So all it comes down to "Why folks like story games" or rather "why do folks prefer one sort of distinction over the other".

What is clearly evident is this.

1. Sett "knows" what Star Wars is really about and the rest of us are reading it wrong.

2. Some of us are playing Star Wars (if we are playing it/basing our adventures on it) wrong.

Then there is this:

QuoteSett wrote:
Again: were is the fun of doing it like it, except in a parody?
It´s stupid, why repeat the stupidity?

So I wonder what folks would think if Sett was talking about D&D ?

Just as uncle Ron has his apologist, there seems to be an endless supply for Sett.

QuoteDrew wrote:
Because the concept of story appeals to human beings on a fundamental level. It's the organisation and categorisation of information in such a way that entertains as well as informs. It provides a linear emotional context for events that otherwise may be regarded as dry or dull.

You're an old school gamer much like me. This word "story" ain't used how it used to be. I remember reading an editorial by Roger E. Moore in Dragon about how to create an epic campaign based on LotR where the word "story" was thrown about. I don't even think he was using the word "emulate". Story is the heart of the rpg experience, IMO.

Regards,
David R

I don't know, maybe Sett's doing a bad job of communicating, David, but you seem to keep running into a brick wall on what is, to me, a pretty straightforward distinction. Nevertheless I recognize that even in a form that gained a great deal of currency back in the 90's, that is the RGFA "Threefold Way", a number of people just didn't "get it".

One way I can conceptualize this is to draw from the Threefold concept of Dramatism, bearing in mind that that old "theory" took the GM/Player "split" for granted. (Let's please not get caught up in arguments over what a "theory" is, and also note that I'm crediting the Threefold as a source, not asserting it as an authority.) Or even better we could draw from Everway's Law of Drama. The basic idea of which is: when the GM is called on to make a decision, the GM weighs would make a good story, or what would be a good continuation of the story thus far, and decides partly or entirely on that basis.

Is that clear? It needs to be in order to proceed.

Elliot I totally get the distinction. I agree that there is a distinction. Do you get Sett's Swine-ish behaviour of elevating one playstyle over the other (not to mention his analysis of how/why gamers choose to emulate certain kinds of fiction)?

Regards,
David R

In that case you tend to do a really bad job of separating the two issues.

Okay, granted there's a distinction, okay? Because, really, giving the impression that you're denying there is one is infuriating. I think simply acknowledging that Sett's talking about a real distinction and not engaging in some kind of delusion (via language like, "so, you always do that in RPGs", "how can you play an RPG otherwise") will raise the level of discourse immensely.

So then you're left with: Sett doesn't like games where the GM (or anyone on whom "GM-like powers" are bestowed by the system) is expected to decide things using the Law of Drama. So what?

So...nothing so far. If we get the distinction, then it should be easy for Sett to explain his critical biases and work from them in conversation instead of having to argue, repeatedly, whether they're a solid foundation.

But beyond that...maybe recognition of the distinction can also be a foundation for truly trying to understand the appeal of the "other side".

Maybe not...I mean, he does belabor the point. I just think it's because he feels his opinion isn't even being heard as a legitimate opinion. Frankly I think there are a lot of people in online RPG circles who do deny the legitimacy of Sett's tastes. (Of course I feel that because I share them to a large degree.)

What I don't understand is people saying he's incomprehensible.

What the fuck is with these losers? Get some rigor, get some language skills, stop watching TV, take a reading comprehension class.

Such as weak response Elliot. I see you can't use the S word to describe Sett's behaviour. Very cultish. Sett begun this thread conflating a whole lot of concepts. Then he insults playstyles which he has no interest in. He continuosly brings up this distinction not as a way of understanding how other folks play but in the service of the so-called war. He's not misunderstood, most folks see where he's coming from. It's losers who can't/won't call out his behaviour that enable him and his silly little war. Look back on all his posts in this thread and tell me that his behaviour is not the kind of nonsense that the Swine exhibit all the time. Who cares if Sett does not like a specific kind of play...what is fucking insulting is when he continues to insult those who do. You're very gung ho when it comes to calling out the Forgers, why don't you show some guts and call out Sett.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot Wilen
So then you're left with: Sett doesn't like games where the GM (or anyone on whom "GM-like powers" are bestowed by the system) is expected to decide things using the Law of Drama. So what?
[/QUOTESo rather than using buzz words like the Law of Drama why don't you tie it back to examples of actual play. In the later posts I felt Sett's points were not coming across clearly.

