Quote from: CRKrueger;715322This site was set up to talk about Traditional, ie. not narrative RPGs or Storygames.  As a result, anything else is "Other".

Hahah - that fully answers my question wrt how the site is organized! Hell if I saw that somewhere when I registered, I would have had somewhat less confusion! (:

 I hadn't thought of it in that light, but that makes clear-enough sense: "Other" is everything  that isn't the primary purpose/topic/subject of the site, in this case "storygame" RPGs are not considered a primary subject on these forums. Works for me.

QuoteWho decides? The site owner.

I totally respect that the site owner can set things up anyway he please - I'm cool with that. I'm a curious sort though, and I like to categorize shit; so I was surprised and interested at seeing category-Y RPGs having a dedicated forum, while category-X RPGs being lumped in with the kitchen sink.


My question(s) concerning 1st-person immersion vs. 3rd-person immersion with respect to the "storygame" and "roleplay game" divide I guess have been more or less satisfied, though I still may disagree with a bit of the answers!  


Beers!

Quote from: CRKrueger;715322You want to talk story here, people are gonna question your motives and you're gonna take fire.

That's where my "desire to not step on landmines" comes in: I seriously do not know how, nor have I ever been able, to talk about RPGs without also talking about "story".  Even way back when before I ever had access to the internet and shit, long before the forge or "indie" or whatever: I still percieved RPGs as very much "story telling" games.

Ah well.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715307I'm still stumped as to how this slight change of perspective makes "storygaming" (Burning Wheel, FATE(?), Dogs in the Vineyard) an entirely different activity than "traditional roleplaying" (D&D, Shadowrun, CoC, etc.).

Because story mechanics are a form of cheating in traditional roleplaying. For example fate points in Fate, a game I refereed and played, are get a free bonus card played because it make sense to the PLAYER that it would occur at that moment in the game. There is a limitation that it has to be used in conjunction something the character has. But the Fate Character isn't running around in the setting going "Yup this is a good time to use my Fate points."

In Fudge, a closely related game that I also played and refereed, in contrast the player would using circumstances to find the bonus. Perhaps ducking behind a desk or door for cover, etc. Because this is what the CHARACTER would be doing as if he was really there.

To suddenly say "Oh by the way" there is a desk in this room and I take cover would cheating.

However while I state it clearly the mechanics and the practical aspect of running campaigns means the line is fuzzy. If I was running Harn the chances are that I can tell you without a doubt there is a desk in the room you are currently is. However if I was using an old D&D modules with bare bones maps. I would have either arbitrarily decide there is a desk or roll some chance for it. In harn the detail is present, in D&D it wasn't.

My method of handling the absence of detail is to do what makes sense given the circumstances. If I marked the room as a study there is probably a desk. If it is the ballroom there is likely not.

Also follow the "Don't be a dick about it" rule as well. If the player makes a reasonable case the detail is there.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715307Or why "storygames" are lumped in with card games, board games and video games here on this board. ( It would be different if "traditional" RPGs and "storygame" RPGs had their own forums, in addition to a third 'Other Games'; then that would make immediate sense to me )

( though, I do not dispassionately describe my character's actions unless the game is really sucking )

Because the Pundit has decreed it so. And you can tell him he stupid for doing it without being kicked off the site. Because that just how things roll around here.

Quote from: estar;715324In roleplaying you are limited to what your character can do.

In storytelling you can make anything up including new characters, new locations, new stuff at any time for any reason.

[...]

In storygames the focus shifts to the PLAYERS collaboratively working together to create a story through various mechanics. This may involve a players playing a individual character. But it differs in that the PLAYER is considering and doing things in the game but outside of what the CHARACTER can do or consider within the setting.

My limited experience with storygames (Burning Wheel games, and Sorceror pretty much as far as I know) - is that everything I can do as a Player must come from something that my Character can do.

I'm able to add details to the game world as a player, because my character knows stuff about where he lives, for instance. I'm able to call forth an NPC, because my character knows a bunch of people from a certain demographic.

QuoteAlso I will point out that there is no clear cut line in terms of mechanics alone. You have to look at what the focus is on to figure out whether it is a storygame or a traditional roleplaying. It is a similar thing to the difference between a wargame and traditional roleplaying.

This might be a fun thought experiment:

* let's take a familiar open-sourced game that has all its roots in the traditional school...  I'm thinking like one of the core bits of one of these OSR games. (something small and light)

* keep all the strict mechanics as-is, to the greatest extent possible.

