When playing/DMing, do you think it's more important to tell a coherent story (with beats, pacing, etc) or to present a situation? (Here is the scenario, what do you do about it?
I lean heavily towards situation, but my situations are inspired mainly by stories I've heard/read. So it gets a bit fuzzy at the edges.
Depends what I'm running. If it's the final session of a linear-ish save-the-world campaign, I want it to feel satisfying. If I'm running a sandbox I try not to think in narrative terms.
They're both important, really. When it's time for the PCs to act, then the DM just presents the situation. But an adventure is a series of situations, and the DM can set the pacing and tension so that the adventure follows the structure of a story. Even an individual encounter can has a series of such events within it. Keeping a good dramatic structure while still accounting for the results of player agency can be challenging, but it leads to a more fun game, IMO.
I agree with Mishihari. Both are important.
I think of a plotline, present the hooks to the players, then adjust everything based on what they do, and what the dice say.
Situation over telling a story. And it isn't close.
The only story I tell is the story of what the PCs have done in previous sessions. It is their story, created at the table, not from a set of notes. The recap, which I make a point to own, takes about 7-10 minutes. I end the recap asking if I missed anything.
After that, I have a very terse and direct communication style. I have seen several benefits to this approach.
I am heavy on situation, but like to have recurring NPCs that may influence the characters stories. Ultimately it's the challenges I set up, and the way the players interact with them that determine the story for the most part.
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
Quote from: Mishihari on October 27, 2021, 01:06:01 PM
They're both important, really. When it's time for the PCs to act, then the DM just presents the situation. But an adventure is a series of situations, and the DM can set the pacing and tension so that the adventure follows the structure of a story. Even an individual encounter can has a series of such events within it. Keeping a good dramatic structure while still accounting for the results of player agency can be challenging, but it leads to a more fun game, IMO.
I agree. It's like the players and GM are writing alternate sentences of the same story. As GM, you can push the story in certain directions, and the players can push the same way or not.
Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
This is my approach. I find that the emergent story is often something that would be "substandard" or even boring if written down, but it wasn't boring for any of the participants at the time. Some fairly basic or even trite stories are enjoyable when they are emergent.
Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
Greetings!
Yep, Tenbones, I agree. I do the same thing, more or less. Sometimes, the Players really jump in and drive "The Story"--and other times, the various NPC's around them--their friends, henchmen, lovers, family members--also engage in and push their own "stories". Meanwhile, the various villains, other NPC's, factions, tribes and whatever in the wider campaign, they too, often have their own agendas and "stories" that they pursue. The bigger story, of course happens when all of that criss-crosses and intersects in interesting ways.
The Player Characters are often central, of course, and serve as "prime movers"--but they aren't the only story being told, or advanced. The world has its own population, with lots of other heroes, villains, NPC's, that are all each doing their own thing, regardless of what the Player Characters are doing. Naturally, at points of interconnection, such NPC's shall respond to the Player Character's actions and motivations. The entire world doesn't just stand around with their thumb up their asses waiting for the Player Characters to "Get Involved." Sometimes, the Player Characters can act bind, stupid, or otherwise entirely clueless, and can oftentimes suffer the consequences for such dithering. The world must always be active and dynamic.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 27, 2021, 06:44:22 PM
Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
This is my approach. I find that the emergent story is often something that would be "substandard" or even boring if written down, but it wasn't boring for any of the participants at the time. Some fairly basic or even trite stories are enjoyable when they are emergent.
Greetings!
Good points, Steven Mitchell! I agree with you as well. I'm often pleasantly surprised how Player Characters can often jump into some situation, and make an interesting and enjoyable story--at least for themselves. Like you said, if it was written down, or someone else was to read it straight, it may seem boring or just kind of pedestrian. Some of the best times the Players have is interacting with NPC's in relatively minor ways and creating their own kind of events and stories that are meaningful an important to THEM--and may often have absolutely nothing to do with anything I purposely planned, intended, or in any way had going on. NPC's simply react to the Player Characters in ways true to themselves, and interwoven with the society around them, and the fantastic elements, and stories emerge that were entirely unexpected and unforeseen.
I just run with it when things like that occur, which with my groups, can be quite often I'm happy to say.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Stories come as a consequence of the actions of the group. It's all well and good to have a tightly written narrative. But all it takes is one player to go down the wrong door or just do the "wrong" thing to an NPC to set that plan alight. RPGs are not novels with linear and sacrosanct narratives. They are above all games with the core concept of choice at it's very heart.
I see a lot with the Critical Role zoomers that they are presented with these very contrived stories that pretend to be DnD. Everyone gets their epic moments in very clean and scripted fashion. They go out thinking all DnD is like this. A story that you participate in and do cool stuff in. But then they get pissy when they roll bad and die to that 1 goblin. I didn't intentionally make the goblin kill them. They rolled their dice and that's what happened. That core concept of randomness and not being in control at all times seems to just elude or downright disgust these people. They don't understand that it's much more impressive and will stick with them longer that they used their own initiative to trick the Governor's daughter into giving them critical info on the Governor's evil plan. That they had a heroic fight with the elite guard to seize the powerful artifact the Governor was going to use to do... I dunno some evil shit. Work with me here. Some critical hits happened that led to cool and unexpected moments the players will remember for a life time. And they foiled this evil plan. With the chance of real failure hanging over them. And now several plot hooks created from player actions can sprout into full sessions or arcs for the entire campaign. Compare that to some railroaded bullshit where they HAD to talk to the Governor's Daughter who then COMPELLED them to foil the evil scheme where due to the GM being a pussy he fudged dice to make sure everyone got a really patronizing and specific "awesome moment" that they will forget about because they knew the GM planned the whole thing. And then afterwards the GM leads them by the nose to next thing he made. With no player choice whatsoever.
That's not a game. That's some arsehole's shit fantasy novel that happens to be inconvenienced by players.
Situation.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 27, 2021, 06:44:22 PMI find that the emergent story is often something that would be "substandard" or even boring if written down, but it wasn't boring for any of the participants at the time. Some fairly basic or even trite stories are enjoyable when they are emergent.
Case in point, players enjoy spending actual game time having their characters buy stuff. Personally, I don't find a shopping trip makes for a very good story. But then I'm not much of a shopper. In real life, I shop to eat. I don't eat to shop. But players do sometimes enjoy having their PCs acquire shiny stuff.
Quote from: Bren on October 28, 2021, 11:01:58 AM
Case in point, players enjoy spending actual game time having their characters buy stuff. Personally, I don't find a shopping trip makes for a very good story. But then I'm not much of a shopper. In real life, I shop to eat. I don't eat to shop. But players do sometimes enjoy having their PCs acquire shiny stuff.
Indeed! Shopping simulator is pretty boring IMO and would at most be a 30 second montage in a movie.
Compared to just finding equipment, I think players might enjoy shopping for it because it's low stress. Shopping often comes between stressful events and is a bit of a mental break. You generally don't have to worry that shopkeeper is going to sell you cursed or trapped items, as you might if you find them in a dungeon.
QuoteTelling a story versus presenting a situation.
TBH unless you are really hard railroader... well those are not exclusive.
Let's say one of my favourite big campaigns - The Enemy Within for Warhammer 1e and 4e.
Campaign itself is quite storey - there are 5 main situations characters should deal with to finish it.
But each module itself is very sandboxey, there is sometimes timeline linked to PC's inactivity, but overall they have within adventure as written great freedom to run affairs their own way, while bad guys have own plans, until their roads meet. And that's perfectly fine.
Making every bit of module strictly linked to narrative though would gonna be mayor problem in most of games, though not all of course.
Situation Uber Alles!
Seriously tho, the only story I do/Enjoy is the one told after the fact or, on some rare occasions, the story told by the GM about some distant event that set in motion some things that now have to be dealt with.
But the last one is just setting the situation.
That depends how we define "story".
OSR gamers want to define it strictly as "what happened", most of players contextually use it for "pre-determined" or at least "foretold" narrative bits happening around. Like if PCs are guests in prince's summer residence and find him third day with cut throat - that's story/scenario/narrative element planned by GM.
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 28, 2021, 12:36:29 PM
That depends how we define "story".
OSR gamers want to define it strictly as "what happened", most of players contextually use it for "pre-determined" or at least "foretold" narrative bits happening around. Like if PCs are guests in prince's summer residence and find him third day with cut throat - that's story/scenario/narrative element planned by GM.
That's setting the situation tho:
"On the third day you find the Prince with his throat cut on the bed of the maid, what do you do?"
Even any bit's you add to explain why he got killed or by who fit into either setting up the situation or in the situation resolved.
And yet if it was planned for me, when whole situation was estabilished that's exactly what in most of discuourse would be called scenario element / story bite and so on. Narrative not sandboxey element, creating situation to precisely put PCs in in, not just presenting sandbox to them.
Depends on the context of which game we're playing. 5e is not great for situations over story so I usually just go with a published campaign with my own twist. The 2e game I just started I told them that I'd railroad them to get them to the borderlands but after that it's up to them.
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 28, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
And yet if it was planned for me, when whole situation was estabilished that's exactly what in most of discuourse would be called scenario element / story bite and so on. Narrative not sandboxey element, creating situation to precisely put PCs in in, not just presenting sandbox to them.
Isn't it a sanbox tho?
Can the PC's choose their acctions? Can they not engage with the situation?
Lets change your example a bit, my players are walking on a forest, either because I planned it or by random rolling it, they encounter a sick person. What do they do?
Let's make it more like yours, after saving the kingdom they get invited to the castle and they discover the murdered prince. Does it matter if I planned it or it was a random roll? Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?
The second is a railroad, not a sandbox but I'm not sure it'0s a story and not just setting the scenario for your railroad.
Quote5e is not great for situations over story so I usually just go with a published campaign with my own twist.
What's stopping you in 5e from doing s.o.s.
QuoteIsn't it a sanbox tho?
Can the PC's choose their acctions? Can they not engage with the situation?
Lets change your example a bit, my players are walking on a forest, either because I planned it or by random rolling it, they encounter a sick person. What do they do?
Let's make it more like yours, after saving the kingdom they get invited to the castle and they discover the murdered prince. Does it matter if I planned it or it was a random roll? Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?
The second is a railroad, not a sandbox but I'm not sure it'0s a story and not just setting the scenario for your railroad.
It's not like mutually exclusive. Me making whole Assassin King's plot, am estabilishing story that goes beyond just sandbox of various locations. But it does not mean I'm gonna railroad PC's through it maybe aside this first situation. But this first act on itself is IMHO using my narrative power I'd say. And if for instance each player gives me some part of unresolved business in backstory is also narrative/storytellingley - if I decide to act upon them to give them some personal resolution (which is very narrative aspect overall).
I guess overall language here is just bit murky and not well defined. But language usually is. So story or situation, who cares, just fuck the railroad and play.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 28, 2021, 01:31:59 PM
Lets change your example a bit, my players are walking on a forest, either because I planned it or by random rolling it, they encounter a sick person. What do they do?
Let's make it more like yours, after saving the kingdom they get invited to the castle and they discover the murdered prince. Does it matter if I planned it or it was a random roll? Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?
The second is a railroad, not a sandbox but I'm not sure it'0s a story and not just setting the scenario for your railroad.
If the players dont go into room number 3, and them finding the prince is the lynchpin upon which the situation is balanced, there are other ways to get the players involved. Of course the players may choose none of them, and of course this may set a course of action for the future.
They may leave, and if they return, find they are wanted for questioning for the murder of the Prince.
They may hear rumors about the princes body being found, and the Kings Guard are questioning people. They could choose to ignore the rumor, or seek audience with the king, or something the GM hasn't thought of.
And if they dont engage with the murder investigation, dont force them by moving the body to room #3. I keep a number of scenarios loosely fleshed out in case the players dont take the bait of my main idea.
Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 28, 2021, 02:32:14 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 28, 2021, 01:31:59 PM
Lets change your example a bit, my players are walking on a forest, either because I planned it or by random rolling it, they encounter a sick person. What do they do?
Let's make it more like yours, after saving the kingdom they get invited to the castle and they discover the murdered prince. Does it matter if I planned it or it was a random roll? Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?
The second is a railroad, not a sandbox but I'm not sure it'0s a story and not just setting the scenario for your railroad.
If the players dont go into room number 3, and them finding the prince is the lynchpin upon which the situation is balanced, there are other ways to get the players involved. Of course the players may choose none of them, and of course this may set a course of action for the future.
They may leave, and if they return, find they are wanted for questioning for the murder of the Prince.
They may hear rumors about the princes body being found, and the Kings Guard are questioning people. They could choose to ignore the rumor, or seek audience with the king, or something the GM hasn't thought of.
And if they dont engage with the murder investigation, dont force them by moving the body to room #3. I keep a number of scenarios loosely fleshed out in case the players dont take the bait of my main idea.
Exactly, as long as the players can choose different paths with different outcomes it's not a railroad.
If they leave they could end as suspects, it's a possibility. And if it does come to that then it's just the world reacting to their acctions, therefore a sandbox.
My current group of players are happy to sit on the railroad as long as it is going to interesting places.
Well if they sit on railroad, they're not going anywhere, and only interesting thing that can happen to them is actual train.,
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 28, 2021, 08:20:24 PM
Well if they sit on railroad, they're not going anywhere, and only interesting thing that can happen to them is actual train.,
They got plenty of hps so they will be mostly fine
But what if train has levels in barbarian.
Situation pregnant with interesting elements that are often the stuff of narrative is still situation. That simply means that the story that emerges has a greater chance of being somewhat more like a traditional narrative. That is distinct from plot, which could use those exact same interesting elements in a very different manner.
Situation over story. The NPCs can be characters in a story, but that only sets up the situation for the players. Even time limited adventures, like at a convention, work better as situations than as stories.
(One of the things about the AD&D2 era RPGA was that many of adventures were so contrived at the start. Shit like, "For no apparent reason, your character drops all possessions and walks stark naked into the jail cells of the Sheriff of Raven's Bluff." Adventure start. Why game if your character has no free will because of story?)
From the yet-unpublished Book II of
Conflict.
QuoteThe job of the Referee is to create a milieu with opportunities for adventures; things should be happening which the players will want their adventurers to interfere with, there should be places to explore, foes to fight, riches and glories to win.
The job of the Referee is not to "create a story" or ensure the adventurers behave in some particular way, except inasmuch as the already-placed elements of the milieu would determine it. That is, the peoples of the milieu will have apt responses to the adventurers' actions. Most particularly, the Referee should supress any desire to make a novel of their campaign, since this will lead to disappointment when the heroes do the "wrong" thing. Plus you're probably not a good writer, anyway.
The job of the players is to show up on time ready to play and with snacks, dice, their character sheets and other relevant gear, to create adventurers, playing them sensibly through the challenges offered by the milieux. They must find ways to make their adventurers useful, it is not up to the Referee to spoon-feed them expertise-appropriate challenges.
Some will disagree with this, but they are wrong.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on October 29, 2021, 12:19:44 AM
From the yet-unpublished Book II of Conflict.
QuoteThe job of the Referee is to create a milieu with opportunities for adventures; things should be happening which the players will want their adventurers to interfere with, there should be places to explore, foes to fight, riches and glories to win.
The job of the Referee is not to "create a story" or ensure the adventurers behave in some particular way, except inasmuch as the already-placed elements of the milieu would determine it. That is, the peoples of the milieu will have apt responses to the adventurers' actions. Most particularly, the Referee should supress any desire to make a novel of their campaign, since this will lead to disappointment when the heroes do the "wrong" thing. Plus you're probably not a good writer, anyway.
The job of the players is to show up on time ready to play and with snacks, dice, their character sheets and other relevant gear, to create adventurers, playing them sensibly through the challenges offered by the milieux. They must find ways to make their adventurers useful, it is not up to the Referee to spoon-feed them expertise-appropriate challenges.
Some will disagree with this, but they are wrong.
You're on point, and people have the right to be wrong, I can't force them to be right.
Quote from: Shasarak on October 28, 2021, 07:35:40 PM
My current group of players are happy to sit on the railroad as long as it is going to interesting places.
I have one group that is mostly looking for a beer-n-pretzels game where they show up, get fed a level-appropriate quest, go do the quest, rinse and repeat.
Since I am actually running a status-quo sandbox with them, this has caused some issues. Rather than seek out a quest they can handle, they tend to wait until the NPCs say "X bad thing is happening", but X is probably the worst thing happening in the vicinity, and most of them are not very good at D&D combat, so they lose a lot of PCs... the NPCs (and me) are gradually learning not to suggest anything too difficult... ;D
Currently 8 level 3-5 PCs are playing an adventure designed for 4-5 level 3 PCs, and having a great time. I think they're happy not levelling up fast, but hate having their cool quirky PCs die all the time, so I'll try to encourage them to seek out easy adventures in future.
QuoteSome will disagree with this, but they are wrong.
For what I heard of Conflict that seems reasonable assumption.
But well there are so many various RPGs.
No, the approach works for all normal roleplaying games, because it's an approach that depends on the players. The particular setting and game mechanics are irrelevant.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on October 29, 2021, 12:19:44 AM
From the yet-unpublished Book II of Conflict.
... to create adventurers, playing them sensibly through the challenges offered by the milieux. They must find ways to make their adventurers useful, it is not up to the Referee to spoon-feed them expertise-appropriate challenges.
This is one area that is often overlooked, and in many cases leads to GMs railroading. If PLAYERS don't seek opportunities to interact with the world, and instead wait for the GM to drop a piano sized clue on their heads, then the GM is all too likely to do just that.
Of course if the GM is focused on
STORY, and not
SITUATION, then the point is less relevant, since story too often leads to railroad.
One personal point about the story/situation axis:
For me as a forever GM, it is FAR more fun to create situations, or even just let the players interact with the game world than it is to attempt to create a story that they have to navigate. For me the fun is in NOT KNOWING what they are going to do, and the challenge of reacting to it.
Forcing a story doesnt do that.
Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 29, 2021, 08:25:04 AM
One personal point about the story/situation axis:
For me as a forever GM, it is FAR more fun to create situations, or even just let the players interact with the game world than it is to attempt to create a story that they have to navigate. For me the fun is in NOT KNOWING what they are going to do, and the challenge of reacting to it.
Forcing a story doesnt do that.
<Astronaut meme>Always has been.</Astronaut meme>
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on October 29, 2021, 04:48:38 AM
No, the approach works for all normal roleplaying games, because it's an approach that depends on the players. The particular setting and game mechanics are irrelevant.
Is "normal roleplaying games" a way of say "True Scotsman?" There are some games that have mechanics that do involve story elements that are gameable. They are not necessarily "abnormal" for that.
Still, I think the "only correct way" to run the game is to ensure that everyone at the table is having fun. If you have a group of players that want story over open-ended situation, then you're doing it wrong if you stick exclusively to the latter.
QuoteNo, the approach works for all normal roleplaying games, because it's an approach that depends on the players. The particular setting and game mechanics are irrelevant.
Players and DM's are bound by social contract. As much as it's fake ideology in terms of society it works very well here.
And depending on game - assuming playing as RAW - of course generally speaking playing D&D 3.5 RAW players are quite in right to expect level appropriate challenges, that's the whole shtick of this game. Simmilarily playing Burning Wheel they can expect from DM to craft narratively situations that will challenge their believes/instincts and other character defining stuff, not to put them into sandbox to run in circles for 30 sessions before finding one. Because that's what game about if you play it RAW.
QuoteThis is one area that is often overlooked, and in many cases leads to GMs railroading. If PLAYERS don't seek opportunities to interact with the world, and instead wait for the GM to drop a piano sized clue on their heads, then the GM is all too likely to do just that.
Of course if the GM is focused on STORY, and not SITUATION, then the point is less relevant, since story too often leads to railroad.
That indeed can be a problem. Alas as long as players are at least well reactive, and not straight up inactive I'm like fine with it. I guess it's like 75% of all players.
QuoteFor me as a forever GM, it is FAR more fun to create situations, or even just let the players interact with the game world than it is to attempt to create a story that they have to navigate. For me the fun is in NOT KNOWING what they are going to do, and the challenge of reacting to it.
Forcing a story doesnt do that
.
If we define story as railroad to strict scenario - as was often case of modules written in 90s I think then I agree. However I doubt it's how storygamers or people playing narrative-heavy RPGs define story for use of this discussion. In fact many storygames ditch GM for that very reason.
QuoteIf you have a group of players that want story over open-ended situation, then you're doing it wrong if you stick exclusively to the latter.
TBH as someone generally believing GM is also a player and social contract is mutual I see no reason why we should judge GM in this case, and not the players :P
If I have a player that wants story over situation, then that player wasn't listening when the game was outlined, which is on them. They are welcome to try it our way or leave, with no hard feelings either way. There is no point in a GM running something they don't enjoy to satisfy player entitlement issues. A player without such issues wouldn't wish it on the GM.
Quote from: HappyDaze on October 29, 2021, 03:25:09 PM
Is "normal roleplaying games" a way of say "True Scotsman?"
No, because the "true Scotsman" is arguing about what is or is not a Scotsman. I am not arguing about what a Scotsman is or is not, I am arguing about what is a good Scotsman, and what an inferior Scotsman.
A storygame is a roleplaying game, there's no doubt about that. A railroaded game is a roleplaying game, too. And so on and so forth. It's like how the plastic knives and forks we gave to our children as toddlers are real knives and forks - but they're
inferior knives and forks.
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 29, 2021, 08:47:44 PM
And depending on game - assuming playing as RAW - of course generally speaking playing D&D 3.5 RAW players are quite in right to expect level appropriate challenges, that's the whole shtick of this game.
3e/3.5e DMG is quite prescriptive, page 49 3.5 DMG:
"how many encounters of a certain difficulty an adventure should have.
10% Easy EL lower than party level
20% Easy if handled properly
50% Challenging EL equals that of party
15% Very Difficult EL 1-4 higher than party level
5% Overwhelming EL5+ higher than party level ...the PCs should run"
So yes per the 3.5e DMG the 3.5e player should expect a lot of balanced encounters, but also some easy ones and some flee-or-die ones.
QuoteNo, because the "true Scotsman" is arguing about what is or is not a Scotsman. I am not arguing about what a Scotsman is or is not, I am arguing about what is a good Scotsman, and what an inferior Scotsman.
The point is RPGs are not just Scotsmans, but also Welsh, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Angloscots, Gaelic and Cantonese :P And each doing by design different things.
QuoteA storygame is a roleplaying game, there's no doubt about that.
I'd say there is big doubt about it. On RPG.PUB there was massive debate about difference, our own Mutated Filipino Berserker taking active stance with his radical opinion that PBTA and FITD are not RPGs but storygames for instance. That I disagree - but for instance I'd say games like Fiasco are clearly storygames and not RPGs because even if you act parts of various PC's so to speak - the whole mechanics is divorced from PC's and is working entirely on directorial level, where players negotiate and roll for amount of power to estabilish new scenes and so on. That's difference from PBTA where many "moves" have very narrative nature, but you are generally stuck all the time with your PC.
QuoteA railroaded game is a roleplaying game, too. And so on and so forth. It's like how the plastic knives and forks we gave to our children as toddlers are real knives and forks - but they're inferior knives and forks.
Yes but railroad is almost by definition wrong, and justified as extreme measure with very hapless players. As it takes away their power in almost any given game.
Now of course genre focused games either old like James Bond or new liked Blades - had certain internal rails - protecting genre of the game, but within them players have freedom to act and solve situations in multiple ways.
And that's also matter of inferiority and superiority - if you want to emulate OSR game by either havy skill-based sim or Fiasco, you gonna fail miserably.
By Fiasco on it's own is very good thing to do Fiasco games, and Blades are very good to make Blades games.
Quote3e/3.5e DMG is quite prescriptive, page 49 3.5 DMG:
"how many encounters of a certain difficulty an adventure should have.
10% Easy EL lower than party level
20% Easy if handled properly
50% Challenging EL equals that of party
15% Very Difficult EL 1-4 higher than party level
5% Overwhelming EL5+ higher than party level ...the PCs should run"
So yes per the 3.5e DMG the 3.5e player should expect a lot of balanced encounters, but also some easy ones and some flee-or-die ones.
Indeed. But that's precisely level adequate aspect - I'm not saying all encounters have to be on par, but there is expected ratio of situation - easy, challenging and WAY TO HARD.
Quote from: SHARK on October 27, 2021, 07:20:21 PM
Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
Greetings!
Yep, Tenbones, I agree. I do the same thing, more or less. Sometimes, the Players really jump in and drive "The Story"--and other times, the various NPC's around them--their friends, henchmen, lovers, family members--also engage in and push their own "stories". Meanwhile, the various villains, other NPC's, factions, tribes and whatever in the wider campaign, they too, often have their own agendas and "stories" that they pursue. The bigger story, of course happens when all of that criss-crosses and intersects in interesting ways.
The Player Characters are often central, of course, and serve as "prime movers"--but they aren't the only story being told, or advanced. The world has its own population, with lots of other heroes, villains, NPC's, that are all each doing their own thing, regardless of what the Player Characters are doing. Naturally, at points of interconnection, such NPC's shall respond to the Player Character's actions and motivations. The entire world doesn't just stand around with their thumb up their asses waiting for the Player Characters to "Get Involved." Sometimes, the Player Characters can act bind, stupid, or otherwise entirely clueless, and can oftentimes suffer the consequences for such dithering. The world must always be active and dynamic.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Eh, I think you and Tenbones are mischaracterising what you are doing. Having a World in Motion doesn't mean you're telling a Story. Having PCs who are Roleplaying their characters and thinking and choosing things as real people in that setting, then they aren't driving a story, they're Roleplaying people living their lives.
When you put stories and story in quotes...you're not doing what the OP is talking about. He's talking about designing and running things with an actual narrative structure.
Quote from: crkrueger on October 30, 2021, 08:50:51 AM
Quote from: SHARK on October 27, 2021, 07:20:21 PM
Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.
My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.
I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.
The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.
Greetings!
Yep, Tenbones, I agree. I do the same thing, more or less. Sometimes, the Players really jump in and drive "The Story"--and other times, the various NPC's around them--their friends, henchmen, lovers, family members--also engage in and push their own "stories". Meanwhile, the various villains, other NPC's, factions, tribes and whatever in the wider campaign, they too, often have their own agendas and "stories" that they pursue. The bigger story, of course happens when all of that criss-crosses and intersects in interesting ways.
The Player Characters are often central, of course, and serve as "prime movers"--but they aren't the only story being told, or advanced. The world has its own population, with lots of other heroes, villains, NPC's, that are all each doing their own thing, regardless of what the Player Characters are doing. Naturally, at points of interconnection, such NPC's shall respond to the Player Character's actions and motivations. The entire world doesn't just stand around with their thumb up their asses waiting for the Player Characters to "Get Involved." Sometimes, the Player Characters can act bind, stupid, or otherwise entirely clueless, and can oftentimes suffer the consequences for such dithering. The world must always be active and dynamic.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Eh, I think you and Tenbones are mischaracterising what you are doing. Having a World in Motion doesn't mean you're telling a Story. Having PCs who are Roleplaying their characters and thinking and choosing things as real people in that setting, then they aren't driving a story, they're Roleplaying people living their lives.
When you put stories and story in quotes...you're not doing what the OP is talking about. He's talking about designing and running things with an actual narrative structure.
Greetings!
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.
The RPG is a story, just with different elements moved around in a different order. It's why D&D and RPG's are not Monopoly. They are games, but not purely or solely games, but games that develop, build, and tell a story. How long or brief that story is, or how entertaining or eventful it is, typically varies, but it is still a story. If RPG's weren't about stories, then RPG's wouldn't be nearly as popular as they have been.
Stories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.
The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 28, 2021, 01:31:59 PM
Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?
(
Bad lip-sync: )
My Three-Cluestick (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-Clue-Rule) defeats your Quantum Ogre (https://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-how-illusion-can-rob-your-game-of.html)!
Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.
And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.
QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.
The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.
I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 30, 2021, 04:53:51 PM
Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.
And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.
QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.
The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.
I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yeah, Wrath of God, it doesn't take too long, and with just a bit of thought, to see that much of these "stories in gaming are bad" arguments are terrible.
When you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
Then, there's a story of how the player characters meet up, and form a group. There's a story there. Then, there is a story about how the group gets involved in their first adventure together, and subsequent stories about their adventures together. Then there are stories between the different player characters and NPC's they have met and befriended in the local town.
And on, and on.
Am I making sense here?
