Quote from: The Butcher;465863I can't for the life of me track down the exact quote amongst the thousands of posts in which Pundy rages against the evils of "story".

But I'm fairly sure he did.

Like most more or less sensible gamers, he's against having a particular story with beginning, middle and end all laid out before anyone even rolls up characters, and railroading PCs along towards it. He's not against a story spontaneously emerging from events and characters in play.

The difference between storygame and trad play is script and transcript.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;465872The difference between storygame and trad play is script and transcript.

So, Trad RPG Adventure Paths == Storygames.

Dogs in the Vineyard == Trad game.

Totally makes sense.

If an adventure path permits of no deviation, and if this path is known to the participants before they even set foot on it, then yes it is a storygame. Not even Dragonlance did that.

Dogs is not a trad game, because it's heavily restricted. Whatever the Dogs decide is right, The End. But if all choices have equal value, no choices have any value. The Dogs could respond to every problem by slaughtering the entire town, and if they decided that was right, then they would be right. This would be a fizzle of a game session, even by the standards of someone like Uncle Ronny, and would certainly lead to players being "tired, bitter and frustrated." That's because freedom is meaningless when choices have no consequences.

The key is freedom with consequences. A trad game has freedom with consequences, a storygame restricts either freedom (railroading) or consequences (PCs cannot die or be wrong, etc).

Obviously few games are at those extremes in the rules and still less in play, and most games contain a random assortment of trad and storygame elements. Which is the way it should be, the sane middle ground.

I don't think that's a very good characterization of what makes something a story-game, but whatever.

*edit*

To see if I'm reading you correctly, by your definition, would the Almighty Amber DRPG hew extremely close to being a story-game?  Don't characters in that have nearly unlimited power to do whatever the hell they want with limited or no consequences?

He who sows "story" shall reap "story". No sympathy from me.

Crap in, crap out. A self fulfilling prophecy.

Quote from: Imperator;465739Otherwise reasonable people will go apeshit ballistic at the mention of "story" as a component of RPGs,

(1) Storytelling games require dissociated mechanics.

(2) Dissociated mechanics are antithetical to roleplaying.

(3) Ergo, if you play RPGs for the roleplaying, storytelling mechanics not only don't satisfy your desires, but may be actively interfering with your enjoyment of the game.

QuoteBut a story is going to emerge as a result of the actions of the players,

Stories can be told about ANY sequence of actions. I had a guy tell me a story about a game of Scrabble he played yesterday. That doesn't mean Scrabble is a storytelling game.

For further reading, check out Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games.

Quote from: Settembrini;465881He who sows "story" shall reap "story". No sympathy from me.

Crap in, crap out. A self fulfilling prophecy.

You should write fortune cookies.

Quote from: Seanchai;465866Do the publishers intend for such products to stand on their own, however? How many use trade dress, fonts, art, names, conventions, et al., intended to remind potential customers of Ye Olden Days, thus invoking positive associations and a sale? If they intend a product to stand solely on its own merits, shouldn't it eschew using such tactics?

Seanchai

That's not what I meant. What I went on to say in the post you are quoting from is that nostalgia is only an issue in content of something like a discussion forum  (or possibly a game design competition) in which people often end up  trying to argue objective merits of games.

So to make a concrete example, there is no question that some people enjoy older versions of D&D and that is really as far as the discussion needs to go.  But in a forum just as this you will find people who will claim that newer games are better designed question whether those who enjoy older version of D&D are influenced by  a sense nostalgia rather than looking at the game from an objective designed point of view.

In the end it's all pretty silly because it comes down to one form of subjective is given less credit than another form of subjective, but that's what we do here.

Quote from: Benoist;465830And yeah, I'll totally own up to that: this statement is based on a defined approach of D&D's game play. No question about it. It's not about the stickers on the books or whatnot. It's precise.

Cool. But then, let's be precise: D&D = canonical 1e AD&D for you. Which is a great choice - actually, I've come to appreciate more 1e thanks tou guys like you or thedungeondelver - but cannot be taken as an axiom regarding the general population of RPGs.

QuoteOK, seen that way I would actually agree it can be played as an RPG. Just like you can play a trad game as a storytelling/narrative game, or like you can in theory (never done it myself, unless you count WoD games as narrative games, which I wouldn't) use some overtly narrative game as a role playing game, or use monopoly and role play the shoe or car on the board, you can actually use HeroQuest and Advanced as role playing games.

