Quote from: ffilz;981693I really don't have much of a definition. I'm not sure my definition is really worth it, because as an expansive concept, it doesn't help understand why some folks hate old school and other folks hate "story games." Honestly, when it comes to trying to understand why someone doesn't like something, it would be better to be specific about what it is you don't like contrasted to what you don't like.

SNIP

Frank

Thank you for the additional comments. it occurs to me that a story is a monologue by usually one author and I don't want a monologue in my game. The connotations of the word story don't mesh with what some of us think of when we think of game. So the word rings wrong just because.

Online arguments do tend to be more dogmatic, aggressive and hyperbolic, I'd guess due to combination of anonymity (asses can act like bigger asses with no repercussions), face opponents (they're not real people, just words on a screen so empathy and restraint are limited) and the effect of fighting in public: performing for the audience, fear of losing face and sometimes people egging it on for the laughs.

Quote from: Crimhthan;981703Your two examples of "if people were saying" is interesting, because here is what I "hear". That is regardless of what they are saying this is what I am hearing.

"Well, for me the most important part is having the DM setup a sandbox* campaign and create a living world where things are happening all over the place, I (my party) get to choose anyone of dozens or hundreds of things we learn of and choose one or just strike out in any direction if the mood takes us and the DM will arbitrate it as objectively as possible, to see how successfully I can excel at it, based on my ability to think through the situation and make good decisions." and other people saying "well, for me the most important part is being involved in a great story of daring do. If I'm going to pretend to be an elf/cowboy/starship captain, it had better be a good job of playing pretend, oh my character needs to have all high stats, magic, luck points and any other advantages I can think of and you don't dare let me die or fail."

Interesting. I'm not really sure where to take it though. We certainly can't go out and get hard numbers on these kind of things. Has there ever been a story-gamer who has wanted the game handed to them? Absolutely. At a population level, and to a significantly higher level than game-focused RPG-ers? And in excess of some other annoying trait that the game-focused RPG-ers have in excess to the story-gamers? That's a tough nut to crack beyond our base impressions (which will be colored by our perspectives).

Quote from: Crimhthan;981639What is your definition?

I define tabletop roleplayng games as
Where one or more players interact with their setting as individual characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

For story games I would define it as

Where two or more participants use the rules of a game to collaborate on creating a story.

If group is not there to collaborate on creating a story then they are doing something else. With tabletop roleplaying there has to be at least three elements Players playing individual characters, Interacting with a setting as their characters, and a human referee to decide what happens when specific actions are attempted.

Quote from: Crimhthan;981703"Well, for me the most important part is having the DM setup a sandbox* campaign and create a living world where things are happening all over the place, I (my party) get to choose anyone of dozens or hundreds of things we learn of and choose one or just strike out in any direction if the mood takes us and the DM will arbitrate it as objectively as possible, to see how successfully I can excel at it, based on my ability to think through the situation and make good decisions." and other people saying "well, for me the most important part is being involved in a great story of daring do. If I'm going to pretend to be an elf/cowboy/starship captain, it had better be a good job of playing pretend, oh my character needs to have all high stats, magic, luck points and any other advantages I can think of and you don't dare let me die or fail."

That's a good description of two broad play styles, but for example, Dogs in the Vineyard isn't either of those. Nor is the GM's pet story railroad. On the other hand, Burning Wheel is definitely closer to the first than the second, though the GM may be more reactive than a more pure sandbox.

But that's why I'm challenged to divide the hobby up into segments. Because it's really all a multi-dimensional continuum. There are some wide swaths of it I'm not interested in, and some folks here are interested in smaller swaths of it than I am, but that's all cool. And as a continuum, it's actually hard to define the edges, so we get games way out near one edge or another, and we ask, well, is that really an RPG?

Which has led me to attach to Vincent Baker's concept of the shared imagined space with procedures to decide how the various players (and GM's) contributions are managed. I think the "game" part of RPG is also significant, so pure collaborative story telling maybe doesn't actually fit (though some collaborative story telling probably does have some "game" aspects and then it creeps closer to the continuum, maybe even entering the continuum).

The one type of game that almost certainly decidedly is NOT an RPG is a so called computer RPG... (on the other hand, maybe MUDs and such do qualify, I don't have any experience with those to be able to pass judgement).

