I don't see how accepting that Diplomacy incorporates elements of (proto)roleplay has any effect on Settembrini's thesis. Actually, any game falls under a broad version of Settembrini's definition of "roleplaying game" whenever the participants view the game as portraying imaginary events.

If I'm wrong about that then Sett needs a little more precision, particularly when it comes to "negotiate". Is it a reference to the fact that RPGs aren't formal games? (By which I mean that the rules to RPGs almost always have some wiggle room.) Or does it refer to the fact that RPGs are frameworks for figuring out "what happens next"?

Quote from: Elliot WilenActually, any game falls under a broad version of Settembrini's definition of "roleplaying game" whenever the participants view the game as portraying imaginary events.

And when they talk.  A quiet game of chess, for instance, cannot be construed as fitting the definition.

I'm totally fine with that, if that's the intent.  Like you, I just want to make sure that the definition is saying what Settembrini means it to say.

QuoteActually, any game falls under a broad version of Settembrini's definition of "roleplaying game" whenever the participants view the game as portraying imaginary events.

I'm not saying Diplomacy is an RPG. I`m saying it

- uses a board
- uses military units
- uses MoR

It`s a game, that`s for sure, so technically you can call it RPG, as well as wargame as well as boardgame. But RPG is not really a technical term, it`s a organic grown term, that happens to mean something specific. And then, Diplomacy surely is not an RPG. In short, Anything derived from D&D qualifies as RPG.

The MoR is not dependant on rules. Basically, MoR is strongest, when pure negotiations without rules are implemented. This doesn`t mean RPGs should be rules light to be "real". RPGs are a historical ilk of games, whose aim is not:  

"using an facilitating the MoR".

but it has it`s own goals and ends, to which the MoR is just a means.

That`s why you can have all kinds of Games which use th MoR, all claiming to be RPGs, when actually the only thing in commion they have is a specific kind of resolution mechanism, namely verbal negotiation.

Quote from: SettembriniOf course, but you took most of the trapppings of the wargame mindset and incorporated them into your vision of the game, I'd say. And sure, Gary and Moldvay did stuff the wargamey way. My point is not: Only Grognards do it right. I say: Those Veteran Mini-Pushers wrote the text, thereby you have to play like them, or definitely change the aim of what you are doing. This started to happen very early, as can be seen in the games being published. Quite understandably, as the themes of adventure games are the themes covered by story media. It`s a built-in clash of aims.

... I'm not sure I follow your argument here. RPG-ing has its historical roots in wargames.

So what?

RPG's are basically games of pretend with a very limited but important framework -- a "system."

Let's Pretend is a pretty versitile thing. I can pretend to be a general guiding troops across a theater of war. I can then pretend to be one of those troops and tell the story of his victory or tragedy. I can do both in the same sitting.

Any clash of aims doesn't come from the activity -- it comes from the players.

A point you touch on below:

Quote from: Settembrinialready is a definition of what you mean by story. Thus, you move around the foremost reason for abandoning the word as useless for debate: You define it for your case!
And then I'm with you. There are people looking and getting this out of RPGs. Which works well, because with the penultimate weapon, the MoR, you can do any cool or stinkin'  shit you want.

The word isn't "useless for debate" because one needs to define it. In classic forensics (in the debate term) it's expected that the debators will define any emotionally-charged "evaluative" terms.

Apparently "story" is one of these... but it's a *key* one.

If the purpose of discussion is to convince or explorer an issue, defining charged terms is a pretty key part of that.

Quote from: SettembriniNo, the MoR is. RPGs happen to use it a lot, but traditionally for other stuff than that.

@1) I`m with you. I still think a word which needs to be defined before further talking about it has basically lost it`s power as a shorthand though

@2) That`s wrong. See, the conflict is there, no matter who has to bear the brunt of the clash of aims. In your model the GM has to bear it. Okay, happens a lot, but this doesn't make the underlying lines of conflict go away.

