I did a quick survey in another thread that I thought was interesting, so I thought I'd pull out the results here and maybe supplement them some more. I was testing the theory that Grey Ranks and Poison'd were at the forefront of storygames thinking, so I went to story-games.com and started counting discussion threads. It's not a perfect method - for example, if someone is posting a lot about Smallville in threads that don't have that in the subject line, it's not going to catch that. But I think it's got a good view of what people are interested enough in to think about and request discussion on in 2010-2011. (Pundit's weird "Google result counting" method of course includes people who hate a game, Amazon entries, and discussions from years past.)
Fiasco: 127
Apocalypse World: 126
Dungeons & Dragons (searched for "D&D"): 65
Hell For Leather: 25
Burning Wheel or Empires: 23
Diaspora: 23
Dresden Files: 23
Dogs in the Vineyard: 22
Smallville: 19
Happy Birthday, Robot!: 17
In A Wicked Age: 15
Mouse Guard: 14
3:16 : 13
Bliss Stage: 12
Trail of Cthulhu*: 12
Penny For My Thoughts: 10
Sorcerer: 10
Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple: 8
Leverage: 7
Vampire (any edition): 4
Shadowrun: 4
Call of Cthulhu: 3
Grey Ranks: 3
Spirit of the Century/"SOTC": 3
Mage (any edition): 2
The Shadow of Yesterday: 2
Poison'd: 2
Werewolf/Mafia/Are You The Traitor?: 2
Hollowpoint: 2
Stealing Cthulhu: 2
Hamlet's Hit Points: 1
Riddle of Steel: 1
My Life With Master: 1
Changeling (any edition): 1
Chess: 1
Trollbabe: 0
Kill Puppies for Satan: 0
Mutant City Blues*: 0
Esoterrorists*: 0
"Pathfinder" only gets 3 hits, but some of those 65 D&D threads were about D&D3.*, so make of that what you will.
* Gumshoe gets 1 hit speaking about it generally, not in connection with any specific game.
Any other games anyone wants me to check out?
And yes, this does include the members-only forum, which I think is just the forum discussion forum, now that the design stuff has been mostly moved to a separate sub-site, so I don't think there are very many hits there.
I'm thinking of doing a postcount analysis of this next, to see if some games generate more vigorous/controversial discussion than others.
On the topic of thoughts about storygames.
I like them. Especially Fiasco is a funny game - even if that's just a few rules for storytelling, and a bunch of tables henceforth. When I was a boyscout, we used to play in such matter practically each time at the campfire - now I am a older, much more bitter, so I guess I need a little mechanics to give my imagination a run for it's money.
I do like Apocalypse World, but I dislike Poison'd. Why?
Because AW, despite the "teh sex0rz", is what I find, a good game. While Poison'd, without all the needless rape, is just a poorer version of Fiasco in a pirate setting. In other words - it uses controversial subjects not to create interesting content (like Get Carter did), but instead it relies on cheap tricks to lure people into checking it out (like Saw series.)
Apocalypse World! I should have checked that one originally. It has 126 threads between 2010 and 2011. Clearly it has a lot of mindshare.
Pundit's theory is that Grey Ranks, which has 3 threads about it, is far more important to story gamers than Fiasco, and all this discussion is a smokescreen...they're all faking it!
Maybe counts for Sorcerer, Trollbabe, My Life With Master?
Riddle of Steel?
If we're trying to get relative counts of the particularly gross items, maybe include 'Kill Puppies for Satan' (at least, it sounds evil...) and 'Hell for Leather'.
Surprised DitV didn't get more love (did you search by acronym as well? Or for just 'Dogs'?).
Sorcerer: 10
Trollbabe: 3
(Actually Trollbabe has only had 6 topics about it in the entirety of the lifetime of story-games.)
Hell For Leather: 25. I was surprised by this one, lots of people played it and posted about it. Seems to be an over-the-top game in the style of HoL or Underground.
Kill Puppies For Satan: 0. The last topic about it on the site was in 2009. Since it's a parody game, it's not really surprising.
My Life With Master: 1 (also searched "MLWM")
Riddle of Steel: 1
Thanks for the reminder on Dogs. That adds 7 to the total. I'll update the original post.
How many hits for Spirit of the Century?