Frank

Quote from: Nexus;981709Online arguments do tend to be more dogmatic, aggressive and hyperbolic, I'd guess due to combination of...

All true, but what I was getting at above is that in some discussions--RPG "styles" among them--people feel a need to over stress their points when they aren't being acknowledged, or even more, when other parties are denying them at every turn. For example, saying that distaste or lack of interest in story games or certain mechanics is based on social tribalism, lack of familiarity, or a kind of delusion is naturally going to make people work harder to prove the validity of their tastes.

Quote from: Arminius;981612Lunamancer, improv alone isn't what makes a story game

Yeah, absolutely nothing in my post even hinted that it might be. That was one of what, 8 other things I mentioned. I don't have a lot of patience for dishonesty in rhetoric. I've asked an honest question. I'm not interested in anything but an honest answer, if you've got one.

QuoteI was suggesting that someone could use the whole list to make D&D a story game.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you. I'm not holding you to your statement nor taking it as gospel. I'm questioning what is the substantive difference, if any, between so-called story games and so-called traditional ones.

QuoteAt the time they seemed to be in the spirit of solitaire wargame rules--a set of procedures to generate details of an objective world, not guidelines for creating a dramatic narrative. Many story games do have the latter either embedded in formal rules or described in GMing advice about bringing character issues to the fore (etc.).

The key word being "seemed" (to you). To me, not just that section but the totality of the game, in both its formal rules and those rules that opt not to wear a tuxedo, are exactly that--guidelines for creating a story.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;981623And speaking for myself, creation of "story" is literally nowhere in my mind as any sort of goal when I'm playing D&D.  It doesn't even cross my mind, any more than it does when I climb out of bed in the morning and start my day.  A session of D&D is a series of choices, events, and resolutions and if there is a story created, it's pretty much the same as the story anyone creates when they tell somebody what they did yesterday (with more Bugbears.)  At no point during play do I pause to consider what might be "good for the story."  There is zero concern for any sort of traditional narrative arc.  No beginning, middle, and ending.  No epiphany.  No concern for whether or not my character is fulfilling any sort of dramatic potential.  Just a bunch of (hopefully fun) stuff that happens.

And that's just swell. Did you have a point?

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;981623And speaking for myself, creation of "story" is literally nowhere in my mind as any sort of goal when I'm playing D&D.  It doesn't even cross my mind, any more than it does when I climb out of bed in the morning and start my day.  A session of D&D is a series of choices, events, and resolutions and if there is a story created, it's pretty much the same as the story anyone creates when they tell somebody what they did yesterday (with more Bugbears.)  At no point during play do I pause to consider what might be "good for the story."  There is zero concern for any sort of traditional narrative arc.  No beginning, middle, and ending.  No epiphany.  No concern for whether or not my character is fulfilling any sort of dramatic potential.  Just a bunch of (hopefully fun) stuff that happens.

This really isn't new information, though, is it? I didn't actually say story creation was THE purpose of D&D, did I? I was very specific that it's how I play, was I not? And that a lot of other people play that way, and even conceded that it may be a minority. It's just not a small minority.

So is your point then that if a game CAN be used for something other than being obsessed with stories front-to-back then it's not a storygame? And if so, isn't that a horrible corner to paint storygames into? Doesn't that pretty much guarantee so many people will dislike storygames that the two or three tenths of a percent who do will feel like odd-men out and may therefore create the perception of vitriol from the community at large?

Quote from: ffilz;981733But that's why I'm challenged to divide the hobby up into segments. Because it's really all a multi-dimensional continuum. There are some wide swaths of it I'm not interested in, and some folks here are interested in smaller swaths of it than I am, but that's all cool. And as a continuum, it's actually hard to define the edges, so we get games way out near one edge or another, and we ask, well, is that really an RPG?

My view the problem is that the difference is one of focus. The same game rules can be used to run a campaign with the focus is on players competing with each to determine a victor, where each player has a individual character and interacts with a setting, where each players is part of a group collaborating on creating a story. Is that game a wargame? A RPG? Or a story-game? It all three and what the game is depends on what the campaign is about.

Quote from: Lunamancer;981740Yeah, absolutely nothing in my post even hinted that it might be. That was one of what, 8 other things I mentioned. I don't have a lot of patience for dishonesty in rhetoric. I've asked an honest question. I'm not interested in anything but an honest answer, if you've got one.

