Storygamers are trying to make a comeback with their ruinous mechanics in games like #Daggerheart and #MCDM
#dnd #ttrpg #osr
Good video.
"Still 5e!" will likely be pushing this agenda too if what Perkins has said in interviews makes it to print.
I don't mind story gaming* or degrees of success** per se, but oh boy the wokeness is thick in some of these new ones.
* my group had some great fun with Houses of the Blooded
** works well enough with Rolemaster for instance
Quote from: Trond on March 31, 2024, 10:32:27 AM
I don't mind story gaming* or degrees of success** per se, but oh boy the wokeness is thick in some of these new ones.
Agreed. The two are separate concepts but unfortunately appear together all too frequently. As long as the rules are determined ahead of time so that everyone is aware of their use (and the difficulties are appropriately adjusted), I don't see an issue with degrees of success. The issue for me is when they're suddenly introduced after a roll when an inexperienced or just plain dumb GM realizes that he can't afford to have the players fail the roll that he just mandated they make. That's not a story gaming/degrees of success/wokeness problem but rather a GM problem. That said... I'm also fine with traditional pass/fail systems as well so they're not a must.
Storygamers never went anywhere. They still made their games and did their things.
Them being around or not doesn't matter. There are plenty of non-story games to play where they can live in their little corner and play their "games" and we can play traditional games.
Story game is, as story game does.
Is this not the third video on the same topic at this point.
We get it Pundit your bored and starting to do threads for shit and giggles. Sometimes less is more. Or at the very least book an appointment with a qualified mental healthcare specialist for your Dagger heart/Matt Mercie/story game OCD/Obsession.
Quote from: Abraxus on March 31, 2024, 08:35:35 PM
Is this not the third video on the same topic at this point.
We get it Pundit your bored and starting to do threads for shit and giggles. Sometimes less is more. Or at the very least book an appointment with a qualified mental healthcare specialist for your Dagger heart/Matt Mercie/story game OCD/Obsession.
Someone sure is sounding defensive...
Quote from: GhostNinja on March 31, 2024, 01:39:32 PM
Storygamers never went anywhere. They still made their games and did their things.
Them being around or not doesn't matter. There are plenty of non-story games to play where they can live in their little corner and play their "games" and we can play traditional games.
That would be nice if the storygamer fanatics would leave everyone else alone. But we are right back to the same infiltration and co-opt tactics from ten years ago. The return of their hateful little terms and the rest.
Therein lies the problem. There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
Quote from: Omega on April 01, 2024, 01:51:03 AM
There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
That's the one thing they can never do. Their entire identity and all of their moral authority derive from being offended about things and engaging in moral grandstanding. Without that, they are left on places like itch.io putting up games that no one cares about, buys or plays.
Quote from: Omega on April 01, 2024, 01:51:03 AM
That would be nice if the storygamer fanatics would leave everyone else alone. But we are right back to the same infiltration and co-opt tactics from ten years ago. The return of their hateful little terms and the rest.
Therein lies the problem. There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
I am not sure what you are seeing, because none of their tactics and styles can be found in the games I play and I know there are many designers who ignore them. It's easy to play the games we enjoy and just ignore them.
Quote from: Abraxus on March 31, 2024, 08:35:35 PM
Is this not the third video on the same topic at this point.
We get it Pundit your bored and starting to do threads for shit and giggles. Sometimes less is more. Or at the very least book an appointment with a qualified mental healthcare specialist for your Dagger heart/Matt Mercie/story game OCD/Obsession.
No, you're bored. YOU don't speak for everyone here.
It's his board. He can do what he wants. Don't like it? Piss off.
I wrote a long reply to blackstone and deleted it. Going forward anyone who tells me to leave for writing an honest opinion is simply going to be blocked. I don't mind a dissenting opinion yet telling me to leave is not something I want or am paid to listen to or acknowledge. Nor am I ain't getting paid to put you with your leftist regressive and repressive BS.
:) Storygaming peaked with 'Once Upon a Time' card game for me and never any farther, and that fell apart because of the competitive ending game win condition (just like 'Fiasco').
;D So I say, "Man the ramparts!" 8)
:) Seriously though, if they could leave well enough alone and let their product stand on its own it'd probably do much to tamp down resistance and forget past ill will. ::) Oh well, prostelitizing probably gets them out of the house than they would otherwise. ;D
Quote from: GhostNinja on April 01, 2024, 09:34:19 AM
Quote from: Omega on April 01, 2024, 01:51:03 AM
That would be nice if the storygamer fanatics would leave everyone else alone. But we are right back to the same infiltration and co-opt tactics from ten years ago. The return of their hateful little terms and the rest.
Therein lies the problem. There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
I am not sure what you are seeing, because none of their tactics and styles can be found in the games I play and I know there are many designers who ignore them. It's easy to play the games we enjoy and just ignore them.