Believe me, we did. We roleplayed our characters between dungeon expeditions (also, the game included some rules like the cost of living between delvings, and paying taxes and shit like that), and over time we generatd some random tables that allowed for many pure RP encounters. And lots of monster slaying, of course.

QuoteMan, I always wanted to gather a bunch of HeroQuest boards, pile five of them on top of one another and play a huge three dimensional dungeon that way. That would have been cool. One day, perhaps!

If you can, lay your hands either on Advanced HeroQuest (which, by the way, only uses D12s, which is awesome), or Warhammer Quest.

QuoteThe problem is to separate the wheat from the chaff, the guy who's genuinely enthusiastic about this or that game, where that other guy just wants to get some OSR creds through fake enthusiasm. It's hard to tell which is which in practice, isn't it? I mean, you take guys like me or DungeonDelver, right? I mean, it's hard to be more hardcore about the First Ed game than Bill, to be honest. But it's always made sense to me, from as far as I can remember him posting on ENWorld years and years ago. I don't understand why people think he's a troll. He's not. He's just a guy who knows what he likes and knows what he dislikes and has no problem talking about which is which. Which is cool with me.

I've never found him to be a troll, just a very hardcore guy. But again, JDCorley has ben considered a troll here and in Story-Games.com, and I cannot for the life of me see how he is such. Actually, he owns most of the bestest threads ever in StoryGames, always showing the people how you can run awesome trad games.

QuoteOne day I'm going to make him admit that 3rd ed and First ed have more in common than meets the eye though. Hehe.

For me, all the eds of D&D share a lot in common, despite differences in system and rules.

I have this stupid ass dream of someday running a huge mega-campaign using each edition of D&D in - more or less - chronological order, assuming that each edition represents a different age of the word, with differences in the amount of magic available, changes in the races and stuff like that. Maybe a year of campaign for each ed or so, to keep things manageable.

OD&D > Mentzer BECMI D&D > 1e AD&D > 2e AD&D > 3e > 4e > LotFP for the crepuscular end of time. 7 years of campaign, a very long stretch but manageable nonetheless, specially if you have an open table.

Quote from: StormBringer;465850Emphasis mine.  The details are essentially what the game is about, but the 'action' portion is done.  You went to the Amazon and recovered the golden idol.  This is just the Four Yorkshiremen after you get back.

Well, it definitely sounds like a crappy game, but I still can see it as an RPG.

Look, it's not how I roll and I would not do it that way, but for many GMs prepping a campaign maybe something like "We start in this area, we run some low level adventures to get them in shape, then we move on to the Big City where they will meet the CONSPIRACY OF HORROR AND PAIN and when they defeat it..."

And it's an RPG. Maybe a shitty game, but is no different than that.

QuoteI will disagree about limitations, though.  Some truly are amateur mistakes.  In my readings with a more nuanced eye that comes from experience, however, many of the rules that appeared limiting are actually anywhere from smart to absolutely brilliant systems that interact near perfectly.  This is my opinion, of course, but I would be happy to discuss particulars if you are interested.

I would like to hear about that.

Quote from: Peregrin;465851Even with sorcery?  

Dude. Totally. I cannot understand the hate of sorcery. For me, it's a brilliant system, even better if you take Sandy Petersen's house rules.

Quote from: The Butcher;465857First of all, thanks, Ramon. Epic motherfucking first post. :hatsoff:

Wow, that is a very high compliment coming from you. Many thanks

QuoteStorygames are, to me, highly specialized RPGs, specifically engineered to generate stories which more closely resemble literary forms. I suppose this makes for a fairly different experience from a "traditional RPG" like D&D, or Traveller, or Vampire, especially when the "shared narrative authority" thingie rears its head.

This is a definition I can totally support and that matches 100% my own experiences.

Quote from: Benoist;465858Did the Pundit ever say specifically that no story is ever produced from play after the fact? Because that's nonsense.

I can't remember him saying something like that.

Quote from: Peregrin;465874So, Trad RPG Adventure Paths == Storygames.

Dogs in the Vineyard == Trad game.

Totally makes sense.

