Quote from: PulpHerb on October 21, 2022, 05:53:12 PM
I would define a "story game" as any game whose principal purpose is the creation of a narrative structure in real-time with the game.

Role-playing games, in this definition, create a story via memoir, a narrative crafted from the events after the fact.

The big dividing factor is "does the game work to ensure every activity in the game advances the narrative instead of allowing any action that would be part of a character's life regardless of its presence in the narrative". In a story game, everything should be something a writer telling the story in a novel would include in a novel. In a roleplaying game, the pieces of life the novelist would leave out are just as valid as game activities.

This is the same distinction that I disagreed with rytrasmi over previously:

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/what-is-story-gaming-in-your-opinion/msg1233136/#msg1233136

The problem is that story games that are GMless or have strong player input tend to create sequences that are even more rambling and unstructured than many traditional RPGs. I brought up examples of Microscope, The Quiet Year, and Fiasco - but this is broadly true across a lot of others that call themselves story games. With collaborative mechanics, there's a lot more messy stuff where a player introduces a new character or plot thread, but then it doesn't get worked into the rest of the session.

Traditional RPGs tend to have a GM who prepares an adventure, that has a beginning hook, a middle conflict, and a final resolution. The GM further will often direct things to skip over stuff that isn't relevant to the adventure. We don't play out round by round when a PC is going to the bathroom, for example - but we might if they are getting ambushed in the bathroom by cultists waiting for them there.

When there is no prepared main adventure - or if the players can interject to change what the main story is about - then things don't get more structured like a novel. They get even more messy like a pile of notes that needs to be further edited to get to a novel.

Quote from: jhkim on October 22, 2022, 04:31:10 PM

This is the same distinction that I disagreed with rytrasmi over previously:

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/what-is-story-gaming-in-your-opinion/msg1233136/#msg1233136

The problem is that story games that are GMless or have strong player input tend to create sequences that are even more rambling and unstructured than many traditional RPGs. I brought up examples of Microscope, The Quiet Year, and Fiasco - but this is broadly true across a lot of others that call themselves story games. With collaborative mechanics, there's a lot more messy stuff where a player introduces a new character or plot thread, but then it doesn't get worked into the rest of the session.

Traditional RPGs tend to have a GM who prepares an adventure, that has a beginning hook, a middle conflict, and a final resolution. The GM further will often direct things to skip over stuff that isn't relevant to the adventure. We don't play out round by round when a PC is going to the bathroom, for example - but we might if they are getting ambushed in the bathroom by cultists waiting for them there.

When there is no prepared main adventure - or if the players can interject to change what the main story is about - then things don't get more structured like a novel. They get even more messy like a pile of notes that needs to be further edited to get to a novel.

I agree, and this is why I mentioned the misnomer earlier. I have played Houses of the Blooded and a few other "story games". Such games are often much more random and unpredictable. Railroading a pre-generated story, if that is your sort of thing, is much easier with old-fashioned rules, although "sandboxes" are of course also very possible.

Could the distinction comedown to players declaring intention and the rules or GM resolving the outcome thus making the story happen versus players describing the outcome and telling a story after being given the authority to?

  Did someone make the comparison of "story gaming" to Family Guy's "Hickadoola"? Because I think that answer is funny on how nebulous the meaning shifts have been over time.

No dice, no real GM/DM, that's what I think of "story gaming"

My own definition is based on remarks by Pundit and Angry GM on story games: a story game is one in which the goal of telling a story takes precedence over the goal of playing a character, especially if this is incentivized by game mechanics such as the ability to alter events through metagame mechanics instead of through character abilities* or to gain benefits like XP in exchange for accepting or inviting problems.

The cash value of the distinction is that story gaming leads to a misalignment between the motivations of players and those of their characters. Of course those motivations will never be identical since the player is not actually the character and is aware of the game mechanics and so forth, but as a rule, in a role-playing game the player wants for the character what the character wants for itself, and does not want things contradictory to those goals. In story games, the player wants to help tell a good story even at the character's expense.

* I would say whether action/luck/willpower points are such a mechanic depends on metaphysics of the game: for example, if "luck" is to be thought of as a real thing that can "used up" then I'd say it's part of the character's abilities, albeit one they aren't necessarily consciously aware of using.

Quote from: Wisithir on October 22, 2022, 11:39:46 PM
Could the distinction comedown to players declaring intention and the rules or GM resolving the outcome thus making the story happen versus players describing the outcome and telling a story after being given the authority to?

