Quote from: Sommerjon;708787Don't bother.   He's soapboxing.

To be perfectly honest, no I am not; I have no agenda to advance.

What I am doing is deliberately probing a perceived hot topic to determine:

1. Did I accidentally step in some shit upon my arrival ... in which case I will need to learn where the piles are and step more carefully around them.

or

2. Is this a place where flinging shit is the national pastime and anyone who comes here should expect to get covered in shit regularly ... in which case I would do better to play in another sandbox.

That is my only "agenda".

Quote from: Benoist;708804See, that's where you are crossing the Rubicon and attempting to tell me what's actually going on at my game table.

No. I'm sorry. I'm the one who knows better what's going on in my games. Not you.

I don't have plots in the narrative sense of the term, the real, common language sense of the term. What I do have is individuals, PCs and NPCs, locales, groups and factions with different motivations, personalities, needs and wants, agendas and things they are doing to fulfill those various agendas in the game world, and the adventure is what happens when all these elements come in contact with each other in the make believe, as the game is played.

Don't look at it only from narrative sense of the term then?

Notice the questions.
Do your sandboxes use time?
Do things happen in your sandboxes as direct results of the actions or inaction of the PCs?
Plot: a secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose.
Without time there can be no secret plans or schemes.  Actions or inaction of the PCs futzes with secret plans or schemes.

Quote from: Sommerjon;708796One wonder how much time you spend on that grognards.txt thread getting yourself all worked up.

Ah, I see.

None as it turns out. In fact an rpgnet mod, Ettin, one of said goons was actually quoting me in his sig for a while, on rpgnet, I assume as some sort of attempted intimidation. I didn't even become aware of the fact until someone told me, and by then he'd already been slapped down by his fellow mods, albeit "backstage".

Much merriment was had that day. But yes, I and most other people here remain blithely unaware.

Quote from: atpollard;708802Is this the general consensus on what a “Shared Narrative” game is, or just one of many personal definitions?

‘Cause if this is “Shared Narrative”, then I sure as heck don’t play Shared Narrative style!

Oh yeah sure, there were some misunderstandings at the start but it's all cleared up now. Basically yeah, that's what shared narrative gaming is. It's about perspective and control over the setting, framing the game in terms of writing a story, much more of a literary tool. Most people have their own lines, but nobody's really argued against that definition. Now I've pointed that out of course someone inevitably will.

This is why looking at the dictionary definition of "story" and wondering why people are getting all wound up about it is a waste of time. People get annoyed because of that history I wrote, and the insane attacks upon RPGers perpetrated by said community, hence my characterisations of them as political in nature.

The edit-raid on wikipedia is the most recent I'm aware of.

Worth noting is that the community which appropriated the term "storygames" also includes other games in the parish, like Dungeon World, which calls itself a storygame but is to all intents and purposes a straight down the line RPG.

Quote from: Sommerjon;708810Plot: a secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose.

No, I'm sorry. Everybody knows here this is not the meaning of "plot" that is being objected to. Of course NPCs have their own plans, they can weave a plot to assassinate the king and all that. Just like our real world has people plotting to achieve this or that end.

That is not the sense of "plot" that is being discussed. The meaning we are discussing here is "the plot of a story", the "storylines", "the movie's plot".

plot  
 Use Plot in a sentence
plot  [plot]  Show IPA noun, verb, plot·ted, plot·ting.
noun
1.
a secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose, especially a hostile, unlawful, or evil purpose: a plot to overthrow the government.
2.
Also called storyline. the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story.
3.
a small piece or area of ground: a garden plot; burial plot.
4.
a measured piece or parcel of land: a house on a two-acre plot.
5.
a plan, map, diagram, or other graphic representation, as of land, a building, etc.

Don't argue in bad faith, please.

Quote from: Sommerjon;708810Plot: a secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose.
s.

