It would help me better understand which systems people are hating on.

I'm not picking sides, I'd just like to understand where the line is.

On the definitely story games side are GMless and rotating GM games like Polaris, The Quiet Year, Microscope, Fiasco, and A Thousand and One Nights.

Games out of The Forge are very likely to be considered such as well - like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard. Hillfolk is likely to be lumped in with these.

Then there are various GMed games which may or may not be considered story games, depending on who you talk to - Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, FATE, Apocalypse World (and derivatives), Cortex Plus (Smallville, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying).

In general, the story games community tends to be very broad in what is called a story game - but others are typically more narrow.

Quote from: Razor 007;1077322It would help me better understand which systems people are hating on.

I'm not picking sides, I'd just like to understand where the line is.

Anything Pundit doesn't like.  That's it.  Don't believe anything else.  The list isn't consistent or even makes sense.

Well, the term story game seems kinda synonymous with what Ron Edwards called games supporting specifically narrativist play. However, the years went by and from my observation his GNS definition does not hold anymore. FATE is being called a narrative game by many, FFG calls its custom dice "narrative dice". We have the significant success of PbtA as a game engine. Revising all these things which gamers refer to as a narrative game or mechanic, I come to a different definition:


A narrative game or narrativist game or story game is an RPG in which the players control significantly more than their PC's intent.


Points of contention:

• As the thread regarding player consent has demonstrated, there seems to be some controversy over what "control" means. (For the record: my position is that as long as the GM has veto power over anything beyond PC intent, the players aren't in control of anything but that. Deniable requests don't count as control.)
• Also, there is bound to be controversy over what is significant. Edge of the Empire is, overall, no story game. Fate is debatable. Fiasco is most certainly one. (And I'd also put PbtA into that category.) Yet EotE has narrativist mechanics (see below).
• I suppose that some will refuse to consider them an RPG at all. But that's a fallacy in my humble opinion: just because they're outliers, doesn't mean they're no RPGs. The same as John Wick is wrong in claiming that D&D is not an RPG. A very gamist (such as early D&D) or very narrativist or very simulationist RPG is still an RPG. It's just an outlier.
  

Narrative mechanics are those mechanics in a RPG that hand players the power over more than their character's intent. You could say that they gain limited control over story that way - to the degree that the mechanic gives them agency.
Examples for narrative mechanics, stuff that goes beyond PC intent:

• Tagging a scene aspect in FATE: if you don't tag it, it has no mechanical effect. By tagging it, the player makes it come into play; it becomes part of the story.
• Triumph in Edge of the Empire: when you roll Triumph on an attack roll, you have several options to choose form, including stuff like ignoring environmental effects for a turn.
• Moves in PbtA: when you roll a Partial Success as a player, you often get choose in which regard you're successful.

Universalis is a storygame. Bordering on storytelling with some game in there.

Mythic is an odd one probably in the middle if you are using the GM emulator. It is purely player driven. But it still functions like a standard RPG in play since the player is predominantly asking the oracle questions and reacting, rather than dictating as it were.

Those are the only two I have had any real experience with.

Unfortunately storygame fans are most often utterly unreliable to ask what a storygame is. They sure as hell seem to not know what role playing is two thirds of the time, or more.

Bemusingly, Vampire, Werewolf and Aberrant are not storygames or storytelling games despite WW's claims. They are fairly standard RPGs.

What about FFGs new Star Wars RPG? The one with the funky oracle dice? Every account I have heard of how it plays seem to indicate it is a hybrid possibly leaning to storygame?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077334Well, the term story game seems kinda synonymous with what Ron Edwards called games supporting specifically narrativist play. ]

Sort of. Story Games are what Edwards calls "Story Now" games - the purpose of the game is to mutually craft a dramatically satisfying story in play. Edwards 'Narrativism' is story with 'Dramatic Premise' - some kind of high-concept question like "How far would you go to save the ones you love?" - and Edwards seems to think these are the only kind of stories worth crafting, otherwise you just get pastiche.  

White Wolf games are Storyteller games - the GM has a Story, and he is Damn Well Going To Tell It.

Quote from: S'mon;1077338White Wolf games are Storyteller games - the GM has a Story, and he is Damn Well Going To Tell It.

Considering how much prose they crammed into the books, especially Aberrant, is it any surprise? :rolleyes:
(Since had the book on hand, pulled out Aberrant and did a check. 90+ pages out of 290+ pages. Nearly a third of the book was prose. Alot of that not even setting info. Just various stories and snippets. Most of it at least did set the tone. But still...)