Generally in an RPG, the players declare an action. Declaring an intention is optional, but often a good idea since intent will be assumed if not declared. For example, you might declare your character is attacking the dragon with your sword, I'm going to assume the intent is to slay unless you specifically declare it's only to subdue.

Yes, often some combination of GM, rules, and dice will then resolve that action. But that's not always the case in an RPG. There are plenty of things in an RPG a player can just do without a "Mother, may I," and these can vary from one RPG to the next. You're usually allowed to speak in character without having to make any kind of check, for instance.

Perhaps that's why the term "role-play" is sometimes also used by gamers to specifically mean "speaking in character." It's the most common and reliable playground where you can just play your character unfettered by the rules.

Perhaps it's also why even in combat gamers tend to gravitate more towards the language of "I attack the dragon with my sword," stating the action while the intent is unspoken, rather than "I attempt to slay the dragon by slashing at it with my sword." You don't need permission to attack. If it's your turn, you're entitled to it. You only need the GM's say so on whether you hit and whether that hit kills.

In either case, the player is role-playing. And in fact the player is also narrating, but doing so only with in the confines of where that has unilateral authority. Some RPGs can give players more unilateral authority than others. But unless you're playing solo, any game, even a story game, has to place limits on where any player has sole discretion, because of course there are other players at the table.

So I'm not so convinced the distinction can be tied strictly to the quantity of narrative control. In an RPG, it's just that the narrative control is highly correlated to the playing of the character. Even with the so-called "meta-game" mechanics and currency, in the RPG, these are generally used by the player to benefit or enhance the abilities of their own character.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
I'm fine using the technical definition of action while using the casual definition of story. ....

What is that? Define your terms.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
5) This is one of the key hotly contended topics. If story can only ever happen after the fact, if story can only ever emerge from gameplay, not happen in real time, then what does that say about the theory of "Story Now" vs "Story Later"? Is "story now" complete bunk ...

Yes.

This is entirely bunkum:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Straight-up fake pseudo-intellectual wankery.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
On the flip side of it, I would argue of course stories can happen in real time. Because they are experienced in real time. The entire narrative structure rests upon this fact. A climax wouldn't be a climax if people didn't experience a heightened level of excitement at that point. A level of excitement they don't feel during the rest of the story. The story technically actually does not need to have an end to elicit that feeling. Imagine you're watching a movie and just as you reach the climax, the power goes out. Now imagine the story was actually written that way.

I'm not saying it wouldn't feel extremely unsatisfying without a resolution. Just pointing out you can feel the climax even if the ending isn't written. So why can't the ending be determined at the tail end of the climax? Why can't a story be created in real time? If the audience isn't feeling heightened excitement during the climax without the ending, they're not going to feel it with the ending either. And then your problem isn't whether or not the story has an ending. The bigger problem is it has no climax. That's how the insistence it can't happen in real time unravels the whole structure.

Emotional feelings are proof of nothing. And have no place in this discussion.

Our ability to empathize and feel emotions does not distinguish between the fictional and real life.

I can read a story of something bad happening to a fictional character. A good writer will make me feel sympathy when reading the story. Someone I know can tell me about something bad that happened to them I can also feel sympathy for them. One is fake, the other is real life, and intellectually I know the difference. But my ability to empathize does not care. This is why you see people get really attached to fictional characters, and even get extremely upset if an author kills off a fan favorite.

Or more accurately when referring to the experience of playing RPG's vs. reading a story:

I've felt nervous tension when fencing someone that I really wanted to win against. I can feel nervous tension when my PC is fighting an evil NPC and I really want to win. The feeling is the same, but they are two entirely different activities.

Just like reading or telling a story are different activities than playing an RPG.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
... What part of describing the fictional actions of your character are you objecting to equating to story?...

All of it. You are not telling a story, you are just telling the GM what you are doing. When I tell someone that I'm going out to the store, I'm not telling them a story about going out to the store. I'm just telling them what I'm going to do.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
1) On first blush, the difference between an action and an event seems to be one of scale. While it's not explicit by the definition of story that the description of a single action can also be a story, it's also not explicitly excluded. The answer cannot just be assumed by definition.

Yes, it is explicitly excluded. By definition.

According to the definitions we agreed to:

- an account of incidents or events:
- a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events:
- an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment:
- a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people:

See that word used in common in all the definitions: "events" - plural. Not singular.

RPG's are a game, and a necessary part of the game is describing the actions of your character.

When telling a story you do use description to fill in the narrative.

But every time you describe something you are not telling a story.

