Yes. But despite that being the case, the movement in RPGs to make the players have more fun interacting with the mechanics in and of itself (even though the activity itself has been around from year 0) is more prominent today that it was 14 years ago.

What ultimately is being objecting to, I think, is the attempt by game designer to make fun for the player on that principle that "make your own fun" is a necessary part of RPGs and core to their appeal (much more so than being fully immersed into a character). RPGs are the "incomplete games" that the Forge complained of, lacking in competition, certainity, balance and many other things that we associate with games. They need the players to "make their own fun" to even operate, with another player, the GM, as arbiter.

FWIW I have some sympathy with that position as the idea of you must "make your own fun" (and the lack of player competition that it implies) is a fundamental part of why RPG appeals to me

The question is that how complete can they be as games before they stop being RPGs? Is adding mechanics that add their own fun antithetical to RPGs? If any line can be drawn between RPGs and other games IMO it is where you can be totally reliant on the game itself to make fun for you, such as a board game, war game, computer game or story game (as I understand the term). You can play the game and have fun, at least mechanically, without really needing to roleplay. This is what I was trying to get at with the concept of player competition in my other thread.

The issue arising is that this essential element of RPGs is not absent in DW (or many other games claimed here to be other games), even if the game mechanics are engaging with players more. Though DW uses the nomenclature of a game that can be played competitively between players, in the absence of roleplaying having any mechanical effect, it just can't be played in that fashion no matter how hard you try. The same is even more true for TOR or TBZ, which are even more "RPG-like". You just can't play them without the exact same amount of "make your own fun" as any other RPG. The mechanics are adding fun but not replacing or restricting the players from making their own fun like they always have.

And yes "make fun" is not intended to be an exact 'scientifical' definition

Yes. But despite that being the case, the movement in RPGs to make the players have more fun interacting with the mechanics in and of itself (even though the activity itself has been around from year 0) is more prominent today that it was 14 years ago.

What ultimately is being objecting to, I think, is the attempt by game designer to make fun for the player on that principle that "make your own fun" is a necessary part of RPGs and core to their appeal (much more so than being fully immersed into a character). RPGs are the "incomplete games" that the Forge complained of, lacking in competition, certainity, balance and many other things that we associate with games. They need the players to "make their own fun" to even operate, with another player, the GM, as arbiter.

FWIW I have some sympathy with that position as the idea of you must "make your own fun" (and the lack of player competition that it implies) is a fundamental part of why RPG appeals to me

The question is that how complete can they be as games before they stop being RPGs? Is adding mechanics that add their own fun antithetical to RPGs? If any line can be drawn between RPGs and other games IMO it is where you can be totally reliant on the game itself to make fun for you, such as a board game, war game, computer game or story game (as I understand the term). You can play the game and have fun, at least mechanically, without really needing to roleplay. This is what I was trying to get at with the concept of player competition in my other thread.

The issue arising is that this essential element of RPGs is not absent in DW (or many other games claimed here to be other games), even if the game mechanics are engaging with players more. Though DW uses the nomenclature of a game that can be played competitively between players, in the absence of roleplaying having any mechanical effect, it just can't be played in that fashion no matter how hard you try. The same is even more true for TOR or TBZ, which are even more "RPG-like". You just can't play them without the exact same amount of "make your own fun" as any other RPG. The mechanics are adding fun but not replacing or restricting the players from making their own fun like they always have.

And yes "make fun" is not intended to be an exact 'scientifical' definition

Quote from: jhkimAs a simple exercise - take any story, and then for the 3-4 lead characters, black out every line of dialogue, every thought narration, every description of attempted action. You can leave in the effects of their actions, parts of their backstory external to them, and so forth.

What remains is vastly less than what you started with, and is not a story at all. The stuff that remains is generally important (unless it is My Dinner With Andre, certain romances, or a few others), but it is far from the whole of the story.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;669440Wandering into domains now of which I mostly don't care to grapple with (very confusing) but I would say that a novel or whatever has to have some sort of people in it. A more applicable test is to take out the characters that are there, rewrite it with different characters, and see how much changes. A bit like how an adventure module would change if you put different adventurers though it.

Both of these are just analogies, so they could both work.  I feel like the rewriting analogy is fuzzy because it is undefined what the rewritten book would look like, and different people might picture very different things.  

Still, I'm willing to run with that analogy.  For example, would Hamlet be the same story if the protagonist was instead James Bond?  That is, James Bond is in the lead role - and his choices and dialogue are as appropriate for his character - but the rest is manipulated so that the external effects of his actions are roughly the same as in the original plot.  It seems to me that the story would be significantly different.  If we put Sherlock Holmes in the lead, it would also be different from both the original story and the Bond story.  

Going back to RPGs - If the question is "What does my character accomplish in the world?" - i.e. Does he beat the enemies in the adventure module? - then undoubtedly the GM is largely in control of that.  However, that isn't what story is.  For story, the main characters and the choices they make are a big part.

EDITED TO ADD: Not that anyone should necessarily care about story, but if we're going to talk about RPG with a focus on story (which has been a part of this thread), I think it's important to understand the place of character in stories.

