I reviewed some of the readings and gamings of my formative years.

Stacks of Challenge Magazines, and the games that are covered by that publication.

Wherein there is no question about how RPGs are to be played.
The worlds are intricate, submodels; simulate specific aspects of the universes.

Characters are built according to the Runequest paradigm.

The person prepping the game is called "Referee".

Scenarios are crisp, clear situations. Fluff is in form of short quotations or snippets. The writing is concise and delivers an evenings amount of interesting situation. Often coupled with evocative and interesting maps, drawings or pictures.

There is no "story", but there is genre.
Challenge Magazine culture does totally not care about "story". It´s a non-entity.
More importantly, however is situation. Adventurous situations, which are expected to be taken as starting point for the extrapolations of the Referee.

Rules are not water-proof. They are expected to be meddled with, to enhance plausability. The idea of common sense is prevalent. Referee abuse of his umpirical powers is not even considered.

Once I thought that´s the "US-Paradigm" to RPGing. Now I think it´s a school that should rightly be called the "Challenge-School".
It´s remarkably different from the Gonzo/Tournament dichotomic complex that is the AD&D 1st Ed. culture.
And it´s different from the RQ-paradigm of doing things.
Champions remains it´s own school, too.

There are special regional schools, too. Like German Mainstream gaming, it´s it´s own category.

Which schools and cultures, aside from the recent and obvious exist alongside?
Suggestions?

EDIT: My above summary of the "Challenge-School" is not exhaustive. If you aren´t familiar with the magazine, you most likely will not get what I´m talking about.
EDITEDIT: Maybe it´s smarter to call it the "Challenge-Magazine-School".

I think you're talking bollocks.  You're so determined to prove your style of gaming superior to that of the "Enemy Swine", that'll you'll latch on to any possible theory or subtle difference in approach to prove said superiority.

Story exists in RPGs as a matter of course, be it an attempt from the start to mirror a literary genre or just war stories told by the players.

Do you ever reminisce with friends about past campaigns?  If so, that's story.
So how is that alien to rpgs?

Have you read a Challenge Magazine?

Again, I´m not talking about a resulting narrative, bucky. Do your homework and then Go, Play, before you threadcrap.

Actually, for me "story*" is one of the important element of the game (together with introspection, socializing, easy fun, challenge, tactics, acting and bunch of others). I'm just conviced, that so called "narrativist" games produce very shallow story if any at all. And the "storytelling games" produce pretty much the same kind and level of story as traditional gaming.

* The problem might rise from the fact of what is the story for me or you or anyone. I take it as a series of events with high level of causality, that create logical progress forward, that brings an element of surprising twists, that propel the action, that explore the gaming world and also the character concepts in the same time.

Quote from: StumpydaveStory exists in RPGs as a matter of course, be it an attempt from the start to mirror a literary genre or just war stories told by the players.

If that's so, is it possible that Sett means something by "story" that's different from what must exist in RPGs as a matter of course?

Sett, if you want to accomplish anything with this thread other than act as a magnet for comments like the above, I suggest you summarize a scenario from Challenge and compare it to a published "story" scenario, perhaps Arena of Thyatis (and you could link back to the thread we had about the "DM's Guide to Winging It".)

Quote from: AlnagActually, for me "story*" is one of the important element of the game (together with introspection, socializing, easy fun, challenge, tactics, acting and bunch of others). I'm just conviced, that so called "narrativist" games produce very shallow story if any at all. And the "storytelling games" produce pretty much the same kind and level of story as traditional gaming.

* The problem might rise from the fact of what is the story for me or you or anyone. I take it as a series of events with high level of causality, that create logical progress forward, that brings an element of surprising twists, that propel the action, that explore the gaming world and also the character concepts in the same time.

I agree completely: I want a compelling story out of my games.

I want out of my games what I want out of stories in other media -- I want to immerse (suspend disbelief). I want to engage emotionally with the action and character; I want to care about them and what's happening to them.

I want to explorer cool ideas about all kinds of things from hard science to social stuff, to human nature, etc.

I also want some game aspects (I like crunchy combat), but absent a context to care about what I'm fighting for, I'm not going to be so engaged.

For me, traditional gaming delivers this spectacularly... and it shifts between modes, transitioning between challenge gaming and thematic plan and back seamlessly.

I realize this is all personal preference but it's my perspective.

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteSett, if you want to accomplish anything with this thread other than act as a magnet for comments like the above, I suggest you summarize a scenario from Challenge and compare it to a published "story" scenario, perhaps Arena of Thyatis (and you could link back to the thread we had about the "DM's Guide to Winging It".)

Mmmm.
Do you think so few people know Challenge-Style-Scenarios?
Was it such a niche?
That´s really new for me, as I said, there was a time when I thought all US-Gamers were GDW-style players.

I´ll paraphrase one later, as a basis for discussion.

Quote from: SettembriniMmmm.
Do you think so few people know Challenge-Style-Scenarios?
Was it such a niche?
That´s really new for me, as I said, there was a time when I thought all US-Gamers were GDW-style players.

