GM: "After reaching level 20 from XP rewards, you've realized that the warlord was in fact your own father."

Player: "I spend some 'oops lol points' to undo all my actions after entering my evident father's castle to manufacture the memory of a drunk fisherman info dumping me this very information in the tavern I rested in about three sessions ago, which I now also own."

GM: "Excuse me while I check my twenty volume world encyclopedia to figure out what happens next."

Rules-lighter play - whether it's O5R, OSR, TSR or whatever - is always going to draw an audience who enjoy faster play. Faster mechanics means more time for exploring and interacting and more dangerous mechanics means your choices matter.

The long term appeal of the hobby for new players are these games.

There will always exist some people who want to gather together in meatspace, eat snackage, roll real dice with their hands and share an imaginary adventure that's only happening in the collective consciousness of that group.

That will never be mainstream. And that's okay.

Me?  I love 1e AD&D because it's where the black magic is.

QuoteThe entire design philosophy of the Forge seems to appease the fear of "touch move touch take", probably the best carry over from wargaming into roleplaying. Blades in the Dark took it one step further and opened player decision to comittee approval, which is basically letting someone else backseat drive your own character, let alone by the flashback mechanic: "I solve the problem by preventing it from happening," essentially the unlimited wishes spell mechanic.

The flashback mechanics explictly forbade undoing anything. You may after noticing complication pay to buy flashback that allows you to find solution beforehand (Ocean Elvens style) but it cannot contradict anything estabilished so far. If your enemies break your leg - cannot undo it. But you may flashback that you hidden poisoned dagger in your sleeve or something to use it.
And it's not unlimited wish either - because you gain Stress points for it, which may eliminate you from further scores because you are on drinking binge.

Quote from: Wrath of God on July 16, 2023, 10:50:40 AM
The flashback mechanics explictly forbade undoing anything. You may after noticing complication pay to buy flashback that allows you to find solution beforehand (Ocean Elvens style) but it cannot contradict anything estabilished so far. If your enemies break your leg - cannot undo it. But you may flashback that you hidden poisoned dagger in your sleeve or something to use it.

It intends to be Oceans Eleven, it comes off as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.


I think one important factor that is entirely neglected by most of the "let's make a story" crowd is that in RPGs the participants and the audience is one in the same. Certain storytelling techniques that are just accepted by passive audiences has a different feel to an active player. If a mechanic says you can implant some fact into the past, it feels like going back in time and doing it.

There are certain advantages RPGs have when it comes to storytelling. For some reason, certain folk seem hell-bent on ignoring those while aping the things that don't work so well in RPGs. Which leads me to think they're not serious people. If they really cared about good stories in their RPGs, they'd sort out where RPGs are strong and weak with story telling and play to the medium's strengths. Instead they've made "story" a naughty word in the RPG world which has rendered the reactionaries as functionally stunted in this regard.

In an rpg, stories are not a naughty word, they are simply a byproduct of active play. You can make a story out of last nights session. Stories are not a concern of the participants during actual play. The players simply react to the imagined game world environment through their characters. They are not working to create a story anymore than you or I are when we get up in the morning and go to work. In a story game, the participants work together to craft an interesting, exciting story. That's the difference. Nothing at all wrong with story games, if everyone involved is interested and wants to play that type of game. The conflict arises when some of the participants want to play a story game, and instead of finding a like minded group, join an rpg group and try to turn it into a story game. In any situation with differing expectations there will be friction.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 17, 2023, 09:37:29 AM
In an rpg, stories are not a naughty word, they are simply a byproduct of active play. You can make a story out of last nights session. Stories are not a concern of the participants during actual play. The players simply react to the imagined game world environment through their characters. They are not working to create a story anymore than you or I are when we get up in the morning and go to work. In a story game, the participants work together to craft an interesting, exciting story. That's the difference. Nothing at all wrong with story games, if everyone involved is interested and wants to play that type of game. The conflict arises when some of the participants want to play a story game, and instead of finding a like minded group, join an rpg group and try to turn it into a story game. In any situation with differing expectations there will be friction.

