Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 02:06:47 PMquick and simple character generation, along with ease of prep of homebrew material for play.

It's this, along with depth of play.

I work as a trainer, and my hobby is rpgs. In both cases I'm big on accessibility. I want anyone to be able to come in and get under the barbell and start squatting, or at the game table and start playing, all within about 15 minutes of showing up. Most modern training methods or games don't offer that.

And those which do offer it, don't offer the depth of play. Compare tic-tac-toe and chess - both have very simple rules so that anyone can start play very quickly, but only one gives you depth, so that you can be literally years playing it and getting better. Similarly many other games and earlier editions of D&D, Traveller and so on.

Accessibility plus depth of play are a powerful and unusual combination.

Quote from: S'mon on July 18, 2023, 02:42:50 AM
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.

Wait what? You mean like actually role playing? Don't believe you. Mr insane in the membrane would have us believe that not only do people play games with a narrative focus, but they actually really live their REAL LIVES like that. "Well your honor my neighbor has been an annoying ass for years. I thought feeding him into a woodchipper would be great for my story. No your honor prison doesn't fit my narrative."

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM

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.

Telling a story about a white water rafting trip is not the same as doing a white water trip. Likewise using a game to tell a story about a dungeon adventuring is not the same as using a game to do a dungeon adventure.

I choose "doing interesting things" to highlight the difference between storygames and tabletop RPGs. If you can't distinguish between telling and doing then there is little point to this debate.

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.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM
You're using a different meaning of story and narrative than I am.

How about we stick to the dictionary definition instead of whatever jargon meaning you are attributing the use of story, fiction, and narrative? 

Narrative - a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Story - an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment. Or an account of past events in someone's life or in the evolution of something.
Fiction - literature in the form of prose that describes imaginary events and people.

If you mean something different than any of these then spell it out. It is something I try to do in my replies I would appreciate the same courtesy in return.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 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.

When something doesn't make sense in an account of connected events it is because it lacks any connection to previous events. Since I am not familiar with the jargon you use I can speak about your definition of narrative. Although if you spell it out I will be glad to comment on it.

As for my Temple of Death I have known several referees over the years just threw something out there because they thought it would be something interesting for the group to adventure in. More rarely sometimes the group as a whole decides to throw something into the campaign because it sounds interesting. But in terms of an account of connected events, it just appears out of nowhere.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM

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.

An account of imaginary events (story) can only happen after the events occur not during. You are trying to obfuscate the facts by using jargon. Spell out what you mean by story as just I did.

The point of playing a storygame campaign is to create a story collaboratively. There is no mystery as to where the story will go only how it will be resolved. Blades in the Dark campaigns are explicitly designed to play out like a heist movie a well-known and well-understood trope. The same with other types of storygames It is fun but is a different type of fun then what tabletop roleplaying focuses on.

Tabletop roleplaying in contrast focuses on experiencing a setting. A dungeon, city, wilderness, being a four color superhero, travelling the starlanes,  and so on. Nobody in the group knows how things will unfold either broadly in terms of trope and genre, or specifically.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM
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.

In my life things that happened that make for great stories. I have experienced things that in hindsight felt like what happened in a show or movie I saw. The same thing happens with tabletop roleplaying. So yes, I also heard hobbyists speak of their experience after a session or campaign feeling they were in a story. However they were not acting like storytellers during the session, they were roleplaying their characters either responding to circumstances or being proactive.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM

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

Later on when, exactly?

Starting in the late 80s but picking up steam in the early 90s. For example Whimsy Cards for Ars Magica came out in 1987.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM
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.

I use the definitions found in the Oxford and Webster dictionaries. I am pretty sure that 1E DM Forward and ExploderWizards are using those terms in the same way. The only other definitions I encountered are jargon definitions used by the storygaming community.

