Quote from: fearsomepirate;983271The more I read this thread, the more Ron Edwards sounds like little more than some nerd on the Internet who wrote some boring blog posts that made some people angry (seriously, I have tried to read the stuff people talk about, and it's just endless nerd rambling), ran an online forum that a handful of people frequented, and tried and failed multiple times to get his self-published stuff to go big.

Makes sense.

What I noticed about Ron Edwards writing is he's pretty good at spelling out his reasons for thing. But it's also clear to me that he falls for just about every classical fallacy that highly intelligent and educated people fall for. This leads to the divide between theory in reality. I suppose frustration is one natural response when you just know for a fact something isn't working or just isn't right but can't pinpoint where it went wrong. Another common response seems to be endless scapegoating coupled with endless solving of the faux problems. It's easy to see why this would lead to staunch divergence.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982924Sandboxing originally involved multiple groups of players with multiple agendas.  And yes, the players may never discover some of your neat shit.  Much like 'Kill your NPCs,' you must kill your favorite adventure locations.

I don't know why but this crystallizes an important point for me--even if you only have one party, it's a useful exercise to think of your prep as if there could be multiple parties in the campaign. To me this argues for simplification at the system level and quick sketches at the setting level, which (because your system is simple) can easily be fleshed out. YMMV of course. In more complex systems it's probably more necessary to pregenerate detailed special NPCs, generic NPCs, and NPC groups.

Just remember, "everybody wants something, and will work to get it."  "What does this NPC want?  Ready, set, go."

Many NPCs will have simple wants, of course.  The village blacksmith in Generic Village #23.  Et cetera.  Not every NPC needs the drives and motivations of Hamlet.

Quote from: jhkim;983419Regarding Ron Edwards...  

I disagreed with Ron Edwards particularly on these points and argued with him over it. However, I've been active in online RPG discussions since around 1991, and have read into discussions before then. It is utterly ridiculous to assert that the animosity over narrative and story started with him.


There were plenty of posts long before Ron Edwards of pro-story gamers calling old-schoolers dinosaurs, and also of old-schoolers calling pro-story gamers railroaders and/or pretentious goons. I linked earlier to a 1980 Different Worlds article about the divide of gaming. It was all about how to cut down on the "violent arguments" "furious discussion", and "feuds" between different styles.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html

I remember when Glen first published that article in The Wild Hunt. Glen definitely characterized himself as more of a "role player" than any of the other types, on the other hand, his play meshed just fine with the more "hack and slash" players in my group. But back when that was written, it's also worth noting there were not any story games (using the more restrictive definition of story game that does not include D&D). At the time of publication, there were some modules that were very railroady, but the first time I encountered a GM with a story arc was in college at least a year after the publication of this article.

Frank

Quote from: Arminius;983421I don't know why but this crystallizes an important point for me--even if you only have one party, it's a useful exercise to think of your prep as if there could be multiple parties in the campaign. To me this argues for simplification at the system level and quick sketches at the setting level, which (because your system is simple) can easily be fleshed out. YMMV of course. In more complex systems it's probably more necessary to pregenerate detailed special NPCs, generic NPCs, and NPC groups.

This is a fantastic point -- although I rarely reuse campaign settings, I always write as if I were going to. A setting should be able to tell many interesting stories.

I do (as I said) a lot of prep, so NPCs, etc. need to be statted out (I use a rules-heavy game).

My experience is that a decent spreadsheet and templates can make the prep go easier. I spend most of my time on non-system, creative artifacts. Maps, for example.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: JhkimThere were plenty of posts long before Ron Edwards of pro-story gamers calling old-schoolers dinosaurs, and also of old-schoolers calling pro-story gamers railroaders and/or pretentious goons. I linked earlier to a 1980 Different Worlds article about the divide of gaming. It was all about how to cut down on the "violent arguments" "furious discussion", and "feuds" between different styles.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/t...ls/blacow.html

Quote from: ffilz;983431I remember when Glen first published that article in The Wild Hunt. Glen definitely characterized himself as more of a "role player" than any of the other types, on the other hand, his play meshed just fine with the more "hack and slash" players in my group. But back when that was written, it's also worth noting there were not any story games (using the more restrictive definition of story game that does not include D&D). At the time of publication, there were some modules that were very railroady, but the first time I encountered a GM with a story arc was in college at least a year after the publication of this article.

Frank

Interesting to know this thing goes way back. Thanks.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

When did this turn into the "Lets prove people who don't like story games were really all upset about nothing" thread?  The question asked was "why the hate for narrative story elements?"  My answer was that for me it has a negative impact on immersion.  I never said I hate story gamers and really I never even bothered to read the Forge stuff and Edwards.  I just remember a few years back there was a lot of debate going on and the OSR crowd tended to be on one side while the Forge crowd was on the other and from what I saw neither side was innocent of starting things up.  But there was at the time a little scuffle going on...

