Quote from: two_fishes;523019Most (but not all) players still desire key elements of story structure in the game.

Pfffffffffffffffffft

Quote from: CRKrueger;523084A character cannot "experience a story" any more then you or I go through life experiencing a story.  A character "experiences events" just like we do.  That is roleplaying.

As soon as story enters the picture, it is from the player, not the character, therefore, by definition, it's not roleplaying.

This.  History is bunk; the perspective required to render experience as a "story" divorces it from the actual experience irrevocably.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;523099This.  History is bunk; the perspective required to render experience as a "story" divorces it from the actual experience irrevocably.

Yes. This. Jesus Christ. I'm glad to see you guys get it.

Quote from: two_fishes;523092Clearly you are a Story-Denialist.

Clearly you're just switching to trolling because you know damn well I'm right.  

Quote from: two_fishes;523087Oh, okay. So if I decide to improvise a story, making it up as I tell it, I am not a storyteller until the last word of the story is spoken, since the story doesn't "exist" until the entirety of it is revealed. Until that moment, I'm just a "talker" talking about a series of imagined events.

Seriously, that is what this sort of hair-splitting sounds like to me.

Did you not write this upthread?

Quote from: two_fishes;523019RPGs is absolutely a story-telling medium. The players, including the GM, collaborate on fashioning a story. At the end of a session, all the players can reflect back on the story that each of them played a part in revealing. The key element of RPGs that is different from other methods of storytelling is that some or all the player are attempting imagine the story as directly experienced, as if they were themselves participants in the events of the story.

Because in the upthread piece that you wrote, you were using a group to "reveal" the story from the game table. In your response to me, you were inferring that you were the sole creator of the story. Big difference there.

Unless you are saying that having Players at your table is irrelevant to your story creation. Which, may be great for the story, but does fuck-all for the game they may want to participate in.

A tabletop RPG session happens. A story is what is told about what happened during the session.

Quote from: two_fishes;523076I agree that there is a tension between the idea of "experiencing the events" and making a story, but RPGs nevertheless tread that line.

And a lucky dice roll kills the "Big Bad" in the first encounter. The random elements of the mechanics in combination with the players free will preclude any type of story structure.  The best you can do with a tabletop RPG is have a referee that knows how to manipulate the odds and players to produce a probable outcome. And that is not collaborative storytelling but the referee railroading his players.

Quote from: two_fishes;523076Like I said, one is often sacrificed in favor of the other. But different RPGs make those sacrifices at different points, and to add further confusion, different people perceive the same game element differently; two people may come to very different conclusions about whether an element that helps guide story structure (say Fate points, for e.g.) actually does intrude on their feeling of direct experience.  

Fate points are what I call a metagame mechanic. A mechanic designed to manipulate the game rather than reflect the reality of the setting or genre. I found that metagame mechanics distract from experiencing the situation at hand. And they are poor substitute for just learning how to communicate with one players and learning about what they want to accomplish.

Quote from: two_fishes;523076Many, many RPG gamers are not satisfied with simply "experience events" but want to specifically "experience story". As Glazer pointed out, this has been a desire within the hobby for a very long time, a blanket denial that this is not what RPGs do is not going to make this desire go away. It is what RPGs do because it's what so many RPG gamers want them to do.

I disagree, the large majority of players want to take a vacation to a fun and adventure filled setting.  Couldn't give a rat ass about the hero's journey, three acts, and the other elements of storytelling.

"Story" seems to be more meaningful in written fiction literature, and movies + tv shows.

More generally in real life outside of written literature and movies/tv, "story" seems to be a less useful structure.  It would be pretty boring to read one's own personal "story" in recounting the daily mundane events and activities in a day in one's own life.

At times I wonder how much of the "story" structure, is largely a byproduct of written literature and movies/tv, mainly to interest readers/viewers to invest the time to read/watch.

Quote from: estar;523106Couldn't give a rat ass about the hero's journey, three acts, and the other elements of storytelling.