That is equivocation though. If Benoist agrees that yes, his games include plot in the sense secret plans, events and schemes, it doesn't follow that his gming is governed by an interest in story as in an overarching plot (whoch is what I sense you've been trying to argue everyone does whether they think so or not---if I am wrong, let me know but that is my reading of your posts. I think the key distinction here is why the GM is making decisions. Some will make decisions in the interests of story, others wont, making decisions based on other things like what they feel is believable, what is most interesting, what is most exciting, or what they think provides the best challenge to the players. Nothing wrong with any of the different approaches but they all produce different experiences. It is pretty clear to me that benoist isnt worried about sustaining a story when he games.

Quote from: atpollard;708772At the risk of straying too far from philosophical into the theological, if God orders the lives of men, guiding the broad pattern of history, then reality has a story that is yet still unfolding ... and it doesn't get any more real that reality.

...and just as in rpgs, I really don't want to live in a world where "god" has my path pre-set and my choices don't actually mean anything because its all going to go a certain way no matter what.  Part of the "story" element that is problematic is the notion that there is an ending that must be reached and a series of narrative points that must be passed getting there.  In The Lord of The Rings, Frodo can't choose NOT to carry the ring to Mordor.  In an rpg (at least the sort I want to play) he totally could choose not to.

There is one specific case in which I could see someone using the word "plot" as in "the plot of a role playing game session" referring to my own games and that would annoy me less than other instances.

It is the specific situation I prepare that serves as the start of the campaign and lay out before the players, or the fresh start of a different group of characters within the same campaign as it directly relates to them when the game effectively starts.

If the first session starts with the party say in the middle of the dungeon, and the PCs have just been the victims of a trap that erased their memory, the immediate goal being up to them, whether to find out what happened, who did that to them, escape the dungeon, whatever the case may be, that specific choice of starting the game in media res and dealing with the outcome of an event that directly concerns the PCs and that they have to deal with one way or another is similar to creating the plot for the opening scene of a movie.

It's not the same thing, I would not use that term to describe it myself, but I can see the similarity that would make some people say that.

Quote from: Sommerjon;708810Don't look at it only from narrative sense of the term then?

Notice the questions.
Do your sandboxes use time?
Do things happen in your sandboxes as direct results of the actions or inaction of the PCs?
Plot: a secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose.
Without time there can be no secret plans or schemes.  Actions or inaction of the PCs futzes with secret plans or schemes.

In this sense my sandbox campaigns are riddled with plots. Plots are not bad for sandboxes so long as any plots present in the campaign belong to campaign entities.

The Baron's youngest son is plotting to murder his father and sieze power.

The orc chieftain is plotting to stage a major raid on the countryside.

These "plots" are the results of these personalities doing what they do in the campaign. The PCs may or may not interfere or get involved with them.

Quote from: atpollard;708733Could someone explain to me what is so terrible about an adventure that tells a story?

Let me start with a plot summary from an unpublished module (not mine, I am just illustrating it):


Introduction: The group meets an old acquaintance who has retired from a major shipping line to open a business as a broker in a small town. A large trade guild, with a mixture of corrupt, hard playing and honest members, is using strong arm tactics to control small businesses by influencing local governments. Your old friend wants to create a trade cooperative as a counterweight to the influence of the guild. They have set a date and location for the meeting to discuss this and would like to hire you to deliver the invitations to some friends and acquaintances that she wants to attend the meeting. The group will be paid 1000 GP per person they can convince to attend. The group is free to work this activity into whatever other 'adventures' they may have, but the date and location of the meeting cannot be changed ... you have 1 year.

One person is the owner of a large mining complex. He will agree to come if the players can investigate a production discrepancy at one of his remote mining sites, otherwise he will need to take care of this matter himself and cannot spare the time to attend.

Another person is a politician in a distant city. When the group arrives, they are accused of criminal mischief and issued a restraining order forbidding them from meeting with the politician. The guild is behind this and the group will need to meet the politician in secret, fight the matter in court, or break the law and flee.

