Quote from: The Traveller;708970Good for you.

Thank you, and good luck.

Traveller makes sense now and then. This time he's off the mark on the details if not the big picture.

Out of curiosity I used a tool at Wikipedia to see when the offending phrase "form of interactive and collaborative storytelling" was inserted. After tracing it back a bit, I found that it had earlier been "form of interactive and cooperative storytelling", with the first instance I could locate being 22 February 2004. The person who edited that bit in was, as far as I can tell, some kind of Goth. I'll speculate that he or she was a White Wolf player.

It seems to me that prior to the publication of Vampire, people had started using the word "story" in RPGs to mean elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat. WW apparently picked up on that with role-play vs. roll-play and their "storyteller" system, leading to a constellation of practices and concepts surrounding "story". The idea of metaplot and pre-scripted plots also adhered to this core, so that a bunch of things that aren't necessarily related all got stuck together, mainly because each one stood as an alternative to naive D&D play--that is, hack & slash games where there's no coherent world or continuity, NPCs exist only to be killed, etc.

Pundit, among others, has noted that this first generation of "story-oriented gamers" gave birth to, but is distinct from, the indie-type "storygamers". But not everyone who says "story" is talking about either of those.

Yeah, thought about mentioning White Wolf and its popularization of the idea of narrative gaming, if not the implementation. But I was long-winded as it was. Definitely think that people wanting games whose systems supported all that storyteller stuff oWoD games went on about probably highly influenced the current Storygame trends. But then, one could also mention Prince Valiant, from which WW co-opted the term Storytelling game (and I suspect was the origin of the Storyteller System). And the author of Theatrix and his aggressive proto-Edwards crusades on Usenet. Even Dragonlance, and its role in popularizing railroaded plot-based modules.

Lol, its a long and sordid history leading to the current forum politics.

Quote from: atpollard;708808To be perfectly honest, no I am not; I have no agenda to advance.

What I am doing is deliberately probing a perceived hot topic to determine:

1. Did I accidentally step in some shit upon my arrival ... in which case I will need to learn where the piles are and step more carefully around them.

or

2. Is this a place where flinging shit is the national pastime and anyone who comes here should expect to get covered in shit regularly ... in which case I would do better to play in another sandbox.

That is my only "agenda".

Both.

Quote from: Arminius;708972Pundit, among others, has noted that this first generation of "story-oriented gamers" gave birth to, but is distinct from, the indie-type "storygamers". But not everyone who says "story" is talking about either of those.

1. White Wolf: Pre-scripted story that players get to experience in-play, more or less passively, while in WW's case supposedly focusing on the internal state of their PCs. GM as Storyteller. Uses Railroading if necessary to force PCs down prescripted path.

2. Edwards Narrativism: Story-creation as the aim of play, in a shared collborative exercise. "Story Now". 'Storygames'.

3. Story as a natural byproduct of play. Much like "the story of my life" - stuff happens and we could relate it post facto. Related to open-world and sandbox gaming.

Atpollard seems to conflate #2 deliberate story-creation with #3 story as an inevitable byproduct of play.

Quote from: TristramEvans;708941First off, what you've stumbled upon here, as Im sure you can already tell, is a volatile subject these days. There is a number of posters here, including the Pundit himself, who believe that "storygamers" are a group actively seeking to undermine the hobby. I don't share quite that view, and think narrative-based play is just one of several approaches to RPGs that's existed since around the beginning of the hobby, or at least when the hobby started attracting players that didn't come from a wargaming background, and nobody really knew how to play. This probably wouldn't have been a problem except for 2 changes to the hobby in the interim: the aforementioned Forge theory, which proposed RPGs should be made to focus specifically on one style of play to the exclusion of all others and the advent of forum culture, wherein a bunch of gamers who otherwise never would have encountered each other now are constantly in contact, and people being the xenophobic, self absorbed creatures they are, this has led to the endless fights about the OneTrueWay, with many incapable of even understanding other playstyles and thus reacting as if the other people are lying about how they play, or at least just plain Wrong.

There are also those who participate in the "arguing about RPGs" hobby w/o actually participating on the hobby itself, as has been mentioned. And let's ignore the SJWs for now, since they are not really pertinent to this discussion.