Quote from: Skywalker;669566The question is that how complete can they be as games before they stop being RPGs?

I don't think there's a single answer to that question, but I look forward to playing all the great games that arise from testing that boundary.

Quote from: jhkim;669610Still, I'm willing to run with that analogy.  For example, would Hamlet be the same story if the protagonist was instead James Bond?  That is, James Bond is in the lead role - and his choices and dialogue are as appropriate for his character - but the rest is manipulated so that the external effects of his actions are roughly the same as in the original plot.  It seems to me that the story would be significantly different.  If we put Sherlock Holmes in the lead, it would also be different from both the original story and the Bond story.  

OK - fine. Conceded. I'll admit players do have an input into the 'story' in traditional games, via their characters, if you must put it that way.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;669628OK - fine. Conceded. I'll admit players do have an input into the 'story' in traditional games, via their characters, if you must put it that way.

Fair enough.  Thanks.  

In turn, I agree that it is not at all necessary to put it in terms of story - and that many people play traditional RPGs with no concern for story, which works fine.

Quote from: Skywalker;669543I agree. It is definitely an OOC mechanic but there are arguments for it also having some form of "narrative power" based around the choice inside the abstraction.

Gee ya think?  At least you admit that freely, the Usual Suspects wouldn't even admit it was OOC.

Quote from: Skywalker;669543FWIW I think abstraction itself necessitates OOC interaction, and is one reason why I say that OOC engagement has been around since the inception of RPGs. But that may be better for another thread

Probably better as a new thread, yeah, since you're near 100% wrong on that one.  You did read where I said that Day 1 Fallacy bullshit wasn't gonna wash, right?

Quote from: RPGPundit;669411Ok, as you're someone here who's disagreeing with me and yet clearly isn't one of the Story Swine, I would be quite interested to hear your judgment on this (whereas others here I know would only spew propaganda or lies or rhetoric to try to win the argument), so tell me: ultimately, which of the two is more fundamentally important in DW: that above all it be able to create a story? Or that it effectively emulate an immersive living world?

That one's easy, the author clearly sees playing tabletop RPGs as creating fiction, and the game is designed to do that.  The idea of an emulated world to immerse in as you, me, Ben, Vreeg et al would term it, isn't a design goal at all.  The characters are there for two purposes - 1. to roleplay and more importantly 2. through that roleplay creating a story.  That narrative layer is omnipresent and baked in, even if well hidden at times.

Quote from: RPGPundit;669411Because from what you wrote above, it sounds like DW may have some other priorities besides the former, but it certainly does consider the former paramount; whereas from your description above that the latter's importance is utterly peripheral at best. Would that be an accurate assessment, in your opinion?
RPGPundit

It's not a Storygame in the sense that the game itself is not about who tells the story.  It's a storytelling game, whereby the players tell the story in large part through the roleplay of their characters, but also in large part through OOC narrative choices.

That's why I term it a true Hybrid, a Storytelling RPG.  Based on forum criteria though, it's an Other Game by any possible definition that doesn't have a painfully obvious agenda.

Quote from: CRKrueger;669661Probably better as a new thread, yeah, since you're near 100% wrong on that one.

More likely talking past each other from what I have seen of the arguments over "immersion". I think you are talking about being able to make decisions from your character's perspective where, in that post, I was talking about the player being aware that they are playing a game. Abstraction only hurts the former if the abstraction fails to reflect what it is abstracting in a believable way (which is also be influenced by an individual's player knowledge and tolerance). Abstraction nearly always causes the later, almost by definition.

Either way, definitely a discussion for another thread.

Quote from: Skywalker;669788More likely talking past each other from what I have seen of the arguments over "immersion". I think you are talking about being able to make decisions from your character's perspective where, in that post, I was talking about the player being aware that they are playing a game. Abstraction only hurts the former if the abstraction fails to reflect what it is abstracting in a believable way (which is also be influenced by an individual's player knowledge and tolerance). Abstraction nearly always causes the later, almost by definition.

Either way, definitely a discussion for another thread.

Yeah, because what your line of reasoning leads to is...
1. Abstraction is impossible to avoid, all mechanics are abstract to some extent, even those in Phoenix Command.
2. Thus the player always knows they are playing a game, thus they are always engaged in an OOC manner.
3. Thus mechanics that specifically target OOC engagement and cannot be engaged with from an IC point of view are no different from the, as you would term it "OOC engagement of abstraction".

End Result: OD&D and DW = no difference really due to the Day 1 Fallacy line you and JKim have been pushing here.

You're awesome when we can have a straight up conversation, when you go all too clever by half with language stuff, not so much.

No. I agree that there are differences between OD&D and DW as I have said. I just don't see the shift in IC perspective for the players to be as significant difference, nor that this difference distinguishes DW as a story-game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;669791End Result: OD&D and DW = no difference really due to the Day 1 Fallacy line you and JKim have been pushing here.

You're awesome when we can have a straight up conversation, when you go all too clever by half with language stuff, not so much.

I don't recall saying anything in this thread about abstraction or IC/OOC difference.  

