Quote from: chaosvoyager;566591Me for one, because the reason The Forge shut down was because it had a specific mission which it was used to accomplish.

And what was that mission?  To destroy the D&D brand and cripple the hobby with boutique games that sell a few thousand copies each?  Sure did a great job there:

Quote from: Halloween Jack;566614People have been saying unbelievably nasty things about people playing elfgames differently since the letters pages of Dragon way way back in the day.

How do you know, you weren't born yet.

Quote from: CRKrueger;566580Brother I wish I could. I gotta hand it to Crane, Baker, Sorensen, Morningstar, they do what they do and if I want to, I pick up a copy.

Unfortunately, either GNS directly or narrativism in general has come to new versions of...
D&D
Warhammer (not even going to justify Peregrine's denial there with a response, just look up Dan's posts).
Lord of the Rings
Call of Cthulhu (mixed signals there)

Not exactly easy to avoid.

I don't agree about GNS being a driver of 4th ed D&D, but regardless, I find that it is easy to avoid playing 4th ed D&D, and The One Ring, and whatever the latest edition of Warhammer is out.  Hell, I find it easy to avoid playing World of Warcraft, which is vastly more popular than all of those games put together.  

This is the same argument ridiculous argument that the fringe of D&D-haters used to attempt, with claims that dungeon-crawling was so popular that they couldn't help but play it even though they didn't like it.  I find it ridiculous.  There are hundreds of RPGs of all different styles and genres available, and more keep being published.  If you keep playing games you dislike like D&D4 or The One Ring or Dogs in the Vineyard or whatever, then you only have yourself to blame for being stupid.  There are tons of other options available.

Quote from: jhkim;566628I don't agree about GNS being a driver of 4th ed D&D, but regardless, I find that it is easy to avoid playing 4th ed D&D, and The One Ring, and whatever the latest edition of Warhammer is out.  Hell, I find it easy to avoid playing World of Warcraft, which is vastly more popular than all of those games put together.  

This is the same argument ridiculous argument that the fringe of D&D-haters used to attempt, with claims that dungeon-crawling was so popular that they couldn't help but play it even though they didn't like it.  I find it ridiculous.  There are hundreds of RPGs of all different styles and genres available, and more keep being published.  If you keep playing games you dislike like D&D4 or The One Ring or Dogs in the Vineyard or whatever, then you only have yourself to blame for being stupid.  There are tons of other options available.

only none of them are currently a living version of D&D, WFRP or Middle-Earth RPG I can stand.  Sure I can play MERP, or WFRP1 or some other flavor of D&D (and I do), but remember, my post was in response to the influence being supposedly obscure, which since narrative mechanics have influenced the two largest Fantasy TRPG IPs in existence, isn't exactly obscure now, is it?

As far as 4e goes, if it doesn't scream Gamist Coherence to you brother, you're stopping your own ears on purpose.

Quote from: CRKrueger;566632As far as 4e goes, if it doesn't scream Gamist Coherence to you brother, you're stopping your own ears on purpose.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;566593People tend to have this line between action and consequence which really is a product of conditioning rather than logic. It's all about where you draw the line and what you determine to be a discrete action.

There's a difference between, 'I roll to see if the task I want to perform is successful or not,' and, 'I roll in order to determine if I get to narrate the results of my actions.'

Really, do we really need to re-argue task-resolution versus action-resolution?

Quote from: The Traveller;566338Wins the thread for me.

If only it was that easy.

Quote from: LordVreeg;566339So I'm not disagreeing so mauch as trying to move a step further, perhaps taking the recent movement towards sandboxing a little heavier in terms of a real agenda...not as The WAY, but as an important ingredient in game theory and design priority.

Well, for starters I would like to see more advice to referees on what to do when the adventurers go directly from A to C and bypass B, or how to create a pathway from A to C by way of B(1), B(2), B(3), B(4), and B(5), without requiring the referee to quit his day job to run the game. I'd like to see less talk about plots and more talk about motivations and resources.

Quote from: CRKrueger;566632only none of them are currently a living version of D&D, WFRP or Middle-Earth RPG I can stand.  Sure I can play MERP, or WFRP1 or some other flavor of D&D (and I do), but remember, my post was in response to the influence being supposedly obscure, which since narrative mechanics have influenced the two largest Fantasy TRPG IPs in existence, isn't exactly obscure now, is it?

As far as 4e goes, if it doesn't scream Gamist Coherence to you brother, you're stopping your own ears on purpose.

There's some talking past each other about what is being referred to.  I'd agree that Ron Edwards' theories aren't particularly obscure, and they've had influence on some game designers.  I don't buy that he is personally responsible for any game that displays "Gamist Coherence", though - since I know of loads of games prior to 2000 that had focused, structured play that played to gamist tendencies.  

Even if we say that D&D4e is a story game in the same category as 1001 Nights, though, it's still not hard to avoid.  

