Quote from: rawma;798056It seems fairly classic to ask the GM "is there a fire hydrant here?" and get a response of "I don't know; say, 20% chance" and rolls, maybe yes and maybe no.  But if the player never asked, there might not have been.  Maybe there was Schrodinger's fire hydrant there, and the wave function only collapsed once a player asked about it; but the act of asking brought it into being.  It's not much of a step from there to having that question given an 80% chance instead of 20% because the player threw a poker chip onto the table or whatever while asking.

It's not much of a step back to a card, dice, board or miniatures game to which role-playing is not essential. Do you mean to imply that because it's an easy devolution that therefore it is no devolution at all?

QuoteThe only game I've played along those lines is Monster of the Week, and I'm satisfied that there's a reasonable genre explanation for that game's mechanism (you really can be Doomed in that world).

Quote from: TristramEvans;797702The distinction is pretty basic and obvious, even if you're chosing to ignore it. A roleplaying game is a game where the primary goal is to play a role. A storygame is a game where the primary goal is to tell a story. Why are these mutually exclusive? Because one interferes with the other. "Telling a story" requires viewing the game from a third-person perspective. "Roleplaying" requires mainting a first person perspective.

Making that distinction in no way prevents someone from enjoying either type of game. Not making that distinction can prevent someone from getting the experience they're seeking from a game. "Specificity, Dubby, is the essence of good communication."

And really, pushing Forge Tri-fold theory? Here? lol. Good luck with that.

Quote from: Certified;797703The distinction you have laid out seems to suffer in two areas.

One, when you move from narration to mechanics there is a break in immersion, regardless of game. Checking the rules for a combat maneuver and rolling dice is divorced of the narrative. We don't check our Feat Lists or Special Abilities before attempting something anyone could possibly do, but in classic or traditional RPGs  you have to look up your advantages.

Two, even if the goal of a story game is to tell a collaborative story you as a player still take on a specific role.  The player has a character and persona, just like other RPGs. While these games may have more Meta-Rules they are no more or less immersion breaking than any other rule set. Spending a Fate Point to insert an open fire hydrant is no less immersion breaking than checking the grappling rules in D&D or Pathfinder. You can even make the argument that it is less disruptive because it's resolved faster.

There are countless examples of checking range, radius and any number of other rules only to reconsider one's actions slowing down game play.

Tristan definition of a roleplaying game doesn't capture what makes what the game type distinct. Although it is correct in other respects.

A roleplaying game is about presenting a experience for the players, a pen & paper virtual reality. It is done by using a game where players, as their characters, interact with a setting their actions adjudicated by a referee.

A story game is collabrative storytelling with the object of creating a story.

The players can attempt anything both games but in a RPG the focus is on the experience of being in another time and/or place. The players are limited to what their character can do within the setting.

A storygame in contrast has a wealth of metagame mechanics that are used as tools by the group to shape the setting and to create a narrative in the hopes of producing a collaborative story.

One reason for the animosity of fan of either system is that story game use of metagame mechanics is viewed as cheating in tabletop roleplaying. It is cheating because point of tabletop is to experience something as the character. Metagame mechanic allows the players to do things as the player.

As for immersion, it is a question of finding the right mechanic to adjudicate the actions of the characters and the inhabitants of the setting. What right for an individual and a group varies. But there is usually a game that just works for a group and doesn't break immersion.

With Storygame that is not the case because the metagame mechanics are designed from the onset to be used by the player. Not the player as his character. There is far more switching of the point of view in story game than there is in tabletop roleplaying. This has nothing to do whether it is fun or not. Obviously a lot of people do find it fun.

Ironically I find rules-lawyering and being obsessed with rules far more pervasive among story gamers than I do tabletop roleplayers. It weird in that traditional rule-lawyering is about min-maxing your character to be able to kill the most things in the least amount of time. With story gamers it expresses itself with an attitude if it is not something covered by the rules you can't do it in the game.

Quote from: Phillip;798258It's not much of a step back to a card, dice, board or miniatures game to which role-playing is not essential. Do you mean to imply that because it's an easy devolution that therefore it is no devolution at all?

Do you consider playing two characters at once not roleplaying?  I don't like it but I've seen it done, and occasionally done well enough.

When a character has a paladin mount or rides a griffin or has a henchman, do you always have the GM play that character?  It doesn't seem unusual to have the player play them, subject to yanking them back when their unexpected but inevitable betrayal arrives.

Nor is it unusual to have the player decide how a particular disadvantage manifests, within the broad range of the rules for that disadvantage.  Sometimes players want to forget it or ignore it, but there are those who specify its effect fairly or remind the GM who has forgotten about it, even though that specifying or reminding would not be an action of, or even meaningful to, the PC.