... I don't think there's a conflict; in my model the aim of creating a story simply isn't problematic. It requires some skill -- mostly on the part of the GM -- and it requires that everyone get along (basic respect at the table), but of course these things would be required in any event.

Maybe we should talk about my model and where you see the conflict. I'll say it again:

Story -- in *any* commonly understood sense -- it a natural product of traditional RPG gaming. It's one element of RPG gaming players commonly enjoy.

The idea that there's some conflict there (e.g. that producing a story requires either meta-game input from the players or railroading from the GM) isn't correct; those conclusions are either the result of unskilled GMing or a desire for a highly "finsihed" work of the sort that's not going to occur in improvised media (e.g. Improv theater, RPGs, etc.)

Rather than worrying over-much about the definition of "story" or creating new terms, I recommend looking at your assumptions:

*why* is there a conflict?
*what* is the nature of the conflict?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: fonkaygarryOnce again we flirt with disaster by not having a solid definition of "story" to work from.  

Others have remarked that a recounting of game events in narrative form can happen with any game, not just those in which a fictional role is assumed by the players. ("Then Texas, using artful cunning and its connection with the fell gods of yore, drove the nails into Oklahoma's coffin with its next drive.")  Can it be said that there are football players for whom story is a major component of play?

More importantly, what the fuck does story mean in the context of a game wherein any of the players can up stumps and wreck any plot, rising action, denouement or climax they could build to/experience?

Most importantly, do the different sides in this issue have anything to say to each other?  I would put forward that the basic assumptions that each group works from are so different that they will forever talk past each other.

"If you do C, then you must restrict the presence of F."

"Wrong.  You can do M all day without restricting B."

Arguments ensue wherein neither side can communicate with the other.  Language, experience and the very matter of what an RPG is to each group all come into conflict, allowing for no common points of conversation.

In these arguments it's not that we're shifting the goalposts, it's that we're not even on the same fucking field.

You might be right: there might be so little common ground that discussion is impossible.

But I don't think that's the case. I think there are some embedded assumptions that aren't being looked at. Absent those assumptions, I think discussion becomes easy.

One *huge* and common assumption is that getting a story requires some degree of railroading (I don't know if anyone in this thread believes this; I've seen it assumed elsewhere. Commonly).

I don't think this is the case at all. I think that railroading is an *ineffective* way to create a good story -- but it happens when you've got a lousy or inexperienced, or lazy Game Master.

True: railroading will allow to produce a *certain* story -- but there's a universe of difference between saying "RPGs are good at creating stories" and "RPGs can be reliably used to create a specific, pre-defined story."

If everyone in the discussion is quietly adding the clause, "specific, pre-defined" then yeah -- it's going to be hard to talk about, and anyone saying "RPG's are good at creating stories" is going to sound odd (that would be me).

Another example of an embedded assumption: people (in other places, again, not sure it's happening here) assume that if players have the freedom to disrupt a game, then games may be bad at creating a story.

Maybe you're touching on it when you ask

Quote from: fonkaygarryMore importantly, what the fuck does story mean in the context of a game wherein any of the players can up stumps and wreck any plot, rising action, denouement or climax they could build to/experience?

For me the answer is simple: sure, there's a chance of blowing things and getting a story that's not good in some traditional way (E.g. a huge anti-climax). That's not a problem unless it happens so often that I'm not meeting my game priority of "get a good story out of this experience."

The risk, for me, actually makes the story more compelling. The good guys really *might* lose. The hero really *might* fail. If he succeeds in the end, it means more than it would if an author or director simply made it so. The issue here is skill at managing the risks, just like it would be in any collaboration.

Why is it a key element for you? Do you see those risks as unmanagable? Or is it something more fundamental: does the freedom to bollox things make RPG's "bad at creating stories?"

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteThat's not a problem unless it happens so often that I'm not meeting my game priority of "get a good story out of this experience."

There are many people who don´t want to get a story out of this experience.
There are people who want to do stuff as their characters.
There are people who give a shit about dramatic structures.
There are people who want to solve the challenge with as less risk as possible.
Anti Climax is already assuming that a climax is a good thing unto itself.