My impression thus far he likes something like a wargame with some of the elements RPGs. That if was the mid 80's he would be very happy with Mechwarrior and Battletech. Or maybe around 2000 with Prime Directive and Star Fleet Battle. But he also sounds like a player that loves stuff like the Wilderlands or Traveller's Spinward Marches where there are huge choices for wandering around the landscape.

Plus I have to keep guessing what he is calling a story game. It sounds like I got into the ballpark but I am not 100% sure.

Nothing wrong with his choice of gaming. But he did asked for an explanation. Essentially the Point of View of gamers with different style.

This part has nothing to with Sett, but through the years, I always been a little surprised that RPGers as a whole aren't better at getting along. One of THE elements of RPGs is putting yourself elsewhere. With a different point of view. Role-playing you know.  This is an activity that literally forces you to get into another person's head. Even if you treat RPGs like a super wargame you still got get inside what your opponent is thinking.  

But alas in the end people are people with all their strengths and weakness. And in the final analysis I really rather not have it any other way.

Sadly, David, we're miscommunicating on a fundamental level.

I don't care if someone else has different tastes from me, even if they express their dislike of my favorite game in the rudest language. The behavior I associate with "Swine" is closer to refusing to acknowledge the existence of other tastes, or analyzing the reported experiences of others in terms of "denial" (basically saying they don't count). The classic maneuver is claiming that if you don't have Forge-like metagame mechanics, the inevitable outcome is a GM-led illusionistic story. Or that a GM-improvised game conducted under a "dramatic" aesthetic gives the players exactly the same experience of freedom and exploration as a game that works from prepped material and a "neutral referee" type of GMing.

Sett isn't doing those things.

Quote from: David RYou're an old school gamer much like me. This word "story" ain't used how it used to be.

Which is a shame. I'm all for the evoloution of terminology, but what we have here is dialect masquerading as language. Critical to this is the misapprehension (at least to my mind) is that story as as a retelling of events is somehow inferior to story as a preplanned goal with a set of assumptions and conventions that must be adhered to. What's even more disconcerting is that the opponents of this view have begun to adopt the interpretation, further polluting the online waters to the point of spawning threads like this.

QuoteI remember reading an editorial by Roger E. Moore in Dragon about how to create an epic campaign based on LotR where the word "story" was thrown about. I don't even think he was using the word "emulate". Story is the heart of the rpg experience, IMO.

Absoloutely. I strongly suspect that 99% of offline gamers still use "story" in the same dynamic, spontaneous way as Mr.Moore, where setbacks, sudden reversals of fortune and even death are seen as contributing factors intead of scripted tropes that have to be anticipated and accommodated in order to work. Of course there's an overarching structure, but one that explicitly allows for change and redirection.  

One of my great loves of RPG's is the notion that everything can change on the roll of a die. An heroic tale can become a tragedy, which can later evolve into unrequited love, victory or absoloute defeat. It's exactly this kind of dynamism that keeps me coming back to the table.

Quote from: estarSo rather than using buzz words like the Law of Drama why don't you tie it back to examples of actual play. In the later posts I felt Sett's points were not coming across clearly.

You're basically right about this. I brought up the Law of Drama because the distinction I'm talking about has a long history of being explained, repeatedly, using a variety of methods, only to be denied. I reckon Tweet at least lends a bit of respectability (he's not just another Internet crank) and of course he offers yet another wording of the concept, regardless of terminology.

But you're correct, actual examples of both the type of play that Sett enjoys and the type he dislikes would help a great deal. I can at least offer one of the latter, from an unlikely source:

QuoteLast night was Star Wars, or a sad mockery thereof. After hours of doing very little, my character attempts to disarm a bomb he's discovered on his ship.

The GM says, "you notice a peculiar pattern of blinking lights-"

"Oh, fuck that," I say, interrupting him. "I don't do the puzzle solving stuff. What do I need to roll?"

So I roll and get a 1. And everyone else is like, "the bomb goes off! You're dead." The GM panics, worried that his story is going to be fucked, so he pulls a total Deus Ex Machina, having the force-sensitivek character sense a potential disturbance and bail my guy out.

