Quote from: CRKrueger;911311But how?  If the Captain wants to beam down to every planet regardless of the amount of information and danger there might be, do we have a rule that anyone with Rank: Captain on the sheet cannot be killed?  Do we have some Tenra Bansho Zero "I allow you to kill me box?"  There's a difference between mechanics that FORCE GENRE and conventions that could be followed.  Here's where Brady's "Gentleman's Agreement" actually does exist and has been used in games of all types since the start of the hobby.  The thing is, there's no defense against a GM who wants to break that agreement, hence the entire point of narrative control mechanics in the first place - forcing GM's to accept convention through mechanics.

We're back to "talk about things."  In my exalted opinion rather than rules forcing a GM to accept convention, negotiation is superior.  If opinions are too different, don't play together.

Quote from: CRKrueger;911492Identifying something isn't necessarily supporting it.  I think you're pointing to other posters, but for me, I think the idea that a Starfleet Captain can't die is simply asinine.

Maybe.  But I will buy "Starfleet Captains shouldn't die every session for behaving like they did on the TV show if that's what we've all agreed we're playing."

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.

That sounds more like emotional masturbation than a game.

Quote from: Spinachcat;911307So genres have tropes and RPGs about those genres should utilize and respect the tropes of that genre?

Yes. I agree water is still wet.

Damn you and your common sense!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911540Maybe.  But I will buy "Starfleet Captains shouldn't die every session for behaving like they did on the TV show if that's what we've all agreed we're playing."

So why bother playing if there is no consequence?

Quote from: Manzanaro;911537But your further comments make me think about a definition I was thinking about earlier which is "a story game is a game whose rules are not about what happens, but about who has the authority to SAY what happens". But that's still not entirely clear cut.

I think this definition is leaning in the direction we're headed in. But, I think what we are doing here is taking it a step further to ask how we can be more concrete and specific about how a game assigns authority or authorship to players about actions or events that would be beyond the control of their character in the imaginary space (that's probably not perfectly worded). By identifying player OoC mechanics and how they are used, the idea is that we can remove some subjective variables, like particular group dynamics or individual player goals, from the equation and focus on defining the game itself with a greater degree of objectivity.

QuoteI will note though, that in a somewhat recent "contentious thread" I caught a lot of shit for suggesting that some players wanted their characters to have "plot immunity" to death. Funny to see some of the people who most fervently attacked this idea now supporting it.

I don't think I am one of the people you are referring to here as I tried to stay out of that thread and I don't remember giving you any shit.  

Anyway, I think the "Disney Princess" discussion is tangential to the main topic.  I was merely identifying some of my players' assumed protagonist privileges asking where those ideas came from in response to Gronan's suggestion that story-motivated players have been around since the beginning. I am not "supporting the idea," and I thought I was clear that, for me at least, these motivations drive a bit of wedge between my desire to be an impartial referee, and my desire to entertain and consider my players' want's (even when they're being bitchy and inane).  In any case, the whole conversation is a digression from defining story games.

QuoteBut supporting it by a "gentleman's agreement" doesn't seem like a best case scenario to me, especially if it is an unspoken agreement which only one party assumes to exist. I can't stand when a GM is constantly fudging and bailing the PCs out behind the scenes, while refusing to acknowledge it is going on.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable complaint and set of preferences.

Quote from: Manzanaro;911537Well, I feel like "a player may affect the game world by declaring that something happens" is actually THE fundamental mechanic of RPGs, but perhaps so fundamental that it stops registering as a mechanic.

I think that's too broad to cover a distinction between story-games and non-story-game RPGs.

In a story-game, yes. Players can not only say what their PC does (if they even have a PC - e.g. Microscope where even during RP segments, everyone's still sort of a GM), the rules also say players can make other narrative statements which depending on the game can either be practically anything, or certain types of things, but those things go beyond what their PC does.

In a non-story-game RPG, no. GMs are the ones who say what happens. PCs only say what their PCs attempt to do. The GM corrects them if their idea doesn't succeed, whether it's because something stops the PC, the PC fails, or the player's idea is ruled invalid for the PC. Even if the PC rolls his needed success roll to do something and declares "I hit the orc", the GM may have some state or mechanic the player doesn't know about, and say no actually that didn't happen. A player can only provide input for allowed actions of their PC, and out-of-character jabber that has no effect on play.

There are some in-between mechanics, of course. So I'd say there's a grey area for games that are mostly non-story but have a few mechanics (e.g. a character is officially Lucky and can re-roll one die roll involving their character per 2 hours of play). I'd tend to call that an OOC player mechanic that gives a specific limited GM ability to the player. Traditional RPGs do have some of these, mainly for convenience or when the designers didn't have an elegant way to keep things in-character, or thought it would be more fun and wouldn't be too out-of-place to let players have some OOC options: I mean things such as deciding which of their wounds heals first, or what ability they gain from experience.

That is, I think technically from an RPG perspective, story-game mechanics are OOC player actions. The "story" part, to me, is about the intention/orientation "to create a story", which is a separate thing.

So I'd say you could have a story-oriented GM, who is running the game around ideas he has about wanting to make a story he likes, but is still limiting players to in-character actions, and perhaps considering their suggestions for his GMing. I wouldn't call that a story-game. I'd call it a story-oriented GM playing an RPG.

I think the parts about genre expectations and whether or not anything keeps PCs from getting killed when logically they would, are two separate issues - those seem like motivations that are sometimes not explicit and lead to various choices in game design and GMing, but aren't really about what a story game is or isn't. Either type of game can have merciless death or genre adherence/violation, without affecting whether it's a story game or not. I wonder if anyone's ever made a mercilessly deadly story-game? I think the answer is probably "no" or "rarely" or "there's one but it's really unpopular", but I don't think that's a matter of game taxonomy.

