Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457368Trechiron, ...

I am not offended at all. I have no emotional investment in the game. My butt doesn't hurt (at the moment :-O) and am not shilling for VB or the game or other people or some agenda... I am not trying to construct any argument framework, or suggesting any game made by any person is inherently of one style or another.

I am honestly confused. I don't understand how some games are categorized RPGs and others Story Games based on the varied (yes, I feel subjective) reasons provided in general. I also believe there is a distinction, but so far this thread (and others linked) has terribly confused me about what makes one or the other. I guess I'm ignorant, for that I apologize (also, I am not BWA or anyone in disguise. It's just me. Trent).

(as an aside, I had no idea asking for objective definitions was a weenie move.  How is that a weenie move? I am employing douchebag tactics?  I am not trying to be a douchebag, I just want to understand the distinctions. I apologize if my questions are annoying or offending you.)

Regarding Setting:  So if the setting/world is pre-defined, outside the characters, (more to a sandbox approach in my mind) then we have an RPG?  If you create or modify it based on characters (what they want, in response to what they do, etc.) "on the fly" then we have a Story Game? I have no objections to this distinction. If others thought this was a helpful distinction, then it could serve as a measuring stick to identifying an RPG vs. an SG.

Regarding Modifiers/Characteristics: If the system uses a coded resolution system or modifier system that restricts the GM's interpretation of results, we have an SG. General modifiers based on "in the imaginary world" situations are squarely RPG stuff?  I imagine the same distinction would serve for characters? If I force them into a set reaction versus allowing them to choose and roleplay it out? Again, I think this could be a useful distinction.

Not everyone has to agree, but if a majority of people here on the site used distinctions like these as a measuring stick, we'd have a fairly objective definition (not perfectly mind you, but some definitions...). A sticky post from the Pundit on "this is how we generally categorize a game..." could be super useful. I hardly think creating some or hashing some out constitutes a dick move. :-D  I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm curious of the factors that make up the differences.  Your posts are helping me understand where you are coming from, and I am curious how many others share the same assessments of what makes the distinction between game types.

Side Note:  as a "reformed" GNS theory, Forge defending, "story gamer" this thread has proven extremely helpful to me. It is not only going to help me in my game design, but also in my GMing, and playing. It's taken me some time to realize what I enjoy the most out of RPGs and this kind of conversation is helpful in refining how I can seek it out.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457397Or as you suggest, there may not be a story at all, just "experience". The experience could be turned into a story, but it doesn't need to be, any more than a hike in the woods or a baseball game.

Very true. In this sense the only story that arises is when the experience is related after the fact, usually to folks that were not present to share the experience. On the other hand, if the experience is never shared after the fact then there is indeed no story that gets related about it and it remains simply a remembered experience.

Quote from: Phillip;457400Exactly!

I'm not "attempting to exercise narrative control" when I roll to resolve an attack in Anzio or The Arab-Israeli Wars, am I? If Géza Echs wants to call those "story games", then it'll sure be news to a lot of wargamers!

I'm not "trying to tell a story", I'm trying immediately to carry an attack, and in the long run to win a battle. Win or lose, I can tell a story about it afterward -- but that's not what's up here and now.

It's no different when I roll to resolve an attack in Dungeons & Dragons or RuneQuest or The Fantasy Trip. I roll for the swing of a sword or for a leap clear of a trap.

The Pool (by James V. West) is very different.

The rules text calls the work "a role-playing system geared toward player and GM narrative collaboration", and refers to Traits and Bonuses "that will help you gain narrative control during play." The example character has (among others):

-He is driven by love +2
-Searching for the means to raise his love from the dead +1

In The Pool,


I roll for the chance either
(a) to add a dice to my pool (and let the GM narrate a "positive outcome to the conflict"), or
(b) to present a "monologue of victory".

The latter can be quite far reaching.

I agree with you here.

Quote from: Phillip;457413It's the process of play that is notably different.

Here as well.

Quote from: Géza Echs;457392True, but I did so because of people's insistence on character playing as a staple of RPGs. It seems to me that you can't play a character, that is enact a role in a roleplaying game, without a story. Outside of nouveau theatre I can't really envision characters absent a story at all.

In this case there is nothing anywhere ever that can happen without a story and it has nothing to do with games at all if the word "story" is defined so broadly and disregards context so thoroughly.

QuoteI disagree, but that's fine. Campaigns are stories and adventures vignettes in my opinion; narrative, story, is a fundamental aspect of RPGs that, when lacking, means something other than a roleplaying game is being played. You probably think otherwise, and that's okay.

