Good day,

I'm new to this forum. Since arrival I have heard the use of the term "storytelling game," often preceded and followed by colorful adjectives. What exactly is a "storytelling game?" And why is it so disliked herein?

Cheers!

The forum has a search function for your needs.

Then you can read countless threads on this very subject without the need to add another (this one).

No offense, but we don't need another thread like this at the moment, so i'm closing it while you do your search thing.

As i received such a polite PM from the opening poster, i'm re-opening the thread - but it's moved to other games.

I take no responsibility for what follows in the next X pages.

Quote from: Andy Day;668265Good day,

I'm new to this forum. Since arrival I have heard the use of the term "storytelling game," often preceded and followed by colorful adjectives. What exactly is a "storytelling game?" And why is it so disliked herein?

Cheers!

For the purposes of this forum, it's sufficient to say that the term is used to describe stuff that falls outside the bounds of traditional RPGs, while not being part of some other clearly-defined genre (such as board games, CCGs, wargames, etc.) I'm afraid that might not help you discover what unique traits set storygames apart from all the other not-RPG tabletop games, but that's how things are here, since this forum is predominantly about traditional RPGs.

If you want better info on storygames themselves, there are dedicated forums about them that might be worth exploring.

Quote from: Andy Day;668265I'm new to this forum. Since arrival I have heard the use of the term "storytelling game," often preceded and followed by colorful adjectives. What exactly is a "storytelling game?" And why is it so disliked herein?

Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games

STGs feature narrative control mechanics: The mechanics of the game are either about determining who controls a particular chunk of the narrative or they’re actually about determining the outcome of a particular narrative chunk.

They're disliked here because:

(a) The owner of the site believes that there is a vast conspiracy of "swine" who are trying to destroy RPGs by getting people to play STGs.

(b) A significant percentage of the posters here are troglodytes who have stuck their heads up their own asses in an effort to catch a sniff of the nostalgia that's metastasizing inside of them. They're terrified of anything that didn't exist when they were 16 years old.

Having transformed the concept of "storytelling game" into a boogeyman, the most recent trend has been to take any RPG that does anything deemed "non-traditional" and declaring it to have failed a purity test. Unusual dice mechanic? You're an STG. Non-standard attribute breakdown? You're an STG. Player-faced mechanics? You're an STG.

Diceless games get a pass on this, however, because the site owner recently published a diceless RPG.

To answer the OP, youre going to get a lot of definitions of 'storygames' around here ( or anywhere online) , and find many varying ideas on whether a game being a 'storygame' means its not also an rpg. This is further complicated by the decisions of the Pundit as to which forum a game belongs in, often made without explanation and perhaps muddied by his 'war on swine'.

It all really started with James Wallis Adventures of Baron Munchausen rpg' by Hogshead publishing. Despite being titled an rpg, it actually was a round-table storytelling game that was written as an amusing parody of rpgs. Wallis himself admited it wasnt an actual rpg and somewhat tongue in cheek told Paul Mason he'd just called it that to 'get some money out of the d20 crowd'. Funny enough at the time. Meanwhile, online The now-defunct forum for game design 'The Forge' was strongly pushing the idea that all game systems should be hyper-focused on one style of play, and for somse of the forgeites that meant a game that was entirely narrative in nature, with players and the gm co-authors of a story.

Thus was born the storygsme movement. Perhaps the best (undisputable) exampl come from mWP: games like Smallville & Marvel Heroic. Storygames differ from traditional rpgs in two main ways: 1) instead of taking on the role of their character, the player takes on the role of that character's author. Almost all decisions made are from this omniscient 3rd person view. Granted, this can be done in almost any traditional rpg, but storygames enforce this metagame stance with the rules. 2) As the gm is viewed as a 'fellow collaborator', their respo sibilities as referee, judge, and world-creators are spread out among the players, so that instead of the rules being a tool for the gm to use, the gm is expected to follow the rules like a player, and their role is oftèn greatly diminished.

