Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1053027You seriously don't have time for 'uhs'. I see this complaint a lot lately and I am getting the impression people may just be repeating stuff they hear online. This often to me feels like the whole never use passive voice thing. Personally I'd rather hear how people speak naturally (including the ums and uhs as they think their way around a topic) than have a bunch of jump cuts that mask them (or have the person obsess over them). Most of the you tubers I enjoy, don't use jump cuts and have those kinds of speech patterns. No real opinion on the tweet situation as I know little about over the edge. But this production value complaint seems like a quibble.

"Urr"'ing is a mild form of stammering that you get when you're socialized around people that aren't confident speakers and/or quick thinkers. It's in the same ballpark as people who speak fast (quick thinkers) or are conversationally eloquent (confident speakers). This shit happens when you're a kid, gets worse as a teenager and your last chance to change it is your 20's, reaching into your 30's. That's why speech education classes are important, at least to provide awareness of the issue.

It's actually a big thing and it's considered unattractive, distracting and indicative of confidence to the other party in the conversation you're having, particularly in the U.S but also to a lesser extent globally. Sounding like a well-produced voice actor is consider a pretty big plus when it comes to extrapersonal perception. Hell, I know I like it better when I'm talking to someone not "urr"'ing every ten seconds. I make a serious effort not to do it on my end and it's actually had a noticeable effect on my own eloquence.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1053067

You fucking troll.

I love it!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1053294The definitions I'm using for Storygames come right out of Forge Theory.

Explaneth this "Forge Theory" as you called it. Most curious.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1053382I think people just enjoy work that isn't edited and people who seem like they are speaking in their normal voice. Personally I dislike when podcasts or youtube videos cut around that stuff. I will watch/listen to some despite that because the content is good enough. But when I hear the jump cutting, I know surgery has been done what the person is saying and I am not getting an unfiltered, continuous series of thoughts from them (which matters because I thin it is very easy to edit together a cogent point and a lot harder to make one on the fly in a live discussion). Again though, at the end of the day, there isn't really much difference between a pause and an 'uh'. I've never understood why the classroom has given the pause special place, when it has pretty much the same impact on what the person is saying. If someone can eliminate the pause itself, and not have any break in what they are saying, then that would be something more. But since the pause and the uh are used to think about what you are saying, I think there is usually a trade off even with that.



They are missing out. Well produced and polished doesn't equal good content. Nothing wrong with enjoying a film that is well polished. But there are a lot of truly great movies that people spoiled by modern styles of film making have a hard time enjoying.

As above, depends on how quick a thinker you are (what NWOD calls "Wits") and how eloquent you are in expressing yourself (what NWOD calls... Expression, funnily enough).

Pundit's rants stop being entertaining when he just bumbles on. He has a specific thing he wants to say but he can be his own worst enemy. 1. Because his points tend to run out of steam quick or he's essentially repeating himself in different words. 2. Because he doesn't have that "I'll tell you, that fucking [insert SJW-of-the-week here] prick. You see this shit that they said? Where the fuck do they get the balls to say that? That. Fuck. Was the guy that got caught lackin' on [insert fuck-up here] and then they think they can come at me?". I mean, he could be the Joey Diaz of RPG personalities if only he'd embrace that. Fuck, I'd pay a $1-2 subscription just to hear something like that four times a month.

And even then, it more often than not comes down to the personality of the speaker or the mode of speech. When LordKat was cussing the shit out of Spoony years back, that whole rant was incredibly entertaining and it was pretty engaging. You could tell the speaker had a position and knew what the fuck he was talking about on that specific subject. In fact, we can keep it real mainstream and go for the Howard Stern style of monologing -- he brings to life the adage of "no dead air". I love listening to Howard Stern interviews, not just because of the "hollywood people" he has on but because he. Doesn't. Fucking. Stammer.

Talking is a fucking skill, yo.

Quote from: Panjumanju;1053431I find people in the hobby use the word "storygame" a lot like some people use the word "hipster". It's simultaneously a vague, sometimes contradictory, derogatory statement, and held up by some as a banner of newness, media-challenging, and progressive notions. It serves a social purpose and muddies, rather than clarifies, classification.