Well, I personally never read Challenge. In fact I read/used virtually no modules, from any source, when I GMed. What I was most familiar with were D&D-type dungeons, Sprechenhaltestelle from Top Secret, TFT solo adventures, and the scenarios published in Ares for use with Dragonquest. All of which were either "location crawls" or some combination of "location crawl", "battlegrounding", and "relationship mapping" (e.g. "Camp of Alla-Akabar"; for the terms I just used, link)

I don't remember the first time I saw a "story-type" module but when I did I'm sure I was puzzled because I couldn't see how one would get players to go along with it.

That said, if you're going to get anywhere with half the audience here, you need to give examples. A lot of people apparently entered RPGs either through mid-late period AD&D (e.g. Dragonlance), Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, or Vampire, and all of those were pretty heavily "story mode" it seems.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIf that's so, is it possible that Sett means something by "story" that's different from what must exist in RPGs as a matter of course?

I think Sett interprets "story" to mean "script from which you can't deviate" (hence his freedom/drama paradigm) which, of course, is neither the dictionary definition of story (in any language) or the Forge definition of story. In fact, ironically. . .

It dawned on me the other day, when Sett was talking about the difference between creating stories and acting them out, that what Sett wants out of a game (i.e., creating stories via actual play) is exactly what most (though admittedly, not all) Forge games attempt to provide. What Sett refers to as "adventure" is, it seems, what Forge groupies refer to as "Story Now"  -- which leads me to believe several things about Sett:

1. He has never actually read a Forge game that advocates Story Now.

2. He has never actually read Forge theory as it pertains to stories.

3. Everything that he knows about these things, he has heard from Pundit.

The irony is that, if Sett wants to create stories during actual play, rather than be hemmed in by scripts (such as ADVENTURE MODULES), he'd be very well served by rules sets such as Donjon, Burning Wheel, and The Shadow of Yesterday (though thespy crap with high constraints on character freedom, such as DitV, are pretty much just how Sett paints them).

Let´s just say that your allegations and assumptions are wrong. So wrong, especially when keeping in mind what I already posted on these boards, that it borders on slander and can be easily shown to be a lie.

I will now put you were you belong, to the other idiots.

EDIT: jdrakeh has shown everybody his mission. Disrupting this site with lies and distortions, with threadcrapping and propaganda. I urge every sane person to put him on ignore, too. He is fighting a war that so many either think

1) doesn´t exist
2) is harmful

So anyways, he´s attacking this site, for whatever reasons. Please don´t listen to him.

Quote from: SettembriniLet´s just say that your allegations and assumptions are wrong. So wrong, especially when keeping in mind what I already posted on these boards, that it borders on slander and can be easily shown to be a lie.

What you post on these boards is always contradictory, always lacks support in the way of factual data, and is always based purely on your own anecdotal experience. Trying to sort that out is tough. If you have actually read anything about Story Now and its execution, then you're making a concerted effort to misrepresent it. And if you claim that you have read and understand it, then I can only conclude that this is your intention (I had been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt). So, at best, you're a goddamn loon pushing an agenda of deliberately cultivated falsehoods with the intent of 'proving' that your personal tastes should set the standard for the rest of the free world. Thanks for clarifying!

QuoteI will now put you were you belong, to the other idiots.

Yes, sir, you're my intellectual superior, alrighty  -- note that you're using the word "slander" incorrectly in the above sentence (pick up a law book when you have some free time) and you can't prove a hypothetical assumption to be a lie (because it's not presented as a statement of truth). Go back to school, dumbass. And get yourself some meds.

Quote from: SettembriniSo anyways, he´s attacking this site, for whatever reasons. Please don´t listen to him.

So disagreeing with you is "attacking this site" ?

Anyway, since we are all supposed to "interpret" what Sett says and since "story" is pretty much up for grabs, I put this out there, could the whole "story mode"  type of adventures be a natural byproduct of the pervalence of settings attached to systems something pretty rare back in the day?

Regards,
David R

I always thought that it would be Pundit who would drive me away from here, though Pundit looks like Mother Theresa when compared to folks like Settembrini -- I don't think that Pundit has once resorted to adhominem attacks when we've argued, which seems to be Sett's default response to any point that he can't actually refute. At any rate, Settembrini's unreasoned venom has finally exceeded the maximum capacity of my loving tolerance tanks. I'm off to empty them elsewhere. Be back in a few weeks!

Quote from: jdrakehI think Sett interprets "story" to mean "script from which you can't deviate" (hence his freedom/drama paradigm) which, of course, is neither the dictionary definition of story (in any language) or the Forge definition of story.

In fact it's one of the dictionary definitions of story.

QuoteIt dawned on me the other day, when Sett was talking about the difference between creating stories and acting them out, that what Sett wants out of a game (i.e., creating stories via actual play) is exactly what most (though admittedly, not all) Forge games attempt to provide.

I think you're quite wrong about this. However, Sett is trying to fight on two fronts (how very Prussian!) by taking on Story Now (basically kickers with Bang-type improv) at the same time as 80's/90's "storytelling".

Quote from: SettembriniNow I think it´s a school that should rightly be called the "Challenge-School".
It´s remarkably different from the Gonzo/Tournament dichotomic complex that is the AD&D 1st Ed. culture.

Sounds good to me, although one might as well call it the GDW paradigm. I know the early modules, JTAS and MT Journal better than Challenge, and they kinda sorta fit the bill already.

That said, you may want to avoid putting too much weight on a paradigm that for some reason (which?) is limited only to one subgenre (hardish sci-fi).