TheRPGSite

Quote from: Kellri;330021The 'rpg story' is just the series of events the players talk about AFTER gameplay over a beer or three. The GM doesn't need to prepare anything to make that happen. It might be intensely dramatic or it might be just a banal series of hits and misses. Ultimately, it's just a function of the shared group experience.  It just happens, regardless. In this sense, the rpg story is really just an ongoing series of anecdotes as opposed to a novel or short story which should be an intentionally constructed narrative with a beginning, middle and an end. I enjoy rpgs because I (the GM) can't predict any of it - nor should I try. I enjoy novels, OTOH, because if the author is any good, they have prepared everything beforehand for maximum effect.

I understand how this may work for a fantasy or sci-fi exploration game. How would that apply to a superhero or horror game? I'm having trouble picturing a CoC game as a series of anaecdotes.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330025I understand how this may work for a fantasy or sci-fi exploration game. How would that apply to a superhero or horror game? I'm having trouble picturing a CoC game as a series of anaecdotes.

My own two cents:

Any situation, with good characters, under tension, results in the same kind of stuff that good stories are made of.

However.

That whole "intentionally constucted narrative" line?  That's not such simple stuff; it can mean different things.

It can mean that the GM has a climax in mind, and does a good job of pacing.  Or it can mean a hidden railroad.  Or it can mean that the game mechanics are tight enough to produce specific kinds of dramatic instances or choices with regularity (which they may or may not do in a way you like).

Or...

*Shrug*

I'm sure more people will be along shortly to fill in the rest.

I can totally see a superhero game as a series of anecdotes.

Unlike some, I'm not afraid to admit that RPGs can create stories. The act of playing is and can be creating a story just as dramatic as anything on TV , in a book, or in a movie. It doesn't have to do that in order to be fun, but it can.

But I don't believe in pre-plotting. I'm not telling a story, I'm facilitating one.

I used to do the railroad thing...when I was in 6th grade. It quickly started to feel cheap when I'd give the players the choice of two tunnels, with the same map for either. Sure I could keep them from backtracking by staging a cave in or some shit, but it was bullshit and I knew it.

I've also tried pure freeform sandbox games. They were fun improvisationally, but I found that I had more fun when I punched up the things that the players were doing, and gave subtle nudges (like deciding when the big bad shows up, or adding a twist just before things started to flag) to make the end result more dramatic.

You can do that with CoC, or a supers game. I've done it. I set up a starting situation, let the game flow naturally from there, but prune and shepherd it a bit without taking any free will from the players. I don't railroad, but I make creative decisions that make things more dramatic when I can.

I think a lot of GMs do that, but for some reason they take issue with the word "Story". Sure the "swine" ;D have corrupted it, but we need to take it back.

Okay, let's try looking at a concrete example from a recent supers game I 've ran which spanned about 6 sessions or so as part of an ongoing campaign. I'll abstract the details for brevity.

Their is what I call a "story arc" that is to say a supervillain has a masterplan which I expect the heroes to try and thwart.

I then start thinking about potential scenes to support this story arc; things the supervillain and his henchmen could be doing to support this story arc and allow the party to get involved. Not all these potential scenes will actually be played, some might even contradict each other. Nor is the timeline fixed. The end game is also not planned at this stage.  

For each of these potential scenes I try to predict what how the players will react and take it forward. I won't try to guide the party down the route I predicted, but it does mean if they go that way I am better prepared.

In play it's a mix of both player set scenes. One moment  you'll have a scene that starts with a player saying "I'll go speak to the DA and ask him about The Vulture" the next I as GM will set a scene as in "Suddenly you hear on the news that a giant octopus has attacked the Statue of Liberty".

At the end of the session, I take stock of what happened and start updating the supervillain master plan accordingly and thinking up a fresh set of potential scenes for the next game.

At some point, when the party have pretty much pieced together the nature of the master plan and/or other things have fallen into place I'll try to direct things towards a climax - for instance letting the patry know where the supervillain's secret base is and staging a set-piece there to conclude the story arc.

So.. is this a story or a series of anecdotes? I'm not presenting the players a fixed linear set sequence of events, but at the same time I the GM am deliverately orchestrating these events to support a pre-existing plot and the timing and nature of said events are a refelction of GM's idea of what makes for a good pace, rhythm and storytelling rather than an impartial computer simulation of a virtual world.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330036So.. is this a story or a series of anecdotes? I'm not presenting the players a fixed linear set sequence of events, but at the same time I the GM am deliverately orchestrating these events to support a pre-existing plot and the timing and nature of said events are a refelction of GM's idea of what makes for a good pace, rhythm and storytelling rather than an impartial computer simulation of a virtual world.

Sounds to me like you are just doing a good job as a DM,  having certain things prepared but running with the random stuff the players throw out.  Nothing you have described is the type of story gaming that is so derided on these boards.

Yeah. That's just a different style. My statements about too much prep "feeling cheap" are just my personal preferences, not an opinion about how it should be done by everyone, ever. If the players can make choices that matter and the "plot" doesn't ignore them, I'd play in your game.

I should clarify one thing about GM preparation - avoiding 'storytelling' does not mean avoiding preparation. If anything, not having a single story that has to be told frees you to prepare more. More setting, more NPCs, more adventure hooks, more of everything. Once play has started and the players start nipping at all the tempting bait lying around, you can start to consider how events might transpire and how you might handle them. In some sense, there is a larger story taking place - but the players aren't the primary audience - YOU are.

Here's an example. Let's say you're playing a supers game. Your setting is Gotham City. All kinds of superheroes and arch-villains are doing their thing and the PCs are right in the middle of it all. It's their job to find something to do in that kind of setting. If they find out the megalomaniac Mr. Hellfire is organizing a takeover, it's up to them to decide to do something about it or not. Maybe they'll ignore it all to vacation in the Bahamas. Good! There's plenty of shit going down there too. Once they get back to Gotham they might find Mr. Hellfire is the new Mayor or another group of superheroes stepped up to take him down. Whether in spite of or because of the players, ANY events will force you to alter and develop the setting accordingly. Just remember, the PCs are never the only source of change.  

Don't try to force a heroic tale on the players - if they are really immersed in the setting they'll do something, and that something will be their anecdote in your larger setting-based story. Selfish, maybe. But IMO, that's the real reward of being a GM.

Absolutely.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330025I understand how this may work for a fantasy or sci-fi exploration game. How would that apply to a superhero or horror game? I'm having trouble picturing a CoC game as a series of anaecdotes.

Those two RPGs are more mission oriented than Fantasy and Space. You typically don't go wandering around looking for trouble in those two. The same with Star Trek, Top Secret style games.

Actually, SG, what you do does sound like story construction and it does sound like your players lack real agency in the campaign as a whole. That is, if the campaign is conceived as a "struggle between the villain and the super heroes." It doesn't really sound like the heroes can ever go wrong; you'll always adjust the scene to keep things moving, and at the end you herd them toward a grand climax. Probably, I would guess, a grand climax that's tailored to be just challenging enough to be dramatically or tactically interesting...but weighted toward the PCs. Again, a guess.

From my perspective this is basically collaborative, semi-impro storytelling to a fixed plot structure. Personally, I don't think I would enjoy it if I knew what was going on, and that may be one reason why I've never been keen on supers as an RPG genre. But there may be approaches that de-emphasize the fixed plot, either by focusing attention on something else, or by compartmentalizing the action into smaller missions that the players can genuinely win or lose without risking the entire continuity blowing up.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330074Actually, SG, what you do does sound like story construction and it does sound like your players lack real agency in the campaign as a whole. That is, if the campaign is conceived as a "struggle between the villain and the super heroes." It doesn't really sound like the heroes can ever go wrong; you'll always adjust the scene to keep things moving, and at the end you herd them toward a grand climax. Probably, I would guess, a grand climax that's tailored to be just challenging enough to be dramatically or tactically interesting...but weighted toward the PCs. Again, a guess.

Yeah, I'd call that story construction. It's not as far over to the story end of the spectrum as, say, My Life With Master, but it's certainly story-oriented. Which is all well and good.

I don't assume that you'd bail the heroes out if they got into trouble, I note. Story doesn't have to mean plot immunity.

From my point of view, story is a byproduct of gaming. I don't view it as any sort of goal. A story always emerges from play, though that story may not be the best story ever. It's a good story often, though no thought may have been taken in its construction. Some people view story as a goal, and doing that necessarily changes emphasis - as Levi said, not necessarily in a way I like. I don't particularly care about the story, though it's cool if a good one emerges from play.

-clash

Quote from: Kellri;330049Don't try to force a heroic tale on the players - if they are really immersed in the setting they'll do something, and that something will be their anecdote in your larger setting-based story. Selfish, maybe. But IMO, that's the real reward of being a GM.

Or you could just ask them what they want to do in a game. Whenever I create a setting or settle on an idea we talk about what their characters would do in the game. For instance in my current espionage campaign, they are various professionals recruited by a shadowy company where they work as high end hijackers (or retrivers in Corp speak). It cuts down on my work. They have a plan. I have a plan. Story happens when our plans collide.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;330107They have a plan. I have a plan. Story happens when our plans collide.

I really like that bit...that's effectively my take on "story" wrt gaming.  the only time i've otherwise ever considered "story" and "gaming" together involved choose-your-own-adventures years ago.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;330034I think a lot of GMs do that, but for some reason they take issue with the word "Story". Sure the "swine" ;D have corrupted it, but we need to take it back.

Indeed.  A focus on and attention to story is more than likely going to improve your game for most players.  Especially if they're players who came into gaming because they liked reading fantasy books.

Quote from: estar;330061Those two RPGs are more mission oriented than Fantasy and Space. You typically don't go wandering around looking for trouble in those two. The same with Star Trek, Top Secret style games.

Huh?  How does a super-high level label for the setting make a game more mission oriented or not?  I'm not following.

Quote from: flyingmice;330100From my point of view, story is a byproduct of gaming. I don't view it as any sort of goal. A story always emerges from play, though that story may not be the best story ever.

And it's my goal that mediocre and poor stories NOT emerge from my games.  Because those are the times when people walk away from them shaking their heads and wondering why they bothered.  If you want a GOOD story to more or less PREDICTABLY emerge from play, you need to take a few steps to help it along.  And I'm not talking about narrative control mechanics or railroady pre-plotting either; I'm talking about paying attention to characters, pacing and the mood and vibe from the game.

Quote from: David R;330107They have a plan. I have a plan. Story happens when our plans collide.

That's how I run stuff.  I come up with a setting.  I put some NPCs in it.  The NPCs have goals that they're pursuing.  The NPCs' goals will likely come to the attention of the PCs, and might well rankle them.  The PCs interfer (or not) as they desire.  The NPCs take stock of the PCs actions and revise their plans.

My games tend to go on regardless of what the PCs do.  In fact, a favorite tactic of mine is to throw multiple plot hooks at the PCs to see what they're interested in.  Whatever they're not interested in will continue to progress in the background.  Last time I did this, the PCs decided that the Queen's country (she married another head of state and was therefore expatriate) being bolstered from the fey invasion sounded interesting, while the hints of a hobgoblin empires advances into the area weren't.

When they came back after kicking fey butt, they found that the kingdom had been overthrown while they were gone, hobgoblin praetorians marched through the street, a puppet king was on the throne, and the king and queen's heads were on pikes at the gate.

In other words; I take no part in deciding what the PCs must or should or even are able to do.  I just decide what my NPCs will do, and it's not "sit around waiting for PCs to show up" either.

Quote from: Hobo;330111And it's my goal that mediocre and poor stories NOT emerge from my games.  Because those are the times when people walk away from them shaking their heads and wondering why they bothered.  If you want a GOOD story to more or less PREDICTABLY emerge from play, you need to take a few steps to help it along.  And I'm not talking about narrative control mechanics or railroady pre-plotting either; I'm talking about paying attention to characters, pacing and the mood and vibe from the game.

And what makes you think I don't "pay... attention to characters, pacing and the mood and vibe from the game"? I don't give a rat's testicle about the story, but I want my players to have a ball, and I care deeply about my players. Those are things any good GM will do to enhance their players' enjoyment, and have dick-all to do with story.

Whether you care about story is up to you, and I really couldn't care less, but don't try to insinuate that I'm not a good GM because I don't. I'm not Pundit, and thus I don't think I am the best GM ever born or made, but I'm damned good.

-clash

Quote from: Kellri;330021The 'rpg story' is just the series of events the players talk about AFTER gameplay over a beer or three. The GM doesn't need to prepare anything to make that happen. It might be intensely dramatic or it might be just a banal series of hits and misses. Ultimately, it's just a function of the shared group experience.  It just happens, regardless. In this sense, the rpg story is really just an ongoing series of anecdotes as opposed to a novel or short story which should be an intentionally constructed narrative with a beginning, middle and an end. I enjoy rpgs because I (the GM) can't predict any of it - nor should I try. I enjoy novels, OTOH, because if the author is any good, they have prepared everything beforehand for maximum effect.

First things first. I completely, utterly agree with this. This is what makes role-playing games radically different from novels, movies, and other types of narrative media.

This is something I read Gary Gygax repeat on at least two or three different occasions (once on ENWorld, once on dragonsfoot, and/or the Lejendary message boards, if memory serves).

Quote from: Soylent Green;330025I understand how this may work for a fantasy or sci-fi exploration game. How would that apply to a superhero or horror game? I'm having trouble picturing a CoC game as a series of anaecdotes.

Here's what a good CoC written adventure does:

It presents you with a base situation.
   Somebody was murdered.
It presents you with possibilities as to the involvement of the PCs.
   They knew this murdered individual.
It explains what series of events led to this situation.
   The murdered individual dabbled in dark magic and got entangled with cultists, he tried to hide something from them, and got murdered by them.
It presents you with clues and other elements that the PCs might catch on.
   They find the ritual robes with a kabbalistic symbol on it in his pantry, his wife remembers some people coming over and talking with him cloistered in the basement of the house.
It presents contingencies as to how the PCs might use these clues.
   The kabbalistic symbol is a perversion of a more traditional symbol exclusively used by a chapter of occultists, which happen to have a base nearby... one of the guys coming to the house, one-eyed, his face badly burned on one side, is a known character from the police...
It presents you with the key locations, groups, individuals the PCs are the most likely to deal with along with further obstacles, possible clues, challenges and so on...
   The cultists, their base of operations, the chief of the local police, who does not like civilians getting involved in a murder investigation...
It presents you with possible outcomes once all the clues are known to the PCs and the mystery is solved.
   When the PCs finally confront the cultists, they are still in the process of making sense of the PC's friend's notes, and attempt a ritual as they finally understand the gig is up. AND/OR some of them attempt to flee. AND/OR the PCs took too long to solve the mystery and they already made an attempt, the location of the ritual being overrun by creatures from beyond... et cetera.

