Quote from: CRKrueger;910367Well, when it comes to the idea of defining a Roleplaying Game, or more specifically, a subtype of Roleplaying Game, or hybrid perhaps, what should be the primary discriminant?  I'll agree there may be multiple axes, but in the end, what type of game are we describing?

A roleplaying game is a game where the focus is on playing a character interacting with an imagined setting where the players actions and knowledge are limited to what the character can do or know within the setting.

Now for tabletop, the interactions are handled by a human referee.
For CRPGs and MMORPGs, the interactions are handled by algorithms running on a computer. For CRPGs the game is self contained with everything running on the player's computer. For MMORPGs, the game is running on a server which is handling thousands of characters interacting with the setting and each other.

For live-action, the interactions are handled in part by sporting rules designs to emulate the setting, and the rest by a human event staff handling adjudications when needed, and running the NPCs characters.

All these are roleplaying game where the focus is playing character interacting with a setting.

It is not the rules that make a game a RPG but the focus of the campaign that is run using those rules.

The clearest example of the difference is Metagaming's Melee/Wizards vs. The Fantasy Trip.

While Melee/Wizards features the players playing individual character the focus of the game was on a competition between opposing sides where each player's characters fight out. That was the point of both initial releases of Melee/Wizard.

Of course because it handled individual combat and spell casting it was obvious to the people of the time that could be used as the foundation for a complete RPG. And because it sold well, metagaming did the work to take Melee and Wizard and make a follow up versions that were part of the Th Fantasy Trip RPG.

Another example of the divide is SPI Freedom in the Galaxy and WEG's Star War RPG. Both address the exact same premise of the Star Wars film. Both had individual character, a galaxy spanning rebellion where control of individual planet was important, and starship/ground combat. However Freedom in the Galaxy is a wargame because the focus was on a Rebel Player trying to defeat an Imperial Player while the focus of Star Wars RPG was to play a character interacting with the Star Wars setting.

However Freedom in the Galaxy could be used as an RPG and the Star Wars RPG could be run as a wargame. I could say the result would be that great but I have known people who had done just that. I seen SPI's Middle Earth wargame and SPI' Swords & Sorcery also used as an RPG. The reason both featured detailed character stats and individual combat as part of the overall wargame.

In the end is not the game that makes a set of rules an RPG but whether you use those rules to run an RPG campaign.

One reason is there is a so much debate is that even today people are used to thinking that a game is the sum of it rules. However what revolunatary about RPGs are not the rules but rather the structure and flow of a RPG campaign. That was the part that Arneson and Gygax created that was never seen before. That why despite the use of roleplaying in psychology, Gygax and Arneson are THE creators of roleplaying games. They were first to put together all the pieces to create a template called the RPG campaign that anybody can learn and follow.

Run a campaign one way it is a wargame, run it another way with the same set of rules it is a rpg, run it a third way again with using the same rules it is a story-game. It not the rule but what the group does with the rules that make it one thing or the other.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910175What he's describing is essentially a scale, not a binary switch, based around the following element: In a story game, a player’s ability to affect what happens in the game is not dependent on their character’s fictional ability to do those things. In other words, OOC mechanics, player-facing mechanics, whatever term you want to use.

True, we can agree on that:).
And if we could come to a conclusion which mechanics are those, which applied in all cases*, it would actually be an useful distinction...

But as it stands, it's about as useful as "the games the RPG Pundit dislikes", minus the ability to just ask the Pundit;).

*I mean apart from obvious cases like "I spend a meta-resource to have something happen". Is a Luck point, when used to negate penalties to a roll, a matter of effort, or the favour of the Goddess of Luck?
What about a world where the Goddess of Luck is proven to exist?
What about the same point allowing you to keep fighting after a hit to an often-lethal location, because the attack didn't hit a blood vessel, or otherwise was less fatal than it could have been?

And then we come to the fact that some people divorce the Might attribute from physical might, and make it about "how much results you can achieve in the current storline using your physical ability". Meaning the couch potato might have higher Might than the body-builder:D.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;910414This has been explained and addressed more than 10 years ago.

