To finish things up, as it now came to me though.

I agree on most of that, Pundit. Actually I think that ironically, storygames could perhaps be more successful, if they got away from RPG niche and carved out their own name. I think that allowing the players to have a big narrative power is nothing wrong though, and there are some "story RPGs", like Trail of Cthulhu for example - not because they are all about players following the narrator's story to the letter, but because they allow players to influence the world by means other then their characters' actions. And I know you'll probably disagree with me, but I'm just putting this out here, to not be a hypocrite later.

Part of this whole problem here basically steams from White Wolf's nasty trick, that they used to get their product noticed, from what I read here.

"Now you are a real roleplayer". Nothing works better  to boost the sales, to split groups into sides, as this turns fans into fanatics.

White Wolf was hardly the first or last RPG company to say that by playing their product you were a person of taste and refinement far above the madding crowd. And if you look beyond RPGs...well, I think it was probably in the first advertisement ever created,  in some form.

100% of all businesses will tell you anything - anything -to to get your money, unless someone bigger stops them.

Then again, there's a difference in saying "You are better because you buy our products" then suggesting in advertisement "Those who do not buy our product are worse".

It's a subtle thing, but there is such a difference I believe.

You're wrong, as far as advertising goes. That's all it ever was. They didn't turn anyone away.

Why are people still mad at White Wolf fans?  They lost.  We won.  Enjoy the victory.

Quote from: Dog Quixote;499241Why are people still mad at White Wolf fans?  They lost.  We won.  Enjoy the victory.

I'd say that the very fact of actual conflict in this case means that both side lost.

QuoteYou're wrong, as far as advertising goes. That's all it ever was. They didn't turn anyone away

Of course they didn't turn anyone again. I am just saying that the advertisement was more based on negative emotions evoked in the audience, rather then positive.

Quote from: JDCorley;498810How do you roleplay alone? Like, do you just imagine yourself to be someone else and....then what? Say something? To no one? Are you also then imagining who you are talking to?  Do you stand up and walk around like the character would if they were were you are?

Edit: Or are you talking about computer games and solo adventures? Aren't you in those situations responding to what a game designer is telling you?

You roleplay alone by imagining a scenario, imagining a point of view held by some person within that scenario, and then making improvised decisions from that point of view. People do it all the time - it's a pretty essential human activity - it's how we plan for things, how we imagine decisions we might have made, etc.

What the quotation I objected to is doing is mistaking a byproduct of roleplaying games for the roleplaying experience itself. Roleplaying is making decisions - communicating those decisions to others (having a conversation, describing what you're doing, speaking in character) is a byproduct.

For an example of roleplaying in a game setting without conversation - two people LARPing in a fantasy game where they're playing people who don't understand each other's language.

Quote from: Dog Quixote;499241Why are people still mad at White Wolf fans?  They lost.  We won.  Enjoy the victory.

No, they won.  For several years.  Until the economy crashed and people realized that being Cool wouldn't help them buy the latest $40 hardcover when they got their hours cut at work.

JG

Quote from: JDCorley;499044Well, you call it bad advice, but really it's just advice that pushes for a goal you don't want.

NO. Its more than that. Its advice that runs DIRECTLY COUNTER to HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY WORKS.  "you should be a dick to your players" is a goal I don't want.  "You should make this D&D game into an attempt to do something that requires that you stop actually playing it as a game" is direct sabotage of the structure of the game.

Its like if in Monopoly you were told "you should ignore the rules whenever they run would indicate that someone might end up winning all the money, because we all know monopoly is about sharing".

Trying to make a regular RPG into a game that "creates story" REQUIRES that the following things take a lower priority than "creating story":
1. THE FUCKING RULES
2: THE GODDAMN SETTING
3.  THE MOTHERFUCKING PLAYER CHARACTERS
4. CHRIST-SHITTING IMMERSION
5. Basically, everything that an RPG is about

QuoteFor someone who is interested in that goal, it's very good advice.  Right? Of course!  

Again, NO. "good advice" would be "RPGs are meant to emulate a world and let you immerse into a character living in that world. Any "stories" that might happen are purely a byproduct of the actual play.  This type of game is not really made to intentionally create a story, and if that's your goal you'll be better off trying some other kind of game, like a collective story-telling exercise rather than clumsily trying to force an RPG to be something its not".

QuoteThat's why Star Wars d6 and Vampire were such successful games for so many groups.  Because the tools they provided were very effective at reaching the goals of those groups.

Nope. Star Wars was successful because it was goddamn star wars, and had great setting material (allowing for good EMULATION), and was not nearly as "storygamey" as you're trying to claim.  Vampire was successful because it made humanities and Arts majors in college feel pretentious for playing it, and because it latched onto the goth movement.

QuoteI don't think there is a single goal for all RPGs, and the extreme diversity of RPGs throughout its history backs me up.  Hell, the extreme diversity of D&D GM advice  throughout its history backs me up.  You are the one pretending, against 30 years of evidence, that all RPGs have one single goal.