And that's it. This is basically no different from a sandbox game when you think about it, except these are not locations on an hex map, but different lego elements like characters, locations, clues, past events et cetera.

The way this all unfolds is then completely up to the PCs. The role of the GM is to react to what the PCs do, and play the roles of the various NPCs they encounter while investigating the base situation.

Hence, no pre-determined "story". Just lego elements which might be used in a wide variety of ways. What the players experience is actual events as they occur. The "story" will be a consequence of game play once it has occured, once the game itself has been played, and is not the game play itself.

Quote from: flyingmice;330120And what makes you think I don't "pay... attention to characters, pacing and the mood and vibe from the game"?

:shrug:  And what makes you think that I think that?

Quote from: flyinmiceWhether you care about story is up to you, and I really couldn't care less, but don't try to insinuate that I'm not a good GM because I don't. I'm not Pundit, and thus I don't think I am the best GM ever born or made, but I'm damned good.

Maybe you're not the best GM ever, but you sure are the most defensive.

Quote from: estar;330061Those two RPGs are more mission oriented than Fantasy and Space. You typically don't go wandering around looking for trouble in those two. The same with Star Trek, Top Secret style games.

Does a mission orientated roleplaying game implicitly have a story? Does that make it somewhat less of an roleplaying game?

Quote from: Soylent Green;330125Does a mission orientated roleplaying game implicitly have a story? Does that make it somewhat less of an roleplaying game?

Not to me. Look at my example of CoC written adventure/prep (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=330123&postcount=18) above. You could very well imagine a set goal as the "base situation", as in "the PCs have to achieve this result". Then, as a GM, you prepare all the lego elements that might help the PCs achieve this goal, obstacles and challenges that might crop up on the way, et cetera.

The thing to remember is that this preparation does not constitute a pre-scripted story, but a bunch of aids to help the GM react to the PCs actions in the game world.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330125Does a mission orientated roleplaying game implicitly have a story?

No.  It has a premise.  That's not the same as a story.

Quote from: Soylent GreenDoes that make it somewhat less of an roleplaying game?

That whole line of reasoning is the most outrageously absurd fallacy I've ever had the misfortune of reading about in regards to RPGs.  When I first heard it, I couldn't get my head around the fact that anyone could actually make a claim along those lines instead of merely purposefully trolling for entertainment.

Personally, I believe dice pool games are less of roleplaying games than "storygames" are.  The statistics of dice pools are all kinds of whack; how can you preserve roleplaying in that environment?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330074Actually, SG, what you do does sound like story construction and it does sound like your players lack real agency in the campaign as a whole. That is, if the campaign is conceived as a "struggle between the villain and the super heroes." It doesn't really sound like the heroes can ever go wrong; you'll always adjust the scene to keep things moving, and at the end you herd them toward a grand climax. Probably, I would guess, a grand climax that's tailored to be just challenging enough to be dramatically or tactically interesting...but weighted toward the PCs. Again, a guess.

From my perspective this is basically collaborative, semi-impro storytelling to a fixed plot structure. Personally, I don't think I would enjoy it if I knew what was going on, and that may be one reason why I've never been keen on supers as an RPG genre. But there may be approaches that de-emphasize the fixed plot, either by focusing attention on something else, or by compartmentalizing the action into smaller missions that the players can genuinely win or lose without risking the entire continuity blowing up.

Thanks. That is one clear response indicating that my suggested (and actual) framework for a supers game does amount to GM bringing the story rather than GM allowing the story to emerge retrospectively.

I am tempted to rush to the defence of my campaign and explain how there were genuine choices and meangingful decisons for the payers to take, but that isn't really the point of this thread.

Any based on the above, do you think you can  not have story in other games genres which are not about exploration like like fantasyoften has?

Quote from: Benoist;330123[snip]
Here's what a good CoC written adventure does:

It presents you with a base situation.
   Somebody was murdered.
It presents you with possibilities as to the involvement of the PCs.
   They knew this murdered individual.
It explains what series of events led to this situation.

[snip]

Okay, I don't follow. That sounds very much like a story to me and pretty much in the same style as my superhero game. In both cases the Gm is producing a backstory, pitching it to the players, seeding it with clues and muddling through to a conclusion. What Elliot called "collaborative, semi-impro storytelling to a fixed plot structure."

I suppose one possible difference is whether the GM sets some of the scenes or is entirely reactive.

In your example CoC adventure, is every scene set by the players (as in GM: "what do you do next?" Player: "I'll check out the library" ) or do you, the GM introduce some of the scenes as well without the player 's triggering it (as in GM:" Suddenly the Ghost of Christmas Past appears in front of you and cires out 'Beware of the ides of March!' ").

Does that distinction matter?

Quote from: Hobo;330127Personally, I believe dice pool games are less of roleplaying games than "storygames" are.  The statistics of dice pools are all kinds of whack; how can you preserve roleplaying in that environment?

That's an interesting statement. They way I'm reading it, you seem to say that the outcomes of dice pools rolls are too unpredictible, and would require some sort of hard-line story frame for them to not offset the GM's expectations too much. Is that correct?

Quote from: Hobo;330111And it's my goal that mediocre and poor stories NOT emerge from my games.  Because those are the times when people walk away from them shaking their heads and wondering why they bothered.  If you want a GOOD story to more or less PREDICTABLY emerge from play, you need to take a few steps to help it along.  And I'm not talking about narrative control mechanics or railroady pre-plotting either; I'm talking about paying attention to characters, pacing and the mood and vibe from the game.

I like this. You made your preference very clear here. But the bolded part IMO relates to craft rather than creating a good story. I think you can talk about story in two ways, the first is where it's a nebulous concept and the second where it's a goal of the game or at the very least, it's the design philosophy of certain games (this is where you get narrative control mechanics and all those badwrongfun - to some people - mechancs/techniques. Craft I think is a nuetral zone. It's there as a reminder that whether your goal is story or not, a good GM holds the attention of his/her players. I could be wrong but maybe this is why clash seemed a bit defensive.

Whoa, this sounds a little too thespy even for me!

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Soylent Green;330125Does a mission orientated roleplaying game implicitly have a story? Does that make it somewhat less of an roleplaying game?

It more structured and episodic but it doesn't prevent a setting or worldwide events from having an impact or consequences. Look at the TV show Numb3rs. Each week is a mission based around the FBI Cases that Don Epps and his team works on and his math genius brother helps out with. Yet each episode has a b story revolving around the Epps family (the two brother and their dad), and their love interests. That side of the show is a more traditional drama than the mission oriented A story.

The same technique can be applied to a mission oriented campaign. You can be focused on one to three session missions but still have things going on that span across mission.

For example say the last three out of five missions for crew of the Federation's USS Antares revolved around the smuggling activities of the Pavonians, an alien race. You just been using them as a MacGuffin (like Klingons and Romulans in TOS). But all of sudden the players tell you. "Hey we think these Pavonians are a serious issue. We are going to do X, Y, and Z."

So now you sprinkle some sessions involving X,Y, and Z among the missions. You are still doing mission because the characters are members of Star Fleet and under orders but now they have some action of their own going on.

To flip it around consider the traditional fantasy sandbox. Say run a half-dozen campaign of PCs wandering around, adventuring, and building their strongholds. Then for the 7th campaign they say "Hey we want to be members of the Royal Guards." So that campaign is going to be a lot more structured and have a different feel even tho it is the same setting and same rules.

What binds all of this is that the limitations are on the characters not the players. Character with different limits then the happy-go-lucky adventurer that makes up much of traditional D&D and Traveller.

Most general purpose RPGS can handle this because they are swiss army knives. Note by general purpose I mean it can handle anything within it's genre not just universal RPGs like GURPS and Hero.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330131Okay, I don't follow. That sounds very much like a story to me and pretty much in the same style as my superhero game. In both cases the Gm is producing a backstory, pitching it to the players, seeding it with clues and muddling through to a conclusion. What Elliot called "collaborative, semi-impro storytelling to a fixed plot structure."

I suppose one possible difference is whether the GM sets some of the scenes or is entirely reactive.

In your example CoC adventure, is every scene set by the players (as in GM: "what do you do next?" Player: "I'll check out the library" ) or do you, the GM introduce some of the scenes as well without the player 's triggering it (as in GM:" Suddenly the Ghost of Christmas Past appears in front of you and cires out 'Beware of the ides of March!' ").

Does that distinction matter?

To be honest, I'm not sure I follow either.

My example basically shows how some prep work set up a base situation to solve or achieve, and then, the different elements that might come into play, with the actual events of the game entirely up to the PCs. Some of these elements might include some triggers (if the PCs open the door, a Hound of Tyndalos appears out of the corner of the room), and there might be some events unfolding completely out of sight from the PCs (while the PCs investigate, the cultists keep trying to make sense of their friend's notes. If they haven't confronted the cultists in the next three days, then they attempt the ritual, which backlashes and destroys the entire compound).

The only case in which I would consider introducing something completely out of the blue, from a completely metagame perspective, is if the players get completely stuck or passive. Then, as a GM, I would introduce, say, the Ghost of Chrismas past, to get things moving again. That in itself is a metagame trigger that could be presented in a written adventure (If the PCs get completely stuck, then you might consider using this or that event to make the game move on).

The main difference is that there is no scripted storyline for the actual game play as it unfolds. See what I mean?

Does that answer your question?

Quote from: Hobo;330127No.  It has a premise.  That's not the same as a story.

That whole line of reasoning is the most outrageously absurd fallacy I've ever had the misfortune of reading about in regards to RPGs.  When I first heard it, I couldn't get my head around the fact that anyone could actually make a claim along those lines instead of merely purposefully trolling for entertainment.

Personally, I believe dice pool games are less of roleplaying games than "storygames" are.  The statistics of dice pools are all kinds of whack; how can you preserve roleplaying in that environment?

Hey, I'm just trying to understand. A lot of sensible people have been backing this claim that story only happens after play (or something to that effect).  Story is of course one of those vague words different things to different people (kind of like immersion but lets not go there).

"Premise", "plot" ,"misison", "theme", "backstory", "script".. we can throw in any number of terms into the pot, it doesn't really help me understand at waht point some people start to feel the aount of story elements is such that its not longer a roleaplying game.

Benoist,

What I mean is that I don't see much difference between your example of CoC and my example on page 1. Which is totally cool.

That said opinion seems to be divided as to whether my example constitutes having a story before the game.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330138"Premise", "plot" ,"misison", "theme", "backstory", "script".. we can throw in any number of terms into the pot, it doesn't really help me understand at waht point some people start to feel the aount of story elements is such that its not longer a roleaplying game.

I'm trying to formulate a good starting post for a "The flipping point" thread.  Hopefully it'll be, y'know, useful and shit.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330140Benoist,

What I mean is that I don't see much difference between your example of CoC and my example on page 1. Which is totally cool.

That said opinion seems to be divided as to whether my example constitutes having a story before the game.

Okay. Cool.

Let me ask you a question. Do you agree with Elliot characterization of your campaign?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330074Actually, SG, what you do does sound like story construction and it does sound like your players lack real agency in the campaign as a whole. That is, if the campaign is conceived as a "struggle between the villain and the super heroes." It doesn't really sound like the heroes can ever go wrong; you'll always adjust the scene to keep things moving, and at the end you herd them toward a grand climax. Probably, I would guess, a grand climax that's tailored to be just challenging enough to be dramatically or tactically interesting...but weighted toward the PCs. Again, a guess.

From my perspective this is basically collaborative, semi-impro storytelling to a fixed plot structure. Personally, I don't think I would enjoy it if I knew what was going on, and that may be one reason why I've never been keen on supers as an RPG genre. But there may be approaches that de-emphasize the fixed plot, either by focusing attention on something else, or by compartmentalizing the action into smaller missions that the players can genuinely win or lose without risking the entire continuity blowing up.

I'm asking because, as I read your example of game, the same details keep nagging at me. It seems that you script what's going to happen one game at a time, but it's really hard for me to tell without seeing actual examples of the "scenes" you keep talking about. It may be just the terminology that rubs me the wrong way.

It doesn't seem like you're pre-scripting the events of the game aside of extensions/consequences of what the players do in the game (they twarted the mastermind's plan, therefore the mastermind will attempt to do that instead next time). Are you?

Or to put it another way:

Quote from: Soylent Green;330036So.. is this a story or a series of anecdotes? I'm not presenting the players a fixed linear set sequence of events, but at the same time I the GM am deliverately orchestrating these events to support a pre-existing plot and the timing and nature of said events are a refelction of GM's idea of what makes for a good pace, rhythm and storytelling rather than an impartial computer simulation of a virtual world.

This doesn't sound like a "story" or even a "story arc" to me. But at the same time, the part where you say "I deliberately orchestrate these events to support a pre-existing plot and the timing and nature is (...) what makes for a good pace" puzzles me deeply.

It does sound like you're thinking of the game as a "story", and it isn't. These are actual events as they occur. This isn't a movie to the PCs, nor is it a comic book novel we're talking about. We're talking about a role-playing game, here.

So I'm confused. It's like you're talking about a role-playing game in Chinese, to me.

Let me ask you this: what constitutes a "good pace and rhythm" in your game? Do you just trigger events according to your own whims as GM, or are they the direct consequence of actions of the Player characters in the game world? What constitutes "storytelling" in your game, as you put it in the context of the part I just quoted here?

Quote from: Hobo;330124:shrug:  And what makes you think that I think that?

Maybe you're not the best GM ever, but you sure are the most defensive.

Whatever.

-clash

Let's take this step by step.

#1 Premise

Other than in the most hardcore sandbox game, are we all happy the GM should be able to come up with the premise of an adventure?

In this instance Mr Jones is murdered.

#2 Backstory

The GM comes up with the basic who, why, when and where of Mr Jones' murder.

#3 Mission

The GM, ideally in a way that appeals and makes sense to the characters, tasks the party to solve the murder.