Agreed and seconded if one goes by the thread title there are rpg designers around every corner and under every rock just wanting to infiltrate every and any rpg. Even if that was the case it's not the equivalent of the red communist scare of the 1960s that Pundit makes it out to be.
Quote from: Abraxus on April 01, 2024, 10:46:46 AM
Agreed and seconded if one goes by the thread title there are rpg designers around every corner and under every rock just wanting to infiltrate every and any rpg. Even if that was the case it's not the equivalent of the red communist scare of the 1960s that Pundit makes it out to be.
Agreed. It's almost like he makes up drama so he has something to post about (or make a video) about. I don't like storygames. I won't play a storygame, but storygamers being out there and existing doesn't effect my games at all. I play the games that aren't storygames and have fun.
Which is the point of playing rpgs. Of course I don't get all the people on here who say "I don't want politics in my game" and then discuss politics and insert it in how games are made and blame a certain party for things. When that happens, I tend to stop coming here for awhile until things get back to normal.
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
Quote from: Abraxus on April 01, 2024, 10:35:27 AM
I wrote a long reply to blackstone and deleted it. Going forward anyone who tells me to leave for writing an honest opinion is simply going to be blocked. I don't mind a dissenting opinion yet telling me to leave is not something I want or am paid to listen to or acknowledge. Nor am I ain't getting paid to put you with your leftist regressive and repressive BS.
Hey, opinions are like assholes: everyone has one, just some stink more than others.
Anyone can also comment on your opinion. If you didn't want a reply, then don't post anything if you can't handle it.
The FACT that it's Pundit's board and he cay say whatever he wants still stands.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
Basically, people aren't allowed to have fun the wrong way as determined by the One True Path to Immersion and its fundamentalist adherents... also the designers and players who like them typically (but not always) are a bunch of irritating poopyheads. I say this as someone who doesn't actually like narrative games myself as they seem more like round robin group improv moreso than the structured games I like but I'm still ok with other people having fun their way.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
These vids are decent places to start for that.
The D&D DM is NOT a "Storyteller"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_vTkXro56M&list=TLPQMDEwNDIwMjRrREg2jDcMeA&index=1&pp=gAQBiAQB)
How Real RPG Play is Better Than Storyplaying (https://youtu.be/2BLisJdEDYs?list=TLPQMDEwNDIwMjRrREg2jDcMeA)
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
If you watch the video I literally explain all of that.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 02, 2024, 07:33:47 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
If you watch the video I literally explain all of that.
Who's got time to watch a video with a click-bait hyperbolic title? "Are your children playing storygames? D&D grognards want you to know the truth about Storygamers and their corruptive agenda!" Meh, pass.
Holy fuck though, have we come full circle?
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 02, 2024, 11:45:45 AM
Who's got time to watch a video with a click-bait hyperbolic title? "Are your children playing storygames? D&D grognards want you to know the truth about Storygamers and their corruptive agenda!" Meh, pass.
Holy fuck though, have we come full circle?
>Do you have anything to back up that claim?
>Why yes, here's a video where a I talk about exactly that claim. *Link to video titled
That Claim*
>I'm not watching that, I already know the claim in the title is false, which means it's clickbait.
The only thing that's come full circle here is your reasoning.
Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 01:19:38 PM
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 02, 2024, 11:45:45 AM
Who's got time to watch a video with a click-bait hyperbolic title? "Are your children playing storygames? D&D grognards want you to know the truth about Storygamers and their corruptive agenda!" Meh, pass.
Holy fuck though, have we come full circle?
>Do you have anything to back up that claim?
>Why yes, here's a video where a I talk about exactly that claim. *Link to video titled That Claim*
>I'm not watching that, I already know the claim in the title is false, which means it's clickbait.
The only thing that's come full circle here is your reasoning.
1) I'm not clicking on somebody's YouTube "get off my lawn" ranting and give them views. I don't care who they are, because...
2) I can read whatever they have to say faster than they can say it. Especially since...
3) Whatever points are made can be summed up in a few sentences.
It's 2024. Any evidence on line to back up anything, and I do mean anything, can be linked to. Opinion and hearsay are fine and all, but if that's all you have to support your argument, then that's all your argument is.
(and the whole "full circle" thing was me referencing scaremongering of the 80s trying to protect people from that "Satanic Dungeons & Dragons game". Only now we have Pundit trying to protect us from "lib Storygamer games" it would seem.)
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 02, 2024, 07:33:47 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
If you watch the video I literally explain all of that.
That probably seemed rude on my part, sorry. I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time. I was hoping for a two sentence summary.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 02, 2024, 03:02:38 PM
That probably seemed rude on my part, sorry. I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time. I was hoping for a two sentence summary.