Quote from: jhkim;1077329On the definitely story games side are GMless and rotating GM games like Polaris,

I was confused by this at first. I own the 2-book slipcase for Polaris--the one with a post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy in an undersea setting and very traditional rules--and I was thinking WTF is he talking about. Is there another Polaris? A quick check on DriveThru shows the one I'm talking about, but I don't dig too deep.

"Storygame" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  Depending on the speaker, it may be an attempt to non-judgmentally describe a set of games with certain shared characteristics, or it may be an epithet which means little more than "a game I dislike".

My personal definition is that a storygame is a game whose primary purpose is to tell a story, particularly when participants are encouraged to choose their moves (actions, turns, whatever) on the basis of "what would make for a good (e.g., dramatically satisfying) story?" in preference to other possible priorities or motivations.

This is in contrast to a role-playing game, where the primary purpose is to play the role of one or more characters in an imagined environment, particularly when participants choose their moves based primarily on the basis of either "if I were my character in this situation, what would I do?" (first-person roleplaying) or "if my character were a real person in this situation, what would they do?" (third-person roleplaying).

If these seem like two different ways of describing the same thing, two examples come to mind of storygame mechanics which are completely out of place in an RPG:

1) Metagame reality-altering mechanics.  In a storygame, players may be empowered to declare the presence of a shotgun behind the bar if the group agrees that it would be good for the story for a shotgun to be there, or to declare that there's no shotgun if the group thinks that would make the better story.  In an RPG, either the shotgun is there or it isn't, regardless of any dramatic considerations.

2) Fate and some other storygames encourage players to "conspire against their characters" with the GM or other players in order to improve the story being told.  In the specific case of Fate, the compel mechanic frequently seems to be involved in these conspiracies as a way to mechanically reward the player for choosing to harm or disadvantage their character.  In an RPG, the player is expected to make decisions as their character would, which generally precludes deliberately choosing to harm or hinder themselves without an in-game reason.

Quote from: jhkim;1077329On the definitely story games side are GMless and rotating GM games like Polaris, The Quiet Year, Microscope, Fiasco, and A Thousand and One Nights.

Out of curiosity,  do you consider "GMless" to be an absolute indicator of a storygame, even when it's a practical matter rather than something baked into the system from the start?  In other words, since that question reads about as clear as mud, if someone were to play D&D (or some other "this is definitively an RPG, not a storygame" of your choice) using the Mythic GM Emulator instead of a human GM, would that cause it to become a storygame?

Storygames: Director stance predominance.
Fiasco, A Quiet Year, Polaris, My Life with Master, Shock: Social Science Fiction, Microscope, etc.

Narrativist RPGs: Author + Actor stances predominance.
Fate, Sorcerer, Apocalyse World (and derivatives like Dungeon World), Smallvile (and derivatives like Marvel Heroic), Burning Wheel (and derivatives like Mouse Guard), Lady Blackbird, Don't Rest Your Head, Dogs in the Vineyard, Chuubo, Nobilis, Hillfolk, etc.

Traditional RPGs: Actor stance predominance.
Vampire, D&D/OSR, Runequest (and derivatives like Call of Cthulhu), Traveller, Shadowrun, WFRP, etc.

Hybrid RPGs: Some mix of the above two.
The One Ring, Kult: Divinity Lost, Beyond the Wall, Mutant Year Zero (and derivatives like Tales from the Loop), FFG Star Wars, Tenra Bansho Zero, Blades in the Dark, Pendragon, etc.

(that's my personal take anyway )

Quote from: Itachi;1077358Storygames: Fiasco, A Quiet Year, Polaris, My Life with Master, Shock: Social Science Fiction, Microscope, etc.

Narrativist RPGs: Fate, Sorcerer, Apocalyse World (and derivatives like Dungeon World), Cortex plus/prime (and derivatives like Smallvile), Burning Wheel (and derivatives like Mouse Guard), Lady Blackbird, Don't Rest Your Head, Dogs in the Vineyard, Chuubo, Nobilis, Hillfolk, etc.

Traditional RPGs: Vampire, D&D, Runequest (and derivatives like Call of Cthulhu), Traveller, Shadowrun, WFRP, etc.

Hybrid (Narrativist+Traditional) RPGs: The One Ring, Kult: Divinity Lost, Beyond the Wall, Mutant Year Zero (and derivatives like Tales from the Loop), FFG Star Wars, Tenra Bansho Zero, Blades in the Dark, Pendragon, etc.

(that's my personal classification anyway )

That's not a bad division IMO. Coming from a long line of Traditional RPGs, I've found that I can tolerate what you call Hybrid RPGs (although some of the heavier Narrative mechanics can leave me cold) but I've never been able to get interested in any that you list as a Storygame or a Narrativist RPG.