The thing is, story is a concern to plenty of participants. They often judge a session or an adventure or a campaign on the basis of whether or not it told or is presently (not in past tense but in real time, during actual play) telling a good story. And whether or not a course of action is interesting or would make a good story is certainly one of the possible motivations a player can have when deciding what to do next. It's like jury nullification. In many places it's against the law. But at the end of the day, it's next to impossible to prove what a juror's actual reason was for voting to acquit. So functionally it's always and everywhere fair game no matter how the law might protest. Same here. Story as a driving force during actual play is always on the table, no matter how much people in certain camps might want to deny it. Not that it's every player who's doing this. Maybe not even the majority, but at the very least a very large minority. But at most it could also be the lionshare of gamers who are doing it. It would be a humble claim to say anywhere between 40% and 80% of participants are concerned with story during actual play.

But as for those who actually tell a story about the game they played the night before? This isn't something that happens a lot. Even if this were standard practice, done 100% of the time at 100% of tables everywhere, assuming an average group size of 4, 1 person doing it sets as the upper limit 25% of gamers do it. But realistically, it's probably fewer than 2%. I'll grant as high as 5% to be generous for the sake of argument.

So you're talking somewhere between 12:1 and 30:1 ratio for gamers who care about story in the moment versus gamers who care about story next day.

And yet your response is to dismiss the 12-30 while tossing a cookie to the 1.

This is not how you have a serious conversation about the topic. This is how you shut down serious conversation. You can say it's not a dirty word all you want, but you are responding as if it is a dirty word. Your response is 100% spot on what I had in mind when I made the claim that "story" is being treated as a dirty word.


Well, this is 100% what I mean by treating "story" as a naughty word. It elicits these canned responses that are completely unrelatable. The number of people who tell a story about a game they played the night before is not zero, but it is a very low percentage. Almost no one does that. On the other hand, it's kind of daft, obtuse, even straight up ignorant this idea that stories are not a concern to participants.

Gygaxian tables of random adventure.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM


The thing is, story is a concern to plenty of participants. They often judge a session or an adventure or a campaign on the basis of whether or not it told or is presently (not in past tense but in real time, during actual play) telling a good story. And whether or not a course of action is interesting or would make a good story is certainly one of the possible motivations a player can have when deciding what to do next. It's like jury nullification. In many places it's against the law. But at the end of the day, it's next to impossible to prove what a juror's actual reason was for voting to acquit. So functionally it's always and everywhere fair game no matter how the law might protest. Same here. Story as a driving force during actual play is always on the table, no matter how much people in certain camps might want to deny it. Not that it's every player who's doing this. Maybe not even the majority, but at the very least a very large minority. But at most it could also be the lionshare of gamers who are doing it. It would be a humble claim to say anywhere between 40% and 80% of participants are concerned with story during actual play.

But as for those who actually tell a story about the game they played the night before? This isn't something that happens a lot. Even if this were standard practice, done 100% of the time at 100% of tables everywhere, assuming an average group size of 4, 1 person doing it sets as the upper limit 25% of gamers do it. But realistically, it's probably fewer than 2%. I'll grant as high as 5% to be generous for the sake of argument.

So you're talking somewhere between 12:1 and 30:1 ratio for gamers who care about story in the moment versus gamers who care about story next day.

And yet your response is to dismiss the 12-30 while tossing a cookie to the 1.

This is not how you have a serious conversation about the topic. This is how you shut down serious conversation. You can say it's not a dirty word all you want, but you are responding as if it is a dirty word. Your response is 100% spot on what I had in mind when I made the claim that "story" is being treated as a dirty word.


Well, this is 100% what I mean by treating "story" as a naughty word. It elicits these canned responses that are completely unrelatable. The number of people who tell a story about a game they played the night before is not zero, but it is a very low percentage. Almost no one does that. On the other hand, it's kind of daft, obtuse, even straight up ignorant this idea that stories are not a concern to participants.

So you are saying that a bunch of nerds getting together and talking about stuff that happened in their games almost never happens? Are you serious? Go into a game store or any con and that is everywhere. Every game played creates a story and whole lot of players want to talk about it to other gamers who were not there when it happened. Its lke talking to someone about a book you read or a movie you saw except this is for gamer nerds.

