What are StoryGames?

crkrueger · July 28, 2016, 05:06:43 AM

Yeah, I know, but in several threads just in the last couple weeks there have been multiple times when people are asking "What the hell is a Storygame" or "I don't get it." Here's a link to a blog Ars Ludi, written by a guy who loves and blogs almost exclusively about StoryGames. He also ran the Westmarches, an old school style 3e sandbox, so he's not really ideologically invested either. To make it easier to quote and deal with here in the forums, I'm going to post it in it's entirety. (emphasis mirrors original text emphasis) Edit: The key element of the definition is in the spoiler but also underlined just below.

Spoiler

Defining Story Games
But first a caveat. Nailing down definitions can turn into a horrible quagmire, particularly when we’re tackling words that lots of people already use but define differently, or use without an actual definition just a case-by-case “I can’t explain it but I know it when I see it”.

But without definitions words can be treacherous. The worst case scenario isn’t that we disagree about a definition and argue about it for hours on end, it’s that we don’t even realize we disagree. We both use the same word and think we’re on the same page but really we mean entirely different things. That’s a communication nightmare that can sabotage the best of intentions in discussion or at the gaming table.

Language is organic, mutable and constantly evolving. I don’t harbor any illusions that I get to decide what words mean. But at least if you’re talking to me you’ll know what I mean when I say “story games.”

How Story Games were described to me
When I started playing story games here’s how they were described to me: A story game is a role-playing game where the participants focus on making a story together instead of just playing “their guy.” The alternative–which I played 100% of the time for more than two decades–would be adventure games like D&D, where your character is your turf.

Yep, I said adventure games. I’ve used the term “traditional games” a lot but in hindsight it’s a terrible term for the games we’ve loved for decades. Back in the 70s and 80s these same “traditional” games were frickin’ radical. I think “adventure game” is a better term. In an adventure game it’s the job of the players to beat the adventure the GM presents. Again, not my invention: “adventure game” was a common term for D&D etc. back in the day. Shippensburg was officially the Shippensburg Adventure Game Camp.

In adventure games your job is to play your character and make good decisions for them. If you mess up (or roll badly) your character can die and be removed from the game. In a story game any character you play is a facet of the shared story. You may even sabotage your own character or spin them into tragedy because it makes the story more interesting. It’s a shift from “what would my character try to do” to “what do I want to have happen to my character” and in the story at large.

How I define Story Games: the Acid Test
That was several years ago. I’ve played a lot of different story games since then. Some good, some great and yes some terrible games too.

After playing all those games and explaining story games to lots and lots of people, I find that “a game that focuses on making a story” is a good description but not a very useful definition. It doesn’t identify specific differences. You could look at almost any role-playing game and say “hey, we were all about making a great story in our D&D game!” and you wouldn’t be wrong. If you’d only ever played games like D&D (like I had for decades) you might wonder what the big deal was.

Can we isolate a mechanical difference? An acid test that separates story games from adventure games? I think there’s one very quantifiable difference:

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.

I’d argue that’s the defining trait. The degree to which the rules give you authority that isn’t based on your character’s abilities is the degree to which it is a story game.

Think about that. In an adventure role-playing game you can only accomplish something because your character can do it. In a story role-playing game you can make something happen because as a player you want it, not just because your character can make it happen.

In an adventure game like D&D you decide what your character does, but your ability to succeed is a reflection of your character’s traits. If your character is stealthy you can sneak into the necromancer’s tower. If you’re clumsy you probably can’t. It doesn’t matter how much the player wants to sneak into the tower or thinks it would be interesting to sneak into the tower. The likelihood of success is only based on what the character can do in the fictional world.