#4 Set Pieces

The GM introduces a scence like the funeral of Mr Jones to which the party are invited.

#5 Clues

The GM seeds the NPCs and locations with ueful clues that can help identify Mr Jones' murderer.

#6 Timeline

If Mr Jones' murderer is not unmasked in three days, the murder will kill Mrs Jones as well.


Now are we all happy that the GM can bring all the above to the table and it's still not a "story"?

Quote from: David R;330134I like this. You made your preference very clear here. But the bolded part IMO relates to craft rather than creating a good story. I think you can talk about story in two ways, the first is where it's a nebulous concept and the second where it's a goal of the game or at the very least, it's the design philosophy of certain games (this is where you get narrative control mechanics and all those badwrongfun - to some people - mechancs/techniques. Craft I think is a nuetral zone. It's there as a reminder that whether your goal is story or not, a good GM holds the attention of his/her players. I could be wrong but maybe this is why clash seemed a bit defensive.

Whoa, this sounds a little too thespy even for me!

Regards,
David R

Exactly! Thank you David! You are a prince among men! A jewel without price! :D

-clash

Quote from: Soylent Green;330144Let's take this step by step.

#1 Premise

Other than in the most hardcore sandbox game, are we all happy the GM should be able to come up with the premise of an adventure?

In this instance Mr Jones is murdered.

#2 Backstory

The GM comes up with the basic who, why, when and where of Mr Jones' murder.

#3 Mission

The GM, ideally in a way that appeals and makes sense to the characters, tasks the party to solve the murder.

#4 Set Pieces

The GM introduces a scence like the funeral of Mr Jones to which the party are invited.

#5 Clues

The GM seeds the NPCs and locations with ueful clues that can help identify Mr Jones' murderer.

#6 Timeline

If Mr Jones' murderer is not unmasked in three days, the murder will kill Mrs Jones as well.

Now are we all happy that the GM can bring all the above to the table and it's still not a "story"?

Yes. He or she can.

I feel the "how" (how, when elements are put into play, what triggers them) matters a lot here.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330138Hey, I'm just trying to understand. A lot of sensible people have been backing this claim that story only happens after play (or something to that effect).  Story is of course one of those vague words different things to different people (kind of like immersion but lets not go there).

I don't know if you mean me here, but I never claim story only happens after play. I claim that story only happens after play in games I run. Other people run different games, and run the same games in different ways.

Quote"Premise", "plot" ,"misison", "theme", "backstory", "script".. we can throw in any number of terms into the pot, it doesn't really help me understand at waht point some people start to feel the aount of story elements is such that its not longer a roleaplying game.

IMO, story or lack thereof doesn't make a thing not an RPG. IMO it's only not an RPG if you don't play a role, and/or if it isn't an actual game. Whether it's an RPG I would like is another matter. I prefer to settle that on a case by case basis.

-clash

Quote from: Benoist;330132That's an interesting statement. They way I'm reading it, you seem to say that the outcomes of dice pools rolls are too unpredictible, and would require some sort of hard-line story frame for them to not offset the GM's expectations too much. Is that correct?

Yes, it is.  But I was being sarcastic, so don't take it too seriously.

Quote from: Soylent Green"Premise", "plot" ,"misison", "theme", "backstory", "script".. we can throw in any number of terms into the pot, it doesn't really help me understand at waht point some people start to feel the aount of story elements is such that its not longer a roleaplying game.

To me, premise is lining up all the elements; but there's still no "plot" per se.  Plot being synonymous with story in this case.

Quote from: flyingmice;330147IMO, story or lack thereof doesn't make a thing not an RPG. IMO it's only not an RPG if you don't play a role, and/or if it isn't an actual game. Whether it's an RPG I would like is another matter. I prefer to settle that on a case by case basis.

Amen.  That's the fallacy I was referring to; it's on par with claiming that an RPG isn't an RPG because it uses dice pools, which is really pretty absurd a claim to make.

I might be close to a personal breakthrough here.

To me, if the game feels like a "story" to which I participate, I am not playing a role, but scripting the story through the character I control, in a collaborative way, with the other players of the game and the GM.

I'm not in-character. I am a writer typing on the same typewriter as the other participants to the game. I'm no longer playing a role, so I'm not playing a role-playing game, from my point of view.

Does that make sense to some people here?

Quote from: Benoist;330149I might be close to a personal breakthrough here.

To me, if the game feels like a "story" to which I participate, I am not playing a role, but scripting the story through the character I control, in a collaborative way, with the other players of the game and the GM.

I'm not in-character. I am a writer typing on the same typewriter as the other participants to the game. I'm no longer playing a role, so I'm not playing a role-playing game, from my point of view.

Does that make sense to some people here?

Certainly I can see that if the goal of the game is tell a good story, (be it GM or player led), your ability to play a role is going to have to be compromised as it is not the primary goal.

Quote from: Benoist;330142Let me ask you a question. Do you agree with Elliot characterization of your campaign?

Yes and no. Some of the things he says sound about right , some don't, but that is mostly because my example adventure structure was very high level. But really this isn't intended as a "vet my campaign" thread. We can have that discussion too if you like, but on a different thread.

Quote from: Benoist;330142Let me ask you this: what constitutes a "good pace and rhythm" in your game? Do you just trigger events according to your own whims as GM, or are they the direct consequence of actions of the Player characters in the game world? What constitutes "storytelling" in your game, as you put it in the context of the part I just quoted here?

Okay, let's take the "Murder of Mr Jones example" to keep things simple. Under timeline in the notes is says Mrs Jones will be killed too if the case isn't sovled in three days. However as you are runing the game, you noitce that the player characters have bonded much more with Mr Jones' secretary rather his widow, for maximum emotional impact, you decide to have the secretary killed instead (and work out the exact reasons later).  Or maybe you move the assasination forward a day or so because becasue the game is losing a bit of momentum.

Is that attitude crossing the line?

Quote from: Soylent Green;330152Okay, let's take the "Murder of Mr Jones example" to keep things simple. Under timeline in the notes is says Mrs Jones will be killed too if the case isn't sovled in three days. However as you are runing the game, you notice that the player characters have bonded much more with Mr Jones' secretary rather his widow, for maximum emotional impact, you decide to have the secretary killed instead (and work out the exact reasons later).  Or maybe you move the assasination forward a day or so because becasue the game is losing a bit of momentum.

Is that attitude crossing the line?

Yes, that, to me, is crossing the line.

It's not like I'm going to go all up in arms and yell "this is not an RPG!!1!" when that occurs in a game I play, but the more a GM does this, the less the players' choices matter. Why? Because no matter who the players bond with, that's the person who's going to get killed. This ends up becoming a scripted story where the DM just files off the names and replaces them with the specificities erupting from the characters' input. In the end, there is no choice in such an adventure.

If this sort of thing happens, I'm likely to disconnect from the game-world, because I'm not role-playing any more. I'm just listening to the GM's story and deciding of the name of the NPC who ends up getting killed.

It's dancing close to one, but note that you've not explained why there's a rigid 3-day deadline, or why Mrs. Jones is necessarily the next target. Those are important parts of the backstory--establishing the motivation and goals of the killer. And really, from those is where you can dynamically initiate and respond to actions from the killer's perspective. It may be that the killer would have "naturally" targeted the secretary in response to the PCs' actions. But if not, I wouldn't change it. Unless we all understood that the whole thing was more of a "story-mode" game to begin with, in which case immersion and challenge would be compromised for the sake of maintaining pace.

I'll add that "maintaining pace" isn't necessarily equivalent to herding players toward a conclusion.

I know you had some questions directed to me upthread BTW; I'll try to address them later.

Quote from: Benoist;330149I might be close to a personal breakthrough here.

To me, if the game feels like a "story" to which I participate, I am not playing a role, but scripting the story through the character I control, in a collaborative way, with the other players of the game and the GM.

I'm not in-character. I am a writer typing on the same typewriter as the other participants to the game. I'm no longer playing a role, so I'm not playing a role-playing game, from my point of view.

Does that make sense to some people here?

I dig that.

My experience is slightly different (mentioned in the James Bond Game example elsethread). Let me boil it down here:

My taking a half-step backwards out-of-character to get that scripting feeling (typing on the same typewriter) allows me to take two steps forwards into-character (playing a role), because the story-slash-game becomes closer to how that sort of story-slash-game "should feel" by my lights.

Does that make sense?

The question I have is: as a player, how in the world are you supposed to know that a GM is doing that, anyway?  Secretary or wife; if they already knew which one was going to be killed, what kind of game is that anyway?

Cool, we found the deal breaking element.  Took a little work, but we got there. Assuming the other "story after" people don't radically disagree with your interpertation, I consider my curiosity satisfied.

Quote from: Hobo;330158The question I have is: as a player, how in the world are you supposed to know that a GM is doing that, anyway?

That is an interesting question. How much do you discuss the game with your GM?

Quote from: Soylent Green;330138"Premise", "plot" ,"misison", "theme", "backstory", "script".. we can throw in any number of terms into the pot, it doesn't really help me understand at waht point some people start to feel the aount of story elements is such that its not longer a roleaplying game.

It is a plan, a listing in chronological order of the events you think will happen in a campaign (or for the next couple of sessions).  It is a guideline to what you need to prepare in the way of locales, encounters, monsters, and NPCs. It represents your best guess of how players would react to your initial premise and it's consquences.

Some GMs will not deviate from this plan. Ignore some or all of the dynamic aspects of RPGs to railroad his players along his original plan. Some RPGs even make this an ideal wrapping it up and calling it producing a story.

Now I call it plot because it is written much like what some novelist do before writing a story or novel.

In the case of RPGS plot is more like a plan of battle. If you have seen one at it's hard it is a listing of events that are to happen detailing what units, supplies, and other recourse need to be present at every point in time.

And like battle plans, RPG plots change the moment the players start playing. To make a fun game the plot need to change as players make unanticipated choices. You will find some your initial work to be wasted as the probability of that encounter or event becomes zero. You will find that you have to do some more work as new locales, encounters, or NPCs are needed.

The way you tell the difference is does the constraints in-game come from the logic of the setting, the premise, and the characters? Or are they imposed from without by the players or GM.

For example

The PCs playing the Royal Guards are ordered not go into Ashwood and keep getting missions that take them anywhere but Ashwood. Finally the PC have their character desert their posts and go to Ashwood. The rest of the Guard catches up to them and in a fight kills the PCs.

The PCs are adventurers and want to go to Ashwood. The GM then says "You get there and find nothing." because he has Ironwood fully detailed and wants to run that.

On the surface both result in the PC not going to Ashwood. Both involve a judgment call. The first situation is reasonable while the second is not.

The first situation is that the premise of the campaign is that the PC are Royal Guards. As part of the handout or initial roleplaying it is established that the penalty for desertion is death. Also during play the PC find out how powerful the NPCs guards. When they decided to desert and go to Ashwood the they run the risk of being caught and executed. In this example the gamble didn't pay off. If it did the GM would ditch his prior plan and prepare for the PCs exploring Ashwood.

In the second the GM has already decided that Ironwood was going to be the main focus. It will be cold day in hell before he throws away hours of prep just to accommodate his PCs going to Ashwood. No matter what they choose the only option will be goto Ironwood.

Quote from: Hobo;330158The question I have is: as a player, how in the world are you supposed to know that a GM is doing that, anyway?

You sort of know it when you see it.
That's something that you notice as you play, particularly when you've been GMing games yourself, and/or when you've played with the particular GM running the game for a long time.

Any player ends up reading body language, facial expressions, the way game elements are brought in the game. You end up knowing your GM very well, based on your own experience and your lasting relationship with him/her. Sometimes, it just takes me a single game session to recognize that kind of move, when the GM isn't very subtle about it.

Quote from: jadrax;330160That is an interesting question. How much do you discuss the game with your GM?

A fair amount, but not to the level that we'd know that.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330159Cool, we found the deal breaking element.  Took a little work, but we got there. Assuming the other "story after" people don't radically disagree with your interpertation, I consider my curiosity satisfied.

This is a cool discussion, by the way. Thanks for creating the thread.

Quote from: chadu;330157I dig that.


My taking a half-step backwards out-of-character to get that scripting feeling (typing on the same typewriter) allows me to take two steps forwards into-character (playing a role), because the story-slash-game becomes closer to how that sort of story-slash-game "should feel" by my lights.

Does that make sense?

No it doesnt.

If you want to make story collaboratively there are better ways then using a RPG. People have done collaborative stories before including improvising it as they go along. Including starting out with a initial setting and premise. If you want random elements some of these system include a deck of cards or tables you can use.

By better I mean for the same amount of effort and prep you can get more done on the fun stuff of creating story by using one of the collaborative story techniques.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330156It's dancing close to one, but note that you've not explained why there's a rigid 3-day deadline, or why Mrs. Jones is necessarily the next target. Those are important parts of the backstory--establishing the motivation and goals of the killer. And really, from those is where you can dynamically initiate and respond to actions from the killer's perspective. It may be that the killer would have "naturally" targeted the secretary in response to the PCs' actions. But if not, I wouldn't change it. Unless we all understood that the whole thing was more of a "story-mode" game to begin with, in which case immersion and challenge would be compromised for the sake of maintaining pace.

I'll add that "maintaining pace" isn't necessarily equivalent to herding players toward a conclusion.

I know you had some questions directed to me upthread BTW; I'll try to address them later.

It's just an example, but the idea is that the GM changes the murder target primarily for dramatic reasons, for impact, and then find a way to make this  consistent with the NPC killer's motivations.

Quote from: chadu;330157My taking a half-step backwards out-of-character to get that scripting feeling (typing on the same typewriter) allows me to take two steps forwards into-character (playing a role), because the story-slash-game becomes closer to how that sort of story-slash-game "should feel" by my lights.

Does that make sense?

It does to some extent. It's weird though. How do you know how the "story" "should feel" if you are in-character? There's no "story" unfolding, and what's going on in the game isn't a "genre of fiction", these are actual events unfolding for you.

So I guess the premise that the "story should feel this or that way" is pretty much a deal-break for me, to begin with. It's something I might consider before the game begins, and between game sessions, but not during the game itself.

Does that make sense?

Quote from: Benoist;330162You sort of know it when you see it.
That's something that you notice as you play, particularly when you've been GMing games yourself, and/or when you've played with the particular GM running the game for a long time.