TheRPGSite is specifically home to a number of players whose style is as described by Benoist: namely, a focus on immersion and sandbox play, myself included. While most of us don't think there is anything wrong in playing RPGs by any other style, were also as a group (if I may be so arrogant to suppose to speak for anyone else), somewhat weary of the vast number of posters we've encountered online who don't accept our style of play as valid, make no effort to comprehend it, and generally seem to troll the site to tell us how we're all having Badwrongfun and their method of play is the only True Scotsman. To the point anyone who brings up the Ted "narrative play" or "story" tends to raise a few heckles around here. We also have some pretty aggressive posters hereabouts, and to be fair, some of the posters who share my playstyle tastes also can be guilty of engaging in OneTrueWayism from time to time.

For my part, sometimes I just get sick of telling other people that its OK for them to not share my tastes. But, if Im not in a bitchy mood, I'll generally give people the benefit of the doubt, until the "Badwrongfun" speeches start to pop up, or derogatory phrases like "magic tea party" start getting flung around.

To go back to the Forge theory, as I said, the underlying concept that's somehow made it into the publishing side of the hobby, is that an RPG is only "comprehensible" ( Ron Edward's word) if a game focuses on appealing solely to one playstyle. This has led in the years since to the advent of "Storygames": games that largely identify as RPGs, but are vastly different from traditional RPGs not only in that they are designed specifically to enable Narrative Play, but the rules actively enforce it. I would not say, based on your posts, that's what you're talking about. There is also a number of payers here who have differing definitions about what constitutes a Storygame vs a traditional rpg.

The definition I personally use is that any game that forces a player to view his PC from the third person "authorial perspective" by way of the mechanics is a Storygame. I think it is possible to play ANY RPG in this manner, the distinction for me is if the system actively interferes with my immersion. This is a somewhat seperated concept from railroading, where its the GM themselves that is actively interfering. This is a tricky subject though, because there are matters of degree. Many RPGs include elements of narrative play, and "disassociated mechanics", but I would not consider Storygames.

I also think that my preferences are a minority extreme, and most players don't really care if there's some Storygame elements in thier RPG.

This issue also gets confused with Illusionism (a method of GMing wherein the GM alters the setting based on or in reaction to player choice, in ways that don't represent 'natural' or sensible cause and effect, and another style of play, wherein an RPG system is engaged by players to the exclusion of role-playing.

Good post, I agree.

I want to expand slightly on the third person authorial perspective thing. I agree that storygames feature this mode of play moreso than other RPGs do, although it is present to some small extent in almost all systems. But I think there is perhaps a distinction here between moderate/hybrid storygames like Burning Wheel, Dogs, and Sorcerer, and 'pure' storygames like MLWM, PTA, and so on. In the moderate/hybrid storygames I would say that the third person perspective stuff is still a fairly small part of the overall play experience, especially when you consider that most play will just be conversation and description with no invocation of mechanics at all. I can understand how people who don't like any third person stuff would hate those games, and more power to them. But I think for those of us that do like it, or can use it as a tool without experiencing any side effects, it's really not that intrusive to the experience. When I play storygames I still feel like the experience is very strongly first person.

I guess this kind of mechanic is like mayonaisse. Some people actively like it, some people just don't mind it or don't even really notice it, and some people are violently allergic to it.

I've seen this with Come and Get It in 4e. I play a fighter in 4e and I can use CAGI with no issues - I spend a moment to think about how my character achieves the effect, describe it, and then slip straight back into a first person perspective as though the break never happened. For me it's seamless, just like some immersionist types can move their miniatures and roll their dice without finding it overly intrusive. But other people posting on this forum have said that they found CAGI (and 4e in general sometimes) too jarring. Their tolerance for this stuff was lower and they came out in an allergic reaction. It's just different palates is all.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;708875What you (Estar) are calling "plot" I would refer to as "scenario."

Quote from: Benoist;708876I am much more comfortable with the word "scenario" to describe this, yes, especially since it is applicable in real life projections, as in "scenarios likely to occur if this and that happens before hand."

Scenario works for me. In addition ties back to the wargaming origins of tabletop better than plot.

Quote from: TristramEvans;708941The definition I personally use is that any game that forces a player to view his PC from the third person "authorial perspective" by way of the mechanics is a Storygame.

Another issue is that out of game reasons or actions is traditionally considered metagaming and a form of cheating among many tabletop roleplayers. Recently I ran some Fate games and among my older gamers feel that most uses of Fate Points feel like cheating. In 90s with Whimsy Cards, we stop using them because they became the focus instead playing a character.

I feel this is the central point of contention between traditional tabletop RPGs and Storygames. Neither is better than the other in terms of fun but I feel it is hard to mix just a little into a Tabletop Game because it distracts from the focus on the playing of a individual character.