I certainly think that there are poorly told stories, poorly developed stories, and so on. That sucks, for sure. But the concept itself of embracing stories in the D&D game, that's somehow terrible? The whole argument seems entirely nonsensical to me, and stupid. It's like some people aren't even speaking the same language as myself. I see "stories" and "storytelling" in virtually every step of the D&D game. Storytelling is omnipresent, ubiquitous, and essential, like breathing air. Take stories out, take storytelling out, whatever you want to label it as or think of it--and you don't have a game. You have merely a bland, meaningless exercise in rolling dice and moving miniatures around the table. STORIES is what breathes life, and fun, and excitement into this game, and always has. Stories and storytelling is the *magic* of D&D and Role-playing games in general.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on October 30, 2021, 05:17:32 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 30, 2021, 04:53:51 PM
Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.
And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.
QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.
The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.
I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yeah, Wrath of God, it doesn't take too long, and with just a bit of thought, to see that much of these "stories in gaming are bad" arguments are terrible.
When you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
Then, there's a story of how the player characters meet up, and form a group. There's a story there. Then, there is a story about how the group gets involved in their first adventure together, and subsequent stories about their adventures together. Then there are stories between the different player characters and NPC's they have met and befriended in the local town.
And on, and on.
Am I making sense here?
I certainly think that there are poorly told stories, poorly developed stories, and so on. That sucks, for sure. But the concept itself of embracing stories in the D&D game, that's somehow terrible? The whole argument seems entirely nonsensical to me, and stupid. It's like some people aren't even speaking the same language as myself. I see "stories" and "storytelling" in virtually every step of the D&D game. Storytelling is omnipresent, ubiquitous, and essential, like breathing air. Take stories out, take storytelling out, whatever you want to label it as or think of it--and you don't have a game. You have merely a bland, meaningless exercise in rolling dice and moving miniatures around the table. STORIES is what breathes life, and fun, and excitement into this game, and always has. Stories and storytelling is the *magic* of D&D and Role-playing games in general.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Burn the heretics!!!!!
I'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.
Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.
Its easy to say "situation of course!" but it depends on the players. My players are more timid, so if not given some pushes, they tend to just not do anything.
Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.
Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.
That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.
And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.
Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.
You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 12:39:31 PM
When playing/DMing, do you think it's more important to tell a coherent story (with beats, pacing, etc) or to present a situation?
I strongly prefer setting up a situation (actually, I'd say more than one "situation"). The story part is created by the players and their decisions during play.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something! ;D
It does happen, though. ;D "A broken clock is still right twice a day!" ;D
But in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.
But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?
Where did their character grow up, and spend their childhood? How do their parents make a living, and provide for them and the family? What is their family's reputation like in the local community? Does their character have any close friends from childhood or adolescence?
What kind of religion did their character grow up in with their family? Does their character's parents embrace any particular kind of politics? Does the character's family identify particularly with the predominant culture of the town or realm, or is there other issues that are important to the character's family?
What about early romances? Who was the first person they had sex with? What was their first romance like? Does their character have any current romantic relationships?
How did their character get apprenticed to the Wizard? What is their Wizard Master like? What was their apprenticeship like? What kind of relationship does their character have with their Wizard Master currently?
So, yeah. Either the player character creates all of that kind of information--creating a kind of story--or you, the DM, have input into that as well, and supervise such information and background, to one degree or another. None the less, the player is essentially telling the DM a story about their character, who their character is, who their character's family is, and how that character generally fits into the DM's campaign world. Naturally, the player is also providing a story about their character to the DM, but also to the other players in the group. Similarly, the other players in the group are also likely to provide their characters with the foundations of a personalized story as well.
Yeah, so there is definitely room for all kinds of stories going on, long before the player characters first set foot in the dungeon's doorway.
I have been exposed to playing campaigns with numerous women players, and while men players also occasionally enjoy such detailed stories and backgrounds, and fitting their characters into the campaign world, for certain the women definitely prefer all of these kinds of things. Most of the time, the women players have been keenly interested in developing all kinds of details about their characters. Something thrown at them like what you posted would be meaningless to most of them. They need to emotionally identify with their characters, and see how their characters fit into the world, and so on, so they care about and identify with their characters. Otherwise such a boring, bare-bones mechanical character would likely seem as nothing more than an expendable game piece to them. The women also often ask each other these kinds of questions about their characters--and if they haven't come up with the stories filling in all of these kinds of details--they are definitely likely to expect you, the DM, to help them come up with detailed answers for these kinds of questions about their character, their character's family, background, early relationships, friendships, romances, and all of that. THEN, they of course all want to know about the other women's characters, too. So the other women also want all of these kinds of answers, too. They love to talk an talk and talk, an share all these kinds of stories about their characters with each other.
Adventures that their characters go on and participate in, soon, more or less--yes, there are stories that will develop from those adventures, too--but there are stories about the character that have already occurred, and in the case of current relationships, are ongoing.
So, yes. Lots of different stories going on and being developed.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on October 31, 2021, 04:43:42 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something! ;D
It does happen, though. ;D "A broken clock is still right twice a day!" ;D
But in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.
But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?
Where did their character grow up, and spend their childhood? How do their parents make a living, and provide for them and the family? What is their family's reputation like in the local community? Does their character have any close friends from childhood or adolescence?
What kind of religion did their character grow up in with their family? Does their character's parents embrace any particular kind of politics? Does the character's family identify particularly with the predominant culture of the town or realm, or is there other issues that are important to the character's family?
What about early romances? Who was the first person they had sex with? What was their first romance like? Does their character have any current romantic relationships?
How did their character get apprenticed to the Wizard? What is their Wizard Master like? What was their apprenticeship like? What kind of relationship does their character have with their Wizard Master currently?
So, yeah. Either the player character creates all of that kind of information--creating a kind of story--or you, the DM, have input into that as well, and supervise such information and background, to one degree or another. None the less, the player is essentially telling the DM a story about their character, who their character is, who their character's family is, and how that character generally fits into the DM's campaign world. Naturally, the player is also providing a story about their character to the DM, but also to the other players in the group. Similarly, the other players in the group are also likely to provide their characters with the foundations of a personalized story as well.
Yeah, so there is definitely room for all kinds of stories going on, long before the player characters first set foot in the dungeon's doorway.
I have been exposed to playing campaigns with numerous women players, and while men players also occasionally enjoy such detailed stories and backgrounds, and fitting their characters into the campaign world, for certain the women definitely prefer all of these kinds of things. Most of the time, the women players have been keenly interested in developing all kinds of details about their characters. Something thrown at them like what you posted would be meaningless to most of them. They need to emotionally identify with their characters, and see how their characters fit into the world, and so on, so they care about and identify with their characters. Otherwise such a boring, bare-bones mechanical character would likely seem as nothing more than an expendable game piece to them. The women also often ask each other these kinds of questions about their characters--and if they haven't come up with the stories filling in all of these kinds of details--they are definitely likely to expect you, the DM, to help them come up with detailed answers for these kinds of questions about their character, their character's family, background, early relationships, friendships, romances, and all of that. THEN, they of course all want to know about the other women's characters, too. So the other women also want all of these kinds of answers, too. They love to talk an talk and talk, an share all these kinds of stories about their characters with each other.
Adventures that their characters go on and participate in, soon, more or less--yes, there are stories that will develop from those adventures, too--but there are stories about the character that have already occurred, and in the case of current relationships, are ongoing.
So, yes. Lots of different stories going on and being developed.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
So, it's not when I roll my character, but when/if I write some type of background for it, be it a small paragraph or a novellete when I'm telling a story about it to the DM and the other players.
Which is not what you said hermano.
And, if said story about my very special snowflake has no impact on the game then it has no case ever thinking it, much less writing it.
Mind you I'm not totally against PC backgrounds, but if I allow them then I have a table to roll on so you find out something about your PC and said background will provide some mechanical advantage/disadvantage to your PC.
Or I don't allow it at all.
My current group, none of us wrote shit about our PCs before hand, and yet we have made some small BS in the year+ since the campaign started. Except one guy (whose original dwarven PC got killed) we all have the same characters.
The Bard (Hey, I'm not the DM) just got engaged, he made up some BS about his family on the spot because the bride to be family asked something about having big families. And now that's canon. But it wouldn't have hapened had he not pursued the barmaid for a real world year, asked her parents for her hand in matrimony...
The Elf just started a freight bussiness, the giant killing machine halfling started his own scout army to patrol the countryside and mkeep it clean of fuglies.
I'm managing farms and soon a magic school.
And we have tons of funny and or amazing stories to tell of what has happened in the game. And I guess the grandchildren of the Bard will be telling the tales of their heroic grandpa well after my PC dies.
Do I care about my PC? Hell yes, it took some luck and smart playing to be on the cusp of reaching 10th level. But if he gets killed next session I wouldn't cry. I would take the dice, roll a new character and start all over again.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PM
Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.
Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.
That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.
And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.
Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.
You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.
Exactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.
Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 06:34:09 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PM
Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM
QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.
Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.
You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:
QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.
okay, lets see:
STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5
Male Human Wizard
What's the story?
The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.
Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.
That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.
And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.
Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.
You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.
Exactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.
Greetings!
Exactly, RandyB. Very good points. ;D
In my own earlier commentary, I described how there isn't just *ONE* story going on, or being told, but several stories, ongoing and continuously. There are individual player character stories--that begin at Chargen, like you maintain--and there is a story of the *group*; there are stories of the DM's overall campaign world, various NPC's, and all of it. Multi-layered, and different sub-stories of major characters, minor characters, all with different lives, different experiences, and different perspectives. Obviously, some characters may have more dramatic and meaningful stories--like potentially the player characters--while other characters, like one of the player character's younger sisters, may have an interesting story, but her story is far more ordinary and routine. And so on, with lots of different characters coming and going, interacting with the player characters, all contributing to different layers of stories that are developing and emerging throughout the campaign.
When any campaign begins--at Chargen--that is like when the "camera" clicks on, or the chronicler begins writing a new chapter. There were still stories that existed prior to *this immediate* story, such as the player character's adolescence, their apprenticeship or early training, whatever. There are stories set in the past, and stories unfolding currently, with unknown potential futures.
I'm not sure why some people are so disdainful of background stories for player characters. Background stories are the player character's foundations, how they identify with their character, get to know the character, where the character began, and where they go as they develop. Intellectually, personally, professionally, in all kinds of ways. Background development also provide a framework for player characters to "flesh out" their character, and interpret them and portray them at the table. Bein aware and mindful of the values they grew up with, the culture they were raised in, what kind of family they had, what kind of religion and spirituality their character embraces, and much more. Many of these dynamics are not determined in the "adventure" crawling through a dungeon, but during the character's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. That lays the foundations of the character, which are then modified, shaped, and grown by the character's new experiences. All of these kinds of details can help a player actually role-play their character in more realistic and meaningful ways, and not just as a game-piece to be slaughtered as a nameless red-shirt in the next dungeon crawl. Seeing that D&D is a role-playing game, I think that players actually embracing their characters and role-playing their characters should be seen as a oood thing to be encouraged. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 12:39:31 PM
Telling a story versus presenting a situation.
Neither. Sandbox players that are character-driven will have a great story of their own to tell at the end of their session.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PMThat's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
No, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.
You are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.
I think that this is driven, to somee extent, by the way the game approaches published adventures in general. D&D can handle both story-driven and situational out of the box, but the DM will have to work to make story-driven happen over the long term. Games where published adventures are more akin to "locale sourcebooks" are much easier to drive a story but the GM has a lot of work for situational things. Am example might be that an "adventure" describes a town with a mine, details the motivations of the significant NPCs and factions, and notes several hooks. But the details of the mine? Yeah, like filling out D&D's B1, it might be left to the GM to add that info.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on October 31, 2021, 08:19:13 PMYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.
Well they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.
QuoteWhat's the story?
SHARK, did not said that rolling character creates a story, he said - you tell your backstory to DM while creating character (which include rolling).
Though of course you can roll backstory - there are systems for that, or big random tables books from Old School times, various systems with backgrounds and so forth.
Some time ago I found three ancient PDFs of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern books who are all about generating backstories. Clunky as old times were, but still very funny to create character from.
Quotehat's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
Well yes - generally in systems where you roll your characters randomly it's wise and prude to design backstory after randomisation ended.
QuoteI'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.
And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.
Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.
And here we back to this pointless discussion about story definition. It's kinda obvious that story as used in terms "storygames" or "collaborative storytelling" is by definition not a string of past events. Story as "an account, often spoken, of what happened to someone or of how something happened" is just not relevant to this discussion.
QuoteYou tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.
Another definition of story: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" - ergo any decision making/any description by GM is story. You describe any NPC to your players - that's STORYTELLING. Go sue Oxford dictionary for having like 8 different "story" definitions.
Quote*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something! ;D
Dunno why. While truly I consider basically any time you speak about politics to be extremely obnoxious (more form, than content wise) I generally appreciate all your historical/worldbuilding posts, and consider them to be top notch RPG-logy.
QuoteBut in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.
But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?
I'd say that's vast majority of players I played with. Especially in long run, but then I never run/played like One-Shot of something like Tomb of Horrors, and I'd probably considered it closer to really weird boardgame than RPGs as I know it.
QuoteAnd, if said story about my very special snowflake has no impact on the game then it has no case ever thinking it, much less writing it.
Of course it does. Like "Lord of the Rings" is such powerful thing, because it has powerful both personal and historical backstory that is barely or sometimes at all revealed in books, and only later when you read "Silmarillion" and other books you're like: ooooooh! The problem is with overly complicated, snowflakey backstory, another clones of Drizzt Do'Urden. But otherwise even if given events from past, won't float directly they will inform player better who their characters are and enrich their roleplaying. (And of course always good string to sometimes pull).
QuoteMind you I'm not totally against PC backgrounds, but if I allow them then I have a table to roll on so you find out something about your PC and said background will provide some mechanical advantage/disadvantage to your PC.
Nothing more breaking immersion in game, than suddenly on session 88 learning you had two older brothers that taught you mud wrestling so you know how randomly rolled advantage on mud wrestling rolls. :P
QuoteI'm not sure why some people are so disdainful of background stories for player characters. Background stories are the player character's foundations, how they identify with their character, get to know the character, where the character began, and where they go as they develop. Intellectually, personally, professionally, in all kinds of ways. Background development also provide a framework for player characters to "flesh out" their character, and interpret them and portray them at the table. Bein aware and mindful of the values they grew up with, the culture they were raised in, what kind of family they had, what kind of religion and spirituality their character embraces, and much more. Many of these dynamics are not determined in the "adventure" crawling through a dungeon, but during the character's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. That lays the foundations of the character, which are then modified, shaped, and grown by the character's new experiences. All of these kinds of details can help a player actually role-play their character in more realistic and meaningful ways, and not just as a game-piece to be slaughtered as a nameless red-shirt in the next dungeon crawl. Seeing that D&D is a role-playing game, I think that players actually embracing their characters and role-playing their characters should be seen as a oood thing to be encouraged. ;D
THIS.
QuoteExactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.
As I said above at least one definition above quite clearly states that gameplay is telling a story in itself. That does not mean railroading - many novelist write their novels not knowing how this all shit gonna end, just going with the flow, and of course railroading is unecessary. But let's say if as DM I know one PC's hates Alzatzians because armies of NecroEmperor of Alsace and Allemania plundered his village when he was teenager, I may give some opportunities for party and given PC to engage with this topic along way if it's within realms of possibility, and obviously not pushing given player. This is chance for character arc, not writting it down beforehand.
And if he dies before, or just get busy with different shit - fine also.
Nevertheless taking this hatred into account, and letting it to appear in game - is IMHO specifically narrative/storytelling and not gaming aspect of DM's job.
QuoteNo, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.
Such ridiculous limitations are precisely why AD&D 1e is only one that specifically does not counts. But even if it counted - well suck it Gary - I have your rulings over rules amulet, and I will reverse any stupid rules you wrote down about unCharismatic Wizards and Priests. Duh. WIZARD IT IS.
Or dammit - let's be even more wonky and reverse 3e Theurge to 1e to making him Wizard/Priest.
QuoteYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.
As per Oxford dictionary - those random elements still become story when spoken. Pretending to make it more clean narrative are irrelevant.
QuoteWell they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.
That's just one of definitions.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 09:06:43 AM
QuoteWhat's the story?
SHARK, did not said that rolling character creates a story, he said - you tell your backstory to DM while creating character (which include rolling).
Though of course you can roll backstory - there are systems for that, or big random tables books from Old School times, various systems with backgrounds and so forth.
Some time ago I found three ancient PDFs of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern books who are all about generating backstories. Clunky as old times were, but still very funny to create character from.
Quotehat's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.
Well yes - generally in systems where you roll your characters randomly it's wise and prude to design backstory after randomisation ended.
QuoteI'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.
And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.
Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.
And here we back to this pointless discussion about story definition. It's kinda obvious that story as used in terms "storygames" or "collaborative storytelling" is by definition not a string of past events. Story as "an account, often spoken, of what happened to someone or of how something happened" is just not relevant to this discussion.
QuoteYou tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.
Another definition of story: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" - ergo any decision making/any description by GM is story. You describe any NPC to your players - that's STORYTELLING. Go sue Oxford dictionary for having like 8 different "story" definitions.
Quote*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something! ;D
Dunno why. While truly I consider basically any time you speak about politics to be extremely obnoxious (more form, than content wise) I generally appreciate all your historical/worldbuilding posts, and consider them to be top notch RPG-logy.
QuoteBut in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.
But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?
I'd say that's vast majority of players I played with. Especially in long run, but then I never run/played like One-Shot of something like Tomb of Horrors, and I'd probably considered it closer to really weird boardgame than RPGs as I know it.
QuoteAnd, if said story about my very special snowflake has no impact on the game then it has no case ever thinking it, much less writing it.
Of course it does. Like "Lord of the Rings" is such powerful thing, because it has powerful both personal and historical backstory that is barely or sometimes at all revealed in books, and only later when you read "Silmarillion" and other books you're like: ooooooh! The problem is with overly complicated, snowflakey backstory, another clones of Drizzt Do'Urden. But otherwise even if given events from past, won't float directly they will inform player better who their characters are and enrich their roleplaying. (And of course always good string to sometimes pull).
QuoteMind you I'm not totally against PC backgrounds, but if I allow them then I have a table to roll on so you find out something about your PC and said background will provide some mechanical advantage/disadvantage to your PC.
Nothing more breaking immersion in game, than suddenly on session 88 learning you had two older brothers that taught you mud wrestling so you know how randomly rolled advantage on mud wrestling rolls. :P
QuoteI'm not sure why some people are so disdainful of background stories for player characters. Background stories are the player character's foundations, how they identify with their character, get to know the character, where the character began, and where they go as they develop. Intellectually, personally, professionally, in all kinds of ways. Background development also provide a framework for player characters to "flesh out" their character, and interpret them and portray them at the table. Bein aware and mindful of the values they grew up with, the culture they were raised in, what kind of family they had, what kind of religion and spirituality their character embraces, and much more. Many of these dynamics are not determined in the "adventure" crawling through a dungeon, but during the character's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. That lays the foundations of the character, which are then modified, shaped, and grown by the character's new experiences. All of these kinds of details can help a player actually role-play their character in more realistic and meaningful ways, and not just as a game-piece to be slaughtered as a nameless red-shirt in the next dungeon crawl. Seeing that D&D is a role-playing game, I think that players actually embracing their characters and role-playing their characters should be seen as a oood thing to be encouraged. ;D
THIS.
QuoteExactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.
As I said above at least one definition above quite clearly states that gameplay is telling a story in itself. That does not mean railroading - many novelist write their novels not knowing how this all shit gonna end, just going with the flow, and of course railroading is unecessary. But let's say if as DM I know one PC's hates Alzatzians because armies of NecroEmperor of Alsace and Allemania plundered his village when he was teenager, I may give some opportunities for party and given PC to engage with this topic along way if it's within realms of possibility, and obviously not pushing given player. This is chance for character arc, not writting it down beforehand.
And if he dies before, or just get busy with different shit - fine also.
Nevertheless taking this hatred into account, and letting it to appear in game - is IMHO specifically narrative/storytelling and not gaming aspect of DM's job.
QuoteNo, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.
Such ridiculous limitations are precisely why AD&D 1e is only one that specifically does not counts. But even if it counted - well suck it Gary - I have your rulings over rules amulet, and I will reverse any stupid rules you wrote down about unCharismatic Wizards and Priests. Duh. WIZARD IT IS.
Or dammit - let's be even more wonky and reverse 3e Theurge to 1e to making him Wizard/Priest.
QuoteYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.
As per Oxford dictionary - those random elements still become story when spoken. Pretending to make it more clean narrative are irrelevant.
QuoteWell they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.
That's just one of definitions.
Greetings!
Thank you, Wrath of God. I am glad that you enjoy so many f my writings and crazy posts.
Indeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.
Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character.
Good stuff, Wrath of God. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
QuoteIndeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.
Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character
Agree completely.
But even besides it - if novelist is writing the novel, but he does not have a plan forward, but goes from scene to scene - puts his character and world, and himself as author - IN SITUATION - without knowing result, and then start to combine how to solve it - is it storytelling or situation. Seems like kinda irrelevant difference.
Non-RPG storygames like Fiasco or Microscope, or even heavily narrative RPGs like whole PBTA family, they do not opperate under notion that story is something written in stone. Story is something that will happen, and nature of specific game is to resolve what will happen, and eventually enforce some sort of genre of structure - I mean such genre enforcing element is for instance old rule Gold for XP. It's meant to provoke players to seek specific type of adventures - therefore enforcing genre.
So the true question is whether there is some balance of control between players assumed, or is GM dominating other players to point where they are helpless ragdolls on a ride. And on the other hand are games used properly with their notion. There are games with heavier narrative structures that can enforce some character arcs. But these days - for which I will preemptively blame Critical Role - it seems newbies are trying to put every possible type of game into 5e, with terrible results. (I see once someone asking for conversion of Call of Cthulhu into 5e and I think I could get some minor metastasis from it).
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 11:24:29 AM
QuoteIndeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.
Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character
Agree completely.
But even besides it - if novelist is writing the novel, but he does not have a plan forward, but goes from scene to scene - puts his character and world, and himself as author - IN SITUATION - without knowing result, and then start to combine how to solve it - is it storytelling or situation. Seems like kinda irrelevant difference.
Non-RPG storygames like Fiasco or Microscope, or even heavily narrative RPGs like whole PBTA family, they do not opperate under notion that story is something written in stone. Story is something that will happen, and nature of specific game is to resolve what will happen, and eventually enforce some sort of genre of structure - I mean such genre enforcing element is for instance old rule Gold for XP. It's meant to provoke players to seek specific type of adventures - therefore enforcing genre.
So the true question is whether there is some balance of control between players assumed, or is GM dominating other players to point where they are helpless ragdolls on a ride. And on the other hand are games used properly with their notion. There are games with heavier narrative structures that can enforce some character arcs. But these days - for which I will preemptively blame Critical Role - it seems newbies are trying to put every possible type of game into 5e, with terrible results. (I see once someone asking for conversion of Call of Cthulhu into 5e and I think I could get some minor metastasis from it).
Because the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...
Players have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".
The only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.
I don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.
The other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.
As opposed to some people here, I don't think contriving situations where everyone can shine is a novel concept. Kevin Siembada said as much in the Rifts Ultimate Edition handbook, and to call him anything but old school is simply incorrect. I do, however, disagree with removing any and all risk. I also realize that my luck is incredibly poor, and that other people probably have it better (two people in my group are known for having ridiculously good luck at certain points). As a player, I can recognize the frustration at being the only one who doesn't shine. There's a big difference between giving everyone an opportunity to rock and contriving it.
As with anything, I think there's opportunity for story. Did your GM twist fate a few times by letting you live? Make it so your BBEG gets that advantage as many times. Did your party's wizard die? He comes back to life, but now you've got a powerful necromancer loan-shark who brought him back telling you in no uncertain terms that if you don't pay him back, your entire party will spend the rest of eternity trapped inside his black sapphire he uses to punish those who default on their loans.
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 07, 2021, 12:40:40 PM
I don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.
The other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.
As opposed to some people here, I don't think contriving situations where everyone can shine is a novel concept. Kevin Siembada said as much in the Rifts Ultimate Edition handbook, and to call him anything but old school is simply incorrect. I do, however, disagree with removing any and all risk. I also realize that my luck is incredibly poor, and that other people probably have it better (two people in my group are known for having ridiculously good luck at certain points). As a player, I can recognize the frustration at being the only one who doesn't shine. There's a big difference between giving everyone an opportunity to rock and contriving it.
As with anything, I think there's opportunity for story. Did your GM twist fate a few times by letting you live? Make it so your BBEG gets that advantage as many times. Did your party's wizard die? He comes back to life, but now you've got a powerful necromancer loan-shark who brought him back telling you in no uncertain terms that if you don't pay him back, your entire party will spend the rest of eternity trapped inside his black sapphire he uses to punish those who default on their loans.
If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...
What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?
Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...
Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?
We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.
And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).
And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).
Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.
QuoteBecause the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...
In fact... yes. It's common syndrom of writers especially those liking to go deep into psychologies of characters, that they stop being cooperative. Their little microsimulations in writers brain starts running amok, against bigger simulaitons of overreaching plot.
QuotePlayers have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".
I most definitely commented upon railroading here. Now of course control of PCs vs World also differes from game to game.
QuoteThe only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.
As I said Oxford dictionary says that any description of fictional events or persons or places is STORY. When you play a game, then everything aside of side banter and eventual rule clarifications is precisely this. Any time PC is describing his character actions - he is telling the story - by describing fictional events taking place in imaginary word. Every time GM describes NPC to players - its =piece of story. And so on, and so on.
QuoteI don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.
That's a matter of picking proper system for cinematic antiques and bigger than life heroes. D&D generally speaking neither in OSR survival-exploration fantasy neighter in later Wuxia Tolkien incarnation is not system for such games.
QuoteThe other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.
Generally from what I heard and experienced most of tables had a problems to get coherent reason for Rooster A to work together, not to mention fifth re-rolls.
QuoteIf you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...
What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?
You never was achieving anything. Unless it's fucking chess. When it's dice roll - then it's just fate, and it's not more your achievement than GM's pure fiat without any rolling.
QuoteLet me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...
Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?
May be. But GM already have freebies in form of stronger monsters to neutralize his average rolls.
QuoteFudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.
Fudging rolls generally is bad method. (Better not roll and all and just decide by yourself.) But there are multiple games giving players various freebies. Fate points, luck points, carma points go figure.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 06:25:37 PM
QuoteBecause the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...
In fact... yes. It's common syndrom of writers especially those liking to go deep into psychologies of characters, that they stop being cooperative. Their little microsimulations in writers brain starts running amok, against bigger simulaitons of overreaching plot.
QuotePlayers have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".
I most definitely commented upon railroading here. Now of course control of PCs vs World also differes from game to game.
QuoteThe only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.
As I said Oxford dictionary says that any description of fictional events or persons or places is STORY. When you play a game, then everything aside of side banter and eventual rule clarifications is precisely this. Any time PC is describing his character actions - he is telling the story - by describing fictional events taking place in imaginary word. Every time GM describes NPC to players - its =piece of story. And so on, and so on.
QuoteI don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.
That's a matter of picking proper system for cinematic antiques and bigger than life heroes. D&D generally speaking neither in OSR survival-exploration fantasy neighter in later Wuxia Tolkien incarnation is not system for such games.
QuoteThe other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.
Generally from what I heard and experienced most of tables had a problems to get coherent reason for Rooster A to work together, not to mention fifth re-rolls.
QuoteIf you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...
What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?
You never was achieving anything. Unless it's fucking chess. When it's dice roll - then it's just fate, and it's not more your achievement than GM's pure fiat without any rolling.
QuoteLet me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...
Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?
May be. But GM already have freebies in form of stronger monsters to neutralize his average rolls.
QuoteFudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.
Fudging rolls generally is bad method. (Better not roll and all and just decide by yourself.) But there are multiple games giving players various freebies. Fate points, luck points, carma points go figure.
Bolding mine
Semantic games to win an argument? You know damn well what people are saying when they speak about story in RPGs, and yet here you are being disingenuous.
Bye, not gonna waste my time with you anymore.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 07, 2021, 01:31:21 PM
If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...
What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?
Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...
Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?
We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.
And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).
And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).
Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.
Fair points all around.
To answer your first question; I generally don't hide rolls. If I throw you a bone, I'd be clear about that. You're free to refuse it.
What I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin and me saying "Okay, we just started the campaign five minutes ago and I don't want you sitting there for the next two hours not playing". So you find a way to preserve drama. He's not dead, but his teammates need to get the hell out of this Goblin cave. Or maybe just say that if his teammates can get him a healing potion in a round he'll be fine. One of my former GMs had that rule.
I personally don't think it's enjoyable for the players or the GM to see a person put lots of work into a character and then have them killed unceremoniously in the first session.
