Quote from: Doctor Jest;621158Yet I never see fist fights breaking out over this at GenCON.

Because people are both cowards, and subject to legal action. In bygone eras, I'm sure duels would have been accepted and completed.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;621157No, this is incorrect. We don't call that Immersion. We call that "being an asshole". It's one of my personal platitudes: "Playing your character is never an excuse to be an asshole to the other players".

Any yet from my experience of your posting both in and not in threads I was a part of- you are a perfect example of what I was describing. In fact, you go on to admit as much in your reply to danbuster.

For my part, I'm going to believe your walk, not your talk.

Quote from: The Butcher;621134(might as well call trad RPGs "worldgames")

This might actually not be a bad idea

Quote from: gleichman;621150They have *always* been used in that way. Only the details changed.

Before the Forge redefined them, WoD was the 'story-game' bugbear that D&D players hated and made fun of. And they in turn made fun of the mindless D&D 'Dungeon Crawls'.

The story game of WoD is not the same as the story-game of Ron Edwards.

The conflict over World of Darkness was more about the old roleplayers vs gamers argument back in the early 80s. People who like to play in-character vs the guys that showed up to kill some critters and grab their stuff.

Rather than detailing key maps of locales, World of Darkness supplements for referees were invariably about a web of NPCs, their resources, and their plots and maybe some location details. For players the supplements are about kewl powers as lot of WoD players I knew were into the game to play monsters that kicked ass.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621132I think Ladybird described my feelings on it better than I did. I admit I came in with a bit too much venom (I have a 6 year old with a terrible flu who is currently napping who has drained me of all sense of measure right now.)

I hope your 6 year old gets better quickly, mate. I'll keep her (or is it him?) in my thoughts. For the record, we might not agree on where to put the lines and how, though we do agree on some things at least, and I feel like we actually had an exchange, instead of just a set of pointless attacks and parries. This is to your credit, man. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;621178I hope your 6 year old gets better quickly, mate. I'll keep her (or is it him?) in my thoughts. For the record, we might not agree on where to put the lines and how, though we do agree on some things at least, and I feel like we actually had an exchange, instead of just a set of pointless attacks and parries. This is to your credit, man. Thank you.

I try my best to by not crazy, aha. (son by the way. little dudes asleep again, so I'm a bit less harried at the moment)

Though an interesting thing to me is. What exactly defines something as a narrative mechanic. I'm not asking like as a baiting or anything, but I'm curious where people draw the lines.

Obviously, not all metagame mechanics are narrative. I mean, there are a lot of metagame mechanics in 4e D&D, but I seriously doubt anyone would ever describe them as narrative.

One way I could define it is if the rule attempts to enforce a narrative or story onto the game, but even then, that sounds like intent more than actual mechanics. Intent is weird though, because what could be intended to be used one way, someone else could pick up the game and use it another way.

So what specifically do you think defines a narrative mechanic outside of intent?

Quote from: soviet;621117So you buy games without doing the most basic of research, including reading reviews, looking at previews of the PDF, reading adverts and interviews with the designer, or hearing people talk about it on forums? You make your purchasing decisions based solely on whether you see the label RPG on the cover? Come on man. Are you seriously telling me that you have bought what looks like an RPG only to discover it was a storygame trap inside? If so, would you care to tell us the name of this deceptively advertised game so that we can warn other people?

First of all, there are these things called game shops and bookstores, and some of them actually carry product you can buy after reading the cover.  All these narrative games in question take the time to put words, phrases and taglines on the front and back cover, but except in a few cases they never seem to actually reference any of the System that Matters.