First of all, if you're looking to offend, congrats, you've done it. Second, I seem to recall going round before with you, where I couldn't figure out what you were alluding to and you asking me for precision in something that I couldn't imagine being stated any more plainly.

Moving on, and really a last attempt at communication, I do in fact think that story games are ones that can't be played by the rules and the designer's guidelines (say, in GMing guidelines) without an awareness of story-creation. You can play D&D--more or less, given the loose structure and the optional nature of so much of the content--in a way that emphasizes story, but you don't have to. There's no need for the GM and players to guide events in a manner that highlights dramatic conflict and away from anticlimactic courses. In fact if the GM does so, the players can reasonably criticize the use of "story logic". Not that they will--they might like it. But if DitV players are surprised and less than overjoyed at the GM's hammering on character issues until an eventual crisis occurs, they're playing wrong.

In short, I'm not the first one to say this, but storygames may enshrine practices that could be used used in almost any RPG. That doesn't mean all RPGs are story games, just that there's a variety of philosophies of play. I--honestly--don't think D&D was written as a story creation game, any more than wargames are, although the narrative quality of both--events happening, before your eyes, in a simulacrum of life--was always an attraction. At the same time, war games and the rpgs that grew from them have a low tolerance for contrivance. The culture is much more "what if?" and "you are there" than "let's have a good story". Again, that's how I read White Box and AD&D back in the 70s, and although it's possible I was bringing something external to the texts, I think it's more likely that a close reading will support the conclusion that more had to be added and subtracted to get "story creation" than to get "world simulation". It's just that the population at large, and the Red Box generation, had cultural training that made it easier and more attractive to perform those adjustments.

Quote from: Nexus;981709Online arguments do tend to be more dogmatic, aggressive and hyperbolic, I'd guess due to combination of anonymity (asses can act like bigger asses with no repercussions), face opponents (they're not real people, just words on a screen so empathy and restraint are limited) and the effect of fighting in public: performing for the audience, fear of losing face and sometimes people egging it on for the laughs.

And we're back to Post #1 and Post #3 in this very thread.

Quote from: Crimhthan;981640Exactly this, pure sandbox play completely resembles real life in this respect.

   For interpretations of 'real life' that assume a mechanistic, providence-free, ultimately purposeless universe, I suppose.

If God's a story teller, He's not a very good or consistent one. I'm not sure I'd want to die on that particular hill.

Quote from: Arminius;981773First of all, if you're looking to offend, congrats, you've done it. Second, I seem to recall going round before with you, where I couldn't figure out what you were alluding to and you asking me for precision in something that I couldn't imagine being stated any more plainly.

Moving on, and really a last attempt at communication, I do in fact think that story games are ones that can't be played by the rules and the designer's guidelines (say, in GMing guidelines) without an awareness of story-creation. You can play D&D--more or less, given the loose structure and the optional nature of so much of the content--in a way that emphasizes story, but you don't have to. There's no need for the GM and players to guide events in a manner that highlights dramatic conflict and away from anticlimactic courses. In fact if the GM does so, the players can reasonably criticize the use of "story logic". Not that they will--they might like it. But if DitV players are surprised and less than overjoyed at the GM's hammering on character issues until an eventual crisis occurs, they're playing wrong.

In short, I'm not the first one to say this, but storygames may enshrine practices that could be used used in almost any RPG. That doesn't mean all RPGs are story games, just that there's a variety of philosophies of play. I--honestly--don't think D&D was written as a story creation game, any more than wargames are, although the narrative quality of both--events happening, before your eyes, in a simulacrum of life--was always an attraction. At the same time, war games and the rpgs that grew from them have a low tolerance for contrivance. The culture is much more "what if?" and "you are there" than "let's have a good story". Again, that's how I read White Box and AD&D back in the 70s, and although it's possible I was bringing something external to the texts, I think it's more likely that a close reading will support the conclusion that more had to be added and subtracted to get "story creation" than to get "world simulation". It's just that the population at large, and the Red Box generation, had cultural training that made it easier and more attractive to perform those adjustments.

This all makes sense to me and the world simulation view of D&D aligns with my experiences with the early days of Brown Box D&D circa 1974.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;981790For interpretations of 'real life' that assume a mechanistic, providence-free, ultimately purposeless universe, I suppose.

So your a story-lifer?