As for narratology, I looked up what various university had to say and found this.
https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/narratology/

Then this

QuoteDiscourse and Story:
"Story" refers to the actual chronology of events in a narrative; discourse refers to the manipulation of that story in the presentation of the narrative. These terms refer, then, to the basic structure of all narrative form. Story refers, in most cases, only to what has to be reconstructed from a narrative; the chronological sequence of events as they actually occurred in the time-space (or diegetic) universe of the narrative being read. The closest a film narrative ever comes to pure story is in what is termed "real time." In literature, it's even harder to present material in real time. One example occurs at the end of the Odyssey (Book XXIII, pages 467-68); Odysseus here presents the story of his adventures to Penelope in almost pure "story" form, that is, in the chronological order of occurence. Stories are rarely recounted in this fashion, however. So, for example, in the Odyssey, we do not begin at the chronological start of the story but in medias res, when Odysseus is about to be freed from the isle of Calypso (which actually occurs nearly at the end of the chronological story which Odysseus relates to Penelope on p. 467). Discourse also refers to all the material an author adds to a story: similes, metaphors, verse or prose, etc.. In film, such manipulations are extended to include framing, cutting, camera movement, camera angles, music, etc..

I get what they are trying to do here but in doing so distort the meaning of story compared to how most people use it. Which I feel is reflected by the dictionary definitions I gave above. That a narrative is an account of a sequence of events. While a story is about describing those events generally in some entertaining way.

The above definition from narratology incorrectly conflates story with narrative. Especially when it talks about how film can be only a pure story if shot in real-time. I can see how the conversation is getting confusing as you are continually conflating story with narrative yourself. 

To be clear a sequence of events is being created as a tabletop roleplaying campaign is being played. And after the campaign, an account can be made of what happened thus creating a narrative. But it is only then it is available to be described as a story.

You are complaining about people redefining terms while falling into the same trap of defending terms yourself. The way to get out of the trap is to quit assuming people are using these terms the same way you are and spell it out like I just did.

It's the same appeal as NuSchool in general for me: quick to play & easy to prep (or improvise). PbtA, Blades in the Dark, The Black Hack, Trophy, Mothership, etc. all fall in this category and is the only stuff my group(s) play these days.

Actually, this "pick-up and play" quality seems like a tendency in games for some time now, videogames and boardgames included. As technology and game design practices advance, people seem less and less tolerant towards unnecessary complexity.

Quote from: Itachi on July 18, 2023, 11:14:23 AM
It's the same appeal as NuSchool in general for me: quick to play & easy to prep (or improvise). PbtA, Blades in the Dark, The Black Hack, Trophy, Mothership, etc. all fall in this category and is the only stuff my group(s) play these days.

Actually, this "pick-up and play" quality seems like a tendency in games for some time now, videogames and boardgames included. As technology and game design practices advance, people seem less and less tolerant towards unnecessary complexity.

Years ago I had more time for complex mechanics. These days I appreciate the faster startup that something like B/X offers. It is also interesting that some younger players would turn their nose up at trying B/X but are happy to give OSE a a try. It makes me laugh.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 18, 2023, 11:32:30 AM
Years ago I had more time for complex mechanics. These days I appreciate the faster startup that something like B/X offers. It is also interesting that some younger players would turn their nose up at trying B/X but are happy to give OSE a a try. It makes me laugh.

The presentation of OSE is way better.

Quote from: estar on July 18, 2023, 11:46:30 AM
The presentation of OSE is way better.

I like OSE quite a bit. Bought the advanced 2 volume set, but I wouldn't objectively say that. I see it more as being viewed through the lens of newness. Its the same thing with movie re-makes. The re-make is always better than the original to the young.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 18, 2023, 02:07:34 PM

Quote from: estar on July 18, 2023, 11:46:30 AM
The presentation of OSE is way better.

I like OSE quite a bit. Bought the advanced 2 volume set, but I wouldn't objectively say that. I see it more as being viewed through the lens of newness. Its the same thing with movie re-makes. The re-make is always better than the original to the young.

I found it easier to look up stuff and make stuff using OSE than the original. The dozen or so people I know who I talked OSE with seem to feel the same way.