* but, create two 'versions' of the game:  one with "storygame" focus/commentary, and another with "traditional" focus/commentary.


If the goal was to keep the core mechanics as similar as possible, but merely change the advice/commentary and conventions/approach - my guess is that one could create a clear "storygame" RPG and a clear "traditional" RPG - from the very same core mechanics... with nothing other than the surrounding commentary/instructional text.

In essence, I agree with you that mechanics are not by any means the sole/primary qualifiers/quantifiers in differentiating a narrative/player-driven RPG from a traditional/gm-driven RPG.

With mechanics out of the way (two games, same mechanics - different playstyle approach) - it might make it much easier to see the forest despite all the trees.

Anyone else think such a thing is possible or has merit?  Or is this a really stupid idea?

This is a short response, but: Good stuff, Estar - thanks!

( oh, and I love Harn - it's up there with my favorites - though I've never been able to talk any players into actually playing aside from character generation! )

Quote from: estar;715331Because story mechanics are a form of cheating in traditional roleplaying. For example fate points in Fate, a game I refereed and played, are get a free bonus card played because it make sense to the PLAYER that it would occur at that moment in the game. There is a limitation that it has to be used in conjunction something the character has. But the Fate Character isn't running around in the setting going "Yup this is a good time to use my Fate points."

In Fudge, a closely related game that I also played and refereed, in contrast the player would using circumstances to find the bonus. Perhaps ducking behind a desk or door for cover, etc. Because this is what the CHARACTER would be doing as if he was really there.

To suddenly say "Oh by the way" there is a desk in this room and I take cover would cheating.

However while I state it clearly the mechanics and the practical aspect of running campaigns means the line is fuzzy. If I was running Harn the chances are that I can tell you without a doubt there is a desk in the room you are currently is. However if I was using an old D&D modules with bare bones maps. I would have either arbitrarily decide there is a desk or roll some chance for it. In harn the detail is present, in D&D it wasn't.

My method of handling the absence of detail is to do what makes sense given the circumstances. If I marked the room as a study there is probably a desk. If it is the ballroom there is likely not.

Also follow the "Don't be a dick about it" rule as well. If the player makes a reasonable case the detail is there.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715343My limited experience with storygames (Burning Wheel games, and Sorceror pretty much as far as I know) - is that everything I can do as a Player must come from something that my Character can do.

I'm able to add details to the game world as a player, because my character knows stuff about where he lives, for instance. I'm able to  an NPC, because my character knows bunch of people.

This is is the essential difference between the two.

Generally true, but not always.  In Fate, a character can declare a detail by using a Fate point.  That happens entirely at the player/author level.  But in general, yeah, you have to work with what your character knows/etc., and additions are generally subject to GM veto.

I think that 'narrative mechanics' like that are an ingredient that some people just don't like.  I hate mustard.  If there's a detectable amount of mustard in anything, I find it inedible.

The two things that I find that most people object to here about 'narrative games' are:

1) Mechanics that require players to engage the game not as a character
2) Mechanics that give players authorial control over the world

And for some people, even a bit of either of these will cause extreme distaste (though I'd argue that most games include/allow for these in certain areas, we've just gotten used to those).  I can understand this - I have very similar feelings about railroad games, and am coming to have a similar reaction to character optimization.

To me, 'narrative games' cover a very wide spectrum from the mostly traditional on one end (Savage Worlds) to the utterly narrative on the other end (Fiasco).  Lumping them under one umbrella is, to me, like calling any dish with mustard in it a 'mustard dish'.  While it's functionally true from my POV, it's not terribly useful to others.

The other thing that's common with the narrative game distaste is some of the rhetoric coming from the Forge, which has in many cases been anywhere from insulting to utterly insane.  This has caused a (perhaps understandable) backlash against anything derived from prominent folks on the Forge.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715343If the goal was to keep the core mechanics as similar as possible, but merely change the advice/commentary and conventions/approach - my guess is that one could create a clear "storygame" RPG and a clear "traditional" RPG - from the same core mechanics... with nothing other than the surrounding commentary/instructional text.

You could probably phrase a game without the narrative elements above as a narrative game, but I don't believe that the reverse is true.

