[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.

____________

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