I agree that there are real, significant differences between OD&D and DW.  I do not agree that this difference is that DW is strictly out-of-character (like the Once Upon a Time storytelling card game) while OD&D is strictly in-character.  In general, the DW choices are just about what your character does and is trying for.  There are no mechanics for plot points or dramatic editing to control stuff outside your character.  Regarding issues brought up:

1) Choosing after rolling:   By the wording of the rules, a player is prompted choose their picks after seeing how well they succeed.  This means the steps of resolution don't individually represent sequential bits of time.  However, a number of mechanics have you do multiple steps before you resolve what is happening in the game world.  For example, in D&D3, a fighter doesn't swing his sword again to get a critical hit even though he makes another attack roll.  

If the timing bothers you, players can define a priority list of what they want on success before the roll instead of after.  This doesn't change anything essential about the rules except using up more time in the case of failures.  

2) Abstract ammo:   This is unrealistic in that if the character conserves their ammo, they will never run out of shots.  This is an artifact of the system - like jumping off a cliff with high hit points, or carrying without penalty with simplified encumbrance, or continuously buying cheap items with abstract wealth.  I didn't particularly like it in practice, but being unrealistic isn't the same as being out-of-character.

Quote from: CRKrueger;669663That one's easy, the author clearly sees playing tabletop RPGs as creating fiction, and the game is designed to do that.  The idea of an emulated world to immerse in as you, me, Ben, Vreeg et al would term it, isn't a design goal at all.  The characters are there for two purposes - 1. to roleplay and more importantly 2. through that roleplay creating a story.  That narrative layer is omnipresent and baked in, even if well hidden at times.

So there you have it. This is why its a storygame, and not an RPG.  Most storygames have some kind of 'roleplaying activity' in them at least to some slight extent, but this doesn't make something a regular RPG.
A regular RPG depends on Emulation and Immersion, two things that Ron Edwards claimed where stupid and flawed (in the former case), and either impossible or a sign of mental illness (in the latter case). It is this that is the distinction between RPGs and Storygames.  To the point that someone like Skywalker is desperately flailing around trying to claim the divide is about any number of other things (most recently, about 'creating fun'), because he's working out of the assumption right from the start that Emulation and Immersion are utterly irrelevant and non-desirable entities.

QuoteThat's why I term it a true Hybrid, a Storytelling RPG.  Based on forum criteria though, it's an Other Game by any possible definition that doesn't have a painfully obvious agenda.

Fair enough. I don't care about judging it from within the Storygames spectrum, about whether storygamers would consider it an orthodox storygame or something peripheral or weird or what.  The point is that it is clearly NOT within the landmarks of a Regular RPG.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;669912A regular RPG depends on Emulation and Immersion,

I guess that answers my question up thread. To be an RPG, roleplaying activity is not enough, it must have immersion. If you're not immersing, you're not roleplaying. Oh, and emulating. If you're not emulating you're not roleplaying. Even if your activity is a roleplaying activity.

What if you're emulating, but not immersing?

Quote from: soviet;669111Sigh. Who exactly is claiming that Once Upon a Time is a storygame or an RPG?

Well, the designer and publisher of Once Upon a Time for starters. Are you claiming that you don't consider it an STG? What definition of "storytelling game" are you using, exactly?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;669286Dungeon master: "The hobgoblin is thirty feet away."
Player running a fighter: "I could fire my crossbow or throw my hand axe at it, or draw my sword and charge . . . "
Justin: "Story game!"

Actually, I don't think AD&D is a story game. That was CRK. Sorry if the sarcasm confused you.

With that being said, I'm giving CRK the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he's still specifically talking about mechanics which gave players a choice of outcome after a success has been generated. The example you're using here is just a player making a choice. That's an absurd caricature of CRK's position.

Finally, CRK has actually reversed his position and is now completely agreeing with my statement that DW is a non-traditional RPG. So this whole discussion is actually moot.

Quote from: Benoist;669281Dungeon World has a purpose to build a collaborative narrative. There is no actual world that is being emulated at all, its components only existing as narrative devices to serve the primary purpose of the game: to tell an entertaining story, "find out what happens next", to use the jargon of the game. The dungeon for instance does not positively exist in an emulated world, since vast areas are purposefully left blank in order to serve the narrative first, to be able to fill in those blanks in the most entertaining and drama-oriented manner possible. The purpose of "Fronts" is contained in the name: to serve as fronts, as antagonists in the narrative being opposed against the protagonists and producing drama; and only matter to the game as such. These elements have a sole purpose to serve as decor, as color, as tools serving and being supplanted by the overriding needs of the narrative. Building a story/narrative together is the primary purpose of the game. Hence, not a role playing game, to me.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that, like Pundie, you've never actually looked at the rulebook for Dungeon World.

Quote from: Benoist;669256It is not innocuous, but one the main mantras of "GMing" in DW: "Follow the Rules."

Just like AD&D and Amber.

You need a new schtick, Benoist. This whole "no RPG rulebook would ever tell the GM to follow the rules!" thing is absolutely ridiculous.