Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2021, 04:11:41 PM
I'd say that's quite opposite. Storygaming culture was quite strong on limiting GM's power. It was designed mechanics that should keep narrative umph on track, not DM's fudging.
However in OP's culture - when it's not about story as such, but about PC's spotlight (and it's not the same) - sure fudge the dice so Player won't be sad about character dying or losing.

Except my comments are not about the Ron Edwards / Forge pure "story gaming culture".

It is about the current crop of people who play D&D5e and describe it as a "storytelling game". And that they are "telling stories" when they play their characters.

One look at twitter and other forums and it is readily apparent that they want to have it both ways.

They talk about limiting the GM's agency over their PCs with their adherence to 'sage advice' proclamations, and in different conversations you can see the same people argue that there is nothing wrong about a GM fudging die rolls if it suits the story better and stops stupid random PC deaths.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2021, 04:11:41 PM
But both immersive and storygaming cultures as described IMHO were always fond about "playing to loose" because experience matters, not some... victory.

Yes, Forge style pure story gamers liked their misery tourism. For immersion players losing was just a natural consequence of making bad choices. Immersive types want to "win", but death is an accepted outcome if the dice fall that way.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2021, 04:11:41 PM
Alas this is not crowd caring about story, this is crowd caring about their own snowflakes.
It's interesting how various cultures operate on what is called I guess bleed in this article.

IMHO for the current new school D&D 5e crowd their PCs are the "story". Hence:  "a "story" is, one that focuses on player aspirations and interests (the Characters) and their realisation as the best way to produce "fun" for the players."...

Frankly I agree with jhkim that for a lot of these "six structures": the essay slices very thinly to distinguish between some styles of play, while at the same time lumping together many of other types of play into a single category.

The second paragraph of the OC / Neo-trad description is the only one that I feel ties directly to a playstyle that I see has gain widespread popularity with new D&D players who love things like critical role.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2021, 04:11:41 PM
But video games have certain invulnerability brought by replayability. Save games. And so on. And then you take whole generation who first learned about RPGs from video games and put them on a table... and voilla. Disaster ready.

I agree.

I think that the effect of Crpg's on the RPG hobby has been underestimated, and that their influence is far more widespread than people think.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2021, 04:11:41 PM
Although as was written by some people in comments, roots are earlier than Critical Role, or even common cRPGs, I think always for some people playing will lead to parasocial relationship with own Character. ...

Also true. Players were snowflakes about their PC's before we called them snowflakes. The rot goes wayyy back.

It is unfortunate that they can now get on social media and actually convince others in the hobby that such nonsense is perfectly ok.

QuoteExcept my comments are not about the Ron Edwards / Forge pure "story gaming culture".

It is about the current crop of people who play D&D5e and describe it as a "storytelling game". And that they are "telling stories" when they play their characters.

One look at twitter and other forums and it is readily apparent that they want to have it both ways.

They talk about limiting the GM's agency over their PCs with their adherence to 'sage advice' proclamations, and in different conversations you can see the same people argue that there is nothing wrong about a GM fudging die rolls if it suits the story better and stops stupid random PC deaths.

Fine. I agree. Nevertheless that does not make D&D5e storygaming. I tried storygaming it's vastly different.
And of course the true it it's not about what suits story better (as many great filmmakers proves really unexpected deaths are often awesome) but what suits player entitlement better.

QuoteYes, Forge style pure story gamers liked their misery tourism. For immersion players losing was just a natural consequence of making bad choices. Immersive types want to "win", but death is an accepted outcome if the dice fall that way.

Not necessarily. I'd say it were Immersionists before Storygamers who went into "playing to loose and purposeful misery". Think about all this WoD drama queens of 90's. That's what I think is called - quite unfortunately - Nordic LARP in article. All about fell and emotion. Now mind it - among all groups classic, trad, OSR, maybe aside of storygamers (who sort of openly were denying it) - there are lot of people liking immersion in game. That's universal. Immersionits subculture however is it's own thing. They are probably only ones who can go into diceless RP-ing and be killed by GM and be fine with it as much as they really FEEL IT. Difference is they wanted to achieve it generally by acting, and emoting - not by various weird storymechanics of Forge.