I don't mind resource-allocation based systems as long as the "points" mechanic is somehow tied to the setting, so they represent something tangible that makes sense as something abstract a character can "invest" in an action. For example, I also find Fate Points way too meta-gamey, but I didn't mind thier implementation in Icons as Determination. Dr Who's Story Points kinda irk me, but they aren't deal-breakers for me, as I tend to rationalize them as wibbly wobbly timy wimy reality altering effects that arise as a consequence of Time Travel, mixed with a bit of luck, though I also restrict thier use to confirm with that interpretation. Karma points in FASERIP similarly Im ok with, because I see the game as taking place in a setting where Karma is a real, tangible thing, and I think it helps that you have to declare thier use before rolling, which I interpret the same way as investing willpower into attempting an action. If they just allowed a player to alter the effects of die rolls willy-nilly after the fact, that would feel too whiffy to me.

I guess it's all in what I can rationalize . Hm, I seem to remember a very good essay by Paul Mason about this very thing. Going to have to look that up. This was well before the term "disassociative mechanics" was coined, but was along those lines.

Quote from: Arminius;708972It seems to me that prior to the publication of Vampire, people had started using the word "story" in RPGs to mean elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat. WW apparently picked up on that with role-play vs. roll-play and their "storyteller" system, leading to a constellation of practices and concepts surrounding "story". The idea of metaplot and pre-scripted plots also adhered to this core, so that a bunch of things that aren't necessarily related all got stuck together, mainly because each one stood as an alternative to naive D&D play--that is, hack & slash games where there's no coherent world or continuity, NPCs exist only to be killed, etc.

That sounds pretty darn close to exactly what I was thinking of when I first mentioned the word 'story' on this site ... and why I was so shocked to be told that RPGs have NOTHING to do with telling a story.

In my mind, Chess has nothing to do with "elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat" and role-playing, as distinct from roll-playing, has everything to do with 'elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat' (which I called 'story' to my personal detriment).

This topic HAS, if nothing else, explained the strange (to me) reaction that my initial comment generated. Now the reaction makes sense.

Someone commented to me that theRPGsite tends to baptize by fire and if I survived, I would probably be OK ... that was a hell of a reaction to a second post.

Quote from: atpollard;709044That sounds pretty darn close to exactly what I was thinking of when I first mentioned the word 'story' on this site ... and why I was so shocked to be told that RPGs have NOTHING to do with telling a story.

In my mind, Chess has nothing to do with "elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat" and role-playing, as distinct from roll-playing, has everything to do with 'elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat' (which I called 'story' to my personal detriment).

This topic HAS, if nothing else, explained the strange (to me) reaction that my initial comment generated. Now the reaction makes sense.

Someone commented to me that theRPGsite tends to baptize by fire and if I survived, I would probably be OK ... that was a hell of a reaction to a second post.

The elements you refer to as 'story' then are what I would refer to simply as role-playing (as opposed to 'system'; it is possible to role-play with no system, which is commonly called "freeform RPGs", and is quite common on fan forums).

You're not wrong objectively in calling it what you like, it's just, as I said, its a loaded term in forum culture these days.

Quote from: atpollard;709044This topic HAS, if nothing else, explained the strange (to me) reaction that my initial comment generated. Now the reaction makes sense.

Someone commented to me that theRPGsite tends to baptize by fire and if I survived, I would probably be OK ... that was a hell of a reaction to a second post.

That's cool. I hope you stick around and get to know us folks better.

To that end. . .

Quote from: atpollard;709044That sounds pretty darn close to exactly what I was thinking of when I first mentioned the word 'story' on this site ... and why I was so shocked to be told that RPGs have NOTHING to do with telling a story.

In my mind, Chess has nothing to do with "elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat" and role-playing, as distinct from roll-playing, has everything to do with 'elements of play that focused on character relationships and interactions rather than combat' (which I called 'story' to my personal detriment).

I'm going to get back to the subject of lethality in games because that's the context in which that reaction to your use of story and your claim that all games involve storytelling to some degree arose.

When you say that you construe your game as storytelling, and that in this context there are moments in which character death will make sense to the story and narrative, have dramatic value that has meaning to the unfolding story, I completely understand the argument, and I can tell you with ironclad certainty "That's cool, but not everyone plays role playing games to tell stories". In that particular sense.

