Quote from: Pierce InverarityNotice the slippage in tense? Makes all the difference. "Looking back, that was/wasn't a good story."

The activity of roleplaying exists in the present moment. This is one of its basic parameters as a medium. It is itself a sequence of events, not the telling of one.

At any point in a film or novel one could say the same, I moved tense because the story was concluded, at any given point I was creating story and at the end we knew what the story was.

I just watched Quatermass II, ten minutes in one can't say yet what the story is, but nonetheless a story is in the process of being told.  When my dwarf walks in the room story is being created, we just don't know yet the full nature of the story (we just know it's about a dwarf and a room).

notes scribbled during Prof. Inverarity's lecture:

• If roleplaying exists in the present moment, clearly a new form is being born--ephemeral, temporally-bound.
• cf. making up a story on the spot (eg for kids)--the story does not fully exist until complete, yet exists during the moment.
• story being created is the form--no need for 'retroactive narratization' (look up).
  
• audience creates for themselves.
• 'chaotic uncertainty'--random elements creative limitations--take story in unexpected directions. Important for analysis of form.
• Prof. likes to swing dick around; cf. Prof Edwrds.

Quote from: BalbinusAt any point in a film or novel one could say the same, I moved tense because the story was concluded, at any given point I was creating story and at the end we knew what the story was.

You yourself didn't do any such thing. Others did that for you, and in the past, not in the present of your experience, and not involving you as performer.

Watching a movie = a) passive consumption, b) of a past product. Not knowing what happens next in this set-up = trivial. For one knows that something has been made to happen already, and has been edited for effect, often schlockily so, as one will see (one is sure of this) in a moment.

QuoteWhen my dwarf walks in the room story is being created, we just don't know yet the full nature of the story (we just know it's about a dwarf and a room).

No. Events are being enacted, and you don't know what's going to happen next. I made a case for this. Merely denying it is not enough. The brunt of my argument will have to be addressed.

Beware of Campbell Soup!

Unless you're Andy Warhol.

Quote from: SettembriniBut I´ll start defining story with:

sequence of events

Even with this most coarse definition, it should be obvious why especially movies are totally not RILLY about reporting a sequence of events.

I'll quibble with that definition very slightly: I'd say that it would be more accurate, if you want to attack "story" from this perspective, to define "story" as "a narrative report of a sequence of events".

The distinction is important, especially if we are talking about the story of something which happened in real life: if nobody is reporting the sequence of events, there is no story - nobody is communicating anything to anyone. If we're talking about non-fictional events than the sequence of events exists whether or not anyone is talking about it - and if we're talking about a fictional the sequence of events isn't real and didn't happen, even though somebody is talking about it.

If I write a story nobody sees, and I lock it in my desk until one day the house burns down, taking the desk with it: was there ever really a story?

Quote from: SettembriniNo sir, the story sucks donky balls. Ever has and always will. Now, there are strong conflicts that are pretty basic, so you can hook up your feelings. But it´s just a pretty rough canvas to project your wishes upon. The story is lame.
And all the better, Star Wars, the first movie, doesn´t even have that father shit.

Imagine the first scene. Where´s your story there?
Exactly, nowwhere. It´s all mood, ambience, experience, music, visuals, "being there".
Nothing being told there in the sense of a story.

Especially it´s not RILLY about relationships or somesuch.

Alas, the way  you seem to understand "story":

Is plainly wrong and counters all efforts of communication. because if it´s all story for you, than we can´t talk about story.
Emotions via story my ass.
That´s crazy moon talk, as some would say.

Opera, my dear friends!
You don´t even have to understand what they are singing.

Costumes, music, gestures, archetypical situations.

Definitely not story.

I can only hammer on that point, but it seems to no avail. If you lump the whole experience together and call it "story", any further commuincation is for naught.

ESPECIALLY in an RPG context. Please think things through, you will see the problem, I hope.

It is as I suspected.  You are quite mad, you know.  I've had enough of your brand of nonsense.   You didn't like Star Wars?   Ok.  I can buy that.   But your not liking it doesn't make it a bad story.   Nuff said on this topic.   Peaceout.

Quote from: SettembriniThat totally depends on context, don´t you think?

I´m not making the wild claims, it´s you guys, who proclaim that mass media are mainly storytelling media.

But I´ll start defining story with:

sequence of events

Even with this most coarse definition, it should be obvious why especially movies are totally not RILLY about reporting a sequence of events.

Ok, I'm just a tad curious.  Go on... Sequence of events ... what?