Where can you put 'Amber Diceless' on that scale?

Godfather Punk, the most narrativist/emulative/non-trad thing Amber has is the initial "Atribute auction", but it goes out the way as soon the game starts. So I would say Traditional. But I could see one saying Hybrid too, depending on how much you value the "Atribute Auction" and it's impact on the whole experience.

Makes sense?

P.S: I just read Amber and never played, so take that with a grain of salt.

Quote from: nDervish;1077356My personal definition is that a storygame is a game whose primary purpose is to tell a story, particularly when participants are encouraged to choose their moves (actions, turns, whatever) on the basis of "what would make for a good (e.g., dramatically satisfying) story?" in preference to other possible priorities or motivations.

This is in contrast to a role-playing game, where the primary purpose is to play the role of one or more characters in an imagined environment, particularly when participants choose their moves based primarily on the basis of either "if I were my character in this situation, what would I do?" (first-person roleplaying) or "if my character were a real person in this situation, what would they do?" (third-person roleplaying).

Here's why I don't think that works: people have been playing CoC as leading their little lambs to the slaughter for a long time. And their playstyle was a mix between the two. And I have in many different situations and many different games witnessed role-players to do the suboptimal or even the outlandish just because it seemed fun at the moment - fun story. Isolated events within what you call a RPG - but still serves to underline the following: people can play in a manner you call storygame with about any ruleset. (Is gonzo play a storygame or an RPG?) So maybe it could be used to classify playstyles but I don't know if it's helpful for classifying rulesets.

Quote from: Itachi;1077358Storygames: Director stance predominance.
Fiasco, A Quiet Year, Polaris, My Life with Master, Shock: Social Science Fiction, Microscope, etc.

I am only familiar with Fiasco. Question: do all of the others have mechanics that give the players agency over more than their character's intent? Because any agency over more than that gives limited (additional) control over story.

Quote from: Itachi;1077358Narrativist RPGs: Author + Actor stances predominance.
Fate, Sorcerer, Apocalyse World (and derivatives like Dungeon World), Smallvile (and derivatives like Marvel Heroic), Burning Wheel (and derivatives like Mouse Guard), Lady Blackbird, Don't Rest Your Head, Dogs in the Vineyard, Chuubo, Nobilis, Hillfolk, etc.

Note that Author Stance implies game rules that give the players agency over more than character intent.

Quote from: Itachi;1077358Hybrid RPGs: Some mix of the above two.
The One Ring, Kult: Divinity Lost, Beyond the Wall, Mutant Year Zero (and derivatives like Tales from the Loop), FFG Star Wars, Tenra Bansho Zero, Blades in the Dark, Pendragon, etc.

My knee-jerk reaction was to point out that Hybrids between Narrativist and Traditional would be Narrativist - because the hybrid would by definition include some from of Author stance and Actor stance. But then I remembered that I demanded in my own definition that the narrative mechanics must be significant enough to classify the game overall as Narrativist. That is not the case in games like FFG SW, for example. Personally I would have classified it as Trad - but if you suggest using the label Trad as "pure" (no narrative mechanics whatsoever), then I am fine with that as well. You'd need a label specifically for Trad games with traces of narrativism, like FFG SW, though.

Quote from: jhkim;1077329Games out of The Forge are very likely to be considered such as well - like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard. Hillfolk is likely to be lumped in with these.

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I've played a bit of Hillfolk. I imagine it would probably fall in or pretty close to Story Game here, unless the criteria have changed. But it is an unusual game. It is ultimately up to the mods and Pundit, but I can't really say how they would react to this one based on my own experience with it. It does have a GM as far I know (I was a player so I didn't read the rulebook). And the players can assert setting details through dialogue in scenes (and there are tokens you can spend as well I believe, which you get when you allow another person to achieve their goal in a scene). However, I thought it was one of the most immersionist experiences I had, and much different from my experience with games like Fiasco or ones where you tend not to speak as much in character. There are metaelements for sure, and there is a whole phase where you are basically just building all the relationships. But once you are in those scenes, it feels to me exactly like those moments in classic RPGs where everything just became about the roleplaying for half an hour to an hour (though I should say you can linger on scenes or move them along as much or as little as you want). I've dabbled in many of these kinds of games, but Hillfolk really struck a chord with me in ways the other ones didn't (and again I think it had something to do with the level of immersion). Contrast that with Dogs in the Vineyard where you have the whole bid system. This felt very different from that kind of system (though again, I was just a player, I could have been missing key details about the game).