Talked about. Not addressed.

QuoteWhile it is true that the "goal" of playing is a characteristic of the group and of the campaign, it is also true thay you can design a game which pushes the group and the campaign in one specific direction so strongly that they are effectively selecting the "goal" for the group. If you try to use them for something different, the game rules frustrate your intentions and ultimately induce you into playing something else, eventually posting "This game sucks!" on some forums.

Then avoid the fallacy of reification and discuss the games and the game rules, not the gamers.

QuoteSimple example: compare RuneQuest and Pendragon. One comes straight from the other, but while RuneQuest does NOT make choices for you, allowing you to play dungeon crawls, quests for money, revenge tales, quests for glory, community adventures, order vs. chaos, evil vs. good, and basically anything that could have a resemblance to a fantasy tale (and definitely leaving the task of incentivizing the playstyle that the group is looking for, if any, to the GM), Pendragon uses a slightly modified RuneQuest engine to support and produce one and ONLY one of the aforementioned experience: the quest for glory of Righteous and Virtuous knights. Trying to play with other goals in mind will disrupt your fun (unless you hack the game, as someone does, but this is a demonstration of what I am stating: you need to change the rules to allow them to support the group's goal if different from the one Greg Stafford originally intended).

Except the rules of Pendragon don't provide a play experience of Righteous and Virtuous knights pursuing glory. The rules allow that, but the exact same rules allow a quest for glory by wicked, cruel, and vengeful knights...or as is quite commonly seen in a game of Pendragon, lustful, boastful, but generous knights. The quest for glory is there in the game, because Glory is what Pendragon calls it's experience points. With a minor modification to the system for calculating Glory for other types of actions than defeating knights and monsters and winning tournaments one could incentivize almost any sort of behavior. Moreover, the passions and traits system used in Pendragon was first developed to roleplay inhuman dragonewts in Glorantha not Arthurian Knights. Subsequent to its use in Pendragon, Dave Dunham used the passions and traits system and the Pendragon combat system to play human barbarians (Orlanthi and Grazelanders mostly) in Dragon Pass in his Pendragon Pass rules. Which adapt Runequest spells to the Pendragon combat system and add in Gloranthan cultural views on what traits and passions are valued.

QuoteConclusion: while the ultimate arbiter of the goal is the group, some games, like Pendragon, do have a goal of their own. The technical term is that they "promote" that specific goal, to be precise. But saying that they "have" a goal is probably easier to understand for a casual reader.

Then talk about the rules. Venger's definition ignores the rules.  

QuoteThis is reasonable. Goals are non-measurable, while mechanics are. And definitions are better tied to measurable, verifiable quantities. The point is that the verifiabel definition should not be misleading.

I agree the definition of a story game should be tied to the mechanics of the story game. Venger's definition says nothing about rules. Only what the goals of the players happen to be.

QuoteDoes this make this "hardcore forgie" game a "non-storygame", then?

Maybe it does. I never played it nor read it. What, other than the vague and uninformative "forgie" label, leads you to claim that it is not?

Quote from: estar;910431It is not the rules that make a game a RPG but the focus of the campaign that is run using those rules.

Its not the campaign.

QuoteA roleplaying game is a game where the focus is on playing a character interacting with an imagined setting where the players actions and knowledge are limited to what the character can do or know within the setting.

This definition applies equally to a campaign or to a one-shot.

QuoteIn the end is not the game that makes a set of rules an RPG but whether you use those rules to run an RPG campaign.

Again no.

The idea and practice of running campaigns came from miniatures wargaming which had already used the continuity of this week's setup is shaped by what happened last week and this week's outcomes will shape next week's setup as well as the experience and training can improve the abilities of units that is key to the traditional Arnesonian and Gygaxian D&D campaign. Roleplaying and campaigns are disconnected. You can have either one without using the other.

