Quote from: fonkaygarryE:

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.

I'm not sure I'm actually arguing against *anyone* -- I think I have far more points of agreement than disagreement here.

To be clear, here's what I'm saying

1) RPG's aren't any good for telling someone's specific story; attempts at this are usually called "railroading"

2) With skilled scenario design and a group that trusts and communicates with one another, traditional RPG play will give rise to play that meets (most of) the standards for "stories" from media such as movies and books -- without railroading or non-traditional mechanics.

I think the only people I'm disagreeing with aren't actually *here* -- the people saying the only way to get a recognizable story structure out of a game is with some form of railroading or by mechanics that make everyone the author.

I *disagree* with that.

I would compare the games I like to movies and books I like:

I prefer books and movies ("stories") where the characters and the world act in accordance with their own natures -- where I don't, as a viewer, see the "wheels of the plot" moving.

In those stories, the action flows from the characters behaving as they do based on what they know, what they believe, and what they prioritize.

In those stories the world is impersonal. People live or die based, not on the plot needs, but on the results of their behavior.

Reservior Dogs is a pretty good example of this; it could easily be run as an RPG scenario and would almost inevitably create a compelling story.

The "GM" wouldn't have to railroad anything (or even, depending on who was a PC, make many decisions). The drama and conflict are all in the setup. I would include having a captured cop as part of the setup and I would include Mr. Orange's wound as part of the setup (essentially starting the game in the warehouse), but otherwise, you'd hardly need a GM.

And with players and GM on the same page, I think you'd get the sort of game I'm thinking of.

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteAnd yes, by that utterly loose and pointless definition, there is no conflict between story-making and RPGs.

See, that`s my conclusion too. I think I have "proven" that story has to be defined for the person uttering it. It has lost it`s power as a shorthand.
So we all have to be aware when someone says "story" and our first question must be:

"What do you mean by that."

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

Well, we don't need that solid a definition, really. A foggy one will do. Get too specific, and it's piss-easy to come up with some exception that looks like a "story" but doesn't fit exactly the definition. It's like trying to define the word "tall". It's a relative thing.

But how about this:

A "story" is a telling of something or someone changing, and why they changed.

If nothing changes, there's no "story", because nothing happened - it's just a "description."

"Bob sat on the park bench." That ain't a change, so no story.

"Bob sat on the park bench, crying at his lost love." Ah, now this is a potential story. We know something happened. He had a love, now he's lost it. What now? Well, we can go on to talk about how he lost his love in the past, or what'll happen to him in the future - we can talk about the changes, and that's a "story."

If we describe a change, but give no reasons for the change, again, that ain't a story, just a description. This is what some people call "theme" or a "moral" of the story - why things changed, and what that means.

In a roleplaying game, things change because a player-character made a decision. So in a roleplaying game, player-character decisions are the theme and moral of the story.

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?

It means that we can have a crap story. But it's still a story. A story where you think the end was stupid, or wrong - that's still a story, just not a good story. I mean, if my car crashes into a tree, it's still a car. The fact that the car didn't go where I wanted it to doesn't make it "not a car" - just not a very good car. Still a car, though. And a crap story is still a story.

So: "story" is where something changes, and there's a reason for it. If nothing changes or there's no reason for it, it's not a story, just a description, a picture. If the change or the reason is stupid or wrong, then it's a crap story; but it's still a story.

Quote from: SettembriniSee, that`s my conclusion too. I think I have "proven" that story has to be defined for the person uttering it. It has lost it`s power as a shorthand.
So we all have to be aware when someone says "story" and our first question must be:

"What do you mean by that."

Or we could just not be deliberately dumb for the sake of argument.

"This steak tastes good."
"But what is steak? What is good?"
*thwap*

Quote from: fonkaygarryE:

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

-E. is saying things in much the way I think of them.

The disconnect in certain discussions is people who hear 'story' and automatically think, or mean, something that works out to to 'preplanned plot', that is, railroading.  But the assumption that it has to work that way is a mistake: that isn't the only way to get events that I'd enjoy as a story if I read in a book -- let alone events which I'd enjoy as a story, and intend to enjoy as such, in an RPG.

Not only is it not true that one needs a preplanned plot if one intends to enjoy an RPG as a story, it isn't even true in fiction-writing, where the product is unambiguously not a game.  There are authors whose method of story generation is to put interesting characters in a conflict and simply follow them as they act according to their natures, to produce a rough draft.  Then, because the medium isn't live, they'll generally go back and edit and polish on subsequent drafts.  (In an RPG we don't do subsequent drafts, so the product has rough edges compared to published fiction.)

Since I take pleasure in good characterization, in development and compelling portrayal of the setting, and in watching characters resolve conflicts (or fail to resolve them), I have no hesitation about describing part of my enjoyment of RPGs as the enjoyment of story, or of using the vocabulary of fiction-writing to discuss it: it is useful to me, and I don't intend to give it up because some people can't get past the 'story = preplanned plot' association.  These are elements that are commonly associated with fiction, and not generally associated with the common run of games: the language of game theory won't help me to discuss technique in this dimension.