Another reaction I see to storygames is to some of the advice - advice that basically just rehashes what grognards have done for years.  "Say yes" is a great example.  To grognards, it often sounds like you're not permitted to say not.  But that's not the intended audience of the advice - the intended audience is GMs who have decided that the way to get into the castle is to sneak through the cellar, and that's the only way.  So when players say that they want to scale the walls, those GMs say 'no, can't, wall's too high, too many guards.'  "Say yes" really just means "hey, give player plans a shot at succeeding."  But when it's heard by people that already do that without thinking, any application of that advice takes you into bizarre lands where players can do everything.

BTW, to be very clear to everyone, I've got nothing against grognards.  I like really old-school D&D and RPGs.  A lot of criticisms against grognards and older D&D and RPGs comes from a place of ignorance, and everyone should get a chance to play in a really old-school game at some point.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715343In essence, I agree with you that mechanics are not by any means the sole/primary means of differentiating a narrative/player-driven RPG from a traditional/gm-driven RPG.

I think that's an oversimplification, though it may be true for some games.

I do think there's a fundamental truth there, though, that a lot of times the difference between the two types of games boils not down to the mechanics, but *why* things go a certain way in a game, and the priorities given to certain aspects of play.

If you're meeting a spy in a city, who is that spy?  It might be some random person generated in a more traditional game, as that's what makes sense.  In a more narrative game, it turns out that it's your childhood enemy!  The GM needs a spy, but *which* spy it is will be based upon differing priorities.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715248Thus would you say that a table of people playing AD&D 1st edition or Twilight 2000 entirely in 3rd-person, have crossed a line into "storygame" territory?

No. Obviously, they're not playing a story-creation game. They don't get to create a story, they only get to play one character, albeit in third person.
Presumably those people don't value immersion the way I do. Maybe it makes them uncomfortable or they prefer to keep a bit of distance. But third person is also the standard mode in Play By Email - in PBEMs I write my PC actions third person, just like everyone else, and there's still a level of immersion there, or at least strong character-identification. And it's definitely still RPing, not storygaming.

Quote from: estar;715331My method of handling the absence of detail is to do what makes sense given the circumstances. If I marked the room as a study there is probably a desk. If it is the ballroom there is likely not.

Also follow the "Don't be a dick about it" rule as well. If the player makes a reasonable case the detail is there.

In most cases that I've seen, "declare a detail" isn't that far off of that.  If it's reasonable that something is true, then the GM will either decide or (my usual technique) give it a random chance.

Declaring a detail just gives you a (limited) ability to swing the answer from "maybe" to "yes."  But it shouldn't allow you to swing a "no" (either because it's illogical, or previously established otherwise) to a "yes."

Thanks for the opinions and insights everyone, much appreciated.

As a final question, does this site have a list for what it considers story-games vs. traditional roleplaying games?

Quote from: double8infinity8;715261Thanks Clash - I'm trying to understand the "war" a little better, and I'd like to participate on this site.

A bunch of people are Very Very Upset that other people play RPG's in a different way to them, and that there might be RPG's designed for people and play styles they don't personally like.

Cue years of stupid butthurt arguments, and communities more interested in a game's adherence to orthodoxy than whether it's fun or not, or even whether they're in the target audience for it.

Welcome aboard!  As you'll find, a good many of us are likewise refugees from RPGnet, and for much the same reason as you.  It's a reasonably tolerant bunch; the folks you tell to fuck off will talk to you all the same, more often than not, on the next thread over.

For my part, I'm likewise one of the people who think that the "war" is badly overblown, and the distinctions between "storygames" and (allegedly) "traditional" RPGs pretty silly.  Considering the huge gulf between my heavy-roleplaying GURPS Renaissance-fantasy campaign, with all but one of my current players having spent at least a decade at my table, and the gonzo VD&D dungeon crawls you'd get at college clubs in the mid-70s, where you'd sit down to play with people you'd never seen before and would never see again, and "roleplaying" would often mean folks would call their newly-rolled characters "Charlie the Cleric" instead of "my character," it's just plain trivial.  Tabletop, LARP, MMORPG, storygames, it's all good.

As far as your own approach goes, I'm quite the opposite; I'm militantly insistent on 1st-person at my table.  My invariable reaction to "I tell the NPC to ..." is to tap my chest and say "I'm right here.  Tell me."  No one sucks at acting enough to be incapable of delivering first-person dialogue to another human being: those of us who aren't hermits or Trappist monks do so every day of ours lives.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715248Looking at some of the debates here surrounding the whole "storygame" vs. "roleplaying game" categorization, it seems that a major element of "storygames" is that they entail a level of Out of Character perspective.  