Most of my gaming life has been games other than D&D and World of Darkness.  Yes, it's harder finding players for a HarnMaster game, or RuneQuest, or Mouse Guard than it is for D&D or Vampire.  However, I didn't start crusading against games outside my taste as some evil force.  I'd pitch for my own games as fun, but I'm not going to treat other people getting the game they like as a personal affront to me.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;566636If only it was that easy.

The problem is that linear adventures (and I do agree with you with the distinction between linear adventures v. railroading v. illusionism) have been traditionally presented in the modules, as written material, in the form of railroads along with caveats on how to get the PCs back on track if they ever get off the rails. Scene A leads to Scene B which leads to Scene C or D, which both lead to Scene E. There is a fundamental breakdown in the way the modules are presented, versus how they ought to be used.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566522No. You attack straw men and isolated quotes...grognard text does to grognards exactly what you accuse pundit of doing with storygamers. And it isn't discussion it is primarily insults made within an echo chamber with no serious opposition. At least here we have folks like you who do speak loudly for the other side. Like I said I am not a fan of the insults myself, and there are postsrs here who can make such accusations without being hyprocrites...but you are not one of them. everything you are complaining about here is done at SA to an even greater degree.

Why are you even responding to him?  You realize that any time someone disagrees with him, he cut and pastes it at SA and they sit around, "hahah, those guys are such assholes!  They don't even know they are assholes!  They are not enlightened like we are!"

I'd bet $100 that as soon as you posted this, within an hour it was posted at SA.  Apparently HJ is the lowest on the totem pole so it's his job to come here and troll for quotes so they have something to post about.  It would be easier if you just ignored him.

Now, in hopes of adding something of value to this thread, I really, really want one of these.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;566636If only it was that easy.


Well, for starters I would like to see more advice to referees on what to do when the adventurers go directly from A to C and bypass B, or how to create a pathway from A to C by way of B(1), B(2), B(3), B(4), and B(5), without requiring the referee to quit his day job to run the game. I'd like to see less talk about plots and more talk about motivations and resources.

It would be even easier to make it clear that there are multiple plotlines, and to explain that it is NOT thre GMs job to move the pcs from plot point to plot point, but to allow them to go there or where they may...the gm plays the way the world responds to the players.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;566645Why are you even responding to him?  You realize that any time someone disagrees with him, he cut and pastes it at SA and they sit around, "hahah, those guys are such assholes!  They don't even know they are assholes!  They are not enlightened like we are!"

I'd bet $100 that as soon as you posted this, within an hour it was posted at SA.  Apparently HJ is the lowest on the totem pole so it's his job to come here and troll for quotes so they have something to post about.  It would be easier if you just ignored him.

Now, in hopes of adding something of value to this thread, I really, really want one of these.

You seem to like talking about Something Awful a whole bunch. I've had a bit of a chat with the rest of the hivemind, and we'd be happy to buy you an account over there. I know we're all interested in seeing what new viewpoints you could bring to the discussion.

Quote from: noisms;566454I asked this up thread, but was conveniently ignored: I'd be interested to know which of you people who are claiming that "story games" are not RPGs, or that they are two different things, has actually played a "story game" in good faith - and can explain, simply and coherently, with actual examples and anecdotes from that game, why it doesn't belong in the same broad category as a traditional RPG.

I've played Once Upon a Time, Shock: Social Science Fiction, Wushu, Dread, Microscope, Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 3:16, De Profundis, and Pantheon. Probably others, as well, but these are the ones that occur to me off the top of my head.

And this is my detailed explanation for why STGs and RPGs aren't the same thing.

Quote from: silva;566470Hey Noisms, do you really think Apocalypse World is a storygame?

I've also played Apocalypse World. It's an RPG, but it features a robust structure for the GM. This appears to confuse a lot of people because RPGs generally stopped having robust structures in the mid-'80s. But OD&D included a robust structure for the GM and nobody seems to think that should mean that OD&D is a story game. And, personally, I think RPGs would be doing a lot better if they went back to thinking about the underlying structures that form play.

More on game structures here.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;566636Well, for starters I would like to see more advice to referees on what to do when the adventurers go directly from A to C and bypass B, or how to create a pathway from A to C by way of B(1), B(2), B(3), B(4), and B(5), without requiring the referee to quit his day job to run the game. I'd like to see less talk about plots and more talk about motivations and resources.

This is a complete non-starter because thinking in paths/plots is a complete dead-end. Thinking that non-linear play just boils down to lots and lots of linear paths is fundamentally wrong.

Don't prep plots.

Quote from: LordVreeg;566646It would be even easier to make it clear that there are multiple plotlines, and to explain that it is NOT thre GMs job to move the pcs from plot point to plot point, but to allow them to go there or where they may...the gm plays the way the world responds to the players.

The way I read this, you seem to be saying that the best way to run a linear adventure is to not run a linear adventure and run a sandbox instead. I think that rather misses the whole point, which is reduce the likelihood of linear adventures turning into railroads or relying on illusionism to make them work.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;566660Thinking that non-linear play just boils down to lots and lots of linear paths is fundamentally wrong.

It's not about "non-linear play." It's about teaching referees how to prepare better linear adventures which are less susceptible to railroading or illusionism.