If you are thinking of what would make for a good story when supposedly role playing then you are not role playing. Imagine telling your boss to fuck off because you think getting fired would be good for your story. Does that make any sense? A character in an imagined world interacts and reacts to situations much like we do in our lives. If you are sitting around with a group of players collectively working to tell a story then its a story game. Why do you have a problem with that distinction? I don't think story game is a dirty word any more than a tabletop wargame is. Do you think different game types are non existent? Are board, card, and rpgs all the same thing?

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
The thing is, story is a concern to plenty of participants. They often judge a session or an adventure or a campaign on the basis of whether or not it told or is presently (not in past tense but in real time, during actual play) telling a good story.

My experience is that the vast majority of tabletop roleplayers care more about doing something interesting as their characters.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
Story as a driving force during actual play is always on the table, no matter how much people in certain camps might want to deny it.

In my experience, players thinking in terms of story are a niche. Most players want to do exciting things as a character they want to play. They won't care if the Temple of Death doesn't make sense narratively if you dig into it or winds up a result of a predictable railroad if the Temple of Death is exciting to play out as their characters.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
But as for those who actually tell a story about the game they played the night before? This isn't something that happens a lot.

You are right it something that doesn't happen a lot because story creation was never the point. Just like folk telling a story about going white water rafting doesn't happen a lot.

You are missing the point being made here. Most hobbyists don't play tabletop RPGs for the story, they play for the experience. Arneson and Gygax found an effective way of allowing gamers to take trips to other places and times and EXPERIENCE interesting adventures. A structure that has been successfully adapted to cover hundreds of settings and situations by others.

It was only later that folks got the idea of using games as a structure for collaborative storytelling.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
This is not how you have a serious conversation about the topic. This is how you shut down serious conversation. You can say it's not a dirty word all you want, but you are responding as if it is a dirty word. Your response is 100% spot on what I had in mind when I made the claim that "story" is being treated as a dirty word.

This is because creating a story is the exact opposite of creating an experience.

Or to put it another way story games are about the group collaborating to create a story about a group of characters. While tabletop roleplaying are about the group experiencing a setting as characters having adventures. Not the same goal at all.

What you have to do for the two different focuses are also at odds with each other. Participating in storygames means that you have to metagame. The only way they work, if the participants consider how everything they do fits in the narrative being created including acting on the knowledge that the players knows that the characters don't.

Doing this in a tabletop roleplaying game is considered cheating in fact one of the few things that are considered cheating. In tabletop roleplaying the only consideration is "What can I do as my character in the setting given the circumstance?" For the referee of a tabletop RPG campaign, their job is to bring the setting to life and adjudicate what the players try to do as their character.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
Well, this is 100% what I mean by treating "story" as a naughty word. It elicits these canned responses that are completely unrelatable. The number of people who tell a story about a game they played the night before is not zero, but it is a very low percentage. Almost no one does that. On the other hand, it's kind of daft, obtuse, even straight up ignorant this idea that stories are not a concern to participants.

Your arguments are no better. You latch on to that one point failing to understand Exploderwizards overall point. Trying to refute a thesis he didn't make.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 16, 2023, 01:23:42 PM
It intends to be Oceans Eleven, it comes off as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

It sounds like you are using Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure as a negative but that's not possible for such a brilliant perfect movie.

Quote from: estar on July 17, 2023, 03:26:20 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
The thing is, story is a concern to plenty of participants. They often judge a session or an adventure or a campaign on the basis of whether or not it told or is presently (not in past tense but in real time, during actual play) telling a good story.

My experience is that the vast majority of tabletop roleplayers care more about doing something interesting as their characters.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
Story as a driving force during actual play is always on the table, no matter how much people in certain camps might want to deny it.

In my experience, players thinking in terms of story are a niche. Most players want to do exciting things as a character they want to play. They won't care if the Temple of Death doesn't make sense narratively if you dig into it or winds up a result of a predictable railroad if the Temple of Death is exciting to play out as their characters.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
But as for those who actually tell a story about the game they played the night before? This isn't something that happens a lot.

You are right it something that doesn't happen a lot because story creation was never the point. Just like folk telling a story about going white water rafting doesn't happen a lot.

