Heh.  I sorta thought we might have less to disagree about than it looked like on the surface.

So there are games out there that, in some small way, could be useful cross-training.

I totally agree with you that the vast majority of games are absolutely terrible cross-training tools.  You'd be foolish to try to use skills garnered from playing Paranoia to write the Great American Novel.

Most games are also very honest about that.  They don't lead people to believe that the skills are applicable elsewhere.  Anyone who thinks that Capes is going to train them to write a Stoppard play?  Well, they got there on their own.

Now, I've obviously slanted this question real seriously by the context it's being asked in.  I apologize for that.  I'm a bad person   But, anyway, my character flaws aside ... what do you think of White Wolf in this regard?

Personally, I think that their marketing intentionally led people to think that the skills gained playing V:tM would translate into more general story-telling skills, and I further think that a lot of my friends bought that hook, line and sinker and got some pretty silly habits about how stories are put together as a result.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenLearning is easy.

Let go of certainty.  Accept that the duration of your dignity matters more than the appearance of it.  Try new things that look and sound silly.

People unwilling to do at least one of those things are refusing to learn.

Heh.  You deny the possibility of "unable"?  The only question is "unwilling"?

Personally, for myself, I'm with you.  I can do any of those three things at will.  Sometimes it's hard, but I can do them.  But I hear that there are people for whom those things are so hard that they have to work a long time before they are able to achieve them.  And I don't want to tell those people that if they actually tried they'd automatically succeed.

Quote from: ImperatorWordy McWord.

You quote one sentence of mine. Then you then add 7 setences, the last one that simply restates mine?  Who be the wordy one?

Quote from: blakkieYou quote one sentence of mine. Then you then add 7 setences, the last one that simply restates mine?  Who be the wordy one?

I think it's "Word!" as in "What you have just said is very true!"

Quote from: TonyLBHeh.  You deny the possibility of "unable"?  The only question is "unwilling"?

Learning disabilities are not something I would ever toss around lightly.

Yes, they exist.

No, I don't think this conversation would benefit from discussing them and how they relate to story and RPGs.  Offhandedly discussing stuff like that is a good way to bury yourself in shit up to your eyebrows.

As we've seen.

Quote from: blakkieYou quote one sentence of mine. Then you then add 7 setences, the last one that simply restates mine?  Who be the wordy one?

Oooops My English skillz failed me. I was trying to say that I fully support that idea. I've seen that phrase (the 'Wordy...') one used several times around Internet, and I thought...

Well, the idea is: I agree with you, and want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenLearning disabilities are not something I would ever toss around lightly.

Oh!  Totally not what I was talking about.  Unless, like, pride is a learning disability, which I don't think either of us believes.

There are people who (for instance) think and say that they can't be content with being actually right when they are suffering the appearance of being wrong.

Now I don't think that there's any argument to be made that, long-term they can't learn to do that ... in exactly the same way that I don't accept when someone I'm training says "I can't do a sit-up."

With practice, you can do a sit-up.  With practice, you can let yourself look foolish in public, while remaining serene in private.

But I have to accept that there are some people who literally can NOT do a sit-up today.  And I'm inclined to accept that there are some people who literally can NOT let go of their pride today.

Quote from: TonyLBPersonally, I think that their marketing intentionally led people to think that the skills gained playing V:tM would translate into more general story-telling skills, and I further think that a lot of my friends bought that hook, line and sinker and got some pretty silly habits about how stories are put together as a result.

I think that it is not unusual for teenagers to fall for marketing that tells them that if they do x they will be a deeper, more meaningful person and will get dates.  [Edit:  I'm not saying your friends were teenagers, I have no idea, it's more of a lead in general comment.]

WW used a classic marketing ploy, they told people that if they did this shallow thing they would become deep and meaningful and serious.  I suspect they probably believed it by the way, I don't think they were intentionally lying or anything.

But there comes a point where common sense and life experience need to kick in.  White Wolf games have nothing to do with story creation, in the literary sense of story.  Sure, they promised their games would let you create epic stories like the Illiad or Beowulf or something, but they gave you DnD with fangs.  The brilliance was to dress up DnD as something more than it was and is, which in the process IMO made it a less good DnD than had it been more honest about what it was.

But part of growing up is learning to cut through people's claims for what a product will do and learning to make up your own mind.  Some people never learn those skills, but they'll be so busy getting apparently favourable credit terms and thinking their favourite soap speaks to the human condition to have much time to play anyway.

