Quote from: RosenMcStern;910618The core point is that the discriminant in this case, and in most cases, is "who makes the choice and why", not the mere fact of "who has the ability".

One cannot choose to do what one is unable to do. As you have described it, in 3:16 the character does not have an ability to create flashbacks. The player, in 3:16 does.
(Tangential thought, I wonder, would a character ability to "create flashback" be related to the temporal fugue ability possessed by characters in Zelazny’s novel Creatures of Light and Darkness?)

QuoteNowhere in the definition is it stated that the ability must have been agreed beforehand and not inserted in the game at a later time with a player-driven "narrative edit".

You are focusing on the wrong ability. It is not the ability that the flashback creates that is at issue. It is the ability to create narrative edits that is the ability at issue.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;910627However, you will notice that I apply the definition to mechanics, not whole games.

That is entirely reasonable and appropriate since, on the one hand, games either will or will not have mechanics related to abilities the player is given that the character does not possess. While on the other hand, I doubt that you could have a role-playing game without the presence of some character ability mechanics.

QuoteIn my opinion, the fact that a game has disassociated/OOC mechanics is not the defining factor for that game.

Do games have a single defining factor? That seems unlikely unless the scope of the game is incredibly narrow. I question whether there is a game that includes roleplaying and that is limited to being defined by a single factor. Do you have some examples in mind?

As you describe it, 3:16 includes not just one, but several factors, e.g.

• Fighting and killing aliens.
• Being wounded and killed by aliens.
• A requirement that only one character is allowed to survive a mission. This is a somewhat extreme character survival funnel since only one character is allowed to survive any given mission. Is this requirement in universe or meta-universe and are the characters aware of this mission requirement?
• The use of luck points.
• Narrating flashbacks as a mechanism to add abilities and inabilities during play.
• There may be other factors.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910175In 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.

So, Original D&D is a story game?

I disarmed traps by describing what I did, my character had no "disarm traps" skill.
I led a group of soldiers and deployed them in tactical formations despite having no "tactics" skill or "leadership" skill.
I negotiated based on my own ability to negotiate, bargained based on my own ability to bargain, sought diplomatic solutions based on my own ability to be diplomatic.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910745So, Original D&D is a story game?

I disarmed traps by describing what I did, my character had no "disarm traps" skill.
I led a group of soldiers and deployed them in tactical formations despite having no "tactics" skill or "leadership" skill.
I negotiated based on my own ability to negotiate, bargained based on my own ability to bargain, sought diplomatic solutions based on my own ability to be diplomatic.

Are you saying that the characters that you roleplayed doing these things couldn't do them as if they really existed? That you waved a magic plot bennie and stated "All my troops are lined up in the correct formation because I am just that awesome" That you could have decided instead that that your character could fly and shoot fireballs out his ass?

Quote from: estar;910746Are you saying that the characters that you roleplayed doing these things couldn't do them as if they really existed? That you waved a magic plot bennie and stated "All my troops are lined up in the correct formation because I am just that awesome" That you could have decided instead that that your character could fly and shoot fireballs out his ass?

No, I'm saying that the original definition I quoted is extremely vague.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910745So, Original D&D is a story game?

I disarmed traps by describing what I did, my character had no "disarm traps" skill.
I led a group of soldiers and deployed them in tactical formations despite having no "tactics" skill or "leadership" skill.
I negotiated based on my own ability to negotiate, bargained based on my own ability to bargain, sought diplomatic solutions based on my own ability to be diplomatic.

Come on, there's no need to be obtuse for the hell of it.  You know better than anyone that all those things, being something any human can attempt, your character could attempt.  Hell, even in games with very restrictive skill systems, your character frequently can do things unskilled, you just have a good chance at fucking it up, like life.

What you didn't do was take a barbarian from the woods, have him pilot a sailing ship in a storm and succeed because you chose to use some metagame point your character has no knowledge of.

Even if the argument is that every single character you ever played was a tactical genius because YOU are a tactical genius, the rules have nothing to say about that one way or the other.  That's a GM call to let your farm boy be Rommel.  Gary or Phil could have said "This guy has that level of tactical acumen? stop being a jackass."

Edit: Ok, read the second post.  As I said, it's just a starting point.  I know you're not a big fan of gaming theory for theory's sake, but if you'd like to focus that Jesuit-trained logic over here, we wouldn't mind.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910748No, I'm saying that the original definition I quoted is extremely vague.

Seem clear to me. Again all the things you describe make sense if the character you were playing at the time was a real person. However when I spend a Fate Point, play a Whimsy Card, or use any number of similar mechanics am not acting as my character. Unless it is a game like Amber my character isn't going to wave his hand and have a "Unexpected twist of fate"* happen to another character.