Now, I'd be pissed off about this just as much as Matt Wilson was. But I come to a different conclusion from Matt--he wouldn't want his character to die, he just wants some kind of bad consequences: "wouldn't it be cooler if a 1 just added more complications to the story, like the ship is really damaged now, and we have to get involved with a crime lord and stuff?" "I also don't want my choices or die rolls to sever my ability to participate in what happens next."

If you can work out mechanics for what Matt's proposing (I suspect Heroquest or TSoY would be good), it'd be a game I'd enjoy.

On the other hand, having my character die would also be okay for me, provided the GM didn't essentially impose a "save or die" situation out of the blue. Rather I'd want to have some way of avoiding the situation beforehand via game-world savvy & good tactics, or else I'd like to be given a choice of either trying to disarm the bomb, or bugging out in an escape pod.

It's reasonable to ask: why do I even deserve a chance to avoid, or an opportunity to escape? After all the GM could reasonably have judged that an extraordinarily skilled assassin had planted the bomb; the GM might have secretly rolled the PCs' chances of detecting the sabotage and come up negative. My answer is that there should be an assumption that the PCs are roughly competent to face the challenges and dangers of the overall campaign. Hypothetically, if the campaign were exhaustively prepped beforehand, it should have been tailored along these lines, or else the PCs should have been given enough points or whatever to match the campaign. Although the PCs might not be able to beat any challenge at the outset, they should be strong enough and have access to enough information to stand a reasonable chance of survival--otherwise you have a killer campaign with a foregone conclusion, which is boring. So I think it's reasonable to construct characters and campaign together in such a way as to give them a fighting chance.

Furthermore I don't really expect a GM to have an entire clockwork universe detailed before play: improvisation and invention in the course of play is a given. But if we work from the initial assumption of PC competence, then any new elements introduced by the GM shouldn't fall so far outside the range of "danger" and be so unavoidable as to, basically, turn the PCs into unwitting chumps.

Some might read me as calling for tailoring improvised campaign elements to the current ability level of a party. I'm not--you could have a single random encounter table for Region X that never changes; you just need to ensure that 1st level characters either have the information and freedom to avoid a Region X if it's too dangerous, or the ability to survive in Region X if they can't avoid being there. I'm also not saying that PCs always deserve a fighting chance if, say, they try to take on an army head on. Nope, not unless that level of ability is a premise of the campaign.

Instead I'm saying that taking "save or die out of the blue" off the table can be interpreted as proceeding from reasonable assumptions about the overall construction of the campaign, rather than the GM deliberately pulling punches in mid-game. And given a campaign constructed on the assumption that PCs are competent enough to deal with threats imposed on them, and both free and knowledgeable enough to avoid dangers that are out of their league, I'd be happy to have PC death on the table.

I can't say I'm completely disinterested in RPGs where outcomes depend strongly on aesthetic concerns, but to me they're a very different beast and I can understand why someone would dislike them in general.

Quote from: Elliot WilenSadly, David, we're miscommunicating on a fundamental level.

I don't care if someone else has different tastes from me, even if they express their dislike of my favorite game in the rudest language. The behavior I associate with "Swine" is closer to refusing to acknowledge the existence of other tastes, or analyzing the reported experiences of others in terms of "denial" (basically saying they don't count). The classic maneuver is claiming that if you don't have Forge-like metagame mechanics, the inevitable outcome is a GM-led illusionistic story. Or that a GM-improvised game conducted under a "dramatic" aesthetic gives the players exactly the same experience of freedom and exploration as a game that works from prepped material and a "neutral referee" type of GMing.

Sett isn't doing those things.

Your  narrow definiton of Swine strays from the traditional usage. I guess the trad Swine def of hypocrisy, pretension, elitism and disingenuity amongst others, is not really a concern of yours and not a barrier to open honest discussion. One of the good things about your def is that folks like Levi, TonyLB, JHKim, droog and well just about anyone really (since most realize that there are divisons in this hobby)  - traditional Swine suspects - are no longer considered Swine. Can we (I) expect that you will speak up when they are called Swine or have you no objection to the traditional usage as long as it is not used on Sett ?

Drew nothing much to add except...