But when the definition of storytelling becomes interchangeable with "role playing", or "elements of play that focus on character relationships and interactions rather than combat," that statement that there is a correlation between story and less lethality in games ceases to make any sense to me. Why? Because I have rarely if ever seen something more meaningful, potentially emotionally charged, and important to character relationships than character death, especially if it comes at the least expected moment. And the fear of death, the avoidance of the possible consequence of death in the game, is in itself a strong motivator that can fuel a lot of role playing, of meaningful exchanges and powerful relationships between the members of the party in the game, and with NPCs around them.

When you look at Vampire the Masquerade, and the other WW games, I will agree that to some extent, storytelling is meant as an opposition of "role playing" versus "roll playing". But it doesn't tell the whole (heh) story, to me. Far from it. The game also construes the storytelling as just that: the building of a story unfolding in the game, and gives advice to that extent, to create momentum, create drama in the playwright/narrative sense of the term, resolutions, to craft a story in the literary sense of the term, as it would relate to books and movies. Heck, its play structure spells it out in unequivocal terms: it is a "chronicle" with "chapters" and the basic building block of game play is the "scene", down to the very mechanics of the game, discipline/gift/whatever durations, and the like.

One thing, the use of "storytelling" to mean "meaningful role playing", led almost immediately to the experiment with the other, that is, building a story with a narrative structure, drama, momentum up to a resolution, and so on. In fact, such attempts are anterior in role playing games than WW games, though WW made it its marketing banner in the form of the "Storytelling Games" brand of course. The first example that comes to my mind is the structure of the Dragonlance modules, which are very much construed as a story in the telling. In fact, the Survival Guides of AD&D 1e do present the story as such, that is, a "storyline" implying a "Story Structure" speaking of "climaxes", "story elements", "protagonists" and "antagonists", "foreshadowing", the building of the tension in the story telling and the like (Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, 1986, page 103 plus).

So I refute the claim that the use of story to mean a dramatic structure, in a literary sense as it applies to movies and novels, is something that the Forge invented, or that it didn't exist before, or that "storytelling" therefore only meant that "it's role playing as opposed to roll playing". In fact, when you think about what that phrase actually means, the "role playing instead of roll playing", it right there implies that the luck of the dice and undesirable outcomes are to be avoided in favor of meaningful role playing. It already implies a dramatic structure in order to build tension and dramatic meaning right there, which is why some outcomes of the dice would become "undesirable", undesirable to the smooth development of the story in the telling.

Ron Edwards did understand one thing that was quite obvious to a number of gamers up to that point: that the structures of game play provided in role playing games were completely at odds with such aims of creating a meaningful dramatic structure and story. That is what prompted the "brain damage" comment when talking about those gamers who enjoyed storytelling games and couldn't ever realize that they were playing their games utterly wrong as far as the actual creation of a narrative and story was concerned. A claim which was a building block of the whole edifice that is GNS theory, the notion that games must be "coherent", i.e. focused primarily on one particular aim or "creative agenda", either "Gamist", "Narrativist" or "Simulationist", which in turn gave birth to what we now know as "story games", those games which involve explicit rules structures which help the game's participants to build a narrative as co-authors of the story.

I've gone far afield, but that basically is the gist here. So I don't think "storytelling" as meaning "role playing versus roll playing" tells the whole story indeed, and the statement itself actually points out that there is more to it than meets the eye.

One thing I've just realised about first-wave '80s-'90s 'storytelling' (Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, White Wolf et al) is that it's all about what the GM is doing - the GM may be setting up 'scenes' 'resolutions' 'dramatic climaxes' etc, but the players are still playing D&D - they're acting as their characters, immersion not story-creation, and trying to achieve their character's goals. Ron hated this 'incoherence' and created games like Sorcerer where the players would also consciously take part in the story-building.

Quote from: Benoist;709048That's cool. I hope you stick around and get to know us folks better.

To that end. . .



I'm going to get back to the subject of lethality in games because that's the context in which that reaction to your use of story and your claim that all games involve storytelling to some degree arose.

When you say that you construe your game as storytelling, and that in this context there are moments in which character death will make sense to the story and narrative, have dramatic value that has meaning to the unfolding story, I completely understand the argument, and I can tell you with ironclad certainty "That's cool, but not everyone plays role playing games to tell stories". In that particular sense.