But, what's important here, is that my example is from right out of the gate. I'd rather not have the momentum of the campaign crunched into pieces because half the party was killed by a failed Balance check (something that happened in another campaign. That was funny, honestly). But, and this is a sticking point, if you just make it so the PCs can't die, that's just boring. There's no risk involved. But if the PCs have been alive for a bit, gained a few levels, I'm probably not going to keep them alive. And ESPECIALLY not if they do something really stupid.
When I think of "telling a story" Tabletop RPG wise, I don't think of a rigid structure that the PCs have to follow, and that they should be adjusted when they act out of line. Rather, I think "How can I generate more conflict and keep things going?"
An example would involve a battle with a hydra (since it's stuck in my head now) and it eats one of the PCs in a single gulp. My "Freebie" to that player is going to be that the Hydra left enough behind in order to revive him. You can make a hundred plots out of that; do they have enough money to spare to revive him? Do they need to go into debt? Are they gonna take that Necromancer up on that offer to revive him (and thus risk going into debt with the Necromancer Mafia?). Even then, losing a level (if you're playing 3.5, at least) sucks ass. But being at higher levels allows you access to more resources, something a character at lower levels doesn't really have.
Still, you make a good point. If you're going to save the PCs, do it sparingly or else every victory feels hollow.
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 07, 2021, 07:49:19 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 07, 2021, 01:31:21 PM
If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...
What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?
Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...
Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?
We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.
And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).
And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).
Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.
Fair points all around.
To answer your first question; I generally don't hide rolls. If I throw you a bone, I'd be clear about that. You're free to refuse it.
What I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin and me saying "Okay, we just started the campaign five minutes ago and I don't want you sitting there for the next two hours not playing". So you find a way to preserve drama. He's not dead, but his teammates need to get the hell out of this Goblin cave. Or maybe just say that if his teammates can get him a healing potion in a round he'll be fine. One of my former GMs had that rule.
I personally don't think it's enjoyable for the players or the GM to see a person put lots of work into a character and then have them killed unceremoniously in the first session.
But, what's important here, is that my example is from right out of the gate. I'd rather not have the momentum of the campaign crunched into pieces because half the party was killed by a failed Balance check (something that happened in another campaign. That was funny, honestly). But, and this is a sticking point, if you just make it so the PCs can't die, that's just boring. There's no risk involved. But if the PCs have been alive for a bit, gained a few levels, I'm probably not going to keep them alive. And ESPECIALLY not if they do something really stupid.
When I think of "telling a story" Tabletop RPG wise, I don't think of a rigid structure that the PCs have to follow, and that they should be adjusted when they act out of line. Rather, I think "How can I generate more conflict and keep things going?"
An example would involve a battle with a hydra (since it's stuck in my head now) and it eats one of the PCs in a single gulp. My "Freebie" to that player is going to be that the Hydra left enough behind in order to revive him. You can make a hundred plots out of that; do they have enough money to spare to revive him? Do they need to go into debt? Are they gonna take that Necromancer up on that offer to revive him (and thus risk going into debt with the Necromancer Mafia?). Even then, losing a level (if you're playing 3.5, at least) sucks ass. But being at higher levels allows you access to more resources, something a character at lower levels doesn't really have.
Still, you make a good point. If you're going to save the PCs, do it sparingly or else every victory feels hollow.
Bolding mine
Okay, so you're talking only about the first adventure? Or not? I'm a bit confused here.
I'm not saying you're "Playing Wrong", I'm saying it's not for me.
Regarding the part I bolded: Blame it to me only playing OSR games AD&D2e being the latest D&D edition I will play and to my DM not allowing backgrounds for any character (If I understand that part about putting work into the character correctly) I don't see where the work comes if it's the first adventure, I might see a case for doing that then especially for new players, but then again, it might become something they will expect from me, so who knows?
Yeah the Almost dead Hydra stuck in my mind too, if only I could remember (or we had recorded the session) how the DM describet it when it came out from the passage/cavern... I casted Monster Summoning 1, giant leeches appear, they kill some fuglies and then I have them attack the Hydra...
And they kill it... We still tell the tale.
Like when our halfling singlehandedly killed a family of Giants, cut off the balls of the father and burned the teens... It was fucking epic! Or our Elf Mage/Thief casting Spectral Force and making it look like a giant Grim Reaper and having several badies die from fear... That was epic too.
Or me playing half drunk, forgetting stone giants magic resistance and casting magic missile on the leader... And having it throw a giant stone that landed on our NPC followers... insta death.
Or our halfling's previous character, a Dwarven fighter, killed by an Ankheg very early on the campaign.
Those are the tales we tell, over and over, not sure if I knew the DM ever gave us a freebie those tales would feel as epic as they do. Even if he sweared up and down those weren't freebies...
But hey, if you and the players are having fun you're playing it right.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 12:39:31 PM
When playing/DMing, do you think it's more important to tell a coherent story (with beats, pacing, etc) or to present a situation? (Here is the scenario, what do you do about it?
I lean heavily towards situation, but my situations are inspired mainly by stories I've heard/read. So it gets a bit fuzzy at the edges.
There should be at least a little structure. Otherwise it feels like you are just playing a RNG random encounter table.
eg: there are creatures out there doing... something. Better if its specific creatures in specific places. Like "There are ghouls in control of an old abandoned church." or "Goblins raid the local farms every fall." or "This merchant is paying well for people to go out to some ruins and recover a lost family treasure now in the hands of a elf and their minions." and so on.
They can be isolated, or interconnected.
Or you can run big sweeping epics like some old TSR module chains that have a baser plot. But the PCs can approach it from whatever angle they want.
QuoteSemantic games to win an argument? You know damn well what people are saying when they speak about story in RPGs, and yet here you are being disingenuous.
No you don't. Because most times when story is discussed as I've seen on groups and fora untold, it's precisely within frame of this Oxford definition you bolded. That's is common for discussing both RPGs and storygames, because anything other definition would boil situation down to railroading and railroading is quite commonly condemned in all RPG world from Wokester WoD players to OSR Libertarians.
It's only you and few other guys here pushing "story as account of something that happened in past" as only true definition to condemn storytelling in games. It's disingenuous but on your part.
You pushed your definition as only true multiple times, and suddenly when another non-native English speaker gonna correct you, I'm the bad guy. Good joke.
QuoteWhat I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin and me saying "Okay, we just started the campaign five minutes ago and I don't want you sitting there for the next two hours not playing". So you find a way to preserve drama. He's not dead, but his teammates need to get the hell out of this Goblin cave. Or maybe just say that if his teammates can get him a healing potion in a round he'll be fine. One of my former GMs had that rule.
Then USE system supporting such actions. Like dunno Warhammer when everyone has some Fate points. Or design campaign maybe in way where there is no goblin able to kill you five minutes into the game :P If you want drama like Hitchcock then sorry goblins won't do :P Taking deadly OSR game and then having problem with it's deadliness... so maybe I should beg you to try another game.
QuoteOr you can run big sweeping epics like some old TSR module chains that have a baser plot. But the PCs can approach it from whatever angle they want.
Indeed. I mean I've read some old old modules and having some basic storylines was not that uncommon (like plot about being caravan aids, and new problems happened each day/mile of travel)
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 08, 2021, 05:26:10 AM
QuoteSemantic games to win an argument? You know damn well what people are saying when they speak about story in RPGs, and yet here you are being disingenuous.
No you don't. Because most times when story is discussed as I've seen on groups and fora untold, it's precisely within frame of this Oxford definition you bolded. That's is common for discussing both RPGs and storygames, because anything other definition would boil situation down to railroading and railroading is quite commonly condemned in all RPG world from Wokester WoD players to OSR Libertarians.
It's only you and few other guys here pushing "story as account of something that happened in past" as only true definition to condemn storytelling in games. It's disingenuous but on your part.
On the off chance that is not another storygamer crusader on the maech... Here goes.
Storygamers a few years back thoroughly ruined the definition of what a story or even what an RPG is. To the point there have been claims here and on BGG that watching paint dry and grass grow, or my meteor sitting on my desk. "Tell a Story" but not any sane definition of story. And/Or are really real role playing. Or the old "ha-ha! You were really storygaming all along!"
And so every time someone mentions "story" it tends to get a knee jerk negative reaction because 9 times out of 10 its another storygamer nut trying to co-opt gaming. Or one of Pundits Swine. Sometimes its hard to tell one from the other.
If you read through some older posts you'll find quite a few here tend to see story as a byproduct of playing.
Personally I think a better term would be that it creates a backstory. Tales and legends of deeds past.
Can you weave all that into an actual story? Hell yes! Record of Lodoss War developed from a novelization of player logs for their BX D&D sessions. Almost certainly more out there. I ran a little business that did that for 5 years.
Can you have a RPG session that has a defined plot? Hell Yes! Theres some pretty good ones too out there. But theres also more that completely miss the point and fail miserably. And no. Having timed events and whatnod does not mean its a storygame or even a story. That can be world-in-motion sorts of dynamics. Especially if the PCs can avoid or derail a timed event.
Lots of ways to approach it and none are inherintly bad. Its how they are used and presented that is oft the problem. Or mis-used as is more often the problem.
QuoteOn the off chance that is not another storygamer crusader on the maech... Here goes.
Nah. I'm on simulationist/investigation side of those old clunky RPG theories.
I'm crusading for meaning of "story" not "storygame" (in fact I consider definition excluding true storygames like Fiasco from RPG's to be quite fine model of simulating gaming reality).
QuoteStorygamers a few years back thoroughly ruined the definition of what a story or even what an RPG is. To the point there have been claims here and on BGG that watching paint dry and grass grow, or my meteor sitting on my desk. "Tell a Story" but not any sane definition of story. And/Or are really real role playing. Or the old "ha-ha! You were really storygaming all along!"
And so every time someone mentions "story" it tends to get a knee jerk negative reaction because 9 times out of 10 its another storygamer nut trying to co-opt gaming. Or one of Pundits Swine. Sometimes its hard to tell one from the other.
I'm not sure you can really ruin definition, but more importantly - what are Pundit Swines?
QuoteIf you read through some older posts you'll find quite a few here tend to see story as a byproduct of playing.
Personally I think a better term would be that it creates a backstory. Tales and legends of deeds past
I think quite clear definition of backstory used by like 99% of RPG players - is events that happened to PCs/world before game started. I see little reason to change so commonly accepted definitions for sake of faux etymological correctness.
Now as I said one of Oxford definitions yes indeed generally can be fit to this "byproduct of playing" (or maybe even "product of playing") box.
QuoteCan you have a RPG session that has a defined plot? Hell Yes! Theres some pretty good ones too out there. But theres also more that completely miss the point and fail miserably. And no. Having timed events and whatnod does not mean its a storygame or even a story. That can be world-in-motion sorts of dynamics. Especially if the PCs can avoid or derail a timed event.
That I generally agree. For my storygames start when you takes players from actors chair into director/screenwriters chair, so they control no more their characters but plot itself.
As long as it's not the fing, then even new wave games IMHO count as RPGs.
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 07, 2021, 07:49:19 PM
What I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin ...
I personally don't think it's enjoyable for the players or the GM to see a person put lots of work into a character and then have them killed unceremoniously in the first session.
... I'd rather not have the momentum of the campaign crunched into pieces because half the party was killed by a failed Balance check (something that happened in another campaign.
Emphasis mine!
To me the problem with these games is right there in bold -- and not with the notion of character death.
Yes, if you like all those bolded items in your game, then you might want to protect PCs from dying, much like 5e does.
There's a reason that old-school play often eschews critical hits and extensive character builds or backstories.
As for the "TPK balance check" -- that's either a broken mechanic, or it involved the players intentionally and repeatedly demanding that they put themselves in a mortally risky position leading up to that "one check".
If your only form of punishment for player error is character death, consider a new hobby because you need some goddamn creativity.
You can't figure out how to screw with players aside from 'you ded, roll new character'? Seriously? What the hell?
I've got a half dozen things cooking in the campaign I'm running, based on actions the party has taken. Some of which are getting ready to bite them in the ass. It's gonna be FUN.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 10, 2021, 09:11:27 AM
If your only form of punishment for player error is character death, consider a new hobby because you need some goddamn creativity.
Also true, though non-fatal consequences are not mutually exclusive with fatal ones, so the logic here is tangential at best. Personally, I get the most enjoyment from games that include a variety of possible consequences, but still feel cheated if one of those consequences is not the Ultimate Consequence.
Quote from: Zalman on November 10, 2021, 09:21:27 AM
Also true, though non-fatal consequences are not mutually exclusive with fatal ones, so the logic here is tangential at best. Personally, I get the most enjoyment from games that include a variety of possible consequences, but still feel cheated if one of those consequences is not the Ultimate Consequence.
Yes. Plus, in RPGs, "a fate worse than death" is not just a colorful phrase. A GM can run a character into such a blender of social, mental, and physical disfigurement that the player would rather drop a dead character and start over. Whether the GM should or not is a different question, but the GM can do anything. Depending on the system and the cold-bloodedness of the GM, death isn't always the ultimate consequence. For me, it's even simpler: Your characters go around killing things, the other team wants to win too. No death possible, we'll play a different game where it isn't.
However, the fundamental disconnect, I think, is more about what people see as fun. For me, a TPK is its own kind of fun. Putting hours and hours building a character supposedly doing epic adventurers full of danger at every turn that can't die because of said investment in the character ... is ... not ... fun. It's letting the tail wag the dog.
Quote from: Omega on November 07, 2021, 11:57:42 PM
There should be at least a little structure. Otherwise it feels like you are just playing a RNG random encounter table.
eg: there are creatures out there doing... something. Better if its specific creatures in specific places. Like "There are ghouls in control of an old abandoned church." or "Goblins raid the local farms every fall." or "This merchant is paying well for people to go out to some ruins and recover a lost family treasure now in the hands of a elf and their minions." and so on.
A while ago we coined a term here (Lord Vreeg originated it) called "World in Motion." The idea is that setting has a life of its own with own comings and goings.
Quote from: Omega on November 07, 2021, 11:57:42 PM
Or you can run big sweeping epics like some old TSR module chains that have a baser plot. But the PCs can approach it from whatever angle they want.
With World in Motion some characters have the means realize grand plans and the resources to back that plan up. A would be Napoleon in a sense.
I wrote up a chapter on this and other related topics for my Majestic Fantasy RPG.
The World Outside the Dungeonhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z5G1a-2P4Eir8cznhO-oNnOf_MQYC_mX/view?usp=sharing
I feel the need to point out that I'm not arguing for either extreme, though I'm definitely more on the side of letting them die than to protect them from death for the sake of storytelling.
One of my old GMs (and my English teacher) once said that it doesn't matter if fiction is realistic. Just internally consistent so it maintains the feel of being real. I think the reason that character revival in 3rd edition became easier was because the game took a more story focused role. A player whose character just died wasn't expected to start again at Level 1 (and due to how EXP rewards were changed, they'd probably stay that way for far longer than they would in a game where treasure gave EXP). However, as characters rose in levels, this brought up a lot of questions.
Character levels could be seen as trophic levels in a food web. For those not familiar, a trophic level denotes a branch in a food chain/web where one part of the web eats what's below it. At the bottom you have plants and other producers, going up to herbivores, predators who eat those herbivores, and then at the top of the branch you have Apex predators, those who are high up enough that they munch on lesser predators. As a rule, as you increase a trophic level, you only retain 10% of the energy from the previous. Which is why there's many, MANY rabbits but very few foxes and coyotes who eat them. At the top trophic level, you're only at 0.001% of that remaining energy.
It's basically outright stated (some examples more explicitly than others) that character levels work this way. AD&D 1e outright states that PCs are exceptional, and that only a select bit of the population can rise beyond level 0. With D&D, as you keep rising in levels, the amount of people in the world at those levels decreases dramatically.
At Levels 1 to 4-5, you have the majority of adventurers. People who make it beyond that point get increasingly rarer. Eberron outright states that by 6th level, the PCs have seen more action than a city guard will in their entire lives. The E6 system for D&D reflects this idea, and the idea itself goes back as far as the article "Gandalf was a level 5 Wizard". Some have said a 20 level D&D 3.5 campaign has four quartiles:
Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: Superheroes
Aside with my disagreement with terminology, the idea holds up. If we look at this like a foodchain, it starts to make sense. Commoners and Level 0 people make up the first tier, and adventurers in the first quartile the second. Beyond that, characters start to grow stronger in leaps and bounds. I'd say that beyond a certain point (the end of the second quartile, or "Name" level in AD&D), the percentage of beings in the higher echelons of levels shrinks far more dramatically than by 10%. AD&D actually enforced this with the idea there could only be a limited number of high level Druids and Monks in the world. 3.5 enforced this by saying that a character could not gain Experience Points for defeating a monster with a Challenge Rating 8 levels lower than their character level.
The amount of those in the higher levels shrinks more and more. As you approach level 20, you get the best of the best. Masters of a particular school of magic, Archmages, High Priests, Master Thieves and Assassins, Great Druids, fighters who are essentially one man armies of destruction (or leading armies themselves). They might have cleared out huge areas and created communities. Those of magical or psychic profession have probably isolated themselves so they can focus on increasing their own powers or decided to go conquer/found their own state to rule. They might become liches or leave the Prime Material Plane to go explore the inner and outer planes. Those within the highest rungs of power (those who can cast spells like Wish, Miracle, True Resurrection and other top level magic) are exceedingly rare. Even more if you consider stat restrictions for performing those actions.
Depending on your setting, those over 20th Level probably number between a dozen or maybe a few hundred (Dark Sun comes to mind, mainly as an outlier, not the rule). Order of the Stick is a good example of a world where this phenomenon takes place. The amount of characters at Epic level shown so far in the comic has numbered less than 10.
Why this "Food Chain" rule happens depends on setting and system. In AD&D, you were probably going to hit level limits (if Demihuman) or simply not find enough treasure to reach those levels. There might not even be enough treasure in the world for more than a few of these superpowerful characters. More adventuring means more room for death, retirement or just aging so old you can't fight like you used too. Forces might seek to annihilate those who become threats to their power. Getting stronger is a good way to attract attention, wanted or unwanted. One of the GM's jobs in a setting is explaining this phenomenon.
Now, as to why I gave this long-ass inspired post. The reason 3rd Edition changed how resurrections worked is, in my opinion, an attempt to spare the GM and player the hard questions of "why is this super powerful character suddenly interested in joining the party?" as well as where they came from and what they've been doing. At high levels, the PCs have more resources and are less likely to die. If they're smart. Though when they do, chances are a player will want to keep playing. Everyone wins here; the GM doesn't need to bullshit up something, the player gets to keep playing their character, and worst case scenario they need to go on a solo adventure to regain that level they lost.
This is less of an endorsement of any of these ideas but more of an analysis. I was really inspired by this post, as you can see. ;D
Re PsyXypher
Quote
CLIP
Or the GM could just allow the player to make up a new character with lets say 2-3 levels lower than the one who died. And BS the why, when, where they join the party.
It's not like I would need to write a novellete about it. Just wait and insert the character into an encounter:
(Whatever location) you encounter a group of (Insert here the enemies) in battle with (insert here the new character) there appear to be some corpses lying around of what looks like (new character)'s party. What do you do?
There, I just gave the world one formula to insert a new character in any and all campaigns.
FFS, we've done this countles times when a new player joins the group. What's the difference when it's the same player with a new character?
Another formula is to have the new character captive of the baddies.
QuoteIt's not like I would need to write a novellete about it. Just wait and insert the character into an encounter:
(Whatever location) you encounter a group of (Insert here the enemies) in battle with (insert here the new character) there appear to be some corpses lying around of what looks like (new character)'s party. What do you do?
There, I just gave the world one formula to insert a new character in any and all campaigns.
The only problem with this model is, it's narratively BIG MEH.
QuoteFFS, we've done this countles times when a new player joins the group. What's the difference when it's the same player with a new character?
No difference. MEH in both cases.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 05:09:54 PM
QuoteIt's not like I would need to write a novellete about it. Just wait and insert the character into an encounter:
(Whatever location) you encounter a group of (Insert here the enemies) in battle with (insert here the new character) there appear to be some corpses lying around of what looks like (new character)'s party. What do you do?
There, I just gave the world one formula to insert a new character in any and all campaigns.
The only problem with this model is, it's narratively BIG MEH.
QuoteFFS, we've done this countles times when a new player joins the group. What's the difference when it's the same player with a new character?
No difference. MEH in both cases.
Good thing then IDGAF about being
narratively BIG YEAH then.
I'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 10, 2021, 05:51:18 PMI'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
An important distinction lost on many GMs. Which is unfortunate, since they would generally make poor novelists, and adding members to the committee doing the writing doesn't improve things.
QuoteGood thing then IDGAF about being narratively BIG YEAH then.
I'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
Game which still is narration though improvised and may be MEH or BIG YEAH.
QuoteAn important distinction lost on many GMs. Which is unfortunate, since they would generally make poor novelists, and adding members to the committee doing the writing doesn't improve things.
I do not think that adding characters in way that does not seems utterly shoehorned just so player can keep playing quickly, is in any way equivalent of writing a novel.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 10, 2021, 06:05:04 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 10, 2021, 05:51:18 PMI'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
An important distinction lost on many GMs. Which is unfortunate, since they would generally make poor novelists, and adding members to the committee doing the writing doesn't improve things.
I don't see how that's relevant, unless you're playing D&D solely as a game where players go on adventures. I generally expect a level of consistency in whatever story I watch/read/listen to.
Which is why I put so much emphasis on the changing viewpoints. Another changing aspect that I suspect is involved is that AD&D (both first and second) assumed players would stop playing around a certain level, as opposed to having a full on 20 level campaign.
One of the most common responses to demihuman level limits I've seen is "They never come up because we don't play that long".
Anyway, that's just my view on the matter. Not saying you're wrong or anything. We just have different expectations.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron on November 10, 2021, 06:05:04 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 10, 2021, 05:51:18 PMI'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
An important distinction lost on many GMs. Which is unfortunate, since they would generally make poor novelists, and adding members to the committee doing the writing doesn't improve things.
This guy gets it, someone buy him a beverage of his liking in my name please.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 06:06:24 PM
QuoteGood thing then IDGAF about being narratively BIG YEAH then.
I'm playing a game, not writting a novel.
Game which still is narration though improvised and may be MEH or BIG YEAH.
QuoteAn important distinction lost on many GMs. Which is unfortunate, since they would generally make poor novelists, and adding members to the committee doing the writing doesn't improve things.
I do not think that adding characters in way that does not seems utterly shoehorned just so player can keep playing quickly, is in any way equivalent of writing a novel.
Wrongo bongo, I'm not "narrating" I'm describing a situation. Important distinction there dude.
No there is not any distinction. As soon as description leaves your mouth, it's estabilished narration :P
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 06:58:09 PM
No there is not any distinction. As soon as description leaves your mouth, it's estabilished narration :P
More semantic games, no it's not the same and you know what people mean, but choose to use semantic "arguments".
Narration: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/narration (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/narration)
Narrate: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/narrating (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/narrating)
Describe: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/describe (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/describe)
Not even the examples used agree with you.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/narrate
Ergo - to tell a story. And as we discussed despite your sperg attempts to claim otherwise - playing RPG containt telling a story - as any in-verse event, any attempt by player, everything happening in character, any description of NPC is a story
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 07:57:19 PM
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/narrate
Ergo - to tell a story. And as we discussed despite your sperg attempts to claim otherwise - playing RPG containt telling a story - as any in-verse event, any attempt by player, everything happening in character, any description of NPC is a story
Narrate IS to tell a story, I'm not doing that.
Nope they aren't.
For instance you're a huge cunt while yes I'm an aspie. It's not a story it's just me stating two facts.
But if it was fictional situation it would be a story.
Telling any fictional event or situation is narrating a story.
As Oxford dictionary clearly shows. So maybe do Anglos a favour - don't try to redefine their words, against their dictionaries, and they won't try to explain you difference between tsikbal and báaxal.
And Oxford says that among other things story is:
"description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" (in fact it's first of given definitions).
Which is exactly what GM do when he describes like anything in their world. And exactly what any player do describing his character actions and dialogues (because quite obviously characters and NPC talking also contitutes event).
Greetings!
Well, when I was in college--taking English classes, about reading, writing, storytelling--it became quite clear that our whole lives are "stories". I'm not sure where some of you get this strict, narrow concept of what a "story" is--are the events, dialogue, and actions of player characters a story, after the adventure? Well, yes, of course.
But that is not the only definition, or even parameter and scope, of stories, and storytelling. Everything that a player's character did--before they met up with the rest of the group--is a story.
Each of the different player characters--their characters each have a *different* story in their backgrounds, before they met up with the rest of the group.
Once the player characters have all met up--the relationships that they establish amongst themselves, as well as various NPC's--is a STORY.
All of that, including the DM telling the players how their characters fit into the world, different NPC's and so on--yeah, that, too, is a STORY.
All of these different stories going on, and being developed, BEFORE the group ever sets foot in the fucking dungeon.
All of the stuff that the players do during the game adventure, yeah, as I mentioned, that is a story as well. But it is just ONE story, amongst several, all going on at the same time, flowing like a river.
After the adventure, there is the story from the adventure, but that isn't the only story. There are stories ongoing amongst each of the player characters, interacting with different NPC's, different relationships--those are all individual stories. All of those stories are ongoing, and interconnect with each other--or may potentially do so--while also being separate and different from each other.
Romances between different characters, friendships developed, allies made, family members, different NPC's, relationships between the player characters, different rivals and enemies made by the sorceress, or the rogue and so on--all of those different relationships are different, ongoing stories.
It isn't ONLY about what goes on during the adventure scenario alone, out in the haunted marsh, or in the dungeon below the border fortress. There are all kinds of different stories going on throughout the adventure, throughout the campaign, constantly.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Shark,
Technically, anything with conflict is a story. There's a guy in the woods. No story. There a bear in the same woods. Almost a story, or at least foreshadowing. Guy meets bear. Now we have conflict; ergo we have a story.
Thing is, it's not much of a story, even of its particular type.
In RPGs, role playing isn't a story. It's an activity of imagination, but no story. One can role play with no conflict whatsoever. There is also the game element to consider. The thing that really makes the thing sing is the mixture of the RP and the G. A good mixture of that with an otherwise boring story can be great fun. Of course, a good mixture that happens to follow a narrative structure that resonates with the players and conflicts that they find interesting is even better. To sacrifice the RP or the G for the sake of the "story" points is to turn the thing into something else. That something else may be fun for some people, but not for me. Waxing poetic about the possibilities of story doesn't change the basic tension between role playing, game, and real story.
Backgrounds are a separate can of worms. Either the background has conflict in it or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's not story, in the same way me "telling the story" about going to town, buying a bag of flour, and then going home isn't a story either. It's, at best, a narrative description or a vignette. Even done well, they are often not very interesting--usually about as interesting as someone telling you about a dream. If the background has resolved conflict, it' is a story. Not very useful in the game most likely, but perhaps useful in a summarized form as a kind of character foreshadowing. Thing is, the summary is almost as useful as the whole thing, and takes a short paragraph from anyone, and two sentences if done well.
That leaves backgrounds with unresolved conflicts (presumably, because the player wants to resolve them in play). That's effectively starting a least some of the characters in media res, which has its place in skilled hands. It is, however, incompatible with, "and your character dies to random goblin in his first fight." Or at least a lot of wasted effort should that happen. Which brings us back to what kind of activity we are doing and which part get the emphasis.
Mainly, "story" has widely different meanings in many of the posts just in this topic, never mind the broader, never ending discussion of stories in RPGs. What a lot of folks are saying is their conclusions on the paths they take and the choices they made. For me, I'm not interested in certain types of stories--because they mean that a character can't die, and that's not a very fun game--whatever fun it may be other than "game".
Finally, there is difference between story and pretense of a story. Confused because so many things that people call stories (even in literature) are pretense of a story. Or at least pretense of a form. Characters dressed up in trench coats, talking to "dames", and roughing up goons while looking for the murderer may or may not be a mystery story. Many of them aren't. They are an account of people dressed up playing the parts. If they find clues and solve things with their brains, it's a mystery story. If they get captured by the goons but fight their way out, it might be an adventure story. If they dress up and go around being in scenes and get handed the answer without the author bothering to show us the deduction or the fights, then it's not really a story anymore.
Despite an RPG adventure having multiple "authors" and random outcomes and role play and gaming and all the rest, it can still run afoul of the pretense. A good RPG session usually looks a lot different from a good book. A bad RPG pretense looks an awful lot like a bad novel pretense.
This last is a major fault line among "gamers": Those that like to play pretend as an elf versus those that like to pretend to play as an elf versus those that like to play at making decisions as an elf. They sound like the same thing, but they aren't. The shape of the "story" goes into radically different directions depending on which ones the players do.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 08:29:56 PM
But if it was fictional situation it would be a story.