A third person is a trader with political ties visiting her relatives in a remote rural community. When the group tracks her down, the village is attacked by a hoard and the group must decide how they will react.

A fourth member is an influential scholar with a group of students on an archeological expedition. When the group arrives, members of the guild are also there to convince the scholar to support the guild rather than this criminal organization. The group will need to use persuasive skill to win him over.


You get the idea ...

So here is an adventure where the actions of the characters will clearly influence events (for better or worse) on a grand scale. There is no preset success or failure in the adventures. There is clearly an overarching story with the players shaping the outcome of this story.

I like this adventure concept.
So why does this make me clueless about what role-playing really is, a troll, part of a secret plot to destroy this site and brain damaged ... all of which I have been accused of for comments supporting the idea of a story being a good thing in role-playing?

I am not saying you are clueless about anything.

But in regards to your example of a story:

The game you describe creates a story that can be observed or talked about.
I call that playing an rpg.

The 'storygaming' concept I don't personally relate to, is when someone is actively thinking about story as they play, or having characters do something based on metagame story goals.


I am not saying it is 'wrong' But I really don't relate at all to storygaming as I just described.

I prefer when the plot ends at the point we start playing, only informs the PCs and is not reliant on any course of action. The story, on the other hand, is what we look back on after we get up from the table.

The only time that carrying a plot into the game and building the story during the game has worked for me is when I run my one-on-one game with my wife, but that is precisely our goal.

I do play Fate Accelerated, which has a degree of what is referred to as "shared narrative" built into the mechanics, so my preferences don't necessarily mesh with my system of choice. In practice, though, I have found that I can maintain my preferences quite nicely.

So, in a nutshell, if your "plot" and "story" sandwich the game, you're probably okay in my book. Don't lay track between the two...

Forgive me if this is obvious, or old hat.




Rpgs as I prefer them:

Characters and events during play, create a story.

Pre-planned out Story does not dictate what characters do, or what events occur.

Quote from: Bill;708840Pre-planned out Story does not dictate what characters do, or what events occur.

I would argue that it is not unrealistic or counterproductive to have events (often larger than the characters) that unfold with or without the characters interaction with them. A specific example would be a campaign set just before the start of a civil war. There already exist two antagonistic factions. There may be future events unrelated to the characters that will unfold. The war will come.

... this sort of predetermined probable series of events would, IMhO, add rather than subtract from the verisimilitude that many claim to seek.

A static world where everyone and everything seems frozen in time until the characters interact with it snaps my suspenders of disbelief harder than a predetermined world history.

[Of course I would never argue that the PC actions could not change the planned future events. Just the opposite, preserving that possibility is what palying a big damn hero is all about.   ]

Quote from: Benoist;708832It's not the same thing, I would not use that term to describe it myself, but I can see the similarity that would make some people say that.

So what do you call your writeup on the master plan of a powerful NPC and the potential timeline?

I think pretty much all of us would agree with that.  A living, breathing world where the PCs become aware of events happening without their intervention is cool.  Its when there are pre-determined events set to happen WITH the PCs intervention that we have a problem.

Quote from: atpollard;708849I would argue that it is not unrealistic or counterproductive to have events (often larger than the characters) that unfold with or without the characters interaction with them. A specific example would be a campaign set just before the start of a civil war. There already exist two antagonistic factions. There may be future events unrelated to the characters that will unfold. The war will come.

... this sort of predetermined probable series of events would, IMhO, add rather than subtract from the verisimilitude that many claim to seek.

A static world where everyone and everything seems frozen in time until the characters interact with it snaps my suspenders of disbelief harder than a predetermined world history.

[Of course I would never argue that the PC actions could not change the planned future events. Just the opposite, preserving that possibility is what palying a big damn hero is all about.   ]

There is a difference between planning out the future and mapping out  history.