Quote from: droogWell, of course. But this is so off the point. Returning to the OP, Kyle is basically arguing for 'the GM telling the story'.

I don't think he's been completely clear about that.

QuoteAs I see it, the GM should present a game world with lots of different things happening in it, and give the players and their characters the chance and a reason to get involved in those events, they get involved and do stuff and the GM describes the results. So with that approach the players and GM together create the story, but the GM tells it. The GM allows the players and their characters to direct the course of action, but remains the final arbiter of things.

This sounds just like the type of play you and Clash have been arguing for (and which I prefer, too), as long as you assume that the word "story" is defined by the rest of the passage, rather than importing some additional meaning.

However, the above does definitely say that the GM is the final arbiter of things, and in practice that can mean anything from "the GM can unilaterally override any and all rules" to "the GM has final say on all matters not covered by the rules and outside the domain of PC volition." I lean strongly toward the latter; from other discussion I know that Kyle is somewhat closer to the former. But what both preferences have in common is a rejection of giving players final say over matters outside the domain of PC volition.

Again, if a player wants his character to discover a note in his attic proving that the President is secretly in thrall to the Red Lectroids--which fact has neither been established in play nor part of the GM's prep--and then the GM who says "no"--that's not the same as having the GM stage-manage the buildup & release of dramatic tension or arbitrarily edit events to maintain a certain sequence of events.

On the other hand...

QuoteSo there's a distinction between creating the events of the story, and telling the story. It's one lost on Dancey and many others, but I think it's a useful one. It's the difference between contributing to something, and making decisions about something. It's rather like the way the players in a game of football create the game, but the referee determines the game, and the commentator describes it. In this the GM is like a mixture of referee and commentator. I think Dancey's saying he wants the GM to just be a ref, which would be pretty fucking boring for everyone concerned, I think.

Here, by saying the GM "determines" the game, it does sound like Kyle wants the GM to take a more active role in steering events--in a way that could be "telling a story" in the sense I see it, and which could negate player input through their PCs. Really, what's missing here is a sense of the responsibility of the GM and the expectations of the players. The GM who decides to have an NPC change his mind in response to a player overture (or alternatively refuse the overture) may be doing the perfect thing from a dramatic perspective but the worst from a perspective of making the world seem "real" and not "arbitrary".

Quote from: droogWell, so has Ron Edwards. But there might be some subtle differences between our positions that we haven't uncovered, which is why I said possibly.

1. What does Ron Edwards have to do with it? Maybe you should credit me, too. I've been "some random internet guy arguing against GM storytelling" since circa 1990.

2. If we want to talk about anybody, we should concentrate on Dancey, or rather the range of possible "storytelling" evoked by his passage. And here it's clear that he's talking about far more than just "let the players drive the action through what they have their characters do". Instead he's talking about "let the players create the world"--maybe by what their characters do, maybe by some metagame resource, maybe by some fuzzy conflation of the two.

Quote from: Elliot WilenWhat does Ron Edwards have to do with it?

RE-->Dancey-->Kyle.

I don't see Edwards mentioned anywhere in Dancey's post, or in this thread before you brought him up.

EDIT: Here's the thing: either you're dense, or you're deliberately conflating reactive GMing (of various sorts, from pure improv to neutrally-administering a prepped situation) with mechanically enabling players to take control of the world outside of their characters. (In other threads here it's been called Shared Narrative Control; elsewhere I suppose it might be called "player assumption of Author Stance".)

EDIT 2: And that's the only reason to bring Edwards into it, because Edwards and his followers repeatedly engage in exactly that bit of conflation.

Forget it, Elliot.

Don't hassle droog, he's just saying that there are different styles of GMing and playing, and different understandings of the same style. He's saying that the differences in style are not as great as we might think, but that the differences are significant and worse teasing out and discussing.

In regards to Dancey, he tells here of his personal epiphany in gaming involving an rpg by Tweet called The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men. I've read through his post, and am re-reading it. My first reaction is mockery because of the subject matter, thinking, "grow up", but I'm having a good look and a think because we should always try to be fair and open-minded about things.

1. I should have written "Director Stance" above.

2. Don't mean to hassle droog, on the contrary I'm at pains to tease out the differences in style that are obscured by saying that e.g. Clash's preferred style = Edwards' style.

3. I think Edwards' style and especially Luke's style (or at least the promise of his style; the actual rules to BW are another matter), and even the style of full-on "no myth player-director-stance" all have something to offer; my preference as a default, though, is towards traditional mechanics with neutral/reactive GMing. Circles/Relationships/Resources can work fine with that model and strike me as an excellent approach to abstraction and simplification, without necessarily taking narrative control away from the GM any more than rolling to hit does.

Quote from: Kyle AaronIn regards to Dancey, he tells here of his personal epiphany in gaming involving an rpg by Tweet called The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men. I've read through his post, and am re-reading it. My first reaction is mockery because of the subject matter, thinking, "grow up", but I'm having a good look and a think because we should always try to be fair and open-minded about things.