Telling any fictional event or situation is narrating a story.
As Oxford dictionary clearly shows. So maybe do Anglos a favour - don't try to redefine their words, against their dictionaries, and they won't try to explain you difference between tsikbal and báaxal.
And Oxford says that among other things story is:
"description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" (in fact it's first of given definitions).
Which is exactly what GM do when he describes like anything in their world. And exactly what any player do describing his character actions and dialogues (because quite obviously characters and NPC talking also contitutes event).
Bolding mine
Nope, the GM invents shit to give the players stuff to resonate with. But not all of the time, also the players can go on their own and the GM simply follows and rolls for random encounters.
What you insist in not grasping is that there's no "writer" in RPGs (Unless you're playing a module raw and railroading the players so they follow the script).
So maybe don't try tu use terms that don't apply and people won't tell you you're wrong.
I imagine something about that fact hurts your butt mightily.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 10, 2021, 08:23:57 AM
I'm not sure you can really ruin definition, but more importantly - what are Pundit Swines?
QuoteIf you read through some older posts you'll find quite a few here tend to see story as a byproduct of playing.
Personally I think a better term would be that it creates a backstory. Tales and legends of deeds past
I think quite clear definition of backstory used by like 99% of RPG players - is events that happened to PCs/world before game started. I see little reason to change so commonly accepted definitions for sake of faux etymological correctness.
Now as I said one of Oxford definitions yes indeed generally can be fit to this "byproduct of playing" (or maybe even "product of playing") box.
QuoteCan you have a RPG session that has a defined plot? Hell Yes! Theres some pretty good ones too out there. But theres also more that completely miss the point and fail miserably. And no. Having timed events and whatnod does not mean its a storygame or even a story. That can be world-in-motion sorts of dynamics. Especially if the PCs can avoid or derail a timed event.
That I generally agree. For my storygames start when you takes players from actors chair into director/screenwriters chair, so they control no more their characters but plot itself.
As long as it's not the fing, then even new wave games IMHO count as RPGs.
1a: It happens all the time. Definitions have been increasingly twisted out of shape or recognition by those wanting to cash in on the term or whos idea of any goven term approaches, or is "everything on earth". And alot of storygamers push the terms like RPG or Story straight to the "everything on earth" point.
1b: Pundits Swine are storygamers who have gone from just being occasionally annoying, to some sort of cult. A few years back the Forge cult and to a lesser degree the GNS were particularly bothersome. They would edit sites like Wikipedia and push hard on various fora I saw. And occasionally still see. BGG seems to have become a haven for the last holdouts. And more than a few drive by "ha ha! You were storygaming all along!" which endears no one.
2: Backstory is whats gone before. And that can be the stuff that happened before the adventures start. Or it can be the adventures tale told after. Alot of folk are ever adding to their backstory as their character goes along. Sometimes its just a sentence or two like "After training we traveled out to a keep and fought some cultists in a valley full of monsters." and later that could be expanded to " And then we set sail to an island to the south that was full of dinosaurs and helped some flying raccoons." Or could be more embellished and detailed.
Another term might be the characters history. Or both?
3: I think thats also part of the oft intense hatred directed at storygamers. The push to either chain and restrict the DM, or outright remove them and make everyone a mini-DM. Also the push away from actual role playing and into, well, storytelling.
On the subject of character death and replacement.
Personally I liked O and BX and to a lesser degree AD&D's system where you could draw on new characters from the retinue of hencemen, retainers, mercs or whatever other NPCs the PCs had on tow.
With those being phased out by 2e, or it not being a viable option prior for situational reasons, the second advice I liked was just wait till the party gets back to town, or rescue some hostages and the new PC is introduced that way. Or even a survivor of another adventuring group they come across soon after some character falls.
Lots of ways to smoothly introduce a replacement without needing to jump through narrative hoops to poof them into existence. (Well unless the new PC was just rescued from a Mirror of Trapping, in shich case the DID just poof into existence. heh.)
And a bemusing one from the Eye of the Beholder D&D PC games. Along the way you could find bones of fallen adventurers. If you found enough you could have them raised to join the party or replace someone lost.
Quote from: Omega on November 11, 2021, 09:00:59 AM
On the subject of character death and replacement.
Personally I liked O and BX and to a lesser degree AD&D's system where you could draw on new characters from the retinue of hencemen, retainers, mercs or whatever other NPCs the PCs had on tow.
With those being phased out by 2e, or it not being a viable option prior for situational reasons, the second advice I liked was just wait till the party gets back to town, or rescue some hostages and the new PC is introduced that way. Or even a survivor of another adventuring group they come across soon after some character falls.
Lots of ways to smoothly introduce a replacement without needing to jump through narrative hoops to poof them into existence. (Well unless the new PC was just rescued from a Mirror of Trapping, in shich case the DID just poof into existence. heh.)
And a bemusing one from the Eye of the Beholder D&D PC games. Along the way you could find bones of fallen adventurers. If you found enough you could have them raised to join the party or replace someone lost.
Rescuing some ancient hero from imprisonment actually sounds like a good idea, I won't lie. Maybe that necromancer you just beat has your replacement character trapped in that gem your party just smashed.
As for the idea that presenting a situation is telling a story, I think it is. It's just a different method than rigid storytelling. You can make a story out an after action report from a Warhammer game, and you could probably make one from a D&D game where you set a scene and then let your PCs do whatever.
This isn't meant to be a "Gotcha" but rather an analysis. Maybe you'll disagree.
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 11, 2021, 11:04:53 AM
As for the idea that presenting a situation is telling a story, I think it is. It's just a different method than rigid storytelling. You can make a story out an after action report from a Warhammer game, and you could probably make one from a D&D game where you set a scene and then let your PCs do whatever.
This isn't meant to be a "Gotcha" but rather an analysis. Maybe you'll disagree.
1: It isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Possibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
2: Too early to tell. We'll hang ya later ya varmint! :o
This is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
I live with a novel editor and book-writing coach... this conversation is one I have to help beat into the heads of writers that don't understand a "situation" isn't a story. It's a situation. When writing a novel you have to establish the narrative of those "situations" that occur in the book in a structure that has a beginning, middle, and end and it has an established structure.
TTRPG's are *not* that in play. Situations happen, the PC's react to them, they create them but there is no definitive ending to it until the actual resolution occurs and there is a moment to look back at it. Can it be planned? Sure. But until it's over - it's not over and therefore there is no "story".
There are situations that chain themselves to other situations logically, but the ACT of engaging in those situations isn't a story until the resolution occurs. Just like your life isn't a story until you parse it between a set of events that have some meaning which isn't established until after the fact.
Quote from: Omega on November 12, 2021, 06:03:19 AM
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 11, 2021, 11:04:53 AM
As for the idea that presenting a situation is telling a story, I think it is. It's just a different method than rigid storytelling. You can make a story out an after action report from a Warhammer game, and you could probably make one from a D&D game where you set a scene and then let your PCs do whatever.
This isn't meant to be a "Gotcha" but rather an analysis. Maybe you'll disagree.
1: It isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Possibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
2: Too early to tell. We'll hang ya later ya varmint! :o
1: You'll find that many here do think that "Telling a story = everything on earth".
Quote from: Omega on November 12, 2021, 06:03:19 AM
1: It isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Possibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
2: Too early to tell. We'll hang ya later ya varmint! :o
You're right. Presenting the situation isn't a story. It's a summary. When all is said and done, and you've beaten the orcs, the events between that and the conclusion are your "story". Granted if your entire campaign is a single encounter it's a really boring story.
I disagree with the idea that "Everything on Earth" is a story. Because by definition, a story is supposed to have a conclusion, whilst in real life, there's no ending; just when the storytellers stop telling the story.
My main point is that the method you told the story in is different (a group effort and mainly up to chance) but you've still told a story in some fashion.
Actually, in hindsight, it's not really storytelling but similar to improvised comedy.
Hmmmm. We're getting all philosophical at this point. :o
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 12, 2021, 12:29:28 PM
Quote from: Omega on November 12, 2021, 06:03:19 AM
1: It isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Possibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
2: Too early to tell. We'll hang ya later ya varmint! :o
You're right. Presenting the situation isn't a story. It's a summary. When all is said and done, and you've beaten the orcs, the events between that and the conclusion are your "story". Granted if your entire campaign is a single encounter it's a really boring story.
I disagree with the idea that "Everything on Earth" is a story. Because by definition, a story is supposed to have a conclusion, whilst in real life, there's no ending; just when the storytellers stop telling the story.
My main point is that the method you told the story in is different (a group effort and mainly up to chance) but you've still told a story in some fashion.
Actually, in hindsight, it's not really storytelling but similar to improvised comedy.
Hmmmm. We're getting all philosophical at this point. :o
In reality you, thru your PCs are making history in the game world, YOU might afterwards tell a story about what happened, doesn't mean you were telling one while things were transpiring.
In the same way that you might tell a story about what happened in your vacations but you don't go in a vacation to tell a story and are not telling a story by vacationing.
It's also true that the GM might have NPCs telling and re-telling stories about the PCs adventures in the game world, we call this getting in world famous (or infamous). So the PCs get to a town they haven't visited before but their fame precedes them making things either easier or harder for them depending on what side the town sees itself as a part of.
And still neither the GM nor the players were telling a story while playing the current session/adventure.
I've taken advantage of our party's fame several times so far in our AD&D2e campaign. So far it has been advantageous, but I figure someday it could be dissadvantageous.
So, in the background, NPCs have been telling stories about our exploits. But we weren't telling a story during said exploits.
Quote from: PsyXypher on November 12, 2021, 12:29:28 PM
Quote from: Omega on November 12, 2021, 06:03:19 AM
1: It isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Possibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
2: Too early to tell. We'll hang ya later ya varmint! :o
You're right. Presenting the situation isn't a story. It's a summary. When all is said and done, and you've beaten the orcs, the events between that and the conclusion are your "story". Granted if your entire campaign is a single encounter it's a really boring story.
I disagree with the idea that "Everything on Earth" is a story. Because by definition, a story is supposed to have a conclusion, whilst in real life, there's no ending; just when the storytellers stop telling the story.
My main point is that the method you told the story in is different (a group effort and mainly up to chance) but you've still told a story in some fashion.
Actually, in hindsight, it's not really storytelling but similar to improvised comedy.
Hmmmm. We're getting all philosophical at this point. :o
Greetings!
Indeed, I don't think that storytelling or stories are equal to "everything on earth" at all.
It certainly does seem like many here though hold to a very narrow definition of what a story is. Stories, and storytelling, however, is broader than that. I learned that in college, from English professors. Beyond that, since we are discussing gaming, there are many, many prominent gamer channels that all talk about stories, storytelling, about how D&D is all about stories, storytelling, and the stories you engage in at your table and in your campaign, and so on. They also are not just talking about a start, middle, and ending, or just explicitly what goes on during the "adventure"--but that stories and storytelling encompasses a broader scope than just that. Obviously, PsyXypher, there are many people that understand what you are getting at very well. It is a well-established understanding of stories and storytelling, though it isn't very popular here on this website, apparently.
I suppose that looking at stories and storytelling having broader scope and definition is something you either get, or don't. Rlationships are stries, in progress, as it were. Nations have stries. Some, like the Roman Empire, have definite structure, whle others, like America's story, is ongoing. Individual peoplehave stories. YOU have a story. Your relationships with each of your friends and family members--those too, are different "stories". Stories don't all follow one scope or one defition, but have a broader application. Some stories are onging, and haven't reached, or don't have, a definite conclusion. *shrugs* Like I said, it is either something that someone gets or doesn't.
Personally, I should also note that these discussions have zero to do with "storygaming" as far as the weird philosophy of forcing players into some kind of codified narrative, giving players control over the game, and other such nonsense. The Forge, storygamers, and the "Swine"--that all is a very different argument and discussion about indie game deveopers creating games that were structurally very different from a traditional TTRPG like D&D.
This is just discussion on how gaming works out in play and development at the table between the DM and the Player characters. As many gamers insist, D&D is all about storytelling. It seems like such an obvious thing, but again, apparently some people have this deep seated hatred and loathing of any mention of "stories" or "storytelling". It seems weird to me, for sure. D&D is all about storytelling, and always has been. There is also definitely a game going on, but it is wrapped up and interwoven with storytelling elements, and a storytelling process.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote
Nope, the GM invents shit to give the players stuff to resonate with. But not all of the time, also the players can go on their own and the GM simply follows and rolls for random encounters.
What you insist in not grasping is that there's no "writer" in RPGs (Unless you're playing a module raw and railroading the players so they follow the script).
So maybe don't try tu use terms that don't apply and people won't tell you you're wrong.
I imagine something about that fact hurts your butt mightily.
I have no idea, why should I accept your opinion about what's wrong my Mayan friend.
It's your word against mine, or more specificaly against Oxford dictionary :P
The point it - it does not matter whether GM invent shit out of his ass, or roll for table of random encounters.
Like I can write novel rolling on random events instead inventing everything from depths of my soul - that's still gonna be a novel.
So it's irrelevant - any sentence by GM describing events, places, people, history of fictional world is STORY.
Any sentence by players describing fictional actions of their characters is a story as quick as they leave their very throats.
When spoken it's a story. (Unless your GM gonna retcon this shit, or player if you're on DungeonCon).
Any described situation is part of story, state of things in fictional universe. And all that happens in ficitonal universe is a story.
TBH I love lots and lots of random rolls because I believe they usually generate better story elements than people's own ideas :P
QuoteTechnically, anything with conflict is a story. There's a guy in the woods. No story. There a bear in the same woods. Almost a story, or at least foreshadowing. Guy meets bear. Now we have conflict; ergo we have a story.
Thing is, it's not much of a story, even of its particular type.
In RPGs, role playing isn't a story. It's an activity of imagination, but no story. One can role play with no conflict whatsoever. There is also the game element to consider. The thing that really makes the thing sing is the mixture of the RP and the G. A good mixture of that with an otherwise boring story can be great fun. Of course, a good mixture that happens to follow a narrative structure that resonates with the players and conflicts that they find interesting is even better. To sacrifice the RP or the G for the sake of the "story" points is to turn the thing into something else. That something else may be fun for some people, but not for me. Waxing poetic about the possibilities of story doesn't change the basic tension between role playing, game, and real story.
No, Steven, technically - ergo according to dictionary universe - description of fictional flying castle is a story. No conflict, no events. Description of place. Story.
You try to mix some rail-roady GM's plan for established narrative with a story at wide. It's just not correct. While I agree game element generally exist as not-story though connected - after all game/dice generates lot of story, to free it from bias of DM and players - the roleplaying is story. Like any action of character described, announced by player is story from the moment player says it. No contradiction. It does not need to follow dramatic rules, screenwriting promise and delivery to be a story. I can describe my uneventful walk through forest and it's story.
Difference between this and RPG is - RPG is all fictional ergo situation is always a story while in relations of real life those are ontologically distinct. Because you know RPG is not real life.
QuoteBackgrounds are a separate can of worms. Either the background has conflict in it or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's not story, in the same way me "telling the story" about going to town, buying a bag of flour, and then going home isn't a story either. It's, at best, a narrative description or a vignette. Even done well, they are often not very interesting--usually about as interesting as someone telling you about a dream. If the background has resolved conflict, it' is a story. Not very useful in the game most likely, but perhaps useful in a summarized form as a kind of character foreshadowing. Thing is, the summary is almost as useful as the whole thing, and takes a short paragraph from anyone, and two sentences if done well.
That leaves backgrounds with unresolved conflicts (presumably, because the player wants to resolve them in play). That's effectively starting a least some of the characters in media res, which has its place in skilled hands. It is, however, incompatible with, "and your character dies to random goblin in his first fight." Or at least a lot of wasted effort should that happen. Which brings us back to what kind of activity we are doing and which part get the emphasis.
Mainly, "story" has widely different meanings in many of the posts just in this topic, never mind the broader, never ending discussion of stories in RPGs. What a lot of folks are saying is their conclusions on the paths they take and the choices they made. For me, I'm not interested in certain types of stories--because they mean that a character can't die, and that's not a very fun game--whatever fun it may be other than "game".
Finally, there is difference between story and pretense of a story. Confused because so many things that people call stories (even in literature) are pretense of a story. Or at least pretense of a form. Characters dressed up in trench coats, talking to "dames", and roughing up goons while looking for the murderer may or may not be a mystery story. Many of them aren't. They are an account of people dressed up playing the parts. If they find clues and solve things with their brains, it's a mystery story. If they get captured by the goons but fight their way out, it might be an adventure story. If they dress up and go around being in scenes and get handed the answer without the author bothering to show us the deduction or the fights, then it's not really a story anymore.
Despite an RPG adventure having multiple "authors" and random outcomes and role play and gaming and all the rest, it can still run afoul of the pretense. A good RPG session usually looks a lot different from a good book. A bad RPG pretense looks an awful lot like a bad novel pretense.
This last is a major fault line among "gamers": Those that like to play pretend as an elf versus those that like to pretend to play as an elf versus those that like to play at making decisions as an elf. They sound like the same thing, but they aren't. The shape of the "story" goes into radically different directions depending on which ones the players do.
As I said - this demand of conflict is totally without any linguistic base, sorry.
In fact I'd say RPG demands conflict more than written word stories. I mean you can make written stories based mostly on descriptions and feelings, but it won't work for RPG in a long run.
Like sure roleplaying shopping is conflict-less usually but it works as part of conflict-full overall story. It would not work on it's own.
Quote1a: It happens all the time. Definitions have been increasingly twisted out of shape or recognition by those wanting to cash in on the term or whos idea of any goven term approaches, or is "everything on earth". And alot of storygamers push the terms like RPG or Story straight to the "everything on earth" point.
But that's not even a twist. Like backstory was "what happened before" start of game/start of novel from the very beginning. It's like... standard. Trying to mark is as some woke-twist to push own definition forged artificially without any regard for living languages... well that's someone either wokester or dunno authist would do.
Quote1b: Pundits Swine are storygamers who have gone from just being occasionally annoying, to some sort of cult. A few years back the Forge cult and to a lesser degree the GNS were particularly bothersome. They would edit sites like Wikipedia and push hard on various fora I saw. And occasionally still see. BGG seems to have become a haven for the last holdouts. And more than a few drive by "ha ha! You were storygaming all along!" which endears no one.
But why are they named after our dear Head Amin?
Quote2: Backstory is whats gone before. And that can be the stuff that happened before the adventures start. Or it can be the adventures tale told after. Alot of folk are ever adding to their backstory as their character goes along. Sometimes its just a sentence or two like "After training we traveled out to a keep and fought some cultists in a valley full of monsters." and later that could be expanded to " And then we set sail to an island to the south that was full of dinosaurs and helped some flying raccoons." Or could be more embellished and detailed.
Backstory for a game will always be event from BEFORE game timeline started.
Of course events of game can be turned into backstory in-verse were for instance PC's shall meet new allies and friends and recollect earlier events. For those new NPC's it's gonna be backstory (as their mutual story with PC's happened only later). But from overall game perspective... no not really. Like no one uses it like that, sorry.
Quote3: I think thats also part of the oft intense hatred directed at storygamers. The push to either chain and restrict the DM, or outright remove them and make everyone a mini-DM. Also the push away from actual role playing and into, well, storytelling.
Push to restrain and limit DM is result of decades of shitty DM's abusing "rulings not rules" paradigms.
But as I said I consider roleplaying a form of storytelling. Telling story of one guy - his decisions, his actions on a background of wider GM spun campaign. As long as player is directly linked to specific avatar of PC, and not limited to metagaming only, it's for me roleplaying.
QuoteIt isnt. Presenting a situation is not telling a story. Its describing a situation. "You are attacked by 4 orcs from the bushes" is not telling a story unless ones definition of story is starting to approach "everything on earth".
Any description of fictional events resolved or not is a story. Orcs attack when announced becomes part of narration, become estabilished story. Story not finished, but damn if story had to be finished, then bloody Song of Ice and Fire is just one big situation as clearly GRRM had no idea what should happen next to close thing - so he presented himself into situation. He wrote those 4 orcs, and just start procrastinating.
Eternal Situation of the Novel.
QuotePossibly what you are thinking of is the more verbose descriptions some DMs give. Its still not telling a story despite what Pundit and some others here would like to claim.
I literally quote twice definition for Oxford freaking Dictionary that any description of fictional events or places or people, spoken or written constitutes a story. Not more verbose. Any.
Once you told as GM "You are attacked by 4 orcs" this attack become part of story. One would say unfinished, but then novel half into writing is not finished either. So situation does not have to be solved to become story. It just have to be narrated fictional event.
QuoteThis is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
And whatever they announce they are doing in-verse is a story.
Now sure gaming is not story - but story is happening simultaneously, not after gaming, and I'd say it's mostly primarily objective, otherwise we would play chess, and wargames, and go, and not RPG. In RPG gaming is well some mathematical engine that release story from being biased purely on people whims. To deliver us from pure form of collaborative storytelling which I guess is how Tekumel was forged before D&D happened. Because you know - dice, or cards, or any other mathematical system is fair. Which makes for better story because... unexpected story. That's a thrill. And people likes thrill, likes unexpected.
Unless they are unfunfilled novelist GM's. Then we all shall suffer.
QuoteI live with a novel editor and book-writing coach... this conversation is one I have to help beat into the heads of writers that don't understand a "situation" isn't a story. It's a situation. When writing a novel you have to establish the narrative of those "situations" that occur in the book in a structure that has a beginning, middle, and end and it has an established structure.
TBH... you don't have to. There are structureless novels. Usually shitty ones, but there are various examples, some quite famous. I'd say RPG game is even more dependent of some basic structures than novels. I mean you cannot RPG non-linear chaotic mess of emotions and inner thought rivers like James Joyce, and there's plenty novels with simple antidramatic RPG-like formula. Like most D&D novels are like that I think.
QuoteTTRPG's are *not* that in play. Situations happen, the PC's react to them, they create them but there is no definitive ending to it until the actual resolution occurs and there is a moment to look back at it. Can it be planned? Sure. But until it's over - it's not over and therefore there is no "story".
But what is OVER? Like that's terribly nebulous term. Like is novel only story when I finished reading it - and before that those were just situations presented to me?
I think thing is OVER when it's estabilished. For novel it's basically when it's printed. For RPG is... like just after it left your mouth - there's no other place. Once you told it, it's estabilished and retconns are rather rare, right. And once it's accepted its story. Unfinished sure. But what happened happened.
If I stop session at orcs attack - players gonna call it cliffhanger, like in TV-show or other narrative, and orcish attack will be considered a fact within world. Part of story.
QuoteThere are situations that chain themselves to other situations logically, but the ACT of engaging in those situations isn't a story until the resolution occurs. Just like your life isn't a story until you parse it between a set of events that have some meaning which isn't established until after the fact.
Meaning is necessary for drama yes, but there's plenty undramatic stories in the end. Not only in RPG, like even in actual dramas I think.
Quote1: You'll find that many here do think that "Telling a story = everything on earth".
Let's add EVERYTHING ON FICTIONAL EARTH and I can agree with that statement. Anything fictional exist just in story. Unlike real world where real shit happening and verbal description are ontologically divided as nominalism teaches us, in fiction there is only shit imagined.
QuoteBecause by definition, a story is supposed to have a conclusion
Novel should have a conclusion, short story, drama, film. But story... no. Soap operas are stories, and they are design to run basically till the end of world without any conclusion.
QuoteActually, in hindsight, it's not really storytelling but similar to improvised comedy.
Difference is in improvised comedy you improvise jokes. In RPG you improvise facts about fictional reality.
QuotePersonally, I should also note that these discussions have zero to do with "storygaming" as far as the weird philosophy of forcing players into some kind of codified narrative, giving players control over the game, and other such nonsense. The Forge, storygamers, and the "Swine"--that all is a very different argument and discussion about indie game deveopers creating games that were structurally very different from a traditional TTRPG like D&D.
Agree wholeheartedly.
Though in defence of storygamers (or... TBH there may be no need to defence, Fiasco is perfectly fine cool game) - they came sort of from simmilar boiling pot as OSR sandbox philosophy.
Both storygame and traditional sandbox are done to give most of control over string of events to player.
And both condemn strongly DM's railroading players to fullfil their masterplans, as was common in 90's when Vampire was reigning as new hot shit.
That was forcing players. Players engaging in Fiasco are to play forced in some narrative - Coen brothers/Tarrantino movies narrative, but well... game supports that, meanwhile Vampire was promoting GM as storyteller while giving us very Sim like mechanics of being a Vampire that allowed you to do whatever you like as Vampire.
Those are cool designs, even if Ron Edwards was big bafoon trying to psychoanalize people without any expertise to do it.
QuoteThis is just discussion on how gaming works out in play and development at the table between the DM and the Player characters. As many gamers insist, D&D is all about storytelling. It seems like such an obvious thing, but again, apparently some people have this deep seated hatred and loathing of any mention of "stories" or "storytelling". It seems weird to me, for sure. D&D is all about storytelling, and always has been. There is also definitely a game going on, but it is wrapped up and interwoven with storytelling elements, and a storytelling process.
For game to be RPG I think you need 3 elements, sort of corresponding with those terrible Forge theories - you have game as mechanics to solve whatever conflicts arise while taking burden off players and GM (that's why GM fudging dice are generally condemned aside precisely of those railroading types - without game it's collaborative storytelling but not RPG, you have simulation of character given to player without which it's storygame like Fiasco where players are Screenwriters not Actors, and you have overall story, setting, events estabilished usually by GM, or in some rare GM-less characters by random tables of events , without which game would turn into tactical Commandos like wargame - without any narrative background.
First one estabilishes G in RPG, other two I think together RP.
Quote from: tenbones on November 12, 2021, 11:15:14 AM
This is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
Why after? This is why this topic always devolves into semantic arguments.
If I turn on the evening news and the anchor says, "We have a developing story tonight..." what does that mean? The story isn't over. This isn't the past tense. The story is happening now. It's playing out in real time. Not all dogs are beagles. Not all stories are recounts after the fact. There is no such requirement in the common usage of the word. Insisting that stories only happen "after" is the Jesus smuggling moment and where the semantic twist occurs.
Quote from: SHARK on November 12, 2021, 01:19:22 PM
This is just discussion on how gaming works out in play and development at the table between the DM and the Player characters. As many gamers insist, D&D is all about storytelling. It seems like such an obvious thing, but again, apparently some people have this deep seated hatred and loathing of any mention of "stories" or "storytelling". It seems weird to me, for sure. D&D is all about storytelling, and always has been. There is also definitely a game going on, but it is wrapped up and interwoven with storytelling elements, and a storytelling process.
I think it goes something like this.
You have a great D&D game. Players say, "That was an awesome story, man!"
DM says to himself. Hmmm. All the work I put into the campaign, and it's the story that really counts to them. Well, just wait. This next story is going to be even better. I'll make sure of it. And the DM begins by crafting the story then trying to shoehorn everything into it. Players are left feeling like there's no choice. The game sucks. The story doesn't pop. Players walk away, "Stories have no place in an RPG."
The irony is what went wrong is the DM heard the players say "story" and thought that meant he had to plan, in advance, a great beginning, middle, and end. Like all good and proper stories. The DM failed to grasp that stories can develop in realtime. And that they could be more like a choose-your-own adventure rather than strictly linear. It's the same mistaken assumptions the would-be guardians of the definition of "story" are making here. I get the hate. I hate that shit, too. I don't think it plays well in an RPG, and probably should be kept separate from RPGs. That does not preclude, however, the possibility that some GMs actually know what they're doing.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on November 10, 2021, 10:50:21 PM
Technically, anything with conflict is a story. There's a guy in the woods. No story. There a bear in the same woods. Almost a story, or at least foreshadowing. Guy meets bear. Now we have conflict; ergo we have a story.
I would say technically any conscious act is a story because the elements that must be present for there to be conscious action are the same ones that make a hero's journey style story. That's not to say unconscious action or reaction can't be a story--I'm making no claim about that either way. Likewise, I'm not saying every story has to be a hero's journey--again I'm making no claim about that either way. As Shark says, it's not "everything on earth" but it is incredibly broad, and it's normal for there to be stories within stories.
This might just be splitting hairs. One thing that struck me about the novel Atlas Shrugged is the central theme of that story is contrasting the philosophy of conflict with the philosophy of non-conflict. The heroes cooperate while the villains manipulate. And the heroes just turn their backs and ignore the manipulators and just build their own dreams by partnering with other heroes. They don't actually engage in any conflict. And what's interesting, what "works" about this for me is the heroes are building great things. The fact that they're doing it against the backdrop of a world that's falling apart makes it all the more impressive and inspiring.