I see a couple of different aspects that have been brought up, including: (1) players attention and focus during the game, (2) use of out-of-character mechanics by players, (3) focus on action other than fighting. I think a lot of people tend to associate these together.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910367The easiest way to challenge a definition is of course to point out an obvious example that should fall under the definition, but doesn't.  You mentioned some games that didn't meet that definition even though we might agree they are Storygames, so what are the specific games?

I think this is a good idea to focus on specific cases of games. Estar brought up the cases of Melee/Wizard and Freedom in the Galaxy - which have purely in-character mechanics but aren't considered RPGs generally.

There are also games considered story games that don't have out-of-character mechanics. Rosen McStern brought up 3:16 - Carnage Among the Stars. I think a stronger case is a game like "The Mothers" where you play mothers struggling with post-partum depression. Everything you do is in-character - you're just talking about your problems, and what's been happening with your body, and so forth. However, I think most people would characterize it more as a story game than a role-playing game. Likewise with "Sign", where you play deaf children in Nicaragua learning to communicate.

Some games have very abstracted mechanics, like Tunnels & Trolls where all of combat is summed up as just trying to beat the combined opponents' total.

Conversely, in a game like My Life With Master - the players don't have out-of-character abilities per se, but resolution is highly abstracted into only certain rolls against the stats of Love, Self-Loathing, and Weariness.

Quote from: jhkim;910459I think a stronger case is a game like "The Mothers" where you play mothers struggling with post-partum depression.

That sounds like the type of roleplaying exercise one might see in either an acting or a counseling workshop. But as described, it doesn't sound like a game.

Quote from: Bren;910445The idea and practice of running campaigns came from miniatures wargaming which had already used the continuity of this week's setup is shaped by what happened last week and this week's outcomes will shape next week's setup as well as the experience and training can improve the abilities of units that is key to the traditional Arnesonian and Gygaxian D&D campaign. Roleplaying and campaigns are disconnected. You can have either one without using the other.

I am well aware that overall, campaigns are a series of interrelated sessions of gameplay. But like novels, plays, films, sports, there are specific types of campaigns.  The type I was referring to are tabletop roleplaying campaigns, focused on playing characters interacting with an imagined setting.  My point that another type of campaign, one that is focused on collaborative storytelling has developed over the years. And that what the campaign is focused on is the significant difference not the rules.

I will state the obvious that of course it easier and less work to use a set of rules where the author focuses on running storygame campaigns versus rules where the author focuses on a traditional roleplaying campaign. However when you start designing rules focused on defining individual characters and what they can do what you get is extraordinary flexible so there is considerable overlap in utility despite the differences in focus. As well as the fact both types of campaigns deal with a setting that potentially could be an entire world with everything in it. Again something that inherently flexible.

And the campaign format itself is likely inherently flexible. There is no reason that a part of a campaign can be run using a wargame, another use a tabletop roleplaying game, and another part still using a storygame. But as a rule this extreme form of kitbashing is the exception not the norm.

The combination of the flexibility of all three of these elements means that there is never going to be a hard and fast line. Instead there is going to be a spectrum. But it is useful to understand exactly where things become clearly one thing or another because that helps the group to pick the best tools for them to run the campaign they want.

From personal experience, the consideration I have to make for a miniature wargaming campaign are not the same for tabletop roleplaying campaign, which are not the same for the story game campaign I participated nor the same for CRPGS, MMORPGS, and LARP campaigns. There were some common elements between all of them but differences in focuses meant what I had to do to prepare, play, and manage them are also different.

In short I know what damn campaign is and it history.

Quote from: jhkim;910459There are also games considered story games that don't have out-of-character mechanics. Rosen McStern brought up 3:16 - Carnage Among the Stars. I think a stronger case is a game like "The Mothers" where you play mothers struggling with post-partum depression. Everything you do is in-character - you're just talking about your problems, and what's been happening with your body, and so forth. However, I think most people would characterize it more as a story game than a role-playing game. Likewise with "Sign", where you play deaf children in Nicaragua learning to communicate.