Bullshit. You just have to look at how RPGs actually work, what their rules are made to do, to know what that goal is. Also, there is no great disparity in GM advice when it comes to the fundamentals.  ALSO, GM advice doesn't matter.  Someone could be an idiot about how they write their gm advice section and still create a regular RPG that in no way reflects the advice they give.  Which is what I've been pointing out here.

QuoteMe, I am more modest, a gentle soul, so I've never said anything about "what the goal of RPGs is", because I don't believe there is any one goal.  

First, you've just said something about "what the goal of rpgs is", then. Second, you're an idiot if you don't understand what RPGs are for.

QuotePeople play RPGs for many reasons and seeking many experiences.  I know this because sometimes I want different things from RPGs from month to month or week to week!  I want different things from RPGs today than I did when I was 15 and just getting started playing. Don't you?  Haven't you changed as a person since you were but a boy and a beardless youth?  Don't you want your leisure time to be different now than then?

I've changed in multitudinous ways.  But when I play chess, or monopoly, or D&D, or any other RPG, I'm still wanting the same thing I always wanted with them, which is to say what they were made for. I've just gotten better at playing them.
And I'm not such an insufferable pretentious piece of shit as to imagine that I'm superior to the unwashed masses because instead of actually playing chess WELL, I'm playing a losing game while making up a story about a torrid inter-racial homoerotic love affair between the black knight and the white rook.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Rincewind1;499050Out of curiosity then, what's Memoir' 44 shelf according to you - board games? Not that I disagree with that statement, as Memoir is indeed not a wargame compared to some wargames I did play.

Its a wargame. It (and other new games that wargaming grognards try to claim are "not wargames") functions with exactly the same parameters as any other wargame; their only claim is based on it being too simple, easy to play and fun.
Unlike the difference between a storygame and an RPG, while you can criticize memoir for being simplistic, it doesn't "do" anything that wargames aren't meant to do.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JDCorley;499044Well, you call it bad advice, but really it's just advice that pushes for a goal you don't want.  For someone who is interested in that goal, it's very good advice.  Right? Of course!  That's why Star Wars d6 and Vampire were such successful games for so many groups.  Because the tools they provided were very effective at reaching the goals of those groups.

.

I can't speak to Vampire as I played but didn't GM that (and therefore didn'te really read the books). My vampire GM pretty much ran it as free-form character driven.

But in the 90s I remember a lot of the storyteller stuff creeping into TSR products like Ravenloft (which I was a big fan of). My complaint was much of the advice instructed the GM to railroad, cheat, etc for the purpose of advancing a story structure on the game. Don't get me wrong, I love the Ravenloft products from that period, and despite some quesitonable GM advice there is still a ton of great material to draw on. For me it is a bit like fitting a square peg in a round hole. The writers clearly wanted something more literary or cinematic, but the rules really went against what they were trying to accomplish, so you ended up with advice like "no matter what the players do this NPC doesn't die" or you ended up with modules that put players in the passenger seat while npcs and events advanced the storyline. In some books you got the sense that the designers were lamenting that GMs don't have the control a director or author does.

I still have fond memories of the stuff that came out in the 90s. The setting material for D&D was incredible in my opinion and I think this is because there was a strong focus on flavor. But by the mid 90s or so, they went a bit nuts trying to emulate scenes from movies and books.

Quote from: RPGPundit;499426NO. Its more than that. Its advice that runs DIRECTLY COUNTER to HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY WORKS.  "you should be a dick to your players" is a goal I don't want.  "You should make this D&D game into an attempt to do something that requires that you stop actually playing it as a game" is direct sabotage of the structure of the game.

We are talking about games where one person gets to say what a character says, thinks, feels and does (things amazingly important to stories), and another person gets to say what happens as a result (another thing amazingly important to stories). You are aware that those two things can create really powerful stories, right?  That there is no need for anything further in the rules to create stories? Surely you are.

No, the rules of normal ole RPGs can and historically have been used by people interested in story in RPGs since almost the beginning, because of those two rules: I get to say what my character says and does and the GM gets to say what happens as a result.

QuoteTrying to make a regular RPG into a game that "creates story" REQUIRES that the following things take a lower priority than "creating story":
1. THE FUCKING RULES

Nope, the rules support the creation of story, if that's what you want to do. Especially the GM and what the GM is supposed to do in the game, as I mentioned!

Quote2: THE GODDAMN SETTING

Interesting, please tell me more about how Star Wars' setting is not a good setting for stories. Or did Star Wars d6 make some kind of change to the setting that you feel makes it not a good setting for stories?

Quote3.  THE MOTHERFUCKING PLAYER CHARACTERS

Hmmm, I seem to remember there being characters in most of the vampire stories I've read?  Maybe I should double check.

QuoteNope. Star Wars was successful because it was goddamn star wars, and had great setting material (allowing for good EMULATION), and was not nearly as "storygamey" as you're trying to claim.  Vampire was successful because it made humanities and Arts majors in college feel pretentious for playing it, and because it latched onto the goth movement.

I'm not talking about financial success, I'm talking about play success.  I don't really know much about business and don't really care. I'm talking about having fun playing the game, enjoying the game together.  