In a story game (by my definition) the character isn’t the limit of your power in the game. The rules give the players authority over things that are outside their characters’ control. How, you ask? There are a lot of different ways. Take sneaking into the necromancer’s tower. In some story games players might have the power to frame scenes, letting them simply declare where the next action takes place: “this scene is inside the necromancer’s tower after my character snuck in…” In other story games disagreement might be resolved through conflict resolution: one player might say “I sneak into the tower!” and another player might think that shouldn’t work or should lead to trouble so it becomes a conflict they resolve with the rules (which might involve dice, voting, story points, etc. depending on the system). A player might oppose success because they don’t think it makes sense for the clumsy character to sneak into the tower, or they might be all for it because they think it would be awesome to have a big climactic scene in the tower: that’s up to them. Either way, the character’s fictional abilities are not the deciding factor. It’s the players that decide the result, as moderated by their authority in the rules.

Scene framing and conflict resolution are two common ways to give players say in what happens in the larger game, but there are a zillion other ways, large and small. The tiniest atomic particle of story game rules may be the humble action point or hero point: any case where a player has a pool of points they can spend to reroll dice. You don’t want your character to blow your riding check and lose the race (and look like an idiot in front of the king) so you spend a point to reroll. That’s the player influencing the fiction outside of the character (unless the reroll is something the character is doing to correct a mistake, not a replacement for the original outcome).

Laugh in the Face of Death
If you’ve played adventure role-playing games, you know that if something bad happens to your character it can take away your ability to play. A tactical mistake or a bad roll can take you out of the game.

We’ve all dealt with it. If your character falls in a pit and dies you are out of the game until you make a new character and the GM lets you bring them in. If your character is paralyzed by a necromancer in the middle of a fight (again with the necromancers!) you sit tight and wait while everyone else at the table plays without you. What did you do wrong? You rolled badly or you opened the wrong door or the GM decided the monster attacked you instead of someone else. Suck it up.

Story games don’t work that way. An outgrowth of the “your character is not the limit of your authority” bedrock is that in a story game what happens to your character does not reduce (or increase) your ability to participate in the game. Nothing that happens to the character can put the player in time-out. In a lot of story games character death is not even a possibility unless the player decides it’s a good idea, and if your character dies you can continue to play influencing what happens in the story of the characters that remain.

If what happens to your character can reduce your authority to contribute, you are probably not playing a story game. It’s critical because it gives you the freedom to make interesting, dramatic things happen. You don’t have to protect your character to stay in the game. You can focus on creativity instead of playing to survive. It’s a fundamental shift in the whole dynamic of play.

You got Story in my Adventure game!
So now we’ve got a nice neat yard stick to tell where a system falls on the continuum between adventure game and story game. Done! But a big source of confusion is that even if the rules are 100% traditional adventure game you can still play it in a story games style if you want to. Sort of. Up to a point.

Take D&D, old school D&D even. The players control their characters and the GM controls everything else. The characters’ chance of success is based on their character’s fictional abilities (good fighters win fights, poor fighters lose fights, etc.). But the GM could say to a player “Hey, tell me about the monastery your character came from.” Suddenly the player has some story game-style input into the fiction: their character didn’t create the monastery they were trained in, that’s the player making up things they want in the game. Or the GM could ask the group whether they want the next adventure to be more wilderness or dungeon crawling or political intrigue. Again, now the players are making contributions outside their characters.

Those examples are not that uncommon in adventure games. So hey, that makes them story games, right?

Not really. The important difference is that those contributions are arbitrary and non-binding. The GM is deciding when to ask the players for world input (if ever) and if the GM doesn’t like what they propose she can decide not to use it. The GM holds the veto. In an adventure games rules system, story game-style participation is an ad hoc privilege, not a right, and it can be rescinded at any time or never extended at all. It’s not a system.

On the other hand, if you’re a player in an adventure game and you can always decide to make “bad but interesting” decisions for your character but the penalties can be pretty brutal. Yep, it was awesome and dramatically moving to have your paladin take off his armor before the big battle to show his unshakeable faith in his god’s prophecy, but in game terms it meant you had a terrible AC and got cut down in a few rounds. Oops. Now sit and wait while everyone else finishes the fight. The adventure game doesn’t have a method to reward your decision because that’s not what it’s built to do. It doesn’t expect you to play that way.