3rd-person descriptions similarly entail a level of Out of Character perspective.

Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games

Roleplaying games feature mechanics associated to the game world in such a way that the mechanical decisions you make as a player are analogous and/or identical to the decisions being made by your character. The act of playing an RPG is the act of making decisions as if you were your character; i.e., it is the act of roleplaying.

Storytelling games feature mechanics which determine control over a given chunk of narrative or the actual outcome of a narrative chunk. The mechanical decisions you're making do not correspond to the decisions your character is making; ergo, the mechanical decisions are not roleplaying.

Describing your character's actions in 3rd person or 1st person is pretty much entirely tangential to the distinction between RPGs and STGs.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;715404Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games

Thanks I'll check that out shortly.

QuoteRoleplaying games feature mechanics associated to the game world in such a way that the mechanical decisions you make as a player are analogous and/or identical to the decisions being made by your character. The act of playing an RPG is the act of making decisions as if you were your character; i.e., it is the act of roleplaying.

Storytelling games feature mechanics which determine control over a given chunk of narrative or the actual outcome of a narrative chunk. The mechanical decisions you're making do not correspond to the decisions your character is making; ergo, the mechanical decisions are not roleplaying.

This seems like an o.k. distinction; but I haven't seen anything that precludes or obviates mechanical decisions corresponding to the decisions my character is making for any of the character-driven/narrative games I've read and/or played in.

For instance, every mechanical and descriptive decision I've made for my Halfling Burglar in the Torchbearer game I'm currently playing has been 100% based on "what my character would do".

I'm really not trying to be dense here; maybe it's just that my limited experience with "storygames" has so far been pretty much limited to Burning Wheel games, Sorceror, and Fate. Perhaps those are too hybridy/impure to make the distinction clear.

I haven't yet read the article you posted, but I'll do so soon. But, could you identify one or two solid-no-doubts-no-hybrid-straight-up-total storygames?  I'll then go ahead and check them out.
 

QuoteDescribing your character's actions in 3rd person or 1st person is pretty much entirely tangential to the distinction between RPGs and STGs.

So, 1st-person vs. 3rd-person is tangential, but in-character vs. out-of-character decision making is relevant?

Quote from: Ravenswing;715386Welcome aboard!  As you'll find, a good many of us are likewise refugees from RPGnet, and for much the same reason as you.  It's a reasonably tolerant bunch; the folks you tell to fuck off will talk to you all the same, more often than not, on the next thread over.

Thanks! And I'm glad to see that folks can be opinionated yet still manage to be adults over here!

QuoteFor my part, I'm likewise one of the people who think that the "war" is badly overblown, and the distinctions between "storygames" and (allegedly) "traditional" RPGs pretty silly.  Considering the huge gulf between my heavy-roleplaying GURPS Renaissance-fantasy campaign, with all but one of my current players having spent at least a decade at my table, and the gonzo VD&D dungeon crawls you'd get at college clubs in the mid-70s, where you'd sit down to play with people you'd never seen before and would never see again, and "roleplaying" would often mean folks would call their newly-rolled characters "Charlie the Cleric" instead of "my character," it's just plain trivial.  Tabletop, LARP, MMORPG, storygames, it's all good.

I can jive with this.  

QuoteAs far as your own approach goes, I'm quite the opposite; I'm militantly insistent on 1st-person at my table.  My invariable reaction to "I tell the NPC to ..." is to tap my chest and say "I'm right here.  Tell me."  No one sucks at acting enough to be incapable of delivering first-person dialogue to another human being: those of us who aren't hermits or Trappist monks do so every day of ours lives.

Heheh, that's cool. All a matter of perspective.

My perspective is that "I" am "me". So, I do not swing a sword at the NPC, my character swings his sword at the NPC.  I, on the other hand will roll the d20; or I'll mark off some hit points; or I'll choose to have my character do X instead of Y.

Generally, though, I find that for the sake of consistency and harmony at the table, that I'll adopt 1st-person if that's what everyone else is doing.  But I end up feeling further away from my character, and from the game, when doing so.

Quote from: estar;715331Because the Pundit has decreed it so. And you can tell him he stupid for doing it without being kicked off the site. Because that just how things roll around here.

And that, friends and neighbours, is what makes this site teh awesomsauce.

Quote from: double8infinity8;715417Thanks! And I'm glad to see that folks can be opinionated yet still manage to be adults over here!

Nobody said nothing about being adults; merely that they'll still talk to you. Welcome to the site!