Your example here illustrate why I feel that the issues is that there are two different types of campaigns have different focuses and it not the rules that define the different. I see a lot of games embraced and lauded by the storygame communities that don't have a lot of or any metagame mechanics. The use of metagame mechanics appears to be common but it not a hard and fast rule.

My opinion what is a hard and fast rules is what the group is focused on when running the campaign itself. Are they playing together to create a story? Or they pretending to be people in some other place and/or time.

And there can be and are hybrid with groups do a little bit of both. For example in Ars Magica, the covenant is a result of a collaboration between everybody participating in the campaign. And there is more than a few paragraph devoted to how a group can rotate the responsibilities of being the referee.  However the expectation is that at any one time, there is a referee doing the adjudication, and the players can only do what the character they are playing at the time can do.

Quote from: estar;910466My point that another type of campaign, one that is focused on collaborative storytelling has developed over the years. And that what the campaign is focused on is the significant difference not the rules.

As I said, a single adventure or a  single session can focus on roleplaying. You don't need a series of sessions. The one-shot adventure is just as much roleplaying as an extended campaign. This shows that "campaign" as a series of connected sessions is irrelevant to the definition of what is or is not a roleplaying or a storytelling game. To make campaign relevant, you need to claim that a single session is a campaign and at that point the word "campaign" has lost any useful meaning.

QuoteIn short I know what damn campaign is and it history.

Perhaps. But you seem unfamiliar with roleplaying outside of an extended campaign.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;910211Krueger, you have just started a discussion that will waste a non-trivial amount of my time for the next few days. Did you realize this?

Your definition is something that I would call "Fundamentally true and correct, but limited to just one aspect of the matter". In other words, useful but too narrow for general adoption.

The "slider" that you mention definitely exists - it is real, and has been out there for longer than thirty years. But the axis of "player agency" vs. "character agency" is just one of the axes along which RPGs change. There are clearly others. However this specific axis is a dealbreaker, as the presence of some of these mechanics destroys Suspension of Disbelief for a restricted, but indeed existing and well-represented, set of gamers. I ran a specific thread on "Dissociated Mechanics" on rpg.net two or three years ago, and it turned out that it is possible to identify what are potentially SoD-breaking mechanics and that the point *IS* relevant for some players.

As stated, admitted and demonstrated in several discussions, you are one of those gamers whose Suspension of Disbelief is "vulnerable" to this kind of technique. So, nothing wrong in focusing on this specific subject, as it is certainly the "slider" that has the biggest impact on your gaming experience. And you are in good company, as I can name at least one succesful game designer who has the same "vulnerability".

However, I think that while your definition is based on true, verifiable facts, and it is relevant because it identifies a real, important deal-breaker, it still misses the point. I am fairly convinced that if you apply it strictly, you will find some renowned Forge games that do not fall into your "storygame" category, and that would be weird. The point is that what you describe is a mechanic, one of the ways you can use to get what you want, but not your real focus, the reason why you have fun. As such, the definition is too "narrow" to achieve universality.

Let us try for one moment to move towards a different but somehow related definition, specifically the one that Venger Satanis uses in his recent blog post.



Which I interpret as saying that the mindset with which an OSR and a SG player approach their gaming can be described as follows:

OSR: I am here to experience a guy's life in the chosen setting. My character is probably nothing special, at the beginning, and what makes him unique will be decided as the game progresses. He will eventually stand over the masses, in terms of glory or wealth, according to how I defined his personality, but only if the dice gods allow. The world is dangerous and unforgiving, and it must be so because otherwise the sense of authenticity that is part of my enjoyment would be lost. And if my character turns out to be just one of the faceless losers who bite the dust on the path to glory, I will roll another one and still enjoy the game.

SG: I am here to be one of the protagonists of a memorable story. From the start, I have a definite idea of what makes my character unique and how it will affect play. Failure is an acceptable outcome for his adventures, but only if it comes in a heroic and remarkable way, not because of anti-climactic events or lousy die rolls. It is still preferrable that heroic deeds be a consequence of in-game, in-character interactions, but this is just a nice to have: the epicness of the story is the final goal of my gaming.

