Quote from: RPGPundit;669175The 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." (...) 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.

Okay. This is great. We're really getting somewhere here. You've literally boiled the distinction you're drawing between RPGs and STGs to a single sentence spoken by the GM. Let's normalize the nouns and look at these side by side:

GM: The ex-wife turns out to be no great challenge to you. (...) What injury do you wish to leave her with?

GM: [If you succeed on a strength check], we'll ignore any damage you would do and instead say you get the ex-wife into the position you want.

Now, you'e claimed that in one of these scenarios the player gets to "control reality AFTER the fact of his success". Which one is that, exactly? The one where the player gets to choose which injury to inflict after success has been determined or the one where the player gets to choose which position to put her in after success has been determined?

You've also claimed that in one of these scenarios the "GM has no power whatsoever to interpret these successes or failures or consequences." Which one is that, exactly? The one where the GM follows the rules explicitly (i.e. Amber) or the one where the GM made a ruling by modifying an existing rule (i.e. DW)?

...

I think we're done here. You've chosen to build your Rubicon on claiming that "the mechanics say you succeed, so describe your success" is an RPG if Wujcik says it and an STG if some guy on reddit says it. Anyone with any integrity or intelligence can see that you're full of shit even before you start whining again that people who have actually read and player Dungeon World are "lying" about the contents of a rulebook you've admitted you've never even touched.

The only question remaining at this point is whether or not you've got the intellectual integrity necessary to admit when you've made a mistake.

And given that the general tenor of your participation in thee threads is that of a petulant child (or a paranoid lunatic), I seriously doubt that. (But I'd be overjoyed if you proved me wrong.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;670534Well, 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?

Do you understand that storygame and storytelling game are in fact different terms? I don't believe I've used the term 'storytelling games' at all. Please find me one single post where I have called once upon a time an RPG or a storygame. Or where anyone else has for that matter. Does it even say storygame or RPG on the box or in the advert? Are you simply blinded by the word 'story' and unable to process any given sentence further?

If I were to use the term storytelling game unprompted in a sentence, I would use it to refer to white wolf games as it is the name of their system. Do you consider once upon a time to take place in the world of darkness then? Is your view of language that simplistic? If I call my hat a shoe is it a hat or a shoe?

To be clear then, you think that this is also an RPG yes?

Quote from: soviet;670590To be clear then, you think that this is also an RPG yes?

A better question: what the fuck is that and how do I get it?

Quote from: Brad;670607A better question: what the fuck is that and how do I get it?

It's Dark Future, a Games Workshop boxed wargame from the late 80s. You have a mad max style autoduel between two gangs of plastic cars. The cars were the same scale as Matchbox cars so you could do a lot of really cool conversions, but AFAIR the game mechanics themselves were a bit overly detailed. It's coming up to 25 years out of print although until very recently you could get the PDF for free from the GW site.

There is a line of Dark Future novels by Kim Newman (writing as Jack Yeovill) which are also well worth reading.

Quote from: RPGPundit;669912So 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.

Except CRK is wrong. There's nothing in DW that has anything to do with a shared narrative.

QuoteA 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.  

RPGPundit

Where did he say that?

As for immersion as I said from the first, DW passes because it doesn't in any way interfere with immersion , any more than D&D does. As a player whose primary motivation is immersion, this is the paramount concern for me. Emulation on the other hand is up to any individual GM and certainly wasn't a priority for Arneson.

Quote from: TristramEvans;670666There's nothing in DW that has anything to do with a shared narrative.

I would love to see the response to this post over at Storygames or Apocalyptica.

Quote from: CRKrueger;670710I would love to see the response to this post over at Storygames or Apocalyptica.

Feel free, you can even post a link here so I can read the response. No opinion is worth having if I was afraid of it being challenged, but I don't personally post on those forums ( first I've heard of them actually).

Quote from: TristramEvans;670666Where did he say that?

In his GNS theory essays.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;670725In his GNS theory essays.

RPGPundit

Well, Googled it. Its not in a y of the gns essays, but from from a thread on the Forge entitled 'why group conflict is so confusing'.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18690.0


Here's the weird thing though; the comment was aimed at Narrativism. In other words story-gamers. It wasn't an attack on traditional role-players aka 'simulationism' at all.

Yes, its still an awful comment, and one he should feel bad about as an adult human being aware a reality exists beyond how he likes to play make believe, but its a criticism of the same people you refer to as 'Swine', notably 90s White Wolf players.

Which I have to say is very confusing.

Quote from: Ron Edwards...the routine human compacity for understanding, enjoying, and creating stories is damaged in this fashion by repeated "story telling role playing" as promulgated through many role playing games of a certain type

He specifically mentioned Vampire, so I'm reading this as "playing rpgs and thinking its the same as writing stories impedes the ability of the role-player to understand and write actual good stories", which is, granted, hyperbolic and presumptuous as can be, but not a statement I personally find all that controversial ( nor would, I think, anyone subjected to certain White Wolf GMs (excuse me...'storytellers') in the 90s). And not one! I would think, you'd have a problem with Pundit.