So a metagame mechanism by which the world is affected in a way that the player character could not and doesn't even know about but that the player chooses is no worse than having a capricious djinn-like spirit, perhaps to be called the imp of the perverse, played by the player; the player can use its power to benefit the PC, to create difficulties for the PC or just to introduce something weird.

It may defeat some people's goal in roleplaying, but it's not the same as playing something that isn't an RPG.

I will now await the excommunication or party show trial that will undoubtedly be my fate, given this heinous departure from orthodoxy onto the slippery slope of heresy.  

Quote from: rawma;798489Do you consider playing two characters at once not roleplaying?  I don't like it but I've seen it done, and occasionally done well enough.

When a character has a paladin mount or rides a griffin or has a henchman, do you always have the GM play that character?  It doesn't seem unusual to have the player play them, subject to yanking them back when their unexpected but inevitable betrayal arrives.

Nor is it unusual to have the player decide how a particular disadvantage manifests, within the broad range of the rules for that disadvantage.  Sometimes players want to forget it or ignore it, but there are those who specify its effect fairly or remind the GM who has forgotten about it, even though that specifying or reminding would not be an action of, or even meaningful to, the PC.

So a metagame mechanism by which the world is affected in a way that the player character could not and doesn't even know about but that the player chooses is no worse than having a capricious djinn-like spirit, perhaps to be called the imp of the perverse, played by the player; the player can use its power to benefit the PC, to create difficulties for the PC or just to introduce something weird.

It may defeat some people's goal in roleplaying, but it's not the same as playing something that isn't an RPG.

I will now await the excommunication or party show trial that will undoubtedly be my fate, given this heinous departure from orthodoxy onto the slippery slope of heresy.  

Assuming you were trying to answer the question rather than evade it, I infer that your implied answer is, "Yes."

Quote from: Phillip;799099Assuming you were trying to answer the question rather than evade it, I infer that your implied answer is, "Yes."

You are incorrect.  I was disputing the incorrect implied premise of your question, which ended up being along the lines of "Are you still beating your wife?"; the erroneous premise is that what I described is not roleplaying or is inferior roleplaying.

Since you don't actually address my arguments, I infer that you know that you are wrong.  :teehee:

Quote from: rawma;799123You are incorrect.  I was disputing the incorrect implied premise of your question, which ended up being along the lines of "Are you still beating your wife?"; the erroneous premise is that what I described is not roleplaying or is inferior roleplaying.

Since you don't actually address my arguments, I infer that you know that you are wrong.  :teehee:

As already pointed out, magic fireplugs are usually as much "role-playing" as laying down a meld of cards in Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride. Usually is not always - but seldom is even further from always!

Your claim that total, unpersonified abstraction is "no worse" than playing a jinni - a person - is a further example of riding the slippery slope straight to the bottom.

Is it not reasonable then to conclude that maneuvering pieces representing several thousands of unnamed Napoleonic-era soldiers, with powers that would require radio (if not ESP) among the simultaneous (and not personified, even if named) roles of colonel, brigadier, division commander and corps commander, is "no worse" than playing more than one figure in the same session of a game in which personas and their limitations are respected?

You seem to set up an argument that there is no such thing as a role-playing game, even the Prussian Kriegsspiel (never mind Braunstein, D&D, etc.) adding nothing lacking in games in which the player's role is hardly defined and hard to find.

If you will admit that there is such a thing as role-playing, then in what does it consist?

As I stated earrlier - Perhaps you missed it? - I favor a taxonomy in which a game can be both a role-playing game and a story-telling game (as opposed to those who prefer a strict dichotomy). However, it is far from irrelevant what the mix is (with other kinds of game as well) and what is prioritized. To claim it's all just a sameness, and accuse anyone who identifies the differences of falsehood and meanness, is quite ureasonable.

Quote from: Phillip;799131As already pointed out, magic fireplugs are usually as much "role-playing" as laying down a meld of cards

My point was that the small mechanic of a metagame mechanic is no worse than having the player also roleplay a distinct creature that does nothing but implement the mechanic.  For some people, that is already too much.  But for some people knowing their character's hit points is already too much.  Neither of these things is antithetical to roleplaying.

Quoteriding the slippery slope straight to the bottom.

QuoteIs it not reasonable then to conclude that

QuoteYou seem to set up an argument that there is no such thing as a role-playing game

QuoteIf you will admit that there is such a thing as role-playing

QuoteAs I stated earrlier - Perhaps you missed it?

