I find it amusing that Amber is considered by 50% thus far to be a "story game."

What sweet irony. :teehee:

I'm not sure "Hero Wars/HeroQuest" is a sensible equivalence. I have Hero Wars (1st ed.), and it lacks a structure seems to be key to the "story" conceit of HeroQuest.

Quote from: PaladinCA;460235I find it amusing that Amber is considered by 50% thus far to be a "story game."

What sweet irony. :teehee:

I expect half of those are just to get up Pundit's nose.

Quote from: PaladinCA;460235I find it amusing that Amber is considered by 50% thus far to be a "story game."

What sweet irony. :teehee:

It really is story gamey the way it is set up.  So I don't disagree with people saying that

Quote from: One Horse Town;460316I expect half of those are just to get up Pundit's nose.

Dont help inflate the Pundit's ego any further.  Most likely people selected that because after reading it, its very story gamey.

Thats how after reading it it feels to me.  But then I consider any diceless game to be more story gamey

Quote from: Phillip;460315I'm not sure "Hero Wars/HeroQuest" is a sensible equivalence. I have Hero Wars (1st ed.), and it lacks a structure seems to be key to the "story" conceit of HeroQuest.

I've got Heroquest 1e; 2e was released a while back.

Bear in mind that all three designs were completely independent of Forge thought. Hero Wars was "adopted" by the Forge as an example of the type of design they liked (i.e., both focused and specifically fitting into their favored category). It's never been clear that any of their "adopted" games was really intended to be played the way that they say. If it matters at all, Heroquest was actually considered to be a regression away from the ideal and back toward badwrong thinking.

Be that as it may, HQ 1e has a number of "story" structures/practices such as:

Thematic traits that can be bent as far as you like both in definition and use. So how well you accomplish something can be a function of how important it is to you; a contest can be abstractly framed between my "loves my children" vs. your "duty to nation", etc.

Lack of concrete consequences, which leads to implicit conflict resolution and stakes-setting. I.e., if I win, then X will happen, if you win, then Y will happen.

Extended contests rules that completely detach narration and mechanics, letting them run in parallel with the only coordination being whatever the GM can enforce. E.g., "I'm going to flick a grain of rice at him for 15 points!" Even more would be use in social conflict where no matter how good or bad your argument, its impact depends on how many points you wager.

In Heroquest 2 I believe they pretty much did away with Extended contests, so that problem ought to be gone. The simple contests might also be better since there are fewer augments, which may make it easier to enforce use of sensible traits for the primary comparison.

However, HQ 2 has some sort of baked-in system that makes the difficulty of any contest dependent on the putative point in the story where it occurs. So that seems pretty bogus, and in fact it was even too much for some story-gamers.

Quote from: Daedalus;460319Dont help inflate the Pundit's ego any further.  

Don't underestimate the 'get up Pundit's nose' faction.

Quote from: Elliot WilenHowever, HQ 2 has some sort of baked-in system that makes the difficulty of any contest dependent on the putative point in the story where it occurs. So that seems pretty bogus, and in fact it was even too much for some story-gamers.

That's the bit missing from HW that I was talking about.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;460323However, HQ 2 has some sort of baked-in system that makes the difficulty of any contest dependent on the putative point in the story where it occurs. So that seems pretty bogus, and in fact it was even too much for some story-gamers.

I don't have my copy on me, but I thought that was an "at the GM's discretion" thing.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;460323Bear in mind that all three designs were completely independent of Forge thought. Hero Wars was "adopted" by the Forge as an example of the type of design they liked (i.e., both focused and specifically fitting into their favored category). It's never been clear that any of their "adopted" games was really intended to be played the way that they say.

Yeah, I mean, Castle Falkenstein was in the original "narrativism" essay, and it's basically a completely normal 1990s type game, with a vivid setting, GM-and-players setup and simple mechanics, similar to Vampire, which, by contrast, ended up being classified in the same category as cholera and rat poison.

Quote from: Peregrin;460333I don't have my copy on me, but I thought that was an "at the GM's discretion" thing.

I've read people say you can play without it. I was just trying to identify the thing that Phillip was talking about.

Quote from: One Horse Town;460327Don't underestimate the 'get up Pundit's nose' faction.

That's fair to say.  For me, it's just that I dislike diceless rpgs

And to me after reading Amber and a few others they come across as storygames to me

Quote from: One Horse Town;460316I expect half of those are just to get up Pundit's nose.

Really? I don't really care about the "story game" designation and so I'm not entirely sure what it entails, but it seems to me that Amber is a) definitional non-traditional and b) players have quite a bit more control over elements of the game than they do in traditional games. Those seem to be two big components of "story games."

I would imagine if you educated the man on the street gamer about Amber, they'd lump in it with the Forge/indie lot without much equivocation or fuss.

Seanchai

Amber seems that it would be a weird game to classify.  The characters are basically gods able to shape the reality of the shadow worlds, so when they "edit the world" it is doing it in character and not due to a player-based goal of story creation.

The fact that Amber is second on the list ahead of games with obvious storytelling mechanics, makes me think OneHorse has something there.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;460375Amber seems that it would be a weird game to classify.  The characters are basically gods able to shape the reality of the shadow worlds, so when they "edit the world" it is doing it in character and not due to a player-based goal of story creation.

The same is, of course, true of Nobilis which also appears to hold a high position on that poll. Much like the various White Wolf games, its GM advice discusses campaigns in terms of story, but the mechanics are purely based on the in-setting abilities and features of the characters. There aren't even drama points or whatnot.