Quote from: CRKrueger;418828Why don't you look up in your dictionary recount and account.  You'll find they are referring to describing something after the fact.

You do not narrate something live unless you are creating a story live.  You do not narrate what happens concerning a real event, you narrate what happened.

Good point, but "unless you are creating a story live" could be the clincher because it suggests "narrate" can have some present-tense uses. Will have to think about that.

Let's suppose I'm on the phone to you as I watch a policeman chasing a robber. Am I "narrating" what happens if I describe those events to you? I think I am. I'm not sure. I will have to think about it. If I am "narrating" what happens in that context, is it any different if I'm describing what my character is doing in a roleplaying game? I don't think so.

I can certainly "give you an account" of what I intend to do. I don't think I can "recount" what I intend to do. I don't think I can "narrate" what I intend to do but I'm not sure TBH. Can I "narrate" what I am doing? Not sure. Will have to do some digging on that.

So if "narrate" only means past-tense or literary story, what term are we left with - describe?

OK. So the GM has - descriptive authority?

Let me check around on the Internet some more before you proclaim final victory on this.

Quote from: Benoist;418839Nope. You are not "recounting events". You are living through them.

That's the difference between actually playing a role-playing game, and writing a story for your buddies to read.

Surely on any view you can be living through events and describing them at the same time. The contrary view just doesn't make sense at all.

Quote from: Omnifray;418846Surely on any view you can be living through events and describing them at the same time. The contrary view just doesn't make sense at all.

The fact you would consider the contrary view to not make any sense at all is nonsensical to me. The point of a role playing game is to blur the lines between you playing a game and being in the game, actually experiencing its virtual reality through your character.

It's like the question you asked earlier: "Do you really think that when you play a character who's firing a gun, you are firing the gun yourself?" Well yes, Sir, yes I do! Or at least there is a blurring of the lines going that actually defines role playing games to me. If I am not experiencing any blurring of the lines between fiction and reality as it applies to the game world as I play through it, then I am not playing a role playing game at all, but playing some kind of cooperative story composition game instead, which is not the same thing at all, in my mind. This explains why your use of such terms as "narratives" in a role playing game do not make any sense to me, or why I do not like to use the term "story" as it would be applied to the game world depicted by a role playing game.

Quote from: Omnifray;418845Let me check around on the Internet some more before you proclaim final victory on this.

I'm not interested in declaring victory, I would like to have an honest conversation about what we all call roleplaying.  

However, saying you're not a Forger or that you prefer immersive roleplaying within an emulated world doesn't change the fact that insisting on using the terms "narrative" and "authority" which are loaded storygaming terms, does appear that you and BWA are doing exactly what John Morrow referred to, namely, using terminology to try and destroy a distinction you do not believe exists instead of honestly discussing the distinction which we obviously believe exists.

Quote from: Benoist;418848The fact you would consider the contrary view to not make any sense at all is nonsensical to me. The point of a role playing game is to blur the lines between you playing a game and being in the game, actually experiencing its virtual reality through your character.

It's like the question you asked earlier: "Do you really think that when you play a character who's firing a gun, you are firing the gun yourself?" Well yes, Sir, yes I do! Or at least there is a blurring of the lines going that actually defines role playing games to me. If I am not experiencing any blurring of the lines between fiction and reality as it applies to the game world as I play through it, then I am not playing a role playing game at all, but playing some kind of cooperative story composition game instead, which is not the same thing at all, in my mind. This explains why your use of such terms as "narratives" in a role playing game do not make any sense to me, or why I do not like to use the term "story" as it would be applied to the game world depicted by a role playing game.

How about this. Please imagine that I am a complete newbie who has never played a roleplaying game, not even a storygame, never LARPed or LRPed, never even picked up a miniature figurine. And explain to me in terms that I will understand how I play the game, and what I'm doing when I say "I attack the orc with my sword". Obviously, I'm SAYING it. And I'm SAYING it for a reason. Why is that? To convey to the GM what I'm doing? Isn't that the same as DESCRIBING to the GM what I'm doing?

And I've been Googling "narrate events as they happen" - it seems to be a phrase which has quite some usage, including in relation to the behaviour of toddlers in some scientific journal - they narrate events as they happen. That's not telling a story, except in a figurative sense maybe.

Does it make a difference if you call what players do exercising their "descriptive agency" rather than "narrative authority"? I mean, we all know what players do in-game, and that it's asymmetrical with what GMs do in traditional RPGs.

But I think the idea that players "live" the experience of their characters in a straightforward way ignores how RPG experience is enacted through the use of language, and some way of talking about that is probably useful.

Quote from: Benoist;418848This explains why your use of such terms as "narratives" in a role playing game do not make any sense to me, or why I do not like to use the term "story" as it would be applied to the game world depicted by a role playing game.