For example:

GM: "The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"

Player1: "Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"

Player2: "Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"

GM: "Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"

That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.

This is how that Player-GM interaction can become a story:

Player3: "Got my soda, what did I miss?"

Player2: "The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down with his axe grognir in a series of furious downright blows!"

That is a story. A short one. But Jack and Jill wasn't exactly an involved tale either.

In the first part, no matter what verbal color you add to punch things up - you are not telling a story! You are merely describing your PC's actions in the moment.

In the second part you see all the different actions made by the GM and the Players of what they did being put together, and told in a single cohesive narrative; creating a story.

That is how descriptions of PC's actions become a story, and how story is emergent from gameplay.

As a general note, I don't think the people on The Forge or the Story Games Forum ever got a good definitional line between traditional RPGs and story games either, and there was frequent disagreement. I had a lot of arguments over there as well.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 24, 2022, 11:41:05 AM
The cash value of the distinction is that story gaming leads to a misalignment between the motivations of players and those of their characters. Of course those motivations will never be identical since the player is not actually the character and is aware of the game mechanics and so forth, but as a rule, in a role-playing game the player wants for the character what the character wants for itself, and does not want things contradictory to those goals. In story games, the player wants to help tell a good story even at the character's expense.

In practice, many traditional RPG players are mostly trying to get into and engage with an exciting and interesting adventure -- rather than deeply immersing into character. Such players act to see where the adventure will lead, and what the interesting encounters are -- and don't give a second thought to severe discomfort, mortal danger, deprivation, and other hardship. If given a choice between a boring option that gets the character safety and fulfillment and an exciting but dangerous adventure, they'll choose the adventure.

Going for the more interesting option to play through is much the same with story gamers.

There are often different mechanics at work, but I think player motivation is often very similar. There is a subset of deeply immersive players who will choose in-character options that are boring to play out -- but it's just a fraction.

Quote from: Jaeger on October 24, 2022, 07:03:53 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
If story can only ever happen after the fact, if story can only ever emerge from gameplay, not happen in real time, then what does that say about the theory of "Story Now" vs "Story Later"? Is "story now" complete bunk ...

This is entirely bunkum:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Straight-up fake pseudo-intellectual wankery.

I'm with Jaeger here. The "Story Now" definition is hopelessly muddled, and is layered with lots of terminology which just hides that there's no clear definitions in the first place.

Quote from: Jaeger on October 24, 2022, 07:03:53 PM
For example:

GM: "The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"

Player1: "Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"

Player2: "Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"

GM: "Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"

That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.

This is how that Player-GM interaction can become a story:

Player3: "Got my soda, what did I miss?"

Player2: "The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down with his axe grognir in a series of furious downright blows!"

That is a story. A short one. But Jack and Jill wasn't exactly an involved tale either.

I see this -- but I don't think this illustrates a distinction from story games. In nearly all story games, there's messy back-and-forth of "What is your plot card draw?" and "How does that option work?" and so forth -- that would later be condensed into a more coherent summary.

Quote from: Jaeger on October 24, 2022, 07:03:53 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
I'm fine using the technical definition of action while using the casual definition of story. ....

What is that? Define your terms.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
5) This is one of the key hotly contended topics. If story can only ever happen after the fact, if story can only ever emerge from gameplay, not happen in real time, then what does that say about the theory of "Story Now" vs "Story Later"? Is "story now" complete bunk ...

Yes.

This is entirely bunkum:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Straight-up fake pseudo-intellectual wankery.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
On the flip side of it, I would argue of course stories can happen in real time. Because they are experienced in real time. The entire narrative structure rests upon this fact. A climax wouldn't be a climax if people didn't experience a heightened level of excitement at that point. A level of excitement they don't feel during the rest of the story. The story technically actually does not need to have an end to elicit that feeling. Imagine you're watching a movie and just as you reach the climax, the power goes out. Now imagine the story was actually written that way.

I'm not saying it wouldn't feel extremely unsatisfying without a resolution. Just pointing out you can feel the climax even if the ending isn't written. So why can't the ending be determined at the tail end of the climax? Why can't a story be created in real time? If the audience isn't feeling heightened excitement during the climax without the ending, they're not going to feel it with the ending either. And then your problem isn't whether or not the story has an ending. The bigger problem is it has no climax. That's how the insistence it can't happen in real time unravels the whole structure.

Emotional feelings are proof of nothing. And have no place in this discussion.

Our ability to empathize and feel emotions does not distinguish between the fictional and real life.

