Quote from: Justin Alexander;668962[...] you create the impression that the very real dividing line between RPGs and STGs doesn't exist and is just the raving of a crazy person who can't keep his intellectual house in order.

How do you mean "the impression"?
I always thought that "the RPGPundit" was just a made-up persona used by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named for the purposes of trolling games/gamers he didn't like, mostly for the lulz.  It's one thing to see forum posters accidentally taking the persona at face value, but even the persona seems to have gotten a little off the rails.  I suppose this could be some epic meta-level of trolling where the persona of RPGPundit gets completely ripped one night, forgets the forum has a multi-quote function, and completely shreds his own credibility in a spectacular self-immolation, but that seems counter-productive - the verisimilitude of the persona is key to its effectiveness.

The best discussions seem to happen despite Benoist and Pundit's participation of late.  I should write up a greasemonkey script that allows them to be ignore-listed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;668749Storygames may not prevent "storygame gms" from doing what they accept to be their role. What I'm saying is that they very clearly do prevent GMs of actual RPGs from being able to assume their proper power and responsibilities as per regular RPG standards.   In your example above, the GM might be able to make "custom moves" in DW but he clearly can't just make a ruling, he's still beholden to the rules themselves; rules written by people who hate GMs and have dedicated an entire hobby (and made an effort to subvert another) just to disempowering them.

At the end of the day, there are only two possibilities: either you know that Dungeon World is a storygame by the landmark standards, and you're just full of shit; or you really truly honestly believe that its an RPG that has been erroneously mislabeled as a storygame because I haven't looked at it in sufficient depth and/or have received false reports about it, and that if I were just to look at the rules with an open mind, I would actually have to conceded that it is an RPG at least, if not an OSR game as some of its proponents try to claim (though again, its authors have stated it isn't, though they certainly don't seem too upset by fans mislabeling it as such for marketing purposes).

If its the former, then this is all a rhetorical game on your part, and serves no purpose.

If its really the latter, then you and the others making these claims should put your money where your mouth is; send me a copy of dungeon world to review.

RPGPundit

I should either confess to being part of a site-disrupting conspiracy or give you some free stuff? Yeah, nice try.

Like you I haven't read DW. I've already stated this fact at least once in the thread. I was responding to your more general points about storygames and GM roles. For what it's worth my impression of DW is that it's a storygame, but I don't define storygames as not RPGs, so I also think it is an RPG. It is clearly not an old school RPG.

Storygames tend to feature a different kind of GM role, sure. But either our hypothetical GM is interested in trying this kind of GM role, or he isn't. If he is, he's not being forced into anything. If he isn't, why the fuck would he be GMing it in the first place? That doesn't make any sense. You might as well say that D&D is disempowering because it forces you to play in a fantasy millieu with classes and levels when you really hate that kind of stuff.

Quote from: Glazer;668970Soviet, for what it's worth, my groups experience with so-called 'storygames' is similar to your own. As far as we are concerned, they are rpgs that use some innovative new game mechanics. And, while we would like to think of ourselves as young hipsters that are new to this role-playing lark, the truth is sadly the opposite.

Thanks, yeah. I like storygames as well as traditional games and when I run a storygame for my traditional-roleplaying group they enjoy it a lot. They don't see it as a different hobby at all. That thought wouldn't even occur to them. They haven't read about GNS, they don't go on RPG discussion forums, they haven't been brainwashed or drunk any Kool-Aid. They're just regular 30-something gamers who enjoy a variety of different roleplaying games.

Quote from: soviet;669025Thanks, yeah. I like storygames as well as traditional games and when I run a storygame for my traditional-roleplaying group they enjoy it a lot. They don't see it as a different hobby at all. That thought wouldn't even occur to them. They haven't read about GNS, they don't go on RPG discussion forums, they haven't been brainwashed or drunk any Kool-Aid. They're just regular 30-something gamers who enjoy a variety of different roleplaying games.

And this comprehends the vast majority of roleplayers out there really. We forum-monkeys with our little word-games and One-true-wayisms are the minority.

I would be surprised if we comprehended 20% of the worlds roleplaying pizza.

Quote from: soviet;669025Thanks, yeah. I like storygames as well as traditional games and when I run a storygame for my traditional-roleplaying group they enjoy it a lot. They don't see it as a different hobby at all. That thought wouldn't even occur to them. They haven't read about GNS, they don't go on RPG discussion forums, they haven't been brainwashed or drunk any Kool-Aid. They're just regular 30-something gamers who enjoy a variety of different roleplaying games.