I have to admit my reaction when reading about that game was that it sounded more like a particularly Twee LARP than a storytelling game.  I don't think the running around the house with props bit can really be overlooked.  I'm sure that was a major contribution to the novelty and amusement of the game.

Quote from: Kyle AaronDon't hassle droog, he's just saying that there are different styles of GMing and playing, and different understandings of the same style. He's saying that the differences in style are not as great as we might think, but that the differences are significant and worse teasing out and discussing.

Every time we try to tease them out they're exaggerated to the point of incomprehensibility.  I don't really get the controversy.

Yeah, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but then he went on to say that really he knows most gamers aren't having any fun with the traditional GM-player modes, because of the market research which is secret and he can't tell us about. Which reminds me a lot of New Coke, where the Coca-Cola company was absolutely convinced by their market research that everyone would like their new stuff, and it was a disaster.

This idea of secret knowledge that only specialists have, and the rest of us must bow before their superior wisdom, it's a very widespread idea these days, especially popular with those specialists. I say, let's look at the results. I mean, we have around 1,000 rpgs in print now since Chainmail, so I think that gives us a good range of kinds of games. And what do people like? From the sales, we can conclude that people like rules-heavy, detailed games with a strong GM/player divide.

Sure, other people like other stuff, and that's a worthwhile market, and it's always good to experiment, if no-one ever experimented then we'd all still be eating raw mammoth, and our only music would be banging rocks together. But what people today like overall, it's pretty clear. And they're happy with it.

I just can't take seriously someone who tells me I Know The Truth But It's A Secret, and presents me with his gingerbread man with licorice on him, and tries to tell me it's a great revolution in roleplaying.  

That said, I'm very interested in different styles of roleplaying, of GM-player authority, and so on. But I don't think these different styles are some Great Saviour of roleplaying, or even that roleplaying needs it. I just think they'd be interesting to try out.

I'll try anything once except incest and folk-dancing.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen1. I should have written "Director Stance" above.

2. Don't mean to hassle droog, on the contrary I'm at pains to tease out the differences in style that are obscured by saying that e.g. Clash's preferred style = Edwards' style.

I have no idea about that, not ever having played with Mr. Edwards, but I know my objections to Forge games are most strongly concerning the level decisions are made on - i.e. the designer vs. the GM & Group.

Quote3. I think Edwards' style and especially Luke's style (or at least the promise of his style; the actual rules to BW are another matter), and even the style of full-on "no myth player-director-stance" all have something to offer; my preference as a default, though, is towards traditional mechanics with neutral/reactive GMing. Circles/Relationships/Resources can work fine with that model and strike me as an excellent approach to abstraction and simplification, without necessarily taking narrative control away from the GM any more than rolling to hit does.

To clear up any confusion, I'm a situational GM. In fact, I may have coined the term many years ago. I throw an initial situation at the PCs, to which they react - i.e. I am an active GM with reactive players. They then springboard off this, pushing me, to which I react - now I'm a reactive GM with active payers. I build on what they have done and throw another situation at the PCs, and they do the same to me.  

The game is ideally a constant push/shove match, like tennis or ping-pong, where the energy level keeps building. Nobody cares about winning, though - the idea ian't to make the other side miss the ball, it's to see how long you can keep it all in the air. If things start going too fast, one side or the other cools it down a shade. If it's too slow, we pick up the pace. And the game is all about keeping up the feeling that we are all there, and the situation is real, and the time is now. Things react in real time. There is no loss of continuity.

I can do this with my group about 6 times in ten.

-clash

Quote from: Kyle Aaron...
I just can't take seriously someone who tells me I Know The Truth But It's A Secret, and presents me with his gingerbread man with licorice on him, and tries to tell me it's a great revolution in roleplaying.  

....

Even if glorious fun for 20 folks of all ages, and sounding like a parlor game, can you make a campaign of it?

Quote from: flyingmiceI...
The game is ideally a constant push/shove match, like tennis or ping-pong, where the energy level keeps building. Nobody cares about winning, though - the idea ian't to make the other side miss the ball, it's to see how long you can keep it all in the air. If things start going too fast, one side or the other cools it down a shade. If it's too slow, we pick up the pace. And the game is all about keeping up the feeling that we are all there, and the situation is real, and the time is now. Things react in real time. There is no loss of continuity.

I can do this with my group about 6 times in ten.

-clash

Now that is excitement.  I bet you get four hours of fun in four hours.  Maybe these designers who opine about how "traditional" RPG play is not fun never got this going even 1 time in 10.

I'd have to say I've got a similar approach to clash but I'm a very well prepared situationalist, with multiple contigencies ready.  The rules allow it to just flow, if your using rules that constantly pull you out of play to look things up or compute changes or conditionals, then it's just going to stop the flow.   But that doesn't mean traditional RPGs can't work just the rule set you've chosen is problematic.