It is not.

Quote from: SettembriniThere are many people who don´t want to get a story out of this experience.
There are people who want to do stuff as their characters.
There are people who give a shit about dramatic structures.
There are people who want to solve the challenge with as less risk as possible.
Anti Climax is already assuming that a climax is a good thing unto itself.

It is not.

Sure. I'm not claiming that desire for some kind of story is any kind of universal priority.

But I think it's a *common* one -- otherwise, why would there be so much "heat" around the issue?

It's also not mutually exclusive to doing stuff in character. In fact, I think those two agendas often go together very well:

I want to just "play my guy" -- not worry *at all* about the story structure of the game or whatever -- but I still want the sequence of events to be interesting as a story.

I'm not asking for anything traditional games don't excel at delivering. And I doubt that games that address these priorities in their marketing text would be as popular as they are if lots of other people didn't share those priorities.

Interestingly: I think trying to take care of those priorities with game-system is not a solution. I find games that *don't* exalt their "story-telling" mechanics to be much better at telling stories than games that claim to be all about creating narrative fiction. Give me AD&D over the latest story-telling darling anyday.

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteInterestingly: I think trying to take care of those priorities with game-system is not a solution. I find games that *don't* exalt their "story-telling" mechanics to be much better at telling stories than games that claim to be all about creating narrative fiction. Give me AD&D over the latest story-telling darling anyday.

I'm partially with you there. The MoR is really all you need, for whatever you want. Still, you need to have all players in the same boat, at least they have to respect each others aims.
And this is all you need, decent guys and gals whcih whom "negotiating" stuff works. It comes all down to how well the actual people go together in the context of the game. No magic pixie dust in forms of "drama-mechanics" will help.
But: When you get together, and everybody says he wants to experience a great story, those can be totally different things. And thusly I renounce the value of the word in the gaming discourse. Define and elaborate, elsewise it`s meaningless.

Quote from: SettembriniI'm partially with you there. The MoR is really all you need, for whatever you want. Still, you need to have all players in the same boat, at least they have to respect each others aims.
And this is all you need, decent guys and gals whcih whom "negotiating" stuff works. It comes all down to how well the actual people go together in the context of the game. No magic pixie dust in forms of "drama-mechanics" will help.
But: When you get together, and everybody says he wants to experience a great story, those can be totally different things. And thusly I renounce the value of the word in the gaming discourse. Define and elaborate, elsewise it`s meaningless.

I think we are as one, as a friend of mine says.

I guess I'm choosing "define and elaborate" as my approach. I think we differ on the utility of this -- I get the impression you think a different set of terms might be less trouble in the long run...

But given how pervasive and intuitive story is, and how difficult effective jargon is to create, I think we're stuck with story for the time being.

Fortunately, it's not hard to come up with a workable definition that gets past the ambiguity and allows real discussion to take place.

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteBut given how pervasive and intuitive story is, and how difficult effective jargon is to create, I think we're stuck with story for the time being.

No, I`m against jargon-creep. It`s enough if people are aware that they need to further define what they are talking about. But it is definitely not enough to just talk about "story" in a general way.

Real world words usually help, sometimes a "big" word is needed for precision, but all in all jargon for RPGs has proven to actively hinder communication instead of furthering it.

Oh well, and keep in mind people are little inconsequential suckers!

What they say might not what they actually want. Or they don`t want it to the last consequence!

For example, some people might say they want drama, but still want total freedom! It`s not games, but people who have dysfunctional longings and traits. Oftentimes in themselves!
That`s were "decetn guys and gals" comes into play again...

[another example...there are players, whom I know, who want to excel at D&D combat. And they want to earn their stuff. but sometimes they (or he) is cheating with dice rolls! And afterwards he regrets it, but it comes up several times, i.g. he does it again...well people can just be like this]

Quote from: -E.Maybe we should talk about my model and where you see the conflict. I'll say it again:

Story -- in *any* commonly understood sense -- it a natural product of traditional RPG gaming. It's one element of RPG gaming players commonly enjoy.