Storygames derive from role-playing games in much the same way pop-punk came out of hardcore punk by throwing in pop harmonies, mainstream rock chords and softer subject matter. In other words, shit that had nothing to do with the original form and which owes more to its adulterated elements than the source it sprang from.

No-one is calling storygames "hipster" (and if they are, they're idiots). It's that hipster nerds gravitate towards storygames because the buy-ins lower socially and mechanically and because they're not looking to play RPGs but are looking for a way to flex their storytelling impulses in a semi-codified form so it doesn't devolve into "He said, she said". PTBA games are about lily-jumping from one emotional moment to the next  at their core -- Shadowrun et al. is about achieving objectives in as efficient manner as possible based on the abilities of the PCs and the knowledge of the players. One is, at its heart, incredibly nerdy and rewards deep-diving and the other is something more nerd-adjacent and therefore attracts similar crowds that party game and board games do.

I think this particular definition war is causing more harm than good and no longer worth fighting, and there are plenty of other hills which need my attention.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1052525Surely the guy who actually wrote the game knows if it's a storygame or not?

Not necessarily.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1052525If you redefine words so they have meanings nobody else accepts then yes, you can argue all sorts of wacky stuff and get into all sorts of pointless arguments, just like a lefty.

Yerp.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;1052870Pundit, when your own fanbase is pointing out your production values are shit, then... Your production values are shit. Citing two examples doesn't make a case. Listening to all your "uhs" wastes my time.

He literally doesn't understand what makes the channels he's imitating successful. It's like watching an alien try to human.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1052969I think he's confused "storygame" with "storytelling game" in the style of Vampire.

Oh for fuck sake.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1053294The definitions I'm using for Storygames come right out of Forge Theory.

ORLY?

Sorcerer was literally that theory put into practice, and it's nothing like what most 'storygames' are accused of being. It has no metacurrency, dice are only used to resolve conflicts, players cannot edit scenes, all the thematic content is front loaded, and it can be played entirely from first person perspective.

The new OTE can best be described as an intention (rather than action or conflict) resolution engine, and follows a 'Fortune in the Middle' model. You state your intent, roll to determine the result, and then determine which actions created that result. The reroll mechanic then adds some nuance as it gives you the opportunity to state the actions you take after the roll to change it. All in all it's not a bad mechanic, just one which does nothing to facilitate the OTE experience.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1053438"Urr"'ing is a mild form of stammering that you get when you're socialized around people that aren't confident speakers and/or quick thinkers.

I am not an expert but pretty sure this just isn't true. It is just an interjection. My sister had a stammer growing up, and from what I recall, interjections are not considered to be any kind of stammer. Bothering to look it up just to see if there is anything here and not finding it (just finding that any break in speech is considered a disfluency, and that stutters are also disfluency, but most of the sites then break down all the disfluencies that are considered perfectly normal and not stutters----and they all include breaks like 'um' and 'ur'. I see a lot of assertions in this post. But I am not going to take the word of a random poster on the internet who uses NWOD as evidence. What I can say with certainly is I don't share your revulsion for speakers who periodically insert these kinds of interjection into their speech, and frankly I prefer speakers who do so in order to select the right words. I do appreciate a quick-wit as well. But that is a separate thing. If someone is pausing, instead of adding in an 'uh', that is just replacing the 'uh' with a pause, not a sign that they think fast. Some people think fast, and that is great. But I come from the North East, where fast speech is pretty common. And the flip side of it, is it can come off as being a bit of con artist when you speak that way. I am more inclined to trust a speaker who interjects or pauses, than one who speaks rapidly without breaks. Again, a lot of this comes down to taste and style. To me, the criticism in this post, comes off like saying a person who speaks with a regional accent is speaking incorrectly.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1053442Sorcerer was literally that theory put into practice, and it's nothing like what most 'storygames' are accused of being. It has no metacurrency, dice are only used to resolve conflicts, players cannot edit scenes, all the thematic content is front loaded, and it can be played entirely from first person perspective.