The building of great things without a central conflict fits the model of conscious action and the hero's journey. Now it's not impossible to salvage the thesis that stories require conflict in the face of this. You could say this is a story of a man vs nature conflict. The building of great things is a struggle against the fact that in nature we're born naked, and that these great things have to be maintained against the natural forces of entropy. You could say that. We may just be using words differently. And that's fine. We don't need to argue the semantics. I just don't think that these sorts of conflicts actually are what's central to the story of Atlas Shrugged, so I just don't think "conflict" is the best way to describe what's essential.
And this is relevant here. Because it's not just Atlas Shrugged. A huge part of the enjoyment of RPGs is watching your character develop over time. Specifically, improving over time. Often times, you start with a zero out of it build great things--a hero. Zero to hero is certainly a story. Of course, along the way there are conflicts. You're fighting monsters and such. And of course tastes vary. Not everyone is into this zero-to-hero stuff. And not every RPG even includes this as a feature. But we can't ignore that there are players for whom the zero to hero stuff is the game and is the story and don't want games where their PCs could die or lose a limb or suffer any severe or permanent setback. I'm not saying this is a good thing or bad. It's not really my cup of tea. Just pointing out that central non-conflict in a zero to hero story isn't an oddity at all in the RPG world.
Quote from: Lunamancer on November 15, 2021, 07:45:58 AM
Quote from: tenbones on November 12, 2021, 11:15:14 AM
This is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
Why after? This is why this topic always devolves into semantic arguments.
If I turn on the evening news and the anchor says, "We have a developing story tonight..." what does that mean? The story isn't over. This isn't the past tense. The story is happening now. It's playing out in real time. Not all dogs are beagles. Not all stories are recounts after the fact. There is no such requirement in the common usage of the word. Insisting that stories only happen "after" is the Jesus smuggling moment and where the semantic twist occurs.
To me "after" doesn't mean "after it's done," it means "after it's started". As in "follows from, consequentially."
I think others reading this thread feel the same, and I haven't noticed anyone else getting confused about that.
If you don't like discussions like this breaking down into purely semantic arguments, then don't start those arguments!
Quote from: Lunamancer on November 15, 2021, 07:45:58 AM
Quote from: tenbones on November 12, 2021, 11:15:14 AM
This is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
Why after? This is why this topic always devolves into semantic arguments.
If I turn on the evening news and the anchor says, "We have a developing story tonight..." what does that mean? The story isn't over. This isn't the past tense. The story is happening now. It's playing out in real time. Not all dogs are beagles. Not all stories are recounts after the fact. There is no such requirement in the common usage of the word. Insisting that stories only happen "after" is the Jesus smuggling moment and where the semantic twist occurs.
Bolding mine:
It means that it would be a story you'd read in the next day newspaper, but thanks to cameras, helicopters, drones, cellphones, etc. we get to witness it while it's still happening.
A more apt comparison would be me going fishing, is there a story developing? Maybe, but I went to fish not to tell a story.
The PCs are making history in the game world, and they or some NPCs may or may not tell stories in the game world about their exploits. And I as the GM/Player might tell a story about the exploits of the session, or I might not, it depends if the session was an especially fun one, or interesting because someone did something clever/unexpected.
Do you tell stories of ALL the game sessions? I don't, because only some are interesting enough others might enjoy hearing/reading what transpired.
Just like in a war, we get the stories of some of the soldiers, generals, etc. but not about every minute they were there, only the important/funny/horrific/interesting parts are told as stories. The rest is part of the grey mush background of history.
Which is why "Reality TV" has to be either scripted (almost always) or the directors/producers talk with some participant to create drama/conflict... To have something interesting happening. And the people participating want to be in the spotlight, so they might start drama by themselves.
It seems to me that Narrative is created pretty easily in a game and then it is not much effort to start linking that Narrative together to form a story.
QuoteA more apt comparison would be me going fishing, is there a story developing? Maybe, but I went to fish not to tell a story.
Difference is fishing happens in real world, while action of RPG happens inherently inside fiction, ergo per Oxfrod, inside story.
And yes you play to tell a story, ergo to tell about some fictional events happening - whether by GM's railroadin, PC inventions or random tables - otherwise you'd play chess, go, Unreal Tournament or anything else void of this aspect.
QuoteDo you tell stories of ALL the game sessions? I don't, because only some are interesting enough others might enjoy hearing/reading what transpired.
Yes of course, while playing them. :P
Most of course I agree are not fun enough to recolect them :P
QuoteIt seems to me that Narrative is created pretty easily in a game and then it is not much effort to start linking that Narrative together to form a story.
I'd say Narrative (unlike narration) demands higher level of coherence compared to story, which as shown can be any description of fictional events. (Like players shopping for 3 sessions, despite GM's teeth gnashing). But of course coursing campaign in more narrative/dramatic direction is not something hard. In fact sometimes it's harder to avoid it when necessary :P
I could swear I've read this same discussion somewhere before.
Quote from: Bren on November 16, 2021, 12:01:36 PM
I could swear I've read this same discussion somewhere before.
Yes you have, right here several times, but this time the "Everything in the universe is a story" brigade came out in force. I for one I'm done arguing with ppl that think like that.
QuoteI could swear I've read this same discussion somewhere before.
(https://miro.medium.com/max/920/1*lA9lwIzZsx0KJ7P31gg7Xg.jpeg)
Quote from: Lunamancer on November 15, 2021, 07:45:58 AM
Quote from: tenbones on November 12, 2021, 11:15:14 AM
This is why gaming isn't a damn story.
Gaming is what IS happening. It's the situation. What happens afterwards is the retelling of that situation with narrative.
The "story" is what emerges after the adventurers DO things.
Why after? This is why this topic always devolves into semantic arguments.
If I turn on the evening news and the anchor says, "We have a developing story tonight..." what does that mean? The story isn't over. This isn't the past tense. The story is happening now. It's playing out in real time. Not all dogs are beagles. Not all stories are recounts after the fact. There is no such requirement in the common usage of the word. Insisting that stories only happen "after" is the Jesus smuggling moment and where the semantic twist occurs.
Well a "story" is a semantics element. Gaming is the action of doing a "thing". Story is the literal retelling of a thing, often edited for structure to produce a narrative. A "developing story" in the case of relating news is literally that - a story that hasn't developed because it's not complete - what is relayed to you is *still* after the fact. By direct analogy the "situation" isn't resolved, so there is no story until the situation has been resolved. That is where "the game" is happening.
It's no more me telling you the story about how my band of heroes killed the Orcs in the Orc camp. But if I'm in the beginning or middle of that situation - there is no story to tell because I haven't *actually* killed the Orcs yet. And the situation is resolving. Even if you and I are part of that situation, the "story" is whatever we tell ourselves (and others) *after* the fact, often emphasizing the important or dramatic parts - you're not going emphasize the non-important stuff unless it's for narrative retelling - like I'm not going to likely include how you missed that second attack, but I might if you missed three-attacks in a row? Or whatever.
The Story(tm) becomes the tale of the deed(s) after we kill the Orcs of Splitrot Tribe. The game is how we entered the situation(s) that allowed us to eventually do it.
The relation of a fact is not a story without an Ending. If I tell you I had breakfast this morning - not a story. It's a relation of a fact. If I told you the story of how I got up late for work, and for breakfast I ate cold pizza out of the fridge and on the way to work I got the shits and crashed my car. It's a bad story, but it relates a series of facts that concludes with an ending.
The meaning of the facts (which is where semantics matters) transcends the facts themselves. This is what story ultimately is for.
In gaming - the development of your character is *LITERALLY* not known until it actually happens. The narrative of that development arc happens in play, but the story of that arc is only known after the game itself is engaged and is played out. You can't tell me the story of your badass warrior until you've actually played it all out.
Now that larger narrative arc can be broken up into many individual stories - which ideally is broken up as "levels" (I personally don't allow characters to "level up" in the middle of an adventure without downtime). But the whole arc of that character is not known until it is done. He may have a story you can relate to me based on his past adventures - but it ends when you get to the point where you're playing the game because now you're actually doing the things that continue the story.
As I pointed before no story (at least according to dict) does not need to be finished. It does not need to follow any dramatic rules. No beginning nor ending. It merely needs to be fictional.
If GRRM gonna croak tomorrow in inexplicable accident while running in his gigantic hamster-ball, the Jon Snow dying in the snow will be never resolved situation, but it won't be any less story because of it, even though it's gonna be without ending. The RPG is fundamentally within fiction, so any situation is already a story, because well unlike real world it has no any other essence of its existence than description of fictional events by players and GM. And as quick as those descriptions leaves their mouth - they are story.
I'm pretty much entirely in the "playing is an event, stories are when you recount what happened at the event" school of thought, but I'll admit I often refer to GM as a narrator when trying to explain it to someone not familiar with gaming... largely because there just isn't a good word in English to describe the role of describing a fictional setting and the actions of fictional characters within that setting to a group... and "Improvisational Narrator or Director" is probably the closest you can get in English to what a GM actually is for non-gamers without a heavy dive into TTRPG philosophy.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 10:19:07 AM
As I pointed before no story (at least according to dict) does not need to be finished. It does not need to follow any dramatic rules. No beginning nor ending. It merely needs to be fictional.
If GRRM gonna croak tomorrow in inexplicable accident while running in his gigantic hamster-ball, the Jon Snow dying in the snow will be never resolved situation, but it won't be any less story because of it, even though it's gonna be without ending. The RPG is fundamentally within fiction, so any situation is already a story, because well unlike real world it has no any other essence of its existence than description of fictional events by players and GM. And as quick as those descriptions leaves their mouth - they are story.
As it pertains to Gaming - what does this mean?
Seriously, this is getting into meta-semantics. If semantics is literally the sussing out of the meaning of words, this is trying to determine the validity of the semantic meaning of story... and then pulling the breaks on the entire purpose by saying "well stories don't have to be finished..." as if you can't have smaller stories within a larger story. Which is exactly what GRRM has.
And as my wife editor beats her clients over the head on an hourly basis will tell you - a story with no ending isn't a story. Not even anecdotal - her entire organization which covers Australian, and UK English publications agree.
Of course you may not - but then you'd be wrong.
As it pertains to gaming... gaming isn't a story. It creates and resolves situations that can become a "story' - but that's all in the tale-telling.
Edit: Screw you Chris for beating me to the punch.
QuoteI'm pretty much entirely in the "playing is an event, stories are when you recount what happened at the event" school of thought, but I'll admit I often refer to GM as a narrator when trying to explain it to someone not familiar with gaming... largely because there just isn't a good word in English to describe the role of describing a fictional setting and the actions of fictional characters within that setting to a group... and "Improvisational Narrator or Director" is probably the closest you can get in English to what a GM actually is for non-gamers without a heavy dive into TTRPG philosophy.
I think this is decent definition I mean GM is generally telling what's happening most of time - so it is form of narration. Impro or not, that's less important.
Though of course players also are in limited scope narrators - declared actions of their characters are part of narration as well as anything DM declared about world and NPCs.
QuoteAs it pertains to Gaming - what does this mean?
That mean that RPG Game by necessary contain element of fiction. And fictional = in story. It runs simultaneously with raw game mechanisms which are usually somehow divided from fiction itself, serving as way to decide what will be results of risky actions taking by PC's in relatively unbiased manner (ergo in a way to limit GM's power over narrative), and somehow randomized to add thrill of hazardous situation to the whole mix. I'd say generally GAME serves STORY - as mechanism pushing it forward and making it more interesting string of situations and resolutions, tough of course whole Gamist stance of GNS theory, goes other way Story is just excuse to check how my Monk/Shadowdancer/Cyberknight multiclass tiefling works against elemental dragons or smth ;)
QuoteSeriously, this is getting into meta-semantics. If semantics is literally the sussing out of the meaning of words, this is trying to determine the validity of the semantic meaning of story... and then pulling the breaks on the entire purpose by saying "well stories don't have to be finished..." as if you can't have smaller stories within a larger story. Which is exactly what GRRM has.
And where did that ends? There is no clear ontological difference between situation and borders of smaller story. Presented situation in novel or TV may be for instance cliffhanger purposefuly ending entire small sub-segment on UNRESOLVED, for narrative purposes. Some unfortunates ended on such cliffhangers. The point is - in written fiction such divisions are artifical way to organize ongoing narrative in way that sells well. In RPG there's like no need for that, I mean if such divisions appear in our mind it's mostly because situations in our mind connects with some dramatic rules of TV or books, but other than that it serves no much purpose. The only beginning and ending in RPG campaign will be ultimately beginning and ending of game.
QuoteAnd as my wife editor beats her clients over the head on an hourly basis will tell you - a story with no ending isn't a story. Not even anecdotal - her entire organization which covers Australian, and UK English publications agree.
Of course you may not - but then you'd be wrong.
Yes, but your wife expertise is connected to narrow definition of story - specificaly published written works of fiction. Which is probably mayor but still just one of sub-categories of fiction. And even then ontologically I'd disagree. Maybe such story is lame, and usuitable to publishing, ergo it's bad product, but ontologically still.
And of course editors of written fiction professional definitions hold no power over either gaming or English language at large.
QuoteAs it pertains to gaming... gaming isn't a story. It creates and resolves situations that can become a "story' - but that's all in the tale-telling.
Gaming unless it's chess, Monopoly or smth like this, runs simultaneously with fiction. And this fiction is by ontological necessity a story. Both situation estabilished and solved are story. Any statement about fictional world is.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 15, 2021, 12:46:29 PM
It means that it would be a story you'd read in the next day newspaper, but thanks to cameras, helicopters, drones, cellphones, etc. we get to witness it while it's still happening.
But why does it mean that? I mean other than the say so of you and a tiny minority of the overall population who obsess over this sort of thing. Is there an actual justification for overturning the common usage of the word "story"? Is there sufficient evidence in that justification to claim others are wrong in their usage of the word? And does saying that RPGs are not stories address the original post?
QuoteA more apt comparison would be me going fishing, is there a story developing? Maybe, but I went to fish not to tell a story.
Apt of what? I generally expect the motivation of characters in a story to be something other than the story itself. And it's not as if I'm interested in the story about you gathering with your friends to play a game. I'm interested in what comes out of that--the series of fictional events that unfold through the play of that game.
QuoteThe PCs are making history in the game world,
Even though the word history clearly has past-tense connotations, that can be done in real time, but not a story?
QuoteDo you tell stories of ALL the game sessions? I don't, because only some are interesting enough others might enjoy hearing/reading what transpired.
I generally don't tell stories about my game sessions at all. I'm just not interested in telling stories after the fact.
QuoteJust like in a war, we get the stories of some of the soldiers, generals, etc. but not about every minute they were there, only the important/funny/horrific/interesting parts are told as stories. The rest is part of the grey mush background of history.
Not sure which RPGs you play. The ones I play all have different time scales. In AD&D, I play out combat and dungeon exploration minute-by-minute. In super critical situations, we can zoom in to 6-second segments. For wilderness travel, I use 4-hour periods. For resting up and healing after an adventure, I play it out day by day instead.
QuoteWhich is why "Reality TV" has to be either scripted (almost always) or the directors/producers talk with some participant to create drama/conflict... To have something interesting happening. And the people participating want to be in the spotlight, so they might start drama by themselves.
You could say the same thing about professional wrestling. But then baseball, football, and basketball are popular without a script. A lot more popular than pro wrestling. People can watch the games live, raw and uncut, for a continuous 2-3 hours or so, through the lulls and all. You can also boil a game's highlights down to about a minute. Strangely, watching the highlights is a lot less exciting than watching the whole game. The full context is apparently meaningful enough to more more interesting despite having less interesting parts. Sometimes during the game a commentator might use a terms like "Cinderella story" or "David vs Goliath story" to describe the match, even before the game is over. Which demonstrates that not only do archetypal stories manifest themselves in a series of events, it is possible to be aware enough of the story as it's happening in real time to be able to name the story.
Greetings!
Yeah, it is weird how some people get hung up on terminology. I know whole groups of gamers that if you asked them what D&D is, they would all say that "D&D is a storygame"; or "D&D is a game where you create a character that exists in this fictional world where your character lives out stories in the game".
They all think everything that goes in in the game is a story, and all little parts of bigger stories.
None of them seem to have this weird hatred of "stories". Thy expect everyone to have stories, have stories to tell, and be a part of stories that are ongoing. Every character has "background stories" that make up how they came to be the people they are. Every character has ongoing stories they experience with different relationships, with different other characters--those relationships are all individual "stories"--and yet, few of these stories have any "conclusion". They aren't past tense in any way, or even very "event orientated"--they are about relationships, conversations, choices, emotions, living, ongoing experiences.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PM
That mean that RPG Game by necessary contain element of fiction. And fictional = in story.
"I jumped 24-feet into the air today."
That is fiction. That's not a story. Fiction means it's not real or factual. Yes it's a function of storytelling. But an actual story has a beginning, middle and end. You can make a semantic argument that a horrible story doesn't need those things - but most normal people, and *anyone* in the business of publishing actual stories for consumption will say otherwise. I'm one of those people.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PMIt runs simultaneously with raw game mechanisms which are usually somehow divided from fiction itself, serving as way to decide what will be results of risky actions taking by PC's in relatively unbiased manner (ergo in a way to limit GM's power over narrative), and somehow randomized to add thrill of hazardous situation to the whole mix.
You are making a semantic argument about mechanics - not about story. Something *can't* run simultaneously within the game unless you're outside of the game telling a story *about* playing a game. The game is happening - you don't know what has happened until you've done the *thing*.
Case 1) I'm telling you a story about how Tenbones is playing an RPG. He finishes the game before your eyes. It was fun. <--- this is what you're talking about.
Case 2) Tenbones character enters an encounter: ????? <---- this is what I'm talking about. I don't know what happens until I actually do the encounter. Then and only then I can tell you what Tenbone's PC did and contextualize it as a story within the context of the game. This happens *after*.
Gaming itself isn't a story - it's an action that has elements that can become a story if you're so inclined - but it'll happen after the fact. Like when we're having a beer and telling each other about our favorite PC moments etc.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PMI'd say generally GAME serves STORY - as mechanism pushing it forward and making it more interesting string of situations and resolutions, tough of course whole Gamist stance of GNS theory, goes other way Story is just excuse to check how my Monk/Shadowdancer/Cyberknight multiclass tiefling works against elemental dragons or smth ;)
It's completely meta. Your character may be *planning* to do things. But do you roleplay that? Do you sit there and brood out loud to your fellow players like you're doing theater for the *purpose* of roleplaying? Normally you just do it - or out of character you do it with the GM and then do it in game. That's the *game*. When you re-tell it to your friends (or think about it yourself) you're doing it after the fact. You plan the big heist, in the game you DO the big heist. Afterward you tell the story about how the Big Heist unfolded (and whether it worked or not, and why).
The game is merely the act of doing, and whatever bits are fun. Is there a narrative? Sure - but that's an emergent property because you as a player have no control over what is going to happen. The GM has no control over what you as the PC is going to do. And so you dance. What emerges is what you will later contextualize into a story (good or bad).
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PM
And where did that ends? There is no clear ontological difference between situation and borders of smaller story. Presented situation in novel or TV may be for instance cliffhanger purposefuly ending entire small sub-segment on UNRESOLVED, for narrative purposes. Some unfortunates ended on such cliffhangers. The point is - in written fiction such divisions are artifical way to organize ongoing narrative in way that sells well. In RPG there's like no need for that, I mean if such divisions appear in our mind it's mostly because situations in our mind connects with some dramatic rules of TV or books, but other than that it serves no much purpose. The only beginning and ending in RPG campaign will be ultimately beginning and ending of game.
Again, you're hung up on the metacontext. A Serial is a design construct for the purposes of psychological retention. It's there to keep you turning the page. The STORY is what happens between the beginning, the middle and the end of a narrative work that is fiction or non-fiction. If the cliffhanger never continues - then you don't have a complete story. You might have complete situations that resolved up to the cliffhanger - but the story is not complete, therefore it is not a story.
UNLESS you're telling me a story about how a story never completed. That's the meta part you're getting hung up on.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PM
Yes, but your wife expertise is connected to narrow definition of story - specificaly published written works of fiction. Which is probably mayor but still just one of sub-categories of fiction. And even then ontologically I'd disagree. Maybe such story is lame, and usuitable to publishing, ergo it's bad product, but ontologically still.
I'm not familiar with stories that *aren't* actual stories (beginning, middle, end). If you want to believe a situation is a story, then I *highly* suggest you don't take up storytelling in any form as a profession. If we're discussing philosophy and the use of semantics - then you're still on shakey ground because deriving meaning from a "situation" is highly dependent on the metacontext of the person trying to resolve that meaning from any given situation and is further dependent on the philosophical bandwidth of whomever is listening. It does not make that situation a story, unless again, you're telling a story about two people talking about semantics of meaning as it regards emergent narratives from a singular non-story situation.
This is what we call "circle-jerking".
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PM
And of course editors of written fiction professional definitions hold no power over either gaming or English language at large.
I'll duly note that to my editors of my future gaming publications, and send emails out to my former gaming publishers, and my wife while we argue about the use of English. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this politely: unless you're into fan-fiction and spewing it out onto the web, you must not understand a whole lot about publication. As a profession... you're gonna a need an editor. In fact if you had an editor, they would have redlined that entire line and told you to never utter it verbally, or in the written form, LOL.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 18, 2021, 12:38:37 PM
Gaming unless it's chess, Monopoly or smth like this, runs simultaneously with fiction. And this fiction is by ontological necessity a story. Both situation estabilished and solved are story. Any statement about fictional world is.
Why do you say that? You're making an arbitrary decision free of context. I'm not saying I don't understand what you're meaning - I'm saying you're making distinctions that do not comply with mechanical aspects of reality. Story is narrative driven - TTRPG's have narrative elements but they're mechanically driven. Even diceless games are mechanically driven. But *ANY* game - even Chess or Monopoly can be turned into an narrative RPG (as silly and unfun as it may sound) - but even by doing so, the "story" of what that narrative is happens *after* the fact.
You're hung up on this idea that these things happen in parallel. Okay. I'm not denying that. But I'm saying a "story" isn't a story until it has an ending. And yes you can have stories within stories. You can have stories within aborted stories without endings, but they all happen *after the fact*. I can tell you the story about the Redemption of Jamie Lannister - but the larger story is not complete.
Gaming is different in the sense that you have to enact the agency in the game (mechanics and task-resolution) that is normally left to the writers (and their beautiful editors) of fiction to do with a wave of their proverbial pen. The story itself in fiction isn't dependent on such mechanics. But gamers *require* it. That's the point of gaming.
They allways fall back on the "everything on earth" argument. Every damn time.
Here. Lets play this game with something else.
Sane people: "Whats a Snake?"
Storygamer: "A centipede, a weasel, a water hose, an elephants trunk, a rope, your finger, The milky Way, water, pasta. And so on till you hit "everything on earth."
My own experience is that purely situational RPG campaigns soon lose coherence, and all too often, players. Look at it like this - we live our ordinary lives doing (hopefully) what we please or to meet short term obligations. But the life experience within an RPG is inherently limited. We only play for so many hours a week and you don't actually spend all day risking your life in swordfights or dangerous underground environments in search of hidden treasure (please let me know if this is actually your day job. I would be so curious).
So our real lives are part of everyday existence and whether we realise it or not, from time to time we get caught up in the headlines and themes that frame the way fate is taking us. Vote for Him, the Man who needs your vote to run your neighbourhood. Oh no, not another booster jab for Covid? No savoury snacks at the shops for a while because potato stocks have run out. Doesn't seem important, but it could be. What happens if a European dictator goes too far and triggers that global crisis, or worse, an all out war? It isn't impossible.
To engage with the fantasy world the GM needs to compensate and give the players some kind of relevance. Levels 1 to 3, they're nobody's basically. 4 to 6, NPC's have heard a story or two about their exploits. 7 to 9, oh ye gods it's them, they're ordering drinks at MY tavern! 10 to 12, yes, this is Emperor Diplodicus calling, I need some assistance with a little problem. 13 to 15 burning bushes speak to you personally. 16 to 19 the gods are defying you to achieve the quest. 20 onward, the Gods themselves quake in their boots. Of course, the dangers you run up against increase too.
But this sort of progression should be measured against the world. Levels 1 to 3, the villagers need help. 4-6, the region needs help. 7 to 9, the kingdom needs help. 10 to 12, you're starting to shape the world around you, and... Well you get the idea.
So there's a big difference between finishing a dungeon and expecting another, compared to finishing a dungeon knowing that you've defeated the minion of a powerful NPC, or you rescued the Princess from the clutches of an evil plot, or you thwarted an attempt by traitors to weaken the Kingdom. Those faraway and important NPC's you introduce slowly, by a mention here and there, later a rumour, then a dark tale told be someone in the know, then you spot them among a crowd, eventually leading to that all important dramatic confrontation in a special scene.
The story is everything. It's what engages the player beyond mere gambling with dice. It demands they make important decisions.
Besides... I like telling stories.
Now I just want to hear the next chapter of the Tenbones chronicles.
Quote from: caldrail on November 19, 2021, 03:12:22 PM
My own experience is that purely situational RPG campaigns soon lose coherence, and all too often, players. Look at it like this - we live our ordinary lives doing (hopefully) what we please or to meet short term obligations. But the life experience within an RPG is inherently limited. We only play for so many hours a week and you don't actually spend all day risking your life in swordfights or dangerous underground environments in search of hidden treasure (please let me know if this is actually your day job. I would be so curious).
I'll be honest - I don't know what a "situational RPG campaign" is. I run all my campaigns as sandboxes. This doesn't mean there aren't local, regional, "national" (as such) events occurring - the game is, and always will be, where the PC's are "doing stuff." The GM's job is to contextualize the PC's "situations" with the rest of the world. If you let those situations occur in a vacuum, then your claim holds water - but then i'd counterclaim that this is low-effort, bad GMing.
A good GM makes non-combat stuff as important (or in my case - more important) than just cutting throats and smashing skulls. A good GM grooms the game around the actions of the players, you cultivate their PC's interests, you prune elements that don't have their interests, you nurture the settings conceits in parallel to the PC's actions and the "situations" never end until the campaign itself ends.
My PC's are very much involved with the setting - unexpected things which come to define them, everything form the regularity of their bathing, the types of beverages they prefer to consume, the interests they pursue outside of "adventuring", including politicking, training, gambling, romantic stuff, Guild activities etc. *all* of which are springboards to hosts of "situations" that become adventure-material.
All this is what sandbox GM's do.
Quote from: caldrail on November 19, 2021, 03:12:22 PMSo our real lives are part of everyday existence and whether we realise it or not, from time to time we get caught up in the headlines and themes that frame the way fate is taking us. Vote for Him, the Man who needs your vote to run your neighbourhood. Oh no, not another booster jab for Covid? No savoury snacks at the shops for a while because potato stocks have run out. Doesn't seem important, but it could be. What happens if a European dictator goes too far and triggers that global crisis, or worse, an all out war? It isn't impossible.
To engage with the fantasy world the GM needs to compensate and give the players some kind of relevance. Levels 1 to 3, they're nobody's basically. 4 to 6, NPC's have heard a story or two about their exploits. 7 to 9, oh ye gods it's them, they're ordering drinks at MY tavern! 10 to 12, yes, this is Emperor Diplodicus calling, I need some assistance with a little problem. 13 to 15 burning bushes speak to you personally. 16 to 19 the gods are defying you to achieve the quest. 20 onward, the Gods themselves quake in their boots. Of course, the dangers you run up against increase too.
Well... yeah. This is the job of the GM. And they're not dependent on "levels" which is an artificial construct. They're dependent on the PC's themselves and what they *do*. Just because the PC's are 3rd level and travel into the wilderness and see a sign that says 'Here Be Dragons' - doesn't mean if there is a dragon there, it suddenly disappears because the PC's are too low level.
Giving verisimilitude to your setting makes your players (and their PC's) more disciplined and brings them into the world - rather than keeping them on paper looking at their Level as a justification to "do things".
Quote from: caldrail on November 19, 2021, 03:12:22 PMBut this sort of progression should be measured against the world. Levels 1 to 3, the villagers need help. 4-6, the region needs help. 7 to 9, the kingdom needs help. 10 to 12, you're starting to shape the world around you, and... Well you get the idea.
So there's a big difference between finishing a dungeon and expecting another, compared to finishing a dungeon knowing that you've defeated the minion of a powerful NPC, or you rescued the Princess from the clutches of an evil plot, or you thwarted an attempt by traitors to weaken the Kingdom. Those faraway and important NPC's you introduce slowly, by a mention here and there, later a rumour, then a dark tale told be someone in the know, then you spot them among a crowd, eventually leading to that all important dramatic confrontation in a special scene.