I can read a story of something bad happening to a fictional character. A good writer will make me feel sympathy when reading the story. Someone I know can tell me about something bad that happened to them I can also feel sympathy for them. One is fake, the other is real life, and intellectually I know the difference. But my ability to empathize does not care. This is why you see people get really attached to fictional characters, and even get extremely upset if an author kills off a fan favorite.

Or more accurately when referring to the experience of playing RPG's vs. reading a story:

I've felt nervous tension when fencing someone that I really wanted to win against. I can feel nervous tension when my PC is fighting an evil NPC and I really want to win. The feeling is the same, but they are two entirely different activities.

Just like reading or telling a story are different activities than playing an RPG.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
... What part of describing the fictional actions of your character are you objecting to equating to story?...

All of it. You are not telling a story, you are just telling the GM what you are doing. When I tell someone that I'm going out to the store, I'm not telling them a story about going out to the store. I'm just telling them what I'm going to do.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 20, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
1) On first blush, the difference between an action and an event seems to be one of scale. While it's not explicit by the definition of story that the description of a single action can also be a story, it's also not explicitly excluded. The answer cannot just be assumed by definition.

Yes, it is explicitly excluded. By definition.

According to the definitions we agreed to:

- an account of incidents or events:
- a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events:
- an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment:
- a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people:

See that word used in common in all the definitions: "events" - plural. Not singular.

RPG's are a game, and a necessary part of the game is describing the actions of your character.

When telling a story you do use description to fill in the narrative.

But every time you describe something you are not telling a story.

For example:

GM: "The three Orcs attack Red-Lori with a furious charge!"

Player1: "Crap. I'm in the middle of casting the portal; Help!"

Player2: "Got this: I charge into them and use my multiple attacks to mow them down!"

GM: "Good roll dude. Your damage? ...Holy crap – you charged into them and chopped them up!"

That is not a story. It is just the Players and GM talking back and forth to each other describing actions and results as they play the game.

This is how that Player-GM interaction can become a story:

Player3: "Got my soda, what did I miss?"

Player2: "The orcs were charging Red-Lori as she was casting the portal to take us out of the dungeon. Grognak the Slayer lived up to his name by charging into them and cutting them down with his axe grognir in a series of furious downright blows!"

That is a story. A short one. But Jack and Jill wasn't exactly an involved tale either.

In the first part, no matter what verbal color you add to punch things up - you are not telling a story! You are merely describing your PC's actions in the moment.

In the second part you see all the different actions made by the GM and the Players of what they did being put together, and told in a single cohesive narrative; creating a story.

That is how descriptions of PC's actions become a story, and how story is emergent from gameplay.

Greetings!

Excellent, Jaeger!

That all makes perfect sense to me. Why do these other people have such a difficulty comprehending this?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on October 24, 2022, 08:26:41 PM
...
I see this -- but I don't think this illustrates a distinction from story games. ...

That example is my argument that when you play RPG's you are not are not "Telling stories" in real-time.

As to the difference between RPG's and "story games"...

Quote from: jhkim on October 24, 2022, 08:26:41 PM
...In nearly all story games, there's messy back-and-forth of "What is your plot card draw?" and "How does that option work?" and so forth -- that would later be condensed into a more coherent summary.

I agree.

RPG's as created and handed down to us by Saints Arneson and Gygax have the players with sole agency over their PC's, and the GM with agency over the NPC's etc, in the virtual game world.

Forgeist "storygames" think that that divide makes for shit storytelling, and most every storygame I played sought to more "equally" share the agency over the game world and 'narrative' of play among the players, eliminating the need for a GM.

I've played my share of story games when they were the new hotness, and Endgame in Oakland actually stocked them on the shelves.

They are messy. They say RPG's are incoherent because the back and forth between players and GM's is too messy and inconsistent to be vehicles for "real storytelling"...  But the "real storytelling games" have a different but equally messy back and forth trying to unite several different people's ideas of what the overall "narrative" should be. They're not actually very good at what they were trying to do.

What a lot of forgeites didn't get was that RPG's work so well for so many; precisely because they are not storytelling vehicles..

The whole idea of "story games" in the larger RPG hobby was always a solution to a non-existent problem.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 24, 2022, 01:20:41 PM
Perhaps that's why the term "role-play" is sometimes also used by gamers to specifically mean "speaking in character." It's the most common and reliable playground where you can just play your character unfettered by the rules.

...

In either case, the player is role-playing. And in fact the player is also narrating, but doing so only with in the confines of where that has unilateral authority. Some RPGs can give players more unilateral authority than others. But unless you're playing solo, any game, even a story game, has to place limits on where any player has sole discretion, because of course there are other players at the table.