One way I noticed to force a campaign to follow a particular narrative is constrain the options. That the players only have a few options to choose form all of which are related to the narrative of the campaign. In a D&D campaign this would be accomplished by a referee adjudicating in a way that most would call railroading. In Sorceror and Dog in the Vineyard, the mechanics are designed to narrow the scope of the campaign to a specific type of situation with a limited range of characters meant to deal with these situations.

Which is why these types of games don't have widespread appeal. They are so narrow that they have the same type of appeal as a adventure module or a campaign supplement.

Again one can not look solely at the mechanics to determine what kind of game is being played in a given campaign. One has to look at what is the primary focus to determine whether it is a storygame, wargame, or tabletop roleplaying. The same for a product or supplement.

Now it may well be that the author claims that it support his chosen game but hobbyists find it not to be the case. However given the diversity of how hobbyists approach these game it rarely a clear cut answer. The general I find there are always a few that because of the way they think about tabletop roleplaying, wargames, or storygame find X useful even tho a majority of the hobbyists disagree.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1053294The definitions I'm using for Storygames come right out of Forge Theory.

Could you link to the specific definitions from there that you are using? I've participated on both the Forge and Story Games forums and have never felt like they had definitions that said an RPG is that, but our (story) games are this.

Quote from: estar;1053482One way I noticed to force a campaign to follow a particular narrative is constrain the options. That the players only have a few options to choose form all of which are related to the narrative of the campaign. In a D&D campaign this would be accomplished by a referee adjudicating in a way that most would call railroading. In Sorceror and Dog in the Vineyard, the mechanics are designed to narrow the scope of the campaign to a specific type of situation with a limited range of characters meant to deal with these situations.

Which is why these types of games don't have widespread appeal. They are so narrow that they have the same type of appeal as a adventure module or a campaign supplement.

Again one can not look solely at the mechanics to determine what kind of game is being played in a given campaign. One has to look at what is the primary focus to determine whether it is a storygame, wargame, or tabletop roleplaying. The same for a product or supplement.

Now it may well be that the author claims that it support his chosen game but hobbyists find it not to be the case. However given the diversity of how hobbyists approach these game it rarely a clear cut answer. The general I find there are always a few that because of the way they think about tabletop roleplaying, wargames, or storygame find X useful even tho a majority of the hobbyists disagree.

Does a narrow focus of the game make it a Story Game rather than an RPG? Is EPT less of an RPG than D&D because it has a specific setting?

Both Sorceror and Dogs in the Vinyard have been used in various settings (Sorceror even has a Ron Edwards supplement for swords and sorcery play). DitV has various hacks for other settings.

I agree that those games have a narrower focus, but they still feel like the same sort of game as D&D to me.

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;1053492Does a narrow focus of the game make it a Story Game rather than an RPG?

Depends what being narrowed. Strip The Fantasy Trip of everything but the combat rules and you have the wargame Melee. Melee is more narrow than The Fantasy Trip. Again it about focus, if the choices are constrained to the point where the players can only do thing that make sense in terms of whatever narrative the author wrote then yes it starts to become a storygame rather than a tabletop RPG.

I been pretty clear that is about focus not mechanics. Perhaps I need to spell it out but focus is "fuzzy". People are not one-dimensional when it comes to these games. The default is to take a little of that and a little of this and run with it. So yes it is confusing to say that is X and that is Y.

Quote from: ffilz;1053492Is EPT less of an RPG than D&D because it has a specific setting?

Barker isn't pushing for a particular narrative outcomes with EPT. He presenting what in his view a cool place for for players to explore and wrote a set of mechanics to reflect the reality of the characters within that setting. What they do from that point on is up to them. And that literally the first campaign Barker ran was about with the party being barbarians from the southern continent fresh off a boat.

Quote from: ffilz;1053492Both Sorceror and Dogs in the Vinyard have been used in various settings (Sorceror even has a Ron Edwards supplement for swords and sorcery play). DitV has various hacks for other settings.

Sure and the combined package is probably an RPG now. Scope was expanded by the author to cover more of the grounds a more general fantasy RPG. Doesn't make the original different. Melee is still a wargame despite being combined with Wizard and In the Labyrinth to make The Fantasy Trip RPG.