You are missing the point being made here. Most hobbyists don't play tabletop RPGs for the story, they play for the experience. Arneson and Gygax found an effective way of allowing gamers to take trips to other places and times and EXPERIENCE interesting adventures. A structure that has been successfully adapted to cover hundreds of settings and situations by others.

It was only later that folks got the idea of using games as a structure for collaborative storytelling.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
This is not how you have a serious conversation about the topic. This is how you shut down serious conversation. You can say it's not a dirty word all you want, but you are responding as if it is a dirty word. Your response is 100% spot on what I had in mind when I made the claim that "story" is being treated as a dirty word.

This is because creating a story is the exact opposite of creating an experience.

Or to put it another way story games are about the group collaborating to create a story about a group of characters. While tabletop roleplaying are about the group experiencing a setting as characters having adventures. Not the same goal at all.

What you have to do for the two different focuses are also at odds with each other. Participating in storygames means that you have to metagame. The only way they work, if the participants consider how everything they do fits in the narrative being created including acting on the knowledge that the players knows that the characters don't.

Doing this in a tabletop roleplaying game is considered cheating in fact one of the few things that are considered cheating. In tabletop roleplaying the only consideration is "What can I do as my character in the setting given the circumstance?" For the referee of a tabletop RPG campaign, their job is to bring the setting to life and adjudicate what the players try to do as their character.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 17, 2023, 01:12:57 PM
Well, this is 100% what I mean by treating "story" as a naughty word. It elicits these canned responses that are completely unrelatable. The number of people who tell a story about a game they played the night before is not zero, but it is a very low percentage. Almost no one does that. On the other hand, it's kind of daft, obtuse, even straight up ignorant this idea that stories are not a concern to participants.

Your arguments are no better. You latch on to that one point failing to understand Exploderwizards overall point. Trying to refute a thesis he didn't make.

And making up numbers out of thin air as if they could possibly be relevant.  The vast majority of people I've ever played RPGs with have never had their characters act in a particular way "because it would make a better story."  The good roleplayers act the way their characters might in that situation.  The rest act the way that they would in that situation.  None have ever said, "Well, my character (or I) probably would have done X, but I'm going to do Y because it will make for a better story," nor have they ever indicated they even thought that way.  So his assertions are... implausible.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 17, 2023, 07:52:35 PM
The vast majority of people I've ever played RPGs with have never had their characters act in a particular way "because it would make a better story."  The good roleplayers act the way their characters might in that situation.  The rest act the way that they would in that situation.  None have ever said, "Well, my character (or I) probably would have done X, but I'm going to do Y because it will make for a better story," nor have they ever indicated they even thought that way.  So his assertions are... implausible.

Anecdotal, but it's funny because something much like this just happened to me. In the Conan game I was playing, the Stygian sorcerer that had already attacked the PCs twice, imprisoned them, and declared his intent to use them as human sacrifices, suddenly offered to ally himself with them and lead them to a treasure store. Deciding that my character already hated this guy,  I said no, and pointed out that this looked like an obvious trap. But the entire rest of the party was pushing hard to go along with him. Five minutes later, when he inevitably betrayed us and led us into a trap, I asked the rest of the players what they were thinking. One of them just said "Oh I knew he was going to betray us; I just thought that would be more interesting".

I was pretty miffed at first, but if I'm being honest, there have definitely been times when I made a less than rational choice in order to keep the game interesting. It might not be great roleplaying, but I suspect it's something we all do from time to time. I usually create characters that are less then totally rational to try and square the dissonance a bit.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 17, 2023, 02:52:27 PM
So you are saying that a bunch of nerds getting together and talking about stuff that happened in their games almost never happens?

Actually, no Cathy Newman. I did not say that at all. I said the exact opposite. So how about some basic respect by refraining from dishonest responses?

QuoteEvery game played creates a story and whole lot of players want to talk about it to other gamers who were not there when it happened.

Every game played creates a story. True.

A lot of players talk about it to other gamers? Talk about what, exactly? What is "it?"

A lot of players tell war stories in general? Sure. But does every single one of those games that made a story get talked about by a lot of players? Definitely not.

