Quote from: Benoist;566643There is a fundamental breakdown in the way the modules are presented, versus how they ought to be used.

Sure, but I don't think the answer is to say, 'Stop running linear adventures and run a sandbox instead.'

Quote from: Black Vulmea;566676Sure, but I don't think the answer is to say, 'Stop running linear adventures and run a sandbox instead.'

I'm not sure. How would you present a linear adventure in writing so that it does not turn into a railroad?

Quote from: Peregrin;566507You don't see structures similar to ours when you look at PC/video-game communities,

Are you kidding? Video games are a roiling hotbed of warring genres.

There's your RPG's, your Action RPG's, your isometric RPGs, your tactical shooters, your FPS, your 3rd Person Shooters, your 3rd person action games, your RTS, your Survival Horror, your MMOS, your Farmville clones, your sandbox games ("like GTA, but..."), your stealth games, your puzzle games, your platformers, your puzzle platformers, your racers, your combat racers, your fighting games, your spectacle fighting games, your casual games, your "Rogue" clones, and others I've certainly overlooked.

And these are all very different, with very different control schemes, presentation, and expectations, and people get riled when they're mixed. (As Brütal Legend showed.) And people are very loyal to the styles they prefer, and they disdain most others.

If anything, the gaming market is more factionalized than tabletop gaming. Not only do they differentiate by game genre, they differentiate by platform. There's your console 'tards, Wii kiddies, PC dinosaurs, iPhone cultists, Android pirates, Mac lusers, Linux whiners, etc.

Computer gaming is not a world of unity and happiness, holding hands and celebrating the glory that is gaming. It's a hundred man cage match with no referees and an open door policy.

Quote from: Benoist;566468You don't need to taste shit to know its shit.

Well, some people just have to make sure.

JG

Quote from: chaosvoyager;566591TheRPGstie HAS no mission or purpose other than to complain about other RPG  sites and feed people's egos. And I'll bet good money that the attitudes here have chased away more potential new members than RPG.net has ever banned.

I think the number of people who've ever VISITED this site isn't equal to the number of people RPG.net has banned.  

JG

Quote from: Justin Alexander;566660I'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.

I think your analysis is a very interesting one, and written in good faith, but I hope you realise that in the final analysis it is a glorified exercise in question begging: in order to accept your conclusion you also have to accept the premise. I don't accept the premise that "If you are manipulating mechanics which are dissociated from your character — which have no meaning to your character — then you are not engaged in the process of playing a role."

In my view, playing a role is much simpler than that: it involves identifying with a character and, for the purposes of the game, pretending you are him or her. No more and no less. By that definition, a lot of the games that you might call "story games" are RPGs.

There is nothing to prefer my definition over yours, I'll grant you, which is why I think it's a waste of time to talk about it. It's more important, in my view, to dismiss this ridiculous notion that it matters. If there is a distinction between "RPGs" and "story games" it just means they are two subspecies of the species of game called "table top pen and paper game in which fat blokes with beards sit around pretending to be elves". Why on earth should we care about that subdivision except as a very dry academic issue?

Quote from: Benoist;566677I'm not sure. How would you present a linear adventure in writing so that it does not turn into a railroad?

With a giant warning label for the GM that says:

DO NOT RAILROAD!

Or you could just accept the fact that some GMs are going to screw up. When the players inevitably "go off the rails" they're going to freak out and try to force the whole thing "back on track" by any means necessary, turning the whole the thing into a joyless train wreck for the players. A good GM knows how to go with the flow and improvise a new scene or two on the fly when the unexpected occurs, "linear" adventure be damned. A not-so-good GM soon finds themselves sitting at an empty table, in my experience.

This is why I have to wonder if the whole "railroading" problem isn't being overstated by some posters here. Where are these hordes of brain-dead GMs who insist on railroading their players? And how do they keep GM-ing without even larger hordes of brain-dead players foolish enough to keep coming back for more railroading, instead of finding a better GM? OTOH, if the players do keep coming back, they're obviously enjoying the game (wtf?) so I say let 'em have their fun, as long as I don't have to sit through that shit.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;566660I'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.