Obviously, you can disagree for yourself all you wish, but I can say that I agree with Pundit completely. I have never, in my 30+ years playing RPGs, sat down at a table to play with the conscious and primary goal of creating a story. In my opinion, campaigns and adventures are experiences about which stories can be told after the fact. I have never made a choice, while playing a RPG, that was motivated by what would build a better story. Not once. I have never seen anyone make such a choice that I recognised as such. Therefore, I can say with virtual certainty that "narrative", in the sense of constructing a narrative, is not a fundamental aspect of RPGs. If what you mean by "narrative" or "story" is just talking to other people, then the meanings are too broad to be useful and we might as well say we're all gardening when we sit down to roll dice.

Quote from: trechriron;457416I am not offended at all.

Glad to hear it. I appreciate your answer and I'll give further responses to your questions...soon. Some of the ways you phrased things, and the logical tack (I mean, lines of questioning or argument that I've seen numerous times before), are probably the reason for the tone of my previous post.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457368You're coming perilously close to BWA's douchebag tactic of introducing a hitherto unknown example, presuming that people will automatically consider a game to be not an RPG just because Baker wrote it, and then using that presumption to "prove" bias.

Upon re-reading the post linked to above, which - alarmingly - is still a source of frustration and dismay to Elliot a whole year later (dude, you need a better nemesis), I am struck by how sensible my questions were in that post.  

However, while I enjoyed participating in a series of endlessly repetitive "Story Games are NOT RPGs" threads here, it lost its enjoyment for me, mostly because, on this site, it is a two-sided argument - often a bitter, deeply personal argument - in which only one side possesses any real knowledge or experience of the subject matter.

So, caveat emptor, and all that. Each gaming forum has its own cross to bear.

On a related note, while I have read my copy of Apocalypse World cover to cover, I have yet to actually play. Sad! Any DC-area gamers here looking to throw down?

Quote from: Géza Echs;457392True, but I did so because of people's insistence on character playing as a staple of RPGs. It seems to me that you can't play a character, that is enact a role in a roleplaying game, without a story. Outside of nouveau theatre I can't really envision characters absent a story at all.  



I disagree, but that's fine. Campaigns are stories and adventures vignettes in my opinion; narrative, story, is a fundamental aspect of RPGs that, when lacking, means something other than a roleplaying game is being played. You probably think otherwise, and that's okay.

A story only has to be "present" if you are defining story in the most vague way possible, ie. "stuff happens". A story that is more than "stuff happens" can occur, but it is in no way the purpose of the game, much less something that should take precedence over other elements, like the world being consistent and stable (ie. players can't just decide shit happens outside their character's abilities), or emulation of the chosen setting being maintained.

RPGPundit

Quote from: BWA;457452Upon re-reading the post linked to above, which - alarmingly - is still a source of frustration and dismay to Elliot a whole year later (dude, you need a better nemesis), I am struck by how sensible my questions were in that post.  

However, while I enjoyed participating in a series of endlessly repetitive "Story Games are NOT RPGs" threads here, it lost its enjoyment for me, mostly because, on this site, it is a two-sided argument - often a bitter, deeply personal argument - in which only one side possesses any real knowledge or experience of the subject matter.

So, caveat emptor, and all that. Each gaming forum has its own cross to bear.

On a related note, while I have read my copy of Apocalypse World cover to cover, I have yet to actually play. Sad! Any DC-area gamers here looking to throw down?

Your enjoyment of these "Story Games are not RPGs" threads would probably return if you would just go get some real knowledge and experience of the subject matter like most of us have.

trechriron, the answers I promised...

Quote from: trechriron;457416(as an aside, I had no idea asking for objective definitions was a weenie move.  How is that a weenie move? I am employing douchebag tactics?  I am not trying to be a douchebag, I just want to understand the distinctions. I apologize if my questions are annoying or offending you.)

On the Internet it's common for someone to say, oh, "The Dark Knight was a bad movie", and then someone else comes along and says, "Oh, yeah? Prove it!". Asking for objective definitions, in the sense of a line to be drawn, isn't particularly useful. Instead you can do something like asking, "Oh, why do you think that TDK was a bad movie?" and then you have a basis of conversation and understanding the other person's viewpoint. Here there's a general consensus that games, or elements of games, can be more "story" or more "role", without being absolutely either, but that explaining your reaction to a game using that scale is useful.