I think we are using different definitions of role-playing. I subscribe to the following:

Quote from: https://theangrygm.com/memo-to-the-players-2/
Action, Not Acting
No. Role-playing isn't portraying a character. It's not speaking in character. It's not pretending to be someone else. It's not sharing an awesome character with the world. It's not psychoanalyzing a character. Role-playing is entirely about making choices and taking action.

Between You and Your Character
Role-playing has nothing to do with anyone else. You're not putting on a show. It's entirely about building a relationship with your character. Your character in a role-playing game is like your favorite character in a Netflix series. The longer you spend with the character and the more you learn about them, the more you care.

Role-playing is about experiencing a story through your favorite character's eyes. Experiencing a story about your favorite character from the inside. But the relationship still needs time to develop and room to grow. And it has to catch you by surprise sometimes. Just like your favorite characters do. Surprises test and strengthen relationships.

Thus, to me, a story-game makes a game of telling a story, while the story of an RPG is experienced through the character by making decisions for the character, not about the character or the surrounding cast and world.

For example,  Spider Dude is fighting Doctor Tentacles. Deciding I want reduce the adversary's effectiveness; blind him by throwing spider goo in his eyes, would be role-playing. Conversely, getting a "Yes, but" on a defeat adversary test and being asked to describe to the group how Spider Dude prevailed while ruining his social life in the process is story-gaming no matter how much I might play act in the process.

Quote from: Jaeger on October 24, 2022, 10:57:43 PM
What a lot of forgeites didn't get was that RPG's work so well for so many; precisely because they are not storytelling vehicles..

The whole idea of "story games" in the larger RPG hobby was always a solution to a non-existent problem.

One doesn't have to consider traditional RPGs to be a problem in order to enjoy other games such as wargames or story games.

There was a significant subset of The Forge who disliked traditional RPGs, including a co-founder -- but every style of gaming has at least some subset of One-True-Way designers and fans.

Quote from: Wisithir on October 25, 2022, 12:15:28 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 24, 2022, 01:20:41 PM
Perhaps that's why the term "role-play" is sometimes also used by gamers to specifically mean "speaking in character." It's the most common and reliable playground where you can just play your character unfettered by the rules.

...

In either case, the player is role-playing. And in fact the player is also narrating, but doing so only with in the confines of where that has unilateral authority. Some RPGs can give players more unilateral authority than others. But unless you're playing solo, any game, even a story game, has to place limits on where any player has sole discretion, because of course there are other players at the table.

I think we are using different definitions of role-playing. I subscribe to the following:

Quote from: https://theangrygm.com/memo-to-the-players-2/
Action, Not Acting
No. Role-playing isn't portraying a character. It's not speaking in character. It's not pretending to be someone else. It's not sharing an awesome character with the world. It's not psychoanalyzing a character. Role-playing is entirely about making choices and taking action.

Between You and Your Character
Role-playing has nothing to do with anyone else. You're not putting on a show. It's entirely about building a relationship with your character. Your character in a role-playing game is like your favorite character in a Netflix series. The longer you spend with the character and the more you learn about them, the more you care.

Role-playing is about experiencing a story through your favorite character's eyes. Experiencing a story about your favorite character from the inside. But the relationship still needs time to develop and room to grow. And it has to catch you by surprise sometimes. Just like your favorite characters do. Surprises test and strengthen relationships.

Thus, to me, a story-game makes a game of telling a story, while the story of an RPG is experienced through the character by making decisions for the character, not about the character or the surrounding cast and world.

For example,  Spider Dude is fighting Doctor Tentacles. Deciding I want reduce the adversary's effectiveness; blind him by throwing spider goo in his eyes, would be role-playing. Conversely, getting a "Yes, but" on a defeat adversary test and being asked to describe to the group how Spider Dude prevailed while ruining his social life in the process is story-gaming no matter how much I might play act in the process.

So roleplaying is not about....playing a role?

Quote from: Tasty_Wind on October 15, 2022, 12:01:58 AM
I'm just curious what y'all would consider a "story game" or "story gaming". There seems to be no small amount of contempt for the concept among those in the OSR scene, but what qualifies?

Two kinds of story games:
1) The players talk out of character about what a scene should be about and how the characters will act/feel about it in order to make a story.
2) The players sit at the table and do nothing while the DM tells them about all the awesome things their characters do in his story. Once in a while, players are asked to roll dice.