The short version is that storygames are bad games because they are warping their mechanics to the end of cooperativly creating a story as opposed to emulating a world. This fails since the ideal version of cooperative story creation is cooperative narrative improvisation with no mechanics at all, so any system that introduces mechanics makes the system worse at what it's trying to do.
Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 04:59:45 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on April 02, 2024, 03:02:38 PM
That probably seemed rude on my part, sorry. I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time. I was hoping for a two sentence summary.
The short version is that storygames are bad games because they are warping their mechanics to the end of cooperativly creating a story as opposed to emulating a world. This fails since the ideal version of cooperative story creation is cooperative narrative improvisation with no mechanics at all, so any system that introduces mechanics makes the system worse at what it's trying to do.
At least that's as well as I understand it. I'm probably sacrificing a huge amount of understanding for the purposes of summary.
Two lines to summarize the video...
Storygames are not RPGs. You play a role in role-playing games.
In response to the video (great btw), I completely agree. Storygames should not be shaving in the RPG bathroom.
Quote from: RNGm on April 01, 2024, 01:31:57 PM
but I'm still ok with other people having fun their way.
If they were just over there having fun their way, this wouldn't even be an issue. No one would care. This becomes an issue because they can't or won't do that. They insist on insinuating themselves into everything they can, co-opting it and making it all about themselves.
Storygamers have the most orgasmic mantras:
Storygamer: You CANNOT kill my character without my express opinion or you're violating my agency!
Us: This is Walmart, ma'am.
Why can't the fkn OSR get its fkn life together and be more like Apocalypse World?!?! Right?!?!
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/3o6ZsZKbgw4QVWEbzq/200.gif?cid=6c09b9528l43n1t3c6p65hamj5z6mmmt1ta3ib0uhbizeee3&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=200.gif&ct=g)
Quote from: Theory of Games on April 02, 2024, 08:19:49 PM
Storygamers have the most orgasmic mantras:
Storygamer: You CANNOT kill my character without my express permission or you're violating my agency!
Us: This is Walmart, ma'am.
Why can't the fkn OSR get its fkn life together and be more like Apocalypse World?!?! Right?!?!
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/3o6ZsZKbgw4QVWEbzq/200.gif?cid=6c09b9528l43n1t3c6p65hamj5z6mmmt1ta3ib0uhbizeee3&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=200.gif&ct=g)
Quote from: GhostNinja on April 01, 2024, 09:34:19 AM
Quote from: Omega on April 01, 2024, 01:51:03 AM
That would be nice if the storygamer fanatics would leave everyone else alone. But we are right back to the same infiltration and co-opt tactics from ten years ago. The return of their hateful little terms and the rest.
Therein lies the problem. There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
I am not sure what you are seeing, because none of their tactics and styles can be found in the games I play and I know there are many designers who ignore them. It's easy to play the games we enjoy and just ignore them.
It is in how they push it outside of RPGs they 'create' and is seem more in the warped ideology they push on various forums. And the attempts to co-opt RPGs. Fake 5e is likely going to be not so subtly pushing their agenda.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
It is not the games themselves that are the problem (other than some of them are not even games really)
The problem was when storygame fanatics started trying to co-opt regular RPGs and then started a hateful push to just get rid of DMs or shackle them into little more than vend bots for "teh fiction!"
They'd pop into forums with the usual "Gatcha" posts that "prove" how ha-hah! You were one of us all along! Because eventually their definition of storygame and "role playing" became literally "everything on earth!" no. I am not joking.
Years back there was a big push by the worst of them and looks like we are seeing a resurgence trying to take hold once again.
No one would be so resistant if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone. But they never will.
Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 04:59:45 PM
The short version is that storygames are bad games because they are warping their mechanics to the end of cooperativly creating a story as opposed to emulating a world. This fails since the ideal version of cooperative story creation is cooperative narrative improvisation with no mechanics at all, so any system that introduces mechanics makes the system worse at what it's trying to do.
That is exactly the problem. Storygamers want to get rid of rules by saddling games with more rules. While bitching incessantly about the evils of the hated DM.
They will bitch about how horrible D&D is because it has no rules for social interaction (a lie) and totally miss the point that you are supposed to narrate it and talk, you know. FUCKING STORYGAME STUFF YOU MORONS! ad nausium.
Its so ass backwards sometimes.
@Zeno & Omega, thanks for the explanation
Storygames actually sound fun to me. I'm a storyteller by nature - what DM isn't? - and have enjoyed the few occasions I've done it cooperatively with others. Giving it some structure with rules as a game sound intriguing.
