Quote from: Levi KornelsenYou question misses the mark utterly.

He has no fixed vision of what the story is.  He has a vision of the process that creates story naturally.

You know, I'm getting the sense that if this was rpg.net, you and a few others here would already be getting bans for being "intentionally obtuse" (I think that's the term you use over there, right?).

You all know what I'm talking about: a PC dies in an early combat,  or tries to kill off an NPC you had later plans for, or a PC thinks of doing something that cuts out half of what you had "planned" for the adventure, or a PC acts in some other kind of unexpected way that you hadn't thought of that fucks up your "plans".

If you choose to "fudge" the process or the results in some way or another, you are choosing "story" over "play".

If the "vision of the process" in NO way interferes with the play, then it doesn't really exist as far as the play is concerned. You're just PLAYING THE GAME. You're not creating fuck all. Its just a pretty little thought you have in your head, but if you don't actually do anything to make sure it happens, you are essentially just engaging in wishful thinking and if it turns out the way you envisioned it, this is only because you got lucky in that nothing in the play got in the way of that, and you had no active role in "creating" that story. The story was just an accidental byproduct.

On the other hand, if you're willing to "fudge" in order to push your "vision of the process"; you are choosing story over play, and the conflict exists.

There is no clever semantic way around this: if you are TRYING to create story, then the story is a goal, and that goal is in CONFLICT with the goal of "playing the game" (except if the game you are playing is one that has changed so much from the Traditional concept of the RPG that it can't rightly be called an RPG anymore).

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Quote from: Levi KornelsenYou question misses the mark utterly.

He has no fixed vision of what the story is.  He has a vision of the process that creates story naturally.

Bingo.  And to answer Pundit's question yes, players will often do things I don't expect, and I've had huge unexpected changes to the game come from a die roll.  Paying attention to dramatic structure does NOT, for the millionth time, mean I've decided what's going to happen or what the 'right' course of action is ahead of time.

Quote from: GrimGentThere's an easy answer to this, of course, although for some unfathomable reason it doesn't seem to satisfy everyone...

"Never Say 'No'."

:killingme: :win:

Quote from: GrimGent"Never Say 'No'."

What is this, the "greatest hits of theory argument" thread?

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start talking about poop.

Quote from: blakkieSo how is that different that me? Well hello fucking dollie it ain't! You dipshit. That was my point, you are bitching at something that you are doing.  But pretending it is something else.

If you really are doing exactly what I described above, then you are NOT "creating story".

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Quote from: KeranNot exactly.  A good many don't ask for the last chapter; the first three is standard.  And they generally want a new writer's manuscript to be complete before they bother to look at the submission because not everyone can finish a book successfully, whether or not they have an outline.

Correct.  But either way, they want to know that the story has an ending.  They don't trust authors to just magically get there by letting their characters run wild.

Quote from: KeranOn the other hand, veteran writers may sell incomplete manuscripts or proposals, whatever their method of getting to the end of the story is, because they've shown that they can get there.

Correct.  Can you name some successful writers who simply "let the characters go" and "see what happens"?

Quote from: KeranDifferent writers find different procedures to be useful.  The process that one writer finds essential to creating a story, another may find a deadly block to creativity.

Correct.  But I'm responding to the claim that, "In a lot of movies and books, the people in charge are 'making it up as they go' to a very large extent."  Do you believe that's true?

Quote from: KeranThe people who've made it up as they go along include Stephen King and Tolkien.  (Tolkien's early drafts have been published, and they certainly don't indicate that he had everything all planned out; and if I am recalling correctly, in one of his letters he thought he was most of the way through the story when he was writing Moria.)  Regardless of your personal reaction to either of these authors, I don't believe you can make a case that the method of making it up as you go along produces results that are generally deemed substandard fiction.

Are there a handful of naturals who can write stories correctly the first time without revision?  Absolutely.  Does that mean that Heinlein's advice that "You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order" was good advice for most writers?  No.  

Nor is the advice to "let the characters go" and "see what happens."  Could you produce a good story that way?  Absolutely.  But many if not most people can't and won't.

Generally, unless you are a Stephen King or a Tolkien, then it's often silly to think that what works for them will work for you.  If it does, and you are a Stephen King or a Tolkien, stop wasting your time on Internet message boards and go out and write best sellers.

Quote from: RPGPunditOn the other hand, if you're willing to "fudge" in order to push your "vision of the process"; you are choosing story over play, and the conflict exists.