Well at least you admit they are different (based on your words), and that's the whole point. Story-games are different then role-playing games, you said it yourself, other wise your statement makes no sense, consider what you meant to say, "I like role-playing games as well as traditional games" and " I run a role-playing game for my traditional-roleplaying group."  You see that wouldn't make any sense.  It's like saying 'role-playing games are role-playing games.'  I believe your intent was to say that story-games are role-playing games. And to clarify what you mean ...

Role-playing games are role-playing games, there no such such thing as a storytelling game. There is only a role-playing game.  It's all the same hobby.

If this is not you position, please correct. Otherwise, it seems established that role-playing games and story-telling games are different things by your own words.

Quote from: hamstertamer;669035Well at least you admit they are different (based on your words), and that's the whole point. Story-games are different then role-playing games, you said it yourself, other wise your statement makes no sense, consider what you meant to say, "I like role-playing games as well as traditional games" and " I run a role-playing game for my traditional-roleplaying group."  You see that wouldn't make any sense.  It's like saying 'role-playing games are role-playing games.'  I believe your intent was to say that story-games are role-playing games. And to clarify what you mean ...

Role-playing games are role-playing games, there no such such thing as a storytelling game. There is only a role-playing game.  It's all the same hobby.

If this is not you position, please correct. Otherwise, it seems established that role-playing games and story-telling games are different things by your own words.

What the fuck

Storygames are a type of RPG. So are traditional RPGs. Within traditional RPGs there are also subdivisions like 'old school D&D', 'rules-heavy tactical D&D', 'white wolf games', and so on. If my earlier post confuses you just replace all instances of 'storygame' with 'storygame-style RPG'.

Quote from: Brad;669020"A game about road trips, music, and self-discovery."

What

You know you want to. He who starts Lambchop's "The Song That Never Ends" as a singalong finds Nirvana. There's only so much self-discovery out there, and that's like the highest Poker hand there is!
Lambchop's "The Song That Never Ends"

Quote from: Brad;669020"A game about road trips, music, and self-discovery."

What

:rotfl:

Quote from: CRKrueger;669002You've rarely participated in any discussion here in good faith this year.  Skywalker validadated the example was incorrect.

Thank you for admitting that the example of play that YOU wanted us to talk about is incorrect. Do you have anything actually relevant to discuss? Or are you just going to keep trying to blame other people for your mistakes?

QuoteAnd here is you being disingenuous AGAIN. The problem with DW is when is goes like this.
Player: I want to do X. Rolls dice and gets the "Choice" result.
GM: You can do A and achieve this partial result plus complications, B and achieve this partial result plus complication, or C simply fail or do a substandard success.

Quote from AD&D1:

"[The assassin] can then use poisons at full normal effect and have the following options as well:
- choose to assassinate by an instantaneous poison
- elect to use a slow acting poison which will not begin to affect the
- elect to use a poison which gradually builds up after repeated doses
victim for 1-4 hours after ingestion and kills 1-lodaysofter the final dose"

Fuck. Looks like AD&D is a story game. I can't believe that "swine" Gygax would claim that it's an RPG and then try to swindle us all by giving choices to the players after they've achieved a success.

Your continued insistence that no RPG can possess a two-step resolution mechanic is absurd.

Quote from: soviet;669040Storygames are a type of RPG.

You see the problems you create, Pundie? This is the type of nonsense that your nonsensical bullshit and ignorance creates.

@Soviet: Let's take a pure STG like Once Upon a Time. What definition of "RPG" are you using, precisely, that allows you classify Once Upon a Time as an RPG?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;669108You see the problems you create, Pundie? This is the type of nonsense that your nonsensical bullshit and ignorance creates.

@Soviet: Let's take a pure STG like Once Upon a Time. What definition of "RPG" are you using, precisely, that allows you classify Once Upon a Time as an RPG?

Sigh. Who exactly is claiming that Once Upon a Time is a storygame or an RPG? You're going to start mumbling about Dark Future and computer games next.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;669107Quote from AD&D1:

"[The assassin] can then use poisons at full normal effect and have the following options as well:
- choose to assassinate by an instantaneous poison
- elect to use a slow acting poison which will not begin to affect the
- elect to use a poison which gradually builds up after repeated doses
victim for 1-4 hours after ingestion and kills 1-lodaysofter the final dose"

Fuck. Looks like AD&D is a story game. I can't believe that "swine" Gygax would claim that it's an RPG and then try to swindle us all by giving choices to the players after they've achieved a success.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Quote from: Justin Alexander;668961Interesting. So if we boil that conversation down it looks like this:

Player: I want to do X.
GM: You succeed. Describe how you do X.
Player: I do it like this.

