Courtesy of TBP (link to the thread)

QuoteAlright, I'm in an odd position that I never thought I would end up in as a GM gaming with friends. About a year ago, I started a Werewolf the Forsaken game. I told the group that I would be running it like a TV show, breaking things up into seasons. At the outset, I predicted a 5 season game to run the storyline(s) that I had planned. This was a big departure for me as a GM because I normally do straight-up sandbox, plot-as-we-go, style games.
 
I ran into an issue after the first season, because we had to ask a player to leave for game and non-game related reasons. I corrected what was a fairly tight plot and covered the holes that were created by that character's absence. Second season goes off without a hitch, though the group was unhappy with having such a small group now. We invited someone else in, I contorted and twisted things to make it work without damaging what I had already laid. No problems.
 
Before the start of the third season, I took a look back at my initial outline and found that I only had two arcs left. And the one heralds the other and the end of the game. I announced this, said that the game would end with the closure of season 3 and that we only had maybe 12-15 sessions left depending on time and choices, etc. I ran the first 7 sessions and placed my few remaining pieces before the endgame. I handed off the reigns to another GM, so I could have a bit of a break because of life. One of the players asked me a question about trying to make something happen with their character and I mentioned it might be a bit much to squeeze in due to the dwindling amount of time. I mentioned that there is going to be a time jump coming up though, and we could cover a bit of it during that jump as a vignette and just assume the rest before the final session.
 
Suddenly after mentioning this, I have gotten emails and texts from two of the other four players about how they are really attached to their characters and that they don't think I should end the game. That I shouldn't do the time jump, that we could game that portion and that I'm holding their character's hostage. I conceded that I don't think those 5 years would be very fun to game, as I know where things are likely to leave off but I would think about and we could discuss things when we get there. Apparently that answer is not good enough for any of them, because I continue to get emails and texts trying to convince me to continue it.

My reply has been something to the effect of: "We'll see where it lies afterwards. Trying to pressure me to do more after I've already conceded that I'll think about and see if its viable, isn't helping your case. If you have enjoyed the game thus far, are invested in the story, and have had fun; trust me to finish it as I have intended."
 
Frankly, I'm kind of at a loss. I'm flattered that they like it enough that they want me to continue it. At the same time, I want to finish it according to my vision. It is by far the best game that I have ever run and I think it is that way because I have planned so very much. To continue it, would mean jettisoning most of work to push filler into the system for their sake. I'm also really annoyed because I've got a bunch friends, with whom I have gamed with for years upon years, trying to pressure me into doing something that I really don't care to do. I just want an opinion. I am being a dick, shanghaiing their characters for the sake of hard, worked-on plans or are they being unreasonably entitled?

I read that and thought to myself, I seriously have no idea how to even think about games like that. And no, this isn't a post to bitch about storygames, or say they're awful, or anything of the sort. I just think it really succinctly shows how its a completely different experience as a game that has problems completely alien to me.

Dude that has nothing to do with a storygame. Werewolf is standard trad game and all you are describing is a trad game played with a tight plot arc.

Plot arcs do not = story games. Plot arcs might equal railroads. Plot arcs might not be your cup of tea but they are not storygames.

If you are playing a game where you map out the structure and you envisage 'series 1' ending with a fight with Boss number 1 who has been been behind the PCs issues for the first dozen sessions and it turns out he is the brother of one of the PCs which you foreshadowed in session 1 and the games ends with a duel between the two of them as you envisaged from the outset. That, though it might sound odd, does not make any of the intervening sessions storygames.

You may well have chosen to use some PC plot immunity to keep them alive, you may well have railroaded them down a path, neither are inherrent storygame tactics.
In reality you may have done none of that you may have played the game totaly straight up lost 2 PCs along the way and the PCs did exactly what they wanted each time but you retconned the plot arc against what they did and so Boss1 is the brother of the one PC that survived and it just looks like you did that from the start.

Quote from: jibbajibba;642421Dude that has nothing to do with a storygame.

This.

Still seems pretty odd to me.

But then, I never really understood what you did in any of the White Wolf games.

In D&D, you explore dungeons, fight monsters, build castles. (Same for most other fantasy games).

In CoC, you investigate weird stuff and probably get killed trying to save the world (or at least people)

In Traveller, you travel around the galaxy, probably breaking laws and exploring new planets.

In Vampire, you're vampires, and do what, exactly? Same with Werewolf? Do you chase Chuck Connors around the country?

Then again, I never understood what you did in Rifts, either.

Sounds like the mother of all railroad campaigns. I wouldn't enjoy it, my players wouldn't enjoy it, but it must be some good though as (s)he's managed to drag it over so many sessions.

It doesn't really fit as a shared narrative game however, no player-character dissociation, moving away from the first person perspective, player control over the setting beyond what their characters do, and no discussion about story arcs or related waffle except in the GM's head.

Agreed with most others here: this is a traditional RPG, not a model of traditional RPG which I'd personally enjoy but if the players like it and the GM likes it then no foul. (It isn't even a style which is particularly unique to White Wolf - Dragonlance was basically a commercialised version of this sort of very linear concept.)

