FROTH games

 I've been toying with an idea, or concept for a type of TTRPG...

I decided to call it "FROTH", or "FROTH games". 

What is FROTH? It's an acronym, F.R.O.T.H. stands for "Fantasy Rules of the House".

FROTH is a big categorization of TTRPGs, totally arbitrary and made up by myself, but I use it to classify certain types of games or systems.

I created a website for it... as a concept and to explain the idea and philosophy behind it, but also to share my FROTH games subsystems and procedures.

But I'll try to explain what a FROTH game is in this post.

TL;DR version: Let's be honest, 99% of TTRPGs are the house rules of an amateur game designer, some more successful than others because of different reasons. I call all of these "FROTH games".

Now, for a more nuanced explanation... 

Some creators, designers and bloggers use different concepts for similar types or subsets of TTRPGs.

I've seen "neotrad" thrown around (for what I understand, neotrad is a kinda trad RPG with some new age or indie mechanics or sensibilities);

I've seen "Nu-SR" (that apparently is a type of TTRPG kinda like OSR but not married to old D&D as much, or simply trying to distance itself from the bigotry of part of the OSR culture);

I've seen "FKR", for Free-Krieggspiel Roleplaying (You can FK' anything (lol) if you are a good GM and your players trust you).

I've seen "DIY elfgame" in some circles (god I love this one... it's almost perfect! It's self-explanatory, right?).

FROTH, in my case, means something slightly different to all of those. In the philosophy section of the FROTH website, I list the criteria that a TTRPG needs to fulfill to be considered a FROTH game (at least two must be met):

• Is based on other rules systems, like derivatives from some version of D&D or BRP.
• Uses clasic TTRPG procedures or conventions like rolling dice when there is uncertainty to resolve actions.
• Is not a huge product or brand from a big publisher; more like an indie production.
• Is a personal hack of some other TTRPG for use in your own table with your friends.
• Is a “one page RPG” of sorts, that heavily depends on the reader’s previous experience with other big TTRPGs.
• Is a mashup of rules, procedures and practices found in several other TTRPG systems or publications.
• Has a DIY philosophy or ethos.

So, basically, any indie or one-page RPG, rules-hack, retroclone, or Fantasy Heartbreaker™ is a FROTH game to me.

DO NOT confuse with a D&Derivate, which is a smaller subset that only includes TTRPGs that are more closely or directly derived from some version of D&D.

The F for Fantasy is just because it sounded cool, but also because people tend to relate fantasy nerds with D&D, so there is that (??

Meaning that a FROTH game could be of any genre (sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, urban horror, etc). For example, Cepheus (or Cepheus Engine) is a FROTH game, but Traveller is not.

What do I gain from this concept?

Well, FROTH games are kinda compatible between each other. Mostly in mechanics, but not necessarily. Even when the rules system of a game is not at all compatible with another, if they are both FROTH games, the "underlying idea" of a mechanic most likely is. For instance... The idea of a "hexcrawl" (usually associated with fantasy RPGs like D&Derivates) could be transplanted into an investigation game like Call of Cthulhu or a more narrative game like Blades in the Dark. It would probably suck, yeah (or at least it wouldn't be a good fit, maybe?) but the thing is... you could try to do the mash-up or hack. The "ideas" from most TTRPGs are mostly compatible with other TTRPGs.

When I read some blogpost or idea for a new procedure or mechanic, for example "you can steal the STRESS and PANIC mechanic from MOTHERSHIP and shoehorn it into your Mork Borg game!" I think "yeah, why not? you could try. These are FROTH games, after all."

Thinking like that, I see all of these TTRPGs as branches of a universal language, that is the "typical RPG system", or the Ur Language of TTRPGs.

Also, once I start thinking about some RPG as a FROTH game, suddenly I feel more comfortable tinkering with its systems and procedures, or borrowing them from my own frankenstein of a game that is my "core FROTH".

I love TTRPGs. I have shelves and shelves of TTRPG books at home. What I don't have is time to relearn rulesets and teach them to my players. I can easily hack my own FROTH system and adapt stuff from any of my books quickly. That's useful.

One of the strengths of TTRPGs (vs any other medium) is the DIY ethos of it all; the fact that it's just text in a book (or a pamphlet, or a website, or a tradition told verbally by some venerable GM to their padawans), and that you can hack it and--as long as you and the other players are having fun--it's the right way to play an RPG. 

You don't need to launch a Kickstarter Campaign and break 15 stretch goals to create a cool TTRPG.

You don't need to create a commercially successful product to have YEARS of fun with a group of friends playing make-believe and rolling math rocks.

What does your FROTH system look like?

My own? right now it's just a typical d20, roll high, skill-based trad RPG. Nothing fancy, and nothing revolutionary, AND THAT'S PRECISELY WHY I don't consider it a "new system" that I would publish as a hardcover book. Dude, it's just a FROTH game. Sit down and create a character.

Can I use this concept? Can I make my own FROTH game?

Sure. The concept stopped being mine once I published about it on the internet. Better: I'm releasing it as CC-0 public domain (as if I was going to sue someone about this, right??).

Here are the amateurish logos I made. Use them, or not, it's okay.