And by the way, to add a footnote on that previous post, I do not consider this to be a "detail", or just an intellectual theoretical argument. This actually has a direct impact on how games are designed, what the rules are supposed to achieve in a game, and how its published modules are actually structured. Just on the latter, as an example, the way one would look upon an RPG session as a "narrative" or "story" has a direct impact on the way modules are designed, and potentially try to railroad you into "storylines" and pre-scripted events. Just an example, really. So this distinction in my mind does matter a lot as to the manner in which games are actually designed. This is a practical, down-to-earth argument, not a theoretical line-drawing in la-la-land, to me.

Quote from: BWA;4188141. To me, "narrating" is when we speak during role-playing games to say what our characters are doing, or what is happening in the imaginary game world.

This is probably fine.

Quote from: BWA;4188142. To me, "authority" is the power to say something, during a role-playing game, and all other players (GM included) accept that thing as valid and true, without having to engage the mechanics.

This is an abuse of the term "authority".  Acceptance does not imply authority.  Not needing approval and having the ability to say "no" implies authority.  In a traditional role-playing game, the players need the GM's approval (implied or explicit) for what they say to be accepted as having happened in the game and the GM has the ability to say "no".  The GM is the one with "narrative authority".  The players do not have "authority".  Why do you insist on framing this as "authority" to create the impression that players have a level of control that they don't necessarily have?

Quote from: BWA;418814Anyone who objects to these words, throw up a suggestion for something new, and we can use that, if it makes sense.

Players in traditional games simply do not have what you are trying to imply they have by combining the ability to say something and the acceptance of it.  I already gave you an alternative: "suggestion".  The player makes a "narrative suggestion" about what their character does and the GM or rules ultimately determine whether it actually happens as stated and what happens as a consequence.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835OK so let me understand this then. When I say "I attack the orc with my sword", am I not recounting events?

You might want to explore the concept of "speech-act". Or compare when a grandmaster playing blindfold chess says "Queen to King's Rook Four", vs. when he tells how he bought a sandwich the other day.

Quote from: CRKrueger;418850I'm not interested in declaring victory, I would like to have an honest conversation about what we all call roleplaying.  

However, saying you're not a Forger or that you prefer immersive roleplaying within an emulated world doesn't change the fact that insisting on using the terms "narrative" and "authority" which are loaded storygaming terms, does appear that you and BWA are doing exactly what John Morrow referred to, namely, using terminology to try and destroy a distinction you do not believe exists instead of honestly discussing the distinction which we obviously believe exists.

I'm not trying to use terminology to subvert any distinctions. That's just silly.

The distinction you have in mind is I think in essence the distinction between storygames and traditional immersive roleplaying games.

To me, it's fine to put it this way:-

In traditional immersive roleplaying games you adopt the point of view of your character. This is called immersion and it involves suspending your disbelief and seeing the world through your character's eyes.

In storygames as you imagine them to be you concentrate on developing a story. Your focus is not on playing the role of your character so much as on focusing play on particular premises, themes and so on for the betterment of the story.

Now, I would go on and say that, like you, Benoist and Pundit, generally speaking I am not interested in how "good" the "story" is. What I am interested in is immersion and the beautiful pastures it leads to, including things like a sense of mystery, horror etc.

I have played Montsegur 1244 and it is resolutely a storygame with shared narrative control where you switch characters and pass the role of principal narrator back and forth. It was not a terrible experience. On the contrary it was quite good fun. I prefer immersive roleplaying games.

What I found with Montsegur 1244 was that there were elements of immersive play, but they were constantly being interrupted. I was distracted from my immersion by the need to adopt a global perspective and by having to switch characters. The facilitator even told me off for the level of descriptive detail I gave of things that were going on - he wanted "punchier" descriptions. To me, that descriptive detail was a technique for building immersion. He wanted the focus to be on a punchy story.

What do I conclude from this empirical if anecdotal experience?

Storygames are very likely to involve roleplaying. The roleplaying is interrupted. You are distracted from it by storygame elements. But storygames still involve roleplaying. In fact, roleplaying was how I was trying to have my fun. Inadvertently I suppose I was frequently subverting the storygame by focusing on my immersion, not on the story, although I approached the game in good faith and tried to focus on the story.

Roleplaying games also end up creating a story. The focus is on the roleplay, but incidental to the roleplay is a story which grows out of what the characters do and bear witness to.

So, is there a distinction? yes.

Is it an absolute brightline distinction? Well I suppose in a sense it is. You can approach a game with the purpose of roleplaying, or you can approach it with the purpose of creating a story. But whichever you do, elements of the other will naturally emerge even if they are incidental to your primary purpose.

Could you have a game which is borderline storygame/roleplaying game, where people would differ as to which it was, and which is truly a half-way house between the two? I think so. Not saying it would be the best game in the world, mind.

But I do think, or at least I think I think, that roleplaying involves incidental storytelling, and storytelling involves incidental roleplaying. Maybe I'm wrong but that's how it seems to me.