One example is TechNoir: high tech, hard boiled roleplaying

Quote from: Technoir websitePlaying it safe isn't working anymore; you're not going to get out of this clean. You have illicit tech and the talent to use it. Time to go shake the city and see what falls out. You'll get hurt, sure, but what kind of pain will you deal out?
Technoir is a roleplaying game. You play protagonists like cyber-tweaked couriers, hard-nosed investigators, and drugged-out hackers making opportunities for themselves in a despairing world. Using a rules-light system with enough intricacies to spark new fires of hardboiled crime novels and cyberpunk science fiction, Technoir lets you coax, hack, fight, prowl, and shoot your way through a dark future. It features Transmissions--city guides brimming with plot nodes to inspire your high-tech adventures--that the GM uses to create tangled and compelling plot webs that expand and evolve as the players' characters engage it.

If I hadn't been dealing with the Forge semantic bullshit advertising for years now, I might be tricked into thinking this is something remotely resembling a traditional RPG.
 
You'll get hurt, sure, but what kind of pain will you deal out? - Code for telling stories about your character's interactions and consequences.

spark new fires of hardboiled crime novels and cyberpunk science fiction - Code for "this is a storytelling game, you're creating fiction"

create tangled and compelling plot webs - Code for abstracted story threads, this game doesn't have world in motion verisimilitude.

Basically the adcopy is telling Narrative gamers come and get it, but if you don't know the lingo, you might think "Cool a new game like Cyberpunk:2020, Shadowrun or Interface Zero." and you would be very wrong.

Quote from: soviet;621100Question for those who think storygames are not RPGs: which category would you put the following games into?

Burning Wheel
Dogs in the Vineyard
Sorcerer
HeroQuest (the Robin Laws one, not the GW one)
D&D 4e

These are story games:
Burning Wheel
Dogs in the Vineyard
Sorcerer
HeroQuest (the Robin Laws one, not the GW one)

This is a RPG:
D&D 4e


RPGs have 2 types of participants:

1. (Game Master) The person(s) running the world and its non-player inhabitants (Usually only one, but sometimes there are more than one if the game master has helpers)

2. (Player) The people interacting with the imagined world from the point of view( with the established limits of a being in that world) ) of an inhabitant of that world. (There are a variety of 1st person or 3rd person styles in the portrayal and interactions of their inhabitant. They can also run multiple beings from that world as long as they are always interacting with that world from the point of view of those inhabitants they control).

   Most importantly incidents can occur that go against the desires of the participants and they must abide by the results. Players can and will make choices that go against the expectations of the game master. Events will occur that go against the desires of the players.

    If you have at least one person in mode 1 and one person in mode 2 you have a RPG.

     In story games you basically have one type of participant. That is the person that is narrating what is occurring (or has just occurred) in the imagined world. There are various set ups to how a given player gets a turn controlling the world and what aspects they may control. But is boils down to them each taking turns controlling what goes on in the imaginary world.

In actual play this feels and plays very differently from an RPG.



D&D 4E is a RPG by my definition.

The problem many have with D&D 4E is the manner that their inhabitant of the imaginary world goes about interacting with the imaginary world.

The powers and abilities of the inhabitant of the world and how and when they can use those abilities can be jarring to some people.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621180I try my best to by not crazy, aha. (son by the way. little dudes asleep again, so I'm a bit less harried at the moment)

Though an interesting thing to me is. What exactly defines something as a narrative mechanic. I'm not asking like as a baiting or anything, but I'm curious where people draw the lines.

Obviously, not all metagame mechanics are narrative. I mean, there are a lot of metagame mechanics in 4e D&D, but I seriously doubt anyone would ever describe them as narrative.

One way I could define it is if the rule attempts to enforce a narrative or story onto the game, but even then, that sounds like intent more than actual mechanics. Intent is weird though, because what could be intended to be used one way, someone else could pick up the game and use it another way.

So what specifically do you think defines a narrative mechanic outside of intent?

A Narrative mechanic is a subtype of metagame.  Metagame of course is making a decision from the point of view of the player, not the character.  Choosing something that a character has no knowledge of or could not possibly make that choice.  

4e is filled to the brim with metagame, but it is not driven by a desire for narrative control, it is driven by the balance and tactics of the miniature wargame that is 4e combat.  Could they have made a game as tactically rich as 4e and still not made the decisions metagame?  Yes, they could have, but IC thinking wasn't even on the design board from the looks of things.