*One of the whimsy cards that a player could play.

I can think of several cases where our simulationist old-school Fantasy Trip campaigns did some things that might be done in story games, such as:

* GM lets players invent their PCs' family and background story, and works it into the campaign, sometimes even after the PC had been played for a while and we hadn't thought much about their background yet. However we saw it would be a problem for continuity if they added sudden or great benefits such as "my uncle spoils me and is the fabulously wealthy head of the wizard's guild, and collects cool magic swords which he doesn't mind loaning out to me & my friends" (no one did that, but we did get concerned about anything heading anywhere near that direction).

* GM & players talking out of character about the campaign game world, and discussing the logic of how things are and why and what would be interesting and stuff, possibly leading to the GM changing some stuff about the world.

* GMs collaborating to design a world or adventure together.

* Players changing roles between GM & player, and playing NPCs that are allies or members of the party.

* Players having their PCs do things that will be fun or interesting to play, or to talk about later.

* GMs adding things to the game world, or even to the current story, to make things more fun or funny or interesting. e.g. "Huh, this is a fun battle, but was too easy... time to add a random group that shows up to join the battle!" or "Hmm. The paranoid players are thinking that NPC may be up to some plot. Maybe he or another NPC really is up to a plot like that" or "The player is strip-searching these bodies looking for hidden loot - hmm, maybe I should roll to see if they actually have something hidden that I didn't put on the sheet originally."

But never was the overt goal or reason for things happening to make the story as "cool" or even as interesting as possible. Never was there an explicit player or character ability to take over the roll of making stuff up to exist or happen. Or if there was, we ignored such rules as silly, or at least were clear that the GM could and should veto things that they don't think is a good idea. The closest things we might let pass, in some games, are effects like being blessed or cursed or somehow lucky or unlucky or divine. Not just because there is a player.

Seems to me what makes a story game a story game, is when there is a clear intentional role of players to invent story elements that their PCs aren't doing themselves in-game, as a main part of regular play, for the purpose of "making a good story" or just to play a game where everyone gets part of the creative role traditionally only held by the GM.

Quote from: estar;910791Seem clear to me. Again all the things you describe make sense if the character you were playing at the time was a real person. However when I spend a Fate Point, play a Whimsy Card, or use any number of similar mechanics am not acting as my character.

Bingo!

The point is that while what you said makes perfect sense, the actual definition provided does f** nothing at all to discriminate Fate/Benny/WhimsyCard mechanics from IC mechanics. The fact that using such mechanics "is not in character" remains undiscovered if you apply that specific definition. As Gronan (and yours truly) has tried to point out, while the basic concept is quite easy to grasp, it is absolutely trivial to twist the definition based on "character ability" in a way that it defines even games written by Gygax himself as "storygames".

Or, in other words: the idea does certainly have its merits, but - at the very least - the phrasing stinks.

In the setting, does the character have the knowledge that they have X number of Fate Points and the ability to spend them to thwart Fate by choosing to succeed (or at least not to fail critically)?
If Yes, then using them is IC, if No then using them is OOC.  Not Rocket Science here.

But, as Gronan pointed out, Character "Ability" gets fuzzy when we talk about Player Knowledge vs. Character Knowledge in a skill-less game system.  So, lets not be fuzzy.  At the same time, we really don't need this to be in ironclad academic legalese, do we?  I hope not.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910771Come on, there's no need to be obtuse for the hell of it.  You know better than anyone that all those things, being something any human can attempt, your character could attempt.  Hell, even in games with very restrictive skill systems, your character frequently can do things unskilled, you just have a good chance at fucking it up, like life.

What you didn't do was take a barbarian from the woods, have him pilot a sailing ship in a storm and succeed because you chose to use some metagame point your character has no knowledge of.

Even if the argument is that every single character you ever played was a tactical genius because YOU are a tactical genius, the rules have nothing to say about that one way or the other.  That's a GM call to let your farm boy be Rommel.  Gary or Phil could have said "This guy has that level of tactical acumen? stop being a jackass."

Edit: Ok, read the second post.  As I said, it's just a starting point.  I know you're not a big fan of gaming theory for theory's sake, but if you'd like to focus that Jesuit-trained logic over here, we wouldn't mind.

Honestly, I wasn't being snarky (I can CERTAINLY understand why you'd think I was ).  And I probably should have trusted you more not to be grotesquely stupid in your definition, and for that I apologize.