Any player ends up reading body language, facial expressions, the way game elements are brought in the game. You end up knowing your GM very well, based on your own experience and your lasting relationship with him/her. Sometimes, it just takes me a single game session to recognize that kind of move, when the GM isn't very subtle about it.

I'm not sure: even in high-planned traditional games, I've had long-time friends and players make wild-ass assumptions and go off on a wild tear.

Like assuming, for some reason, the unstatted, unnamed barkeep at the sailor's tavern is really the secretive Mr. Big of the crime scene, not because of what that NPC ever did or said, but simply because they thought "Chad thinks like that!"

Quote from: estar;330165No it doesnt.

If you want to make story collaboratively there are better ways then using a RPG. People have done collaborative stories before including improvising it as they go along. Including starting out with a initial setting and premise. If you want random elements some of these system include a deck of cards or tables you can use.

By better I mean for the same amount of effort and prep you can get more done on the fun stuff of creating story by using one of the collaborative story techniques.

But I like the sorts of stories that evolve during/are developed out of RPG sessions, both traditional and nontraditional. Since I like those sorts of stories, and the way they're made, they're "better" to me, and any "effort" and "prep" on them is a better return on investment than a different method.

Quote from: Hobo;330163A fair amount, but not to the level that we'd know that.

It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can partake of the same hobby. So do you think discussion of those sort of GM discussions out of genuine disinterest or some sort of feeling that it should not be done?

Quote from: chadu;330170But I like the sorts of stories that evolve during/are developed out of RPG sessions, both traditional and nontraditional. Since I like those sorts of stories, and the way they're made, they're "better" to me, and any "effort" and "prep" on them is a better return on investment than a different method.

Other than just liking it what are the benefit of having a game as part of collaborative story creation?

For example if Albard the Evil  is going to die during the encounter run at Fangor's Keep what purpose does running the combat serve? What if everybody rolls a 1 (as improbably as it sounds) or John with his archer crits on the first roll and shoots him down with one shot.

(Again, apologies to SG for not answering his questions; I'm just hitting some low-hanging fruit while I finish off lunch.)

Quote from: Benoist;330162You sort of know it when you see it.
That's something that you notice as you play, particularly when you've been GMing games yourself, and/or when you've played with the particular GM running the game for a long time.

I'd say you know it when things just always seem too "pat". Maybe a rilly super GM of the story-herding variety can use distractions and sleight of hand to make it all seem natural and accidental, but obviously I have no way of knowing if I've run across someone that good. OTOH I've played in games that I've liked very much, including liking the GM as a person and co-enthusiast of the general genre, but I've been able to tell that things are being plotted one way or another.

The other side of things is: if I'm GMing, I'm just not very keen on knowing the story in advance. It's not fun for me, and I'd rather run things in a way that the course of play and the ultimate outcome are a revelation to me as much as it is to the players.

Not to mention, I don't think I have the super-skills to hide a pre-plotted game, perhaps because I'm not motivated to develop those skills.

Quote from: Benoist;330167It does to some extent. It's weird though. How do you know how the "story" "should feel" if you are in-character? There's no "story" unfolding, and what's going on in the game isn't a "genre of fiction", these are actual events unfolding for you.

I talked about this one way else thread (little kids playing Cowboys), but let me try it a more different way.

Even though I'm playing in-character, I still have a sense of out-of-character things. What I'm talking about upthread is "a sense of the story being created by character actions in this setting". But there's another example of this: the character sheet.

Let me take your words and fiddle with them: How do you know what your character's stats are if you are in-character?

The moment of dropping mildly OOC to look up the numbers on a charsheet is very similar, to me, of sensing how the story "should feel."

Quote from: Benoist;330167So I guess the premise that the "story should feel this or that way" is pretty much a deal-break for me, to begin with. It's something I might consider before the game begins, and between game sessions, but not during the game itself.

Does that make sense?

That does make sense. Some of the people I play with feel the same as you, others feel more like me: "course-corrections" in the middle of play don't kick them too far out of the in-character mindspace.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330166It's just an example, but the idea is that the GM changes the murder target primarily for dramatic reasons, for impact, and then find a way to make this  consistent with the NPC killer's motivations.

I would term that as bad technique. It means as a GM your hunting for the easy option to give the game artificial pathos and then coming up with NPC motivation around that. I think your far better off prioritising building consistent NPCs if you want good depth and feeling to you game, even you have to sacrifice the short term gains of easy drama.

Quote from: estar;330165No it doesnt.

Chad's comment makes sense to me; as I understand it, he's saying that providing a degree of narrative control lets the players ensure that some things work the way that they expect them to. As long as it's done in earnest and not in a munchkiny fashion, and as long as the GM makes room for it, it can overcome the disconnect between PC-knowledge and player-knowledge that can often occur in unfamiliar settings. I mean that PCs often know more about a setting (and themselves) than players do, but if the player gets to inject some "facts", then they become as natural to player as the character's own understanding.

Edit: also, a degree of narrative control can help steer the game in a direction that the player finds interesting. Again if it isn't done in a munchkiny fashion, it could be a good tool for mid-course corrections where initial game prep (the GM pitching the game and the players accepting) hasn't perfectly gotten everyone on the same page. The thing is you do need to be in the same book or chapter at least.

And re: "munchkiny fashion", as an aside, I think this has been a problem with some of the "story games" I've played, where the mechanics have been interpreted as carte blanche to seek advantage or set up a "hard hitting" dramatic conflict, with setting logic taking back seat.

All varieties of story-byproduct can be created as a results of RPG-play. Everything from things that might make reasonably mediocre fan-fiction to stuff that is just disjointed anecdotes, or rambling accounts that go nowhere. These can, any of them, be the byproduct of an RPG section.

But the GM sitting down and trying to say "THIS is what the story will be" beforehand is just stupid, and bad RPG-play.
Likewise, all the players getting together DURING the game and saying "now we create story, this is most important!" is not actual RPG-play at all, but some kind of storygame-play.

RPGPundit

All varieties of story-byproduct can be created as a results of RPG-play. Everything from things that might make reasonably mediocre fan-fiction to stuff that is just disjointed anecdotes, or rambling accounts that go nowhere. These can, any of them, be the byproduct of an RPG section.

But the GM sitting down and trying to say "THIS is what the story will be" beforehand is just stupid, and bad RPG-play.
Likewise, all the players getting together DURING the game and saying "now we create story, this is most important!" is not actual RPG-play at all, but some kind of storygame-play.

"Story" is simply not what matters in an RPG.

RPGPundit

Quote from: chadu;330174The moment of dropping mildly OOC to look up the numbers on a charsheet is very similar, to me, of sensing how the story "should feel."

I think I get it. To me, it's equivalent to players' expectations. When I play a role-playing game, I'm concerned about my character and his/my reaction to what unfolds in the game world. I don't stop immersing myself in the game-world to suddenly consider whether it's "genre appropriate". It's a deal-breaker, to me, whereas looking at my character sheet and rolling some dice isn't. Go figure.

Quote from: chadu;330168I'm not sure: even in high-planned traditional games, I've had long-time friends and players make wild-ass assumptions and go off on a wild tear.

Like assuming, for some reason, the unstatted, unnamed barkeep at the sailor's tavern is really the secretive Mr. Big of the crime scene, not because of what that NPC ever did or said, but simply because they thought "Chad thinks like that!"

Oh, I've seen my share of those as well. *laughs*
I love when that happens in the game. Sometimes, the PCs go for some crazy interpretation of what's going on, and it often leads me to improvise all sorts of stuff on the spot. I love that aspect of role-playing games. What I am not going to do is retrofit past game events or elements of the game to conveniently follow what the PCs decide to do. As I noted above, that would mean there ultimately wouldn't be choices for the players, only variations of the same "story" unfolding before them.

Quote from: chadu;330168I'm not sure: even in high-planned traditional games, I've had long-time friends and players make wild-ass assumptions and go off on a wild tear.

Like assuming, for some reason, the unstatted, unnamed barkeep at the sailor's tavern is really the secretive Mr. Big of the crime scene, not because of what that NPC ever did or said, but simply because they thought "Chad thinks like that!"

To me this sounds like players who've already been conditioned to think in terms of GM-led story. Dunno if people bring that to gaming when they start, or if it's because of things they were exposed to within the hobby.

(And this is my last post for at least a few hours, I hope.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;330180All varieties of story-byproduct can be created as a results of RPG-play. Everything from things that might make reasonably mediocre fan-fiction to stuff that is just disjointed anecdotes, or rambling accounts that go nowhere. These can, any of them, be the byproduct of an RPG section.

But the GM sitting down and trying to say "THIS is what the story will be" beforehand is just stupid, and bad RPG-play.
Likewise, all the players getting together DURING the game and saying "now we create story, this is most important!" is not actual RPG-play at all, but some kind of storygame-play.

"Story" is simply not what matters in an RPG.

RPGPundit

Go take a look at some of the classic adventures.... the old-school dungeon crawl is more story-written-beforehand than most storygames...

The entire plot is simple: Enter the dungeon, work your way to the boss, kill it and take its stuff, and get back out. even the details are all worked out in advance.

A lamer plot, but one enforced by some of the dungeons having one way in via a one-way access, and a different way out. Dungeons ARE Plot Rails.

Quote from: jadrax;330175I would term that as bad technique. It means as a GM your hunting for the easy option to give the game artificial pathos and then coming up with NPC motivation around that. I think your far better off prioritising building consistent NPCs if you want good depth and feeling to you game, even you have to sacrifice the short term gains of easy drama.

Well for the record, I have absolutely nothing against "easy options", the easier the better! And even artificial pathos is still "something"; a lot of games I've played in don't even have that.  

The only question that really matters to me is, does it work?

Quote from: aramis;330194Go take a look at some of the classic adventures.... the old-school dungeon crawl is more story-written-beforehand than most storygames...

The entire plot is simple: Enter the dungeon, work your way to the boss, kill it and take its stuff, and get back out. even the details are all worked out in advance.

A lamer plot, but one enforced by some of the dungeons having one way in via a one-way access, and a different way out. Dungeons ARE Plot Rails.

Plot rails are pretty easy to generate. If you have a party of good people, and then some villain attacks the innocent near-by... if there isn't anyone else to help them, and the party has reason to think they can win, they will either try to stop him or there won't be a game.

Players that are intentionally difficult will struggle against it, but, it is an easy plot train for normal gamers.

Anytime the GM creates a situation where there is only 1 obvious good solution, it is a plot train.

If a PC does something that isn't the one right obvious correct thing to do, it is a story game, or an immature asshole player.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330198Well for the record, I have absolutely nothing against "easy options", the easier the better! And even artificial pathos is still "something"; a lot of games I've played in don't even have that.  

The only question that really matters to me is, does it work?

Most things work, the problem is what they cost. The problem as I see it is leads to a shallow game experience. I Honestly think that from a long term perspective a GM is better of raising his game and focusing on the integrity of the game, than somewhat self-defeating assumption that he cannot get a good reaction by going along with internal logic of the NPCs and instead chasing short term emotion points. Mainly because there is going to be a limit to how long that can work for, your killing off the only NPC you think the players have connected with rather than enlarging to pool of NPCs they are connected with.

Quote from: estar;330172Other than just liking it what are the benefit of having a game as part of collaborative story creation?

It injects a certain amount of randomness into the mix, plus the benefits of playing a role, the sense of challenge (PC-GM, and PC-PC), the physical acts of rolling dice and spending tokens, the interpretation and reincorporation of roll-results, etc.

Quote from: estar;330172For example if Albard the Evil  is going to die during the encounter run at Fangor's Keep what purpose does running the combat serve?

To see how he dies. And to see the effect it has on the PCs.

Quote from: estar;330172What if everybody rolls a 1 (as improbably as it sounds) or John with his archer crits on the first roll and shoots him down with one shot.

Firstly, let me just say that these random outliers are exactly why I like having "narrative rules" in a game, both in the flat re-roll and "adding details" sense -- (spends token) "Just as Albard has us at his mercy, he starts monologuing!"

Secondly, let's call these two examples "whiff" and "crit" to cut down on typing.

Okay, let me put your whole example back together, so I can take it apart a more different way.

Quote from: estar;330172For example if Albard the Evil  is going to die during the encounter run at Fangor's Keep what purpose does running the combat serve? What if everybody rolls a 1 (as improbably as it sounds) or John with his archer crits on the first roll and shoots him down with one shot.

There are three main intertwined and interdependent things in this situation for me, as a GM, that I feel I need to pay attention to. Let's call them necessity, pacing, and impact.

Necessity: Albard the Evil must DIE!
Why must Albard die? Is it because he's the Big Bad, and this is the end of the campaign? Or does his mid-campaign death lead to further scenarios down the road? Or do I think the players would just enjoy putting the Maximum Smackdown on his "the Evil" ass? How necessary is it that he die?

Let's go first with "not that necessary".
WHIFF: Oh, cool. Albard doesn't die! (changes future scenarios)
CRIT: Awesome, objective achieved.

Ok, now "absolutely necessary".
WHIFF: Oh, crap, I hope the players pull this off. (...) What are they rolling, d1s? (...) Boy, I wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...) Okay, I have two options at this point, after every player has rolled a 1 thirty-seven times (in a row?):
   #1. Someone/Something else kills Albard. (Enh, kinda railroady/fiaty.)  
   #2. I need to rethink and change future scenarios. (M'kay.)
CRIT: Awesome, objective achieved.

Pacing: When are they taking on Albard the Evil?
When in the session, and when in the campaign, are the PCs confronting Albard? Is it early-on, right after folks sit down and get out their dice -- or in the first or second session? Is it in the middle, when there's still a couple hours of expected game-time left -- or a half-dozen or so sessions in, just after stuff starts to build up interestingly? Or is it near the end, people packing up their sheets -- or the last session of a campaign? When is this happening?

Pacing: Early.
WHIFF: Cool! This is taking awhile; it's making this bit more dramatic than I thought it'd be.
CRIT: Two ways:
   #1. Glad that's out of the way.
   #2. That was too easy. If I meant for this to be dramatically important, why did I place it so early? Oh well. Maybe there's a chamberlain or something they need to hunt down in Fangor's Keep to add some additional interest to this -- we JUST sat down!