Clash, in that case I have to make a partial retraction; your situational/active-reactive/improvisational style sounds a lot like descriptions of how RE plays Sorcerer.

In fact there seems to be some sort of disconnect between RE's "followers" and the man himself. Somehow there's an idea out there among the more zealous of the bunch--and I would include Dancey here, based on what he's been writing lately--that the only way to avoid having the GM "tell the story" is to give the players ample control not only over their characters, but over the "external world". RE's rubbished this idea on more than one occasion. At least two, well-separated in time, are here and here.

Again, there are games that give that level of control to players--Polaris, The Mountain Witch, Dogs in the Vineyard all have it to some degree, and they all work more or less well for some people. For me...not so much; I wasn't that crazy about TMW or DitV, largely because they take a schizophrenic attitude toward immersion and Shared Narrative Control. Polaris may be more to my taste but I can't be sure since I only got to play a brief session of it; in any case it seems to take a much more solid position in favor of rules-mediated storytelling. If so that would make it easier for me to understand but also less likely to view as a candidate for meat-and-potatoes RPGing.

Where I stand is, I think, somewhat less on the improvisational axis than Clash and RE, and with most of the active GMing occurring between sessions. It's hard to gauge, though.

[Hmmm...I wrote the following but frankly it's more hypothetical than I'd like. I'll keep it in and if anyone can make heads or tails of it, so much the better. Also--oops, a lot of this started as a quick edit and ballooned; by the time I was done I thought I was posting a new message.]

An example: the session is slowing down, so instead of wrapping up, the GM scans down a list of "flags" (issues of interest to one or more characters) and creates a situation out of one of them to throw at the players. This is leaning a bit more toward story-time than I'd care for. On the other hand if the GM incorporates "flags" in the campaign setup, then "administers" them neutrally, that would be fine.

To elaborate, suppose I create a character who's on the run after defrauding the Mafia. What I'd like the GM to do is either to have some way of situating and tracking the PCs enemies and their reaction to whatever the PC does, to see when they make an appearance...or simply have a random chance per session that they show up. What I wouldn't like so much would be for the GM to have them pop up simply to add spice to a scenario. Or at least, I'd see that as a very different sort of game.

Another example: regardless of "flags", the GM will generate a new situation to provide for an interesting game. But how does this fit into the flow of game-time and real-time? Again I think some GMs introduce plot complications ad hoc into an existing scenario. I think I prefer to have a situation be resolved without this kind of intervention--though random events/wandering NPCs are a different matter; they're part of the prep even though they appear later, possibly not at all. The time for situation-generation is either after the players have proposed a new course of action (usually at the end of a session, planning for the next one), or as a consequence of completed player action, or simply due to passage of time and how it plays out in campaign background.

And again, more concretely: if the players decide to just hit the bad guys' lair, guns blazing, and they somehow succeed, now is not the time to impro an über-boss who'll keep things rolling for the rest of the session. Now's the time for the GM to solicit player input on what they do during downtime and what they plan to next. The GM might have a new event that's triggered either by a timeline or randomly, but downtime and player initiatives should be taken into account. E.g., the GM may know that some enemy is going to try to break into a PC's apartment; it doesn't follow that it happens immediately if and only if there's a lull in the game. Player initiatives might pre-empt the event or alter its circumstances (maybe the player buys an alarm system). Or maybe the PCs do nothing for a year and the GM duly notes the passage of time before introducing the new situation.

Quote from: XantherEven if glorious fun for 20 folks of all ages, and sounding like a parlor game, can you make a campaign of it?

I dunno. That's the thing about a lot of non-traditional games, though - they never seem to get played for long campaigns.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. First, do we want a campaign, or a fun session? Ideally, a whole campaign of fun sessions, but...

Second, the average length of campaigns, according to another rpg.net survey I put up, was 10-15 sessions, and most people excluded the 1 or 2 session things that just sort of fizzled. So if people are actually just playing 1 or 2 sessions usually, or up to about a dozen if they're doing okay, then... why not aim for what we're getting anyway? Why not just go for short campaigns, but aim to make 'em good, not fizzles?

Another issue is whether a game is played, or replayed. That's something Dancey brings up about D&D, and also something that people bring up about these Forger games - a lot of people buy them then never or rarely play. But I don't think that's really restricted to roleplaying games. Lots of homes have a whole pile of board and card games gathering dust, never or rarely played.

And with those games, some have got more replay value than others. You can probably play chess every day, Trivial Pursuit once a week or two, but Cluedo only every few months. If you tried to play Cluedo every day it'd get old and tired quick. So I think it's okay for roleplaying games to be the same.

On the other hand, if the inventor of Cluedo were to tell a chess player that Cluedo was a great revolution in board games and that the thing to do with board games was make them more like Cluedo, well then we'd have to tell him that's bullshit.

I guess in this analogy, D&D - or any rules-heavy, defined GM/player split game - is chess, and Gingerbread Men or Dogs or whatever are Cluedo.