If you're playing to make story that way, that process is part of the system.

It's not fudging if "we roll dice this way because it makes better story-stuff" is a basic rule of the game, now, is it?

Quote from: RPGPunditThere is no clever semantic way around this: if you are TRYING to create story, then the story is a goal, and that goal is in CONFLICT with the goal of "playing the game" (except if the game you are playing is one that has changed so much from the Traditional concept of the RPG that it can't rightly be called an RPG anymore).

This seems erily similar to something I read in Ron Edward's essay that just doesn't work for me.  That you have to choose one or the other.  Well that pure bullshit. It is from him and it is from you.  You can serve two masters.  You can just play the game and the story flows out.

Given good rules.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI really don't see how this, along with Keran's anecdote about Tolkien, doesn't completely support Settembrini's arguement. Both anecdotes are examples where in order to meet the needs of "story", the first impulse of the creators had to be mindfully overridden.

We're looking at two things here:

1) Do you have to know the ending when you start out to have a "story"
2) How does the ability to revise/edit affect story creation

I say the answer to #1 is "no." -- I believe people tell storys all the time without knowing how they'll turn out. Some stories may suffer from this -- they may run overlong. They may end in anti-climax... they may meander or lose themselves...

These things are all possible -- and given the nature of RPGs (an improvisational, performance art type of thing), I think they're even likely in many cases...

But with the right setup and preparation, the odds aren't actually all that bad, IME.

I think the answer to #2 is that not-being-able-to-revise hurts the quality of the finished product.

But not necessarily badly. There's no guarantee that any given RPG session will produce a high-quality story. Not being able to excise / edit out parts doesn't help, but again, at the end of the day, I find that the games I play in are more likely to produce a reasonable story than not.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenIllusionism = The "hidden railroad" form of GMing.

To Pundit, all story-making games = Illusionism.

As I said.  I've explained another common way to him before, but apparently it just didn't stick.

To me, "Front loading" is not creating the story, its just setting up the RPG. All RPGs by definition involve "front loading"; but that's not creating story, that's just setting up the scenario including potential conflicts of all kinds.

On the other hand, "driving" is to me a semantic dodge that excuses the GM trying to force story by forcing players to address the conflicts he wants them to address. It in no way escapes the issue of story vs. play existing as a conflicting pair of goals.

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Quote from: SettembriniIt`s way safer to ask someone at or from ENWorld, or MythusMage, or Col Pladoh himself, than Ron.

BTW, does anyone know if MythusMage is the same guy on rpg.net who has "original gamer" or something like that in his sig?

Quote from: RPGPunditTo me, "Front loading" is not creating the story, its just setting up the RPG. All RPGs by definition involve "front loading"; but that's not creating story, that's just setting up the scenario including potential conflicts of all kinds.

On the other hand, "driving" is to me a semantic dodge that excuses the GM trying to force story by forcing players to address the conflicts he wants them to address. It in no way escapes the issue of story vs. play existing as a conflicting pair of goals.

Trying to dress up "front loading" and "setting up the scenario" as not placing the conflict of your own choosing smack dab in the way of the player is a pure semantic dodge.  So tell me what you do when they turn and give your "front loaded" scenario the finger and turn and head the other way?

@blakkie: You mean a different thing with story than at least fifteenhundred other persons. And if you had read carefully, instead of trying the troll game,  you`d know, that  the negative connotations were there before Settembrini joined teh intarweb, and that I was reflecting on that phenomenon.

Quote from: RPGPunditOn the other hand, "driving" is to me a semantic dodge that excuses the GM trying to force story by forcing players to address the conflicts he wants them to address. It in no way escapes the issue of story vs. play existing as a conflicting pair of goals.

And you, of course, would never force players to address a conflict.

You have, for example, never run a dungeon.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenIf you're playing to make story that way, that process is part of the system.

It's not fudging if "we roll dice this way because it makes better story-stuff" is a basic rule of the game, now, is it?

But what if the roll doesn't make for better "story-stuff"? Then what? do you discard it?
In that case, why bother using rolls in the first place? The story is obviously more important than the game.

Do you go with it?
In that case, the game is more important than trying to tell the story.

Any game where the goal of the game IS to create the story is not going to be an RPG, because it will have to be created in such a way that all of the conventions and mechanics are changed in such a way that the game is all about trying to craft story and that takes precedent over playing the characters, running challenges, or anything else.  Those are "story-games"; not RPGs.

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