Pacing: Middle.
WHIFF: That kinda sucks.
CRIT: That kinda rocks.

Pacing: Late.
WHIFF: This REALLY sucks: the whole campaign has been building up to this, and dice-luck determines all? (...) Boy, I wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)
CRIT: This kinda sucks: the whole campaign has been building up to this, and one roll takes him out? (...) Boy, I wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)  


Impact: Albard the Evil MUST DIE!
Why must Albard die? Is it because he's just some nonentity obstacle to the PCs' plans? Or is he someone the PCs have clashed with in the past of the campaign? Or is he their nemesis, their archenemy? How much do the PCs want to see him DEAD?

Impact: Obstacle.
WHIFF: Hmmm, maybe this guy is more important than I thought. I'll have to change some stuff down the road...
CRIT: Problem solved.

Impact: Enemy.
WHIFF: Hmmm, maybe this guy is tougher than I thought. I'll have to change some stuff down the road... Still, if the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)
CRIT: Does this work? Taking this dude out in one hit?
   #1. If so, cool.
   #2. If not, I wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)  

Impact: Archenemy.
WHIFF: This sucks. Still, Albard's a badass. Maybe this is a tragic failure or pyrrhic victory for the PCs. I kinda wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)
CRIT: This sucks WORSE. Albard's supposed to be a badass. Taking him out in one hit? Boy, I wish the PCs or I had some way to allow re-rolls or the cavalry charging in or something. (...)

(Note: This post has been written with Albard as an enemy. If he's an ally, similiar but slightly different concerns would color the above analysis.)

So, yeah, that's the sort of stuff I juggle in my mind, in such cases.

Does that help explain my take on things?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330177Chad's comment makes sense to me; as I understand it, he's saying that providing a degree of narrative control lets the players ensure that some things work the way that they expect them to. As long as it's done in earnest and not in a munchkiny fashion, and as long as the GM makes room for it, it can overcome the disconnect between PC-knowledge and player-knowledge that can often occur in unfamiliar settings. I mean that PCs often know more about a setting (and themselves) than players do, but if the player gets to inject some "facts", then they become as natural to player as the character's own understanding.

Agreed.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330177Edit: also, a degree of narrative control can help steer the game in a direction that the player finds interesting. Again if it isn't done in a munchkiny fashion, it could be a good tool for mid-course corrections where initial game prep (the GM pitching the game and the players accepting) hasn't perfectly gotten everyone on the same page. The thing is you do need to be in the same book or chapter at least.

Agreed.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330177And re: "munchkiny fashion", as an aside, I think this has been a problem with some of the "story games" I've played, where the mechanics have been interpreted as carte blanche to seek advantage or set up a "hard hitting" dramatic conflict, with setting logic taking back seat.

Agreed! (Though I see this as more of a player-problem than a rules-problem. Don't play with dicks.)

Thank you.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330179But the GM sitting down and trying to say "THIS is what the story will be" beforehand is just stupid, and bad RPG-play.

I agree with you.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330179Likewise, all the players getting together DURING the game and saying "now we create story, this is most important!" is not actual RPG-play at all, but some kind of storygame-play.

I (somewhat) disagree with you, but that's because you classify "storygame-play" as fundamentally different than "RPG-play".

I think the big disconnect here, for me is the difference between BEFORE and DURING.

Quote from: Benoist;330183Oh, I've seen my share of those as well. *laughs*
I love when that happens in the game. Sometimes, the PCs go for some crazy interpretation of what's going on, and it often leads me to improvise all sorts of stuff on the spot. I love that aspect of role-playing games. What I am not going to do is retrofit past game events or elements of the game to conveniently follow what the PCs decide to do. As I noted above, that would mean there ultimately wouldn't be choices for the players, only variations of the same "story" unfolding before them.

Sometimes I love that, sometimes I HATE IT.

My buddy Andy was particularly annoying in this way.  Sometimes, he would arrow-in PERFECTLY on what the scenario I crafted was about, and make it less fun for everybody. Sometimes, he'd be ABSOLUTELY WRONG, and follow that thread until it wasn't fun anymore for anyone.

C'est la vie.

Chadu, even if it is interesting to see how he dies, the idea of playing through a scenario where the GM knows the ending makes me too bored to even imagine sitting through it.

If I was at a game where the GM put on kids gloves every time an NPC got the upper hand, I would / have quit.

Quote from: Cranewings;330211Chadu, even if it is interesting to see how he dies, the idea of playing through a scenario where the GM knows the ending makes me too bored to even imagine sitting through it.

I think a key issue here is that the GM has NOT hinted he knows the ending.
If you didn't know, would it matter?

Quote from: Cranewings;330211If I was at a game where the GM put on kids gloves every time an NPC got the upper hand, I would / have quit.

I'm not advocating that.

(Often, I want an NPC to hurt the PCs.)

. . .

Let me go on: I see the GM's job as providing a pleasurable experience (including tragedy-angst) for the players.

In my mind, sometimes that means the PCs end up winning; sometimes, that means the PCs lose badly. It really, REALLY, depends upon the feelings and perspectives (as I can best interpret them) around the table.

Balancing player needs/desires versus being fair AND being a game versus "what story are we telling here?" is a challenge... but a fun as hell one.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330152Okay, let's take the "Murder of Mr Jones example" to keep things simple. Under timeline in the notes is says Mrs Jones will be killed too if the case isn't sovled in three days. However as you are runing the game, you noitce that the player characters have bonded much more with Mr Jones' secretary rather his widow, for maximum emotional impact, you decide to have the secretary killed instead (and work out the exact reasons later).  Or maybe you move the assasination forward a day or so because becasue the game is losing a bit of momentum.

Actually I do this pretty often. By this I mean change details in my campaign/setting/adventure notes depending on what my players find interesting , boring or ambivalent about. Good GMing skill, IMO.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: aramis;330194Go take a look at some of the classic adventures.... the old-school dungeon crawl is more story-written-beforehand than most storygames...

The entire plot is simple: Enter the dungeon, work your way to the boss, kill it and take its stuff, and get back out. even the details are all worked out in advance.

A lamer plot, but one enforced by some of the dungeons having one way in via a one-way access, and a different way out. Dungeons ARE Plot Rails.

We've been here before: http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=2917&p=48546 (Not you, aramis, but the same issue came up ages ago on this board. That's a severely limited description of dungeon design and, I would argue, an example of how the "dungeon" concept was distorted.)

Geez, living several time zones away from you people is starting to make me feel like the narcoleptic in the room....what just happened??

QuoteGo take a look at some of the classic adventures.... the old-school dungeon crawl is more story-written-beforehand than most storygames...

As a DM, it's imperative you implement as much randomness as you can possibly stand - especially in a dungeoncrawl. Older rpgs almost without exception have something called a Reactions Table, which determines NPC behavior. If you simply decide how things react, you're going to get a connect-the-dots railroad indistinguishable from any other iteration of that adventure. By letting go and allowing the dice decide, you're opening up a whole bunch of possibilities with consequences you could not (nor the author of the adventure) ever predict.

Here's a dungeoncrawl example - suppose the players come to the Keep on the Borderlands and get short shrift from the grumpy human assholes within who take an immediate dislike to them. Later, when the party heads into the Caves of Chaos, the hobgoblins quite inexplicably take a shine to them, almost worshipping them as gods. After a quick intra-party discussion, the PCs decide to employ the hobgoblins in a raid on the Keep to teach those surly bastards a lesson in humility.

At this point, you could just throw up your hands and say 'Guys, that's not how it's supposed to work' OR you could just go with the flow, drink the koolaid and let the trip begin. In short, that open-ended randomness gives more freedom to the PCs to impact their setting and forces you to get more creative in how you alter the setting accordingly.

I agree about randomness, it's one of those aspects of gaming where I've come full circle and come to appreciate the random again. It is liberating.

Actually in the Fudge game I am running next week a few aspects (like travel) will be handled by random tables. I wonder how a modern audience will take to it. Will they enjoy the fresh and unpredictability of it or will they find jarring and anti-immersive (oh dear, did I just use the "i" word)?

Quote from: aramis;330194Go take a look at some of the classic adventures.... the old-school dungeon crawl is more story-written-beforehand than most storygames...

The entire plot is simple: Enter the dungeon, work your way to the boss, kill it and take its stuff, and get back out. even the details are all worked out in advance.

A lamer plot, but one enforced by some of the dungeons having one way in via a one-way access, and a different way out. Dungeons ARE Plot Rails.

Only the relatively poor ones. You know, appealing to "Railroading", something generally despised in gaming, to try to support your claim that story should be written beforehand, is a pretty piss-poor defense of your point.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;330264Only the relatively poor ones. You know, appealing to "Railroading", something generally despised in gaming, to try to support your claim that story should be written beforehand, is a pretty piss-poor defense of your point.

RPGPundit

You misread my intent. Pretty typical, tho, of you to presume that in the absolute absence of evidence.

My point is that the concept of story before play (fixed-begining/middle-muddle/fixed-end) is nothing new. In fact, it's a Gygaxism. Many of TSR's modules have a clear "move them from a to z via any of (b,c,d,e,f,g)" and a clear storyline results. Hell, G-D-Q has a clear storyline, and isn't (until D1) very railroady, and even in D2-3, the railroad/storyline is enforced by the walls of the dungeon exactly as EGG suggests in the AD&D1E DMG.

The idea that story is antithetical to old school is the point I'm calling you on. It's not. Never has been. Arnesson's tales of the game which triggered him to roleplay (I forget the name), playing a guy with leaflets of propaganda rather than a death squad... He had a story idea, and made it happen, as a player.

It's always been "don't make it obvious" and "If they don't want to buy in, let them go elsewhere"... but once you get them into the dungeon, they are, in all essence, along for the ride, be that ride all hostiles (as in D3 and Q1), or some encounters nerfed (as Kelri suggests) by use of Reaction Rolls, or the random chaos of Ken St. Andre's more outré offerings.

Me, I don't advocate telling a story with players constrained to the plot. I do advocate having strong kickers to get things rolling, and a good group-wide agreement on the type of situation to be played out. Asking what kinds of plot and NPC's they want at start saves a lot of fishing later...

And strong kickers themselves imply a story... Presumed desired plot "Rescue the maiden" with...
A greedy dragon...
A wealthy village...
A headman with a beautiful (COM20, CHA18) headstrong daughter... out in the fringes alone when the PC's arrive... at the same time the dragon does.
That's a good setup for a story. Everything else goes from there.
I can pre-do the village and the lair. And the field where she gets snatched...

Knowing the Players want a rescue means I don't have to worry about them pulling a "KODT Burnitall"... I just have to set the stage, and kkidnap the girl in front of them.

But again, there is a difference between having a plot-outline, and saying "WE'RE CREATING STORY!!1!!". A plot-outline suggests that anything could come to pass.

Its very different from either the White Wolf "Your players will sit there and listen to you tell a story" mentality OR the Forge "the GM will sit there and say yes while the players collectively try to create a story, somehow" mentality.

The Sandbox is neither of those things. Neither is a regular GM saying "ok, the PCs will start out at the tavern, then this merchant will offer them a job". That's not Storytelling, that's just setting up an adventure.

Plainly, these are different things. And you KNOW they're different, and you're just being disingenuous and making stupid arguments ("Railroading=Storygaming!") to try to cover that up.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;330326But again, there is a difference between having a plot-outline, and saying "WE'RE CREATING STORY!!1!!". A plot-outline suggests that anything could come to pass.

Its very different from either the White Wolf "Your players will sit there and listen to you tell a story" mentality OR the Forge "the GM will sit there and say yes while the players collectively try to create a story, somehow" mentality.

The Sandbox is neither of those things. Neither is a regular GM saying "ok, the PCs will start out at the tavern, then this merchant will offer them a job". That's not Storytelling, that's just setting up an adventure.

Plainly, these are different things. And you KNOW they're different, and you're just being disingenuous and making stupid arguments ("Railroading=Storygaming!") to try to cover that up.

RPGPundit

I don't see what the difference is between rail roading and having the party meet a guy in a tavern that gives them a mission. If they don't take the mission, then they have to go back to the farm and the GM goes and plays WoW on his computer.

After they take the mission, they will travel on a road, usually a strait one, from the tavern to the site. Along the way they will run into whatever the fuck the GM made up.

Then when they get there, they will only have one thing to do: solve the problem or die trying.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330326Its very different from either the White Wolf "Your players will sit there and listen to you tell a story" mentality OR the Forge "the GM will sit there and say yes while the players collectively try to create a story, somehow" mentality.

Eh, didn't I just a short while ago quote all those snippets from The World of Darkness, on how the GM isn't there to tell his story to the rest of the group?

...And yes, there they are. It's worth repeating, I suppose.

"Everyone involved in the game participates in telling a group story -- the players create and act out the roles of their characters, and the Storyteller creates and reveals the plot, introducing allies and antagonists with which the players' characters interact. The players' choices throughout the course of the Storytelling experience alter the plot. The Storyteller's job isn't to defend his story from any attempt to change it, but to help create the story as events unfold, reacting to the players' choices and weaving them into a greater whole, introducing secondary characters and exotic settings." (Chapter 1, page 22.)

"Storyteller: The 'director' or 'editor' of the interactive story told by the players." (Glossary, page 37.)

"A Storytelling game is primarily about people getting together with characters, and with a plot to be explored. Your troupe -- your gaming group -- is prepared to tell a story, and everyone involved works together to do it." (Chapter 6, page 120.)

"Storytelling isn't about standing before an audience and reciting memorized lines. It's a shared experience in which every player is involved in creating the story as it unfolds. Unlike interactive computer games, there is no prewritten script -- players don't just stumble along triggering occasional video playback. They create events as they go, in competitive cooperation with the Storyteller. The only limit is your imagination." (Chapter 8, page 189.)

"Plot is what the characters do. They act out a series of events that, considered as a whole, tells a story from beginning to middle to end. No Storyteller is completely in charge of his plot; the players provide many twists. However, a basic plot is helpful when presenting a story, even if it's doomed to be derailed, hijacked or shanghaied into new lands of development." (Chapter 8, page 191.)

"Don't Abuse Your Power: Remember that you're there to provide entertainment for the players, as well as for yourself. Respect your control over their characters. You both initiate and arbitrate events. Use your power to prolong the story, not to force your friends to play out your vision of how their characters should act." (Chapter 8, page 194.)