Again, it matches my experience.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;465878Dogs is not a trad game, because it's heavily restricted. Whatever the Dogs decide is right, The End. But if all choices have equal value, no choices have any value. The Dogs could respond to every problem by slaughtering the entire town, and if they decided that was right, then they would be right.

Yeah, but I don't think that example is valid. It' like arguing that D&D is idiotic because some groups could play it by constantly pillaging and burning everything.

To judge a game one should go for the average or most common experience the game provides, not the extremes. Yeah, the Dogs could end all problems shooting the shit out of th whole town, but I can bet that most groups won't. And for most groups, it will playlikeany other RPG in which there are some restrictions on chargen. It's no different than a GM sayin' "I want to run a D&D campaign where everyone is a Ranger and they roam the country serving the King."

Quote from: Peregrin;465880To see if I'm reading you correctly, by your definition, would the Almighty Amber DRPG hew extremely close to being a story-game?  Don't characters in that have nearly unlimited power to do whatever the hell they want with limited or no consequences?

It could be argued that Amber was one of the first storygames.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;465889(1) Storytelling games require dissociated mechanics.

(2) Dissociated mechanics are antithetical to roleplaying.

Man, all mechanics are dissociated. The act of stepping out of character to look at your sheet and grab some dice, see the result and decide the outcome is dissociative. Now, I will agree that some mechanics (marking in 4e) are more dissociative than other (a STR attribute). So no, I don't see that point.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;465889(1) Storytelling games require dissociated mechanics.

(2) Dissociated mechanics are antithetical to roleplaying.

(3) Ergo, if you play RPGs for the roleplaying, storytelling mechanics not only don't satisfy your desires, but may be actively interfering with your enjoyment of the game.

I disagree with (2). I think sometimes to truly realise and communicate your character and what really matters to him you need you need be able to influence the game beyond simply physical simulation.

I find anti-immersive if the system provides me the exact same same tools and odds to save my character's daughter from the fire or pet turtle. Certainly I'm going to be more motivated in the first instance than the latter.

So maybe in real life, yeah your chances to saving either the girl or the turtle are much the same, but one thing to bear in mind most roleplaying games aren't about normal people with normal problems. They don't reflect our day to day experience. What they do reflect is fiction, or more accurately sub-genre fiction. And just like the way when running a superhero game you accept, even revel in, superhero physics, so too you want the game to reflect some of the dramatic conceits of the genre, like if you have personal stake in something you fight harder and are more likely to succeed.

And here is the thing. Maybe the very moment you spend a Hero Point or use a Fate Point to make a Declaration isn't in itself immersive, but the overall effect of having some sort of dramatic control is immersive. The next time you play that character you can look back to what he has done in play, and it makes sense. It's not just a random, disjointed series of events but it feels right and suits the character and that it turn helps you get into the character skin.

But it all you have is physical simulation then for me it's just a management training exercise. I don't like those.

Quote from: Peregrin;465880by your definition, would the Almighty Amber DRPG hew extremely close to being a story-game?

Amber has very many storygame elements, yes. It's extremely thespy. It's much more storygame than, for example, Burning Wheel. You won't find any posts from me praising Amber as a "trad" game, or indeed praising anything at all about it.

A matter of degrees, though, and I emphasise: even the crustiest old D&D grognard DM uses storygame elements in their game session. Gygax told them to, after all. For example, he discusses concealing and manipulating dice rolls to make certain things more or less likely to happen according to DM wishes, and says,

   "You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur."
- AD&D1e DMG, p110
That's story-gaming advice there. If something other than player choice or the roll of the dice decides the course of events, if DM or players are able to have outside-game-world concerns decide things - via GM fiat, Hero Points, or whatever - then they are shaping things to create a particular plotline - a story.

Thus, storygame elements have been present in the hobby since the beginning. It's a question of degree only. This does not mean that a pure storygame is a good thing. A little salt brings out the other flavours of the dish better, but only a fool would eat a whole block of salt by itself.

Quote from: ImperatorIt' like arguing that D&D is idiotic because some groups could play it by constantly pillaging and burning everything.

Not the same at all.

In a D&D game, actions have consequences, and there are more-or-less objective moral standards (alignment system). In Dogs, whatever the Dogs do is supported by the entire social structure, and by the rules themselves. Their actions may or may not succeed, but their actions are always right - if they decide they're right.

