I was thinking the other day about something that cropped up in the comments on Grognardia. James said he prefer broader games, which made me think. I'm not sure my thinking any longer have anything to do with what James wrote, so don't blame him for what follows.
Many new school games post-forge, are very narrow. The are designed to do one thing, and just that. Compare that to T&T, which back in 1975 contain the masterpiece called Saving Rolls. With them you can on the fly whip up game mechanics to cover any situation. If your game is about killing stuff, they can help you do that, and if your game is about dealing in the dust of the blue lotus it can do that. Today if someone made a game about dealing dope, it would have rules for that and not much else. Take Dogs in the Vineyard for example. It has rules for fighting and arguing and so on, but it is a game about belief, power and consequences.
Personally I like the narrow games. Some very tight gaming can be had, but it might feel a lot less like hanging out with your buddies and rolling them bones. Different games for different feel, eh?
I know that some people, the most visible example is probably Vicent Baker and his Storming the Wizard's Tower, have tried to do a new school narrow game with an old school feel. We play tested it a bit in our group in Ontario, but I never really liked it. the mechanics felt far less dynamic than they read. It was unfinished by them, but it still made me think.
Looking at it from the other end is the narrow old school game. Is there such a beast? Is it feasible?
I know some people like to claim that D&D is such a game, since it is about defeating monsters and taking their stuff, and that's all that's in the rules. Naturally, it's not that simple. Reading the original rules from 1974 there's a lot more going on, and there are rules for a lot more. You could claim it's a game about sneaking around finding traps, killing things, leading troops in battle, establish a fief and so on and so forth. Just like T&T it is a game which can cover more than is obvious.
Now we have the last item on the list, a modern new school game of broader scope. Is there a game of the new style which focus on shared narrative or narrative control or game mechanic for internal mental and social interactions that at the same time try to be useful for any game situation?
I'm not sure what I'd do with either of all these, and if I'd like them all. Now I am just throwing those questions marks out in the wild.