It seems to me that the whole subject of player agency is one of the methods that you can adopt to obtain the goal that the storygamer's goal, but what is important is the goal itself, not the technique used. You and others tend, IMO, to identify cause and effect because "player agency", particularly if implemented with a karma/fate/benny economy, is the route that most game designers take when going towards that particular goal. It is so widespread a solution that even traditional games use these techniques nowadays - in fact, they have used them since the 80s.

For this reason, although it is not perfect, I would rather side with Venger's definition: by focusing on the goals rather than the techniques used, it helps us much more in discriminating the specific experience a game is trying to promote. In a pinch, it is about what you want from your game, not about how you get it.

Please note also that there is more to a roleplaying game than what is written above. I suspect that this definition that Venger Satanis has cunningly postulated, albeit more encompassing than Krueger's one, represents just one of the axes of variation that you can discover while dissecting the multi-faceted experience of roleplaying.

You bring up a good point - that a modicum of storygaming has slowly been trickling into traditional and OSR gaming for years!  I, myself, probably incorporate somewhere around 15% of storygame RPG techniques in the sessions I GM.  

VS

Here's my shot at it.

To the degree that you play the game by playing a role it's a roleplaying game. This seems obvious to the point of being trite. It's also pretty cut and dry.

To the degree that players are allowed to narrate things outside of the role of the character they are playing and have that accepted as narrative 'truth' that is storytelling.

To the degree that this 'narrative authority' is governed by game rules that are meta to the narrative/simulation you have a story game.

So, just by way of example. You could play a session of D&D in which all that happens is that the players make up the life stories of their characters and tell them to each other while remaining in character.

Were they playing a role playing game? I would say yes.

Were they engaged in story telling? I would say yes.

Were they playing a story game? I would say no, at least in the specific sense the term has taken on.

Quote from: Bren;910371Gamers have goals. Games don’t. If you tailor your definition solely to the goals of the players rather than the rules of the game, there are no story games. There are only story gamers. Thus Venger's definition isn't a definition of story games.

This. Venger is talking about defining people's goals, Krueger is attempting to define games. Venger's definition may work for what he is trying to accomplish but I think it needlessly complicates and confuses the issue of: What type of game am I playing or buying?

For me, I think it would be much more useful to accurately label the games we play than to try to label the people we play with. I can ask a player what they want from a game, I don't need a label for them, but it would be very useful to know if I am purchasing a boardgame, a computer game, a miniatures game, an RPG, or a storygame - because even though there is often considerable crossover between them, they are clearly different categories.  

QuoteOriginally posted by Coffee Zombie
Story games are an evolution of the traditional RPG, taking some of the above elements and altering the tone to focus on allowing the character plot to take primacy in the game. The game, then, becomes chiefly about the player developing the narrative structure of the character and his/her plot arc, and experiencing this with the other players at the table.

This, what I highlighted above, really bothers me (though it may be a sub-conscious word choice).  Story games are not  RPGs 2.0: the new and improved way to play, as is implied by the word "evolution."

QuoteThe GM is still expected to create a plot of his or her own, but the players have some built in protections to stop a random system event or a toad GM from outright crushing the character.

When I asked Nathan Dowdell why the new Conan RPG turned the GM into a truncated vending machine, he told me "while there are plenty of good GMs out there, you can't design assuming that the GM knows what he's doing. It's a fundamental problem with the hobby." :eek: :confused:

Sorry Nathan (and no offense at all to you Coffee), but protectionism from the big bad GM, and playing to the lowest common denominator, is a pretty piss poor excuse for game design - if we consider and label the game as an RPG.  If the game is something else, then that's fine, go ahead and assume that your audience needs help with creativity and judgement.  One of the great things about RPGs from 1974 on is the assumption that players have brains, minds of their own and know how to make the game work for them better than the game designers do.  Gygax assumed that RPers were intelligent, Dowdell assumes they're not intelligent enough to run a good Conan game without being spoonfed and told what not to do. How's that for "evolution?" (and yes, I am bitter about that game and the condescending conversations I had with Modiphius' designers).