But when the definition of storytelling becomes interchangeable with "role playing", or "elements of play that focus on character relationships and interactions rather than combat," that statement that there is a correlation between story and less lethality in games ceases to make any sense to me. Why? Because I have rarely if ever seen something more meaningful, potentially emotionally charged, and important to character relationships than character death, especially if it comes at the least expected moment. And the fear of death, the avoidance of the possible consequence of death in the game, is in itself a strong motivator that can fuel a lot of role playing, of meaningful exchanges and powerful relationships between the members of the party in the game, and with NPCs around them.

When you look at Vampire the Masquerade, and the other WW games, I will agree that to some extent, storytelling is meant as an opposition of "role playing" versus "roll playing". But it doesn't tell the whole (heh) story, to me. Far from it. The game also construes the storytelling as just that: the building of a story unfolding in the game, and gives advice to that extent, to create momentum, create drama in the playwright/narrative sense of the term, resolutions, to craft a story in the literary sense of the term, as it would relate to books and movies. Heck, its play structure spells it out in unequivocal terms: it is a "chronicle" with "chapters" and the basic building block of game play is the "scene", down to the very mechanics of the game, discipline/gift/whatever durations, and the like.

One thing, the use of "storytelling" to mean "meaningful role playing", led almost immediately to the experiment with the other, that is, building a story with a narrative structure, drama, momentum up to a resolution, and so on. In fact, such attempts are anterior in role playing games than WW games, though WW made it its marketing banner in the form of the "Storytelling Games" brand of course. The first example that comes to my mind is the structure of the Dragonlance modules, which are very much construed as a story in the telling. In fact, the Survival Guides of AD&D 1e do present the story as such, that is, a "storyline" implying a "Story Structure" speaking of "climaxes", "story elements", "protagonists" and "antagonists", "foreshadowing", the building of the tension in the story telling and the like (Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, 1986, page 103 plus).

So I refute the claim that the use of story to mean a dramatic structure, in a literary sense as it applies to movies and novels, is something that the Forge invented, or that it didn't exist before, or that "storytelling" therefore only meant that "it's role playing as opposed to roll playing". In fact, when you think about what that phrase actually means, the "role playing instead of roll playing", it right there implies that the luck of the dice and undesirable outcomes are to be avoided in favor of meaningful role playing. It already implies a dramatic structure in order to build tension and dramatic meaning right there, which is why some outcomes of the dice would become "undesirable", undesirable to the smooth development of the story in the telling.

Ron Edwards did understand one thing that was quite obvious to a number of gamers up to that point: that the structures of game play provided in role playing games were completely at odds with such aims of creating a meaningful dramatic structure and story. That is what prompted the "brain damage" comment when talking about those gamers who enjoyed storytelling games and couldn't ever realize that they were playing their games utterly wrong as far as the actual creation of a narrative and story was concerned. A claim which was a building block of the whole edifice that is GNS theory, the notion that games must be "coherent", i.e. focused primarily on one particular aim or "creative agenda", either "Gamist", "Narrativist" or "Simulationist", which in turn gave birth to what we now know as "story games", those games which involve explicit rules structures which help the game's participants to build a narrative as co-authors of the story.

I've gone far afield, but that basically is the gist here. So I don't think "storytelling" as meaning "role playing versus roll playing" tells the whole story indeed, and the statement itself actually points out that there is more to it than meets the eye.

Good post. That's an interesting perspective on "Roleplaying vs Rollplaying"; Ive always interpreted that phrase as "playing your character vs playing the system"

Quote from: S'mon;709077One thing I've just realised about first-wave '80s-'90s 'storytelling' (Dungeneer's Survival Guide, White Wolf et al) is that it's all about what the GM is doing - the GM may be setting up 'scenes' 'resolutions' 'dramatic climaxes' etc, but the players are still playing D&D - they're acting as their characters, immersion not story-creation, and trying to achieve their character's goals. Ron hated this 'incoherence' and created games like Sorcerer where the players would also consciously take part in the story-building.

I think you may be on to something. I'd replace the "all about what the GM is doing" with "mostly about", because there were experimentations with tools for the players to affect outcomes from a metagame standpoint such as some applications of Hero Points in James Bond 007, and I am not sure that when players are playing with a GM implementing storytelling advice in practice at the game table with the building of dramatic tension, the fudging of dice in order to avoid undesirable outcomes, the nudging to align the ducks in order to bring about a dramatically significant resolution to the story,  they (the players) can keep on playing an immersive game forever without realizing what's going on on the other side of the screen and from there either go along with the storytelling in process or get increasingly frustrated with the game, but I think that yes, the GM was deemed the primary mean of storytelling in such games up to the Forge's revolution in game structures and game play.