The concept of Fiasco sounds cool, but I haven't played it yet. Anyone here actually play it?
Quote from: Spinachcat;498326The concept of Fiasco sounds cool, but I haven't played it yet. Anyone here actually play it?
I'm trying to play it in PbP, and I'll probably give it a spin in a week or two. It does sound an interesting storytelling exercise.
So, what you are saying is that pundy is misrepresenting the storygames community and talking out of his ass.
I could have told you that without using google.
I actually used the built-in search on story-games.com. Pundy (that's so adorable!) was the one using Google and counting results.
Spirit of the Century/"SOTC" has 3 hits in 2010-2011.
I think a lot of the FATE games (Dresden, SOTC, Diaspora) are discussed in each other's threads too. Diaspora has 23 hits. I'll add them to the OP.
I've played a LOT of Fiasco. It deserves every accolade it's gotten.
Here are some interesting things about it from a traditional-gamer (I don't agree with the normal way this term is used either, by the by) point of view:
* The situation generator is entirely set up on random tables, called a "playset". Monthly free playsets have come out to set your Fiasco in areas as diverse as an Antarctic research station, New York in 1905, a WOW guild, and a touring rock band.
* You can choose to play Fiasco without ever resolving a situation. Every turn you announce whether you want to say where your character is and what they're doing there OR you want to say how the scene works out for the character. The second is more like GMing. But you can play every game of Fiasco forever without ever saying anything other than what your character does and says, if you want.
* Fiasco has a mechanic in the form of concluding a scene by selecting a die out of a pool. You can do it yourself or someone can do it when they feel the scene's concluded. Nobody has to say anything about it, they can just keep roleplaying, and push the die across to you, or you just pick it up without mentioning it. After that, play passes to the next player. This helps a lot of people with immersion.
I can answer 100 questions about Fiasco, I've played it a loooot (and helped with a very very early alpha of the game.) It's super fun and hilarious.
Have you tried doing "Dungeons and Dragons" in addition to "D&D" on your search. I suspect that may increase the numbers quite a bit.
This strikes me as something that is very hard to quantify though. Storygames.com is probably just a narrow slice of what is going on with the storygame movement (and that itself is not something I am terribly familiar with so bear with me). There are also plenty of pro-story gamers posting on more mainstream sites like ENworld, RPGnet, etc.
I actually think combining you and pundit's approach is going to yield a lot more data (like you say google searches will cover lots of ground and include anti-story game hits) but it does give you a much broader snapshot of how much the games themselves are being discussed (which is also important to the discussion). I think you need both. You need to see how much storygamers themselves are talking about something, but you also need to see how much that is impacting the larger gaming community. It may produce some interesting conclusions. For example, you could have a game that is marginally of interest to storygamers (even though it comes from the storygamer movement) but gets lots of play or lots of talk among traditional gamers.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;498516Have you tried doing "Dungeons and Dragons" in addition to "D&D" on your search. I suspect that may increase the numbers quite a bit.
I did that already actually.
QuoteThis strikes me as something that is very hard to quantify though. Storygames.com is probably just a narrow slice of what is going on with the storygame movement (and that itself is not something I am terribly familiar with so bear with me). There are also plenty of pro-story gamers posting on more mainstream sites like ENworld, RPGnet, etc.
Definitely true, but there is no "movement".
QuoteI actually think combining you and pundit's approach is going to yield a lot more data (like you say google searches will cover lots of ground and include anti-story game hits) but it does give you a much broader snapshot of how much the games themselves are being discussed (which is also important to the discussion). I think you need both. You need to see how much storygamers themselves are talking about something, but you also need to see how much that is impacting the larger gaming community.
The theory was that this was the forefront of
story game thought. I have no idea how something impacts "the larger gaming community", measuring that is impossible.
QuoteIt may produce some interesting conclusions. For example, you could have a game that is marginally of interest to storygamers (even though it comes from the storygamer movement) but gets lots of play or lots of talk among traditional gamers.
People who have search capabilities at other sites are welcome to do the same, I think it might be interesting? RPGNet's search doesn't work and I don't have an ENWorld or a Forge account, so...
I don't know if there's a blog aggregator people are interested in, that would be the only way to search those.
