Quote from: Pierce InverarityMinor observation--

GDW was kinda spent by the early 90s.

Serious Query--

Adventure Path: Dragonlance for gamists?

No. See, gamism doesn´t exist. I really really can´t accept the concept. It´s so narrow, it basically only applys to "how Ron once played T&T".

And: many DMs make the APs their own, opening strategic options, love interests, castle building, church reforms or whatever else player driven stuff you might have.  At least the  Age of Worms  was like that for us.

BUT: when done according to Dungeon magazine, they are strings of overdesigned encounters, with no in-universe strategic elements.

So I would say:

APs  = DL for reactive Tacticians

Quote from: Pierce InverarityGG, a succession of events is not a story, which is the projection of narrative continuity onto that succession.

You know, "an account of imaginary or past events" is precisely how The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "story". Nowhere does it mention that those events have to be both imaginary and in the past.

Quote from: GrimGentYou know, "an account of imaginary or past events" is precisely how The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "story". Nowhere does it mention that those events have to be both imaginary and in the past.

Apart from being beside the point, that "definition" is a totally sterile truism, as dictionary entries tend to be, especially "concise" ones. If you want to pursue this seriously, see what comes up under "narrative" or "narratology" in the online cat of a university library.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityApart from being beside the point, that "definition" is a totally sterile truism, as dictionary entries tend to be, especially "concise" ones. If you want to pursue this seriously, see what comes up under "narrative" or "narratology" in the online cat of a university library.

I know quite well what would come up. The problem with the way in which you are using the term is that it excludes improvisation completely: "a story is not a story while being told", as said. The example I've used earlier involves a storyteller performing at a streetcorner and deciding what will happen next to his characters by flipping a coin every now and then. Any definition that doesn't recognize what he's saying as a story even as he speaks is much less useful than the one in COD.

Sett: Your account's pretty much on the mark as I see it. Where I think you go astray is that you imply all the attempts to "story-fy" RPGs were railroady GM-as-artiste affairs, and that the commercial appearance of railroady adventures was simply the point where those GMs made it into print.

Instead I think there really were people who played by story-logic, however in a much more collaborative fashion, often reaching consensus through social dynamics rather than rigid (ahem) "GM Fiat" in the name of a preconceived plot.

To an extent these people were and are compatible with the grognards--after all, as I've said, RPGs have inherent room for the exercise of discretion even if you don't violate the rules per se; even a high degree of simulative accuracy in terms of the setting still leaves things open. A skillful GM can introduce new elements and conflicts without violating the group's sense of continuity.

Both the collaborative storyistas and the grognards are mystified by the extremes of Forger philosophy, even though the former group may be more receptive to "Narrativist" games.

Quote from: GrimGentI know quite well what would come up.

And yet, instead of talking about that and adding some substance and rigor to this discussion, you move on to bring up a goofy example about some dude on a street corner, which contrary to what you think is not an RPG situation at all.

GG, what makes talking to you so unrewarding is your careening from micro-quibble to mini-point, each of which would require a refutation thrice its own length, with nothing gained except for reinventing the wheel and putting the actually relevant issues even further out of sight. That's why people stop responding at some point.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAnd yet, instead of talking about that and adding some substance and rigor to this discussion, you move on to bring up a goofy example about some dude on a street corner, which contrary to what you think is not an RPG situation at all.

And strangely enough, that is much how about I feel about attempts to shift this into a discussion on narratogical concepts or to drag in Barthes or Rimmon-Kenan or whomever, instead of coming up with some manner of a consensus how stories in the common everyday sense of the word are generated by roleplaying games. It may be all very well and good to claim that "oh, you couldn't really call that a story unless you are deliberately imposing a specific narrative structure on a sequence of real or imaginary events or circumstances in the near or distant past", but answer me this: if late at night you are trying to get a child to sleep by describing the adventures of her favourite fairytale figure (or videogame character, in this day and age), making it all up as you go along, and your wife were to come to the door and ask you what you are doing, could you inform her that you are telling a bedtime story, or instead quibble about the simplicity of that as well? Or in the case of the earlier example, if that "dude on a street corner" were to pick out a member of the audience to choose what the hero will try next, and perhaps another to do the same for the heroine, and maybe even a third one to guide the villain, what would separate their activities from a rudimentary roleplaying session, and what would deny the result of their shared effort the status of a story?