Know which game you’re in
It goes the other way too. If you think you’re in an adventure game it can suck to discover you’re in a story game. You sit down ready to play your character and have the GM weave a believable and fantastic world full of challenges where you can get your suspension of disbelief on. Then the GM says he can’t decide whether there should elves or dwarves in the city you’re approaching and wants to know which you guys would prefer. Bubble, burst.

And that’s kind of the point of all this discussing and defining: if everyone at the table doesn’t agree about what kind of game they’re in then someone is likely to play the wrong way and have a very bad time. You may never understand why it all fell apart, just “that game sucked!” And without clear terminology and an understanding of the different kinds of role-playing games those conversations are a steep uphill slog. In the dark. With wolves.

(Here’s the part where I say something controversial that derails the whole discussion)

If you think about it, since the very dawn of RPGs players have been playing adventure games but GMs have been playing story games. GMs have always had the power to affect the game outside of any particular characters they control. It’s what GMs do.

What 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. The scale as he sees it is Adventure Game---Storygame. The Adventure Game is focused solely on the character mechanically, the Storygame includes mechanics not under the character's control, but under the player's control. This idea of a mechanic divorced from the reality of the character has another name, a dissociated mechanic. Many games are almost pure Adventure Games but for one element that lets the player interfere on behalf of the character to affect an outcome. Fate, Luck, Karma, etc. The player chooses to use this mechanic, not the character. Most games these days are some kind of blend, with both Player-Choices and Character-Choices to be made.

So if it's really a sliding scale and some really old-school Adventure Games include an OOC mechanic or two, then can you really define a game as being a Storygame and not an Adventure Game?

I believe you can. Go back to the definition of a Storygame 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.

If a game includes those elements as a key mechanic and removing them fundamentally alters the game to the point it needs redesign to function: you have a Storygame.

The thing is, there are very few games that meet this definition. There are many games that are chock full of OOC mechanics, but are very loosely associated to the character via Effort, Stamina, etc. or the cosmology of the setting itself allows for some form of intervention. Of course, even though the character shouldn;t be able to choose this intervention definitively or probably shouldn't decide the form for most people is close enough to not being a disbelief suspender.

So what are we left with? With the pure Storygame these days being something hardly anyone would classify as a RPG, today in the RPG arena, we're mainly left with two types of games.

1. Games that are almost purely Adventure Games (ie. Traditional RPGs) that have little to no OOC mechanics or if they do have one or two, they can be removed and not affect core gameplay at all from a character's PoV.
2. Games that are a mix of IC and OOC mechanics, which to some degree may be removed but probably hamper or in someway alter core gameplay to do so.

We kind of found our binary switch, didn't we? Of course this switch has been down in my sig for a while now.

Shawn Driscoll · July 28, 2016, 05:28:24 AM

A story game to me is any RPG that involves more than just killing NPCs and taking their stuff.

Some players get all fancy with how they add their own twists and turns to an unfolding story/plot during a one-shot or campaign. If you remember more about a story from a game, than who you killed and stole from, you probably played a story game of some kind. Some players remember adventure stuff, action stuff, social stuff from a game. But an actual story that could be a screenplay of some kind... story game.

Burning Wheel is hardcore story gaming. Plot trumps die mechanic. Sameoldji gives his take on it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ5HLXg-tWQ

crkrueger · July 28, 2016, 06:21:01 AM

The ironic part of what he said was the final aspect, which he said was controversial, but I don't think is controversial at all, if anything, it's axiomatic. He says GM's always Storygame, which is true to an extent.

When anyone GMs, they are constantly roleplaying every single NPC, so obviously a lot of roleplaying, but the job also demands, without option or exception, that they step outside those NPCs into the GM role. You can't constantly head-hop and always be roleplaying, you have to GM. You get to be creative, you get to storytell, you get to affect things outside your NPCs.

