Quote from: The Traveller;567615You should probably have been considering what Thrud's interpretation of the tactical requirements for infiltrating the dungeon/defeating the monsters/completing the quest translated to rather than anything else, really.

To some extent, but the player's view is still paramount.  

Quote from: The Traveller;567615Its not overblown at all, but even with that I don't think most people would care if the adherents weren't religously zealous about it, denigrating everyone else like nuts.

I like storygames. I wrote and published one. Show me where I have been a religious zealot about it and denigrated everyone else.
 

Quote from: The Traveller;567615Even with that said, you still lose surprise because you're narrating the story, metagaming, which means you aren't having an adventure, you're trying to tell a story. Personally, I want surprises, I want adventure, I want risk, and I don't want to have six backup characters to spread the risk around. Risk is fun, danger is fun. where's the challenge in me navel gazing with my buddies in awe at our collective creativity? I want to be personally pissed if my guy dies, I want emotion and involvement.

I have just as much adventure, risk, and surprise in my storygame sessions as I do in my traditional RPG sessions. In some ways there is more surprise because the players are freer to be creative. And in some ways there is more risk because we can set stakes that will be devastating to a character without removing him from the game, and roll for them straight up. In my experience a lot of traditonal RPGs are run with essentially zero chance of real character death.

Seriously, do you imagine that a storygame session is just a bunch of people in berets and cravats brainstorming about what should happen next? Like any other RPG, storygaming mostly consists of people eating snacks, roleplaying their characters, spewing out dialogue, and describing their actions.

Quote from: The Traveller;567615I think Ben's earlier link had a lot of good posts on the subject, which there's little point in reheating now. Essentially the question is not whether shared narrative games are roleplaying, they aren't, the question is whether they might be better served by abandoning their rules entirely and just becoming impromptu theatre, which achieves the same result in a far more effective way. Or possibly just taking creative fiction classes.

Then you don't understand what storygaming is about at all. The rules are more important to a storygame RPG than they are to most traditional RPGs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;567616Note, you can do this as Thrud or as you.  Assuming we're not using a braindead barbarian comic character, "Thrud" can deal with tactics, overcome enemies, and have long terms goals from an IC POV.

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So you keep saying, however, you keep proving the exact opposite every time you talk about how you play a role-playing game.

I'm not Thrud. I can never be Thrud. The most I can do is pretend to be Thrud and try to use 'what he would do' as part of my decision making.

Quote from: soviet;567620To some extent, but the player's view is still paramount.

Do you think maybe just maybe that this opinion is why you feel the need to be arguing the definition of role-playing games?

Quote from: soviet;567621I'm not Thrud. I can never be Thrud. The most I can do is pretend to be Thrud and try to use 'what he would do' as part of my decision making.

Can you feel like Thrud would feel?  

Why should "what Thrud would do" be only part of your decision making if you are pretending to be Thrud?

Quote from: CRKrueger;567622Do you think maybe just maybe that this opinion is why you feel the need to be arguing the definition of role-playing games?

The way that Gary Gygax played - and I suspect many many other people - isn't good enough to count as roleplaying?

Quote from: CRKrueger;567623Can you feel like Thrud would feel?

No, obviously not. Thrud is a fictional character.

Quote from: soviet;567626No, obviously not. Thrud is a fictional character.

That's our disconnect right there. I can feel Ernest Wheldrake's feelings. I am him in Vampire the Masquerade, and part of the excitement of playing a character in a role playing game is this "blurring of the lines" that occurs to me in actual play. Beyond the subject of characterization, to me, being 'in situation', live, in the game world, whether I am assuming a character's identity or role playing myself in the hypothetical situation, is a defining factor of a table top role playing game. If I am not immersed in the situation, I am not playing a role playing game. I am engaging in some other activity instead (building a story, playing a tactical boardgame... w/e).

Quote from: soviet;567620I have just as much adventure, risk, and surprise in my storygame sessions as I do in my traditional RPG sessions. In some ways there is more surprise because the players are freer to be creative.