A Google search and then saying "well, poison'd has 879,000 hits, so therefore it's MUCH more important than Fiasco to story gamers in January 2012" is just flat stupid. Google finds everyone who ever said the word in any context, even if it was five years ago and was someone saying "Hey, I heard about this crap game? Haha, how stupid." It doesn't tell you anything about what's in the forefront of story-games thinking.
Remember that some of the data here (and what you point out about rpg.net people with an interest in story) can be explained by using my (wise, thoughtful) definition of story gaming that includes all play aimed at story, whatever the game system, instead of the (foolish, wicked) definition of story gaming that most people use, which has to do with what label we stick on a game book in the game store I guess. My definition accounts for the large number of threads about using D&D in story based ways. The widely used definition falls over and hits its head on a fence trying to do so.
Quote from: JDCorley;498525The theory was that this was the forefront of story game thought. I have no idea how something impacts "the larger gaming community", measuring that is impossible.
I can't really illuminate this much as I know little about the game and didn't really follow the discussion you and pundit had on the subject.
In terms of impacting the larger gaming community, you may have trouble quantifying it (just like you are going to have trouble quantifying something like how many people in a given town play D&D). But you can certainly find evidence of its impact through online discussions about it, blog entries, etc. For example, to take something I am a bit more familiar with, you can see that something like GNS theory has had an impact beyond places like the forge if you comb through threads on ENworld (which is a pretty mainstream gaming site, so I would include it in the "larger gaming community"). I've noticed lots of GNS terminology and concepts surface there (generally from a handful of posters, but it is still having an impact on the discussion).
QuotePeople who have search capabilities at other sites are welcome to do the same, I think it might be interesting? RPGNet's search doesn't work and I don't have an ENWorld or a Forge account, so...
I only post here and Enworld. For RPGnet, you can always do a google search with the search term + "rpg.net" (that is how I find things there).
QuoteI don't know if there's a blog aggregator people are interested in, that would be the only way to search those.
You may just have to do a google search and choose your key words well. I think with blogs it would be more about finding representative examples than getting pure numbers (since it is going to take a lot more than a simple search to get any substantive data on blogs in that respect). But if you find 10 blogs about the game in question and examine how each addresses it, that is information that could be useful.
QuoteA Google search and then saying "well, poison'd has 879,000 hits, so therefore it's MUCH more important than Fiasco to story gamers in January 2012" is just flat stupid. Google finds everyone who ever said the word in any context, even if it was five years ago and was someone saying "Hey, I heard about this crap game? Haha, how stupid." It doesn't tell you anything about what's in the forefront of story-games thinking.
It is just another data point, but shouldn't be discounted. If you do a google search of poisn'd and fiasco and compare those two numbers, that still tells you something. It doesn't give you a conclusion without more data. But it is an important thing to know. If more people are googling fiasco or if more people are googline poison'd that is significant.
QuoteRemember that some of the data here (and what you point out about rpg.net people with an interest in story) can be explained by using my (wise, thoughtful) definition of story gaming that includes all play aimed at story, whatever the game system, instead of the (foolish, wicked) definition of story gaming that most people use, which has to do with what label we stick on a game book in the game store I guess. My definition accounts for the large number of threads about using D&D in story based ways. The widely used definition falls over and hits its head on a fence trying to do so.
I think the issue is you have to deal with things as they are, not as you wish them to be. If you use a different definition of storygaming than the vast majority of people use, it will lead to confusion, but I think it will also produce a somewhat skewed analysis. I am not saying you shouldn't advocate for your definition if you think it is better, but I don't think it should be used to amass information on the subject as it exists. I don't really have interest in storygames one way or another personally, so it isn't like I have a dog in the fight. But your definition strikes me as overly broad. There is a lot of gray area in this debate because it is really more of a spectrum (like say heavy metal categories, or musical genres) than a concrete thing. Your definition, IMO, may absorb too much of the gray area (where people talk about story say but not in the way most people think when they use the term story game).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;498539In terms of impacting the larger gaming community, you may have trouble quantifying it (just like you are going to have trouble quantifying something like how many people in a given town play D&D). But you can certainly find evidence of its impact through online discussions about it, blog entries, etc. For example, to take something I am a bit more familiar with, you can see that something like GNS theory has had an impact beyond places like the forge if you comb through threads on ENworld (which is a pretty mainstream gaming site, so I would include it in the "larger gaming community"). I've noticed lots of GNS terminology and concepts surface there (generally from a handful of posters, but it is still having an impact on the discussion).
