Quote from: jdrakehOh, 'cmon, we all know that story-centric roleplay was in full swing during the Spring of 1976 :rolleyes:

I have today elsewhere in this forum quoted old Gygax himself saying in the 1979 version of the DMG that the GM should fudge the dice when they see fit to make things more interesting. That sounds suspiciously story-ish to me.

Of course it may be supposed by some that no-one thought of having a story before this or that favourite game designer popped onto the scene. No stories existed, no series of adventures with a common theme, called "campaigns"... no, wait, I mean... er...

B1, In Search of the Unknown, by Mike Carr (1978)
B2, The Keep on the Borderlands, by Gary Gygax (1979)
B3, Palace of the Silver Princess, by Tom Moldvay and Jean Wells (1981)   
(etc, up to B10)

and
A1, Slave Pits of the Undercity, by David Cook (1980)    
A2, Secret of the Slavers Stockade, by Harold Johnson and Tom Moldvay (1981)    
A3, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, by Allen Hammack (1981)   
A4, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, by Lawrence Schick (1981)

Then of course there were the 14 Dragonlance modules, from 1984 to 1986, loudly decried at the time as "railroading" because they more or less forced the PCs along a preset journey and with preset events, victories and defeats... as it was described then by gamers I knew, "they want to tell their story, not to let you tell yours!"

My God... it's almost as though... back in the dark old days... they thought you could have a story and an adventure! Those primitives. Freaks!

Quote from: chaosvoyagerBut the difference is that while The Pundit was trying to (and from what I understand, successfully) piss everyone off, nobody was having any problem with Wick. The way he was playing was not seen as dysfunctional or disruptive.

That's his account. He doesn't say that his playstyle was praised, merely that nobody commented to him about it, or slapped him down. He does say that when he said he wanted his character to settle down and build a stronghold and establish a kingdom, he got "strange looks."

The strange looks would have been for two reasons. The first is that he's going against the unwritten rule of gaming - "the GM will offer the PCs an adventure, and the PCs will accept it." His suggestion - in the context of a short, closed-ended game like a convention game - would be like being in a horror game and saying, "no, I won't go back into the dark old house," or being in a war game and trying to negotiate a truce. He was rejecting the whole purpose of being there.

The second would be that in many versions of D&D there are explicit rules for reaching a certain level with your character, and building a stronghold and establishing a small kingdom. You're meant to clear the surrounding lands of monsters so that people can settle there and be your peasants - presumably meant to be the source of further hacky adventures. Wick would have got a strange look because he thought he was being original.

I feel sure that his behaviour was not uncommented on in his absence. When you go to cons, you meet all sorts of gamers, and some of them will be a bit strange. You quietly tolerate them, because after all in a couple of hours you need never see them again, and for every cocksmock you meet, you'll meet at least ten decent people.

Quote from: chaosvoyagerAnd I am suspicious of your theory that he was being politely tolerated because it seems most gamers are anything BUT tolerant (let alone polite about it) of people who play RPGs 'wrong' (let alone of John Wick), at least if forums like this are anything to go by.

Actually, gamers are often more tolerant than they should be. Ask around, and you'll find a lot of head-nodding in response to the article on the geek social fallacies, which is essentially a list of ways in which and reasons that geeks are overly-tolerant of dorks.

And don't judge gamers by the online versions. Online, everyone has a cybersteel spine. Most of us spray copious amounts of shit at one another, while not tolerating even the tiniest speck of shit on ourselves. Our online behaviour is a combination of incredible insensitivity coupled with insane intolerance.

In person, most people are far more moderate. It's the same in any social activity - people are especially tolerant when they've just met someone.

The real test would be to ask Wick's fellow gamers from that con and see how many of them would be enthusiastic about gaming with him a second time. I would be honestly surprised if it were many.

Quote from: JimBobOzB1, In Search of the Unknown, by Mike Carr (1978)
B2, The Keep on the Borderlands, by Gary Gygax (1979)
B3, Palace of the Silver Princess, by Tom Moldvay and Jean Wells (1981)   
(etc, up to B10)

and
A1, Slave Pits of the Undercity, by David Cook (1980)    
A2, Secret of the Slavers Stockade, by Harold Johnson and Tom Moldvay (1981)    
A3, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, by Allen Hammack (1981)    A4, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, by Lawrence Schick (1981)

Most of those modules aren't linked in any way that could seriously be referred to as a "story" (in any sense of the word) but I digress, what you're talking about and what Set is talking about are two entirely different things. Entirely different.