If your predicate is "every game" then I should be able to choose any one I like and check to see if there was a story told about it afterwards. And what if I find after doing that a bunch of times that only one player in four on average talks about that one game out of a dozen that was truly legendary? That would make a story-tell rate of 2.1%, less than the 5% threshold I generously offered and very close to the 2% I thought was probably more realistic. Exactly what I said.

QuoteIf you are thinking of what would make for a good story when supposedly role playing then you are not role playing.

Speak for yourself. Like most non-blondes, I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

QuoteImagine telling your boss to fuck off because you think getting fired would be good for your story. Does that make any sense?

Many successful people literally do this. Sometimes it's even advice people take to heart as they get older. What will your obituary say about you? What will be on your tombstone? Will anyone want to read your biography?

This may not be your cup of tea. You could hate on Tony Robbins if that's your thing. That's 100% your opinion, and you're entitled to it. But seeing as how other people do live life this way, that some people do find happiness in the sense of purpose that comes with thinking about their life this way, that some people have been very successful by living this way, you are objectively incorrect to take the position that it doesn't make any sense. It may not make sense to you. But all that means is you lack the ability to understand it.

Which does not bode well for your roleplaying skills either. If you seriously cannot make sense out of how someone might have this perspective in life, how could you ever hope to do a good job roleplaying a character who believes him- or herself destined to complete some grand narrative arc? Even if that isn't your cup of tea and that's a character you would never play, the most fundamental skill of a roleplayer is empathy--the ability to understand a perspective other than your own.

So just understand, by insisting that makes no sense you're saying you're no good at doing the one very thing you insist RPGs are about doing. If anything, what's crazy is that is the position you want to take.

QuoteA character in an imagined world interacts and reacts to situations much like we do in our lives. If you are sitting around with a group of players collectively working to tell a story then its a story game. Why do you have a problem with that distinction?

For one, it's a false dichotomy. Fallacy of the excluded middle. And the middle you're excluding here is the exact domain I was talking about. And what that means is that in addition to your responses being dishonest, disrespectful, and straight up ignorant, the entire thing was one huge non-response with literally nothing of redeemable value. Why wouldn't I have a problem with that? I can respect an asshole who at least knows what they're talking about, stays on point, and brings value and insight to the table. That's not you.

Quote from: estar on July 17, 2023, 03:26:20 PM
My experience is that the vast majority of tabletop roleplayers care more about doing something interesting as their characters.

Great. So you agree with me. Because that's exactly what I said. Playing characters doing things that are interesting matters. 100% agreed.

QuoteIn my experience, players thinking in terms of story are a niche. Most players want to do exciting things as a character they want to play. They won't care if the Temple of Death doesn't make sense narratively if you dig into it or winds up a result of a predictable railroad if the Temple of Death is exciting to play out as their characters.

You're using a different meaning of story and narrative than I am. The one thing Cathy Newman and I agreed on in the above exchange is that every game produces a story. It is an inherent byproduct of the RPG. That said, the notion of "the Temple of death doesn't make sense narratively" itself doesn't make sense. Not for the meaning of narrative I'm using. It just is what it is.

QuoteYou are missing the point being made here. Most hobbyists don't play tabletop RPGs for the story, they play for the experience.

I haven't missed that point. I'm well aware you and Cathy Newman and countless others have made that claim. I haven't missed the point. The point is just dead from the neck up. I don't understand how why you can't distinguish my disagreeing with your boring robot wrongness from my missing your boring robot wrongness.

The story IS what is experienced.  If you say hobbyists play for the experience, that does not contradict not one iota of anything I have said or am saying. It's almost like you're forcing my position to be what you need it to be (including insisting I'm missing things I haven't missed) just to argue against it.

And there's no playing fast and loose with wording on my end. I frequently hear gamers refer to their experience as a story. Particularly when they enjoyed the experience of playing the game, they often say things like, "That was a great story." I've seen and have even taken polls about what people enjoy about the hobby, and story always ranks near the top. Usually #1 at around 40%. Informal. Sure. Not scientific. I agree. I don't offer it as scientific evidence. I offer it as examples of what gamers report experiencing.

QuoteIt was only later that folks got the idea of using games as a structure for collaborative storytelling.

Later on when, exactly?