As a result, when I play, I don't need and sure as hell don't want a system that mimics that dual focus of IC and OOC. I get that all the time. We've basically crossed with the thread where you play someone who isn't you, well I'm a GM, so I live IC and OOC all the time. Change for me, something different for me, is being only IC when I play.

All that cool narrative control stuff, all it does is let players get a little GM freak on without all the work and responsibility.

RosenMcStern · July 28, 2016, 08:20:25 AM

Krueger, 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.

QuoteStorygamers go towards the story, while the OSR lets the story come to us.

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.

crkrueger · July 28, 2016, 08:32:27 AM

Going to be starting work early in a bit, so don't have much time, but when we're talking about what we want from a game, if you're talking about delivering that through mechanics, then how you get it, is important, and in fact becomes the defining aspect of the game.

If Game A uses technique set A and Game B uses technique set B, then those are important, especially when technique set B completely prevents me from attaining my goal by it's very methods. If my goal is to roleplay IC, then OOC mechanics cannot get me there. Period.

crkrueger · July 28, 2016, 08:49:21 AM

Have time for one more.

The idea that Storygamers go towards the story, while the OSR lets the story come to us. is only part of the issue, because you can do both with a system that does not use mechanical enforcement of the Storygamer's goal.

As was described in the Ars Ludi article, you can choose to make decisions with an eye toward the story, and attempt to make decisions from an OOC point of view, and the game itself doesn't care either way. There is no mechanical impediment to your OOC attempt, but there also is no OOC enforcement. There is no guarantee that you can affect the outcome.

In a system that chooses to support the Storygamer's goal, then there is mechanical enforcement for the OOC manipulation of in-game events, to varying degrees.

Now, at some point, the more OOC mechanics you provide in order to mechanically enforce the Storygamer's goal, you begin to actually mechanically impede the goals of those who do not want OOC engagement.

We're kind of back to the old argument that a "physics engine" system doesn't prevent any playstyles or player goals, even if it doesn't actively support any either, where a "coherent" game that actively supports one playstyle or goal will almost always do so at the active impediment of other playstyles or goals.

I see Storygamers go towards the story, while the OSR lets the story come to us. as simply being another way of phrasing the idea that a roleplayer has IC motivations while a storygamer, narrative roleplayer, whatever, has IC and OOC motivations.

RosenMcStern · July 28, 2016, 08:54:12 AM

QuoteGoing to be starting work early in a bit, so don't have much time, but when we're talking about what we want from a game, if you're talking about delivering that through mechanics, then how you get it, is important, and in fact becomes the defining aspect of the game.

I agree on the importance, less on the "defining". Contrary to Forge theory, the means is sometimes as important as the goals. Even in the storygame field, this point is debated. I have seen Vincent Baker oppose Ron Edwards on this subject by saying that at some point some technical agenda (means) had spoiled one of his games, despite the fact that the creative agenda (goal) was the same for all players. I agree with VB here.

However, the fact that one point is relevant and meaningful does not imply that you can base a definition on it. When you define something, the point is finding something that helps you discriminate. And not everything that is relevant is also a discriminant.

Looking forward to a more articulate reply later.

DavetheLost · July 28, 2016, 09:08:37 AM

My games have always had a fair amount of OOC player agency. I let the players define the world almost as much as I do. "Yes, and ..."

I can't possibly describe everything that might exist in the world, so if a player comes up with something reasonable I make it so. Note, it must be reasonable. A player whose character has been stripped to a loincloth and tossed in a prison cell reaching into his loincloth and pulling out a Kill-O-Zap Raygun is not reasonable. A lock pick might be, depending on the character.

Want to duck beind a dumpster or a trash can in a back alley? Unless I described the alley as being devoid of cover it is probably reasonable to assume that such a thing exists. They are fairly common in alleys after all.

I also prefer campaigns and adventures that tell a story that is more than just a string of random encounters. My days of dungeon crawling in random rooms and passageways are long behind me.