A narrative mechanic is a metagame choice that you choose not for tactical advantage, but because it would be interesting, even if it is a bad consequence.  An example that comes to mind is the Volley move in Dungeon World.  If I roll a certain number range when firing a bow, I "hit with consequences".  My options are:
1. Hit for normal damage, but in order to do so, I had to move someplace placing my character in danger (the GM can place me where ever).
2. Hit for normal damage, but in order to do so, I had to shoot a bunch of arrows, so my abstracted ammo count goes down by one.
3. Get a lousy hit and do less damage.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination a choice that my character can make, therefore it is by definition metagame.  Why am I choosing one of the options?  Well, you can argue that since two are full damage and one is less damage there may be tactics involved, but basically the mechanics are asking me to choose the background behind how that attack ends up working.  I am exercising narrative control from an OOC standpoint.  It's a narrative mechanic.

I literally cannot fire a bow in Dungeon World without the mechanics pulling me OOC for the purposes of narrative control.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621075The constant DEMONIZATION of the people on the other side is the problem.

You could say that for any sort of public commentary, opinion or dialog, with the worst of the worst being that on the Internet.

Quote from: soviet;621108Wait a sec though. The people making these changes to existing games aren't infamous Forge posters are they?

Mechanics that allow players to edit the world are a strong and ongoing fad in game design.

Yes, it was pushed by the Forge, and adopted by others because of the GNS. Which was wrong, for so many reasons.

Quote from: Ladybird;621146Nothing, inherently, about a "story game" makes it worse than a "role-playing game" It's just different, some people will like one, some will like the other. And that's fine. As long as everyone gets games they like, it's all good.

This, I completely agree with.

Quote from: CRKrueger;621185Could they have made a game as tactically rich as 4e and still not made the decisions metagame?  Yes, they could have, but IC thinking wasn't even on the design board from the looks of things.

And the faddish GNS ruins things again.

Quote from: estar;621176The story game of WoD is not the same as the story-game of Ron Edwards.

As I said, "before the Forge redefined story-game...".

The point is, different camps made war upon each other. Such is as it ever was, such is as it ever shall be.

@CRKrueger

How would you define something like the ability to activate an opportunity to create a resource in MHRP.

Quick rundown for people who aren't familiar: Resources represent contacts/info/items that you get to help you out in the coming scenes. Normally you can only create them during transition scenes when there is a bit of downtime.

On the other hand, if the GM rolls a 1 on one of his die, you can spend a plot point to create one on the spot.

To me personally, this doesn't feel narrative. Yes it creates something that didn't happen before, but I always just assume my character is better at adventuring than I am, and it just represents him doing something before the fight that I didn't think of at the time that would have made sense.

NOW, discussing the idea of intent I was discussing earlier. Even if you consider the above narrative, what if someone only used it in situations where he had gained info from the fight as it was occurring.

What if in the middle of a fight with say, a Doombot and it rolls a 1 on its attack. I spend a PP saying "He revealed something specific about the way he is programmed to fight by that move, giving me a tech resource" (resources are linked to skills). Does this mechanic suddenly become less narrative based on the intent and how it is used?

Also, once again, @Krueger, I'm not trying to bait, I actually understood the point you made with DW, and I find I can agree with you there. I'm just trying to identify exactly what people mean by the terms.

From the interview:

Quote from: Monte CookNumenera empowers players not by taking power from the GM and giving it to players, but by taking power from the game and giving it to players. In other words, players don't exert influence on the narrative by changing or creating things outside their characters, but by having more power over how their own character performs and what happens to him or her.

Assuming this is accurate, it's be interesting to see how it works out in play. I like the general thrust, at least.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;621195Assuming this is accurate, it's be interesting to see how it works out in play. I like the general thrust, at least.

It's just another way of saying narrative control, i.e. overriding the listed skill ratings and the results of the dice.