Quote from: silva;566768Thats how I see it, too.

I don't really see how Ghostbusters could be considered a "storygame". Maybe the problem with this discussion is that we're talking past each other?

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?

There are a couple of techniques that could be applicable.

There are events or situations in real life that turn out to be basically linear. If you want X outcome the following series of events need to occur. Like real life one could opt out of the events by giving up the outcome.

For example if you don't like being ordered about by Starfleet Command on missions quit Starfleet.

Another technique is for the referee to design situation to make the linear sequence of events the desirable alternative.  By using the player's likes/dislikes and the character goals, a skill referee can manipulate his players into following a desired plot. So they wind up on a railroad but liking it.

As a side note this is why Paizo is successful in selling Adventure Paths. For the most part they succeed in creating railroads that referee and players WANT to follow because they are interesting and fun.

There are other trick that referee can use like setting up the plot to have several paths to a single outcome. Done right the players wind up believing it was their choice all along.

I learned these techniques because I ran a LARP chapter for several years. The logistics of live-action meant that many roleplaying scenarios can only run be in a linear fashion. For example event staff numbers are limited relative to the number of players. Props for modules/scenario have to physically transported. So to run a fun LARP event you need to become good at mitigating or disguising the railroad.

Actually I agreed more with the notion that "storygames" should be considered a subdivision of RPGs then a totally different thing.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566769I don't really see how Ghostbusters could be considered a "storygame". Maybe the problem with this discussion is that we're talking past each other?

Dan, I wasn't suggesting it could, that's my point. Within non-storygame RPGs there is still a large variety of styles of game, to the extent that saying storygames aren't roleplaying games because X Y Z is rubbish. You might as well say that Ghostbusters isn't a roleplaying game because it doesn't have a tactical combat system, or that Pathfinder isn't a roleplaying game because it does.

The reason I don't personally like story games is because the mechanics are metagaming. The player is using knowledge and rules to do things in the game that their character can not otherwise do. In my opinion that is one of the few forms of cheating you can do in a tabletop roleplaying game and as bad has lying about your dice rolls.

Tabletop Roleplaying is about playing a character interacting with a setting within a campaign.

Quote from: estar;566776The reason I don't personally like story games is because the mechanics are metagaming. The player is using knowledge and rules to do things in the game that their character can not otherwise do. In my opinion that is one of the few forms of cheating you can do in a tabletop roleplaying game and as bad has lying about your dice rolls.

Tabletop Roleplaying is about playing a character interacting with a setting within a campaign.

yeah...that has been mentioned a few times in this thread...ok, a few dozen times.

Quote from: soviet;566772Dan, I wasn't suggesting it could, that's my point. Within non-storygame RPGs there is still a large variety of styles of game, to the extent that saying storygames aren't roleplaying games because X Y Z is rubbish. You might as well say that Ghostbusters isn't a roleplaying game because it doesn't have a tactical combat system, or that Pathfinder isn't a roleplaying game because it does.

But these games all share the fact that players experience the game setting only through the lens of their characters. Deciding what your character attempts and outright deciding what happens to your character are two different activities.

Now, both activities do involve roleplaying, I'll grant you. I just strongly feel that if you're going to call the latter sort of activity a "roleplaying game," it needs some sort of strong qualifier to indicate the major difference -- especially if you're talking about something as fringe as Munchausen.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566778But these games all share the fact that players experience the game setting only through the lens of their characters. Deciding what your character attempts and outright deciding what happens to your character are two different activities.

In which games do you just decide what happens to your character?

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566778Now, both activities do involve roleplaying, I'll grant you. I just strongly feel that if you're going to call the latter sort of activity a "roleplaying game," it needs some sort of strong qualifier to indicate the major difference -- especially if you're talking about something as fringe as Munchausen.

I don't think I've seen anyone try to argue that Baron Munchausen is an RPG. I'm certainly not.

Quote from: soviet;566780In which games do you just decide what happens to your character?

In games such as InSpecters, in which rolls determine narrative control rather than success or failure. And in freeform storytelling games, of course.

Quote from: soviet;566780I don't think I've seen anyone try to argue that Baron Munchausen is an RPG. I'm certainly not.

The game calls itself an RPG.

Quote from: estar;566776The reason I don't personally like story games is because the mechanics are metagaming. The player is using knowledge and rules to do things in the game that their character can not otherwise do. In my opinion that is one of the few forms of cheating you can do in a tabletop roleplaying game and as bad has lying about your dice rolls.

Tabletop Roleplaying is about playing a character interacting with a setting within a campaign.

Can you expand on that please, because I play both traditional RPGs and storygame RPGs and I can't see anything in that description that applies to one type and not the other. I might be missing something, but I can't see a clear divide.

Quote from: silva;566771Actually I agreed more with the notion that "storygames" should be considered a subdivision of RPGs then a totally different thing.

A "storygame" is really a different animal, but see below.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566778I just strongly feel that if you're going to call the latter sort of activity a "roleplaying game," it needs some sort of strong qualifier to indicate the major difference -- especially if you're talking about something as fringe as Munchausen.

A while back I suggested some qualifiers.
A game like 4e, which adds a high level of metagame based on non-character tactical decisions, is a Tactical RPG.
A game like The One Ring, which adds metagame based on narrative decisions, is a Narrative RPG.
Traditional RPGs are just that, or IC RPGs, or Immersive RPGs (but that term always summons it's own nuclear shitstorm).

Quote from: soviet;566782Can you expand on that please, because I play both traditional RPGs and storygame RPGs and I can't see anything in that description that applies to one type and not the other. I might be missing something, but I can't see a clear divide.

Really?
Have you not been reading either?

 "there is a difference in games where the mechanics and goal are based on the players playing from and making decisions only from the role of the character... and a game that does that AND also allows for choices and decisions being made from outside-looking in by players. "

Quote from: Dan Davenport;566781In games such as InSpecters, in which rolls determine narrative control rather than success or failure. And in freeform storytelling games, of course.

OK. But the thing with indie/storygames is that there are a lot of strange outliers doing various experimental things. I haven't read InSpectres so I can't really comment about it, but I don't think it's representative in any way of all storygames, in the same way that, say, Phoenix Command isn't representative of all traditional RPGs. They're outliers. When I hear storygames I immediately think of stuff like Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, and my own Other Worlds. Those games have conflict resolution and stake setting but I don't think that's the same thing as outright narrative control.

A role-playing game is any game in which you play a role other than yourself.  A tabletop rpg is that, as well as using books and rules and a set of mechanics to accomplish it by comparing dice results against the rule you are using.

Anything else is just elitist BS, IMO.  "Storygaming" or whatever the hell that is overlaps so much with a "traditional tabletop rpg" that it's dumb to try to separate the two out.  You can't draw a firm line in the sand on this issue, and it comes to personal preference.

I don't recall this ever being an issue when Vampire came out.  That was role-played just like those of us who were playing D&D, and nobody really cared about the difference.  I might not have preferred to play Vampire, but I didn't get indignant about how they weren't "real" rpgs.

:idunno:

Quote from: LordVreeg;566785Really?
Have you not been reading either?

 "there is a difference in games where the mechanics and goal are based on the players playing from and making decisions only from the role of the character... and a game that does that AND also allows for choices and decisions being made from outside-looking in by players. "

So WFRP 1e isn't a roleplaying game because of fate points?