The idea that there's some conflict there (e.g. that producing a story requires either meta-game input from the players or railroading from the GM) isn't correct; those conclusions are either the result of unskilled GMing or a desire for a highly "finsihed" work of the sort that's not going to occur in improvised media (e.g. Improv theater, RPGs, etc.)

Rather than worrying over-much about the definition of "story" or creating new terms, I recommend looking at your assumptions:

*why* is there a conflict?
*what* is the nature of the conflict?

Cheers,
-E.

The problem is that it sounds like your definition of "story" is utterly nothing like what either the Forgeites or most normal RPGers are defining story as.

You seem to be choosing to define story as "absolutely whatever happens in the RPG IS story because the characters are acting out their personas, and so "story" is something utterly spontaneous that happens in the roleplaying".

And yes, by that utterly loose and pointless definition, there is no conflict between story-making and RPGs. But that's only because you've chosen to define story as basically being "story=roleplaying".

Which is a little like saying "Hey guys, don't worry, there's no conflict between Judaism and Islam because according to me, anyone who is worshipping the monotheistic god of the desert people is a Muslim!". A neat little dodge, but on the practical level it solves fuck all, because no one is using that definition.

There is still, behind everything, the question of the goals.  If you are trying to create a story that you want to go a certain way, either in the sense of having a fixed beginning-end run, or in the sense that the players, or certain npcs, or parts of the setting should have some kind of "protection" against tampering so that their "protagonism" be maintained, or you want certain things to happen in certain times in a certain way and that's vital to the end result you want; basically if you have a fixed end result in mind, period, then you will run into the brick wall of the fact that RPGs aren't made to work that way. At that point, you must choose between forcing the game to work that way, or being frustrated with gaming as a whole.

Using your definition, it wouldn't be a problem, because absolutely anything that any RPG ever did ever would be "story", so there wouldn't be any conflict between someone wanting to tell a story a certain way and someone wanting to actually play the RPG.  But by your definition it would mean that the "story" that three aspergers-inflicted diaper-wearers living in mom's basement made in their game of "Teh Ultimate Dungeon!!" would be in no way qualitatively different than the "story" three clove-cigarette smoking Chomsky-quoting intellectualoids living in their mother's basement made in their game of "My Life With Master".
And as much as that thought amuses me, I think it also expresses why your example isn't useful. The intellectualoids are making all of these Forge-esque "story games" for a reason, namely that they feel that RPGs as they exist today are "bad" at making stories (which is true in one sense, since that's not the GOAL of real RPGs), and that the kind of stories they would like to make are vastly superior to the kind of gameplay that most other people have. So they're trying to change what RPGs do, at the most fundamental level, to acheive this goal.


RPGPundit

Quote from: -E.I'm not asking for anything traditional games don't excel at delivering. And I doubt that games that address these priorities in their marketing text would be as popular as they are if lots of other people didn't share those priorities.

Interestingly: I think trying to take care of those priorities with game-system is not a solution. I find games that *don't* exalt their "story-telling" mechanics to be much better at telling stories than games that claim to be all about creating narrative fiction. Give me AD&D over the latest story-telling darling anyday.

Cheers,
-E.

Of course, because IN YOUR CASE, you have defined the "story" you want as actually being just roleplay and a totally spontaneous unfolding of events as they happen.

This is what I like too.

And in this, traditional games are VASTLY superior to all the story-games out there, because they don't try to create crutches for roleplay, they say "just roleplay it". You don't need a mechanic to deal with the fucking "stakes", or something that will force your character to feel a certain way, you CHOOSE all that shit yourself and you express it not in some goddamned mechanic of "trying to roll dice to force the DM and other players to let you have your way", you express it by trying to actually roleplay in such a way that you'll get what you want.

So for what we like, traditional games work just fine.  The problem is that what the other guys like, what they get their jollies from, is fuck all to do with that. The type of games that they want to play have nothing to do with anything that would entertain us.  Its just unfortunate that instead of going off and starting their own hobby, they want to come in here and steal ours from us.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditOf course, because IN YOUR CASE, you have defined the "story" you want as actually being just roleplay and a totally spontaneous unfolding of events as they happen.