Quote from: Cranewings;330328I don't see what the difference is between rail roading and having the party meet a guy in a tavern that gives them a mission. If they don't take the mission, then they have to go back to the farm and the GM goes and plays WoW on his computer.

So they don't accept the quest*, and instead of dealing with the goblins in their lair, a few weeks later the Ankle Biter tribe shows up on that same farm, burning the barn and the dovecote, killing the livestock, and eating the farmhands. Or the dragon eats the daughter of the local marquess who sent the guy to the tavern to recruit adventurers, and the noble bitterly remembers their refusal to rescue his child.

Or at least that's the sort of thing that might happen if I'm behind the screen. The failure to bite a hook simply means that fish may come looking for them instead.

I think you're conflating two different things here. A railroad is not simply a linear sequence of events - it's a linear sequence of events from which the players and their characters cannot deviate for any reason without sanction from the referee.

If the adventurers decide to rescue Princess Pinkflower from the castle of Baron de Bauchery, they must perforce go to the castle, figure out how to get in, find the princess, perhaps battle the Baron and his guards (depending on their plan), and then escape successfully. That isn't a railroad. On the other hand, if every attempt to enter the castle that doesn't involve battling the guards in the gatehouse is prevented and every plan to escape without a climactic fight with the Baron is foiled, then the adventure is a railroad.



* I can't stand the word "mission" applied to fantasy adventures. It's a QUEST, people!

Quote from: aramis;330286The idea that story is antithetical to old school is the point I'm calling you on. It's not. Never has been. Arnesson's tales of the game which triggered him to roleplay (I forget the name), playing a guy with leaflets of propaganda rather than a death squad... He had a story idea, and made it happen, as a player.

Most of the old adventures were run as tournment modules first. What you are seeing is selection bias not how people ran their games back then. If you are going to publish a module the easiest thing to get ready is a tournament module. After all it was already written once to be run by dozens of DMs.


The G series, Tomb of Horror, The Lost Shrine, The Ghost Tower, were all run as tournament modules first. Judges Guild has a couple of that were printed directly from the original tournament notes and you see exactly what into designing these types of modules.

In contrast when Gygax wrote stuff that were original works not made for tournaments then the sandbox style of the oldest games shines through. Keep on the Borderland, Greyhawk and the D series (although only a straight line was detailed in the underworld)

First Fantasy Campaign by Judges Guild shows how Dave Arneson ran his campaign which was more of a free form wargame than anything story based as today.

Judges Guild initial products releases were far more representative of how people played D&D.

So everything else besides stuff written by Gygax and Arneson is tainted by dreaded story, huh? Sandbox play is your only chance to play without the influence of story ?

Look guys, people play modules, supplements, Dungeon adventures etc and make it their own. No written adventure survives contact with players. Story has always been around, it's just that nobody really bothered to define it or cared to. Then of course people started trying to. Erick Wujcik, Rein Hagen, Ron Edwards the list goes on. Each have their supporters and detractors.

Of course people like Edwards and Rein Hagen attempted to make story the goal or at least the center piece with mixed results. Hagen for instance claimed he wrote a storyteller game which was in play just an angsty regular role playing game. He should have just said he was creating an angsty regular roleplaying game. Edwards on the other hand was more successful in that he managed to split the community by making these gimmicky "story" mechanics and collaborative story creation the focus of the game. He didn't really create anything new because as almost anyone who has not drunk the koolaid will tell you, funky mechanics aside, Forge games play more or less like regular games.

But let's not kid ourselves and think that there was a time when dreaded story was not part of our hobby or that designers weren't creating cool interesting stuff with plots and everything, that GMs  sinpped or hacked for their own games.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;330410So everything else besides stuff written by Gygax and Arneson is tainted by dreaded story, huh? Sandbox play is your only chance to play without the influence of story ?

A general comment on this (not directed at David R)

If the players choose to accept this mission the ta... wait wrong genre.. anyway the players in a sandbox game will often choose a course of action that will lead them down a straight chain of events. For example a mission from the king where they have a number of objectives to achieve in a particular order.

This not a story game. In a  story game EVERYTHING is pre-determined the only variation is in how it happens according to folks like Chadu.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330326But again, there is a difference between having a plot-outline, and saying "WE'RE CREATING STORY!!1!!". A plot-outline suggests that anything could come to pass.

Its very different from either the White Wolf "Your players will sit there and listen to you tell a story" mentality OR the Forge "the GM will sit there and say yes while the players collectively try to create a story, somehow" mentality.

The Sandbox is neither of those things. Neither is a regular GM saying "ok, the PCs will start out at the tavern, then this merchant will offer them a job". That's not Storytelling, that's just setting up an adventure.

Plainly, these are different things. And you KNOW they're different, and you're just being disingenuous and making stupid arguments ("Railroading=Storygaming!") to try to cover that up.

RPGPundit

Sorry.
Been at work

Why the hell is this a nominal measurement and not a ratio one??  It is not an 'either/or' proposition.  Period.  And the black and white mentality is pure ignorance.

The game as it is played is a combination of these things, a list of ingredients that you and I may use differently in our food prep, but we use the same ingredients!  I run a 26 year old sandbox setting, and I can agree with Estar's JG comment as I got in 8 years of practice befire that.   I have a good grasp of sandbox RPGs, and I apologize for not being able to spend too much time answering this, as I have a live session tomorrow in it, Online on Monday and Wednesday that I have to prep for.  and if you don't like my creds, I'll send you my original 4th edition T&T rulebook.  

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why a mature intelligent adult like yourself needs the petty black and white distinction that simply is not there.  They are clearly not different things.  We are all cooking, but with different ratios on the ingredients.  Feel free to say that my dish (or my game ) sucks, fine, that's your take, and I respect you enough to listen.  Good Lord, I love some of the cool things you've written.  But you keep trying to tell other people in the kitcen making food and feeding people that they are not cooking because they don't agree with your ingredient list.  and that's wrong.

Quote from: estar;330448This not a story game. In a  story game EVERYTHING is pre-determined the only variation is in how it happens according to folks like Chadu.

That's an interesting definition -- I think there are people who play in a  story-focused way or play story-creation games that aren't that strict.

Here's one way I think about it: The Snuff Flick Principle, which I will explain using an awful metaphor, because it amuses me: I've read (or been told -- can't recall) that the FBI has never found an actual "snuff flick" -- they have, of course, found people who made recordings of homicide or murder, but those don't meet their definition of "Snuff Flick". According to my (not remembered, un-citable) sources, the FBI defines a "snuff flick" as "they would stop killing the person if the camera broke," meaning that that over-arching imperative is to create the movie, not to kill the poor victim.

I see story-focused gaming in much the same way -- would you stop the game (or engage in all-out railroading) to stop an anti-climax or a detour so severe that it would seriously change the direction, tone, etc. of the narrative created by the game?

In this formulation, the exact plot may not be decided in advance, but the desire for a game-created-narrative that meets the basic criteria of a decent story is so strong that the GM (or players) would sacrifice a variety of other top-level priorities (game-world or character integrity, for example) to keep the story going.

For what it's worth, I think Levi nailed it early on: you can (with reasonable reliability) get a story-like narrative by setting up the initial conditions in a way that are likely to be immediately engaging and lead in the direction of action rising to a climax... with this approach you can run the game like a sandbox, but still get a narrative that is fulfilling in some specific, fictional senses... however, you're always at risk for things taking a completely unexpected turn or ending in a less-than-satisfying anti-climax.

If you're unwilling to live with the /risk/ of those things, I'd say you're story-gaming.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;330476For what it's worth, I think Levi nailed it early on: you can (with reasonable reliability) get a story-like narrative by setting up the initial conditions in a way that are likely to be immediately engaging and lead in the direction of action rising to a climax... with this approach you can run the game like a sandbox, but still get a narrative that is fulfilling in some specific, fictional senses... however, you're always at risk for things taking a completely unexpected turn or ending in a less-than-satisfying anti-climax.

Some more general comments.

It is possible to know your players well enough to manipulate them into a desired course of actions. The more detailed a character background is the easier this is to accomplish. Also it is possible to railroad players without them being aware of it. You just have to make your plot paths long enough and in sufficient quantities that they are not aware they being channeled to a particular climax.

The reason I am aware of this is because  in a NERO LARP you are constrained physically, manpower and resource in how much you can change  a plot in response to the players decision. In order to run a fun NERO LARP Event one of the things you have to be able to do is fake the illusion of choice. If this works out the players how they reach the climax of the event.

But tabletop doesn't suffer the limitation of a LARP given the right set of tools the GM can handle any type of  situation or choice the PC throw at him. It does help that you are only dealing with a half dozen or so PCs instead of the 40 to 80 at a LARP event. That number you can get good at predicting where the PC will go next and prepare accordingly.

So to me it doesn't make sense to use RPGs in this way. And if the object to collaboratively create a story there are better ways of doing this. Pundit eludes to be people creating fan fiction but the internet has dozens of niches doing all kinds of thing both individually and collaboratively.

Quote from: David R;330410Sandbox play is your only chance to play without the influence of story ?

Not even then... a sandbox, with sufficient prep, is still likely to be improvisational story. RPG mechanics constrain story. Sandbox play is less constrained than module play, but still more constrained than non-game Improv theater.

Quote from: David R;330410But let's not kid ourselves and think that there was a time when dreaded story was not part of our hobby or that designers weren't creating cool interesting stuff with plots and everything, that GMs  sinpped or hacked for their own games.

Regards,
David R

Pretty much, nope, we can't escape story. Dave Arnesson talked of the emerging story in the miniatures game he was playing in back in 1970... so did the referee of that game. It was a miniatures sandbox kind of game, and Dave Arnesson came in with a story in mind... and managed to manifest that, with the GM permitting that to emerge in play.

Story emerges in any human activity. We invent story from unrelated actions we experience as a natural part of what we are. We draw connections in everything. It's so much a part of human nature we even have special terms for the appearance of relatedness where it doesn't exist: coincidence.

Quote from: -E.;330476That's an interesting definition -- I think there are people who play in a  story-focused way or play story-creation games that aren't that strict.

Frankly, none of the "story games" that I'm familiar with revolve around playing out meticulously predefined scripts, let alone the games published by White Wolf. For example, in Polaris the characters are doomed from the start so that their mythical civilization will eventually fall and give way to history as we know it, but how that comes to pass is only decided during actual play. In Nine Worlds all the action is driven by the goals which the characters set for themselves, but those can change on a moment's notice. Even My Life With Master includes, what, six possible outcomes based on the condition of the characters at the end?

Quote from: GrimGent;330533Frankly, none of the "story games" that I'm familiar with revolve around playing out meticulously predefined scripts, let alone the games published by White Wolf.

Yeah about the only "game" I have across which does this, was the chap who came here with "We All Had Names" and he soon realized that his project wasn't a role playing game. I suppose the Pundit thinks that WW games are GMs(tory) wank endevours but most of the WW gamers are not like this. Of course you get the railroady/story obessed/my way GMs but you get them in most games.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: estar;330448A general comment on this (not directed at David R)

If the players choose to accept this mission the ta... wait wrong genre.. anyway the players in a sandbox game will often choose a course of action that will lead them down a straight chain of events. For example a mission from the king where they have a number of objectives to achieve in a particular order.

This not a story game. In a  story game EVERYTHING is pre-determined the only variation is in how it happens according to folks like Chadu.

Um, I'm not sure I said that. I riffed off of your "pre-determined" example, and even showed in there where even I would change a "pre-determined event" (Albard the Evil dying) if it made more sense.

To me, a story-game is an RPG with some funky mechanics that allow players to influence the setting/events/characters in that world indirectly, rather than just directly through their characters.

You know, speaking of variable randomness within a game, those three playstyles from Maid come to mind.

At the more structured end, you have the straight-forward "favour race" which typically is scheduled around a specifically prepared daily routine, with little to unexpectedly distract the attention from the assigned tasks. (10:00 -- Wash Lord Vader's spare cloak, 12:00 -- Prepare lunch for the stormtroopers, 14:00 -- Clean up scruffy rebels and tentacle monsters from the trash compactor.)

Then there's the scenario mode, which like RPG adventures in general may start out from a detailed set-up but then proceeds in a relatively open-ended manner, mostly according to the actions of the PCs. (Jeremiah Pickman vanished under ominous circumstances after being invited to visit an elderly relative in Arkham, and now the missing man's two loyal maids follow up on his trail to investigate a cult dedicated to the eldritch madness that lurks in the dark between the stars.)

And finally, in completely random play nothing is planned in advance and instead everything is rolled up on the charts, from the characters to the setting to the sudden twists and encounters and complications. ("Okay, so we're an alien princess, a greedy robot and a shy scientist, all living in an extravagant spaceship that's ruled by an evil undead emperor... Let's roll with that." "Birth of a computer intelligence! The mansion's AI becomes self-aware and begins to rebel! Every security system turns on the residents!" "A legacy of the ancient Galactic Empire! Everyone gets one random item to share!" "A space bounty hunter (Attributes 3/Spirit 5) appears, suspecting the maids... Any maid with a past could be in trouble!")

Quote from: GrimGent;330533Frankly, none of the "story games" that I'm familiar with revolve around playing out meticulously predefined scripts, let alone the games published by White Wolf. For example, in Polaris the characters are doomed from the start so that their mythical civilization will eventually fall and give way to history as we know it, but how that comes to pass is only decided during actual play. In Nine Worlds all the action is driven by the goals which the characters set for themselves, but those can change on a moment's notice. Even My Life With Master includes, what, six possible outcomes based on the condition of the characters at the end?

Unless I failed my reading comprehension roll, the guy I was responding to was using someone else's definition -- one that I'm not familiar with either. I don't think anyone was saying that story-games are "this and only this" which was why I brought in my own way of thinking about it.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: estar;330481Some more general comments.

It is possible to know your players well enough to manipulate them into a desired course of actions. The more detailed a character background is the easier this is to accomplish. Also it is possible to railroad players without them being aware of it. You just have to make your plot paths long enough and in sufficient quantities that they are not aware they being channeled to a particular climax.

The reason I am aware of this is because  in a NERO LARP you are constrained physically, manpower and resource in how much you can change  a plot in response to the players decision. In order to run a fun NERO LARP Event one of the things you have to be able to do is fake the illusion of choice. If this works out the players how they reach the climax of the event.