One of the reasons I enjoy roleplaying games is specifically because all of that bullshit can go straight on the dung heap.

Quote from: jeff37923;523104Because in the upthread piece that you wrote, you were using a group to "reveal" the story from the game table. In your response to me, you were inferring that you were the sole creator of the story. Big difference there.

Unless you are saying that having Players at your table is irrelevant to your story creation. Which, may be great for the story, but does fuck-all for the game they may want to participate in.

A tabletop RPG session happens. A story is what is told about what happened during the session.

A storyteller reveals a story. Players reveal a story. In both cases, a story is created. Players participate in the creation of story differently than a storyteller does, but both are making stories.  For some player that method of participation takes priority above all, even at the expense of story, but that is scarcely a universal truth.

Quote from: estar;523106And a lucky dice roll kills the "Big Bad" in the first encounter. The random elements of the mechanics in combination with the players free will preclude any type of story structure.  The best you can do with a tabletop RPG is have a referee that knows how to manipulate the odds and players to produce a probable outcome. And that is not collaborative storytelling but the referee railroading his players.



Fate points are what I call a metagame mechanic. A mechanic designed to manipulate the game rather than reflect the reality of the setting or genre. I found that metagame mechanics distract from experiencing the situation at hand. And they are poor substitute for just learning how to communicate with one players and learning about what they want to accomplish.




I disagree, the large majority of players want to take a vacation to a fun and adventure filled setting.  Couldn't give a rat ass about the hero's journey, three acts, and the other elements of storytelling.

You are assuming that the creation of a stroy requires it to be a good story.

Sure the Big bad slips over with a crit fumble and falls off a cliff. That might be a crap story but it can still be a story.

Two_fish may be a bit trollish but to deny that story telling is a feature of RPGs is a Golden Rule is disingenuous. There is a continum from the Forge and Story games with narative whatamancallits and all that stuff right through to advanced heroquest with a baord and set character templates. Most RPGs sit somewhere on that continum.
I have no interest in playing an indy story game where we all create a narative taking on the role of author in turn but I have no issue with hero points in James Bond or Bennies in SW and the vast majority of players are like me and sit someplace in the middle.

When PCs do things they reveal a story. It doesn't imply that the GM has already outlined the giant's death scene in act 4. That is more like a railroad which doesn't have to be anything like a story at all.

I know that all of this hypersensitivity is a reaction to some bloke on the internet that said a thing once and tried to 'REMAKE THE RPG HOBBY IN HIS OWN IMAGE' but newsflash most people never even heard of the fucker.

Sorry rant over I will go back to being a complaint wallflower and agreeing with everyone again.

Quote from: jibbajibba;523117but newsflash most people never even heard of the fucker.

Unfortunately for us, Rob Heinsoo and Jay Little weren't among them.

Quote from: two_fishes;523087Oh, okay. So if I decide to improvise a story, making it up as I tell it, I am not a storyteller until the last word of the story is spoken, since the story doesn't "exist" until the entirety of it is revealed. Until that moment, I'm just a "talker" talking about a series of imagined events.

Seriously, that is what this sort of hair-splitting sounds like to me.

Storytellers use a narrative structure and fill in the blanks as they go. They also revise after they do the first draft (or telling).

Quote from: CRKrueger;523119Unfortunately for us, Rob Heinsoo and Jay Little weren't among them.

Little has some decent ideas in regard to 40k (although the Black Crusade's chapter on Minions is both full of good and full of terrible). It's just 3e that should never land in his small hands.


Get it? Little, small?


I am somewhat with jibbajibba.

Quote from: estar;523106Couldn't give a rat ass about the hero's journey, three acts, and the other elements of storytelling.

Wonder if there is a deeper psychological reason as to why such a story structure is popular for centuries (if not millenia) in written fiction literature.

QuoteI disagree, the large majority of players want to take a vacation to a fun and adventure filled setting.  Couldn't give a rat ass about the hero's journey, three acts, and the other elements of storytelling.

Actually I just want to kill things and take their stuff, I'm simple like that I guess.