Quote from: Jason Morningstar;1001830Love what you love, but if you are curious about a game, or have tried it and couldn't make it quite work, play it with some people who really enjoy it. You may still come away knowing it isn't for you, but you'll understand how it works and perhaps why others might like it. Or maybe you'll see why it is actually pretty cool, who knows.

Very well said.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1001839I am fascinated that there are people who think the term "storygame" is either specific or "understood" today in any any particular sense.

I understand what you mean, but in me, this only provokes a deep yawn;).

Quote from: Voros;1001992So do you call Ghostbusters, Toon and Paranoia 'storygames'? They all have OOC mechanics, etc.

I call them all games I enjoy and leave it at that.  All games have out-of-character mechanics. Rolling dice to get results is a common one. Near as I can tell we're either playing a game or telling a story, I see them as different things, but I'm not in your group and you're  not in mine so it matters little whether you like what I do or I like what you do. It's like complaining about what's playing on a radio you can't hear.

Well said.

Who is this dude on your avatar, btw? He looks like a Menudo.

Quote from: itachi;1002152well said.

Who is this dude on your avatar, btw? He looks like a menudo. :d

The one and only Erik Estrada !!!!!

Quote from: Dumarest;1002157The one and only Erik Estrada !!!!!

Ponce be scary, man...

Quote from: Voros;1001775I don't think being a storygame requires some tie to GNS or the Forge. James Wyatt's Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchasen is a storygame and has no ties to either.

James Wallis wrote Baron Muchausen as part of his "New Wave" line, which he published through Hogshead, and was also part of the British group that were discussing Forge-ey ideas in the Interactive Fantasy journal in the 90s. Basically, the British had the same sort of movement a bit before the Americans did it - but I'd still bracket them as being the same thing. The focus of finding an alternative mode of playing to the "Gygax/Arneson Model" of roleplaying.

Baron Munchausen was meant to be an alternative type of rpg to D&D (eventually emerging as the 'story game' we refer to now). Castle Falkenstein, even though it was innovative, did not attempt to challenge the idea that it was still the same type of game as D&D. That is the difference.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002141I call them all games I enjoy and leave it at that.  All games have out-of-character mechanics. Rolling dice to get results is a common one. Near as I can tell we're either playing a game or telling a story, I see them as different things, but I'm not in your group and you're  not in mine so it matters little whether you like what I do or I like what you do. It's like complaining about what's playing on a radio you can't hear.

I'm not really talking about game mechanics.  I'm talking about systems built into the game that allow the player to affect control of the game world in a way that his character just couldn't do, usually in an effort to make the narrative (or "story") of the game better fit the style of what happens in the fiction the game is based on.  

As far as whether or not I classify any given game somebody might mention as a story game, who cares?  Since when should my classifying a game as anything matter?  I'm not familiar enough with most of them to classify them as anything.  I don't really even classify Lovecraftesque as a story game.  I just know that based on the description of play presented in this thread, I'm not interested in playing it...or any game similar.  The only real problem I have is when there seems to be an implication that it shouldn't be the case that I find certain games less immersive than the games I like.  Nobody really gets to tell me what I should or shouldn't find immersive.  I decide that for myself.

Let's not forget that "Indie RPG" as a term includes all independently produced RPGs which include MANY non-narrative RPGs.

Maybe its a pet peeve, but I cringe when I hear "Indie Rock" as a term tossed about to define only a single genre of music, quite often produced professionally by labels vs. referencing all music produced without a major record label.

Like music, RPGs have MANY terrific "garage bands" producing cool stuff.

Well, for that matter what does "indie" even mean? Pretty much every RPG is "indie" inasmuch as there are no huge "faceless" corporations behind them, aside from Hasbro.  It's such a tiny market made up of mom-and-pops, calling something indie means nothing to me. If there were any real money in it, corporations would've gobbled up everything they could devour and mass-produced it. Even D&D isn't very big, although the name is a behemoth and using the well known trademark is probably the only reason anyone would bother spending money on it, as D&D is shorthand for RPGs in general.

True, but there's gradations even in our niche hobby. AKA, who has paid staff, who has stuff on FLGS shelves, who has video games based on their IP, etc. VS. the have-nots who are on DriveThru, using KS, etc.

Quote from: Voros;1001992So do you call Ghostbusters, Toon and Paranoia 'storygames'? They all have OOC mechanics, etc.

Good point.

OOC mechanics are common in MANY games considered traditional. Fate points in Warhammer come to mnd.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1002186True, but there's gradations even in our niche hobby. AKA, who has paid staff, who has stuff on FLGS shelves, who has video games based on their IP, etc. VS. the have-nots who are on DriveThru, using KS, etc.

That's  like measuring the difference between .000001% of the market and .0000013%...

All of which is stuff you'd need to research to even know, because these companies are so tiny I've never even heard their names sometimes. It's not like we're talking about Nabisco, Mars, and Hershey.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1002188Good point.

OOC mechanics are common in MANY games considered traditional. Fate points in Warhammer come to mnd.

Traditional rpg?  I mean i'm pretty sure the OP wasn't talking about Warhammer.

If fate points are the point of stasis between whatever normal/baseline is and whatever we're talking about with this vague Indie/Story/Whatever distinction, then the distinction is meaningless. Fate points are an arbitrary ablative survival and pacing mechanism, roughly the same as hp. The entire premise of this thread is pointless--fairly blatant self-back-patting over not doing something arbitrarily deemed inferior, but if fate points are the hill where we've ended up fighting upon, then that is truly depressing.