I've played (and enjoyed!) Wushu, octaNe, InSpectres, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Not RPGs. At least, not as the term is commonly understood.

Why does this matter? Because if I invited friends over to play an RPG and brought out Munchausen, they'd be all, "WTF?"

Clear communication matters.

I've played IAWA.  I enjoyed it, but it definitely didn't play/feel like an RPG, to me.

(Actually, I've used IAWA more as an idea-springboard than as a game.)

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.

Then i suggest you don't read it. It really isn't worth it anyway.

It has no bearing on this site unless someone comes here and starts disrupting the site or stalking a poster.

The former is no-where close, but i will note that Bassetking is coming perilously close to being seen as coming here merely to take pops at Sacrosanct. That isn't on.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566716I've played (and enjoyed!) Wushu, octaNe, InSpectres, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Not RPGs. At least, not as the term is commonly understood by me and some people I know.

Corrected it for you.

QuoteWhy does this matter? Because if I invited friends over to play an RPG and brought out Munchausen, they'd be all, "WTF?"

Only if your friends share the same definition for the term as you. If I brought the same games to my group they would have the opposite reaction. (they could even not like it, but not necessarily label it as another different hobby).. but then my group has a somewhat wide understanding of the term.. even cops & robbers are rpg for them ).

QuoteClear communication matters.

Here I agree.

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.

So when we post on our own forum, it's an echo chamber, and when we go to other forums and have discussions, we're just trolling. Beautiful Catch-22 you've set up there.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;566645I'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.

I did, actually, because it was funny.

You keep imagining a hierarchy that doesn't exist. It's like, you're irrationally angry about elfgames, so it's beyond your comprehension that other people aren't. You're happy to play the slavering minion of a self-important doofus, so it totally blows your mind that other forums don't consist of monkeys gathered around a monolith that writes angry blogs about Amber Diceless.

Quote from: Bassetking;566656You 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.

Yes! Yes! Grog for the Grog God!

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;566711Or you could just accept the fact that some GMs are going to screw up. When the players inevitably "go off the rails" they're going to freak out and try to force the whole thing "back on track" by any means necessary, turning the whole the thing into a joyless train wreck for the players. A good GM knows how to go with the flow and improvise a new scene or two on the fly when the unexpected occurs, "linear" adventure be damned. A not-so-good GM soon finds themselves sitting at an empty table, in my experience.

Sure, I'd agree with that. I don't have any major problems with being on the plot railroad, sometimes it's fun, but it's not how I really like to game.

What we need isn't big letters saying DON'T DO THIS, because it's pointless to just tell people they're doing things wrong without trying to help them do it right. It's guides on how to avoid doing it, guides on how to set things up and watch them go, and encouragements to not get attached and protective about bits of your campaign world. It's not something you can teach, it's something that has to be learned through experience.

One book that I've read recently with plenty of advice on that sort of thing - and there are others, of course - is... Apocalypse World. Which specifically says "do not plan storylines, provide scope for confrontations" at a number of points, and gives methods to help with that.

But another other thing that you need is lists of STUFF you can just pull out, at the table, to keep things going and to give you quick imagination-jogs, because coming up with a world on the fly is HARD; at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, SWN and Other Dust have plenty of tools for that, and there's things like Vornheim (Which I really should get) and all of Zak S's blog in general.

QuoteOne book that I've read recently with plenty of advice on that sort of thing - and there are others, of course - is... Apocalypse World. Which specifically says "do not plan storylines, provide scope for confrontations" at a number of points, and gives methods to help with that.

Apocalypse World has the best advice Ive ever seen for sandbox gaming.

I talked about it here. (by the way, even on that thread the ONe-True-Wayism is present, when people start complaining that what I was running wasnt a true sandbox, but a improvisational game or whatever. Hmmm... I see a pattern here...  )

Quote from: Benoist;566643The 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.

That is so true. I never really thought about it, but I have always run modules in a non linear manner, filtering out or adjusting the railroady parts.

'how they ought to be used' is a loaded statement though