I don't think that that detracts from the importance of the distinction. You can focus on storytelling meaning creating a story with consciously pre-envisioned qualities, or you can focus on roleplaying meaning immersion. Whenever you step apart from your character to aim for those pre-envisioned qualities, you are stepping away from immersion. Where your focus lies is, I think, an important and fundamental question.

So, in a sense it's true that storygames are not roleplaying games and vice versa. The focus lies in different areas. The essence of the activity is different. But I think there is a grey area between the two extremes and some room for overlap between them.

My own preference is for immersive roleplaying games. But I don't see it as contradicting that to allow the players some kind of limited narrative input filtered by the GM's right to change or veto those suggestions.

For instance, spending a fate point to ask for a plot event. GM can say yay or nay. As long as it doesn't happen all the time and isn't a constant interruption, I think it may enhance the game, and certainly doesn't turn it into a storygame just because it occasionally involves something other than strictly immersive roleplaying.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835OK so let me understand this then. When I say "I attack the orc with my sword", am I not recounting events?

No, you are declaring intent.  It's like saying, "I'm going to go a restaurant for lunch."  That's probably exactly what I'm doing but something may also prevent me from achieving that intent.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835Am I not describing events? Am I not doing so with an "authorial voice", even if it is contingent on acceptance by the GM?

No.  First, because it's contingent on GM acceptance.  Second, because describing your intent in the first person isn't an "authorial voice" in a meaningful sense.  The GM is the one with the authority.  Authors generally write to a particular ending.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835When Lovecraft says "That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box ... " is that not an "authorial voice"? If the GM asks me "where is the document" and I say "I've put it in the tin box", is that not an "authorial voice"?

When you tell a friend, "I'm going to a restaurant for lunch," are you speaking with an "authorial voice"?

Quote from: Omnifray;418835Do you really think that when you play a character who's firing a gun, you are firing the gun yourself?

My character does because that's what they perceive as happening.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835Of course you're not. You're imagining firing the gun yourself. You're immersed in your character's point of view of firing the gun yourself. You're giving immediate voice to your character's point of view.

The character's point of view can exist independently of the player's point of view.  The character is unaware of game as a game and only knows about the game setting and events in it.  From that virtual perspective, the character believes they are shooting a gun.  That's why the character experiencing their setting as a real place is so critical to thinking in character.  This should not be an alien concept to anyone who has seen The Matrix.

Quote from: Omnifray;418835Why can't it be both at the same time?

Why does it have to be both at the same time?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;418861You might want to explore the concept of "speech-act". Or compare when a grandmaster playing blindfold chess says "Queen to King's Rook Four", vs. when he tells how he bought a sandwich the other day.

The grandmaster verbally elects to move Queen to King's Rook Four.

By verbally electing a choice, you are simultaneously describing the choice you elect. You might say that the purpose is the election, rather than the description, and in relation to the chess grandmaster you would be right, but in relation to RPGs I would disagree - it has a dual purpose. Once the player verbally elects and thereby describes an action, there's usually no need for the GM to repeat that description, unless he wants to embellish it or give it special confirmation.

Or, on a Benoistic view, you might not be choosing how your character acts, but simply experiencing how he acts. If so, why do you say anything about it at all? Surely, so that the others know what you are doing and can share your experience. In other words, you are describing it for them, so that it can form part of your shared experience.

I think it's natural to use the word "narrate" in that sense, in the sense of "narrating events as they happen" which I've found 4 pages of Google search results to confirm as current usage.

Quote from: John Morrow;418863No, you are declaring intent.  It's like saying, "I'm going to go a restaurant for lunch."  That's probably exactly what I'm doing but something may also prevent me from achieving that intent.

You are declaring your intention of going to the restaurant for lunch (which could be said to be the same as describing your intention) AND SIMULTANEOUSLY you are also describing what you are going to do (namely, go to the restaurant for lunch).

QuoteWhen you tell a friend, "I'm going to a restaurant for lunch," are you speaking with an "authorial voice"?

I was quoting another poster's reference to an "authorial voice" and trying to clarify what he meant.

QuoteThe character's point of view can exist independently of the player's point of view.  The character is unaware of game as a game and only knows about the game setting and events in it.  From that virtual perspective, the character believes they are shooting a gun.  That's why the character experiencing their setting as a real place is so critical to thinking in character.  This should not be an alien concept to anyone who has seen The Matrix.

Can you please stop acting as if I have never played a roleplaying game in my life. Obviously there is a division between character knowledge and player knowledge. Obviously I am aware of that.

BWA, semantics aside, do you prefer games that let you, as a player, dictate things other than the thoughts and attempted actions of your character?

I think that shit ruins the game. To me, it would be like playing chess, and then moving one of the pieces controlled by the other player. Even if it said, in the rules in the box, that player 2 gets to do that occasionally, I'd still think it was cheating.

So, five pages in and no response to my post, huh? Well, I guess that's smart of you, not to get into a fight where you're sure you're outmatched. Fair enough.

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