Amber Is Not a Storygame

[Rincewind1]

Of course it's not a storygame, Pundit likes Amber.

[Panjumanju]

The main reason people call Amber a storygame is to troll Pundit. That's the beginning and end of it.

Oh. I didn't realise the reasoning was so shallow, and...irritating.

Well, that takes all the wind out of my sails.

If I'm to venture a guess, the diceless thing is the kicker here. I can only imagine the players, in order to build up their "momentum" in tasks and contests, have to sidestep into some dodgy metagaming instead of rolling a die and state "I crack the bastard's head for 11 damage".
I could be very wrong, feel free to tell me so.

Actually, the opposite happens. The base level of immersion is very high. The numbers almost never come up on the player side, only the GM side. The player is more likely to say "I want to hack the bastard's head with my sword, but, you know, still be defensive about it."

Any trickery the player could employ to track down some solid numbers is easily side-stepped by the GM. Like "life" (ha) you never really know 100% what's going on - as a player you have a pretty good understanding of how strong you are, for instance, and a pretty good understanding of how strong someone else should be - but because you don't actually know those numbers you still get all the fear and apprehension that would be coming from a dice roll.

This is clearly not everyone's cup of tea. I've had players struggle, at first, because they were accustom to having all information in front of them. Once they understood they were supposed to play their character and not arithmetic, however, it's always gone very well.

//Panjumanju

[RPGPundit]

Wow you're really reaching here. In future please respond to the things I actually post rather than the things you were apparently hoping I would post.

So now you're saying that you do acknowledge that there is such a thing as storygames, and that they have characteristics different from regular RPGs?

[vytzka]

It's not a storygame because Pundit doesn't hate Wujcik.

QED.

[Croaker]

I'm reading this, and I feel very dumb.

I mean, IMO, who cares if a game is a storygame or else, if it is fun and people enjoy it?
I know next to nothing about these, so these may have all, none, or only part of, the caracteristics of traditionnal RPGs, and, well, what?

I see this not unlike MMORPGs vs RPGs. These are quite different , yet share some similarities. And both are enjoyable, although these are not the same kind of fun. Who cares what's the "best"?

[jibbajibba]

I'm reading this, and I feel very dumb.

I mean, IMO, who cares if a game is a storygame or else, if it is fun and people enjoy it?
I know next to nothing about these, so these may have all, none, or only part of, the caracteristics of traditionnal RPGs, and, well, what?

I see this not unlike MMORPGs vs RPGs. These are quite different , yet share some similarities. And both are enjoyable, although these are not the same kind of fun. Who cares what's the "best"?

That would be Pundit and a few other vocal posters.

In reality its a continum with narative mechanics appearing in all sorts of games to varying degrees. Everyone has a cut off where there is too much narative stuff for them. Pundit however regards narative mechanics in an almost homeopathic way which is to say one hint of a narative mechanic diluted by 10,000 parts of trad game is still a narative swinish story game.

One of the funny things is that Amber really doesn't have very many narative rules. There are some in char gen where you can pick allies even some relationships with elders etc but in narativist terms that is pretty slim. Sure the Amberites can alter the world but that is very much them doing it from a 1st person perspective rather than the player doing it abstractly.

What it does have is a very strong feel for story. For making the fiction of the game more important that any single event. So Wujick advises us if in a dilema to stick to what we have planned or change the 'plot' to make it a better story always do the latter. He points out how Zelazny retcons Nine Princes all the time.  Now that has nothing to do with Storygames but is another pet hate of the site that some people conflate with storygames incorrectly.

[vytzka]

That would be Pundit and a few other vocal posters.

In reality its a continum with narative mechanics appearing in all sorts of games to varying degrees. Everyone has a cut off where there is too much narative stuff for them. Pundit however regards narative mechanics in an almost homeopathic way which is to say one hint of a narative mechanic diluted by 10,000 parts of trad game is still a narative swinish story game.

Unless it's FATE, or whatever.

[soviet]

So now you're saying that you do acknowledge that there is such a thing as storygames, and that they have characteristics different from regular RPGs?

I think you know full well what my position is. Storygames are a thing. Storygames have some differences from traditional RPGs. This is a loose spectrum rather than a strict division. Storygames and traditional RPGs are both kinds of RPGs.

[TristramEvans]

I think you know full well what my position is. Storygames are a thing. Storygames have some differences from traditional RPGs. This is a loose spectrum rather than a strict division. Storygames and traditional RPGs are both kinds of RPGs.

What is your definition of storygames?

[Rincewind1]

What is your definition of storygames?

The one that somehow shoehorns it as still an RPG, obviously.

[soviet]

What is your definition of storygames?

Oh god I can just see this thread heading into a dark whirlpool. I think that vague generalisations are a trap and don't lead anywhere worthwhile. I mean, we haven't even got a working definition of RPG that more than three people in the hobby could agree on, defining a variation within that field seems like an impossible task. I think it's much more productive to talk about specific games and techniques. But nonetheless when googling previous attempts at this discussion I did find this:

I think there are two uses of the term storygame on this site (for various reasons) and it's a source of much confusion in these kinds of threads.

I would say that the most commonly accepted definition of 'storygame' just about everywhere else on the internet is something vaguely along the lines of 'an RPG that gives players more creative input and where the focus of play is on actively trying to create a story'. By this definition HQ, BW, Dogs, etc, are all definitely storygames.

There are also more 'extreme' storygames like Fiasco and PTA where shared narration and the like plays much more of a part (I think, those games don't interest me). I don't give a shit if people want to call these games RPGs or not.

A lot of the people who say 'storygames are RPGs, they're great' are using the term in its broader sense, to include HQ and Burning Wheel and the like. I suspect a lot of the people who say 'storygames aren't RPGs, they're terrible' are using the term in its narrower sense to focus specifically on the extreme shared narration stuff.  

What we probably need is a third term - either a new one for the more extreme storygames (shared narration games?) or a new one for all the things in the middle like HQ and BW (hybrids?).

[soviet]

The one that somehow shoehorns it as still an RPG, obviously.

Come on then genius, tell me how Burning Wheel is not an RPG.

[Rincewind1]

Come on then genius, tell me how Burning Wheel is not an RPG.

Have I said it wasn't, bub?

[soviet]

Most people would say BW was a storygame. Including the site's owner.

[vytzka]

I think we should call "traditional RPGs" charactergames.