Right, but how would you compare 100 posts from 2 posters to 100 posts from 80 posters? You could only do it by counting posts and assigning them to particular posters? That would be way too involved. But in the second case, the impact on what gamers are thinking/talking about would be far more significant.
QuoteI only post here and Enworld. For RPGnet, you can always do a google search with the search term + "rpg.net" (that is how I find things there).
It doesn't work for finding what's happening in 2010-2011 - rpg.net's copyright notice at the bottom of each page causes a google hit for every year it's been open.
QuoteYou may just have to do a google search and choose your key words well.
Not really, remember, Google doesn't find stuff by year (at least not in terms of hits).
QuoteBut if you find 10 blogs about the game in question and examine how each addresses it, that is information that could be useful.
Sure...I'm not very active on blogs, though. It could be good for someone who is.
QuoteI think the issue is you have to deal with things as they are, not as you wish them to be. If you use a different definition of storygaming than the vast majority of people use, it will lead to confusion, but I think it will also produce a somewhat skewed analysis.
That's why I only used topic headings rather than looking at (say) individual posts on ENWorld and trying to decide if someone would consider it a story-gamer post or not.
QuoteBut your definition strikes me as overly broad. There is a lot of gray area in this debate because it is really more of a spectrum (like say heavy metal categories, or musical genres) than a concrete thing. Your definition, IMO, may absorb too much of the gray area (where people talk about story say but not in the way most people think when they use the term story game).
I agree there's a spectrum, but that's all right. You can still define what pop music is even if it shades into rock or electronic or jazz at various points on the spectrum. Remember, my definition is far
less harsh in terms of where lines are drawn than the widely-used-and-wrong definition. Your objection actually applies to the widely-used definition more than to mine.
Actually, I just thought of Google Trends. "Poison'd" and "Grey Ranks" don't have enough hits to be ranked at all - ever. Nobody searched for those terms in enough quantity, in any year, to rank on Google Trends.
For contrast, here's Apocalypse World (http://www.google.com/trends?q=apocalypse+world&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1).
Quote from: JDCorley;498542Right, but how would you compare 100 posts from 2 posters to 100 posts from 80 posters? You could only do it by counting posts and assigning them to particular posters? That would be way too involved. But in the second case, the impact on what gamers are thinking/talking about would be far more significant.
You have to begin with a method. The simple way is to discount multiple posts by the same person (or have some formula if you think a large volume of multiple posts are significant). But this is an issue you will face no matter what you are looking for. Even your search of posts on storygames.com is going to suffer from the multiple poster issue.
You can also refrain from drawing any conclusion and just put the numbers out there: "I did a google search for this game and a million hits came up, make of that what you will."
QuoteIt doesn't work for finding what's happening in 2010-2011 - rpg.net's copyright notice at the bottom of each page causes a google hit for every year it's been open
Not really, remember, Google doesn't find stuff by year (at least not in terms of hits)..
Online searches are very imperfect tools. This is one of the issues you run into anytime you try to do this. Have you tried including the date in the search "game name" and "2010" and "2011"?
QuoteThat's why I only used topic headings rather than looking at (say) individual posts on ENWorld and trying to decide if someone would consider it a story-gamer post or not.
I think looking at individual posts and combing for content is probably better when limited to smaller samples and done to dig into what is actually going on online (i.e. in a survey of 30 EN world threads, 20 people appeared to be advocating "gamism" in D&D, but 100 people seemed confused by the concept----totally made up example ).
QuoteI agree there's a spectrum, but that's all right. You can still define what pop music is even if it shades into rock or electronic or jazz at various points on the spectrum. Remember, my definition is far less harsh in terms of where lines are drawn than the widely-used-and-wrong definition. Your objection actually applies to the widely-used definition more than to mine.
But you have to be very careful with spectrums. There is a lot of baroque styling in heavy metal music from the 80s, but it wouldn't be correct to classify Bach as a heavy metal composer.
