For those not aware, Jeff, our own dear editor-in-chief here at Coolorama, pens a weekly column over at IncGamers.  In this week’s MMO Weekly, Jeff discusses an emerging trend in tabletop role playing games.  Is this kind of “collaborative storytelling” a fun, interesting, innovative approach to RPGs?  Is it a viable alternative to the old “hack and slash” games that role-playing nerds have come to love?  Is this the wave of the future in gaming?

Judge for yourself.  Here’s a few snippets:

…Judging by the way some people reacted to this game, you’d think it was the second coming.  My reaction wasn’t quite the same.  In fact, I thought it was downright terrible.

Let me tell you why.  The first thing that strikes you about the game is the artwork.  It’s stunning.  The game is simply beautiful.  Every page is in perfect tune with the steampunk theme, and simply reading the rules and scenario really puts you in the mood to play.  Beyond the art, there is the setting.  The entire story takes place in a very imaginative steampunk universe, and that universe is utterly compelling.  Again, just reading about it makes you want to play the game.

Last, there are the NPCs.  They, too, are some of the most interesting I’ve encountered in years.  Maybe, at this point, I was drunk with enthusiasm from reading the setting and seeing the art, but I was riveted.

Then I encountered the problem.  It seems, at least to me, that there isn’t a game here.  This is a story.  Quite frankly, this is really just the first six or eight paragraphs of a story, when the storyteller suddenly and inexplicably stopped telling the rest of their tale.  There were no more pages to read.  There were no more rules.  In fact, there were almost no rules whatsoever.  There was the art, the setting, the overarching story, the characters and….well, nothing else.

Is this tabletop “narrative storytelling style” the future of the RPG genre?  Will it impact computer RPGs, console games, or MMOs in the near future?  Jeff thoroughly explores this topic — and pulls no punches –  for better or worse, over at IncGamers.  You can catch it, in all it’s glory, right here.