I'm not talking about narrative necessities encoded into game design here. This should be elementary. Now, the crux of the matter seems to be that playing any RPG involves not only one but several stories, even without going into personal accounts, and the preferences of the posters in this thread for one (or none) of them are driving everyone to talk past each other. The first of those is the more polished revision edited afterwards to showcase the highlights of what happened, the second is the raw blow-by-blow narrative produced during actual play, while the third consists of the outline prepared in advance by the GM or the expressed expectations of the group (no matter how tentative or rigidly enforced that will turn out to be). Personally, I place the greatest emphasis on #2. Despite their common origins in the same game these may certainly be different in any number of ways, but kindly do not presume to dictate that they are not all stories even if you value one over the others.

EDIT: Come to think of it, this quote from "Structure and Meaning in Roleplaying Game Design" by Borgstrom sums up the way in which I use the word in the context of gaming rather neatly: "Before the game begins there is a large space of possible stories defined by the initial premise. During the process of gaming the players progressively reduce the space of possible stories down to a single story---one set of things 'happened,' while all other sets did not."

Grim: the fallacy is not the definition of "story". The fallacy or better underlying problem is  talking about "story" in an RPG context in the first place.

Got that?

Quote from: SettembriniGrim: the fallacy is not the definition of "story". The fallacy or better underlying problem is  talking about "story" in an RPG context in the first place.

But the definition is intimately bound to the problem: that only becomes a fallacy if you labour under some needlessly narrow definition of what constitutes a story. "'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'" You will always be in the middle of the story until you reach the end, and with roleplaying games that ending may at any time be no further than one bad roll away. Succeed in a roll, and it becomes a story of success. Fail in a roll, and it becomes a story of failure. The players arrive to the ending by resolving the initial premise of the scenario in a satisfactory manner, although what exactly counts as "satisfactory" will naturally enough vary from one group to the next: for some a random TPK will not be acceptable and so events will conspire to save the PCs and postpone the end, while others accept even the worst outcomes as they happen and let the dice fall where they may.

I see.
You DON´T get it.

I already made my summary, I bow out of this one.

GrimGent, this is simply a repetition of the arguments you brought up in this thread, only to have them completely refuted. Shall I run you through the script, GrimGent? I suggest you meditate on whether and how these human-constructed activities are designed to "produce stories", and how they might differ from your dude on a street corner: (1) The Super Bowl (2) a science experiment.

You can also skip to the end of the linked thread (beginning post #223) and repeat the demonstration regarding "motivated GMing".

Quote from: Elliot WilenI suggest you meditate on whether and how these human-constructed activities are designed to "produce stories", and how they might differ from your dude on a street corner: (1) The Super Bowl (2) a science experiment.

The difference is in the description. A story consists of an account of events, while a football game or a science experiment by itself consists of events without such an account. A narrator following the situation as it takes place and describing it out loud, on the other hand, would be producing a story, his narration of what happened. Now, as roleplaying games are necessarily predicated on communication between the members of the group, like storytelling on the street but unlike your two examples, this description cannot be avoided, due to the imaginary nature of the events in question. You can strip away all mathematics or strategy or chance from a game, but that one factor will always remain a constant. It may not be not the primary purpose of the players, or even something that they care to think about, but it is the one essential element of all RPGs to this day: when we play, we produce stories through the act of narration, regardless of whether we consider them refined artifacts or waste products.

