Quote from: Sigmund;457042Have you bothered to read the thread at all? Wait, the answer is obvious, nevermind.

Yeah, I read it. Pseudoephedrine pretty much nailed it. But the whole topic is fucking stupid.

Quote from: Peregrin;456972Bennies are a meta-mechanic, but not necessarily a story-telling mechanic.

What is really to the point is how is this role-playing?

I am not seeing your difference, though. How is it not story telling to say, "this is what happens next, simply because it's what I want to happen next"?

The "story games" I have encountered consist almost entirely of mechanisms for deciding who gets to do that. Most of the time, they are complicated dice-rolling mechanisms that make the game feel to me more like Yahtzee than like anything else. I can't see such distracting pure-game additions as being fundamental to story telling!

What, though, distinguishes spending points, apart from being more straightforward than those?

Quotelower-rated ones they want to see increased (which will go up more often than not)

That is just what happens with skills -- in particular combat skills -- that of necessity tend to involve multiple rolls if they are used at all. I do not see any "game balance" or other reason requiring that Handgun should improve more rapidly than Jump, Listen or Read/Write English.

Why do you consider it so important that some skills should long remain less likely of success than calling heads or tails? The character generation rules allow other skills to start very high. The Idea Roll averages 65%, the Know Roll 65% to 70%.

If a skill starting at 25% goes up by 4% per adventure (which might take more than one session), that's 10 adventures to reach 65%. Of course, the actual chance of passing an experience check (assuming a successful skill roll) starts at only 75% and goes down (to 35% at the end).

QuoteHaving textual authority to back up limiting those roles helps stem that sort of behavior, and helps new GMs judge when a skill is appropriate to use rather than just giving into players bugging them.

Certainly -- but that is saying no more than that it is easier to follow a rule if one is informed of it.

As this information has never been withheld, and neither has providing similar information appeared (from what I have seen) to tax the common sense of game publishers generally, I wonder why you are making such a big deal of the "carefulness".

Quote from: Zalmoxis;457045Yeah, I read it. Pseudoephedrine pretty much nailed it. But the whole topic is fucking stupid.

Maybe it's not the topic that's stupid, but you. I think Pseudo's point is part of it, and I think trying to nail a line on to what is really a spectrum is futile in the end, but that does not mean that the distinction shouldn't be made. The difference between RPGs and tactical miniatures games is a spectrum too, but I don't see miniatures gamers rushing to deny the difference. The question often gets asked, "Why make the distinction?", and my response is why not make the distinction? Why is there such resistance to distinguishing between RPGs and Story Games? Is it because of the predjudice? That exists already, whether a distinction is made or not. I honestly don't understand why it's not just as natural as distinguishing between RPGs and other types of games like the minis games or computer RPGs or CCGs. Overlap exists to varying degrees with all those but they are still accepted as different. I enjoy playing any of them, as you say Zalmoxis, nobody is telling me (or would be capable for telling me) that I can' play anything I want, no matter what it's called. IMO, the distinctons are useful when talking about the games to other people. I can then say, X game is a RPG with strong Story Game elements, or Z game is a Story Game with strong RPG elements, etc.. I look forward to seeing what a Story Game with strong Tactical Miniatures Game elements looks like.

In summary, please keep your trolling out of what has up to this point been a remarkably civil and well-thought-out discussion on this issue.

Quote from: Sigmund;457050Maybe it's not the topic that's stupid, but you. I think Pseudo's point is part of it, and I think trying to nail a line on to what is really a spectrum is futile in the end, but that does not mean that the distinction shouldn't be made. The difference between RPGs and tactical miniatures games is a spectrum too, but I don't see miniatures gamers rushing to deny the difference. The question often gets asked, "Why make the distinction?", and my response is why not make the distinction? Why is there such resistance to distinguishing between RPGs and Story Games? Is it because of the predjudice? That exists already, whether a distinction is made or not. I honestly don't understand why it's not just as natural as distinguishing between RPGs and other types of games like the minis games or computer RPGs or CCGs. Overlap exists to varying degrees with all those but they are still accepted as different. I enjoy playing any of them, as you say Zalmoxis, nobody is telling me (or would be capable for telling me) that I can' play anything I want, no matter what it's called. IMO, the distinctons are useful when talking about the games to other people. I can then say, X game is a RPG with strong Story Game elements, or Z game is a Story Game with strong RPG elements, etc.. I look forward to seeing what a Story Game with strong Tactical Miniatures Game elements looks like.

In summary, please keep your trolling out of what has up to this point been a remarkably civil and well-thought-out discussion on this issue.

Wait... what? Is there a point somewhere in all that over-wrought, pretentious bullshit? I'll post what I want. Go fuck yourself.

Quote from: Zalmoxis;457054Wait... what? Is there a point somewhere in all that over-wrought, pretentious bullshit? I'll post what I want. Go fuck yourself.

If you can't read plain english that's your problem, I'm not going to take more of my time to explain it to an obviously oblivious moron (I know they're big scary words, look them up). I asked nicely and your only response is "Go fuck yourself." Nice one, btw. Now we know you're just a troll who's completely uninterested in actual, you know, discussion on this discussion forum and just want to fling poo. Go scratch your fleas somewhere else little monkey, nobody here is interested in your shit.

Quote from: sigmund;457061if you can't read plain english that's your problem, i'm not going to take more of my time to explain it to an obviously oblivious moron (i know they're big scary words, look them up). I asked nicely and your only response is "go fuck yourself." nice one, btw. Now we know you're just a troll who's completely uninterested in actual, you know, discussion on this discussion forum and just want to fling poo. Go scratch your fleas somewhere else little monkey, nobody here is interested in your shit.

no. Hahahahahaha!!!!!