Quote from: ffilz;1053492I agree that those games have a narrower focus, but they still feel like the same sort of game as D&D to me.

And what if the player doesn't want to play a sorcerer using just the original game? What if he doesn't want to deal with demons as his character?

A better rebuttal to my argument would been to mention Call of Cthulu. Here we have a game that describes a very specific situation, dealing with the Cthulu Mythos. Campaigns tend to have a similar arc, with the players trying to uncover the mysteries before becoming hopelessly insane. Why is Call of Cthulu a storygame?

My opinion is because it describe the setting (generally the 1920s) and how the Cthulu Mythos fits into it. Then the players are free to make any character that would be possible to exist in the setting. It quite easy for a player to make a character that had nothing useful for a Mythos investigation. Instead focus on being a 1920s gangster. The older editions of Call of Cthulu (the ones I read) make for a nice 1920s RPG period. You just get a layer of Mythos if you want to go that route.

Sorcerer could been something like that but it strips everything else out to the point is that the author only want the campaign to be about Sorcerers dealing with demons. While in Call of Cthulu all the added elements meant that a broad variety of Mythos campaigns could be run rather than assuming everybody a resident of Miskatonic U for example. You could start out with everybody as a member of a Chicago mob gang deal with that for a few sessions and then start throwing Mythos stuff as a twist to the campaign.

IN conclusion I think narrowing the scope to force the players to deal with a narrative is not as interesting as using metagame mechanics which is why the latter is more prevalent in storygames.

Estar, Pendragon 5th edition is a better counter to your argument: it's ultra-focused (all players are noble, land-owning knights at Arthur's service), and the rules have built-in genre assumptions (behave like a honoured knight > gain Glory > become a better knight). If you don't want to use it as intended (I want to be a mage! Or a thief! Or to depose the Pendragon dynasty and become a Robberbaron!) the rules will fight you.

But then, I've  always found Pendragon a "storygame", which I understand as just another flavor within the tabletop rpgs umbrella.

Quote from: estar;1053496Depends what being narrowed. Strip The Fantasy Trip of everything but the combat rules and you have the wargame Melee. Melee is more narrow than The Fantasy Trip. Again it about focus, if the choices are constrained to the point where the players can only do thing that make sense in terms of whatever narrative the author wrote then yes it starts to become a storygame rather than a tabletop RPG.

I been pretty clear that is about focus not mechanics. Perhaps I need to spell it out but focus is "fuzzy". People are not one-dimensional when it comes to these games. The default is to take a little of that and a little of this and run with it. So yes it is confusing to say that is X and that is Y.



Barker isn't pushing for a particular narrative outcomes with EPT. He presenting what in his view a cool place for for players to explore and wrote a set of mechanics to reflect the reality of the characters within that setting. What they do from that point on is up to them. And that literally the first campaign Barker ran was about with the party being barbarians from the southern continent fresh off a boat.




Sure and the combined package is probably an RPG now. Scope was expanded by the author to cover more of the grounds a more general fantasy RPG. Doesn't make the original different. Melee is still a wargame despite being combined with Wizard and In the Labyrinth to make The Fantasy Trip RPG.

 And what if the player doesn't want to play a sorcerer using just the original game? What if he doesn't want to deal with demons as his character?

A better rebuttal to my argument would been to mention Call of Cthulu. Here we have a game that describes a very specific situation, dealing with the Cthulu Mythos. Campaigns tend to have a similar arc, with the players trying to uncover the mysteries before becoming hopelessly insane. Why is Call of Cthulu a storygame?

My opinion is because it describe the setting (generally the 1920s) and how the Cthulu Mythos fits into it. Then the players are free to make any character that would be possible to exist in the setting. It quite easy for a player to make a character that had nothing useful for a Mythos investigation. Instead focus on being a 1920s gangster. The older editions of Call of Cthulu (the ones I read) make for a nice 1920s RPG period. You just get a layer of Mythos if you want to go that route.

