I think this was a very solid video, in that it talks about things folks don't oftentimes even consider.

I do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming, as illustrated by Pundit's example with spellcasting in Lion and Dragon... but also as shown in games like Ascendant that have a firm focus on simulationism and the living world that is referenced for Emulation. (It's heavily based on player character stats probability-wise as to what you get, tho, and there's usually at least a small chance of failure, which is not subdivided.) I think because it helps integrate randomness, mechanics, and a living world and elevate them relative to fiat while actually allowing the DM to simulate the living world more easily and improvise probable outcomes more effectively.


I do indeed hate illusionism though, because it's almost the antithesis of both player agency and a living world, as well as gameplay and simulationism. If I wanted to hear a railroaded story from a dictatorial narrator... I'd read a book, and presumably not a CYOA one.


Still not sure whose bright idea it was to try to infiltrate the OSR with storygaming. Seems a very odd place for it from my perspective, even for the non-rules-compatible ostensible renaissance side.

Not sure I agree that story games aren't RPGs, since it seems like folks are defining mainly based on what it must not have rather than what it must have, (like, I kinda feel like if you have a character you play according to imagined internal thoughts and game rules and there's a living world, meta currency and the like doesn't necessarily negate that, even if it may in some ways discourage connection with it) but I would mostly agree that they usually tend to have weak mechanics and poor gameplay. Though that may just be because Forge folks always looked down on that, and it floated downstream? (Dresden Files RPG was interesting, though I didn't really like the scene declaration stuff that didn't flow from character action, since that's not my cup of tea. Folks got into their characters, though, and I strove for emulation and a living world when DMing, so by those counts...)

Anyway, interesting thoughts, and I've really enjoyed the discussion and hearing folks opinions thus far.

I dunno, the same kind of people who claim that storygames are RPGs are usually the same ones who claim that Dread is also a RPG (and nothing says role-playing like a Jenga tower).

Storygames that operate ostensibly as rpgs, are rpgs, as Obi Wan would say from a certain point of view.Participants of these games are all playing a role, and that role is story editor. Whatever character or avatar that some players are using in the game is not the role they are playing. The group as a whole edits and refines a story being created as play goes on, thus everyone is playing the role of story editors.

Either players get to make shit up about the world during regular gameplay, or the GM is the final arbiter and players can ask about the world and declare their characters actions for the GM to resolve and narrate. Likewise, meta currency for fudging the world is either at the player's or GM's authority. It's possible to blur the lines and run an edge case of one as the other, but narrative authority is either distributed or the GM is the sole arbiter.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 16, 2024, 06:08:21 PMI dunno, the same kind of people who claim that storygames are RPGs are usually the same ones who claim that Dread is also a RPG (and nothing says role-playing like a Jenga tower).

I mean on the one hand, yeah, some storygames probably aren't RPGs. But I also don't think that everything that's a storygame isn't an RPG, if that makes sense? I basically feel like if it does satisfy immersion in roleplaying a character, and emulation of a living world, and has related game mechanics, then for me it's an rpg even if it has storygaming elements or is arguably a storygame. (Like with certain FATE games like the original Dresden Files RPG, probably, since I feel like those are storygames?) Though obviously definitions are pretty darn subjective, and I guess other folks will have their own and their own reasoning. Societally I'm not really sure what the consensus is, but I'd guess that if Dread is marketed as an RPG that might I guess be proof that my definition is also more constrained than the average gamer's?

 I've never played Dread nor especially looked into it, so feel free to take what I say with a fair bit of salt, but... I feel it would likely fail a test of emulation/living world/basic simulationism. In that I don't think there's a arbitrating world outside the characters. If the reason why characters die is solely the collapse of a Jenga tower on their turn to pull rather than an in-world reasoning, and outside of that they can do whatever, then it's just Jenga with people improvising short stories I feel? Admittedly with people telling stories about characters, but ones that ostensibly don't have any mechanical constraints to their action outside when they die, hence a failure too probably of immersion within a character, as they don't have specific traits, limitations, and attributes. Especially not ones that impact their interaction with the world. I could be totally wrong about how this works, but my understanding was that it's just Jenga with horror storytelling, right? Kinda like how the game Mafia has a narrator but is not really an RPG?

Quote from: Exploderwizard on April 16, 2024, 07:24:08 PMStorygames that operate ostensibly as rpgs, are rpgs, as Obi Wan would say from a certain point of view.Participants of these games are all playing a role, and that role is story editor. Whatever character or avatar that some players are using in the game is not the role they are playing. The group as a whole edits and refines a story being created as play goes on, thus everyone is playing the role of story editors.

I guess I'm not sure it's quite that clear cut, in that I feel like even with a metacurrency or set of moves that allow environmental distortion on the player's part (ex: luck points, fate points, DM-arbitrated circumstantial declarations), the player may still also be playing a character with limitations and some noticeable degree of immersion. I would agree that unless exercised directly through in-game actions or abilities of the player character it will indeed potentially distract from that role, via also playing the editor so to speak... But I don't think it entirely negates that role, especially when the editor's agency (so to speak) over the environment is solidly constrained by both mechanics and DM arbitration.