Quote from: Zalmoxis;457071no. Hahahahahaha!!!!!

I think you need your diaper changed.

Quote from: Benoist;456919Do yourself a favor and read the thread before you start blathering that kind of nonsense, Iain.

It's IME, Ben. Pundy's done it at least once in this thread, for example.

Also, get a sense of humour.

Quote from: Phillip;457046What is really to the point is how is this role-playing?

I am not seeing your difference, though. How is it not story telling to say, "this is what happens next, simply because it's what I want to happen next"?

The "story games" I have encountered consist almost entirely of mechanisms for deciding who gets to do that. Most of the time, they are complicated dice-rolling mechanisms that make the game feel to me more like Yahtzee than like anything else. I can't see such distracting pure-game additions as being fundamental to story telling!

What, though, distinguishes spending points, apart from being more straightforward than those?

Story-telling games focus on creating story as it's seen in film, books, etc., not story in the sense of "This is what happened last week at camp."

QuoteAs this information has never been withheld, and neither has providing similar information appeared (from what I have seen) to tax the common sense of game publishers generally, I wonder why you are making such a big deal of the "carefulness".

I'm not using CoC as an example of something that's a problem, I'm using it as an example of a game that's very clear on what you're supposed to do procedurally at the table.  D&D 3rd Edition is an example of something that is extremely murky and where the largest publisher in existence completely fucked it's common sense roll.  If you've ever listened to Monte Cook talk about D&D 3e after he left WotC, he's basically confused by people who say "shit's complicated to run", and admits that they did a poor job of explaining how to actually run and play the game, leading to all sorts of subcultural problems in the 3e community.  Listening to the man you'd think he was playing an entirely different game from your average d20 aficionado.

You are all missing one big issue:

SUBJECT MATTER

Because what RILLY seperates StoryGames from RPGs or Adventure Games in total is the underlying SUBJECT MATTER.

Because in StoryGames EVERYTHING is ABOUT petit-bourgeouis moral dillemmas:

How low can you go?
Did your mommy like you?
Will you cheat your wife?
etc. ad nauseam

That happens with anything where the bar for entry is knowing how to make a PDF, or a JPEG comic, or whatever.  

The fact that someone like Oloff makes weird comics doesn't mean webcomics are all weird, and it doesn't take away from the really good ones.  It also doesn't define all of webcomic-dom.

Quote from: Peregrin;457000Curious, would you consider FATE a role-playing game?

I'm vaguely ashamed to admit that I have pretty much zero knowledge about FATE. I have Spirit of the Century sitting on my shelf, but I've never even read a FATE rulebook from cover-to-cover.

Quote from: Peregrin;457000Phil here also seems to think any meta-mechanic automatically makes a game a story-game, or not-a-role-playing-game, or something.

A position which I find just as silly as you do.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;457004Yeah, basically Pundz enjoys a what's widely considered to be a borderline storygame but can't admit it,

Oh, I'll admit that its a "borderline" storygame in the sense that it has certain mechanics that are totally Storygame mechanics, that, if used, will render the game into a storygame (namely, that players can basically change the reality of the setting through means that have nothing to do with the emulated abilities of their characters, meaning that the setting is malleable to the necessity of the story).

The thing is, FATE is a modification of FUDGE.  As a modification, it includes a number of changes, of which the ONLY one that has any "storygame" element is the idea that if you spend a Fate Point you can change the details of your surroundings or introduce a plot element above the head of the GM.   But if you REMOVE that ONE element, which in no way requires any other modification of the game except to say "yeah, you can't do that", then the game becomes entirely regular.

Its not a storygame at its core, its a regular RPG with a single storygame element tacked on to try turn it into a non-RPG.  If you don't use that element, what you're left with is a totally playable, quite kick-ass regular RPG.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Peregrin;457115Story-telling games focus on creating story as it's seen in film, books, etc., not story in the sense of "This is what happened last week at camp."

That seems not an answer at all but an irrelevant picking of quite a different nit.

How is spending points so much less related to "creating story" than is rolling dice, that you dismiss the 'mechanic' even though the result -- I take "narrative control" -- is identical?

How is acting out of character not more closely related to "story telling" than to role-playing? Person after person says that it is, and you insist that we are all wrong -- on what basis?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;457124A position which I find just as silly as you do.

Maybe it's silly because it's Peregrin's formulation, not mine?

What do you mean by "meta-mechanic"? I have not used the term!

If you mean "acting out of character" or as the Pundit put it

Quote from: RPGPundit(namely, that players can basically change the reality of the setting through means that have nothing to do with the emulated abilities of their characters, meaning that the setting is malleable to the necessity of the story)

then that is clearly something other than role-playing.

Now, a game can have a lot of different features. Not every game involving cards is "a card game". Not everything involving or superficially 'about' war will fit the bill for wargamers. Not every wargame is about nothing but combat.

So, a role-playing game is not necessarily nothing but role-playing all the time.

What makes a big difference is where the emphasis is, though. Someone who really cares about military history is more likely to produce a good wargame than someone who just wants some imagery to slap on an abstract strategy game. Someone who is really about programming a puzzle-solving adventure is likely to do better than someone who is just trying to catch a fad to help his belated arcade-style platform game stand out from the previous year's glut -- or vice-versa.

A role-playing game, unlike a wargame, has role-playing as the central feature. A story game differs from both of those by having story as the central feature. It is chiefly what the game is about.

Even short of that, the emphasis is what distinguishes it from another, related game form.

Hence, a good story-game design emphasizes story at the expense of role-playing, rather than vice-versa.