The story is everything. It's what engages the player beyond mere gambling with dice. It demands they make important decisions.
Besides... I like telling stories.
This is only true if you're running a module as proscribed to you by someone else. i disagree that storytime-module play is more engaging than sandbox play. The whole point of agency is for PC's to what they want (even if I'm using a module in sandbox - the PC's are perfectly free to disregard it), there is no story other than what happens after the PC's do it. They can follow their own internal narratives, they can follow the situations presented in the world, but if you as a GM are "telling a story" and not giving your player's agency, why game at all?
Why not read them a novel then you don't run the risk of a TPK... (if that's the gamble you're worried about). GM's aren't telling stories, they're presenting a world for PC's (and their players) to romp around in. You can curate those actions into a narrative afterwards and make a cool story out of it when it's over.
Quote from: Shasarak on November 19, 2021, 03:41:58 PM
Now I just want to hear the next chapter of the Tenbones chronicles.
Chapter 2. How Tenbones stole the secret of Whiskey-Coffee from the Brown Serpent and brought it to his tribe.
I've seen this 'argument' about 100 times online and I don't really get it. For the sake of discussion, let's say that one side agrees that everything is a story. What does the other side win?
Quote from: tenbones on November 19, 2021, 11:42:05 AM
"I jumped 24-feet into the air today."
That is fiction. That's not a story. Fiction means it's not real or factual. Yes it's a function of storytelling. But an actual story has a beginning, middle and end.
If jumping was a conscious decision, that implies a motive. It means the character had envisioned some future state that was preferred to the present state. Right there at that point, we have a definite beginning, and we have a potential ending. The "hero" here starts with an initial sense of dissatisfaction--the canonical beginning of a hero's journey story. The overt act serves as the middle. And when it is seen whether or not the act has served its purpose, we have the actual ending.
Motives in stories can be inferred from context rather than stated. But when you take one line with no context and also don't have any comment on the motive, you're not really producing an honest example. It's not like I'm going to drive to the next state over to my brother's house for our weekly game to say, "I jump..." *rolls dice* "..24 feet in the air today. Okay, that's enough gaming for today."
QuoteYou can make a semantic argument that a horrible story doesn't need those things - but most normal people, and *anyone* in the business of publishing actual stories for consumption will say otherwise. I'm one of those people.
Let's suppose I go out and buy one of the novels published by the company your wife works for. One that got her stamp of approval and everything. It's definitely a story. You're not disputing that. You're holding it up as the gold standard.
Let's say I start reading it, but like the majority of people who start reading books, let's say I don't finish. I haven't read the ending yet. I don't know the ending. Have I not been reading a story just because I didn't finish?
There is a clear and obvious distinction between someone putting together a product for publication and someone experiencing a story. Most normal people understand that it's preferable and even essential to ship out a complete product. And most normal people also understand that a story of substantial length will not be instantly downloaded into someone's brain and fully appreciated in zero time. It's going to be experienced bite by bite, and there is functionally no difference in the experience between not having yet finished a story and not having a finished story yet.
When you keep trying to make this about publishing and not about experience, you come off as a hammer attacking a screw. I'm not publishing a story of my campaign. I'm experiencing it.
Quote from: Lunamancer on November 19, 2021, 09:06:50 PM
Quote from: tenbones on November 19, 2021, 11:42:05 AM
"I jumped 24-feet into the air today."
That is fiction. That's not a story. Fiction means it's not real or factual. Yes it's a function of storytelling. But an actual story has a beginning, middle and end.
If jumping was a conscious decision, that implies a motive. It means the character had envisioned some future state that was preferred to the present state. Right there at that point, we have a definite beginning, and we have a potential ending. The "hero" here starts with an initial sense of dissatisfaction--the canonical beginning of a hero's journey story. The overt act serves as the middle. And when it is seen whether or not the act has served its purpose, we have the actual ending.
Motives in stories can be inferred from context rather than stated. But when you take one line with no context and also don't have any comment on the motive, you're not really producing an honest example. It's not like I'm going to drive to the next state over to my brother's house for our weekly game to say, "I jump..." *rolls dice* "..24 feet in the air today. Okay, that's enough gaming for today."
QuoteYou can make a semantic argument that a horrible story doesn't need those things - but most normal people, and *anyone* in the business of publishing actual stories for consumption will say otherwise. I'm one of those people.
Let's suppose I go out and buy one of the novels published by the company your wife works for. One that got her stamp of approval and everything. It's definitely a story. You're not disputing that. You're holding it up as the gold standard.
Let's say I start reading it, but like the majority of people who start reading books, let's say I don't finish. I haven't read the ending yet. I don't know the ending. Have I not been reading a story just because I didn't finish?
There is a clear and obvious distinction between someone putting together a product for publication and someone experiencing a story. Most normal people understand that it's preferable and even essential to ship out a complete product. And most normal people also understand that a story of substantial length will not be instantly downloaded into someone's brain and fully appreciated in zero time. It's going to be experienced bite by bite, and there is functionally no difference in the experience between not having yet finished a story and not having a finished story yet.
When you keep trying to make this about publishing and not about experience, you come off as a hammer attacking a screw. I'm not publishing a story of my campaign. I'm experiencing it.
"If I don't mread it it's the same as if didn't had an ending" ... FFS.
Quote from: Bren on November 19, 2021, 08:23:59 PM
I've seen this 'argument' about 100 times online and I don't really get it. For the sake of discussion, let's say that one side agrees that everything is a story. What does the other side win?
They win by forcing everyone to believe that black is white and then they all get trampled to death at the next zebra crossing.
Keep in mind that they treat storytelling/storygaming like a sex fetish that they have to co-opt every other sex fetish, er RPG, board game, mowing the lawn, into performing too. And they can get alot of traction by lies and predating on the gullible.
QuoteThat is fiction. That's not a story. Fiction means it's not real or factual. Yes it's a function of storytelling. But an actual story has a beginning, middle and end.
No... it does not. By Oxford: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people". So sure there is certain intentional purpose - mainly entertainment. I guess in this rare example as it's used for debate, not entertainment it would not count, but generally during RPG session, well people play for entertainment of various sorts. And if Player Joe declares that his barbarian Shmoglebock is going to jump 24 ft on a back of wicked bugdragon, that's already act of storytelling.
QuoteYou can make a semantic argument that a horrible story doesn't need those things - but most normal people, and *anyone* in the business of publishing actual stories for consumption will say otherwise. I'm one of those people.
Business of publishing written novels and short stories - which are literary works - had jackshit authority over oral stories. Either those generated by gaming RPG, or those improvised by old shamans near firecamp of Siberian tribe of reindeer hunters. It's simply beyond area of expertise. Aside of most insane storytellers no-ones want for RPG stories to be like novels, or films and follow their rules.
QuoteYou are making a semantic argument about mechanics - not about story. Something *can't* run simultaneously within the game unless you're outside of the game telling a story *about* playing a game. The game is happening - you don't know what has happened until you've done the *thing*.
And game consist of ongoing fictional situation ergo story, and all out-of-fiction mechanism that replaces players bias in unraveling those events - ergo what for simplicity I called game.
QuoteCase 1) I'm telling you a story about how Tenbones is playing an RPG. He finishes the game before your eyes. It was fun. <--- this is what you're talking about.
Case 2) Tenbones character enters an encounter: ????? <---- this is what I'm talking about. I don't know what happens until I actually do the encounter. Then and only then I can tell you what Tenbone's PC did and contextualize it as a story within the context of the game. This happens *after*.
Entering encounter is ALREADY something that happened. Already estabilished fact. That's the point you can divide without problem timeline in really little pieces. Fight in 100 microevents. And each estabilished event become story by sheer power of being estabilished fact in fictional world.
QuoteGaming itself isn't a story - it's an action that has elements that can become a story if you're so inclined - but it'll happen after the fact. Like when we're having a beer and telling each other about our favorite PC moments etc.
Gaming itself as a social act of sitting roung table obviously is not a story. Not even most rampant storygamers claim such nonsense. But roleplaying game generates specific fictions when shit happens and that's a story. Story like - fictional world and events created for entertainment, not story - as recollection of our favourite moment from gaming night.
QuoteIt's completely meta. Your character may be *planning* to do things. But do you roleplay that? Do you sit there and brood out loud to your fellow players like you're doing theater for the *purpose* of roleplaying? Normally you just do it - or out of character you do it with the GM and then do it in game. That's the *game*. When you re-tell it to your friends (or think about it yourself) you're doing it after the fact. You plan the big heist, in the game you DO the big heist. Afterward you tell the story about how the Big Heist unfolded (and whether it worked or not, and why).
If player is playing big heist then generally speaking he need to describe fictional actions of his character. And that itself, real live time is already a story.
Game = whole event. Story = whatever is happening in fictional world game generates including GM descriptions, players declaration of actions, results of random rolls declared by GM or players.
QuoteThe game is merely the act of doing, and whatever bits are fun. Is there a narrative? Sure - but that's an emergent property because you as a player have no control over what is going to happen. The GM has no control over what you as the PC is going to do. And so you dance. What emerges is what you will later contextualize into a story (good or bad).
Yes that's why it's collaborative one, no one holds full control of events, and that's whole thrill. But it's emergent nature does not make it not-a-story. Story does not need to be contextualized, or following certain form. It only needs to happen in fiction, and that's what going op - happening in fiction. With good luck not Mark Wahlberg's one.
QuoteIf the cliffhanger never continues - then you don't have a complete story. You might have complete situations that resolved up to the cliffhanger - but the story is not complete, therefore it is not a story.
Well then I disagree. I do not have complete TV-show, narrative arc, but story is a story. It does not need completion, or beginning to be a story. There were fictional events filmed for my entertainment - that's enough to make it in essence story. Just like DM's description of fictional town is enough.
QuoteUNLESS you're telling me a story about how a story never completed. That's the meta part you're getting hung up on.
No there's nothing meta about it - though of course such recollection of game session or unfinished TV-series would also be a story, though under different of definitions given by Oxfrod Dictionary. What I say is directly straightforward - fiction within a game, just like fiction of TV show is a story, whether finished or not, completed or not, planned from beginning to end, improvised, randomly generated, does not matter. Every sentence declaring state of fiction is a sentence of ongoing story.
QuoteI'm not familiar with stories that *aren't* actual stories (beginning, middle, end). If you want to believe a situation is a story, then I *highly* suggest you don't take up storytelling in any form as a profession.
Primo, of course there were novels and shorts in history of writing that does not followed BME model. Some even acclaimed. Though of course it's risky model to follow.
Secundo, profession storytelling is just a snippet of storytelling at large. Of course it follows different rules - because it's usually meant to be commerce, or at least critical success. It's meant for people who did not participated in creating to have fun. Now of course story within RPG does not follow such rules, because it it not planned for commercial use.
Though of course there are probably few dozens streaming channels living from streaming sessions these days so even utter clunkiness of RPG can apparently sell.
QuoteIf we're discussing philosophy and the use of semantics - then you're still on shakey ground because deriving meaning from a "situation" is highly dependent on the metacontext of the person trying to resolve that meaning from any given situation and is further dependent on the philosophical bandwidth of whomever is listening. It does not make that situation a story, unless again, you're telling a story about two people talking about semantics of meaning as it regards emergent narratives from a singular non-story situation.
And again, I shall tell that any fictional situation presented as fact is already part of story, and follow up is irrelevant for it ontological status as story. Deriving meaning is here highly subjective I mean any recipient of any story can take very different meaning, so that's beyond scope of this discussion at all. Point is when GM declares: "It was late afternoon, when from the deep shadows of Mirkwood you heard heavy footsteps, and hoots, they seems to be nearer to you with every second." - this declaration is already a story. How story develops later - well that's up to players.
QuoteI'll duly note that to my editors of my future gaming publications, and send emails out to my former gaming publishers, and my wife while we argue about the use of English. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this politely: unless you're into fan-fiction and spewing it out onto the web, you must not understand a whole lot about publication. As a profession... you're gonna a need an editor. In fact if you had an editor, they would have redlined that entire line and told you to never utter it verbally, or in the written form, LOL.
Dude. I do not give a shit about publication. Publication is irrelevant from this discussion. Stories were told, and improvised, and planned, for millenia before any schmuck decided to make money on them. So commercial stories do not matter here. We do not discuss it, and I'm sure you wife is great editor, but her expertise in how to sell a novel does not even in a little give her authority to declare what is and what is not story per se. What do you need to do to write good novel in no way influence whether fiction generated by RPG is story. Period.
QuoteWhy do you say that? You're making an arbitrary decision free of context. I'm not saying I don't understand what you're meaning - I'm saying you're making distinctions that do not comply with mechanical aspects of reality. Story is narrative driven - TTRPG's have narrative elements but they're mechanically driven. Even diceless games are mechanically driven. But *ANY* game - even Chess or Monopoly can be turned into an narrative RPG (as silly and unfun as it may sound) - but even by doing so, the "story" of what that narrative is happens *after* the fact.
That I definitely disagree in terms of TTRPG per se. TTRPG is both mechanics and narrative and often also worldbuilding driven. All of those elements needs to coexist otherwise it's not RPG but boardgame, or storygame, or lorebook. I play RPG for my character to do some crazy shit, that's narrative drive, very personal but narrative. Mechanics is only there in service to story, not other way round, it is there to solve cituations of uncertainity and add thrill of risk to overall experience. But I can have thrill of experience playing dice game without any characters.
What make difference is narrative element of fiction. It's what separates RPG from you know all the other games in history.
TBH I had gaming sessions in life, quite fine without any use of mechanics, because we were just fooling around as characters, and game did not have much to solve in this situation. And it still was the same game, as heavy tactical sessions later and earlier. What connected them was... our personal narrative.
QuoteYou're hung up on this idea that these things happen in parallel. Okay. I'm not denying that. But I'm saying a "story" isn't a story until it has an ending.
And I disagree with this condition.
QuoteGaming is different in the sense that you have to enact the agency in the game (mechanics and task-resolution) that is normally left to the writers (and their beautiful editors) of fiction to do with a wave of their proverbial pen. The story itself in fiction isn't dependent on such mechanics. But gamers *require* it. That's the point of gaming.
Primo as I mentioned - not always - there are long chunks of RPG sessions not using mechanics. But of course yes - that's the thrill element. That's why there is strong movement both in OSR and storygamers to respect mechanics beause otherwise it's gonna turn into circle-jerk of GM or wannabe actors. Though of course there is plenty people who turned from RPG to purely RP... RPN I'm gonna say because usually there is still players with characters and GM, but mechanicless storytelling (which is not even storygame) because they felt mechanics is going in the way.
I like my risk and chances, but precisely because they generate interesting fictional results. They make story better most time, because subverting expectations but not in stupid way.
That's my shtick. Alas it's story-driven and mechanics is just servant of story used in specific situations.
And as mechanis is used often but not infrequently why fiction is developing all the time, I'd say it's fiction/story that holds primacy in TTRPG generally speaking.
And that's probably why storygamers and pure storytellers are orbiting around TTRPG, but TTRPG is not orbiting around boardgames and wargames, not any more.
Because primal element is the same - just methods can be quite different. While primacy of chess for instance is game challenge itself.
QuoteThey allways fall back on the "everything on earth" argument. Every damn time.
Not "everything on earth". Everything. In. Fiction.
QuoteMy own experience is that purely situational RPG campaigns soon lose coherence, and all too often, players. Look at it like this - we live our ordinary lives doing (hopefully) what we please or to meet short term obligations. But the life experience within an RPG is inherently limited. We only play for so many hours a week and you don't actually spend all day risking your life in swordfights or dangerous underground environments in search of hidden treasure (please let me know if this is actually your day job. I would be so curious).
So our real lives are part of everyday existence and whether we realise it or not, from time to time we get caught up in the headlines and themes that frame the way fate is taking us. Vote for Him, the Man who needs your vote to run your neighbourhood. Oh no, not another booster jab for Covid? No savoury snacks at the shops for a while because potato stocks have run out. Doesn't seem important, but it could be. What happens if a European dictator goes too far and triggers that global crisis, or worse, an all out war? It isn't impossible.
To engage with the fantasy world the GM needs to compensate and give the players some kind of relevance. Levels 1 to 3, they're nobody's basically. 4 to 6, NPC's have heard a story or two about their exploits. 7 to 9, oh ye gods it's them, they're ordering drinks at MY tavern! 10 to 12, yes, this is Emperor Diplodicus calling, I need some assistance with a little problem. 13 to 15 burning bushes speak to you personally. 16 to 19 the gods are defying you to achieve the quest. 20 onward, the Gods themselves quake in their boots. Of course, the dangers you run up against increase too.
But this sort of progression should be measured against the world. Levels 1 to 3, the villagers need help. 4-6, the region needs help. 7 to 9, the kingdom needs help. 10 to 12, you're starting to shape the world around you, and... Well you get the idea.
So there's a big difference between finishing a dungeon and expecting another, compared to finishing a dungeon knowing that you've defeated the minion of a powerful NPC, or you rescued the Princess from the clutches of an evil plot, or you thwarted an attempt by traitors to weaken the Kingdom. Those faraway and important NPC's you introduce slowly, by a mention here and there, later a rumour, then a dark tale told be someone in the know, then you spot them among a crowd, eventually leading to that all important dramatic confrontation in a special scene.
The story is everything. It's what engages the player beyond mere gambling with dice. It demands they make important decisions.
Besides... I like telling stories.
This.
QuoteI'll be honest - I don't know what a "situational RPG campaign" is. I run all my campaigns as sandboxes. This doesn't mean there aren't local, regional, "national" (as such) events occurring - the game is, and always will be, where the PC's are "doing stuff." The GM's job is to contextualize the PC's "situations" with the rest of the world. If you let those situations occur in a vacuum, then your claim holds water - but then i'd counterclaim that this is low-effort, bad GMing.
A good GM makes non-combat stuff as important (or in my case - more important) than just cutting throats and smashing skulls. A good GM grooms the game around the actions of the players, you cultivate their PC's interests, you prune elements that don't have their interests, you nurture the settings conceits in parallel to the PC's actions and the "situations" never end until the campaign itself ends.
My PC's are very much involved with the setting - unexpected things which come to define them, everything form the regularity of their bathing, the types of beverages they prefer to consume, the interests they pursue outside of "adventuring", including politicking, training, gambling, romantic stuff, Guild activities etc. *all* of which are springboards to hosts of "situations" that become adventure-material.
That's very good and I condone it fullheartedly. Also 90% of things you described is story. And that's good.
That also applies to later part of this post. That's how I would like to run things.
QuoteThis is only true if you're running a module as proscribed to you by someone else. i disagree that storytime-module play is more engaging than sandbox play. The whole point of agency is for PC's to what they want (even if I'm using a module in sandbox - the PC's are perfectly free to disregard it), there is no story other than what happens after the PC's do it. They can follow their own internal narratives, they can follow the situations presented in the world, but if you as a GM are "telling a story" and not giving your player's agency, why game at all?
Indeed. But let's also consider - most of modules, even long campaigns are mostly string of challenges for PC's (not the good question is whether let's say Pathfinder AP is a story or will it become a story only in moment of gaming, now that's interesting ontology, but nevertheless). I've seen OSR remades of them to even more sandboxey nature. but even as it is - they rarely force PC to do something. You'll just better be ready to improvise when they take it of the given string of challenges.
And only bad modules really force you to railroad PC's most (unless let's say we speak about one-shots or short campaign in horror genre, when taking agency away is sort of part of shtick).
QuoteGM's aren't telling stories, they're presenting a world for PC's (and their players) to romp around in.
Sure they are. And even when we use your weird "only past matters" definition - then of course according to your own description you run and change world with time so it's not static. Ergo you invent stories happening within, pushing timeline forward, that does not contain and are not influenced by PC's just so setting can feel alive with events.
Quote"If I don't mread it it's the same as if didn't had an ending" ... FFS.
Subjectively yes.
QuoteThey win by forcing everyone to believe that black is white and then they all get trampled to death at the next zebra crossing.
Keep in mind that they treat storytelling/storygaming like a sex fetish that they have to co-opt every other sex fetish, er RPG, board game, mowing the lawn, into performing too. And they can get alot of traction by lies and predating on the gullible.
Yeah, nice strawman dude.
QuoteWhy not read them a novel then you don't run the risk of a TPK... (if that's the gamble you're worried about). GM's aren't telling stories, they're presenting a world for PC's (and their players) to romp around in. You can curate those actions into a narrative afterwards and make a cool story out of it when it's over.
If I want to read to read a book I've got plenty of those on the shelf :D RPG's have a distinct advantage that we add interaction, and both ways, but making a narrative after the fact means I have to reconcile the situation for the players and they don't have to weigh their own decisions. Seems a little limiting to me.
It was in fact the most story driven campaign that my players remembered fondly, and one of them was upset that it had to come to an end. I was mapping out the story beforehand each week, and that gave me a framework to enliven NPC's and their actions. It allowed me to create unexpected twists in the plot (discovering an NPC companion was in fact a former disciple of a great evil in hiding was almost a revelation to them - I enjoyed portraying that - though the disappearance of a veteran warrior had gotten them suspicious already)
I do present a world for the PCs. I try to make it a world that has its own existence rather than a stage backdrop. At the height of that campaign, political factions within the Seven Cities competed. A Cardinal working to become dictator, the nobleman trying to mount a popular uprising, the Council of High Elders trying to maintain the status quo, or if you want to push the possibilities, a growing resurgence of the Old Faith to stave off what they saw as a greater evil which was looming on the horizon as surviving evil disciples plotted to make revenge on each other and be the one to free their old master to rule again. Players made their choice (the wrong one, as I saw it, but hey, it's a game) and worked toward the objective they had chosen within that overall story. Improvisational theatre was such a great part of it. But still a story.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
QuoteThat is fiction. That's not a story. Fiction means it's not real or factual. Yes it's a function of storytelling. But an actual story has a beginning, middle and end.
No... it does not. By Oxford: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people". So sure there is certain intentional purpose - mainly entertainment. I guess in this rare example as it's used for debate, not entertainment it would not count, but generally during RPG session, well people play for entertainment of various sorts. And if Player Joe declares that his barbarian Shmoglebock is going to jump 24 ft on a back of wicked bugdragon, that's already act of storytelling.
QuoteYou can make a semantic argument that a horrible story doesn't need those things - but most normal people, and *anyone* in the business of publishing actual stories for consumption will say otherwise. I'm one of those people.
Business of publishing written novels and short stories - which are literary works - had jackshit authority over oral stories. Either those generated by gaming RPG, or those improvised by old shamans near firecamp of Siberian tribe of reindeer hunters. It's simply beyond area of expertise. Aside of most insane storytellers no-ones want for RPG stories to be like novels, or films and follow their rules.
QuoteYou are making a semantic argument about mechanics - not about story. Something *can't* run simultaneously within the game unless you're outside of the game telling a story *about* playing a game. The game is happening - you don't know what has happened until you've done the *thing*.
And game consist of ongoing fictional situation ergo story, and all out-of-fiction mechanism that replaces players bias in unraveling those events - ergo what for simplicity I called game.
QuoteCase 1) I'm telling you a story about how Tenbones is playing an RPG. He finishes the game before your eyes. It was fun. <--- this is what you're talking about.
Case 2) Tenbones character enters an encounter: ????? <---- this is what I'm talking about. I don't know what happens until I actually do the encounter. Then and only then I can tell you what Tenbone's PC did and contextualize it as a story within the context of the game. This happens *after*.
Entering encounter is ALREADY something that happened. Already estabilished fact. That's the point you can divide without problem timeline in really little pieces. Fight in 100 microevents. And each estabilished event become story by sheer power of being estabilished fact in fictional world.
QuoteGaming itself isn't a story - it's an action that has elements that can become a story if you're so inclined - but it'll happen after the fact. Like when we're having a beer and telling each other about our favorite PC moments etc.
Gaming itself as a social act of sitting roung table obviously is not a story. Not even most rampant storygamers claim such nonsense. But roleplaying game generates specific fictions when shit happens and that's a story. Story like - fictional world and events created for entertainment, not story - as recollection of our favourite moment from gaming night.
QuoteIt's completely meta. Your character may be *planning* to do things. But do you roleplay that? Do you sit there and brood out loud to your fellow players like you're doing theater for the *purpose* of roleplaying? Normally you just do it - or out of character you do it with the GM and then do it in game. That's the *game*. When you re-tell it to your friends (or think about it yourself) you're doing it after the fact. You plan the big heist, in the game you DO the big heist. Afterward you tell the story about how the Big Heist unfolded (and whether it worked or not, and why).
If player is playing big heist then generally speaking he need to describe fictional actions of his character. And that itself, real live time is already a story.
Game = whole event. Story = whatever is happening in fictional world game generates including GM descriptions, players declaration of actions, results of random rolls declared by GM or players.
QuoteThe game is merely the act of doing, and whatever bits are fun. Is there a narrative? Sure - but that's an emergent property because you as a player have no control over what is going to happen. The GM has no control over what you as the PC is going to do. And so you dance. What emerges is what you will later contextualize into a story (good or bad).
Yes that's why it's collaborative one, no one holds full control of events, and that's whole thrill. But it's emergent nature does not make it not-a-story. Story does not need to be contextualized, or following certain form. It only needs to happen in fiction, and that's what going op - happening in fiction. With good luck not Mark Wahlberg's one.
QuoteIf the cliffhanger never continues - then you don't have a complete story. You might have complete situations that resolved up to the cliffhanger - but the story is not complete, therefore it is not a story.
Well then I disagree. I do not have complete TV-show, narrative arc, but story is a story. It does not need completion, or beginning to be a story. There were fictional events filmed for my entertainment - that's enough to make it in essence story. Just like DM's description of fictional town is enough.
QuoteUNLESS you're telling me a story about how a story never completed. That's the meta part you're getting hung up on.
No there's nothing meta about it - though of course such recollection of game session or unfinished TV-series would also be a story, though under different of definitions given by Oxfrod Dictionary. What I say is directly straightforward - fiction within a game, just like fiction of TV show is a story, whether finished or not, completed or not, planned from beginning to end, improvised, randomly generated, does not matter. Every sentence declaring state of fiction is a sentence of ongoing story.
QuoteI'm not familiar with stories that *aren't* actual stories (beginning, middle, end). If you want to believe a situation is a story, then I *highly* suggest you don't take up storytelling in any form as a profession.
Primo, of course there were novels and shorts in history of writing that does not followed BME model. Some even acclaimed. Though of course it's risky model to follow.
Secundo, profession storytelling is just a snippet of storytelling at large. Of course it follows different rules - because it's usually meant to be commerce, or at least critical success. It's meant for people who did not participated in creating to have fun. Now of course story within RPG does not follow such rules, because it it not planned for commercial use.
Though of course there are probably few dozens streaming channels living from streaming sessions these days so even utter clunkiness of RPG can apparently sell.
QuoteIf we're discussing philosophy and the use of semantics - then you're still on shakey ground because deriving meaning from a "situation" is highly dependent on the metacontext of the person trying to resolve that meaning from any given situation and is further dependent on the philosophical bandwidth of whomever is listening. It does not make that situation a story, unless again, you're telling a story about two people talking about semantics of meaning as it regards emergent narratives from a singular non-story situation.
And again, I shall tell that any fictional situation presented as fact is already part of story, and follow up is irrelevant for it ontological status as story. Deriving meaning is here highly subjective I mean any recipient of any story can take very different meaning, so that's beyond scope of this discussion at all. Point is when GM declares: "It was late afternoon, when from the deep shadows of Mirkwood you heard heavy footsteps, and hoots, they seems to be nearer to you with every second." - this declaration is already a story. How story develops later - well that's up to players.
QuoteI'll duly note that to my editors of my future gaming publications, and send emails out to my former gaming publishers, and my wife while we argue about the use of English. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this politely: unless you're into fan-fiction and spewing it out onto the web, you must not understand a whole lot about publication. As a profession... you're gonna a need an editor. In fact if you had an editor, they would have redlined that entire line and told you to never utter it verbally, or in the written form, LOL.
Dude. I do not give a shit about publication. Publication is irrelevant from this discussion. Stories were told, and improvised, and planned, for millenia before any schmuck decided to make money on them. So commercial stories do not matter here. We do not discuss it, and I'm sure you wife is great editor, but her expertise in how to sell a novel does not even in a little give her authority to declare what is and what is not story per se. What do you need to do to write good novel in no way influence whether fiction generated by RPG is story. Period.