Quote from: Wisithir on April 16, 2024, 09:45:38 PMEither players get to make shit up about the world during regular gameplay, or the GM is the final arbiter and players can ask about the world and declare their characters actions for the GM to resolve and narrate. Likewise, meta currency for fudging the world is either at the player's or GM's authority. It's possible to blur the lines and run an edge case of one as the other, but narrative authority is either distributed or the GM is the sole arbiter.

On which note, I feel like GM authority over circumstantial editing, meta-currencies, and the like is also a very solid point. Touched on briefly above. In that if the ultimate authority on the world rests with a singular person and there are rules constraining editing mechanically with DM as arbiter, I feel it can indeed blur the lines. For me I'd say it might give the potential for a storygame to also be an RPG. Because then emulation and a world with consistent internal reasoning hasn't necessarily all been fed to the wolves of player whim driven narrative fiat if that makes sense? Basically, if there are constraints on the player as an editor, then the constraints on said player as a character may still potentially be meaningful to some degree, allowing for immersion, even if the storygame aspect distracts from it or waters it down, maybe?


I'm not doing a great job avoiding stream of consciousness here, I guess, and looking back it seems I've written quite a bit in replies here, so hopefully I'm not cluttering the thread too much, lol. I kinda just got excited when folks added in more thoughts, and much of what was said seemed interesting and had me feeling like I should maybe think more about it and perhaps revise some of what I had previously been thinking.

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 01, 2024, 01:31:56 AM

Quote from: Abraxus on March 31, 2024, 08:35:35 PMIs this not the third video on the same topic at this point.

We get it Pundit your bored and starting to do threads for shit and giggles. Sometimes less is more. Or at the very least book  an appointment with a qualified mental healthcare specialist for your Dagger heart/Matt Mercie/story game OCD/Obsession.

Someone sure is sounding defensive...

No he isn't lol. Get some other interests, you sound like you have mental problems

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 04:59:45 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 02, 2024, 03:02:38 PMThat probably seemed rude on my part, sorry.  I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time.  I was hoping for a two sentence summary.

The short version is that storygames are bad games because they are warping their mechanics to the end of cooperativly creating a story as opposed to emulating a world. This fails since the ideal version of cooperative story creation is cooperative narrative improvisation with no mechanics at all, so any system that introduces mechanics makes the system worse at what it's trying to do.

What is emulating a word? Did you mean simulating?
Why is simulating a world better than creating a story?
How can we be certain that simulating a world is mutually exclusive with creating a story?
Why does it fail? What does it mean to fail? What goal does it fail to achieve? How did you determine this?
How did you determine the ideal version of cooperative story creation? Whose ideal is it?

I don't like storygames as a concept.

I've written a lot of stories over the years and you cannot force a story. In a ttrpg I would rather allow my pcs to make choices on their own than force each of them to play as a certain archetype with a pre-planned character arc. Storygames are extremely restrictive while being rules-light, and I say this as someone who has looked into several games run by Powered by the Apocalypse. Often I find that none of the playbooks appeal to me, at all, but I'd have to create a whole new set of archetypes that I personally prefer, but others may not, and at the end of the day I'd rather play something else.

Greetings!

Well, *Stories* are an integral and essential focal point of RPG's. That story element is essentially what differentiates RPG's from playing Monopoly or Chess. So, I love stories, and storytelling is essential to RPG's.

The whole "Storygame" thing though, as a different kind of RPG, is enormously different in focus than traditional RPG's. I certainly don't like "Storygames" as a style of game. *Shrugs* Oh well, though, right? Evidently some people must love these kinds of games, because they keep being made. Yes, few people seem to play them, but then again, who cares? Sufficient numbers of fat, blue-haired rainbow freaks seem to love these kinds of games. They can play these games, and have gay dance proms, and adventures with progressive, Woke coffee houses where everyone is a bisexual gender-fluid furry while role-playing having hot-mess orgies and gangbangs with each other.

That is essentially what they want in their games. Let them do them. Let them wallow in their terrible games.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

damn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours

Quote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours

Greetings!

This directed at me?

Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.

If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.

If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!

Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on April 17, 2024, 10:09:25 PM

Quote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours

Greetings!

This directed at me?

Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.

If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.

If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!

Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Check its posting history.  It's a troll (and not a particularly intelligent or entertaining one).  Just roll your eyes and move on to someone with a semblance of a coherent thought... **roll eyes**

Quote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,

It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on April 18, 2024, 10:48:02 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,

It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.

There have been versions of degrees of success going all the way back to Chainmail, but they had a mechanical difference between the degrees (failure, drive back, success/kill). Those are different from what I was referring to, and I should have said it better. But..

I will use Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley to illustrate what I was driving towards. When investigating, you will ALWAYS be successful. You get the bare minimum of what you are looking for on a 1. You get everything you were looking for on a 4, that and more with a 5 and "more" than you wanted on a 6.

It doesn't matter if you are looking for Al Capone's tax records or going through your first cousin's underwear drawer, success is one d6 roll away.