Sorcerer could been something like that but it strips everything else out to the point is that the author only want the campaign to be about Sorcerers dealing with demons. While in Call of Cthulu all the added elements meant that a broad variety of Mythos campaigns could be run rather than assuming everybody a resident of Miskatonic U for example. You could start out with everybody as a member of a Chicago mob gang deal with that for a few sessions and then start throwing Mythos stuff as a twist to the campaign.

IN conclusion I think narrowing the scope to force the players to deal with a narrative is not as interesting as using metagame mechanics which is why the latter is more prevalent in storygames.

I see where you are going. If we take your angle, one of the problems in labeling a game a story game is we still have a spectrum and different folks will draw their line in the sand in a different place, thus the continued "that's a story game not an RPG" "no it's an RPG" or "no it's an RPG AND a story game"... I think there's actually a spectrum from wargame to RPG also, clearly yes, Melee as a board game is a wargame, but it doesn't take much to start playing it as an RPG (and I appreciate your pointing out that how the players use the game does matter in the distinction).

One wording I wish you had avoided was narrative outcome. Sorceror and Dogs in the Vinyard may be more narrative focused, but they aren't invested in a particular outcome for a story. At least not in the same way the a "railroaded" game (that may have been intended to be an RPG but maybe isn't the way it's actually played). One of the issues I have with the "story game" label is it feels like it's trying to lump two different styles of game together.

In some ways, it would help to use Venn diagrams to show the different styles of gaming and how they and their adherents overlap. To me, that would show we have a large community with some shared interests. Within that community it's perfectly fine to have sub-communities that are focused in different directions. There's nothing wrong (and lots good) about the ODD74 board, and there's nothing wrong (and lots good) about boards that welcome discussion of everything from Melee to D&D to Vampire to Sorceror and more.

Frank

Just to clarify: I'm with Ffilz here, in that the kind of "storygames" we are talking about are actually tabletop replaying games. If we were talking about the likes of Baron Munchalsen or The Quiet Year, them yeah it could be fruitful to draw a line in the sand. But that's not the case here.

Quote from: Itachi;1053500Just to clarify: I'm with Ffilz here, in that the kind of "storygames" we are talking about are actually tabletop replaying games. If we were talking about the likes of Baron Munchalsen or The Quiet Year, them yeah it could be fruitful to draw a line in the sand. But that's not the case here.

Yes. This is why Sorcerer, Over the Edge and Pendragon are all RPGs not storygames. Sorcerer is a Narrativist rpg in Forgespeak while Pendragon is Dramatist Simulation, but both are primarily focused on playing the character. Sorcerer is also intended to create 'story now' giving it a Storygame element. And so it is Incoherent and thus Bad.

Quote from: ffilz;1053499me is we still have a spectrum and different folks will draw their line in the sand in a different place,

Agreed, which is why I like focus and like to talk about what define the center of each category. There going to be some games that will split the focus just about evenly.

Quote from: ffilz;1053499I think there's actually a spectrum from wargame to RPG also, clearly yes, Melee as a board game is a wargame,

No disagreement there.

Quote from: ffilz;1053499One wording I wish you had avoided was narrative outcome. Sorceror and Dogs in the Vinyard may be more narrative focused, but they aren't invested in a particular outcome for a story. At least not in the same way the a "railroaded" game (that may have been intended to be an RPG but maybe isn't the way it's actually played). One of the issues I have with the "story game" label is it feels like it's trying to lump two different styles of game together.

For games like Sorceror and Dogs in the Vineyard what makes them approach the boundary of storygames is that the range of outcome is compressed. Maybe not a particular outcome but a narrow range of narrative outcomes.

Keeping in mind that that I am aware there a spectrum when it comes to these things.

Quote from: ffilz;1053499In some ways, it would help to use Venn diagrams to show the different styles of gaming and how they and their adherents overlap.

I assume everything is a hybrid with a little bit of this and a little bit that.

As far as the realm of things we are discussing I see three hubs

All three about using mechanics of a game in different ways to realize their goals.