QuoteBullshit. You just have to look at how RPGs actually work, what their rules are made to do, to know what that goal is. Also, there is no great disparity in GM advice when it comes to the fundamentals.  ALSO, GM advice doesn't matter.

Interesting that you feel it doesn't matter what a game tells the GM to do. I think the GM is an important part of both games and what they're told to do is highly relevant. It matters a lot what a GM does in a game!  A GM that is catering to the interests of a group who wants a good story out of a RPG campaign ought do very different things from a GM in a group with different interests.

Do you think that the GM role is overrated in some way? There's a lot of recent games that have drastically altered or eliminated the GM role, maybe you would like those if you think what the GM does, thinks and prioritizes isn't relevant.

QuoteAnd I'm not such an insufferable pretentious piece of shit as to imagine that I'm superior to the unwashed masses because instead of actually playing chess WELL, I'm playing a losing game while making up a story about a torrid inter-racial homoerotic love affair between the black knight and the white rook.

Well, in chess there's no rule that says you have any characters, no rule that says you get to say what your character says, thinks and does and nobody to tell you what happens as a result.  So I agree with you that we should stand against the tide of story-gaming in chess.

Oh, except for The Dance And The Dawn, which is a really cool game that uses a chessboard as a resolution tool, but it's not using the normal chess winning rules/etc., it's a normal RPG.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;499431But in the 90s I remember a lot of the storyteller stuff creeping into TSR products like Ravenloft (which I was a big fan of). My complaint was much of the advice instructed the GM to railroad, cheat, etc for the purpose of advancing a story structure on the game. Don't get me wrong, I love the Ravenloft products from that period, and despite some quesitonable GM advice there is still a ton of great material to draw on. For me it is a bit like fitting a square peg in a round hole. The writers clearly wanted something more literary or cinematic, but the rules really went against what they were trying to accomplish, so you ended up with advice like "no matter what the players do this NPC doesn't die" or you ended up with modules that put players in the passenger seat while npcs and events advanced the storyline.

This has always existed in module play. Dragonlance actually was the worst offender in this regard, and those modules predated Vampire by years. I will always remember one paragraph that was: "The party will go right at the fork. If the party goes left, punish them with increasingly dangerous monsters suddenly attacking until they go right or they are all dead."  

Vampire's early modules were also like this.  They were dungeon crawls, too!

I have a ton of early Champions modules, "Deathstroke" from 1983, 8 full years before Vampire 1ed, is about a supervillain stealing some mysterious radioactive isotopes, then using them to threaten the world.  The first part of the scenario is about the theft and the PCs trying to find out about it and stop it.  The module literally says "Regardless of what happens, those isotopes will be stolen."  Because if the PCs beat Deathstroke's plan in the first part of the module, what about the second part, huh? Terrible.

But not due to Vampire.

Quote from: RPGPundit;499430Its a wargame. It (and other new games that wargaming grognards try to claim are "not wargames") functions with exactly the same parameters as any other wargame; their only claim is based on it being too simple, easy to play and fun.
Unlike the difference between a storygame and an RPG, while you can criticize memoir for being simplistic, it doesn't "do" anything that wargames aren't meant to do.

RPGPundit

Right, I didn't see the "wargame RPGs" there. I dunno, I'd say that it's a board game by aesthetic design rather then a wargame, but that's nitpicking and talking about things I don't care to fight that much.

Quote from: JDCorley;499436This has always existed in module play. Dragonlance actually was the worst offender in this regard, and those modules predated Vampire by years. I will always remember one paragraph that was: "The party will go right at the fork. If the party goes left, punish them with increasingly dangerous monsters suddenly attacking until they go right or they are all dead."  

I didn't mean to imply this all started with Vampire (I was simply commenting on what became prevalent in the 90s). And I agree Dragonlance was a big offender (loved the setting material, loved the books, but hated the modules). I guess my point was by the 90s this stuff was out of control IMO (and I think in the case of Ravenloft at least they were specifically trying to emulate vampire----not just with the storyteller thing, but also by releasing products that allowed you to play angst filled monsters).

QuoteVampire's early modules were also like this.  They were dungeon crawls, too!

I have a ton of early Champions modules, "Deathstroke" from 1983, 8 full years before Vampire 1ed, is about a supervillain stealing some mysterious radioactive isotopes, then using them to threaten the world.  The first part of the scenario is about the theft and the PCs trying to find out about it and stop it.  The module literally says "Regardless of what happens, those isotopes will be stolen."  Because if the PCs beat Deathstroke's plan in the first part of the module, what about the second part, huh? Terrible.

But not due to Vampire.

Yes, railroading has existed as long as the hobby has. And there are always going to be earlier examples of the kind of story heavy games you saw with things like Dragonlance and Vampire. The point was, the reason some people react negatively to story first approach, is because many of us trying to run  and play games had negative experiences with that kind of material when it was at its height in the 90s. And to me the common problem was the mechanics of the game said to do one thing, while the GM advice and modules often said to do another. Again though, I wasn't a vampire GM, so I talking mostly about how this style effected other product lines around the same time.