Quote from: 1E DMG ForewardBut, as all DM's know, the rewards are great — an endless challenge to the imagination and intellect, an enjoyable pastime to fill many hours with fantastic and often unpredictable happenings, and an opportunity to watch a story unfold and a grand idea to grow and flourish.

We've always known that what we were doing was, in part, a sort of collaborative story.

Now much later on after that, yeah, a bunch of wierdos hijacked the word "story" and slapped a bunch of appendages on it that force it to be something different than what roleplaying has always been. Something to justify new rules, I suppose. This is despite the fact that these meanings of terms like 'story" and "narrative" match neither the meanings used in casual, colloquial speech, nor the meanings in the academic study of narratology. It's just weirdos babbling nonsense.

And you want to know what the worst part is? The reactionaries just up and ceded that linguistic ground to the weirdos.

So serious question to you. Why do you bend the knee by insisting these words mean the things the weirdos insist they mean? Why do you insist on attaching those appendages, which I can say with 100% certainty were neither intended nor implied in anything I've ever written, commented, posted, etc, Why are you attributing those meanings to me?

QuoteThis is because creating a story is the exact opposite of creating an experience.

False. Stories are created in parallel with the experience, automatically, even without conscious effort. They're there, and you can't make them not be there no matter how you try.

QuoteOr to put it another way story games are about the group collaborating to create a story about a group of characters. While tabletop roleplaying are about the group experiencing a setting as characters having adventures. Not the same goal at all.

What you have to do for the two different focuses are also at odds with each other.

Just so your clear I haven't missed this boring robot wrongness. I literally just don't give a shit about story games and this is entirely non-responsible and comes off a little condescending as any unwelcome lecture would because I haven't said peep about story games here other than I'm not sure if I can take the story game crowd as seriously interested in story as their highest aim. The fact that I vehemently disagree that story games make good stories should be all the clarification needed to understand when I say story, it has nothing to do with story games, it's almost the total opposite.

QuoteParticipating in storygames means that you have to metagame. The only way they work, if the participants consider how everything they do fits in the narrative being created including acting on the knowledge that the players knows that the characters don't. Doing this in a tabletop roleplaying game is considered cheating in fact one of the few things that are considered cheating.

I'm not sure this is correct at all.

How are you defining metagame? Is it anything out of character? Is rolling up your character metagaming? Is choosing your class on the basis of what you anticipate will be most interesting to play, as opposed to what is most obviously implied by your scores metagaming? Is fleshing out appearance and personality characteristics on the basis of what sort of character you'd like to see in a story metagaming?

How about updating your character as you play. Let's say the character is betrayed by Lord Fancypants. Is updating your character with "hatred of Lord Fancypants" metagaming? I mean maybe not if it seems like the logical consequence of the Fancypants Screwjob. What if the character is snubbed by Princess Cherry? And a reasonable consequence of that might be adding a new motive to your character, "proving myself to win her heart," but another reasonable consequence might also be "fuck that bitch." Is the act of choosing which of those to update your character with metagaming?

How about mechanical stuff. Do I stay a fighter or do I switch classes to thief in hopes of someday being a Bard? Is that metagaming? And if so, is it still metagaming if I switch classes to thief because my character's been hanging out with a bad crowd lately? How about if I switch classes to thief because I want to eventually become a bard but I say it's to reflect the fact that my character's been hanging out with a bad crowd lately? Is that metagaming? Is it metagaming that I'm hanging out with a bad crowd in the firstplace? Sure. My character never wore a white hat, so to speak. Sure, the opportunity presented itself. Sure, we have a pretty strong truce with these guys. Sure, we've helped each other in the past. Sure, it makes sense to. But all the while, I was also thinking ahead to when I want to justify changing my class to a thief because, who knows, maybe one day I might be a bard. Is that metagaming?

I'm just curious which of these perfectly normal things in a tabletop RPG that gamers do all the time in D&D are considered metagaming? And of those that are considered metagaming, are they really all considered cheating? Because my sense here is you're casting an overly broad net with the term "metagame" lumping in together both things that we all would agree are cheating with perfectly non-cheating things that happen all the time in a roleplaying game, almost by necessity.