Quote from: estar on July 18, 2023, 02:39:00 PM
I found it easier to look up stuff and make stuff using OSE than the original. The dozen or so people I know who I talked OSE with seem to feel the same way.

It's a better layout, but lacks flavor. The second part is important if you have zero experience in RPGs, not so much when this is all old hat.

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM
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.

Other commenters have pointed out how wrong you are in how many different ways, but I wanted to dig into this point a little more, where you seem to be offering data. Is there support for this number? Is it generalised personal experience? anecdote? Or are you just making it up?

In my *direct* experience the number is about 80%. (4 gamers in my family, all play in different groups outside the family, 3 of the four are _always_ sharing summaries and the fourth occasionally. My teenager still demands a before-school summary the morning after he knows I had a session.)

Quote from: Naburimannu on July 20, 2023, 06:34:44 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on July 18, 2023, 12:42:14 AM
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.

Other commenters have pointed out how wrong you are in how many different ways, but I wanted to dig into this point a little more, where you seem to be offering data. Is there support for this number? Is it generalised personal experience? anecdote? Or are you just making it up?

In my *direct* experience the number is about 80%. (4 gamers in my family, all play in different groups outside the family, 3 of the four are _always_ sharing summaries and the fourth occasionally. My teenager still demands a before-school summary the morning after he knows I had a session.)

I sort of glossed over these epic poems so I missed this point; but to backup what you're saying, 100% of the people I have gamed with "tell stories" about crap that happened in the games previously. We still talk about stuff from 20+ years ago. And not one storygame was played.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on July 18, 2023, 03:21:44 AM


I work as a trainer, and my hobby is rpgs. In both cases I'm big on accessibility. I want anyone to be able to come in and get under the barbell and start squatting, or at the game table and start playing, all within about 15 minutes of showing up. Most modern training methods or games don't offer that.

With a ready made character getting someone playing within 15 minutes is easy for most games I'd think.  5 minutes of describing the character and basic abilities and 10 minutes of the person observing the game being played.  What more is there to get someone going???

Quote from: Scooter on July 20, 2023, 12:20:54 PM

With a ready made character getting someone playing within 15 minutes is easy for most games I'd think.  5 minutes of describing the character and basic abilities and 10 minutes of the person observing the game being played.  What more is there to get someone going???

A ready made character is the issue. Yeah you can get going really fast with pre-gens. If you want to get going in under 30 minutes as a brand new player AND create your own character, it just isn't going to happen with WOTC D&D.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 20, 2023, 12:36:55 PM
A ready made character is the issue. Yeah you can get going really fast with pre-gens. If you want to get going in under 30 minutes as a brand new player AND create your own character, it just isn't going to happen with WOTC D&D.

Why is it an "issue"?  For a new players you want them to start with what is simple to run for that game at the beginning. Later they can generate a character that is what they want and on their own time.  So, I don't get what the actual problem is.

Quote from: Scooter on July 20, 2023, 12:54:31 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 20, 2023, 12:36:55 PM
A ready made character is the issue. Yeah you can get going really fast with pre-gens. If you want to get going in under 30 minutes as a brand new player AND create your own character, it just isn't going to happen with WOTC D&D.

Why is it an "issue"?  For a new players you want them to start with what is simple to run for that game at the beginning. Later they can generate a character that is what they want and on their own time.  So, I don't get what the actual problem is.

Not sure if this is what they mean, but for me at least, the entire point of RPGs is getting to create my own character. There's also the whole "playing in a simulated world thing" and the like, but part of the reason I even care about that is because presumably I'd be playing my own character in that world. Pregens, IMO bypass the point of the game for me. There's little reason for me to get invested with a pregen.

I still tend prefer WotC era D&D for making my own characters, though. Basic D&D in particular is so..."basic" there's not enough customization in there for me to care about my character, other than getting lucky during character creation and rolling ridiculous stats (which has its own type of issues).