Quote from: jhkim;669868I 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.

2 I'd ignore or houserule, so I'll focus on 1, and I'll restate what I said in another thread.

Quote from: apparition13;643615How about thinking of it as a frozen moment in time? Let's say you are guarding an entrance against an orc in order to protect the children in the room. On a full success, you hit the orc, hold it off, and take no damage. On a partial, you choose one of the three. On a failure the orc gets by you, you do no damage, and get hit.

Roll 10+: full success.
Roll 6-: failure.

Roll 7-9: frozen moment. If you've done sports, or driven a car, you've had these moments. Whatever it was you were trying to do has just gone pearshaped, and you have a bad choice ahead. Hit the dog, or the parked car. Let the forward through on goal, or foul. That kind of thing. So the narration would be "you try to block off and attack the orc, but it has ducked under your blow and and drawn even with you. If you jump into the room, it won't be able to hit you, but you won't be able to hit it, and next round it will attack the children. If you step forward and slash backwards you will be able to hit it, but it also has a free shot at your ribs and will be able to attach the children next round (unless you kill it, but you would still take damage). If you throw your shoulder into it, you'll be able to stop it from getting into the room, but it has a free shot at your belly. Which do you choose to do? Option one, selfish choice, no risk to the PC, fail the mission. Option two, gambler's choice, risk to the PC, may fail the mission. Option 3, altruist's (hero's) choice, risk to the PC, succeed at the mission.

Player makes the choice, the round continues and is resolved.

Now personally, the thing I don't like is get all three, get one, or none, since sometimes there may only be one sensible outcome, and others there may be a dozen, but that's an implementation rather than conceptualization question.

Addendum: personally I would allow the player to pick more than 1 for partial success, at some cost. For example:

Do damage and avoid damage: I jump back and throw my axe at the orc, but the orc is in the room and can attack the children (if it survives the axe) AND you are disarmed next round;

Do damage and block the orc: I throw my dagger to pin the orc to the door, but the orc attacks you AND you are disarmed next round,

avoid damage and block the orc: I dive under the orc's weapon and tackle it to the floor, but you do no damage AND you are prone, carrying a penalty forward into the next round ("tripped").

Do all three, but after jamming your sword into the orc and tackling it to the ground, you are unarmed AND prone in the next round.

tl:dr, the choice is made mid-action when you can tell what you were trying isn't going to come off as you intended, but while you still have time to react and adjust what you are doing and salvage what you (the PC, not the player, if immersing) think is most important.

From what I've read, it seems like a retreat somewhat toward the formalism of a board game, from the trend toward a looser mode in earlier development from GM'd miniatures games to RPGs.

That focus on a small set of significant possibilities is also a trend I've seen in some apparently Forge-influenced games, where the intent seems to be to zoom in on particular thematic issues. I'm not sure whether that's what DW does (or even attempts to do), but I'm not familiar with the text. What it puts me more in mind of is D&D 4E.

One thing that seems missing, compared with some other Forge-ish games, is the free negotiation of "stakes." A set menu seems almost the opposite of that.

Quote from: Phillip;670792One thing that seems missing, compared with some other Forge-ish games, is the free negotiation of "stakes." A set menu seems almost the opposite of that.

Yup, there is no such thing in AW/DW. Instead, the basic move structure already includes all the possible outcomes for the situation. Even if the "color" of each outcome will not always be stated and will be filled by the GM most of times (like in any trad rpg).

Quote from: TristramEvans;670727Well, Googled it. Its not in a y of the gns essays, but from from a thread on the Forge entitled 'why group conflict is so confusing'.

Um, no. That was apparently a reference to his "brain damage" comments. What I'm talking about was much much earlier, in his defining essays on GNS, where he minimalizes the importance of Emulation by shunting it away in the all-purpose "S" section of his bullshit theory, and later calls Immersion, the central goal of the player in RPGs, nothing more than an "impossible thing before breakfast". He suggests that you can't actually immerse (contrary to the experiences of any number of gamers and human beings in general in other capacities) and that if you could, it would be a kind of mental illness.

He had to try to wipe out Emulation and Immersion, because these are the main purposes of the GM and Player in standard RPGs. Only by getting them both out of the way could he change the foundational purposes of gaming so that his asinine theory could make any sense, and by marginalizing these two central features of all Regular RPG games could he subvert the hobby and redefine the entire game to serve "creating story" in the "narrativist" sense.

RPGPundit

Quote from: soviet;670590Do you understand that storygame and storytelling game are in fact different terms?

Ah. A retreat into mindless pedantry in an effort to dodge the question. Duly noted. Lemme know when you're willing to take part in an adult conversation.