As to how any of this makes it 'not an rpg'...well, thats the cause of a lot of argu ents, especially in reaction to the more pretentious posters who feel they're entitled to define the hobby. And, while its very clear in cases like Smallville, that one is playing a radically different type of game than, say, D&D, there are many cases whère the divide isnt so clear, and for some posters its become more of a polîtical stance, based largèly on hipocrisy and ig orance (ie never actually playing the game), to declare games storygames based on their author and the author's friends.

Story games are games where the primary goal of the game is to generate collaborative fiction.

They most often feature player control of 'narrative' rather than that being the province of a single Games Master acting referee.

For this reason there are often strict rules confine what the Games Master can do, often measured by some form of token.

There is no single test that can determine if a game is like this or not, it is most often measured through the game's tone, content and advice given.

Many people do not enjoy this kind of play.

I think TE and jadrax are pretty bang on.

To continue, some of the problem comes from a few people that think point 2 itself is enough to define a game as a storygame, even when the game is otherwise not narrative in goals or structure, making the term a misleading and inacurate term for any game that takes away power from the gm. This ks further complicated by the fact that games have been using story and stories as a metaphor for explaining the activity of rpgs since AD&D. The first game to call itself a 'storytelling game', Princè Valiant, is in fact not a storygame buta trad rpg. In the 90s White Wolf took to calling their games 'storytelling games' ànd even waxed on pretentiously about narrative play, but the system itself (actually a combo of Prince Valiant and DC Heroes) was strictly a trad rpg.

Meanwhile, there have been a number of rpgs that try to restrict gm power, or assume the gm should be following rules like players, often created as a misguided attempt to 'protect players' from bad gms, but are otherwise trad rpgs, such as Burning Wheel or Agon. Even 4th ed D&D may fit ths description, depending on who one talks to. These, however, are erreneously called storygames by some, to the point 'story' as a descriptive term becomes as meaningless as the 'punk' in 'steampunk'.

Well said TE.

Quote from: TristramEvans;668329In the 90s White Wolf took to calling their games 'storytelling games' ànd even waxed on pretentiously about narrative play, but the system itself (actually a combo of Prince Valiant and DC Heroes) was strictly a trad rpg.

It's worth noting that the actual name of the system which White Wolf has been using for the new World of Darkness games since 2004 is "Storytelling", so that's what their fans are likely to mean by the term.

"We call the game you hold in your hands a Storytelling game, because it's an opportunity for you to participate in the deeply human endeavor of telling stories." --from The World of Darkness, page 17.

Quote from: One Horse Town;668303As i received such a polite PM from the opening poster, i'm re-opening the thread

Good show!

It should be pointed out the the first people to differentiate story games and RPGs were story game fans and authors.

The whole pretense that they're just the same and we're all old fuddy duddys for not liking them is new.

Quote from: Piestrio;668369It should be pointed out the the first people to differentiate story games and RPGs were story game fans and authors.

The whole pretense that they're just the same and we're all old fuddy duddys for not liking them is new.

I think the newer premise came about when old fuddy-duddies started calling any rpg they didnt like a 'storygame', so that in many cases you could replace the word storygame with 'newfangled'.

Quote from: TristramEvans;668371I think the newer premise came about when old fuddy-duddies started calling any rpg they didnt like a 'storygame', so that in many cases you could replace the word storygame with 'newfangled'.

Obviously (at least it should be obvious), new games are going to arise from older games. RPGs were a bastard form of wargames, and story games are a bastard form of RPGs. At least to hear the grognards talk about it. That new kid D&D was NOT an Avalon Hill simulation of The Battle of the Bulge, and thus an inferior waste of time.

While I don't necessarily like story games, they're certainly a valid form of spending time if you enjoy them. My main issue with the whole "shared narrative" aspect is simply that it doesn't really seem like a game anymore, and is more closely related to swapping stories around a campfire. Oddly enough, it's a far older form of entertainment than RPGs, wargames, or pretty much anything else.

So my real question is, why do I need 400 pages of rules to explain how to play "let's tell a story together"? If you're going to use that level of detail, aren't you really taking something away from the most important part of the game: the narrative aspect?