If you broaden the definition too much it ends up being meaningless (and it also doesn't address the underlying things people are talking about when they argue over story games, immersion, etc----it sidesteps it). Again, I am not claiming to have a handle on the actual definition. I am not that into whether something falls into story game or not. But if I am going to have a conversation with people about "story games" or "old school games" or "rules heavy games" I am going to try to work with the definition most people use. Because if I come in with a new definition of those things, then I am really talking about something other than what everyone else is.
Keep in mind, I am not neccessarily disputing your definition, because I don't know what it is. I was just responding to your point that you are employing a new definition that isn't widely accepted. So when it comes to specifics, it is entirely possible I agree with you.
Quote from: JDCorley;498547Actually, I just thought of Google Trends. "Poison'd" and "Grey Ranks" don't have enough hits to be ranked at all - ever. Nobody searched for those terms in enough quantity, in any year, to rank on Google Trends.
For contrast, here's Apocalypse World (http://www.google.com/trends?q=apocalypse+world&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1).
Do you know what the cutoff point is for it to be ranked?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;498552Do you know what the cutoff point is for it to be ranked?
It varies with time because Google is getting more and more traffic as time goes on. It was lower in January 2004 (when Trends data began to be collected) than it is today. Google doesn't give a specific number. The "about" Trends page (http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html) is pretty interesting as to how they normalize the data. Uh, if you're a math nerd like myself.
I am pretty sure that a sizeable number of poison'd threads google finds are on this very forum.
Those are interesting results. I wouldn't categorize our Diaspora as a story-game, per se, but it gets high results mostly because it sold a lot of copies so it has penetration. Hollowpoint, on the other hand, really only has one thread that I know of (I don't actually hang out there any more so I don't know if there are any new ones) and it is certainly has more to do with 3:16 or Fiasco than more traditional tactical-simulation-core games.
So I'm not sure what this information does, but it is interesting. It's a popularity contest Hollowpoint lost (though sales are good for its niche) and I wouldn't mind understanding how. I expect in part it's because we didn't ask for input on the design from game designers.
There's no question that games that are designed by story-games regulars get a lot of chatter. Also, I've noticed that story-games podcasters drive a lot of discussion.
Hollowpoint has 2...I mentioned it on my podcast a couple of times and have been meaning to come back to check it out in more detail.
3:16 has 13.
Edit: Updated original post.
Double-edit: Also, I don't think "popularity contest" is quite right. A number of Fiasco threads were people saying "what am I doing wrong" or "why didn't this work" or "how can I do this better", which is not exactly ringing endorsement/popularity. It's more what people are thinking about/considering with respect to their play.
Quote from: Brad J. Murray;498973So I'm not sure what this information does, but it is interesting. It's a popularity contest Hollowpoint lost (though sales are good for its niche) and I wouldn't mind understanding how. I expect in part it's because we didn't ask for input on the design from game designers.
brad, I make Terror Network and Crime Network which are in a similar niche to hollow point (though very different in style and focus) so I do a lot of forum searches for discussions on the genre to see what people are saying. I see a lot of people suggest Hollowpoint in threads (even if the thread itself isn't about hollowpoint itself). Chances are if someone in a thread mentions Fiasco, Blowback, etc, Hollowpoint also comes up. I've been impressed by the amount of attention it has attracted.
Quote from: JDCorley;499018There's no question that games that are designed by story-games regulars get a lot of chatter. Also, I've noticed that story-games podcasters drive a lot of discussion.
Hollowpoint has 2...I mentioned it on my podcast a couple of times and have been meaning to come back to check it out in
Double-edit: Also, I don't think "popularity contest" is quite right. A number of Fiasco threads were people saying "what am I doing wrong" or "why didn't this work" or "how can I do this better", which is not exactly ringing endorsement/popularity. It's more what people are thinking about/considering with respect to their play.
JD: where do you place Gumshoe on the spectrum, out of curiosity.
I ask because I've noticed reviewers and players who like gumshoe tend to run into issues with how our games approach investigations (which is cool, because we aren't trying to do the same thing as gumshoe). I always assumed it was because Gumshoe takes more of a storygame approach and we take a more traditional approach. But interested if you view it as a storygame or not.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;499404brad, I make Terror Network and Crime Network which are in a similar niche to hollow point (though very different in style and focus) so I do a lot of forum searches for discussions on the genre to see what people are saying. I see a lot of people suggest Hollowpoint in threads (even if the thread itself isn't about hollowpoint itself). Chances are if someone in a thread mentions Fiasco, Blowback, etc, Hollowpoint also comes up. I've been impressed by the amount of attention it has attracted.