Creativity is not the same thing as surprise. When a group of people are collectively deciding the way the plot should work out, you don't have surprise. In order to get surprise, you need someone not attached to the group, outside the group, doing things for and to the group that the group has no say over. You know, like some sort of... master... of the game...

Not to say the group should have no say, quite the opposite, but interacting on a first person level. A good GM then plays to that and throws more interesting challenges as the game develops.

Quote from: soviet;567620And in some ways there is more risk because we can set stakes that will be devastating to a character without removing him from the game, and roll for them straight up. In my experience a lot of traditonal RPGs are run with essentially zero chance of real character death.

Well firstly that underlines my previous point about a lack of immersion - who really cares what happens to poor Thrud? Its weak tea, not visceral. Secondly, I've no idea what you've been playing but characters die in actual RPGs all the time.

Quote from: soviet;567620Seriously, do you imagine that a storygame session is just a bunch of people in berets and cravats brainstorming about what should happen next?

Who wears a beret and a cravat together? Talk about mixed signals.

Quote from: soviet;567620Then you don't understand what storygaming is about at all. The rules are more important to a storygame RPG than they are to most traditional RPGs.

My point is that you may as well discard the rules entirely and just do impromptu theatre. Its a fine tradition, nothing to be ashamed of.

Quote from: CRKrueger;567623Why should "what Thrud would do" be only part of your decision making if you are pretending to be Thrud?

To expand on this point, I will still do things that Thrud would do even though they are disadvantageous to me as a player, and I would still not do things that Thrud wouldn't do for the same reason. So I might blunder into the orc guard room swinging my sword rather than trying to use stealth, and I might refuse to allow a half orc scout to take us through the swamps even though we don't really know where we're going. But I'm deciding to do that as a player in the name of characterisation rather than because I somehow think I am Thrud.

Bingo, looks like the Thrud issue has it. Ben nailed it there.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;567377That's still not a linear adventure.

Quote from: Benoist;567427Yeah see I don't agree with that definition.

GDQ - linear or not?

Quote from: Benoist;567627That's our disconnect right there. I can feel Ernest Wheldrake's feelings. I am him in Vampire the Masquerade, and part of the excitement of playing a character in a role playing game is this "blurring of the lines" that occurs to me in actual play. Beyond the subject of characterization, to me, being 'in situation', live, in the game world, whether I am assuming a character's identity or role playing myself in the hypothetical situation, is a defining factor of a table top role playing game. If I am not immersed in the situation, I am not playing a role playing game. I am engaging in some other activity instead (building a story, playing a tactical boardgame... w/e).

That kind of deep immersion isn't my thing. It's a perfectly valid way to play a roleplaying game, albeit not one I really understand. But would you accept that it's not the only way to play an RPG?

Quote from: soviet;567621I'm not Thrud. I can never be Thrud. The most I can do is pretend to be Thrud and try to use 'what he would do' as part of my decision making.

Ok. Would Thrud give a fuck about narrative control or doing something simply because it would be good for the story?

When you go about your daily life do you contemplate actions based on that shit?

Quote from: soviet;567624The way that Gary Gygax played - and I suspect many many other people - isn't good enough to count as roleplaying?

So now you're saying that Gygax played storygame style because he wasn't fully, immersively, method-acting?

Those goalposts getting heavy yet?

Quote from: soviet;567629But I'm deciding to do that as a player in the name of characterisation rather than because I somehow think I am Thrud.

You're basically telling us that you are always playing from a 3rd person point of view, here.

Quote from: soviet;567629To expand on this point, I will still do things that Thrud would do even though they are disadvantageous to me as a player, and I would still not do things that Thrud wouldn't do for the same reason. So I might blunder into the orc guard room swinging my sword rather than trying to use stealth, and I might refuse to allow a half orc scout to take us through the swamps even though we don't really know where we're going. But I'm deciding to do that as a player in the name of characterisation rather than because I somehow think I am Thrud.

For me I guess i go more by feel, so instead of trying to decide what thrud would do, i just kind of let myself start thinking like Thrud. Its probably a bit imperfect but for me I more interested in feeling like thrud than performing a characterization of thrud if that makes sense. Every player approaches this a bit differently in my experience.