Dial down the pomposity and hyperbole, and perhaps we can converse.

Quote from: Certified;797687Bold for emphasis.

So, to be clear, story games, are not role playing games, despite being a game in which the primary activity is to play a role, based solely on your personal interpretation of what it means to be a role playing game and not the lack of role playing involved?

As I've posted previously, this seems both limited in scope and exclusionary to other people in the hobby.

There's a difference between primary activity, and primary goal.  There's a lot of activities where playing a role is the primary activity: stageplays, kinky sex play, therapies, etc.   It doesn't make them RPGs.

Quote from: rawma;799139My point was that the small mechanic of a metagame mechanic is no worse than having the player also roleplay a distinct creature that does nothing but implement the mechanic.  For some people, that is already too much.  But for some people knowing their character's hit points is already too much.  Neither of these things is antithetical to roleplaying.

Dial down the pomposity and hyperbole, and perhaps we can converse.

No hyperbole there, just fair application of your apparent logic.

You seem to employ at least two tricks:
1) Some X is not Y, therefore no X is Y.
2) It is easy to do X, and some number of people do it, therefore X is not Y. (As some claim piracy of books, music, movies, computer programs, etc., is not theft.)

Quote from: Phillip;799817No hyperbole there, just fair application of your apparent logic.

Sorry to be rude, but untangling just a second sentence of that last post was more work than I was up for.

QuoteYou seem to employ at least two tricks:
1) Some X is not Y, therefore no X is Y.
2) It is easy to do X, and some number of people do it, therefore X is not Y. (As some claim piracy of books, music, movies, computer programs, etc., is not theft.)

No, that's not fair.  I am not arguing that anything is easy (including understanding your previous post ).  I am arguing against the idea that any fate point or other metagame mechanic must destroy role-playing.  If that's not your contention, then I'm arguing against a strawman and we can quit.  But I think I understood you to endorse that position with your comment about magic fireplugs.

My logic is as follows:

In many role-playing games, players play not only their own characters but side characters of simple sorts: pets, familiars, mounts, hirelings, and even henchmen; the player decides actions for these other characters even where it's not meaningful for the player character to have done so (e.g., if the pet reacts to something out of the PC's line of sight).  For some people, this would destroy immersion and ruin the role-playing, but for many people this would still be role-playing.  Do you think this is not role-playing, or that it is ruined role-playing?

The inclusion of a limited number of metamagic points that modify the world is equivalent to a magical creature capable of a certain number of magical alterations to the game world, which acts according to its own whim; the player plays this creature (that is, decides on the use the metamagic points) without regard to the player character's preferences or knowledge -- the metamagic points create complications, assist the player character, or create greater challenges, as the creature (that is, the player) chooses.  If role-playing this creature alongside the player character destroys role-playing, why doesn't playing any of those other side characters destroy role-playing?  (I'll grant that this argument hinges upon a genre like fantasy where such a creature could exist.)

If having metamagic points destroys all role-playing, why doesn't having this creature also destroy all role-playing?

So:
1. some people do X without destroying Y
2. Z can be viewed as a particular case of X
3. therefore some people should be able to do Z without destroying Y
where X=playing other independent characters, Y=role-playing, and Z=(relatively modest) metagame point mechanism (consistent with the game genre).

Quote from: Phillip;7998172) It is easy to do X, and some number of people do it, therefore X is not Y. (As some claim piracy of books, music, movies, computer programs, etc., is not theft.)

Its not theft if you wear a feathered hat and an eyepatch and say "ARRR". Then all your activities fall under the providence of Maritime Law.

I've played the Mutant Chronicles 3rd Beta yesterday.

It uses two types of bennies: Chronicle Points (on the player side) and Dark Symmetry Points (on the GM side)

CP are meta, they have no in-game justification.

DSP are not, they are a measure of the effect the Dark Symmetry has on the game world -- and players feed the GM with DSP.

Quote from: RPGPundit;799627There's a difference between primary activity, and primary goal.  There's a lot of activities where playing a role is the primary activity: stageplays, kinky sex play, therapies, etc.   It doesn't make them RPGs.

You say Kinky Sex Play is not an RPG I say oh yeah?

However, your post really doesn't narrow things down much past One Upon A Time not being an RPG.

Quote from: Certified;799995You say Kinky Sex Play is not an RPG I say oh yeah?

Noticed you went with that instead of Maid or Poison'd.

Quote from: CRKrueger;800089Noticed you went with that instead of Maid or Poison'd.

The best part is both those rpgs actually exist and are played, whereas the Gor thing isn't even published.