Do I want to collaborate on creating a story (storygame)
Do I want to defeat my opponent (competitive wargame) or achieve some victory condition (cooperative wargame)
Do I want to experience a setting as a character (roleplaying games)

If the last is done with a human referee adjudicating the actions of the character while interacting with the setting then it is tabletop roleplaying. If it is a software algorithm it is a computer RPG, if the software algorithm can handle multiple players at once then it is a MMORPG. If the rules of a sport are used to adjudicate the action then it is a LARP.

Quote from: ffilz;1053499To me, that would show we have a large community with some shared interests. Within that community it's perfectly fine to have sub-communities that are focused in different directions. There's nothing wrong (and lots good) about the ODD74 board, and there's nothing wrong (and lots good) about boards that welcome discussion of everything from Melee to D&D to Vampire to Sorceror and more.

My opinion is that tabletop roleplaying is still such a new phenomenon as these things go that people are still coming to grips to what it is. That gaming (all stripes) since 1970 has experienced a revolution in diversity that people are still coming up with new categories of gameplay. One that seen relatively new expansion are a bunch of boardgames incorporating cooperative play to beat some victory condition like Shadowrun Crossfire and has rules for campaign play built in.

My opinion what D&D and games like D&D represent is a system that allow people to experience a virtual reality using nothing but pen, paper, maybe some dice, and a human referee. That major difference between Blackmoor and the other campaign being run at the time was it focus on the experience of being a individual character.

Quote from: Itachi;1053500Just to clarify: I'm with Ffilz here, in that the kind of "storygames" we are talking about are actually tabletop replaying games. If we were talking about the likes of Baron Munchalsen or The Quiet Year, them yeah it could be fruitful to draw a line in the sand. But that's not the case here.

Yet there a class of games using the elements of a RPG that are very narrow in focus that are often promoted as being special in that they promote story or create a narrative by default.

In regards to the thread, I always had the opinion that the Pundit arguments against storygames or the "swine" are overblown. The history of the industry as shown that despite all the praise heaped on them, they don't sell any better than any other random 2nd or 3rd tier RPG, and people seem to get bored with a lot quicker. And the one major release that was based on GNS/Forge theory D&D 4e imploded dramatically.

By far traditional tabletop roleplaying games is more popular than even the bestseller that have a heavy narrative/story focus like Fate. And we all dwarf by the resurgence new wave of boardgames. And that is dwarfed by the juggernaut of Computer Games.

The thing that keeping everything afloat is the revolution of digital technology which dramatically dropped the cost of producing, distributing, and promoting this stuff.

And be glad the boardgames guys pulled their head of their asses and figured how how make fun new games again back in the 2000s.

Quote from: estar;1053516In regards to the thread, I always had the opinion that the Pundit arguments against storygames or the "swine" are overblown. The history of the industry as shown that despite all the praise heaped on them, they don't sell any better than any other random 2nd or 3rd tier RPG, and people seem to get bored with a lot quicker. And the one major release that was based on GNS/Forge theory D&D 4e imploded dramatically.

By far traditional tabletop roleplaying games is more popular than even the bestseller that have a heavy narrative/story focus like Fate. And we all dwarf by the resurgence new wave of boardgames. And that is dwarfed by the juggernaut of Computer Games.

The thing that keeping everything afloat is the revolution of digital technology which dramatically dropped the cost of producing, distributing, and promoting this stuff.

And be glad the boardgames guys pulled their head of their asses and figured how how make fun new games again back in the 2000s.

I appreciate your attempt to justify your categorization and acknowledgement of how all these games fit together in a wider sense, it feels a bit less like a "game I don't like = story game = bad game or nothing to do with RPGs".

It would be interesting to know what Jonathan Tweet defines "story game" as. I could see folks using as a definition the types of games that might be discussed at storygames.com, by which nature Over the Edge as a Story Game makes sense, though so does D&D. But I also see a point of using Story Game to refer to games like Sorceror or Dogs in the Vinyard or the even more divergent games that have come out of the Forge community. I just hope that Story Games is NOT used in a way that lumps those games in with railroaded plot games where the GM (or the publisher) push their story line because that's a very different thing (and sometimes under the guise of a traditional RPG).

Frank