Quote from: WarthurI'll quibble with that definition very slightly: I'd say that it would be more accurate, if you want to attack "story" from this perspective, to define "story" as "a narrative report of a sequence of events".

But it isn't.  While a narrative report of a sequence of events can be a story, not all stories are a narrative report of a squenece of events.  

I find this definition:

Quotesto·ry 1 (stôr, str) n. pl. sto·ries
1. An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious, as:
a. An account or report regarding the facts of an event or group of events: The witness changed her story under questioning.
b. An anecdote: came back from the trip with some good stories.
c. A lie: told us a story about the dog eating the cookies.
2.
a. A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.
b. A short story.
3. The plot of a narrative or dramatic work.
4. A news article or broadcast.
5. Something viewed as or providing material for a literary or journalistic treatment: "He was colorful, he was charismatic, he was controversial, he was a good story" Terry Ann Knopf.
6. The background information regarding something: What's the story on these unpaid bills?
7. Romantic legend or tradition: a hero known to us in story.

Only in 1 the first definition is a sequence of events required.   It does not apply to the others.   There are many stories that are told non-sequentially.  That fact does not make them not stories.

It is like saying that since a banana is a fruit, therefore an apple isn't.  

However, again, I fear this argument is an Alice-in-Wonderland romp to nowhere.   If you can't even see that Star Wars is a story (whether you like that story or not), then there really is no point in discussing this further.  It does not mean, however, that you've successfully killed the conversation about Story, nor that you've successfully anihilated the concept of Story, which I suspect is the intention here (not you Warthur - I sense you are trying to be reasonable).   It just means that there's no point in debating this question.   Moonbattery is exactly right.   Amazing.

I love Star Wars.

Some people have problems understanding the very stuff they cite.

My final hint: Opera.

Have fun with your "stories".

I leave a little wiser on the nature of the internet and western civilization.

Take care.

1. Online dictionaries: Where living words go to die.

2. Even reading a dictionary entry does require comprehension skills.

Quote from: BalbinusAny decent story will tend to be about several things, and to be of sufficient complexity that different people may take different things from it.

And that doesn't have to be that complex.

So Star Wars is about Luke's heroic journey, and it's about Darth Vader's redemption, and it's a rollicking space opera, and it's a number of other things.  Like most stories it bears a number of meanings.

And note I'm not saying here all meanings are valid, just that most stories are capable of bearing more than one solitary meaning.

That said, story in this thread is being defined out of anything I recognise in ordinary life.  If someone says "hey, what story does Star Wars tell?" there are a few answers you can give but "technically it is not a story but a multisensory experience designed to evoke emotional response" is frankly just wrong.  It is a film, and like almost all films it tells a story, because film is in fact a storytelling medium to anyone except a handful of pedants on this thread.

And rpgs are a storytelling medium too, the question is what kind of stories and are they good ones or fun to experience, not do we have them.  It's only semantic rightthink which even creates the debate.

If my dwarf goes into a room, finds an orc and a pie, kills the orc and takes the pie we've just created a story.  It's just not a very good one and it has no thematic resonance of any kind (which may not be an issue).  But outside of the lunacy of rpg debates one could sensibly speak of the story of how the dwarf came to kill the orc and eat the pie.

I concur.  This is well said.  My guess is that the knee-jerk reaction to Story in the RPG thread is to attack the very concept of Story itself in a vain attempt to anihilate it.   That is doomed to failure.  However, the true effect is to disrupt the otherwise interesting conversation on how to make RPG Stories more interesting, deeper, and more meaningful.   We can not get far on that subject without one of the pedants reductio ad absurdatizing the thread with "Story does not Exist!" type of arguments.   I suspect the real intent is to disrupt an otherwise interesting discussion which those persons do not like, and therefore wish to eliminate.   I am guessing this because it seems like the only rational explaination for this behavior that I can think of.  Of course it is possible they are simply quite mad.   I'm undecided.

Wow, there's been some awesome nonsense today!  :haw:

The "Star Wars isn't a story -- it's an Opera" argument has to be some sort of high water mark.

Quote from: StuartWow, there's been some awesome nonsense today!  :haw:

The "Star Wars isn't a story -- it's an Opera" argument has to be some sort of high water mark.

Indeed.   I agree, of course.  However, your Avatar has given me a savage pain in the eye.   Can you revert back to the former one, which was merely frightenning?   I thank you.

Rascal.

Quote from: droogIf I write a story nobody sees, and I lock it in my desk until one day the house burns down, taking the desk with it: was there ever really a story?

Yes, because you engaged in the act of telling the story in the first place by writing it down. The tale is in the telling, not in who it's told to.