QuoteWhy do you say that? You're making an arbitrary decision free of context. I'm not saying I don't understand what you're meaning - I'm saying you're making distinctions that do not comply with mechanical aspects of reality. Story is narrative driven - TTRPG's have narrative elements but they're mechanically driven. Even diceless games are mechanically driven. But *ANY* game - even Chess or Monopoly can be turned into an narrative RPG (as silly and unfun as it may sound) - but even by doing so, the "story" of what that narrative is happens *after* the fact.
That I definitely disagree in terms of TTRPG per se. TTRPG is both mechanics and narrative and often also worldbuilding driven. All of those elements needs to coexist otherwise it's not RPG but boardgame, or storygame, or lorebook. I play RPG for my character to do some crazy shit, that's narrative drive, very personal but narrative. Mechanics is only there in service to story, not other way round, it is there to solve cituations of uncertainity and add thrill of risk to overall experience. But I can have thrill of experience playing dice game without any characters.
What make difference is narrative element of fiction. It's what separates RPG from you know all the other games in history.
TBH I had gaming sessions in life, quite fine without any use of mechanics, because we were just fooling around as characters, and game did not have much to solve in this situation. And it still was the same game, as heavy tactical sessions later and earlier. What connected them was... our personal narrative.
QuoteYou're hung up on this idea that these things happen in parallel. Okay. I'm not denying that. But I'm saying a "story" isn't a story until it has an ending.
And I disagree with this condition.
QuoteGaming is different in the sense that you have to enact the agency in the game (mechanics and task-resolution) that is normally left to the writers (and their beautiful editors) of fiction to do with a wave of their proverbial pen. The story itself in fiction isn't dependent on such mechanics. But gamers *require* it. That's the point of gaming.
Primo as I mentioned - not always - there are long chunks of RPG sessions not using mechanics. But of course yes - that's the thrill element. That's why there is strong movement both in OSR and storygamers to respect mechanics beause otherwise it's gonna turn into circle-jerk of GM or wannabe actors. Though of course there is plenty people who turned from RPG to purely RP... RPN I'm gonna say because usually there is still players with characters and GM, but mechanicless storytelling (which is not even storygame) because they felt mechanics is going in the way.
I like my risk and chances, but precisely because they generate interesting fictional results. They make story better most time, because subverting expectations but not in stupid way.
That's my shtick. Alas it's story-driven and mechanics is just servant of story used in specific situations.
And as mechanis is used often but not infrequently why fiction is developing all the time, I'd say it's fiction/story that holds primacy in TTRPG generally speaking.
And that's probably why storygamers and pure storytellers are orbiting around TTRPG, but TTRPG is not orbiting around boardgames and wargames, not any more.
Because primal element is the same - just methods can be quite different. While primacy of chess for instance is game challenge itself.
QuoteThey allways fall back on the "everything on earth" argument. Every damn time.
Not "everything on earth". Everything. In. Fiction.
QuoteMy own experience is that purely situational RPG campaigns soon lose coherence, and all too often, players. Look at it like this - we live our ordinary lives doing (hopefully) what we please or to meet short term obligations. But the life experience within an RPG is inherently limited. We only play for so many hours a week and you don't actually spend all day risking your life in swordfights or dangerous underground environments in search of hidden treasure (please let me know if this is actually your day job. I would be so curious).
So our real lives are part of everyday existence and whether we realise it or not, from time to time we get caught up in the headlines and themes that frame the way fate is taking us. Vote for Him, the Man who needs your vote to run your neighbourhood. Oh no, not another booster jab for Covid? No savoury snacks at the shops for a while because potato stocks have run out. Doesn't seem important, but it could be. What happens if a European dictator goes too far and triggers that global crisis, or worse, an all out war? It isn't impossible.
To engage with the fantasy world the GM needs to compensate and give the players some kind of relevance. Levels 1 to 3, they're nobody's basically. 4 to 6, NPC's have heard a story or two about their exploits. 7 to 9, oh ye gods it's them, they're ordering drinks at MY tavern! 10 to 12, yes, this is Emperor Diplodicus calling, I need some assistance with a little problem. 13 to 15 burning bushes speak to you personally. 16 to 19 the gods are defying you to achieve the quest. 20 onward, the Gods themselves quake in their boots. Of course, the dangers you run up against increase too.
But this sort of progression should be measured against the world. Levels 1 to 3, the villagers need help. 4-6, the region needs help. 7 to 9, the kingdom needs help. 10 to 12, you're starting to shape the world around you, and... Well you get the idea.
So there's a big difference between finishing a dungeon and expecting another, compared to finishing a dungeon knowing that you've defeated the minion of a powerful NPC, or you rescued the Princess from the clutches of an evil plot, or you thwarted an attempt by traitors to weaken the Kingdom. Those faraway and important NPC's you introduce slowly, by a mention here and there, later a rumour, then a dark tale told be someone in the know, then you spot them among a crowd, eventually leading to that all important dramatic confrontation in a special scene.
The story is everything. It's what engages the player beyond mere gambling with dice. It demands they make important decisions.
Besides... I like telling stories.
This.
QuoteI'll be honest - I don't know what a "situational RPG campaign" is. I run all my campaigns as sandboxes. This doesn't mean there aren't local, regional, "national" (as such) events occurring - the game is, and always will be, where the PC's are "doing stuff." The GM's job is to contextualize the PC's "situations" with the rest of the world. If you let those situations occur in a vacuum, then your claim holds water - but then i'd counterclaim that this is low-effort, bad GMing.
A good GM makes non-combat stuff as important (or in my case - more important) than just cutting throats and smashing skulls. A good GM grooms the game around the actions of the players, you cultivate their PC's interests, you prune elements that don't have their interests, you nurture the settings conceits in parallel to the PC's actions and the "situations" never end until the campaign itself ends.
My PC's are very much involved with the setting - unexpected things which come to define them, everything form the regularity of their bathing, the types of beverages they prefer to consume, the interests they pursue outside of "adventuring", including politicking, training, gambling, romantic stuff, Guild activities etc. *all* of which are springboards to hosts of "situations" that become adventure-material.
That's very good and I condone it fullheartedly. Also 90% of things you described is story. And that's good.
That also applies to later part of this post. That's how I would like to run things.
QuoteThis is only true if you're running a module as proscribed to you by someone else. i disagree that storytime-module play is more engaging than sandbox play. The whole point of agency is for PC's to what they want (even if I'm using a module in sandbox - the PC's are perfectly free to disregard it), there is no story other than what happens after the PC's do it. They can follow their own internal narratives, they can follow the situations presented in the world, but if you as a GM are "telling a story" and not giving your player's agency, why game at all?
Indeed. But let's also consider - most of modules, even long campaigns are mostly string of challenges for PC's (not the good question is whether let's say Pathfinder AP is a story or will it become a story only in moment of gaming, now that's interesting ontology, but nevertheless). I've seen OSR remades of them to even more sandboxey nature. but even as it is - they rarely force PC to do something. You'll just better be ready to improvise when they take it of the given string of challenges.
And only bad modules really force you to railroad PC's most (unless let's say we speak about one-shots or short campaign in horror genre, when taking agency away is sort of part of shtick).
QuoteGM's aren't telling stories, they're presenting a world for PC's (and their players) to romp around in.
Sure they are. And even when we use your weird "only past matters" definition - then of course according to your own description you run and change world with time so it's not static. Ergo you invent stories happening within, pushing timeline forward, that does not contain and are not influenced by PC's just so setting can feel alive with events.
Quote"If I don't mread it it's the same as if didn't had an ending" ... FFS.
Subjectively yes.
QuoteThey win by forcing everyone to believe that black is white and then they all get trampled to death at the next zebra crossing.
Keep in mind that they treat storytelling/storygaming like a sex fetish that they have to co-opt every other sex fetish, er RPG, board game, mowing the lawn, into performing too. And they can get alot of traction by lies and predating on the gullible.
Yeah, nice strawman dude.
Greetings!
Great commentary, Wrath of God!
D&D is and always has been a kind of storytelling game. Just about anyone beyond here would tell you that. Get your 12 year old sister to play D&D with you for just a few sessions. Without any kind of coaching or other ropaganda, ask he what she has been doing, or to describe D&D. I guarantee that she would say, "D&D is a fun storygame!" or "D&D is this weird, awesome game about telling stories!"
Also, yeah, Oral Storytelling. Publishing? D&D is an oral storytelling game. It doesn't have anything to do with the requirements or structure of professional, written publishing.
I'm sorry. OXFORD DICTIONARY states that the definition of story and storytelling is much more broad and fluid than what many people here seem to insist. NO. Story is not just what happens after. Story doesn't require beginning, middle, and conclusion. OXFORD DICTIONARY explains that storytelling comes in different forms, different structures, different styles. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Repeat again and again. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Wrath of God, it seems clear that defining D&D, describing D&D, discussing different aspects of how the game is developed and played, some people want there to be only one definition, only one way to describe it--their way. ONLY ONE WAY. It somehow drives them to have an emotional stroke to accept the deeper truth that storytelling has broad definitions, and that D&D is defined and experienced in different ways by different people--which are all valid.
I still don't understand where the emotional hostility comes from. This kind of deep-seated loathing and rage...no, no, there can only be my definition of storytelling!
Sorry, but OXFORD DICTIONARY clearly explains how the people that claim storytelling must have a single, rigid structure are just wrong. They have let their own emotional experiences stand in the way of them comprehending--and accepting--the refined and authoritative wisdom of a world-class dictionary. Remember also, Wrath of God, if they accepted the OXFORD DICTIONARY's conclusions--that would mean they would have to admit that they were wrong. They were mistaken. They actually understood something wrong, and didn't fully appreciate the best and more accurate understanding.
If you recall, I mentioned a number of YouTube people. Publishers, crafting people, gamers. Most have several thousand followers, or even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. These people have been gaming for 10, 20, 30 years. They all refer to D&D as a game of storytelling, of when you tell your stories, of developing your stories in the game, as you experience stories in the game, and on and on and on. It is clear that they all understand D&D through the Oxford definition of story, and not some rigid, narrow, single definition.
It's interesting, because you get to see what lots of other people think about D&D, how they view the game, and how they view storytelling, and experience RPG's.
Looking at OXFORD'S, it is clearly defined as a factual argument. Some people refuse to accept facts, so they insist on their own emotion-based beliefs, instead of facts. Like I mentioned, understanding the broad scope and definition of stories and storytelling is either something you "Get" or you don't. It is clear many people have a deep-seated emotional blockage or wall inside their minds that fights with them to understand there is a broad and more open definition of stories and storytelling--storytelling isn't just one definition, and furthermore, it doesn't need to be. That gnawing fact somehow disturbs them, Wrath of God. Like a Fly that evades them, and keeps landing on them to bite them. I think it is awesome that D&D is a story game, and is all about stories and storytelling. It always has been. That is what makes it different from Chess or Monopoly.
Cheers!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
QuoteThey win by forcing everyone to believe that black is white and then they all get trampled to death at the next zebra crossing.
Keep in mind that they treat storytelling/storygaming like a sex fetish that they have to co-opt every other sex fetish, er RPG, board game, mowing the lawn, into performing too. And they can get alot of traction by lies and predating on the gullible.
Yeah, nice strawman dude.
Well yes. You have a very nice strawman? But it seems to be on fire and your attempts to put it out with gasoline seems to be contra productive. 8)
Quote from: SHARK on November 20, 2021, 12:47:36 PM
I'm sorry. OXFORD DICTIONARY states that the definition of story and storytelling is much more broad and fluid than what many people here seem to insist. NO. Story is not just what happens after. Story doesn't require beginning, middle, and conclusion. OXFORD DICTIONARY explains that storytelling comes in different forms, different structures, different styles. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Repeat again and again. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Absolutely. Story is hardly unique in the English language for have multiple definitions. But just to be clear about my own position, I'm not talking about any sort of avant-garde type of story, nor am I looking to use story in a sense that is not applicable to the context of RPGs. I'm talking about stories with all the beginning, middle, and end parts. I'm mainly talking about hero's journey type of stories, which go all the way back to the earliest known stories. The parts of the hero's journey have been very well hashed out, and I'm approaching things in a very disciplined matter. So I'm not even operating in a grey area.
QuoteWrath of God, it seems clear that defining D&D, describing D&D, discussing different aspects of how the game is developed and played, some people want there to be only one definition, only one way to describe it--their way. ONLY ONE WAY. It somehow drives them to have an emotional stroke to accept the deeper truth that storytelling has broad definitions, and that D&D is defined and experienced in different ways by different people--which are all valid.
I still don't understand where the emotional hostility comes from. This kind of deep-seated loathing and rage...no, no, there can only be my definition of storytelling!
When people are digging their heels into a position beyond all reason and in the face of obvious contrary evidence, it's time to start taking of note of what they are accusing others of. That will tell you what they're up to. Confession by projection. I know at the very least you and I have been clear we're not saying everything is a story. Yet that's the strawman a lot of them are attacking. They're accusing us of using an overly broad definition because they're using an overly narrow one. Nuance is not on their side, so the best strategy is to exclude the middle.
Quote from: Lunamancer on November 21, 2021, 10:14:45 AM
Quote from: SHARK on November 20, 2021, 12:47:36 PM
I'm sorry. OXFORD DICTIONARY states that the definition of story and storytelling is much more broad and fluid than what many people here seem to insist. NO. Story is not just what happens after. Story doesn't require beginning, middle, and conclusion. OXFORD DICTIONARY explains that storytelling comes in different forms, different structures, different styles. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Repeat again and again. NOT JUST ONE FORM.
Absolutely. Story is hardly unique in the English language for have multiple definitions. But just to be clear about my own position, I'm not talking about any sort of avant-garde type of story, nor am I looking to use story in a sense that is not applicable to the context of RPGs. I'm talking about stories with all the beginning, middle, and end parts. I'm mainly talking about hero's journey type of stories, which go all the way back to the earliest known stories. The parts of the hero's journey have been very well hashed out, and I'm approaching things in a very disciplined matter. So I'm not even operating in a grey area.
QuoteWrath of God, it seems clear that defining D&D, describing D&D, discussing different aspects of how the game is developed and played, some people want there to be only one definition, only one way to describe it--their way. ONLY ONE WAY. It somehow drives them to have an emotional stroke to accept the deeper truth that storytelling has broad definitions, and that D&D is defined and experienced in different ways by different people--which are all valid.
I still don't understand where the emotional hostility comes from. This kind of deep-seated loathing and rage...no, no, there can only be my definition of storytelling!
When people are digging their heels into a position beyond all reason and in the face of obvious contrary evidence, it's time to start taking of note of what they are accusing others of. That will tell you what they're up to. Confession by projection. I know at the very least you and I have been clear we're not saying everything is a story. Yet that's the strawman a lot of them are attacking. They're accusing us of using an overly broad definition because they're using an overly narrow one. Nuance is not on their side, so the best strategy is to exclude the middle.
Greetings!
Brilliant, Lunamancer! I agree entirely. That's especially neat--they are projecting that we are using an overly broad definition because they are using an overly narrow definition. That's sweet, and clever, and sharp.
And yeah, not "everything is a story!" I don't know though why they *want* to define storytelling so narrowly? D&D is a wonderful storytelling game, like you said, embracing the Hero's Journey in so many ways and aspects, why would a person seethe and rage against using a broader definition or application? People LOVE storytelling. It is like I mentioned in an earlier post, storytelling is a crucial component to how we experience life, and learn just about anything meaningful. People love stories and storytelling.
D&D is a game where you make up a fictional avatar that "lives" in a fantastic world. BOOM. That right there is the be all and end all of D&D's popularity and appeal. THAT"s why people are drawn to playing D&D.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
These half-page scroll debates are not even on topic.
Original post written another way is asking this: When playing or DMg a game, is it more important to use story pacing and beats OR present a situation, and see what people do about it?
This is asking for opinion, so there is no right or wrong.
But if someone asked me to play in their game, where they focus on story pacing and beats OVER simply playing things out in character, at whatever pace feels right...I would quickly decline their game and wish them luck. Smells like a game with theatre flunkies to me.
Quote from: Bren on November 19, 2021, 08:23:59 PM
I've seen this 'argument' about 100 times online and I don't really get it. For the sake of discussion, let's say that one side agrees that everything is a story. What does the other side win?
I have no fucking idea.
But I'm willing to have that discussion. Something I've realized very acutely, is how people process the act of gaming on several different axis. Some people may only be able to process TTRPG's in this narrative form where they are passive participants that happen to throw dice on occasion for the edification to pretend they have agency, when it's really just storytime/socializing etc.
As someone that writes, plays TTRPG's, does design for both (I help in story-editing and development for other writers with my wife), I definitely have some opinions.
But what I've seen recently as democratization of writing expands and allows more and more people with *zero* understanding of writing or storytelling experience or skill, is that the mental process of storytelling itself apparently an alien thing.
Those people tend to think of this whole "situation" vs. "story" thing as the same thing, and have a really hard time understanding the difference. Especially when it comes to POV. To say nothing about not understanding character agency etc. in relation to the story narrative from a *construction* process. Which is why it's so funny to see this being talked about in gaming.
To see people say these same things from a TTRPG perspective is a bit bewildering to me - because from a writers viewpoint (especially those that have never gamed) the act of gaming is like a simulation of storytelling removed entirely from the act of writing. Who the hell knows what the characters are going to do if the writer isn't doing the writing? It's the non-stop What If <X>? moment when writers are musing or bandying things around with their editors on establishing the actual story and how it's going to be told for the purposes of consumption.
This thread is again a startling reminder of how their perception of these things is "out there".
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
No... it does not. By Oxford: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people". So sure there is certain intentional purpose - mainly entertainment. I guess in this rare example as it's used for debate, not entertainment it would not count, but generally during RPG session, well people play for entertainment of various sorts. And if Player Joe declares that his barbarian Shmoglebock is going to jump 24 ft on a back of wicked bugdragon, that's already act of storytelling.
"Smoglebock attempting to jump 24-ft on the back of a bugdragon" IS NOT a story by your own words . It hasn't even happened. Unless you're telling me a story outside of the act itself. At *best* it's non-contextual fragment of someone trying to tell a story. You are literally debating with me semantics
Even the Oxford definition cites a *PLURALITY* of events to create, ostensibly, a narrative. Not a singular action. Nor even a singular event.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
Business of publishing written novels and short stories - which are literary works - had jackshit authority over oral stories. Either those generated by gaming RPG, or those improvised by old shamans near firecamp of Siberian tribe of reindeer hunters. It's simply beyond area of expertise. Aside of most insane storytellers no-ones want for RPG stories to be like novels, or films and follow their rules.
Wait... are you telling me you sit around while a GM orates you a story about what your characters do? Because what does oral tradition have to do with any of this in relation to the thread. A GM can describe a situation. A Player can react to the situation. The game can be played to figure out how that situation is *resolved*. Once that happens you have a small story you can then tell. It happens afterwards because the narrative of the story has to be contextualized. Again, if you're ignoring thousands of years of written *and* oral tradition to make some vague point about literary written works (hint: there are no oral stories you know of that weren't eventually written down from thousands of years ago unless you're part of a very rare group of people), I'm finding you're arguing some semantics point that is such an extreme outlier you're being disingenuous.
QuoteYou are making a semantic argument about mechanics - not about story. Something *can't* run simultaneously within the game unless you're outside of the game telling a story *about* playing a game. The game is happening - you don't know what has happened until you've done the *thing*.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMAnd game consist of ongoing fictional situation ergo story, and all out-of-fiction mechanism that replaces players bias in unraveling those events - ergo what for simplicity I called game.
Do you seriously believe that people generally game this way? What is the story that is being told here? That Bob picked up his d20 and rolled the die. That GM Judy adjudicated the ruling of the d20. Bob *seemed* pleased. GM Judy told him to roll a d6 for damage. Bob rolled the d6 (and lied, saying it was a 6). GM Judy didn't notice, and adjudicated the number. Bob won the game.
In game - none of those things are happening until the meta-actions of playing the game occur. And none of the narrative of whatever Gogthar the Cheating Barbarian are known until the mechanics of the gaming portion of play occur. It's not until those things happen you'll have a "story".
I'm only pointing this out for clarification (I don't really care whether you believe me or not). But here - why don't you give us a written example of an Oral recitation of this scenario which qualifies your point on how this is really done. Seriously - give us an example. Or are you just being argumentative for some reason? I'm not sure. What would this "story" look/sound like?
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMEntering encounter is ALREADY something that happened. Already estabilished fact. That's the point you can divide without problem timeline in really little pieces. Fight in 100 microevents. And each estabilished event become story by sheer power of being estabilished fact in fictional world.
So "story" is anything you say it is? 100 micro-events are 100 micro-stories? #1 Seems like a horrible way to tell a story (orally or in written form). #2 what kind of game are you playing if the agency of the PC's are pre-established? Nothing is happening until something happens. You only know it *after* it has happened. This is the difference between being told a story and writing a story for someone to read it. Even in your own words the 100-micro-events have to be narratively constructed to make sense. If you saw a still-shot of a guy swinging a sword in ONE image, that is not a story. You have to construct a narrative around it - like what Artsy Fartsy people do when staring at a painting.
It happens afterward.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
Gaming itself as a social act of sitting roung table obviously is not a story. Not even most rampant storygamers claim such nonsense. But roleplaying game generates specific fictions when shit happens and that's a story. Story like - fictional world and events created for entertainment, not story - as recollection of our favourite moment from gaming night.
Yet there are tons of books (bad ones mostly) telling stories of people sitting around a table playing TTRPGs. They also delve into the in-universe events WITHIN the RPG... but guess what's really *not* happening? An actual game. It's stories about people playing games. Not actual gaming.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMIf player is playing big heist then generally speaking he need to describe fictional actions of his character. And that itself, real live time is already a story.
Except without a middle or end - it's not a story. I already staked my claim on this. No oral tradition ends in the beginning with no middle or end either.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMGame = whole event. Story = whatever is happening in fictional world game generates including GM descriptions, players declaration of actions, results of random rolls declared by GM or players.
Wrong. I literally have games that run for *years* that are comprised of many many events. I could tell you stories of those events <--stories! But the game ends when the game ends. The stories, again, are narratives curated from those events AFTER the fact.
Unless there is something specific about players rolling dice, pencils scratching paper/butts/heads, out of the game - those things are usually not part of the narrative and therefore not pertinent to the "story". Unless it is - but then you're still telling it after the fact. And without knowing what the end of this hypothesis is... /drum roll.... there is no story.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMYes that's why it's collaborative one, no one holds full control of events, and that's whole thrill. But it's emergent nature does not make it not-a-story. Story does not need to be contextualized, or following certain form. It only needs to happen in fiction, and that's what going op - happening in fiction. With good luck not Mark Wahlberg's one.
Dunno if you realize this - but when I'm gaming, I'm not telling a story. That's kind of the point of this conversation. I'm running a game. My players are DOING things with their PC's. The narrative is what emerges. The emergent narratives will later become stories we tell ourselves - but it happens after the gaming part. That's all I'm saying. They are mutually exclusive actions. If I played tic-tac-toe whatever narratives I attach within the game of tic-tac-toe game have to be knitted together to make sense.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
Well then I disagree. I do not have complete TV-show, narrative arc, but story is a story. It does not need completion, or beginning to be a story. There were fictional events filmed for my entertainment - that's enough to make it in essence story. Just like DM's description of fictional town is enough.
You may have stories within a story - which may be unfinished. But if the overall story is unfinished... then there you go. It's not a story.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMNo there's nothing meta about it - though of course such recollection of game session or unfinished TV-series would also be a story, though under different of definitions given by Oxfrod Dictionary. What I say is directly straightforward - fiction within a game, just like fiction of TV show is a story, whether finished or not, completed or not, planned from beginning to end, improvised, randomly generated, does not matter. Every sentence declaring state of fiction is a sentence of ongoing story.
I don't think you understand what you just wrote. Unless you're playing a game where you're deciding the meaning of the game round by round, action by action before and after any dice-roll, the act of assuming those outcomes is by definition meta.
It's like asking the audience the meaning of what the actors should do on stage and knowing the outcome of those actions in each scene beforehand and pretending that agency is real. Either you're *TELLING* a story, or you're dynamically playing a game where the outcomes are unknown. Which is it?
I'm not, nor have I ever, said that narratives don't emerge from gaming - I'm saying emphatically they happen AFTERWARDS. It might be milliseconds afterwards - but they're afterwards nevertheless. You don't have that crowning moment of the Hero killing the Villain dramatically until that d20 is rolled and it comes up 20! and the photons from the lightbulb bounce off that d20 and go into your eyes and fire up your optic nerve and hit your grey-matter and you get excited and then realize WHAT IT MEANS. It is still *after* the fact.
You'll slice-and-dice those narratives of everything that led to that point later and have a nice little story to tell.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
Primo, of course there were novels and shorts in history of writing that does not followed BME model. Some even acclaimed. Though of course it's risky model to follow.
Secundo, profession storytelling is just a snippet of storytelling at large. Of course it follows different rules - because it's usually meant to be commerce, or at least critical success. It's meant for people who did not participated in creating to have fun. Now of course story within RPG does not follow such rules, because it it not planned for commercial use.
Though of course there are probably few dozens streaming channels living from streaming sessions these days so even utter clunkiness of RPG can apparently sell.
For this to be the hill you're willing to die on for the sake of discussion would assume you believe Gaming is largely played this way. Otherwise... you could say "ah, yes, I see what you're saying. I agree - storytelling is not gaming but you can make stories out of a game-experience."
If you believe that TTRPG's are storytelling vehicles unto themselves, and are willing to stick with it. Well I hope you enjoy your storytelling gaming and it gives you satisfaction.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMAnd again, I shall tell that any fictional situation presented as fact is already part of story and follow up is irrelevant for it ontological status as story.
"I jumped 24-feet into the air today after I rolled a d20."
Is that IN FACT a factual story? Tell us now and reveal your foolishness. Otherwise you're proving my point.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMDude. I do not give a shit about publication. Publication is irrelevant from this discussion. Stories were told, and improvised, and planned, for millenia before any schmuck decided to make money on them.
But were ANY of them done by tossing dice and playing a TTRPG? If not then should I give a shit about your inconsistent outlier opinion? What *exactly* are you arguing then? "stories" happen? I'm in the profession of making stories, making games, AND playing games. I know the difference.
You're making some weird claim at some very shaky points that they're all one in the same. I'm being pretty clear they're not (though they have elements that they share).
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AMSo commercial stories do not matter here. We do not discuss it, and I'm sure you wife is great editor, but her expertise in how to sell a novel does not even in a little give her authority to declare what is and what is not story per se. What do you need to do to write good novel in no way influence whether fiction generated by RPG is story. Period.
Fiction comes after the RPG. <--- your mask is slipping. And you're making my point... it seems like you just want to argue.
/snip...
You know, I could keep going, but time is money. Good luck to you - I hope you enjoy your storygaming or whatever you wanna call it. I think you're arguing to argue, and hey! Nothing about what you've said has changed my position - but you've literally admitted it. I'm okay with it - and I hope you're okay with it too.
LOL this is silly.
Quote from: FingerRod on November 21, 2021, 03:00:35 PM
These half-page scroll debates are not even on topic.
Original post written another way is asking this: When playing or DMg a game, is it more important to use story pacing and beats OR present a situation, and see what people do about it?
Both. Some players are super-passive, and others aren't. You use the tool that moves things along. Problem solved?
This whole discursion about TTRPG's being Stories is stupid (and yes I understand the irony of me saying it).
RPGs aren't stories. They're Shamanic Vision Quests.
That's why the 'player' is both participant and observer.
Quote from: S'mon on November 22, 2021, 01:22:29 PM
RPGs aren't stories. They're Shamanic Vision Quests.
That's why the 'player' is both participant and observer.
I can get behind this.
Quote from: tenbones on November 22, 2021, 03:10:22 PM
Quote from: S'mon on November 22, 2021, 01:22:29 PM
RPGs aren't stories. They're Shamanic Vision Quests.
That's why the 'player' is both participant and observer.
I can get behind this.
You need a box set with 2 booklets, 7 dice, a crayon, and a peyote cactus.
Quote from: FingerRod on November 21, 2021, 03:00:35 PM
These half-page scroll debates are not even on topic.
Original post written another way is asking this: When playing or DMg a game, is it more important to use story pacing and beats OR present a situation, and see what people do about it?
This is asking for opinion, so there is no right or wrong.
But if someone asked me to play in their game, where they focus on story pacing and beats OVER simply playing things out in character, at whatever pace feels right...I would quickly decline their game and wish them luck. Smells like a game with theatre flunkies to me.
I initially hesitated in replying to the OP at all because I didn't want to trash the question. If I were to set out to create a story or create a situation for an RPG, there isn't too much I do differently. I've given exactly zero thoughts to beats. Wandering monster checks, and perhaps the occasional nudging if players get caught up in too much OOC cross talk, is all I ever needed to keep the pace appropriate. Otherwise, these things generally hash out really well on their own.