The "story" push of the 1990s wasn't about interacting with a set of pre-scripted plot points or encounters but about creating meaningful characters through player introspection. Ostensibly. Or "that drama crap" as Set likes to call it on occassion.

What you're talking about has been around since D&D came in a little wood-grain box. It was keyed location exploration as opposed to story creation or character immersion, the two staples of 1990s "revolutionary" games. This is what Set was referring to, I'm 98% certain.

And, point blank, this didn't exist back when the first AD&D PHB was printed. Not in any codified, recognizeable, form, anyhow. I'm certain that somebody, somewhere, was playing like that but there was no 'movement' to rebel against. AD&D wasn't a counterpoint to such thinking.

Quote from: JimBobOzI have today elsewhere in this forum quoted old Gygax himself saying in the 1979 version of the DMG that the GM should fudge the dice when they see fit to make things more interesting. That sounds suspiciously story-ish to me.

You should have linked to it because it because it is a valuable data point in any discussion concerning the "historical roots" and "true nature" of role playing.

QuoteThen of course there were the 14 Dragonlance modules, from 1984 to 1986, loudly decried at the time as "railroading" because they more or less forced the PCs along a preset journey and with preset events, victories and defeats...

And it puzzles me to no end that this approach is lauded today in the Adventure Path format, one of the selling points of the Dungeon Magazine, upcoming Pathfinder, and ENworlds War of the Burning Sky.

I admit, there is one difference between DL and today's APs in that there are no pregenerated characters - no Raistlin, Tanis, Tasslehoff & Co.
But then, in my own run of DL I allowed my players to choose whether they wanted to play one of the iconic characters or generate their own one. (So only Tanis and Elistan were part of this group of Innfellows. The spell caster was an illusionist, not a m-u, and far from weak and ill. But he did bite and eventually followed the path of Fistandantilus...)

Quote from: jdrakehThe "story" push of the 1990s wasn't about interacting with a set of pre-scripted plot points or encounters but about creating meaningful characters through player introspection.

So it's not a "story" without player introspection? Dp you mean player-character introspection? I'll assume you, and Gygax-style, confusing "player" and "player-character", otherwise no movie or book could be proven to be a "story", since we don't know if the writers or actors had introspection, we only know about their characters.

Thus, you're saying that it's not a story without character introspection.

So, what - Stars Wars isn't a story? Or is, "but I have to go back to the farm!" enough angst for you to consider it a "story"? In that case, doesn't, "but I'm Lawful Good, I can't just go for a walk while you torture the orcs" also make it a "story"?

There is no definition of "story" which excludes the Against the Slave Lords* series of modules which does not also exclude a whole shitload of movies and books generally considered "stories". If you want to say "Star Wars isn't really sci-fi!" well I'll think you're being a bit pedantic, but whatever. But if you want to say, "Star Wars isn't really a story!" then you are off into Forger-make-up-your-own-meanings-for-everyday-words-land, and no-one can have a useful conversation with you. Well, except a Forger.

* I didn't say, "a good story", just "a story."

Quote from: jdrakehMost of those modules aren't linked in any way that could seriously be referred to as a "story" (in any sense of the word) but I digress, what you're talking about and what Set is talking about are two entirely different things. Entirely different.

The "story" push of the 1990s wasn't about interacting with a set of pre-scripted plot points or encounters but about creating meaningful characters through player introspection. Ostensibly. Or "that drama crap" as Set likes to call it on occassion.

What you're talking about has been around since D&D came in a little wood-grain box. It was keyed location exploration as opposed to story creation or character immersion, the two staples of 1990s "revolutionary" games. This is what Set was referring to, I'm 98% certain.

And, point blank, this didn't exist back when the first AD&D PHB was printed. Not in any codified, recognizeable, form, anyhow. I'm certain that somebody, somewhere, was playing like that but there was no 'movement' to rebel against. AD&D wasn't a counterpoint to such thinking.