But the original statement really did seem kind of vague... and people have asserted the god-damndest things about gaming (shudder).  But you've clarified very well, and I appreciate it.

Long before "story games" was a term, I encountered people talking about gaming choices that "would make a better story."

The problem usually arose when they said "If *YOU* did this it would make a better story."  Somietimes this was relatively benign; "if we got ambushed that would make a better story" versus "My character is an experienced guerilla fighter and I'm an experienced wargamer; that is an obvious ambush and there's no way in HELL my character would blunder into it if he's healthy, well rested, and sober."  Sometimes it was more greed based.

But there is something else I've observed a LOT more of.  Terry Pratchett refers to "narritivium" in his Discworld books; an element in Discworld that essentially "makes stories turn out the way they should."  And over the years I have encountered a HUGE number of players who want a "high narrativium" game.  And THAT can cause problems.

For instance, in a game a couple years back, (The Fantasy Trip, but system really doesn't matter), we were scouting out a cave system looking for a secret underground entrance into a huge castle full of evil necromancers.  The party was one knight, a couple of squires, one apprentice magician, and a couple PC hangers-on.

To cut to the chase, the mission turned into an utter debacle, because when we finally found the entrance, I realized ... DESPITE AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN CONVERSATIONS BEFOREHAND ... that while I was playing "espionage," half the players fully expected one knight, a squire, one apprentice magician, and a few castle guards to beat twenty strong necromancers, a dozen gargoyles, and a couple of hundred zombies.  Because I was playing "recon patrol" and they were playing "Disney princess movie."  They expected us to win, because we were the PCs, and the PCs are the protagonists, and therefore we would win.

My definition would be a "Story Game" is a game that gives players a substantial amount of "narrativium".  There are games that do that, and I posit that they arose in response to a desire already felt by some players.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910846...
For instance, in a game a couple years back, (The Fantasy Trip, but system really doesn't matter), we were scouting out a cave system looking for a secret underground entrance into a huge castle full of evil necromancers.  The party was one knight, a couple of squires, one apprentice magician, and a couple PC hangers-on.

To cut to the chase, the mission turned into an utter debacle, because when we finally found the entrance, I realized ... DESPITE AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN CONVERSATIONS BEFOREHAND ... that while I was playing "espionage," half the players fully expected one knight, a squire, one apprentice magician, and a few castle guards to beat twenty strong necromancers, a dozen gargoyles, and a couple of hundred zombies.  Because I was playing "recon patrol" and they were playing "Disney princess movie."  They expected us to win, because we were the PCs, and the PCs are the protagonists, and therefore we would win.
...

Hehe, yeah those are very long odds for an assault, especially in TFT.

Another thing that occurs to me is that there are some "magic change my fate" mechanics in more traditional RPGs, but they tend to be things like a powerful magic Wish, which requires a few tons of high-powered magic, great risk and/or expense, and has a physical existence in the game. IIRC, a Greater Wish in TFT can let you dictate one die roll's outcome, but requires risking a high-level wizard to do a battle of wills with a demon, and therefore an item with such a wish stored in it costs tons and tends to get used for other things anyway. So a StoryGame that makes that level of power just a freebie for being a player, with no explanation in-game-world, that all players just get to do X times per session, seems like a giant power giveaway. Also, and perhaps more importantly in my sensibilities, it undermines the rest of the game situation. If I go to the effort of learning and using detailed rules for a situation, and develop the world and play days of gaming to get to a certain situation that I'm interested in, I for one don't want the situation being set aside for magic wishing that has no reason and sets aside all that carefully-constructed cause & effect that to me was much of the point of playing. I like weird situations and coincidences and fluke chances when they are really determined by things in the situation, or crazy die rolls, but not when it's just throwing out the rules for a bit just because.

I think I'd at least want it to be explicit and have some sort of in-game-world reasoning. Otherwise how do I roleplay a PC who should notice that fluke super-coincidental stuff keeps happening all the time?

I think it's just very clearly a different mode of play, and since I really like games where the cause & effect reliably makes sense, I notice and keenly feel the loss of that when a story or outcome is forced. I can see there is something else to be gained from that mode, and have done it both in a story game (e.g. Microscope) and as GM or in suggesting off-focus events as a player, etc., but to me it's a very distinctly different sort of thing from playing a non-story game situation. So naturally it's annoying if/when you get players trying to play in the same game, but some want story-game stuff and others don't, especially if not all the players understand and agree on what's going on with that. e.g. Clearly one could now find a player who might say part or all of something like "I want a high-risk simulationist sandbox" but really expect something that I'd call a cake-walk hand-held genre-expectation-forcing railroad".