I view things with a degree of scale invariance. One of the main points I have argued in my other posts here is that conscious action contains all the parts of the hero's journey on a small scale. I think what the OP is referring to with "situation" is what I usually just call encounters, and of course that involves a series of conscious acts, but there is a motive to the encounter as a whole. The adventure as a whole is a series of those encounters, likewise with an over-arching purpose.
In understanding the story inherent in actions, encounters, and adventures, it helps me create a checklist of when an adventure or encounter is lacking something. I suspect most GMs will hit most of the points most of the time without needing any special awareness or without even trying. But for me, the checklist of story elements for a hero's journey helps push me the extra mile creatively, and increases the number of hits and decreases the number of misses with my players without ever having to step outside of a sandbox.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
No... it does not. By Oxford: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people"....
Your whole argument rests on conflating the word 'Description' with the definition of 'story'. Thereby anything you happen to "describe" is a story.
Will the real Oxford definition of story please stand up?:
Quote from: OED on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
noun: Story; plural noun: stories
"an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment."
Taken from google definitions which they get from: Oxford Languages.
Which if you click on the link it takes you to:
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Which are the people who do the Oxford English dictionary...
But whatever; Account, Report, or Description; the result is the same.
Because:
While reports, accounts and descriptions are used in storytelling; Reports, accounts and descriptions
are not stories on their own. The word 'story' not being used in their definitions being an important hint:
Quote from: OED on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
noun: description; plural noun: descriptions
1. 1.
a spoken or written representation or account of a person, object, or event.
"people who had seen him were able to give a description"
RPG's are a game, and a necessary part of the game is describing the actions of your character.
When telling
a story you do use description to fill in the narrative.
But every time you describe something
you are not always telling a story.For example:
The description of PC actions:
GM:
"The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"Player1:
"Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"
Player2:
"Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"GM:
"Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.
This is how a story is emergent from gameplay:
Player3:
"Got my soda, what did I miss?Player2:
"The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down with his axe grognir in a series of furious downright blows!"That is a story. A really short one. But Jack and Jill wasn't exactly and involved tale either.
That is how descriptions of PC's actions become a story, and how story is emergent from gameplay.
In the first part, no matter how much 'narrative color' you may add to it – you are not telling a story! You are merely describing your PC's actions in the moment that they are happening.
In the second part you see the different descriptions of the actions made by the GM and the Players of what they did being put together into a single cohesive entertaining story.
Even Ron Edwards with his pseudo-intellectual Gameist/Narrativeist/Simulationist claptrap understood that RPG's are not in and of themselves "storytelling games". That story is emergent from gameplay; not what you are doing
while playing the game.Hence his creation of explicit "storytelling games" – which
share complete narrative control to actually create a story on the fly rather that a series of events, actions, and descriptions that only become a story in the retelling.
Even Ron Edwards understood that.
Quote from: SHARK on November 18, 2021, 02:21:32 PM
Yeah, it is weird how some people get hung up on terminology. I know whole groups of gamers that if you asked them what D&D is, they would all say that "D&D is a storygame"; or "D&D is a game where you create a character that exists in this fictional world where your character lives out stories in the game".
...
People get hung up on terminology because words have meaning.
You know people who refer to D&D/RPG's as "storygame/s" because
people use words wrong. As this thread is proof of.
And people have been using the word 'story' wrong since the beginning of the hobby.
Mainly because it is an easy/lazy way to imperfectly get across a flawed concept of what RPG's do so that normies have something to mentally grab on to.
When you start saying:
"Well it is like a wargame but one where you are playing an individual character like you would in a game of cowboys and Indians, but within a group of people where one acts like a referee..."Normie:
*eyes glaze over*So people started saying:
"A game where you get to be a badass fighter like Conan, but in your own series of stories."Normie:
"Oh that sounds cool, Conan was badass. I could play a badass!"Thus the Lazy and flawed has triumphed over the accurate and nuanced.
Quote from: Jaeger on November 22, 2021, 10:03:10 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
No... it does not. By Oxford: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people"....
Your whole argument rests on conflating the word 'Description' with the definition of 'story'. Thereby anything you happen to "describe" is a story.
Will the real Oxford definition of story please stand up?:
Quote from: OED on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
noun: Story; plural noun: stories
"an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment."
Taken from google definitions which they get from: Oxford Languages.
Which if you click on the link it takes you to:
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Which are the people who do the Oxford English dictionary...
But whatever; Account, Report, or Description; the result is the same.
Because:
While reports, accounts and descriptions are used in storytelling; Reports, accounts and descriptions are not stories on their own.
The word 'story' not being used in their definitions being an important hint:
Quote from: OED on November 20, 2021, 07:26:10 AM
noun: description; plural noun: descriptions
1. 1.
a spoken or written representation or account of a person, object, or event.
"people who had seen him were able to give a description"
RPG's are a game, and a necessary part of the game is describing the actions of your character.
When telling a story you do use description to fill in the narrative.
But every time you describe something you are not always telling a story.
For example:
The description of PC actions:
GM: "The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"
Player1: "Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"
Player2: "Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"
GM: "Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"
That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.
This is how a story is emergent from gameplay:
Player3: "Got my soda, what did I miss?
Player2: "The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down with his axe grognir in a series of furious downright blows!"
That is a story. A really short one. But Jack and Jill wasn't exactly and involved tale either.
That is how descriptions of PC's actions become a story, and how story is emergent from gameplay.
In the first part, no matter how much 'narrative color' you may add to it – you are not telling a story! You are merely describing your PC's actions in the moment that they are happening.
In the second part you see the different descriptions of the actions made by the GM and the Players of what they did being put together into a single cohesive entertaining story.
Even Ron Edwards with his pseudo-intellectual Gameist/Narrativeist/Simulationist claptrap understood that RPG's are not in and of themselves "storytelling games". That story is emergent from gameplay; not what you are doing while playing the game.
Hence his creation of explicit "storytelling games" – which share complete narrative control to actually create a story on the fly rather that a series of events, actions, and descriptions that only become a story in the retelling.
Even Ron Edwards understood that.
Quote from: SHARK on November 18, 2021, 02:21:32 PM
Yeah, it is weird how some people get hung up on terminology. I know whole groups of gamers that if you asked them what D&D is, they would all say that "D&D is a storygame"; or "D&D is a game where you create a character that exists in this fictional world where your character lives out stories in the game".
...
People get hung up on terminology because words have meaning.
You know people who refer to D&D/RPG's as "storygame/s" because people use words wrong. As this thread is proof of.
And people have been using the word 'story' wrong since the beginning of the hobby.
Mainly because it is an easy/lazy way to imperfectly get across a flawed concept of what RPG's do so that normies have something to mentally grab on to.
When you start saying: "Well it is like a wargame but one where you are playing an individual character like you would in a game of cowboys and Indians, but within a group of people where one acts like a referee..."
Normie: *eyes glaze over*
So people started saying: "A game where you get to be a badass fighter like Conan, but in your own series of stories."
Normie: "Oh that sounds cool, Conan was badass. I could play a badass!"
Thus the Lazy and flawed has triumphed over the accurate and nuanced.
I thought owning someone was illegal in the west?
Wrath of God you need to roll save versus getting destroyed. You need a natural 45 on your d20.
Quote from: SHARK on November 18, 2021, 02:21:32 PM
Yeah, it is weird how some people get hung up on terminology. I know whole groups of gamers that if you asked them what D&D is, they would all say that "D&D is a storygame"; or "D&D is a game where you create a character that exists in this fictional world where your character lives out stories in the game".
...
People get hung up on terminology because words have meaning.
You know people who refer to D&D/RPG's as "storygame/s" because
people use words wrong. As this thread is proof of.
And people have been using the word 'story' wrong since the beginning of the hobby.
Mainly because it is an easy/lazy way to imperfectly get across a flawed concept of what RPG's do so that normies have something to mentally grab on to.
When you start saying:
"Well it is like a wargame but one where you are playing an individual character like you would in a game of cowboys and Indians, but within a group of people where one acts like a referee..."Normie:
*eyes glaze over*So people started saying:
"A game where you get to be a badass fighter like Conan, but in your own series of stories."Normie:
"Oh that sounds cool, Conan was badass. I could play a badass!"Thus the Lazy and flawed has triumphed over the accurate and nuanced.
[/quote]
Greetings!
Well, my friend, I understand that words have meaning. There is also colloquialisms, pedantry, and simply, different interpretations.
I have alluded to such in several of my earlier commentaries. There are "stories" within stories. D&D is a storytelling game. It's all about stories. It isn't *just* or *only* about stories, but stories are front and center. Stories and storytelling are interwoven throughout the game. Storytelling elements are critical to the game--that is why D&D isn't DungeonQuest, or DragonQuest--I forgot--some kind of boardgame. Or Monopoly, or Risk. There are boardgames that have dice, miniatures, and fighting. That is a game, bit there is no storytelling there. D&D is all about roleplaying, and storytelling. *shrugs* You might believe people "use the words wrong"--I would say, in this regard though--that people simply interpret the game--and storytelling--in different ways.
The whole Beginning-Middle-End framework that several here have quoted, for example. Yes, that is one interpretation of story, or storytelling, and it certainly does apply to written literature, like books, as Tenbones has argued. However, I think there are different interpretations, different nuances, aspects, and different ways to experience storytelling or "story" than solely in that form. Most especially when such is applied to an RPG like D&D.
And NO, not *everything in the world* is a story. I'm not saying that, either. However, much of what goes on in the D&D game is a kind of story.
The DM is involved with telling the players a kind of story about the campaign world.
Each of the Player Characters has a story--the events and relationships they have developed before joining the group, is a story.
There are major NPC's that each, too, have their own stories.
The group of Adventurers, once they join up together, have a "story". There is an ongoing story amongst themselves, as a group of people and relationships.
That Group Story is ongoing, but also separate from, and distinct, from whatever story is going on in the "ADVENTURE" that the group is going to go on this coming Saturday.
There are ongoing, constant stories between the different Player Characters and different NPC's in their lives--none of which have *concluded*, *climaxed* or *ended*.
All of these things are different kinds of stories. They all have a kind of *beginning*--but not necessarily a specific "Middle" and certainly no conclusion. That kind of formal structure is irrelevant.
Just like one of my English professors explained, "Our whole lives are about stories. All of us have stories about ourselves, our families, our friends, our different relationships" Human beings experience life through stories. Every major lesson or important thing, for the most part, is learned through, and experienced through storytelling, in some kind of form.
So, like I mentioned earlier, I suppose it is something that you "Get" or you don't. It just is what it is. I see stories and storytelling all through D&D. Apparently, lots of other gamers do as well, and always have.
What I don't understand is why is it so important that everyone thinks or interprets it in just one way? I see stories and storytelling throughout D&D. You, may not. Ok, so what? Why does that matter? Whether you believe I--or someone else, for that matter--is "using the words wrong"--ultimately, what real relevance does that have on playing and enjoying an RPG? And clearly, well, evidently there are many people that do not subscribe to YOUR INTERPRETATION of story, or storytelling, anymore than they evidently agree with my own. "D&D is a storytelling game! No it's not! Yes, it is! No, it's not! Yes, it is!"
Obviously, it isn't about one kind of interpretation. If it was such a clear and self-evidentiary issue, then there would be no basis for such different interpretations. And, gamers have been having these different definitions, different interpretations, long before Ron Edwards. Fuck Ron Edwards. ;D
Personally, I like Sandboxes. I'm not interested in Ron Edward's "Storytelling Games" in the slightest, and never have been. While I see D&D as a kind of storytelling game--it is a kind of game, it isn't a book or a film, and the DM is not the movies' Director, or Script Writer, or the Book's author. There is no "script" to follow, and players should not be railroaded down some stupid path to the DM's terrible attempt at writing some kind of fucking novel.
What makes D&D in particular and RPG's in general so unique and special--they are a form of collaborative, group storytelling that is anchored within a structure of game rules, and provided a loose framework of "Plot elements" by the DM.
That is the way I see D&D. That is the way I have experienced D&D. That's my interpretation, though.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Jaeger on November 22, 2021, 10:03:10 PM
Will the real Oxford definition of story please stand up?:
You don't get to pick the definition.
It's okay to cherry pick the one that best suits you if you're using it as a data point to defend your own use of the word. It has no probative value with regards to declaring someone else's use of the word is wrong. I'm not fond of cringe dictionary arguments to begin with. But if you find one that justifies your usage, even if that's all you got, I'm willing to have the grace to let the baby have their bottle.
But if the definition is also clearly applicable in context;
And if someone can point to examples of the word in common usage with the same meaning;
And the usage is still useful in that it conveys meaning and can articulate distinction;
If you have a dictionary definition and fulfill these three extra conditions, at that point it's pretty well verified. And anyone denying the usage of that word is most likely wrong.
Speaking for myself, I'm using story in a very disciplined way that hits all these points.
By the very points you're making, you're disqualifying yourself from each of these marks.
You can have your bottle, but you don't get to declare that I'm using the word incorrectly.
Quote
The description of PC actions:
GM: "The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"
Player1: "Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"
Player2: "Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"
GM: "Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"
That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.
This is how a story is emergent from gameplay:
Player3: "Got my soda, what did I miss?
Player2: "The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down in a series of furious downright blows!"
That is a story.
I think the key thing you're missing is the experience. The GM in your example must experience the story first in order to be able to relay it in the second example. And for me, reading the first example is a more exciting experience than reading the second example. If I were a player in the game, it would be an even more compelling story since I could better infer the motives of the orcs and other PCs from what happened in the game prior to this example, and also i would have near-perfect knowledge of my own character's motives.
QuoteEven Ron Edwards
In past threads when these semantic arguments over the meaning of "story" has come up, I've been known to say that I refuse to cede the linguistic ground of the word "story" to drunken old fart professors. This is the exactly one of the people I had in mind near the top of the list. So now I have to ask, why is it someone that you refer to twice as "even" Ron Edwards and who you call a pseudo-intellectual, why have you lowered yourself to that level? Use of arbitrary definitions for the sake of a model leading to linguistic confusion is his hallmark. I'm not going to use his definition of story. No thank you.
QuotePeople get hung up on terminology because words have meaning.
If you feel that way, why are you only looking at the one definition of story? If it's not important enough to do more digging than that, then the hang ups are unjustified. If you're saying the hang ups are justified, then you need to do better, broader, more complete research on what words mean.
QuoteYou know people who refer to D&D/RPG's as "storygame/s" because people use words wrong. As this thread is proof of.
Maybe. But it's also possible people refer to D&D as a storygame because it's a game in which they experience a story when they play it. I would say the real fault lies in those who coined the term "storygame" to mean something distinct from D&D/RPGs when a regular person not hip to the hipsters is likely to connect the two. Or maybe they knew full well it would have that effect and it was kind of the point. Siphon off the audience.
I don't think it's a term worthy of any kind of reverence. I don't think it's necessarily a good term or an accurate term or a precise term or even a term that is remotely acknowledged outside a very small percentage of people. If you know the special meaning of the term and you're speaking with other people who know it, too, fine. Just understand it's not a real word that "means things" in the broader world.
QuoteAnd people have been using the word 'story' wrong since the beginning of the hobby.
Mainly because it is an easy/lazy way to imperfectly get across a flawed concept of what RPG's do so that normies have something to mentally grab on to.
Maybe. Maybe millions of people over a period of several decades have been wrong. Or maybe it's just you and the 3 or 4 other people here, and the drunken old fart professor and his dozen or so holdout adherents, and maybe a few stragglers beyond that.
If I were to give an explanation of what D&D is using the word "story", it would be something like this:
"It's like a Conan story where you're the star, and the choices you make determines where the story goes."
Ain't no one going to respond to that with, "Huh? I don't get it. How can I determine where the story goes when a story has to be something that's already happened. How can I decide where something already happened went." Everyone will understand perfectly fine what I mean. Because it's a perfectly legitimate definition of story that every normal person understands.
Quote from: SHARK on November 23, 2021, 12:46:46 AM
Mainly because it is an easy/lazy way to imperfectly get across a flawed concept of what RPG's do so that normies have something to mentally grab on to.
I have gotten some good results explaining that what I do as a referee is to create an experience. Specifically creating practical contact and interaction with facts or events with pen, paper, dice, and a RPG system.
With Adventures in Middle Earth I can't create a story for your character about their adventures in Middle Earth, but I can do a reasonably fun job of creating the experience of adventuring as that character within Middle Earth with pen, paper, dice, and Adventures in Middle Earth. Mileage may vary whether that experience will be an interesting story to tell after it done.
Collaborative storytelling can be fun and can be a game but it not what I do nor what I am interested in doing.
Quote from: FingerRod on November 21, 2021, 03:00:35 PM
These half-page scroll debates are not even on topic.
Original post written another way is asking this: When playing or DMg a game, is it more important to use story pacing and beats OR present a situation, and see what people do about it?
This is asking for opinion, so there is no right or wrong.
But if someone asked me to play in their game, where they focus on story pacing and beats OVER simply playing things out in character, at whatever pace feels right...I would quickly decline their game and wish them luck. Smells like a game with theatre flunkies to me.
As I noted in my original post to this. Theres plenty of room for both.
But time and again we see story pacing and beats have a very high tendency to skew into a more restrictive play or stagger straight into railroading.
This is where the early Weiss and Hickman modules got it right and others later got it wrong. Dragonlance in particular takes the elements learned in making Ravenloft and its sequel and refined it into a pretty good synergy of regular playing things out - spiced up with timed events and the like. They are not railroads at all. At least not the early ones.
And often story beats are a part of world in motion sorts of DMing. If the PCs do not do something about some plot going on. Then that plot will go on. It might change a little if the PCs cross its path but do not interact directly. Or it might keep going on and never pay them any heed. The PCs and players might never know these plots and beats are going on till its too late.
A great example are modules where things will happen on a set timetable unless the PCs intervene. Like 1 hour after the start of play in game time an assassin will kill one of the guests in the building. But that can be prevented by various means.
The flip side are adventures where something WILL happen no matter what the PCs do. WW's Orpheus RPG has this as the kick off of book 2 and I really really disliked it as a GM and player. Somewhat mollified by the additional advice on what to do if that doesnt sit well and the GM would rather not totally ruin everything the PCs worked for and then toss gasoline and lit matches in for good measure. So points to the writers for realizing not everyones going to be thrilled with the proverbial no-win scenario.
Story is the product of resolving situation. Situation is not inherently about conflict but uncertainty. And story is the process which unfolds through play as that uncertainty is resolved.
So the comparison is inherently incongruous.
I agree that both are important, but i lean more towards presenting the situation and letting the players reaction become
the story, and leads to interesting results that on my own i'd never have come up with. Probably my love of random-events
tables comes from the fact i like to be suprised as much as the players are at times. But my games tend to be pretty much
a sandbox. I drop leads or hooks from time to time, sometimes they follow them, sometimes they don't. I make simple notes
of a situation and when they do want to investigate further that's what i work on for the next session.
Currently the group in my game is traversing Eastern Oerth and i made copies of all the encounter tables from the old
Greyhawk boxed set and the equally old standard tables with copious notes on each individual encounter, which helps to set
things up as well. Not long ago they had a random encounter with a gynosphinx (that could have easily destroyed the party
if she was so inclined, given the low levels they are at). Not inclined to trade riddles with her, they eventually had to negotiate
some of the prize gems they snared out of the last dungeon they were in for safe passage, as they had no idea where to find
an androsphinx (which is what she actually was looking for). Doubtless... at some point in the future, i'll throw one in there
for them and see what they do with that... but it was one of best encounters we've had.
Time to read the other five pages and see how redundant this post was.
Quote from: Omega on November 24, 2021, 08:10:03 AM
Quote from: FingerRod on November 21, 2021, 03:00:35 PM
These half-page scroll debates are not even on topic.
Original post written another way is asking this: When playing or DMg a game, is it more important to use story pacing and beats OR present a situation, and see what people do about it?
This is asking for opinion, so there is no right or wrong.
But if someone asked me to play in their game, where they focus on story pacing and beats OVER simply playing things out in character, at whatever pace feels right...I would quickly decline their game and wish them luck. Smells like a game with theatre flunkies to me.
As I noted in my original post to this. Theres plenty of room for both.
But time and again we see story pacing and beats have a very high tendency to skew into a more restrictive play or stagger straight into railroading.
This is where the early Weiss and Hickman modules got it right and others later got it wrong. Dragonlance in particular takes the elements learned in making Ravenloft and its sequel and refined it into a pretty good synergy of regular playing things out - spiced up with timed events and the like. They are not railroads at all. At least not the early ones.
And often story beats are a part of world in motion sorts of DMing. If the PCs do not do something about some plot going on. Then that plot will go on. It might change a little if the PCs cross its path but do not interact directly. Or it might keep going on and never pay them any heed. The PCs and players might never know these plots and beats are going on till its too late.
A great example are modules where things will happen on a set timetable unless the PCs intervene. Like 1 hour after the start of play in game time an assassin will kill one of the guests in the building. But that can be prevented by various means.
The flip side are adventures where something WILL happen no matter what the PCs do. WW's Orpheus RPG has this as the kick off of book 2 and I really really disliked it as a GM and player. Somewhat mollified by the additional advice on what to do if that doesnt sit well and the GM would rather not totally ruin everything the PCs worked for and then toss gasoline and lit matches in for good measure. So points to the writers for realizing not everyones going to be thrilled with the proverbial no-win scenario.
Sorry, Omega I did not see that you had replied until this thread was somewhat revived. I completely agree. There is room for both. I was only pointing out two things.
First, I saw the original post as an
if you only had one which would ya type exercise. Second, long write-ups do not negate opinions. Too often I will interpret an eight paragraph novella as someone who is entrenched, not someone looking for a discussion.
Funny you should bring up the TSR DL series. I have been a vocal defender of it for YEARS. Full disclosure, I played D1-D4 and never had the opportunity to go through the entire series, but I loved it. Before I leave this hobby, hopefully many years from now, I hope to run the entire series.
Your example of the Assassin is a good one. Like 'clocks' or 'fronts' in story games. They are tools to bring tension. Tension is a good thing. Better Than Any Man has the same mechanic with the invading army attacking X days after the start of the module.
But do I want a table littered with clocks on note cards? No thanks. Related, do I want to give up narrative control to the players? No way. Doing so removes more tension building opportunities than clocks or fronts written on pieces of paper will ever provide.
I like the idea of the GM presenting the group of Player Avatars a situation those Avatars happen to be in, then the Avatars respond to the situation, then there are results and consequences from those Actions, the Campaign World Element's Directly Influenced by those results and consequences then Respond in a most likely and logically plausible way and the rest of the Campaign World keeps doing what it's doing as if the Avatars did not exist.
Then a new situation from the Campaign World Arises that the player avatars then have to resolve, and the cycle continues.
In this paradigm, there is no predetermined "Story." However, there is Story Emergence from the act of simply role-playing through one situation after another after another, but maybe even that term "Story Emergence" is incorrect.
GM's can, and many do, use story-telling techniques when managing the game. They can use Descriptive Flare to Set the Stage, provoking the players into action and responding with their own narrative descriptions of their player avatars. GMs can Describe the Scene/Encounter/Situation using Camera Direction, Geographic and Location Details, and NPC Description to Convey upon the Players a particular Feeling/Emotion to instill emotions of Suspense, Awe, Coolness, etc. To push the Players Into Action.
But those are Story-Telling Techniques. Some people equate the use of those Techniques as story-telling, but IMO these are not the same. But from their perspective, they are right. And from that perspective, playing an rpg is story-telling. But even here, their use of story-telling is the Emergence of Story through Play with the caveat that these particular GMs most likely come to GMing the game with a particular plot hook they want to see play out. Whether or not they are a good GM depends on if they can handle and adapt surviving contact with the Players after the Players do something to destroy their well intentioned, plot-hooked plan.
Perhaps it's just better for GMs to come to the table with a lot of ideas but no real concrete plot, and use and adapt those ideas in the ever changing landscape the Players ultimately cause. If the GM can prepare enough to know how the campaign world would progress as if the avatars did not exist, then the GM can understand his or her own campaign world enough to adapt it in its most logical way.
This is how I often imagine my ideal way of GMing.
The actual Story that eventually could evolve from all this doesn't matter to me Until the Players Create it After the Game and they start telling it from their own experiences of the game. Then their Story matters. So in this way, the game is about the story-telling that could potentially happen.
But this has to be spontaneous and Emergent From the Players Point of View, Not the GM.
And I think that's what a lot of players want. We all come to the table for our own reasons, and we each get fun from these in different ways, but we want to play these games long enough, in the same campaign, with the same group of players, so we can get to that point of feeling like we are part of the campaign world and then when the campaign is over, we can look back on it and retell the parts that we liked the most.
This only happens once we have an emotional investment in the game. Then It's not just a game. And not every player will get there in every campaign. Some will, some won't. Some want to have a good time, have fun however they find their fun, and then tell stories after the game is over about their favorite campaign moments because of whatever reason they do.
I view the basic setup as uncomplicated.
You describe the circumstances.
You ask what the players want to do as their characters.
You adjudicate what they want to do.
Loop back to the top.
A sticking point in these type of conversation is "as their characters". Another is how does one adjudicate.
Some have metagame consideration like "a good story" or "it plays like a heist movie". Other like myself emphasizes living a life of adventure within a setting. For me it is the setting that sets tone, tenor, and genre of the campaign. Other have different ideas that they were able to make work.
People likewise have different views of when and how to adjudicate. For myself I believe characters are naturally competent within what described about the character's life experiences and will nearly always succeed at a task given time and resources. If time is a constraint, resources are limited, or there is a signifgant consequence to failure. I will use the system to resolve what the character tries to do. Other systems and other referee have different criteria and different opinions on how best to go about adjudication.
Some don't even bother using the loop I outlined above. Or alter it in significant ways. My opinion is that what they do is fun but something different than tabletop roleplaying. Similar to the difference between playing Battletech and Mechwarrior. Same setting, both outline individual characters but focus on very different things resulting in one being a wargame and the other a tabletop roleplaying game.
It can be boiled down even more to this.
01: DM describes what the PCs see/sense based on what they just did prior, with any new information/introductions based on that.
02: Players tell the DM what the PCs are doing based on that.
03: goto 01
Somewhere in there some dice might get rolled.
I do not consider myself a gifted GM, so take this with a grain of salt. That said, I learned a very important lesson from Call of C'thulu; if your villain wants something which will kill the PCs, all you have to do is tell that to the players. The PCs will take action to defend themselves, and from that point on the story can mostly run itself on autopilot and you can focus on just presenting events.
My default brainstorming question is, "what would the villain do?" and after brainstorming out a few options, I pick options which seems the most likely to be enjoyable to play and least likely to kill the PCs outright. Typically, my antagonists don't try to win with a single encounter or subplot, but are always trying to set up something in the future with a head-game element. An encounter with poisonous snakes might be there to bleed out the PCs of all their antidotes, for instance.
One situation-based technique I have never heard of anyone else using is a technique I call multi-threaded predestination. The basic idea is that if you need a specific plot point to happen, the villain doesn't use one scheme, but 3-4 schemes all at the same time which all could end with that result. You just have to drop hints for them all during the game. Given the law of averages, the PCs will almost certainly fixate on one scheme and disrupt it to make for a good conflict, but so long as one villainous scheme is still salvageable, the story can progress. Say, for example, you have a town mayor you absolutely must kill. Instead of choosing between a sniper, poisoned ham sandwich, or making the building collapse on top of him...the villain has cronies out there doing all three at the same time, and all three are producing hints which the PCs get. The players will almost always fixate on one and miss the others, and once the dust settles they will understand the hints you dropped in hindsight.
This is a very powerful tool which should obviously be used sparingly. It feels foul but seems fair.
More the latter. (Answering the question posed in the OP)
Trying to tell a story leads to rail-roading.
Letting the players create the story through their actions, and reactions to consequences, leads to memorable gaming.
Overall Situation is more important. Many rpg campaigns/groups fizzle out or abruptly end without a resolution. Simply as a matter of practicality a GM will generate more enjoyable moments from focusing on interesting encounters and situations rather than hoping for an overall narrative arc with a decent resolution.
Of course episodic adventures in the style of pulp sword and sorcery blur the line between situation vs story anyway. These adventures have built in story beats and straightforward resolutions.
Finally while it isn't always helpful for a GM to push a story with all its beats and narrative arcs on a group, it is a tremendously helpful skill for a GM to understand the essentials of storytelling so that splashes of story driven encounters can be used to course correct and heighten the situation.
A very easy example would be knowing when to end a session on a cliffhanger.