[diablerouge]

Well, I would probably put WotC somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, but that's still pretty different from the old-school style of play that XP-for-gold really shines for.

WotC also isn't really pushing narrative play mechanically, but instead culturally aligning itself on the sort of role-play-heavy style that's growing because of the broad success of Critical Role and others. Because of those shows, most people's conception of D&D includes lots of talking in character and extensive character backgrounds and long story arcs carefully planned by the GM, which are all pretty narrative in my book.

The real big difference between 2011-2012 and now (in my, albeit biased, opinion) is the popularity of the OSR (old-school renaissance.) The OSR has gone mainstream (I can find OSR material at my local game store now!) So while the narrative indie scene keeps developing and the OSR scene does as well, WotC is sort of caught in the middle, and players fall anywhere along the spectrum (even when ostensibly all playing D&D 5E, which has hacks and optional rules to push it one way or the other.) But imo most are pushed to the narrative side because that's what most people are exposed to in the form of Critical Role.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Thanks! I've been reading about the OSR and trying to understand what it is all about. It's funny but the last time I was keeping informed about the RPG market, back in 2011-12, is when the OSR started up, with retro-clones like OSRIC and so on, but I completely missed it back then. I guess it hadn't gathered momentum yet. My interest in the article I posted above follows from my attempt to get my head around the OSR.

Critical Role is another thing that had escaped my notice. The way I understand it, the "narrativist" agenda, following Ron Edwards' model (that first popularised the term) and that I know from a stream of "Indie" RPGs that came out of The Forge community, is specifically opposed to a story arc carefully planned by the GM and instead invests on rules for "collaborative storytelling", that give players "narrative control". Those games are sometimes styled as "storygames" rather than RPGs and they are, in my mind, exemplified by Dogs in the Vineyard [1] possibly because that was the absolute darling of The Forge crowd back when I was browsing the forums.

But I personally also think of the kind of character- and roleplaying-focused game you are talking about as "narrative focused" myself, quite aside from the academic discussion, of which I'm only dimly aware most of the time anyway.

All that said, thanks for clarifying! It's been a long time since I moved in rpg circles and I miss a lot of the nuance in online discussions and articles.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_the_Vineyard