I don't mean to come off as hostile.  There is nothing wrong with story games or the people who enjoy them.  In fact, I think the whole phenomenon is really quite cool.  My problem is that they are lumped into RPGs, or categorized by some as RPG superior, when they are really something different entirely.

The core difference is that story games demand (or provide - depending on your perspective) OoC player agency, RPGs do not.  Player goals (Venger's definition) has to do with what kind of game a group chooses to play.  That's important, but it does not describe the game itself (as an RPG, boardgame, miniatures game,  collaborative storytelling game or whatever). How does a group that have defined themselves along Venger's definition know what they are getting into if a game designer insists his apples are really oranges when he know damn well it's not true? If a game designer has collaborative story telling in mind, and the game is designed with OoC mechanics to enhance or enforce it, he should say so, and not push his game off as an "evolved" RPG in an effort to capture sales - that's exactly what Modiphius did.

QuoteOriginally posted by Spinachcat
Storygames are games that belong in the Other Games forum

This is really the heart of the issue, at least for me.  Are story games different enough from traditional RPGs (or "adventure games") that they need to be categorized separately?

They are for me because my groups and I do not enjoy games that force OoC player decisions.  It totally kills the RPG experience for us.  My players look at me land ask "what the hell is this crap - you're the GM - do your job and let me play my character."

I don't begrudge anybody their fun, and many people here perhaps rightfully say "who cares?"  But for my part, labeling storygames as such would have saved me time, money, arguments, and broken unhappy game sessions.

Quote(In a story game, a player’s ability to affect what happens in the game is not dependent on their character’s fictional ability to do those things)

Although, how should we account for a player's skill being an important factor in his character's chances to do A, B, or C?  I believe player skill was mentioned prominently in the old school primer booklet.  Maybe someone can find a quote.  Maybe specify that player skill needs to be channeled through one's character and not in some meta-game narrative control mechanic?  Also, I haven't read all the comments in this thread - pressed for time.  Sorry!

VS

Quote from: Bren;910470As I said, a single adventure or a  single session can focus on roleplaying. You don't need a series of sessions.

And you are correct, but for the purpose of setting up a campaign versus a one-shot there are only a few difference in the kind of preparation that the referee does only perhaps the amount of what he has to do. As for the player there is virtually difference as to what to do to prepare.  

Because of that I view it accurate to say that a Tabletop RPG campaign can be considered as one or more session of play. It is not limited to saying it has to be two more sessions. And that the considerations as to what to focus on for multiple sessions campaigns are the same for a single session.

And you are sta

Quote from: Bren;910470The one-shot adventure is just as much roleplaying as an extended campaign.

I clarified what I meant by a Tabletop RPG campaign by the above paragraph. You are trying to argue over the definition of campaigns and what campaigns.

Quote from: Bren;910470This shows that "campaign" as a series of connected sessions is irrelevant to the definition of what is or is not a roleplaying or a storytelling game.

When I say campaign I am referring to ONE or more sessions of play. If you want to debate the definition of campaign make another thread.

As for why I consider it one or more sessions instead of say two or more. It is because what you do for a one-shot is not meaningfully different for the referee or players except in perhaps the raw volume of work that one puts in. So rather than write it all fucking out, I just use campaign to refer to both. And I referred to campaigns in this way multiple times on this forum in multiple threads so how I use the word campaign shouldn't be news to any long term poster.

Quote from: Manzanaro;910478So, just by way of example. You could play a session of D&D in which all that happens is that the players make up the life stories of their characters and tell them to each other while remaining in character.

Were they playing a role playing game? I would say yes.

Were they engaged in story telling? I would say yes.

Were they playing a story game? I would say no, at least in the specific sense the term has taken on.