I take a large amount of pleasure in answering What If? questions: what would really happen if we put these characters in this situation, and let events develop by cause-and-effect, as they act according to their natures?  The naturalistic feel this method produces is not an essential characteristic of all story; and it slides over imperceptibly into the sort of pleasure I can take in playing a reasonably realistic tactical simulation.  In that sense, the sort of story I want from an RPG is closely allied to a particular sort of game.

However, there is a particular kind of pleasure I take in some kinds of games that I seldom, if ever, take in roleplaying, and that is the pure pleasure of defeating obstacles and overcoming competition in an objective and quantifiable way, without regard to whether the course of play simulates anything or informs me the way a good simulation does.  I would not tend to characterize my campaigns as good games in that sense, therefore.  They may be good games in the all-encompassing broad sense of game-as-pastime, but that sense of game is as broad as the 'any recounting of events' sense of story.  The word 'game' is as likely to mislead without clarification, I think: certainly it is not unambiguous either.

I don't preplot, in the sense of determining events beforehand, in my campaigns.  I set up conflicts at the beginning of play, and pose problems to the characters which I think are interesting, and which I suspect can be solved or at least productively addressed; but I often don't know myself for sure what the solution is, nor am I even certain that there is one.  The problem would not be interesting if if there were a plainly foreseeable path to a solution, if it were obvious what the characters should do.  I suppose some people might play through scenarios like this without enjoying them in the way they enjoy stories, or without finding the language of fiction useful in discussing technique; but I hardly find it necessary to follow suit, or to alter my vocabulary to mimic a perspective that isn't mine.

I don't consciously focus on the production of dramatic structures while we are actually playing.  I don't think that my not consciously focusing on patterns of rising and falling tension, climax, and denouement while we're playing is adequate reason for describing the story-pleasure I take in RPGs as a mere unintentional byproduct of playing a game: I intend to enjoy play as a story, and my methods are adapted to producing that sort of result in a manner that satisfies me.

My methods might not have the same result for everyone.  Perhaps a player in one of my campaigns would enjoy it primarily as a game.  Perhaps -- very likely, even -- someone whose idea of a good story is the kind of event patterns producted by Dogs in the Vineyard would think my stories unsatisfying.  That's as may be.  I don't believe that everyone wants, or gets, the same thing out of RPGs, or out of particular RPG techniques.

Part of the confusion, I think, arises because stories do not provide a single kind of pleasure.  The pleasure of watching a dramatic unfolding of events is only one of them, and while I do appreciate it, it isn't the only kind of pleasure I take in stories in other media -- I don't even think it's the most important.  Certainly it is not equally emphasized in all stories that I like; I have enjoyed taut suspense novels, but I have also enjoyed meandering novels whose plots are less prominent than their settings or their character portraits.

I suspect that there is no practical way to keep some people from making the story = plot = preplanned plot equation, because they think of stories primarily in terms of plot or particular dramatic patterns, which they may love or loathe in RPGs, and can't get that kind of dramatic pattern without preplotting.  So I doubt that the discussion is ever going to go away.  But I'm not willing to let these people have exclusive jurisdiction over the usage of 'story' with respect to RPGs, because I find it too useful myself.

Well put, Keran, and worth chewing over.

@JimBob:

You are totally missing my point. My point is not, that we have to define "story" once and for all, but that if somebody wants to talk aboput his Story-heavy-RPG, he has to define what he means.
Because story means tons of different stuff to tons of different people. It`s  too loaded up with connotations which totally  surpass any differences that the meaning of "steak" can have.

Yes. For some historical perspective, this conversation probably echoes old RGFA controversies over whether the selection of an interesting, conflict-laden set of starting conditions meant that a game was Dramatist, not Simulationist.

The perspective of people like Settembrini, RPGPundit, and myself, is that "telling a story" entails taking actions during the scenario which are mindful of how we, as an audience, want the narrative to run. And generally, it seems the more someone wants to approach a game this way, the more that person desires the power to directly influence and interface with the events in the narrative in ways that would not be possible for the person's PC.

JimBob, Marco, -E, and Keran believe that "telling a story" doesn't have to entail making such "narrative-level" decisions (as opposed to "character-level"), or using such "narrative-level" powers, beyond the construction of the initial conditions.

Between these two groups of people, it just looks like a semantic argument to me.

It would be interesting to see whether people believe that it's meaningful to talk about a tension between one's personal vision of a character and what one thinks would be most interesting for that character to do, in terms of the overall story, bearing in mind that the latter can be justified by retroactively revising the vision of the character. E.g., could I reasonably feel tension between a belief that my character wouldn't reveal some secret, and a sense that revealing the secret is exactly the right thing to do, from the perspective of the story?