QuoteDrew wrote:
I strongly suspect that 99% of offline gamers still use "story" in the same dynamic, spontaneous way as Mr.Moore, where setbacks, sudden reversals of fortune and even death are seen as contributing factors intead of scripted tropes that have to be anticipated and accommodated in order to work. Of course there's an overarching structure, but one that explicitly allows for change and redirection.

Exactly. I've never needed to clarify what I meant by "story" when talking to folks offline about rpgs and there has never been any miscommunication as to what I meant.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot WilenBut you're correct, actual examples of both the type of play that Sett enjoys and the type he dislikes would help a great deal. I can at least offer one of the latter, from an unlikely source:

I would not have likely permitted the Dice roll and said it was for you to figure out. However if I had that player in my game I wouldn't be placing very many puzzles for him to solve. And the ones I did place would be to shake his expectations and act as a challenge.

Also, in the 70s, old school gaming was riddled with puzzles that the PLAYERS had to figure out, not the characters. Allowing a dice roll to solve such puzzles was one of the few things that would get you mocked.

And if the situation was such that it was do or die and the dice came up with a 1 I would not fudge it and the players would die. However I try to structure my plots so those type of circumstances are minimized (aside from combat). Because frankly most save versus death come across as cheesy.  

Quote from: Elliot WilenNow, I'd be pissed off about this just as much as Matt Wilson was. But I come to a different conclusion from Matt--he wouldn't want his character to die, he just wants some kind of bad consequences: "wouldn't it be cooler if a 1 just added more complications to the story, like the ship is really damaged now, and we have to get involved with a crime lord and stuff?" "I also don't want my choices or die rolls to sever my ability to participate in what happens next."

It would be better but the after the fact ruling is what I don't agree with. You should set it up in your mind before hand and go with what the dice turns up even if it is extraordinary bad. GM Fiat show its dark side way more than not.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIf you can work out mechanics for what Matt's proposing (I suspect Heroquest or TSoY would be good), it'd be a game I'd enjoy.

It would be more fair to have the GM list out the possibilities in his head before the roll and go with the result. It would be even better that the GM foreshadows the bad results so the PC has some kind of chance to gain positive modifiers in dealing with the situation.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOn the other hand, having my character die would also be okay for me, provided the GM didn't essentially impose a "save or die" situation out of the blue. Rather I'd want to have some way of avoiding the situation beforehand via game-world savvy & good tactics, or else I'd like to be given a choice of either trying to disarm the bomb, or bugging out in an escape pod.

Agreed for the most part.

Quote from: Elliot WilenMy answer is that there should be an assumption that the PCs are roughly competent to face the challenges and dangers of the overall campaign. Hypothetically, if the campaign were exhaustively prepped beforehand, it should have been tailored along these lines, or else the PCs should have been given enough points or whatever to match the campaign.

Not what I do, but I know GMs that do this and their groups do have fun. If you want to see this taken to an extreme, play any of the Eldar Scroll games.This approach has merits and disadvantage.

My style is to allow the players to wander freely in the gameworld. The trick is  effective use of foreshadowing so the PCs have enough information to make reasonable choices. Rarely in my games the PC unknowingly cross some border into super monster land and get quashed. Because they past through the surrounding villages or pass travellers and learn that maybe the forest ahead is more dangerous than usual.

The big disadvantage, particularly for a novice GM doing this, the PCs will feel lost and directions. "Where do I go?" My trick is to carve a place within my society and culture that gives the PCs a framework. Like most of the party are part of the Temple of Mitra. Or the party is part of the Mage's Guild. Or they all work for the Duke, or associated with the Black Lotus and so on. Within a couple of sessions they get their bearings and start establishing their own goals.

Quote from: Elliot WilenFurthermore I don't really expect a GM to have an entire clockwork universe detailed before play: improvisation and invention in the course of play is a given. But if we work from the initial assumption of PC competence, then any new elements introduced by the GM shouldn't fall so far outside the range of "danger" and be so unavoidable as to, basically, turn the PCs into unwitting chumps.

Again I feel fitting the challenge to the party approach has disadvantages that outweigh the advantages. Sometime all the PCs want to do is kick a lot of CR 1/4 ass. Makes them feel like they accomplished something.