But tabletop doesn't suffer the limitation of a LARP given the right set of tools the GM can handle any type of  situation or choice the PC throw at him. It does help that you are only dealing with a half dozen or so PCs instead of the 40 to 80 at a LARP event. That number you can get good at predicting where the PC will go next and prepare accordingly.

So to me it doesn't make sense to use RPGs in this way. And if the object to collaboratively create a story there are better ways of doing this. Pundit eludes to be people creating fan fiction but the internet has dozens of niches doing all kinds of thing both individually and collaboratively.

Are you saying that it doesn't make sense to you to manipulate (overtly or covertly) PC's?

I can see why someone might want to -- if I think "Man -- wouldn't it be cool if X happened in the game!?" but the only way I can think of to make "X" happen is some kind of manipulation, I can see the attraction...

I think it's poor practice, though -- ultimately I'd have sacrificed the integrity and the player-directed nature of the game for a few scripted set-pieces... I'd prefer to risk (and in some cases, get) anti-climax rather than manipulate... but I can see why some folks would be tempted.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: chadu;330537Um, I'm not sure I said that. I riffed off of your "pre-determined" example, and even showed in there where even I would change a "pre-determined event" (Albard the Evil dying) if it made more sense.

To me, a story-game is an RPG with some funky mechanics that allow players to influence the setting/events/characters in that world indirectly, rather than just directly through their characters.

Actually, I would say the players influence it directly, rather than indirectly through their characters. To me, that's the defining difference between story games and trad RPGs.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;330651

Quote from: chaduTo me, a story-game is an RPG with some funky mechanics that allow players to influence the setting/events/characters in that world indirectly, rather than just directly through their characters.

Actually, I would say the players influence it directly, rather than indirectly through their characters. To me, that's the defining difference between story games and trad RPGs.

I agree with you!

I think it's a matter of perspective, if you're coming at "influencing the setting/characters/events" from either a player-centric focus, or a character-centric focus.

Okay, some of the usual nonsense is going on (multiple definitions of "story" being treated as if they are one, for example) but I'm heading back to earlier in the thread to answer the question that SG posed to me.

Quote from: Soylent Green;330130Thanks. That is one clear response indicating that my suggested (and actual) framework for a supers game does amount to GM bringing the story rather than GM allowing the story to emerge retrospectively.

I am tempted to rush to the defence of my campaign and explain how there were genuine choices and meangingful decisons for the payers to take, but that isn't really the point of this thread.

Any based on the above, do you think you can  not have story in other games genres which are not about exploration like like fantasyoften has?

I think you're asking, is it possible to run other genres than fantasy--ones that lack the "world exploration" component often found in fantasy--without GMing to a fixed plot-structure?

I've got two answers, which I'm not going to claim are exhaustive. I also can't claim they're based on actual experience but I'll take a stab at it anyway.

1) The key component of fantasy that really allows a non-fixed structure isn't so much the "exploration of unknown territory" in a literal sense, but the figurative sense of unknown relationships and how they develop. In fantasy this is often done in a pretty simple (literal) fashion, but at that the same time, in standard D&D-type fantasy (of the sort I played), you've also got the fact that PCs often aren't beholden to any particular relationship. They're free agents, so they can befriend anyone they like, form alliances, gain enmities, etc. And also, the environment tends to be somewhat chaotic (frontier or anarchic) which gives them freedom. Plus, at some point, PCs are usually powerful enough to make their own law, or at least contend with the "authorities" (such as they are) on a near-equal footing.

So you put that into any setting, including non-fantasy, and you've got a potentially more open campaign. Superheroes are tough to do this way, though, because the conventions of the genre are usually pretty black & white in terms of morality. Superman might be strong enough to be a law in his own right, but if he did that, he wouldn't be Superman. Same goes for pretty much all the other heroes I can think of--they all buy into the "with great power comes great responsibility" ideology one way or another. At most you could have arguments over ends and means, but I'll leave that up to further conversion whether it'd really fruitful. I guess it sort of is in Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns...but those are also stories that drive toward a strong resolution, and after that's done, what do you do next?

However, in other campaigns you could certainly make characters "movers and shakers" in pursuit of personal ends, at least within their own little worlds. Amber seems to have this quality, but I can't say for sure. But pretty much any "soap opera" has this element, and you can interpret it pretty broadly to include many of the multi-episode Asian costume dramas. I think you could apply the same idea to something like Vampire (and people probably do), or to European medieval dynastic struggles (think of The Lion in Winter...or The History of the Franks).

Moving on...

2) The alternative is to go highly episodic and consider how a number of fictional worlds were structured before the development of the geek-opera (which I trace back to ST:TNG although it may have earlier antecedents). Whether it's military, spy, or superhero, the old way was much more problem-of-the-week without an overarching structure...and it was just fine. Under this approach, you just present the players with a mission/problem/challenge, they have at it, and they can win or lose. The interest for the players is dual: (i) defeat the bad guys, and (ii) get XP. You might note that XP and character advancement isn't strictly necessary for the book/comic/TV/movie version of this structure, so why do I include it? I think it helps for the RPG version because it aids the sense of character continuity that maintains interest even in the face of weak or nonexistent campaign continuity.

Elliot:

I hardly ever run fantasy, and have no problem running without any care about story. I also run almost all games - mostly my own - without XP at all. Your 1 is not in any way exclusive to fantasy, and your 2 is not how I run games.

-clash

I think we are getting bogged down with what is and isn't a story and the context in which it should be used.

Then it came to me.  When I plan out a game/campaign, whatever, I am not working on a story. I'm working on an ADVENTURE.  Use that word and thinks are much easier to discuss.  Yes, a story may come out of that adventure, but its a byproduct...

Quote from: Cranewings;330328I don't see what the difference is between rail roading and having the party meet a guy in a tavern that gives them a mission. If they don't take the mission, then they have to go back to the farm and the GM goes and plays WoW on his computer.

After they take the mission, they will travel on a road, usually a strait one, from the tavern to the site. Along the way they will run into whatever the fuck the GM made up.

Then when they get there, they will only have one thing to do: solve the problem or die trying.

In most RPG games run by a competent GM, none of that is written in stone.
But again, if your argument adds up to "GM creating-story = railroading = crappy", I can't really disagree with you. Its a bad way to run an RPG, and it explains why most regular gamers understand that "Story" should not be the point of the game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: GrimGent;330331Eh, didn't I just a short while ago quote all those snippets from The World of Darkness, on how the GM isn't there to tell his story to the rest of the group?

...And yes, there they are. It's worth repeating, I suppose.

"Everyone involved in the game participates in telling a group story -- the players create and act out the roles of their characters, and the Storyteller creates and reveals the plot, introducing allies and antagonists with which the players' characters interact. The players' choices throughout the course of the Storytelling experience alter the plot. The Storyteller's job isn't to defend his story from any attempt to change it, but to help create the story as events unfold, reacting to the players' choices and weaving them into a greater whole, introducing secondary characters and exotic settings." (Chapter 1, page 22.)

"Storyteller: The 'director' or 'editor' of the interactive story told by the players." (Glossary, page 37.)

"A Storytelling game is primarily about people getting together with characters, and with a plot to be explored. Your troupe -- your gaming group -- is prepared to tell a story, and everyone involved works together to do it." (Chapter 6, page 120.)

"Storytelling isn't about standing before an audience and reciting memorized lines. It's a shared experience in which every player is involved in creating the story as it unfolds. Unlike interactive computer games, there is no prewritten script -- players don't just stumble along triggering occasional video playback. They create events as they go, in competitive cooperation with the Storyteller. The only limit is your imagination." (Chapter 8, page 189.)

"Plot is what the characters do. They act out a series of events that, considered as a whole, tells a story from beginning to middle to end. No Storyteller is completely in charge of his plot; the players provide many twists. However, a basic plot is helpful when presenting a story, even if it's doomed to be derailed, hijacked or shanghaied into new lands of development." (Chapter 8, page 191.)

"Don't Abuse Your Power: Remember that you're there to provide entertainment for the players, as well as for yourself. Respect your control over their characters. You both initiate and arbitrate events. Use your power to prolong the story, not to force your friends to play out your vision of how their characters should act." (Chapter 8, page 194.)

First, are you quoting from the same nWoD basic book that talks about how superior people are for playing their games than D&D, and how its all about "role playing not roll-playing"? :rolleyes:

Second, none of the above really fits with WW's history of massive enforced metaplot.

RPGPundit

Quote from: aramis;330499Story emerges in any human activity. We invent story from unrelated actions we experience as a natural part of what we are. We draw connections in everything. It's so much a part of human nature we even have special terms for the appearance of relatedness where it doesn't exist: coincidence.

Sure, but so what? Contrary to what the other side may claim, there's no one over here claiming that RPG games should make any special effort to AVOID "story" happening.
The difference is that what we're saying is that story is a BYPRODUCT, and not the GOAL.

RPGPundit

Pundit: Bingo. Actually, I think the most that could be said is that, in the interest of making an interesting game, you may include some of the things that also go into the creation of an interesting story. Things like setting, character, conflict. But these shouldn't be confused with the stuff that's often prescribed in modules and GMing advice, such as script or scenes.

Quote from: flyingmice;330737I hardly ever run fantasy, and have no problem running without any care about story. I also run almost all games - mostly my own - without XP at all. Your 1 is not in any way exclusive to fantasy, and your 2 is not how I run games.

Clash, those are just my grasping attempts at answering SG's question. I'm not going to claim that #1 or #2 is a huge revelation...not that I'm going to disown them, either. How about putting your approach in your own words in response to SG's question? I.e. if we take as given that the method he describes in the OP constitutes GMing to a fixed plot structure, how do you not do that, especially in a setting that lacks the wide-open, anarchic quality of many fantasy games?

While I'm at it, though, one thought that came to me is that one could do a sort of hybrid of #1 and #2--mission-of-the-week interspersed with a soap opera-esque focus on character relationships and arcs. I'm guessing that's a bit of what X-Men achieved in comic book form, but I was never a fan of that title.

Also: at least a couple super-hero comics didn't fall into anything like the "with great power" concept or at least they challenged it strongly. I think the The Incredible Hulk is one. Another is Nexus (if anyone remembers it). In both cases the main characters were pretty much laws unto themselves.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330761Clash, those are just my grasping attempts at answering SG's question. I'm not going to claim that #1 or #2 is a huge revelation...not that I'm going to disown them, either. How about putting your approach in your own words in response to SG's question? I.e. if we take as given that the method he describes in the OP constitutes GMing to a fixed plot structure, how do you not do that, especially in a setting that lacks the wide-open, anarchic quality of many fantasy games?

Too long to post here, so I posted on my blog (http://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2009/09/situational-gming.html).

-clash

Quote from: RPGPundit;330753Sure, but so what? Contrary to what the other side may claim, there's no one over here claiming that RPG games should make any special effort to AVOID "story" happening.
The difference is that what we're saying is that story is a BYPRODUCT, and not the GOAL.

RPGPundit

It's the inherent result of the action, and can't be separated from the goal. Good play always results in story. Even when that story is otherwise mundane, for the game to work, a story has to be part of the result; if it doesn't have the elements of story, it may as well be random opponent minis battles. And even then, many players will still develop story to link them.

Being aware of that, and making the slight effort needed to accommodate the needs of story makes play both more memorable and more engaging. If it didn't, we'd never bother with naming characters, or tracking alignment and growth.

Pardon me, but, you are defining the problem out of existence. Which doesn't really make it go away.

Quote from: flyingmice;330782Too long to post here, so I posted on my blog (http://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2009/09/situational-gming.html).

Great, now (because I'm having trouble logging into post comments there):

How would you--or could you--apply this method to:

Espionage?
Police/detective?
WW II military?
Super-heroes?

I have ideas, but I'd like to hear yours first.

EDIT: We could split this into four threads if anyone thinks that'd be useful. I'm actually pretty excited about what I'm thinking re: police.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330753Sure, but so what? Contrary to what the other side may claim, there's no one over here claiming that RPG games should make any special effort to AVOID "story" happening.
The difference is that what we're saying is that story is a BYPRODUCT, and not the GOAL.

RPGPundit

OK.  Just finished a session, and am pretty drained.

And I can see what you are saying and I think this is a better way to look at it than others you have postulated.

But I don't believe one exists without the other.  Story is not a byproduct; it is a necessary ingredient in plot.  The Goal is a good game, which includes roleplaying, immersion, and plot.  
If a GM succeeds in these, they have created a story.  Perhaps a product; not a byproduct.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330787Great, now (because I'm having trouble logging into post comments there):

How would you--or could you--apply this method to:

Espionage?
Police/detective?
WW II military?
Super-heroes?

I have ideas, but I'd like to hear yours first.

EDIT: We could split this into four threads if anyone thinks that'd be useful. I'm actually pretty excited about what I'm thinking re: police.

With Espionage and military, the PC group would have their goals set by their superiors, though they may have other, personal, goals. This is inescapable. I prefer to use troupe play, though, so that their superiors *are* PCs.

Espionage groups would be facing NPCs and their organizations, trying to either get information/spread disinformation (LeCarre style) or foul the NPCs' attempts to reach their goals (Bond style). These NPCs would be people in other intelligence organizations, or their militaries. Situations could include liquidations, extractions of agents, interceptions of information exchanges, discovering a mole, etc.

Military groups would be facing opposing officers, who are working to gain advantage or to disadvantage the PC's side. They also could be facing inert or inept superiors, or bureaucrats. Situations could be holding key terrain, maneuvering for advantage, intercepting or protecting logistical supplies, etc. I've written several games based on just this, so I could go on forever.

Police face organized criminals, pure whack jobs, sociopaths, otherwise decent people on the take or fearful for their lives, corrupt cops, and the like. Situations involve murders, rapes, bank robberies, drug-based corruption, child abduction, and a host more. Watch TV for examples. The variety of people and situations for this genre is overwhelming.

Suoers actually lends itself beautifully to this GM style. NPCs are other supers, with all their ego-tripping, guilt, twisted motives, and powers. They may be single, but more likely they belong to organizations. Situations depend strongly on what these NPCs are after. They have to fit the NPC behind them - the Joker has a certain style, as does the Green Goblin, and their goals are diametrically apart.