QuoteBetween these two groups of people, it just looks like a semantic argument to me.

Even more like a syntactic argument. No "Story-Lover" in this thread, so far.

Quote from: TonyLB

QuoteEither you emulate dramatic structures, or you have freedom of participants actions, both do not go together.

Oooh! That's a bold assertion there. Do you know it to be bold (and controversial)? Or are you trying to say something that is obvious to you and might well be obvious to me, if I understood your intent more clearly?

I think it says very little. In fact, given the context where he seems to be thinking that he isn't emulating something (or maybe I have that wrong?), I think it says very, very little of import since I don't buy it in the least.  Because any freedom of participants actions are purely illusionary if they are in anyway bound by external rules.  And typically RPG participants, certainly the players at least, actions are bound very much bound by rules be they written or GM (or group) created.

Quote from: Settembrini@JimBob:

You are totally missing my point. My point is not, that we have to define "story" once and for all, but that if somebody wants to talk aboput his Story-heavy-RPG, he has to define what he means.
Because story means tons of different stuff to tons of different people. It`s  too loaded up with connotations which totally  surpass any differences that the meaning of "steak" can have.

How about realizing "story-heavy" for what it is?  Something that belongs over here.

Then stop freaking when you see the word "story", or trying to mount some sort of pointless denial when it's pointed out that you as a GM put hours upon hours into working on the story underlying a game you are running. Instead with pride saying "Yes, I do put a lot of work into providing a well thought out senario that I find leaves players with a sense of having played a character that exists within a working, active, and engaging world that has a lot of verisimilitude."

QuoteAnd typically RPG participants, certainly the players at least, actions are bound very much bound by rules be they written or GM (or group) created.

So what?
The players have all degrees of freedom. Most importantly, they have the freedom to die in the first ten minutes, which is absent in most "story" venues, as they have script immunity. I´m playing a character, not emulating some  fantasy-hack-novel, or navel-gazing-Joss-Whedon-high-school trauma shit.

Your point: absent.

Quote from: SettembriniEven more like a syntactic argument. No "Story-Lover" in this thread, so far.

I'll take the job, but you might be dissapointed.

It's my opinion that RPGs naturally give rise to story, in a fuzzy-definition kind of way.  They are prevented from doing so, on occasion, by two possible things:

1. The system-at-the-table gets in the way.  And I don't mean the game book.  I mean the system-at-the-table.  You can use the d20 rules and get a fan-fucking-tastic story, but you need to put aside some things that are assumed by many users (and some writers) of d20 material.

2. Someone decides they want to tell a story they have in their head, rather than letting one simply emerge naturally from the way the group plays.  Some games actually try to encourage this.  See also: Why I despise the GM advice in World of Darkness.  

---

It's also possible to facilitate the creation of certain kinds of stories by building a system for it.  This, again, ain't a problem-free trick.  If you do, you'll always get the same kind of story, and you'll need to simply dispense with stuff outside the scope of that system as unimportant.  Basically, to turn an RPG into a story-making engine, you need to dump a whole lot of the flexibility that RPGs normally have.

Personally, I'm interested in having those games as well as the others.  Not everyone is, of course.

Quote from: SettembriniMost importantly, they have the freedom to die in the first ten minutes, which is absent in most "story" venues, as they have script immunity.

Your point: Based on mistaken and blanket assumptions.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenSee also: Why I despise the GM advice in World of Darkness.

Ding! Now that was a classic pile of festering illogical crap. Unless you actually wanted to have the GM be the director of his own prewritten script with the players as amatuer actors cast in the roles of the PCs.

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen1. The system-at-the-table gets in the way.  And I don't mean the game book.  I mean the system-at-the-table.  You can use the d20 rules and get a fan-fucking-tastic story, but you need to put aside some things that are assumed by many users (and some writers) of d20 material.

I'm curious what you see this as? I know what I see it as, just curious what you do.

QuoteBasically, to turn an RPG into a story-making engine, you need to dump a whole lot of the flexibility that RPGs normally have.

Er, that depends I think. You can still have a quite flexible system and have it directed towards being a story-making engine. The more you tune it towards a certain type of story or setting, the more you have to ignore/add to/change the rules to get the same breadth of options.  But this is just as true of any RPG of any style. The more you tune it towards a specific type of game, whatever that type is, the more it takes to deviate.

Quote from: blakkieUnless you actually wanted to have the GM be the director of his own prewritten script with the players as amatuer actors cast in the roles of the PCs.

Yes please. :hang:

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThe system-at-the-table gets in the way. And I don't mean the game book. I mean the system-at-the-table. You can use the d20 rules and get a fan-fucking-tastic story, but you need to put aside some things that are assumed by many users (and some writers) of d20 material.

Could you lay out some of those assumptions?