This is what I like too.

And in this, traditional games are VASTLY superior to all the story-games out there, because they don't try to create crutches for roleplay, they say "just roleplay it". You don't need a mechanic to deal with the fucking "stakes", or something that will force your character to feel a certain way, you CHOOSE all that shit yourself and you express it not in some goddamned mechanic of "trying to roll dice to force the DM and other players to let you have your way", you express it by trying to actually roleplay in such a way that you'll get what you want.

So for what we like, traditional games work just fine.  The problem is that what the other guys like, what they get their jollies from, is fuck all to do with that. The type of games that they want to play have nothing to do with anything that would entertain us.  Its just unfortunate that instead of going off and starting their own hobby, they want to come in here and steal ours from us.

RPGPundit

I'm defining story as "what happens in the game" -- that's true. But it's not a total dodge.

See, I want stories like Lord of the Rings, Die Hard, Aliens, etc. (I listed the first one because it's classic D&D and the last two because, for some reason, they get pointed to as Narrativist by certain theorists who don't understand their own theory all that well; but I liked'em well enough, so they're in the list).

Here's the trick: How do you just "have things unfold" but still get compelling, reasonably 'tight' stories without railroading or player-authorship?

Simple: All those stories -- and most RPG scenarios -- have some key things in common

1) Interesting, active (i.e. not-passive) characters
2) A starting situation that is likely to lead, quickly, to conflict
3) Enough complexity and balance between opposing forces that the situation isn't likely to be resolved too quickly one way or the other

A set of players (GM-inclusive) who puts some thought into creating a starting scenario with these characteristics is, IME, likely to get a compelling story with (roughly) the structure of a novel or movie.

All, without the Players having to do any "authoring" or the GM doing any railroading.

Here's where I think people who *want* story, but don't get it from traditional games go wrong:

1) Bad scenario construction. If you're not well aware of the PC's (and their allies) capabilities, it's all too easy to develop a scenario that gets short-circuted one way or another (classice examples: TPK in the first encounter or the PC's beat the major bad-guy and win the game in the first encounter)

2) Lack of basic agreement and trust on the part of the players (GM-inclusive) so that the scenario developed doesn't appeal to the characters, or otherwise gets walked away from (or everyone scatters, purusing their own, separate agendas)

3) GM wants to tell a particular story; this is the classic railroad and in my experience usually ends quickly in a "train wreck" followed by the eviction of the GM.

4) Failure to develop interesting settings, NPCs, and a believeable world. If the PCs' are going to have free reign in the world, it needs to be consistent and not-paper-thin. The GM needs to be able to figure out how the PC's behavior gets reacted to, and do so in a way that makes sense. Failure to create a viable world makes free-rein roleplay fall apart, IME.

A lot of this is, as I said before, a matter of GM skill. I think one of the gating factors on RPG play is the skill level of the GM. Fortunately, there are a lot of people out there who are natural storytellers. Absent bullshit, it's usually not hard to find someone who's good at it, who finds GMing fulfilling.

Bottom Line: I regularly get "stories" from the games I play in that would make good short stories, movies or novels. Some of them don't even need much editing... I don't get railroaded or "illusioned" (or whatever the current theory word is) or any of that nonsense, and the groups I play with don't use special mechanics or story-creation games.

We just get a bunch of high-energy players and a GM on the same page and let them go.

Sometimes it doesn't work -- sometimes everyone dies. Sometimes the master-strategist figures out a way to win in one move. But that happens *rarely* enough that when it *does* work we know we pulled it off; we know it means something. And it means that the outcome was earned.

For me, that's what RPG play is all about.

Cheers,
-E.

E:

You say you want "story," but when you describe what you want out of it I hear "I want a good game."

Are you arguing that a pleasing narrative is a natural outgrowth of a good game?  If so, it would seem that we are aguing against each other in favor of the same thing.