I don't think what happened in the 90's is in any way, shape or form different from "who roleplays better" arguments that have been going on since the beginning of RPG-ing.

There have *always* been positions along a continuum of narrative sophistication -- and people have always been saying that their particular position was somehow superior.

What changed in the 90's, with Vampire, was the idea better roleplaying was a function of the game itself rather than individual player's approach.

Somehow, playing an angst-ridden child of the night was more sophisticated than playing an elf.

And today it's the same thing (if you're playing a narrow-focus game with fewer rules and no math from a teeny-weenie publisher, you're more sophisticated).

But do you really think that

Quote from: jdrakehcreating meaningful characters through player introspection.

is any different from someone going on about how roleplaying should focus on character, and how someone's a better roleplayer if he created a character with a back-story or an agenda (pretty common 70's and 80's perspectives)?

Back in the 70's & 80's when I was reading TSR's Dragon magazine, there was all kinds of stuff about having narratives that made sense and reached beyond the dungeon, and deeper characters, and so on.

Pretty much exactly the same stuff, except we use different words now.

And that's the guy behind the curtain: the story-now revolution isn't actually about story at all.

It's about power-struggle and power dynamics. The ideology *ties* it to story with the claim that somehow if you're playing with less GM authority or different kinds of GM authority, you're somehow getting a better / more sophisticate story, but that's simply not true:

Traditional techniques give you reliably good stories. Traditional techniques also give you "immersion" (which back in the day was just called 'playing my character' or getting into that) which is something a lot of the more distributed models aren't so good at.

Impact: Many of the "story games" a) don't give you any better story than traditional games and b) give many players a less-immersive experience.

What they do (well) is deal with authority issues in players and provide an alternative narrative model (collaborative fiction instead of a single, GM-led directorial role).

I think that's new -- but people have been telling stories for a long time before there were RPG's and using them to tell stories (recognizable, human interest stories with suspension of disbelief, characterization, drama, tragedy, etc. etc. etc.) since the very beginning of RPG's.

In fact, that's *why* RPG's were created.

Cheers,
-E.

Hi Folks,

Thanks for listening to my podcast. I apologize as this may be a bit of a non-sequitur with where this thread is at, but I didn't see the traffic as I've been busy all weekend. This is a big gaming weekend for me.

I saw some comments about the file size, from dial up folks. If I could reduce it to around 20 or 30 megabytes from the present 90 some megabytes would that be worth the effort of downloading? I think beyond that and the sound quality would get annoyingly bad.

Another quick thing I wanted to address is I think it was Andy who wondered if I would break down interviews to 30 minutes. Sorry Andy but that's outside my goals. I'm trying to present everything as as-is as possible. This is also due to my inclinations being the exact opposite of yours as I love having the entire thing in one serving, you can tell by my waistline.

Quote from: jdrakehThe latest trend is toward, not transparent mechanics that address only one or two key aspets around which all play revolves by default, but substantive mechanics that validate their existence by fulfilling a wide range of very specific functions in actual play that can accommodate many different styles of play.

I think, for me, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires epitomize this paradigm shift. Look for things like weapon reach, wealth rolls, and lifepath character generation. These are not the product of Sorcerer and the theories that it was built upon. These are the products of Forge theory re-engineered in the wake of D&D 3x's success.

Oh, if we're talking BW and BE, I totally understand what you mean. As Balbinus once put it, BW is the Rolemaster of the 21st century. The thing is, BW has been around for a while, AND it doesn't seem to have inspired other games nearly as much as (certain elements of) Sorcerer has.

Probably because it's a lot easier to design your typical one-trick-pony Nar game than something as intricate as BW. Personally, I'd actually like to see more games like it.

Quote from: -E.There have *always* been positions along a continuum of narrative sophistication -- and people have always been saying that their particular position was somehow superior.

Indeed, but I think the critical difference we're seeing nowadays is that Ron Edwards isn't just claiming his games are "better" than others at delivering story, but that popular mainstream games are incapable of doing so.

That's why I think the Forge gets the levels attention it does, not through quality of output but by the attempted ideological nullification of the competition. I think the "movement" in general and Edwards in particular have done more to deliberately poison the well than any who have come before.