Quote from: Justin Alexander;983512:rolleyes:

Your jealousy is noted and appreciated.

Who wouldn't be jealous of somebody waiting for a heavily delayed kickstarter.. for a mediocre game....um..?


Anyway, best take that note and tattoo it on your body somewhere. You may forget else.....

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

Oh for shit's sake, the two of you just fuck and be done with it.

Quote from: Settembrini;983207As far as I know and remember from my Interview with RE, he has never played any meaningful amount of D&D back in the 70-90s. He lived in a RuneQuest area and really wanted to get into the cool kids RQ games, later played Champions heavily. In fact, from the way he talked, it sounded like Champions is the only game he played in a way that I would recognize as really playing.
I faintly remember he did play some D&D during the later Forge period and posted about that on their Forum, These actual play reports also indicated to me that RE indeed might be many things: first-hand knowledgable about the fun in D&D he is utterly not.

Not true sorry. Here is what he actually wrote.

Hip to geek

The following is strictly a personal reflection from my own experiences of late 1970s and early-1980s role-playing, as a hobby culture. I was 13-14 years old in 1977-79 when I discovered the hobby, and through the age of, roughly, sixteen, I battered my head against (A)D&D in a variety of groups. They fell into the following categories:

Mainly older people with a sprinkling of teens who tried to do adult things as much as possible. The adults were usually Army guys, with some hip types who ran kids' groups or community-course programs. The latter ran some damn good games, as I recall.

Fellow teens - these get-togethers were often the least satisfying, on the one hand due to individuals who owned "special" rules that no one else did (brrrr ... what one guy armed with an Arduin Grimoire can do to a Social Contract ...), and on the other because of the perfectly reasonable assessment by many that the textual game itself wasn't particularly fun.

I also knew of several college groups during this time, up through the early 1980s, mainly playing RuneQuest. I burned with jealousy and desperately wanted to be in college and to play with folks like that.

Significantly, many groups, even the teen ones, included women in their late twenties who were interested in role-playing and not at all concerned about the propriety of hanging out with boys ten years younger. This was the late 1970s, after all. I remember quite a few such individuals.

By 1983, things had changed drastically; in some ways, it mirrored a general subcultural shift across the entire country (see the film Boogie Nights if you didn't live through it). I'd realized that D&D had become a "pube" activity, meaning 10-13-year-olds exclusively, most of whom played once and then walked.

The content resembled video games of the time: lives, levels, and skyrocketing success scores, with no real loss at all. It was utterly divorced from fantasy or mythic literature, and the comics and fantasy authors of the day disavowed the hobby en masse. Successful play became more and more a matter of who could break the game fastest, and the social gamer became more and more consistently the social-outcast gamer. Gaming communities weren't an edifying bunch, actually; they'd been transformed socially and procedurally by the Cargo Cult context into a rabidly-abusive, nitpicky bunch, in which the Social Contract actually included making others upset.

It had lost its cool factor entirely, just in time for me to go to college in the fall of that year. The aforementioned Willing Female Factor had vanished like smoke, and, my priorities firmly in place, I swore off the hobby. The oath didn't last long, of course. I did find a lot of people to role-play with, including women my own age, but always on the basis that we "weren't like those gamers." Conversations about role-playing ceased instantly if anyone nearby evinced interest in D&D. We played Champions and Stormbringer, and looked forward to the buzz of GURPS. "

Three years of play at the cultural peak of D&D is hardly not 'meaningful.' Most people's most extensive experience playing D&D is from their teens.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;983561And TrapFlappy descends back into incoherent gibberish.

Never change, TrapFlappy. Never change.

Heh! You've even forgotten who you are talking to!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;983512You just said you did X and then immediately said you didn't do X. I'm not sure if this is because English apparently isn't your first language or your mendacity, but I can't take your posts seriously at this point.

Well, that would make sense.

For one thing, my first language is "incoherent gibberish."

For another, hallucinations and feelings of euphoria are often associated with X; it's a downside of traditional gamer / rave culture.

You might be on to something.
-E.

To answer the OP's question, it's because they make it impossible to engage the things a player wants to in play. For example, many 'narrative' games feature abstract resource mechanics so you don't have to select your equipment beforehand. But those mechanics also mean you can't select your equipment beforehand, so if that's something you enjoy, you're not going to find it here. Such games literally make it impossible to engage certain kinds of play on a practical level, because they decided a 'feature' was a 'bug'. That's focused design, but not a universal set of values, and declaring it to be the latter will inevitably generate heat.

As for #RonEdwards' #BrainDamage premise, it can basically be summed up in the first 4 minutes of this video...