I still play games that were published in the '70s. I have and play the originals so I am not usually much attracted to retro-clones. The OSR seems to be a lot of games duplicating what I already have.

Does all of this make me a "story gamer"? An "old school gamer"? I just think of myself as a gamer.

RosenMcStern · July 28, 2016, 09:28:13 AM

Quote from: CRKrueger;910218The idea that Storygamers go towards the story, while the OSR lets the story come to us. is only part of the issue, because you can do both with a system that does not use mechanical enforcement of the Storygamer's goal.

As was described in the Ars Ludi article, you can choose to make decisions with an eye toward the story, and attempt to make decisions from an OOC point of view, and the game itself doesn't care either way. There is no mechanical impediment to your OOC attempt, but there also is no OOC enforcement. There is no guarantee that you can affect the outcome.

In a system that chooses to support the Storygamer's goal, then there is mechanical enforcement for the OOC manipulation of in-game events, to varying degrees.

Now, at some point, the more OOC mechanics you provide in order to mechanically enforce the Storygamer's goal, you begin to actually mechanically impede the goals of those who do not want OOC engagement.

I see no real controversy here. What you describe is "different technical ways of achieving the same goal", which is what I begun with. And the fact that "some mechanics that enable goal A may also prevent goal B", which is implied in my description. Note the point about the OSR requiring that the world be realistically dangerous to keep the "sense of authenticity" alive. It's a classic case where techniquest that facilitate experience B also steer you away from experience A. We are still on the same page so far.

QuoteWe're kind of back to the old argument that a "physics engine" system doesn't prevent any playstyles or player goals, even if it doesn't actively support any either, where a "coherent" game that actively supports one playstyle or goal will almost always do so at the active impediment of other playstyles or goals.

I see no argument here. This is exactly what Forge theory says (except that it always talks about goals, never about "playstyles", so let us avoid the latter word). So if you agree with this point, this can be taken as granted: everyone agrees with the statement, no controversy.

However, although this fact is not contested, the two movements give an extremely different judgement about its desirability. I have debated it a godzillion of times on countless forums: mere reliance on "world physics" creates fun for an OS gamer, frustration for a storygamer.

An OSR advocate will not give a damn about not knowing in advance what particular creative agenda will emerge from a game, nor bitch about not being able to extract a great story from 19 games out of 20 because lousy die rolls can end a great epic with a TPK at any moment. It's part of his fun. He wants it. Speed in obtaining the desirable goal (a great epic) is sacrificed to guarantee the important goal of "keeping the world coherent and consistent". This is what Venger calls "waiting for the story to come to you".

OTOH, a storygamer does not give a damn about "realism" and "plausibility". In fact, a lot of storygamers advocate that realism does not exist because their favourite games cannot implement it or they would fail to reach their goal

The ability to implement different agendas with a single game is sacrificed in order to guarantee that a single, chosen agenda will certainly emerge, and that it will do it in a few sessions, sometimes in a couple of hours, instead of waiting for things to happen "naturally" as they do in a classic game. This is what Venger calls "going towards the story".

Which of the two is better is debatable. And ultimately, most likely a matter of taste.

Tod13 · July 28, 2016, 09:30:59 AM

I think the original "spoilered" text should be shortened to this one line from it.

QuoteIn 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.

To me, story gamer means the players get narrative control beyond their character's actions. In the OSR, a character looks over the bar to see if there is a shotgun and the GM decides if a shotgun is found. In story gaming, the player decides if their character finds a shotgun. I see the interest in such a system but don't care for it personally.

Coffee Zombie · July 28, 2016, 09:57:20 AM

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;910176A story game to me is any RPG that involves more than just killing NPCs and taking their stuff.