Quote from: Clyde L. RhoerI saw some comments about the file size, from dial up folks. If I could reduce it to around 20 or 30 megabytes from the present 90 some megabytes would that be worth the effort of downloading? I think beyond that and the sound quality would get annoyingly bad.

Just keep the same file and break it up into three downloads...?

I don't get the link between Wick & The Forge, JB. There may be similarities in thought, but Wick isn't closely tied to the Forge unless I'm mistaken.

Dirk, it´s all about Tactics.

The APs leave everything open in the dungeon proper. but you must play the dungeons in the AP, you can´t really decide strategically.

That has got nothing to do with "storytelling". Because 99% of the time at the table is time in the dungeon or with the encounters. And these are open ended. How many TPKs in DL? How many TPKs in the old Campaigns or in the APs?
What you are doing is comparing The Complete Masks to the "Sieben Gezeichneten". There´s a BIG difference, although both contain strategic railroading of the grandest order.

And JB, if you would be so kind as to read a Gygax Module and run it, then you could spare us all the stupidity that is your argument for "storytelling" in AD&D 1st edition.

But you have a point: Story and character interaction are totally one of the fun-sources of AD&D 1st or other pre Vampire games (and every other Adventure RPG). But the challenge that you had to solve remained at the heart of the game. Accomplishment in the fantasto-verse could only happen via accomplishment at the table.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityErik has a point. If I understand him correctly, he wasn't referring to D&D circa 1978. He was referring to the settings bloat of late AD&D 10+ years later... when D&D got chatty, so to speak.

But that's not what he said. He said "focus on table play is the forge philosphy".

All well and good, and it's the only philosophy to have imo.

But to say the Forge invented it, when Gygax, Allston, Bennie and Stackpole were flying that flag pre-Forge is just dumb.

And if that's the definitive Forge philosphy, then they're not all that innovative.

Quote from: DrewIndeed, but I think the critical difference we're seeing nowadays is that Ron Edwards isn't just claiming his games are "better" than others at delivering story, but that popular mainstream games are incapable of doing so.

That's why I think the Forge gets the levels attention it does, not through quality of output but by the attempted ideological nullification of the competition. I think the "movement" in general and Edwards in particular have done more to deliberately poison the well than any who have come before.

Absolutely -- the attention comes from being offensive, and that offensiveness (and the reaction it elicits) contributes to making the theory popular.

GNS tells people what they want to hear: that they're simultaneously better than everyone else and victims (of the games themselves and of mainstream gamers who are afraid/don't understand/etc. their specialness).

That persecution complex is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the theory is *wonderfully* offensive and almost guaranteed to get a chilly reception by traditional gamers (whom it's largely insulting to).

In the past theory proponents would express amazement and surprise at the hostile reaction they'd get... and they'd claim that anyone taking offense simply didn't understand (or better yet: was projecting and seeing offensive stuff where none existed)

The Brain Damage cleared a lot of that up (you still get people claiming it was a metaphor, or saying that they only disagree with that part of the theory), but it didn't really change the dialog: it's still designed to get attention so that advocates can feel persecuted... and it works!

Nice little system there.
Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: jdrakehThe latest trend is toward, not transparent mechanics that address only one or two key aspets around which all play revolves by default, but substantive mechanics that validate their existence by fulfilling a wide range of very specific functions in actual play that can accommodate many different styles of play.

I think, for me, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires epitomize this paradigm shift. Look for things like weapon reach, wealth rolls, and lifepath character generation. These are not the product of Sorcerer and the theories that it was built upon. These are the products of Forge theory re-engineered in the wake of D&D 3x's success.

I think you're quite a bit off the mark here. Like The Riddle of Steel, BW got all its complexity from development before the author came into contact with The Forge. Both games were later "touched up" post-contact, but the dominant type of game developed de novo among Forge movement types remains the tightly focused minigame with mechanics operating primarily on the abstract/thematic level. E.g., The Mountain Witch, Polaris or The Shab al-hiri Roach.

Some people now include Evil Hat among Forge designers but although they do have a forum at the Forge, neither Fred nor Rob claim to use The Big Model or GNS, and their FATE game engine was developed independently, as with TRoS and BW.