[video=youtube_share;Kc2kFk5M9x4]https://youtu.be/Kc2kFk5M9x4[/youtube]

...that is, #RogueOne is an example of the kind of brain damaged 'storytelling' Ron is talking about, full of #FanService and #Touchstones detached from any compelling characters or meaningful story. There's a podcast interview where he explains this, which I'll link when I find it.

Now I don't consider this kind of thing to be actual brain damage, nor do I think RPGs specifically engender it. But I do find it tedious and boring, and resent when it contaminates my play because it interferes with the things I want to engage with.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;980714In conversation with a fan of Monster Hearts, she tried to explain that this was a "deeper" game than Vampire: The Masquerade because it was a 'narrativist' game (she couldn't actually explain how specifically it made for a deeper experience, nor how it was more definitively 'narrativist' in design).

It's frustrating when you don't have the words to express what you mean or can't identify why something works for you. That's why design is difficult.

Quote from: David Johansen;980750One thing I've come to accept is that people have different talents and some people are just more creative than others.  I think it's partly a matter of developing it through practice but people are also terrified of criticism which is a necessary part of growth.  You don't become good at anything creative by being uncritical.  But many people have had the creativity beaten right out of them though, if you ever start a sentence "not to be mean but," just stop and walk away, no constructive criticism ever started with that line.

#PlusOne

One thing that makes RPGs a difficult medium is that in order to facilitate creative contributions you need an environment where people feel they won't be judged. Yet #RPGs require contributions to be judged in order to see how they affect the game. So #StoryGame theory tends to be very interested in 'non-judgmental judgement' methods like the X Card, which still won't work if the user is too concerned about being judged. In the meantime 'traditional' RPGs address these same creativity and accountability concerns through things like random tables.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;981074I mock. I mock relentlessly. Because you have it coming. Because we all have it coming.

Now this is the kind of #Fatalism I can dig.

Quote from: Dumarest;981201I'm still wondering why I'm supposed to care how strangers play games at their tables.

Because #RPGs are a social hobby, and if you can't find people who share your preferences (or worse consider them immoral), then you'll be one lonely (and persecuted) gamer.

Quote from: Crimhthan;981333For me it is really simple, people entering the hobby are being taught how to have less fun in a restrictive style of play that seriously limits player options, while they are being told IMO untruthfully that they have more options in a scripted story game railroad.

Quote from: Itachi;981341I can't remember a single Forgite game that's a "scripted railroad"

Quote from: ffilz;981344When I think of Story Games, I don't think of scripted railroads.

Quote from: jhkim;981347I'm confused about what story games you're picturing here.

Yes, #StoryGames means something completely different than what @Crimhthan is talking about. Yes, #StoryGames were specifically designed to solve exactly the problem he brings up. But this is not an uncommon misunderstanding, which is why I think the name sucks.

Quote from: ffilz;981344These days I think of Story Games as being the types of games discussed over on http://www.story-games.com/forums/ and I'm with the folks that include old school D&D in the realm of what that community means by "story games".

And if you look at some of the most current discussions there you'll see how many of them have come full circle when it comes to 'old school'.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;981381In a traditional game, the moral choices can be significant if the individual player wants them to be. In a storygame, the moral choices are significant whether the player wants them to be or not.

Examples?

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;981478I don't believe that it's about revenue but it's a popularity contest for sure.

Which gets really nasty when people feel these games carry some sort of moral prerogative. I also like how some switch between claiming legitimacy because they're a minority to claiming legitimacy because they're a majority once they achieve that status.

Quote from: Biscuitician;981488The Dr Who initiative system is one of the most constricting narrative/story design elements in recent years (whether you like the idea or not) and the self proclaimed arch nemesis of 'The Swine' claims authorship of it.

Well he's nothing if not consistent

Also you're a little late to the party.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982039The difference is between suggestion and mandate.  "Does it rain to cover our tracks?" vs "It does rain to cover our tracks!"

I think even in #Fate a GM has the right to dismiss an offer if they don't feel it fits. And what procedures are normally used to answer such questions? GM #Fiat? A die roll?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;982144And that's a difference in philosophy even within "traditional" games: do you survive because you're heroes, or are you heroes because you survived?

What an excellent summation.

Such gamers differ on the very basis of their reasoning, so it's not surprising they come into conflict.

Quote from: Voros;982990In terms of the 'failure' of his ideas the terms fantasy heartbreaker, pink slime fantasy and even brain damage have entered into everyday RPG nomenclature. We'd be all so lucky to have our ideas 'fail' in such a way.

I know, right?

Quote from: Voros;983567Not true sorry. Here is what he actually wrote.

*snip*

"The aforementioned Willing Female Factor had vanished like smoke,"

Considering the state of gender politics in gaming currently, I find this intriguingly relevant.