Dogs has an infinitely malleable ex post facto alignment system. In D&D terms, "Was that Lawful Good? Well, if we all say it was Lawful Good, it was Lawful Good - and the Lawful Good King will back you up no matter what, and all the other Lawful Good citizens of the realm will agree with you - because you're the PCs."

Which if you put in D&D, then yes the PC could be run with groups constantly pillaging and burning everything without consequence.

Certainly some D&D campaigns have been run like that, PC actions having no consequences good or bad. We call that "bad DMing," it's not hardwired into the rules though as it is in Dogs. There's a difference between a game which can be run with boring futility, and one in which the boring futility is a central design feature.

Quote from: Soylent Green;465905And just like the way when running a superhero game you accept, even revel in, superhero physics, so too you want the game to reflect some of the dramatic conceits of the genre, like if you have personal stake in something you fight harder and are more likely to succeed.

And here is the thing. Maybe the very moment you spend a Hero Point or use a Fate Point to make a Declaration isn't in itself immersive, but the overall effect of having some sort of dramatic control is immersive. The next time you play that character you can look back to what he has done in play, and it makes sense. It's not just a random, disjointed series of events but it feels right and suits the character and that it turn helps you get into the character skin.

But it all you have is physical simulation then for me it's just a management training exercise. I don't like those.

Bravo, sir.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;465906"You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur."
- AD&D1e DMG, p110

Someone is going to get a stroke here

QuoteCertainly some D&D campaigns have been run like that, PC actions having no consequences good or bad. We call that "bad DMing," it's not hardwired into the rules though as it is in Dogs. There's a difference between a game which can be run with boring futility, and one in which the boring futility is a central design feature.

Again, I've read and run thegae and I see no such futility anywhere.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;465889(2) Dissociated mechanics are antithetical to roleplaying.

That is simply not true. Neither I, nor any of my players, has ever not achieved immersion because of mechanics.
That might be YOUR problem (and from the looks of it, Benoist's problem, too), but that doesn't neccessarily mean anybody else is having that problem.

Quote from: The Butcher;465863I can't for the life of me track down the exact quote amongst the thousands of posts in which Pundy rages against the evils of "story".

But I'm fairly sure he did.

I think this is what you're looking for (from a thread that covers a lot of the same ground as this one, btw):

Quote from: RPGPundit;342685The intent is that some kind of ACTIVITY will happen, and that activity may then be turned into some kind of a story. Some may be better than others, you may end up with the brave heroes killing the orcs and rescuing the princess or you may end up with the brave heroes spending 7 hours of game time wandering through wilderness hexes without notable encounter or you may end up with the brave heroes all murdered by an Owlbear, game over.
The point is that "story" is INCIDENTAL. It happens as a By-product. The point of the whole thing is not "story", its adventure.

When you make the "setup" mentioned earlier, you do not already know how things will go. If you do, you're not playing an RPG. If you don't, you're not telling a story.
Its that fucking simple.

RPGPundit

There are a bunch of unrelated things being talked about here.  

One is having a predetermined plot, like modules for Dragonlance and other AD&D2 series, Deadlands, and Torg.  

Second is having out-of-character (aka dissociated) mechanics used by the player - like hero points, narration rights, etc.  Strong examples of these might be Polaris, Fiasco, and so forth.  

A third is the players giving attention or focus on the story that results, regardless of how it was made.  The advice text from Star Wars D6 and White Wolf games exemplify this.  

A fourth is not having mechanics or not having enough mechanics, like theater style larps where everyone plays in character - or freeform diceless games where the GM rules without mechanics.  

A fifth is restricting consequences, supposedly like Dogs in the Vineyard.  (?)  

The things is that I don't think these even correspond at all.  These tend to be vastly different and even antithetical to each other.  You can't combine narration rights with a pre-set story, say.  Games like Fiasco impose very harsh consequences and have nothing at all pre-set about the story, but are very dissociated and verge on mechanicless freeform.  

(As I side note, I think the point about Dogs in the Vineyard is bizarre.  The point of that is that in the setting, the Dogs are religious authorities - like the real-world principle of papal infallibility.  What they do carries religious authority, but that doesn't mean that there are no consequences to what they do.  Every DitV game I've seen has been full of nasty consequences for the PCs.)