QuoteRegarding Setting:  So if the setting/world is pre-defined, outside the characters, (more to a sandbox approach in my mind) then we have an RPG?  If you create or modify it based on characters (what they want, in response to what they do, etc.) "on the fly" then we have a Story Game? I have no objections to this distinction. If others thought this was a helpful distinction, then it could serve as a measuring stick to identifying an RPG vs. an SG.

Actually, I don't think that improv per se makes a story game. It's improv based on "story needs". Now that could be further subclassified. In the genre denoted by the term "story game", the improv usually has the purpose of "putting hard (or thematically revealing) choices in front of the players". In the genre often denoted by the "storytelling style", the improv usually has the purpose of "moving the action along a preplanned plot" or "maintaining an overall dramatic structure" (e.g., set up, first turning point, second turning point, complications, setback, climax & falling action) even if the details of the structure are subject to change. (For example, if the PCs kill the BBEG in Act One just because they don't like him, without even realizing he's a BBEG, and they take no interest in clues pointing to his plan for world conquest, then the GM improvises a different story with a different BBEG).

Either way, story-game or storytelling, the world is unreal. OTOH, if improv is unmotivated by "story considerations", the world is more real; it's just that it's being generated/discovered on the spot, rather than beforehand. And this, too, is a relative scale. I'm not saying that a GM who makes something up on the spot has to be boring or else it's a story. A GM can be motivated by whimsy, the cool factor, or table mood to introduce things, skip things, or telescope action. But there are ways to more or less narrowly focus on story-as-premise-addressing or story-as-plot-shaping.

QuoteRegarding Modifiers/Characteristics: If the system uses a coded resolution system or modifier system that restricts the GM's interpretation of results, we have an SG. General modifiers based on "in the imaginary world" situations are squarely RPG stuff?  I imagine the same distinction would serve for characters? If I force them into a set reaction versus allowing them to choose and roleplay it out? Again, I think this could be a useful distinction.

Pretty much. You might not necessarily have a SG with those things; you do move away from "roleplaying". I feel it may be necessary to state that it depends on the action being resolved. Physical actions with codified results aren't the same as codified, abstracted social interactions. But either way, if there's no allowance for circumstances, it makes the world less "real". I think in the case of Baker's designs (you see this in DitV as well), getting rid of modifiers isn't just a simplifying mechanism, it's a tool for putting aside the concrete environment in favor of setting up character traits and narration as the sole elements of conflict.

I hope I answered all your questions.

My two cents:

From a player's perspective...

• RPGs are first-person.
• Storygames are third-person.

My summary:

RPGs:

The GM is the Storyteller
The Players are play out the Roles in that Story.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457613trechriron, the answers I promised...
...
I hope I answered all your questions.

Yes you did!  Thank you for your responses.  I think I have a better idea now what you feel are the differences, and I like your thoughts on it.

Now, over the next few weeks of playing AW, I can probably get a better understanding of how this is going to play out with some of these ideas as measuring sticks.  I am wondering if this game is trying to be both at the same time (which could make it unusual in play)? Will be interesting to see how it's executed.

I intend to make some fun out it either way. :-D

Trying to be both at the same time does not work very well.

One can do something either from a role's perspective or from an author's perspective.

What happens is that people do the latter and then, after the fact, "act the part" theatrically of (or merely narrate about) a character involved in the events.

They then are pleased to call this "role playing" even though that is not what was meant when people distinguished "role playing games". It is, of course, no great distinction from any game about which the participants may choose to tell a story, from Chess to Gin Rummy.

Most clearly, it is in itself no departure whatsoever from the wargames that provided the class from which people distinguished RPGs, as the latter today provide the class from which people distinguish "story games".

A very prominent focus on dramatic rules or on social issues of interactive story telling certainly distinguishes a game, as a "story game", from Class War or Rail Baron, Diplomacy** or Kingmaker, Starship Troopers or Dune or Platoon -- or Dungeons & Dragons. That is the more so the more it makes "story telling" mandatory, the more that -- not just rolling dice -- is the central means by which we play the game.

The same applies to role playing in a "role playing game".

**Independently of the developments that became D&D, there were Diplomacy games in which "press" took on the character of statements defining the world in which "moves" happened, introducing an intricate collaborative unfolding and interweaving of histories and biographies, in ways perhaps making them "story games".

Most play, even in trad games, takes the form of a sine wave between engaging with the mechanics (something you have to do from your own perspective) and your character's.

Quote from: Phillip;457766Trying to be both at the same time does not work very well.

One can do something either from a role's perspective or from an author's perspective.

While I generally agree with this in terms of a single decision point, it doesn't necessarily follow that a game cannot successfully blend such mechanics by having players switch between stances as they make different types of decisions.