According to you, this sort of thing -- where the player describes what their success looks like at the specific prompting of the GM -- indicates that a story game is being played, not a roleplaying game.

That's one of many factors that involve the differences between a storygame and an RPG, sure.
In an RPG, it works like this:
Player: I want to do X
GM: Explain what you would like X to look like, and what you are doing to attempt this?
Player: "like this..."
GM: Ok, you succeed. (or fail, or some third condition thereof)

You'll note that the Player doesn't get to control reality AFTER the fact of his successful roll; he's not rolling to "be in control of the story".  Nor does he obviously get to control reality before either; rather, in an RPG (as opposed to a storygame) the player is not at any point expressing what actually HAPPENS (only the GM may do that), he's rather expressing what he would like to ATTEMPT.

QuoteAre you sure about that?

Are you really, really, really sure?

Yes, really really sure.

QuoteOkay. Fine. In that case, I've got another story game for you: It's called Amber. You may have heard of it. Here's the Example of Play straight from the rulebook:

Cindy: I'll proceed with the duel.
GM: The ex-wife turns out to be no great challenge to you. (...) What injury do you wish to leave her with?
Cindy: I want to wear her down to exhaustion, then put a small cut on her nose.

Well, fuck, Cindy. You've just convinced Pundie that Amber is a story game.

No, you ridiculous cunt, the above proves how Amber is an RPG and not a storygame.
Let's look at it again, shall we? And I'll try to go slow so you can keep up.

First, go back and read again what I explained above, about how RPGs differ from Storygames in terms of the GM/player exchange we're talking about.

Done?

Fine; now read it again. Because I'm not convinced a second reading is enough for you; and try to get all the shit out of your skull while doing so.

You'll probably fail anyways, but here we go nevertheless:
In the exchange above, the GM continues being the one in control of the world, the player is in control of their character's actions.
The player (Cindy) said "I want to do X" when she says "I'll proceed with the duel".
The GM, not Cindy, or Erick Wujcik, Ron Edwards or anyone else, the fucking GM who is supreme in his authority at the gaming table, is the one who says "Ok, you succeed", which here he says it as "The ex-wife turns out to be no great challenge to you."
The rest of what's going on there is NOT Cindy's player getting to decide what happens in the world, its Cindy's PLAYER CHARACTER getting to do what the GM precisely allowed; her CHARACTER, not the player, is so utterly superior to the person she's dueling (probably because, as an Amberite, she's a demigod and the other person a mere mortal) that she has complete control of the fight.

In other words, the little DW exchange and the little Amber exchange are completely different, and in fact demonstrates what's different between an RPG and storygame.  They only look even vaguely similar because you take the Amber quote completely out of the context of setting (but of course, Story Swine don't give a shit about "setting", its just a shallow facade meant to act as a vehicle for addressing "narrative theme"), wherein the PC in question is a Demi-god.

Quote(It would probably be best if no one told Pundie about how that "swine" Wujcik wrote a lengthy section of the rulebook specifically forbidding the GM from breaking the rules of engagement. It would probably give him an aneurysm.)

It would probably be best that no one analyze your fever-dream delusions of thinking whatever the fuck you're talking about here in any way relates to Storygames.  Dude, this is pathetic and weak. I knew Erick Wujcik and spoke to him voluminously, his dislike for storygames (or to be more accurate, things like "narrativism", or the pretentiousness of the Forge) is something he said to me in his own words.
Do you perhaps not see the stupidity, even purely from a rhetorical standpoint of scoring in the debate, of trying to argue with me about a dead friend and mentor I actually personally knew, and his game that I've been playing and engaging with almost constantly for decades since even before it went into print, and about which I'm maybe one of the handful of most eminent living experts?
In what universe do you live in where this doesn't make you look like just a pathetic desperate shitbag hopelessly mudslinging by using weaselly manipulation of words completely out of context?

QuoteI love how neither Benoist nor Pundie is capable of participating in these discussions without defining their favorites RPGs as story games.