One of the reason I play GURPS is that is easier for me to make the PCs feel like heroes yet retain some risks. Through the fights a 250 pt PC will know he improved a lot against the 50 pt Orcs he has fought since the beginning of the campaign. However, due to the way GURPS works, he still have to keep on his toe and there is still a risk because that 50 pt Orc can still gut him given a half of chance or some bad luck.

Quote from: Elliot WilenInstead I'm saying that taking "save or die out of the blue" off the table can be interpreted as proceeding from reasonable assumptions about the overall construction of the campaign, rather than the GM deliberately pulling punches in mid-game. And given a campaign constructed on the assumption that PCs are competent enough to deal with threats imposed on them, and both free and knowledgeable enough to avoid dangers that are out of their league, I'd be happy to have PC death on the table.

I agree.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI can't say I'm completely disinterested in RPGs where outcomes depend strongly on aesthetic concerns, but to me they're a very different beast and I can understand why someone would dislike them in general.

If a system outcomes are not based on some type of chance I would be hard to call it an RPG. It may be role-playing but it wouldn't be a game.

Weird how some people here are having trouble understanding the OP. It seems rather straightforward to me; and no, it's not that the narrative approach is a bad way to play RGPs.

What he's saying is 98 per cent of popular drama, and in particular genre movies, tv, and fiction, is absolute shit and worthy only of satire. And if you believe that to be the case - if you believe the human condition can only be genuinely examined by a master artist - then he doesn't see the point in playing games that cannot hope to come close to that level. If the source material is superficial and cliched, then the gaming styles immitating that material can't help but be superficial and cliched.

Challenging this assertion on a storytelling versus wargaming basis misses the point entirely. If you want to challenge the OP, then tell him either:

a) Why popular drama isn't superficial and cliched, or...

b) Why imitating stories that are superficial and cliched can be fun.

Quote from: David RYour  narrow definiton of Swine strays from the traditional usage. I guess the trad Swine def of hypocrisy, pretension, elitism and disingenuity amongst others, is not really a concern of yours and not a barrier to open honest discussion. One of the good things about your def is that folks like Levi, TonyLB, JHKim, droog and well just about anyone really (since most realize that there are divisons in this hobby)  - traditional Swine suspects - are no longer considered Swine. Can we (I) expect that you will speak up when they are called Swine or have you no objection to the traditional usage as long as it is not used on Sett ?

1. I don't personally use the term much except as a colloquial shorthand intended either ironically or in a sense that implies "so-called", and I try to put scare-quotes around it when I do.

2. Yes, hypocrisy and disingenuity are the key elements that offend me about RPG discussion--though I think in most cases what reads as disingenuity is really arrogance.

3. Sorry, I'm going to call it as I see it. Sett's often been loud and rude, he may have been obscure and unfocused, but I don't see the hypocrisy. You know I have spoken up for John Kim; I have to admit he's a personal acquaintance and even before I gamed with him, I knew him through rgfa and viewed him as an ally against hypocrisy and arrogance--even though I've disagreed with him on a number of subjects. Along with others, John helped develop and refine the Threefold largely in response to exactly the sort of arrogant "one-true-wayist" attitudes that to this day make it difficult for people to carry on a discussion founded on a clear understanding of preferences. I believe I've also said several times either here or in Pundit's blog that lumping all "theorists" in with "Swine" is silly, particularly John and Levi. But at least in John's case there may be a bit of personal loyalty at work, something that others don't benefit from.

You put me in an uncomfortable spot with regard to droog & Tony; I generally get on well with them even though I think droog's been annoying lately. But both of them have at times engaged in argument that falls into the patterns I've decried. So I don't go out of my way to defend them. I suppose I could on the grounds that Pundit, AM, and Sett use naughty words, but frankly that isn't something I'm going to pursue extensively; we're adults, I'd prefer to see the language toned down in terms of form, but I'm frankly disgusted at the "innocence abused" mode of discourse (fairly prevalent in American politics), which uses an opponent's vehemence as an excuse to avoid engaging an argument.

Quote from: HaffrungChallenging this assertion on a storytelling versus wargaming basis misses the point entirely.

Now that's interesting, I hadn't noticed that angle to the discussion. I wonder if Sett would be happier with a storytelling mode of play if the GM was channeling Mark Twain.