Your friends were taken in by marketing, it happens to us all sometimes, I sympathise but at the end of the day it's not that different to buying a face cream because you think it will prevent aging.

Quote from: TonyLBPersonally, I think that their marketing intentionally led people to think that the skills gained playing V:tM would translate into more general story-telling skills, and I further think that a lot of my friends bought that hook, line and sinker and got some pretty silly habits about how stories are put together as a result.

Thought I'd just come back on the "intentionally" bit, I think they did intentionally do that, but I think they may actually have been far up their own backsides enough to believe it.

Whatever, they did do that and they were factually wrong in their claims.  I don't think though one can then extrapolate to lasting damage to story telling abilities or anything silly like that, it's just another product that didn't live up to its hype and that is not an uncommon thing in our world.

Quote from: TonyLBBut I have to accept that there are some people who literally can NOT do a sit-up today.  And I'm inclined to accept that there are some people who literally can NOT let go of their pride today.

...Ah.  

....Huh.

I dunno.  Could be.

Quote from: ImperatorOooops My English skillz failed me.

Well it did allow you to come up with what I'd consider a good example.  In fact that very one was sitting at the back of my mind when I wrote the original post.

Quote from: BalbinusTo be honest, partly by breaking the primacy of the player/character bond, you have a PC but it's not about identifying with them, and I think thinking in terms of being the character is unhelpful from a story production perspective.

In what way is the game about role-playing (that is, playing a role)?

Quote from: NicephorusI think that's problem with rpg as story - if you treat a game as a story also treating it as its own thing, the game will like have issues.  Books and movies have odd coincidences, characters killed just to move the plot forward, some characters being forgotten about for huge stretches, deux ex machina endings, lead to one inevitable conclusion, etc.  that would make for a lousy player experience.

But that's not to say pulling in storytelling elements is in itself bad, it just needs adapting.

I've seen odd coincidences in games. Quite a number in fact.  If you aren't I suggest you aren't looking, or perhaps you aren't letting the dice have some control. Or you're doing something else different? Sometimes the coincidences aren't so much too. You retroactively make something foreshadowing be consciously deciding that it was.

Also characters dieing moves the plot forward.  The rub between stories in a book and stories coming from an RPG is often more of how it is decided how the plot moves forward. In many ways the snuffing of a key protagonist is somewhat disruptive in both formats, but tends to happen more readily in an RPG.

RPG stories tend to have more unfinished ends.  Because of the random and multiple input nature you are constantly creating points where the plot could jump off from, and often you do create more of stub down those branches.  But in book form often these are editted out and pushed to the back because they are thought of as a distraction.

Quote from: John MorrowIn what way is the game about role-playing (that is, playing a role)?

Each player has a character, they dicate that character's actions and words much as in any other game.  You play the role of that character.

Where I see it as diverging isn't in that bit, it's rather that you have a greater element of authorial power such that you will be introducing scenes and situations so as to bring out that character's issues and the stuff that makes them interesting.

So you do play a role, but you don't create stuff in the game from within that role necessarily if that makes sense.

Hence I see it as a game in which you play a role, because it is a game and you do play a role, but I see it as being different to a classic rpg as your character is not necessarily your main vehicle for action.

Oh, I wouldn't necessarily say it is about playing a role, rather it is a game about story creation and as a means to that end you play a role.  The mechanics therefore are more about story creation than playing the role, and that is why it makes a better story creating game than most story-games which to my mind get muddled up the conflict between creating a good story and playing a role (often even denying that is a conflict).

Edit:  I appreciate that others may not view this as sufficient to count as an rpg, for me though it is sufficient.  Others must make up their own minds as to where they draw a line, should they wish to draw one.

Quote from: BalbinusYour friends were taken in by marketing, it happens to us all sometimes, I sympathise but at the end of the day it's not that different to buying a face cream because you think it will prevent aging.

This is so close to the example I was going to use to describe the phenomenon (and my low level of concern over it) that it's eerie.

Mind you, I was going to talk about those Calvin Klein ads that have men wearing the jeans while making out with nubile young women in the surf.  I understand that the makers of the clothes do not, in fact, stand behind the guarantee I feel is implicit in those images.  But apart from that we're on exactly the same wavelength.