Quote from: jeff37923;911573That sounds more like emotional masturbation than a game.

Yeah, wtf dude.

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.

Is sign a real game? It seems strangely specific.

Quote from: Skarg;911601I wonder if anyone's ever made a mercilessly deadly story-game? I think the answer is probably "no" or "rarely" or "there's one but it's really unpopular", but I don't think that's a matter of game taxonomy.

Fiasco is quite mercilessly deadly if you are playing it "right". So is Dread. Those are the 2 big ones that spring to mind, but there are others as well.

Part of it is that a lot of story games are one shots and can afford to be lethal without long term ramifications.

(And who in their right mind would play "Signs" or the post partum depression game more than once?!)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;911615Is sign a real game? It seems strangely specific.

They seem more like actual role playing exercises than anything I'd want to play for fun, yeah.

Deaf Children in Nicaragua? Mothers with Post Partum Depression?

Okay, so there's a story game where you get to play Skeletons in a Dungeon... ones that have been there for centuries undisturbed, guarding, who begin to slowly wake up.. I can get behind that kind of story game, could be fun for a one shot... But Deaf Children in Nicaragua and Mothers with post Partum Depression?

I'm starting to think most hardcore Storygames are only good for One shots...

Quote from: Orphan81;911676I'm starting to think most hardcore Storygames are only good for One shots...

Many seem written to do a pretty specific thing.  In extreme cases, like The Mountain Witch, they are written to do a single scenario.  Mots of he ones I have are written to do specific genre or subgenre and encourage or enforce the tropes associated with that subject matter.

I would say that a storygame is one that is written to tell a specific story or a specific sort of story with mechanics to enforce the story's tropes and conventions.  Dread is all about emulating horror movies and the rules support and enforce that throughout from the way that stats are paired to the available actions to the tension mechanic which controls mood and pacing.  It's all about making the game flow like a horror movie.  You can adjust the mechanics to tell a specific sort of horror movie story from a specific subgenre but it's all about making the game emulate a specific sort of story.

Quote from: Bren;911226One can say that. It's still wrong though. Games can't have goals. GMs can. Players can. Designers can. Games cannot.

OK then, designed for a purpose. That's the whole point of design. And a system designed to facilitate certain goals can make achieving other goals more difficult.

Quote from: Bren;911226It 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.

And yet traditional RPGs treat them as one and the same. Your skill equals your action not intent, and succeeding in your action implies succeeding in your intent (unless the GM is being a dick). And what if you have multiple intentions per action? How can you achieve one but fail the other? What makes one intention separate from another in the first place?

Quote from: Bren;911226You'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.

Beyond the above, I've got a whole RPG based on that premise which does a better job of demonstrating the issue than I can here and now.

Quote from: Bren;911226If your definition of "work" is perfect understanding, you'd be correct. But that's a useless definition.

The whole point of discussion is because understanding is imperfect, but that doesn't mean communication can't be improved by knowing where and why it fails.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911270I don't own it so I can't help you there.

It's an inside joke and one I'm very happy seeing people not get. Means we're moving past the bullshit.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911270Modiphius designed their game under the assumption that people were stupid and needed rules fix their stupidity.  They told me so.

I highly doubt that, but if you show me a link I'm more than happy to concede.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911270Here's a value judgement for that design philosophy: "Rules can't cure stupid" - Gronan.

Nothing can.

But they can reveal it.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911270Players' agendas have no bearing on the definition in question.  That's why I think it works where others don't.  People keep interjecting "but what about my goals?" The mechanics don't care.

And yet the mechanics in 2d20 made pursuing your agenda all but impossible.

Mechanics may not 'care', but they can facilitate or undermine the pursuit of specific goals. And it's far easier to market a game based on agendas than with wordy statements about design and purpose.

Quote from: Bren;911285Do you think that what they want is the illusion of risk without the actuality?

People love the gamble but hate the loss.

Quote from: Bren;911285Television shows, films, and many novels provide the viewer/reader with the illusion of risk. There are the occasional exceptions, but in the vast majority of popular media, especially popular repeating series, most viewers know that the protagonists are not going to be killed or permanently injured

It goes further: Most popular media is designed to be predictable, even when it comes to people dying (like in Murder She Wrote).

Quote from: Madprofessor;911450In any case, I certainly think a GM who is looking for a game that has some contrary assumptions to mass media formula has his work cut out for him explaining his expectations.

Agreed, which is why licensing is so successful for play (if not profit).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911538We're back to "talk about things."  In my exalted opinion rather than rules forcing a GM to accept convention, negotiation is superior.  If opinions are too different, don't play together.

I know you feel that being 'adults' should suffice for clear communication, and I kinda wish it was, but it isn't and we still have a long way to go when it comes to communicating what we expect out of RPGs.

I played World of Dew / Sound of Water at Gen Con.

Whilst I think these distinctions are ridiculous (at most there is a spectrum), highly divisive, and not even that helpful, if you must have the moniker "Storygames" I would think that this game product would fit.

We had pre-generated PCs, the GM had a plot structure and key NPCs established in advance.

The game required (and aided) us to develop strong narrative IC links between all the characters. We also developed the town and other NPCs, both at start-up and during the game.

We could affect the direction of the game and the plot both narratively and mechanically. The referee could mess around (or reward) us in the same way.

In most standard games that wouldn't happen, the world and everything in it would be controlled by the DM, mostly prepped in advance.


I love them both, variety is the spice of life etc.