Quote from: Skarg;910956I think I'd at least want it to be explicit and have some sort of in-game-world reasoning. Otherwise how do I roleplay a PC who should notice that fluke super-coincidental stuff keeps happening all the time?

They say, stuff like "Never tell me the odds!"

It's a start, but by this definition Sorcerer still isn't a storygame, so it may need some work

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.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479Venger is talking about defining people's goals, Krueger is attempting to define games.

If a game helps players to better achieve their goals then it can be said to have that goal.

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

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479I think it would be much more useful to accurately label the games we play than to try to label the people we play with.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479Player 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).

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479labeling storygames as such would have saved me time, money, arguments, and broken unhappy game sessions.

You may recall the whole reason The Forge got started in the first place was because Ron Edwards was irritated that Vampire: The Masquerade failed to be what it claimed on the tin. And the whole point of The Forge was to facilitate the design of games which were clear about which player needs they met. The honesty in advertising slant was great, and I've yet to see it equaled anywhere, but what brought it down was assigning values to the agendas. For example...

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479I don't begrudge anybody their fun,

...you might not begrudge them...

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479One 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.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479Gygax 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.

...but you've obviously made value judgments about certain styles of play...

Quote from: Madprofessor;910498Nathan suggested that storygame rules were necessary to protect players from sucky GMs.

...and if you want games to be honest about what they are, maybe you should be as well.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479The core difference is that story games demand (or provide - depending on your perspective) OoC player agency, RPGs do not.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910498My primary issue is when a Story Game forces OoC behavior and decisions from players and/or limits GM authority in some way that is baked in to the mechanics.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910479They 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.

Another thing The Forge proposed was that various player agendas become mutually exclusive at certain points. Your comments show that's demonstratively true, yet the idea is still strongly fought against. But we're not going to be able to honestly label what games really are until we get past that.

Quote from: Bren;910371Lately, I've come to the opinion that my gaming would go a lot smoother if my players said some version of, "I want to hide. What's in this alley that I can hide behind (or in)?" Rather than saying some version of "I want to hide behind the dumpster" or even worse, "Is there a dumpster in the alley?" and even worser, "What's in the alley?"

I've come to the conclusion that there's an important distinction between Action and Intent that isn't being addressed, and most RPGs still treat them as one and the same. Your above example demonstrates why that might not be the best idea.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;910481Although, how should we account for a player's skill being an important factor in his character's chances to do A, B, or C?

Great question. But which player skill? Tactical thinking? Reading people? Negotiation? Something else?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910846But there is something else I've observed a LOT more of.  Terry Pratchett refers to "narritivium" in his Discworld books; an element in Discworld that essentially "makes stories turn out the way they should."  And over the years I have encountered a HUGE number of players who want a "high narrativium" game.  And THAT can cause problems.

For instance, in a game a couple years back, (The Fantasy Trip, but system really doesn't matter), we were scouting out a cave system looking for a secret underground entrance into a huge castle full of evil necromancers.  The party was one knight, a couple of squires, one apprentice magician, and a couple PC hangers-on.

To cut to the chase, the mission turned into an utter debacle, because when we finally found the entrance, I realized ... DESPITE AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN CONVERSATIONS BEFOREHAND ... that while I was playing "espionage," half the players fully expected one knight, a squire, one apprentice magician, and a few castle guards to beat twenty strong necromancers, a dozen gargoyles, and a couple of hundred zombies.  Because I was playing "recon patrol" and they were playing "Disney princess movie."  They expected us to win, because we were the PCs, and the PCs are the protagonists, and therefore we would win.

I'm beginning to think that establishing expectations through discussion really doesn't work. But why?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;911169If a game helps players to better achieve their goals then it can be said to have that goal.

One can say that. It's still wrong though. Games can't have goals. GMs can. Players can. Designers can. Games cannot.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;911169I've come to the conclusion that there's an important distinction between Action and Intent that isn't being addressed, and most RPGs still treat them as one and the same. Your above example demonstrates why that might not be the best idea.

It is trivially obvious that action and intent are two different things. Sometimes an action furthers intent. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes intent is clear from action. Other times it's not. Hence my preference for statements that clarify intent.

You're going to have to type something a bit more elaborate than a one or two sentence sound bite it you want anyone to understand what the heck you are trying to say (or maybe trying not to say) about the distinction between the two and why you think some games (story games possibly?) treat them as the same thing.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;911169I'm beginning to think that establishing expectations through discussion really doesn't work. But why?

If your definition of "work" is perfect understanding, you'd be correct. But that's a useless definition.