-clash

I get what you're saying, Clash. To me this all points to a hybrid of my (1) & (2), although you may not see it quite that way. The mission is only a part of what the individual faces. For cops, e.g., the Police Dept. is the universe as much as the streets are.

At this point I wonder if Soylent Green needs more elaboration.

Quote from: RPGPundit;330752First, are you quoting from the same nWoD basic book that talks about how superior people are for playing their games than D&D, and how its all about "role playing not roll-playing"? :rolleyes:

Second, none of the above really fits with WW's history of massive enforced metaplot.

First of all, the book never mentions anything like D&D and instead talks about a playstyle which "some call 'roll-playing'" and how that shouldn't be considered inferior as long as everyone at the table is having fun. But then you already knew that: I remember the threads which you started over that passage some years back.

Second, history is exactly what that is. None of the lines which WW has published after the oWoD have featured metaplots. The company has adopted a less setting-specific and more flexible toolkit approach to game design since then.

clash, good blog post. It's the way how I usually run my games. It produces.....the best stories, IMO :D

Regards,
David R

Quote from: GrimGent;330812First of all, the book never mentions anything like D&D and instead talks about a playstyle which "some call 'roll-playing'" and how that shouldn't be considered inferior as long as everyone at the table is having fun. But then you already knew that: I remember the threads which you started over that passage some years back.

Why do you waste your time arguing that? It's not about the truth, and it's never been. He has not read the book, he has not read the quotes and he won't.

QuoteSecond, history is exactly what that is. None of the lines which WW has published after the oWoD have featured metaplots. The company has adopted a less setting-specific and more flexible toolkit approach to game design since then.

Don't let reality get in the war. For some, it's still the 90's.

Quote from: David R;330825clash, good blog post. It's the way how I usually run my games. It produces.....the best stories, IMO :D

My experience, exactly.

Quote from: David R;330825clash, good blog post. It's the way how I usually run my games. It produces.....the best stories, IMO :D

Regards,
David R

I think it does too, actually, but stories aren't on my priority list. If it produces great stories, sweet, but if it doesn't I wouldn't care. It produces great games for me and my group. That's what I care about.

And based on what you have said about your group, I suspected you used this method. :D

Maybe great characters + good conflict = good story? That would be a kicker! Tell it to Hollywood!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;330845Maybe great characters + good conflict = good story? That would be a kicker! Tell it to Hollywood!

Sadly, they wouldn't listen.

Quote from: Jeffrey Straszheim;330863Sadly, they wouldn't listen.

BTW, having played with Marco both as a player and as a GM, I know this is his style too, Jeffrey. :D

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;330866BTW, having played with Marco both as a player and as a GM, I know this is his style too, Jeffrey. :D

Much of his disagreement with the Forge crowd has been that he gets the same "good stuff" in his game while keeping the trad. structure.  Having experienced both, I think he is mostly correct, with one exception:  a JAGS game does tend to develop more slowly than the Forgie games.  Long combats, for instance, can get tedious when I'd rather just get on with the plot.  However, I find the trad. structure supports strong immersion and character identity way better than the Forgie games, and I can deal w/ the slow development.

In fact, when I really like my character, the last thing I want is for things to happen quickly.  I want to be there in character as long as possible.

YMMV and all that.

Quote from: Imperator;330833Don't let reality get in the war. For some, it's still the 90's.

If that were true, there would be a glut of good music to listen to on the radio, instead of the crap we get now....

I find a lot of Hollywood movies follow the great characters + conflict precept, but they fail in ways that I find very similar to the operation of a heavy-handed GM or an excessively "thespy" player endowed with shared narrative authority. Dumb, inexplicable motivations, illogical plot twists, hammered theme.

Although a lot of movies also do unidimensional characters.

Quote from: flyingmice;330845Maybe great characters + good conflict = good story? That would be a kicker! Tell it to Hollywood!

Very true. The thespy indie film scene have been doing it for years !

But going back to game design for a moment, would you say that your design philosophy reflects your GMing style ? I know your games are playable no matter the playstyle but does yours creep in there a little ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Jeffrey Straszheim;330889Much of his disagreement with the Forge crowd has been that he gets the same "good stuff" in his game while keeping the trad. structure.  Having experienced both, I think he is mostly correct, with one exception:  a JAGS game does tend to develop more slowly than the Forgie games.  Long combats, for instance, can get tedious when I'd rather just get on with the plot.  However, I find the trad. structure supports strong immersion and character identity way better than the Forgie games, and I can deal w/ the slow development.

In fact, when I really like my character, the last thing I want is for things to happen quickly.  I want to be there in character as long as possible.

YMMV and all that.

Where Marco and I differ as designers is in the compromises we are willing to make in abstracting combat for speed rather than verisimilitude. JAGS is slower in combat than my games, but in return he gets better verisimilitude, because that's the path he chose. I understand that choice as he understands mine, and we both like each other's games. Otherwise, we're pretty synoptic. :D

-clash

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330896I find a lot of Hollywood movies follow the great characters + conflict precept, but they fail in ways that I find very similar to the operation of a heavy-handed GM or an excessively "thespy" player endowed with shared narrative authority. Dumb, inexplicable motivations, illogical plot twists, hammered theme.

Although a lot of movies also do unidimensional characters.

If the characters have dumb, inexplicable motivations, that's not great characters there, Elliot. Great characters have clear, understandable motivations. :D

-clash

Quote from: David R;330905Very true. The thespy indie film scene have been doing it for years !

But going back to game design for a moment, would you say that your design philosophy reflects your GMing style ? I know your games are playable no matter the playstyle but does yours creep in there a little ?

Regards,
David R

Oh, yes, David! My first responsibility is to make game *I* enjoy running. If I don't enjoy it, how can anyone else? My second responsibility is to make games anyone can run. :D

See the NPC section in any of my games - goals, motivations, personalities, and resources.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;330911See the NPC section in any of my games - goals, motivations, personalities, and resources.

-clash

I know. It's the reason I asked. Reading you blog post about NPC motivations and very little prep, I kinda of figured you would incorporate this into your work. My players were amazed at how quickly I came up with stuff for our IHW games.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: flyingmice;330909If the characters have dumb, inexplicable motivations, that's not great characters there, Elliot. Great characters have clear, understandable motivations. :D

-clash

True, it's a tautology. The thing is though that characters can start out great only to be betrayed by the exigencies of plot and stereotyped expectations. Whether that means they were never really great, or that they didn't have any greatness until fully revealed in the course of the story is perhaps a philosophical question when it comes to static fictions that can be revised before release. With RPGs, character has to precede plot IMO.

Quote from: Nazgul;330895If that were true, there would be a glut of good music to listen to on the radio, instead of the crap we get now....

Surely you mean the 80s...

Or the 70s...

Or the 60s...?

Typically depends on when you're born.

See, I like music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Thing is, after 98 or so, I've heard less than a dozen new bands that were any good played on the radio, so now I don't listen to it anymore.

Yea I know there are better bands out there than what the radio plays, but when you've forgotten your cds/mp3player/stuck in someone else's car, it tends to suck.



As to rpg and story, I go with "story is what happens during the course of the game, but the GM should take care that future events have the past in mind"

Or put another way, once you look back over the 'story' of the first few adventures and see the game developing a certain way (cause that's what the players want) make sure what you have planed next ties back into what when on before. Even as it introduces new things.

Quote from: jadrax;330171It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can partake of the same hobby. So do you think discussion of those sort of GM discussions out of genuine disinterest or some sort of feeling that it should not be done?

The latter.  It's not exactly kosher; asking a GM how he develops the campaign while it's in progress.  It's a little bit like heckling a magician and asking him to explain how he's doing his tricks while he's on stage.

:shrug:

Quote from: David R;330410Of course people like Edwards and Rein Hagen attempted to make story the goal or at least the center piece with mixed results. Hagen for instance claimed he wrote a storyteller game which was in play just an angsty regular role playing game. He should have just said he was creating an angsty regular roleplaying game. Edwards on the other hand was more successful in that he managed to split the community by making these gimmicky "story" mechanics and collaborative story creation the focus of the game. He didn't really create anything new because as almost anyone who has not drunk the koolaid will tell you, funky mechanics aside, Forge games play more or less like regular games.

I was just catching up to make my reply, and it's a good thing I did, because this is it right here.  There's no such thing as a story-game, and it'd be great if the pretentious would-be foisters of that term quit trying to coin it already just to describe a game that has an attitude or a mechanic or two that they don't like.  There's roleplaying games... and then there's other roleplaying games with slight variations.  All this arguing about story comes across as pretty pedantic to me, because we're really only talking about a handful of superficial mechanical gee-whiz gadgets that go on top of a roleplaying session that's pretty much the same as roleplaying game sessions always have been.

Rein*Hagen, or whatever character you're supposed to insert there, made a lot of hay with nothing more than a pretentious attitude, but to claim that White Wolf, or even Forge games for that matter, fundamentally created a new kind of game that demands an entirely new term is a case of a tiny, tiny tail wagging a big ole honkin' dog.

Quote from: aramis;330499Not even then... a sandbox, with sufficient prep, is still likely to be improvisational story. RPG mechanics constrain story. Sandbox play is less constrained than module play, but still more constrained than non-game Improv theater.

Wow, some of you folks fetishize the "pure" sandbox the way Libertarians fetishize "pure" capitalism.  Like the economic principle, in reality a "pure" version doesn't exist, probably can't exist, and even if it could, it'd be a sucky thing to actually experience.

We already had a perfectly fine term here; railroading, that was the theoretical opposite of a sandbox, where the theoretical endpoint is little more than the GM reading his book to the players.  But the point is that both of those: pure railroad and pure sandbox, are merely theoretical endpoints.  All games that I've ever witnessed, or that I can even imagine, fall somewhere on the spectrum in between.  

Personally, I'm a fan of the so-called "narrow-wide-narrow" approach, where you purposefully "railroad" a bit at the beginning of the campaign to get it off the ground, and once it's running on its own steam, you back off and let the PCs have their head.  Then, at the end, you have to force a few strings to tie themselves off and come to a head; otherwise the game just lingers indefinately.

Quote from: Hobo;331000The latter.  It's not exactly kosher; asking a GM how he develops the campaign while it's in progress.  It's a little bit like heckling a magician and asking him to explain how he's doing his tricks while he's on stage.

Its an interesting take, very much rooted I think in the idea that GM's are performing for the players. I do not think there is anything wrong with that, but it doesn't mirror my experiences as a GM.

Quote from: David R;330916I know. It's the reason I asked. Reading you blog post about NPC motivations and very little prep, I kinda of figured you would incorporate this into your work. My players were amazed at how quickly I came up with stuff for our IHW games.

Regards,
David R

Yep! The games are designed for fast prep and on-the-fly generation. If a game I like doesn't have these tools, I have to make 'em. Glad they came in handy! :D

-clash

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;330923True, it's a tautology. The thing is though that characters can start out great only to be betrayed by the exigencies of plot and stereotyped expectations. Whether that means they were never really great, or that they didn't have any greatness until fully revealed in the course of the story is perhaps a philosophical question when it comes to static fictions that can be revised before release. With RPGs, character has to precede plot IMO.

Agreed entirely, Elliot!

-clash

Quote from: Hobo;331004There's no such thing as a story-game, and it'd be great if the pretentious would-be foisters of that term quit trying to coin it already just to describe a game that has an attitude or a mechanic or two that they don't like.  There's roleplaying games... and then there's other roleplaying games with slight variations.

Sure, ok. You say potato, I say starchy tuber. Let's all embrace and hug that shit out. But I gotta draw the line with Jenga. If you don't have a gaggle of SE Asian bargirls around there's no fucking way Jenga will ever be anything more than a wood block parlor game. No matter how much false sense of drama or ulterior meaning you try to give it...it's just pulling blocks.  

QuoteWow, some of you folks fetishize the "pure" sandbox the way

storygamers fetishize "pure" narrative without GM control?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Maybe it's that word "fetishize" or maybe it's just too much Jenga.

Quote from: jadrax;331020Its an interesting take, very much rooted I think in the idea that GM's are performing for the players. I do not think there is anything wrong with that, but it doesn't mirror my experiences as a GM.

I think there's actually more of an old school "this is player knowledge, and this is GM knowledge" background to it, to be honest with you.

But there's also an element of "spoiler control"---just like an mystery author doesn't tell you who killed the victim early on in the book, the GM doesn't say much whatever plans he thinks might come to fruition in the campaign, other than what's necessary to get a coherent group of characters.  It somehow diminishes the experience.

Also: when I GM, I don't plan very far ahead anyway.  There's too much that's contingent on what the PCs do.  Basically my prep method is to come up with a few important NPCs with agendas of their own, and put them into action.  The NPCs start doing what they want to do and this intersects with the PCs.  As the PCs frustrate (or not) their plans, they react to that.  So I really can't plan too much more than a session or so out at best anyway.  But given that, anything that I would say to the players about the campaign, and the NPCs and what they're doing would diminish the experience for them; adding an extra helping of player knowledge that's discreet from character knowledge that they'd have to struggle to mentally compartmentalize.

Quote from: Hobo;331166I think there's actually more of an old school "this is player knowledge, and this is GM knowledge" background to it, to be honest with you.

But there's also an element of "spoiler control"---just like an mystery author doesn't tell you who killed the victim early on in the book, the GM doesn't say much whatever plans he thinks might come to fruition in the campaign, other than what's necessary to get a coherent group of characters.  It somehow diminishes the experience.

Also: when I GM, I don't plan very far ahead anyway.  There's too much that's contingent on what the PCs do.  Basically my prep method is to come up with a few important NPCs with agendas of their own, and put them into action.  The NPCs start doing what they want to do and this intersects with the PCs.  As the PCs frustrate (or not) their plans, they react to that.  So I really can't plan too much more than a session or so out at best anyway.  But given that, anything that I would say to the players about the campaign, and the NPCs and what they're doing would diminish the experience for them; adding an extra helping of player knowledge that's discreet from character knowledge that they'd have to struggle to mentally compartmentalize.

Hang on, this is about telling the Players what NPCs are doing before they do it, but we were initially discussing telling the Players what the NPCS had done after they had done it?

(Although that said, both work, I remember the Starwars Roleplaying Game suggesting you always start the game on a cut scene telling your players what Darth Vader was up to).

I've only rarely done something like that.  Like I said, we try not to introduce too much of anything to the players that their characters wouldn't know.