And I love how apparently not one of the Swine on this thread (or any I've seen thus far about DW) can actually try to hold up their argument about the game being an RPG without having to result to out-of-context shellgames of meaningless sophistry or just plain outright-lies about either DW or RPGs.

RPGPundit

Well, there you go. Can't argue with crazy. Maybe this is like watching Colbert for people who don't "get it".

Quote from: Justin Alexander;668962Ironically, Pundie, you're currently one of the biggest impediments to people taking the division between STGs and RPGs seriously. Your definition is vague and variable. You apply it with either ignorance or in a biased attempt to post hoc your opinion (or both). You attempt to enforce it with the fervor of a religious zealot selectively reading passages from the Old Testament.

The problem is that when you use your podium to declare that games which are RPGs are actually STGs while simultaneously doing things like claiming that FATE doesn't have any narrative control mechanics in it, you create the impression that the very real dividing line between RPGs and STGs doesn't exist and is just the raving of a crazy person who can't keep his intellectual house in order.

For those of us who actually do believe that it can be valuable to understand the dividing line between RPGs and STGs, you are an ignorant, confusing embarrassment.

No, the embarrassment is the way that Swine consistently try to undermine that dividing line, which is in fact quite clear, by trying to play at things that seem similar but aren't, or at crying foul over marginal cases. Or lying, again, like you just did above.
For example, I've frequently admitted that FATE has narrative control elements. What I've said (the Truth, as usual) is that these elements are non-essential to the core mechanic of the game. You can take them out and the game is still fully playable, meaning that FATE is an RPG with a few Story-swine elements thrown in, rather than a Storygame that has some facets reminiscent of an rpg (the way Dungeon World is).

QuoteThese things can trivially happen in Dungeon World.

Really? The GAME MASTER can just kill a player, not a die roll or a bad "move"?  The GM can just say "Rocks fall, everyone dies", without having to roll dice, do a "move" or anything else? He, and NOT THE DICE and NOT THE RULES is the ultimate arbiter of life and death?
Please, show me where it says that. Because it sure sounds like you're lying again.

QuoteThe rulebook says the exact opposite of that.

Really? The DW rulebook doesn't list every possible result of any "move" (the fundamental mechanic of the game) and state the results explicitly in such a way that, while sometimes involving PLAYER choice of a number of possible reality-manipulating options, gives the GM no choice about it?
Because again, that contradicts everything I've read about Dungeon World, and that other people, including many of its fiercest fans and proponents, have been saying about it.
Are they all lying? Or are you?

QuoteEveryone else should take note here: The guy who has just spent several pages of this thread confidently telling people who own the game, have read the game, and who have played the game that they're lying about what the rulebook says has just admitted that he has never even touched the rulebook.

Technically, I didn't say that. I challenge the Swine to send me a review copy and I will review it (a challenge they will no doubt refuse to accept because they know, shit, we ALL know, what the truth is about DW!).  
But in fact yes, I've never physically held a copy of DW in my hand (I very much doubt there is a copy of it anywhere in this country).
So what?

I have read the Bhagavad Gita in the original sanskrit, but I know a lot of people who haven't and are still very well-versed in it; and I know plenty more who've never read it translated or otherwise, but have read enough about Hinduism to know what it is and what it isn't.
Neither I nor anyone alive has read the "Gospel of Q", but we can infer it existed and what it was generally about with a fair amount of certainty.
As it happens, I watched The Empire Strikes Back; but even someone who hasn't, were they to read over and over again from countless sources the pivotal plot event of that movie, from experts of all stripes and people who were both fans and detractors of Science Fiction or George Lucas or movies in general, they would pretty safely be able to say they know that Darth Vader is Luke's father, much less that the movie is a Sci-fi movie and not a historical drama. Only a complete moron would lack the wherewithal to claim that the only possible way someone could know these things would be if they sat in front of the screen and watched it themselves.

You see, there are a few of us in this human race who have the distinct advantage of something called Reason, by which we're capable of all kinds of wonders that defy your apparent primitivist limitations.

The magical-thinking idea you're expressing here that somehow because I haven't kissed your fucking holy book it means I can't possibly know enough about it from hundreds of fucking pages of threads like this one, threads on storygames and G+ and RPG.net, reviews, articles written for or against it; voluminous quotes directly from the book and examples of play. Fuck, at this point I could probably write a reasonable clone-simulacrum of the rulebook reverse engineered from the evidence.

Really, dude, you aren't very good at this.

RPGPundit