPGs and adopt several sets of common "template" rules by default.
To paraphrase Uncle Monster's favorite abstract explanation: In a sense, Yu-Gi-Oh OCG can also be seen as a TRPG, the game has fixed rules, and the player will build infinite possibilities on top of these rules and randomness.
Uncle Monster once saw an interesting comment when collecting the information of the running group - page games are snacks that can be eaten at work; Duanyou is three meals, not only delicious but also healthy; Running group is to open a restaurant, not only to eat yourself but also to make for others to eat, but you have to learn to turn the spoon; But now that the world is full of mobile game takeaways, who cares about cooking?