Quote from: GrimGentThe difference is in the description. A story consists of an account of events, while a football game or a science experiment by itself consists of events without such an account. A narrator following the situation as it takes place and describing it out loud, on the other hand, would be producing a story, his narration of what happened. Now, as roleplaying games are necessarily predicated on communication between the members of the group, like storytelling on the street but unlike your two examples, this description cannot be avoided, due to the imaginary nature of the events in question. You can strip away all mathematics or strategy or chance from a game, but that one factor will always remain a constant. It may not be not the primary purpose of the players, or even something that they care to think about, but it is the one essential element of all RPGs to this day: when we play, we produce stories through the act of narration, regardless of whether we consider them refined artifacts or waste products.

By definition, he can only describe what has happened.  He might try to infer thoughts and potential actions, but those are guesses.  He can only describe what has already taken place - even if it's a split second after it happens.

During this time, he is compiling a story. You can stop at any moment and look back and say "There's the story." it may not be the complete story, as it does not include what is about to happen.  But it is the story up to the moment he stops compiling.

We compile stories through the decisions and imagined events that we share at teh table.  It's only a story at the moment you stop compiling.  If now=n, the story can not include n, it can only include n-x where x is a variable measure of how long ago n was.

Quote from: James J SkachYou can stop at any moment and look back and say "There's the story." it may not be the complete story, as it does not include what is about to happen.  But it is the story up to the moment he stops compiling.

Yes, of course. Until the conclusion of the scenario, it must always be a work in progress. But when does that imaginary action in the shared fiction of the setting actually take place during an RPG session: when the player of the PC pictures it in her mind, or when the dice clatter on the table, or when the GM decides what really happened?


Player: I'll scream and swing my axe at the orc.

GM: The stinking creature is dead before he hits the ground.

I'd suggest that each uttered sentence here adds to the continuing story, one after the other, while whatever thoughts go through the heads of the people involved and whatever means they use to resolve the attack do not. At the same time, those sentences establish the reality of the game and fix in place what has happened.

EDIT: Actually, I just thought of another way of phrasing that: "the story of the game is constructed through authoritative declarations about the events in the setting." In other words, OOC banter and rule queries do not qualify, while a player's description of what her character will attempt does since she has the authority over those.

Pretty irrelevant to the issues raised by this thread, GrimGent. You're either pulling a nonsequitur or a bait'n'switch.

Here's the thing: yes, shit happens in an RPG, and it's all imaginary and part of a coherent web. But there are two webs. One is the web of causation, the reason why Y happens after X. The other is the web of interpretation, the significance and reaction to the fact that Y happens. In some styles of gaming these two webs are kept as far from each other as possible, in others they're practically congruent: Y is allowed to happen if and only if it satisfies some test of significance: Y is motivated by an aesthetic consideration beyond simply asking, "What could happen after X?"

And furthermore if I'm in a position to make X happen but I don't want Y to happen, does my sense of whether I should make X happen come from a distinct sense of the web of causation, or does it arise from my assessment of some external aesthetic based on a question of significance?

Put another way, if supplies are low and the fate of the kingdom depends on the success of the expedition to retrieve the Hand of Talos, is it better to risk climbing a cliff straight up to the Cave of the Ancients, or to continue marching up the goblin-infested trail?

Maybe you don't have enough information? The GM says you need to succeed on a difficult Climb roll to get up the cliff, and the wizard uses a spell to inform you that there are exactly 50 goblins.

It'll be a bummer if you all die.

So, what goes into your decision on which path to take? You think maybe "the GM's on your side", so nobody'll die, and you'll get the Hand?

Excellent: there's going to be a 'story'.

You think "the GM's just going to let the dice fall as they may", so you'd better think a little about the probabilities"

Excellent: there's also going to be a 'story', or so says GrimGent.

But the perception of "what we're doing", the product of which is 'a story', is completely different between the two.

Then again, we already went over that in the thread I linked.