QuoteIn tabletop roleplaying the only consideration is "What can I do as my character in the setting given the circumstance?" For the referee of a tabletop RPG campaign, their job is to bring the setting to life and adjudicate what the players try to do as their character.

Eh.... I don't think that's quite right. I mean for one thing, there might be a concealed door the player doesn't know about that is technically an option, a thing he can do, a direction he can go, but as he isn't aware of it, it's not affecting the game at all in this moment. It's a thing he can do that does not matter at this time. For that matter, if you have highly inventive players, they often discover new things that they can do that the GM hadn't previously thought of and the rules hadn't anticipated. So they also aren't necessarily bound by what we think they can do in a given circumstance.

But even if I grant you this, what happens next? Well, nothing until either the player decides on doing one of those things, or one of those things are decided for him due to inaction. I would say the more accurate statement is the consideration is "What does the character do?" And that's a great question. If we've already got this list of options, how does the player go about choosing among them?


RP-bot would probably say something like, "I'll choose whatever it is my character would choose!" Okay. But that needs to be defined. The act of roleplaying requires making out-of-character decisions ABOUT the character to set the parameters to play the character. And if you can look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face you honestly believe that everything that could ever potentially happen to that character was foreseen and the character's response painstakingly defined in advance, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

In the good ol' days, we used to make these OOC decisions so frequently and seamlessly while playing our characters, nobody really bothered to notice. "Metagaming" was only invoked for things like when we memorized a good chunk of the monster manual and shaped our decisions and tactics accordingly.

And while we may have had a lot of negative feelings and things to say about the player who just got bored and decided to burn down the tavern, we never would have called that metagaming or insinuated it was cheating, that he had an OOC motive. We came down on it to the degree it was ruining other people's fun. Deciding to explore the moat house with no real in-character reason just because the players wanted to do something fun and interesting was also never considered metagaming. The fact that used to be normal made adventures come together a lot easier than if players all had lisps, saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, what's my motive?" "Oh no, Dandi the Fabulous would never agree to Old Ben's quest, he/they has a casserole in the oven."

[/quote] Your arguments are no better. You latch on to that one point failing to understand Exploderwizards overall point. Trying to refute a thesis he didn't make. [/quote]

You've made pretty clear that you never understood my argument to begin with, so you're in no position at all to render that judgement. When faced with boring robot wrongness, it does not mean I missed it if I ignored it. Maybe I just thought boring robot wrongness was boring. It does not mean I missed it if I dismissed it. I might have found it disrespectful to roll out a pre-canned argument rather than actually having a two-way dialog, and so maybe I just found boring robot wrongness too robotic. And if I didn't stop and immediately say "Gee, I never really thought of it that way! I guess that changes everything" then maybe it's just because I thought the boring robot wrongness was wrong.

But if you still think I'm missing the point? Fine. I call. Let's see your cards. Name that point I'm missing. Don't bury it within boring robot wrongness. Just state it directly without some stupid preamble or condescending lecture no one asked for. Don't obscure it with weirdo jargon. Don't use umbrella terms that mixes the real meat of the issue with rhetorical garbage. And then prove I'm missing it by comparing and contrasting that point to an ACCURATE version of my position. Not the version you want to pretend I'm holding. You don't have to put words in my mouth. I'm right here and can speak up for myself.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 17, 2023, 07:52:35 PM
And making up numbers out of thin air as if they could possibly be relevant.  The vast majority of people I've ever played RPGs with have never had their characters act in a particular way "because it would make a better story."  The good roleplayers act the way their characters might in that situation.  The rest act the way that they would in that situation.  None have ever said, "Well, my character (or I) probably would have done X, but I'm going to do Y because it will make for a better story," nor have they ever indicated they even thought that way.  So his assertions are... implausible.

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For all you know, one of your players rubbed their junk all over your dice when you got up to go to the bathroom. Whether they did or didn't, you would believe it never happened. You don't know what you don't know. You not knowing it has no bearing on the truth value.

Outside of actual Storygaming, I don't think I've ever seen RPG players go into author stance "to make a better story". The idea that this is ubiquitous I find highly questionable at best. IME players are either thinking in actor stance/immersed in character, or in pawn stance/how best to win the game. Ideally and most commonly a mix of both, thinking in character about how to achieve the character's objectives.