Oh yeah, in general I'm really pleased with the chatter (especially on G+) it's just the story-games site itself that disappoints me. In fact it's that the chatter is brisk elsewhere and silent there that makes the place feel like a clique to me -- the silence is weird and disproportionate.
I may have made up that last word -- I ate a fair amount of codeine for my back.
Well, remember I think it's pointless to point to a product and say "this is a story game", instead you should point to a campaign or session and say "this is a story game". I know some people play Gumshoe focused on winning/beating the mystery before they're out of points, so those people would not be playing a story game, since their intent is not to focus on story. But those that are trying to express a character, resolve a conflict, pace a story with the investigation points, replicate a procedural story, etc., those people are story gaming and their Gumshoe game is a story game.
I like Terror Network et seq. quite a bit, I've mentioned it on the podcast several times.
Gumshoe got 1 hit.
Trail of Cthulhu got 12.
Mutant City Blues hasn't been discussed since 2009, Esoterrorists since 2007.
Because that gave me an idea:
Call of Cthulhu/CoC got 3 hits.
Stealing Cthulhu got 2 hits.
Quote from: Brad J. Murray;499427Oh yeah, in general I'm really pleased with the chatter (especially on G+) it's just the story-games site itself that disappoints me. In fact it's that the chatter is brisk elsewhere and silent there that makes the place feel like a clique to me -- the silence is weird and disproportionate.
I may have made up that last word -- I ate a fair amount of codeine for my back.
Haha, no, it's a word. Yeah, it's definitely interested in what it's interested in. It's not a general site trying to talk about all RPG play. Like, Robin Laws' Hamlet's Hit Points, which has an interesting diagramming system to help pace/direct flow in story play, it has 1 thread. Ever. It don't make it a bad product, it just never turned story-games.com on for whatever reason.
Quote from: Brad J. Murray;499427Oh yeah, in general I'm really pleased with the chatter (especially on G+) it's just the story-games site itself that disappoints me. In fact it's that the chatter is brisk elsewhere and silent there that makes the place feel like a clique to me -- the silence is weird and disproportionate.
I may have made up that last word -- I ate a fair amount of codeine for my back.
It looks like a pretty small community on that site to me, so it probably has a lot to do with the lack of chatter. Whereas on RPGnet you are getting a huge cross-section of gamers.
Quote from: JDCorley;499428I like Terror Network et seq. quite a bit, I've mentioned it on the podcast several times.
.
Thanks, I appreciate it. Terror Network sold a lot more than Crime Network. Unfortunately it was our first book so it doesn't have as much polish. Hopefully I will get out a revised edition in the next year or so (nothing major, as I want it to be backwards compatible with all the TN modules---some slight streamlining, editing, new art, updating, etc).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;499434Thanks, I appreciate it. Terror Network sold a lot more than Crime Network. Unfortunately it was our first book so it doesn't have as much polish. Hopefully I will get out a revised edition in the next year or so (nothing major, as I want it to be backwards compatible with all the TN modules---some slight streamlining, editing, new art, updating, etc).
Not a problem, and that's cool about a new edition, if I miss it on the drivethrurpg feed and you want me to tease/give the audience an update, drop me a PM and we'll work out how to get me a copy.
Quote from: JDCorley;499441Not a problem, and that's cool about a new edition, if I miss it on the drivethrurpg feed and you want me to tease/give the audience an update, drop me a PM and we'll work out how to get me a copy.
Sent a PM to you JD. When it comes out I will be sure to notify you.
What is your podcast?
Quote from: Brad J. Murray;499427Oh yeah, in general I'm really pleased with the chatter (especially on G+) it's just the story-games site itself that disappoints me. In fact it's that the chatter is brisk elsewhere and silent there that makes the place feel like a clique to me -- the silence is weird and disproportionate.
I may have made up that last word -- I ate a fair amount of codeine for my back.
Storygames feels cliquish to me, too. But then so does this place and rpg.net. I think most forums are.