Quote from: JeremyR;642458In Vampire, you're vampires, and do what, exactly? Same with Werewolf? Do you chase Chuck Connors around the country?

The nWoD werewolf PCs are essentially spirit cops charged with patrolling the boundary between the material world and its animistic shadow counterpart, opposed by not only intruders from the other side but also a significantly larger enemy faction of werewolves who'd instead wish to bring down the barriers and enslave humanity in the name of their spirit masters. Vampires admittedly don't come with this sort of a default "to do" list, although the upcoming Blood & Smoke chronicle book may change that.

Yeah this has nothing to do with storygames. It's a problem with the "story-telling" mindset, which is a different thing. That is, setting out to play the game as a story with plot, storyline, narrative structures etc (story telling), versus using a specific type of (modern, post Forge, post 2000 in most if not all cases) game which gives specific mechanical/rules tools to act as the co-author of a narrative or story building exercise (story gaming).

Quote from: The Traveller;642467Sounds like the mother of all railroad campaigns. I wouldn't enjoy it, my players wouldn't enjoy it, but it must be some good though as (s)he's managed to drag it over so many sessions.

What is really intertesting is that the group who generally play sandbox stuff obviously love the game. So railroad or not I can't see any problem with it at all.

Quote from: TristramEvans;642420Courtesy of TBP (link to the thread)




I read that and thought to myself, I seriously have no idea how to even think about games like that. And no, this isn't a post to bitch about storygames, or say they're awful, or anything of the sort. I just think it really succinctly shows how its a completely different experience as a game that has problems completely alien to me.

Too much planning?  Why not do Werewolf as a sandbox?

In theory yes - but based on the impression I get from reading the op's quote, two of the players DO have a problem with the railroading. At least insofar as they would very much like to go on playing their characters in that setting instead of ending it all in a grande finale.

It seems to me that what they want is akin to plot-based pc games like oblivion, skyrim or fable where after finishing the main plot you can go on playing. Except this wish apparently collides with the purity of the auteur's vision...

Quote from: JeremyR;642458In Vampire, you're vampires, and do what, exactly? Same with Werewolf? Do you chase Chuck Connors around the country?

Then again, I never understood what you did in Rifts, either.

Werewolf is very much rooted in the traditional D&D kill monsters and level up approach, with a healthy dollop of the political intrigue which made Vampire work.  Honestly, Werewolf: The Apocalypse is probably one of the better RPGs out there for accessibility and the like -- I just got my copy of the 20th anniversary edition, and in addition to making me feel old that I can remember the game when it came out, reminded me of just how incredibly potent that combination of old-school action and '90s political storytelling could be.

I mean, Werewolf is basically even class and level, it's that rooted in old school adventuring.

Given Rein*Hagen's role in creating Ars Magica, my take on the WoD games is that they shared with their ancestor game a focus on a specific location (Chicago or the caern or the chantry instead of the wizard's covenant) and thus on RPing the travails of being enmeshed in a place. Hence politics with one's neighbors, attending to the necessities of vis-gathering or feeding, stopping spirits from crossing over, etc. Despite the official game lines' penchant for meta-plotting, I found that all of my WoD games in the 90s were essentially player-driven sandboxes.

Quote from: Maltese Changeling;642602Given Rein*Hagen's role in creating Ars Magica, my take on the WoD games is that they shared with their ancestor game a focus on a specific location (Chicago or the caern or the chantry instead of the wizard's covenant) and thus on RPing the travails of being enmeshed in a place. Hence politics with one's neighbors, attending to the necessities of vis-gathering or feeding, stopping spirits from crossing over, etc. Despite the official game lines' penchant for meta-plotting, I found that all of my WoD games in the 90s were essentially player-driven sandboxes.

Chicago By Night is, to my mind, one of the classic sandbox settings.

Quote from: jibbajibba;642421Dude that has nothing to do with a storygame.

Let me explain then. Yes, the system itself is not a storygame system. White Wolf games to do impose3 storygaming style on  players via the mechanics. I would never call Werewolf or any White Wolf game a "storygame". However, storygaming is a style of play, defined by viewing the PCs as characters in a story and making choices to that effect. In the example, this is very much the case. Not only because the GM is railroading them through a plot, but because the players are very aware of this. They play in sets of games corresponding to seasons of a TV show, there's a predetermined effect of their actions, and as there is a set ending that is inevitable, and as the example makes clear, the players have had their character's choices limited specifically to reflect the ending.

For example, in a sandbox game where players have control over their characters decisions, even with a railroady GM, they still have the option of rejecting the plot. A player group could decide to leave the city, to pursue other goals, to reject the "plot" or "story". Plot in a traditional RPG has the meaning of "plan" or "scheme". Its events that are going to happen unless the players interfere. Plot in a storygame, as clearly evinced in the example, is a predetermined set of events that the players will "act through" but is not based on their decisions or actions, and views the course of events in the game as conforming to a narrative structure.

The style of gaming referred to now as storygaming is not dependent on the system. Its existed for decades. It was described and definined in both trifold game theory and GNS. The difference, post-Forge, is that now there are games made specifically to cater and enforce this style of gaming, hence "storygames".