But unlike OC they were more into feeling what character feel good or bad, rather than making PC your avatar and then getting overly attached to it - like Critical Role culture shows (all table cried when Pike died, dear lord what was it).

QuoteIMHO for the current new school D&D 5e crowd their PCs are the "story". Hence:  "a "story" is, one that focuses on player aspirations and interests (the Characters) and their realisation as the best way to produce "fun" for the players."...

Frankly I agree with jhkim that for a lot of these "six structures": the essay slices very thinly to distinguish between some styles of play, while at the same time lumping together many of other types of play into a single category.

The second paragraph of the OC / Neo-trad description is the only one that I feel ties directly to a playstyle that I see has gain widespread popularity with new D&D players who love things like critical role.

I agree. But also - let's remember this article is not into classifying styles of play, but... cultures. That's why OSR despite being probably more original than Classic (as we discussed before) is on 5th place. Culture is more than individual gameplay of a table. It's certain zeitgeist, some set of rules uniting many tables, giving certain expectations, dominating at least segments of public discussion about RPG.

I think definitely OC and Neo-trad should be counted separatedly.
OC is Critical Role zeitgeist and it's own thing, connected mostly to D&D 5e. Neo-Trad is more like this synthetic advancement of Trad, using certain elements of both storygames and OSRs applied to games who are in theory more trad ones. But then one could say it's more synthetic school of design than culture of play. Or maybe there is certain syncretism of D&D 5e enemies, not falling strictly under OSR or SG. People willing to use dozens of different systems of different categories, with assumption that both system and GM and player's aspirations should much, and you cannot just totally improvise those things out of your ass, but also - there is no universal style of game and it's good to try many games from wide array to check. But are they culture now? Dunno.
It's weird because subcultures should be vivid and specific to be easily recognised, and this is sort of enlightened normie gaming with strong anti-OTW attitude.
It's hard to put them into neat box like others.

Though I guess trad as described here is also quite wide, even though article makes me think mostly about tyranical railroading CoC Game Masters

QuoteAlso true. Players were snowflakes about their PC's before we called them snowflakes. The rot goes wayyy back.

It is unfortunate that they can now get on social media and actually convince others in the hobby that such nonsense is perfectly ok.

TBH I'm fine with it, as gamestyle. It's old. As many people says - we play to release stress, and we have enough random crits in our lives to pick games with them. Give us invincible cool superheroes and low risk. That's fine.

What is not fine is of course rampant snowflakism, and trying to spread Tyranny of Fun as only universal gameplay.


I wonder a bit - Chris-Many-Numbers whose game is very gamist spiritual descendant of 4E, and who is not fond of OSR, said how all those dark moody games - who were mechanically Trad but I think many groups play them as NordImerssivists - WoD basically supported both RPG and LARP - were for times of prosperity and safety, but in times when people feel threatened and arguably both left and right, both wokesters and conservatists feel threatened (I put aside validity of those claims and who shall really feel threatened - but that's the zeitgeist) people want to play as Big Fucking Heroes. That's from one side Classic aspect (and as I said I consider 4e as a game turbo-classic that moved all power-creep into character-build leaving aside various social aspects of level from 1e, or magical item addiction of 3e) on the other hand OC.

So it's possible it's well natural way society works decade by decade with changing spirits.
I just wonder if there is some strong style, something at least bit popular that during those 40+ years of RPG have yet to achieve Culture level.

If OP lost it steam with time, as this pathological juggernaut - will something new arrive, or one of oldies shall take it's place.

For a grognard, storygame is 'Anything I dislike'. And anything they like is pure goodness played by chads inbetween chainsaw juggling competitions.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 02, 2021, 06:01:10 PM
For a grognard, storygame is 'Anything I dislike'. And anything they like is pure goodness played by chads inbetween chainsaw juggling competitions.

For a real grognard, all RPGs are storygames. Grognard was originally a wargaming term.

QuoteFor a real grognard, all RPGs are storygames. Grognard was originally a wargaming term.

I cannot wait for time when Matt Mercer gonna be called grognard by New Wave of British Heavy Roleplayers members.

Quote from: Pat on December 02, 2021, 06:08:10 PMFor a real grognard, all RPGs are storygames. Grognard was originally a wargaming term.

For a real grognard, you killed actual moores with a actual sword.