So, by your definition...
Cyberpunk 2020: Heists, capers and pursuing private, hopeless wars against corps. Deadly combat, high mortality. Storygame?
GURPS: Generic system, heavy detail in skills and customization. Storygame?
Champions/Hero: Supers, book so thick with rules you could stop small arms with it. Storygame?
Runequest: Avoiding combat is wise, as you are very killable. Storygame?

Just a sampling.. but I think your definition needs work.

Tod13 · July 28, 2016, 10:05:19 AM

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;910232
Just a sampling.. but I think your definition needs work.

When someone asked for a "story game" definition on G+, I said "I think that might be like asking to define the OSR".

Gabriel2 · July 28, 2016, 10:08:54 AM

From what I've seen my definition of RPG versus storygame is as follows:

An RPG is a game whose mechanics focus on simulation of character activities with the player mostly focused on control of one or more characters which are his or hers in a setting.

A Stoygame is a game whose mechanics focus on determining who has narrative control at a given point in the game. A player in a storygame may have a character associated with them, but the mechanics of the game will determine how much more influence the player has beyond that character.

In an RPG, players may have greater narrative control based on the social contract between those playing. This is often an unspoken agreement based on familiarity and similar play goals of participants.

In a Storygame, narrative control is strictly regulated by mechanics, as the whole point of the game is that narrative control.

Madprofessor · July 28, 2016, 11:40:08 AM

This is clear as silver trumpet.

I don't have much time to post, but it is my sincere hope that this thread and definition will be educational as I see more arguments, misunderstandings and ill will over these essential differences than any other topic I have seen on this site.

Ars Lundi/CRKrueger's definitions (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)) get to the heart of the core differences between what I have called "traditional" games and story games, and these differences are so acute in my mind that it has sometimes been difficult for me to accept story games as RPGs as they seem to me, a completely different animal. After reading this post, I think I am wrong in that judgement. However, these are very different play-styles that can be, and sometimes are, mechanically enforced by the game rules/system. Failure to understand these differences can lead to a lot of misunderstanding, and more importantly - bad games. I like the term "adventure game" to differentiate games that are focused on IC play as opposed to "story game" for RPGs that focus on or force OOC play. Both, I think can be covered under the umbrella of "RPGs" (as a term), but it helps if we understand the differences and don't try to pretend like they create the same kinds of play experiences.

I also like the recognition that there is a sliding scale between these two poles. I consider myself a pretty hard core adventure game GM. However, even I encourage story game "privileges" to players on downtime, and in-between sessions, and even allow hero points or other OOC mechanics in some games. Adventure games commonly use some story game elements, and these can be incorporated or removed fairly easily via GM fiat. I can't think of any conditions where an adventure game is mechanically exclusive of story game elements - they can slide up and down at the GM's will. Some story games, like FATE, demonstrate the sliding scale as well. FATE is clearly a story game and was designed as such, yet it can be played IC in adventure game mode if you ignore/remove some of the story game elements. I've done it, and it may be an interesting anecdote that it was my players, not me, that rejected the OOC mechanics when we played FATE. On the other hand, some story games have OOC mechanical elements baked into the system that cannot easily be removed. Modiphius 2d20 is a good example. It cannot be played as an adventure game because the mechanics force the players to make OOC decisions on a regular basis and the system simply does not function without those OOC elements.

I think Venger's definition, "Storygamers go towards the story, while the OSR lets the story come to us," really just muddies the water, and though it may be a common aspect, it does nothing to address the essential differences between the two types of games, their mechanics, or play styles. I do think the statement is generally true: in an adventure game the story is derived from play and in a story game play is derived from the story. We had some long threads on these very topics that did not resolve anything - I think - because it is not the core difference. Rather, it is a generalization that is not always true, and more importantly it is simply a consequence of the fundamental difference between OOC an IC play and the mechanics that encourage or enforce it.

Trond · July 28, 2016, 12:24:22 PM

QuoteIn 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.

That was what I always thought, but the definition somehow got lost in all the talk here. So, Houses of the Blooded is a story game by this definition. Great, then I know at least one story game that I love