You raise a good point that the question "is it a game" also needs to be considered. Story telling can occur without the process being much of a game.

We could say the rules for a storytelling game are that (i) we all sit in a circle, (ii) we take turns going clockwise around the circle to tell stories, (iii) that each story has to connect to and build on the previous story (or stories), (iv) we could even specify that we roll dice, draw a high card, or have a rock-paper-scissors contest to see who goes first to tell the first story. I guess that's a game in a similar sense that charades is a game. But for my money, it isn't enough of a game that it really needs to be called The Storytelling Game ~™ instead of just calling it, Group Storytelling.

But the example of the players telling stories about their D&D characters is just as much storytelling but even less a game than is my The Storytelling Game ~™.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479This, what I highlighted above, really bothers me (though it may be a sub-conscious word choice).  Story games are not  RPGs 2.0: the new and improved way to play, as is implied by the word "evolution."

Technically evolution doesn't imply improvement, it just means more fit to survive and replicate in a given environment. But in the colloquial sense evolution does include the notion of improvement so I get why it is annoying.

Currently I'm playing and running Honor+Intrigue, it's a much newer game than is WEG's Star Wars D6, which is what we were playing before switching over to H+I. But just because it was written and published later, does not mean it is a better game. It's a different game. I think it is better in some respects (mainly in the detailed combat rules facilitating sword fighting and dueling). This makes it a better game for playing swashbucklers and pirates. But it's not better for playing Star Wars, except possibly in that it could be adapted to provide a better system for lightsaber duels. But in the ten years I played and ran Star Wars we had maybe six lightsaber duels total. So the vast majority of the time, H+I would be much more machinery than needed or desired and thus I find it much worse for playing Star Wars. I’m sure if we looked hard enough we could find some gamer, somewhere with the opposite point of view.

QuoteWhen I asked Nathan Dowdell why the new Conan RPG turned the GM into a truncated vending machine, he told me "while there are plenty of good GMs out there, you can't design assuming that the GM knows what he's doing. It's a fundamental problem with the hobby." :eek: :confused:

OK. Might be true. But it isn't like the players are all good players. Why in the world would one assume that the players know what they are doing anymore than does the GM?

QuoteMy problem is that they are lumped into RPGs, or categorized by some as RPG superior, when they are really something different entirely.

I think it is more accurate to view games as being on a continuum. So the differences are matters of degree, not two things that are altogether different in kind.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479but I think it needlessly complicates and confuses the issue of: What type of game am I playing or buying?

I think it not going to be resolve either. Once a games starts interesting mechanics to define characters and what they can and can't do along with world building, it because inherently flexible enough to handle a great deal many things.

What matters after this point is what kind of advice the author focuses on and what tools he writes to support what he focuses. That what needs to be made explicit. An author can easily present a version of OD&D focused on collaborative storytelling if that what interest them. If I was that author, I would lake it is abundantly clear what I am focusing on in the intro, marketing and the packaging so you the consumer can easily determine if the product is one you are interested.

That why in all the stuff I do for Majestic Wilderlands i make it clear that is based on the campaign I ran for 30 years and that is mostly focuses on the adventure that arises out of the clash of the politics, religion, and culture. It goes down to the individual section so people understand why things like my Elves are great in terms of mechanics and why everybody doesn't just play an Elf in my campaign. If I didn't do that then any criticism I receive would be justified because I failed to explain what it was for.

One of my criticism of the storygame hobby is how they misled others and themselves as to thinking it Tabletop Roleplaying 2.0. Part of the misconception is because everything is on a spectrum with any type of roleplaying game. Once you start focusing on individual characters and include worldbuilding a setting anything can be kitbashed in to produce the campaign the group wants to play.

I think focusing a campaign on collabrative storytelling with a game is interesting, but it has little to do with pretending to be a character having interesting adventures in an imagined setting. Even tho both have individual character, both feature world building and both use game mechanics as a tool. Making a story and playing a character are two very different goals.