Such games though are very different than RPGs and trying to combine them sounds like a disaster. I see the main difference as the goal of play. When I play RPGs I want to experience the first-person point of view of a fictional character in a story-like environment. If I'm making a story, I want to be the author. I don't see any way to do both at once. There's a mode of play for RPGs that looks a little like storygaming, maybe enough to cause confusion, which is 3rd person rather than 1st person roleplaying. Essentialy you say "my guy does this" rather than "I do this." I remember hearing it called "pawn stance" somewhere. It's definitely an RPG style IMO, but it shares the 3rd person point of view with storygames, which might lead someone who doesn't understand RPGs to think they might be the same thing.
oops
Vampire the Masquerade and all it's subgenre's are still around and thriving.
Storygaming comes back to 2nd Edition AD&D where all you had to do was pickup a copy of Dungeon magazine or a module around that time and realize you are just reading someone's novel that decided to put RPG stats in.
What's Old Is New Again.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 03, 2024, 03:54:26 AM
@Zeno & Omega, thanks for the explanation
Storygames actually sound fun to me. I'm a storyteller by nature - what DM isn't? - and have enjoyed the few occasions I've done it cooperatively with others. Giving it some structure with rules as a game sound intriguing.
Such games though are very different than RPGs and trying to combine them sounds like a disaster. I see the main difference as the goal of play. When I play RPGs I want to experience the first-person point of view of a fictional character in a story-like environment. If I'm making a story, I want to be the author. I don't see any way to do both at once. There's a mode of play for RPGs that looks a little like storygaming, maybe enough to cause confusion, which is 3rd person rather than 1st person roleplaying. Essentialy you say "my guy does this" rather than "I do this." I remember hearing it called "pawn stance" somewhere. It's definitely an RPG style IMO, but it shares the 3rd person point of view with storygames, which might lead someone who doesn't understand RPGs to think they might be the same thing.
Not really, on the 3rd person thing. Anyone can play a story game in 1st or 3rd, same as an RPG. If anything, I suspect most story gamers are going to be more likely to strictly use 1st person, though that is merely a guess. Also, 3rd person is not "pawn" stance. You could be in "pawn" stance and articulate that as 1st or 3rd.
Pawn stance is all about the game. You have an avatar, and you move it around and do game things with it. You might be more likely to use 3rd person language when describing what your pawn is about to do, but it's not guaranteed. People don't even do that in board games with overt pawns. You don't land on Park Place with your do token and declare the dog will buy it. You say that "I'll buy".
In contrast, if you make a decision in character and act on it, then describe it (1st or 3rd person), you are emphatically not in pawn stance.
Where pawn stance fits in regards to a story game or RPG might be a bit trickier. I'm sure many story gamers would say it is:
--story game--------------------------------------------trad RPG---pawn
No doubt some experienced trad GMs would reverse story game and RPG in that connection. To me, pawn is off in left field somewhere. Pawn is about disengagement from the game, and is likely going to be driven by group dynamics as much as the particular form of the game rules.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 03, 2024, 03:54:26 AM
Storygames actually sound fun to me. I'm a storyteller by nature - what DM isn't? - and have enjoyed the few occasions I've done it cooperatively with others. Giving it some structure with rules as a game sound intriguing.
Such games though are very different than RPGs and trying to combine them sounds like a disaster. I see the main difference as the goal of play. When I play RPGs I want to experience the first-person point of view of a fictional character in a story-like environment. If I'm making a story, I want to be the author. I don't see any way to do both at once.
That's your taste, which is legit. In the larger gaming world, though, hybrid RPGs like White Wolf's Storyteller system, Cinematic Unisystem, and Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games have been far more popular than pure author-stance story games like Microscope or Fiasco.
I think the reason is most people don't like GMing, and they find constant creative demand draining rather than fun. But some percent of people still like to dip their toe into GM-like activity.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 10:01:25 AM
Vampire the Masquerade and all it's subgenre's are still around and thriving.
Storygaming comes back to 2nd Edition AD&D where all you had to do was pickup a copy of Dungeon magazine or a module around that time and realize you are just reading someone's novel that decided to put RPG stats in.
What's Old Is New Again.
Nice try. But all the WoD RPGs are not storygames. And neither were the Dungeon modules.
Try again please.
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 02, 2024, 02:37:39 PM
Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 01:19:38 PM
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 02, 2024, 11:45:45 AM
Who's got time to watch a video with a click-bait hyperbolic title? "Are your children playing storygames? D&D grognards want you to know the truth about Storygamers and their corruptive agenda!" Meh, pass.
Holy fuck though, have we come full circle?
>Do you have anything to back up that claim?
>Why yes, here's a video where a I talk about exactly that claim. *Link to video titled That Claim*
>I'm not watching that, I already know the claim in the title is false, which means it's clickbait.
The only thing that's come full circle here is your reasoning.
1) I'm not clicking on somebody's YouTube "get off my lawn" ranting and give them views. I don't care who they are, because...
2) I can read whatever they have to say faster than they can say it. Especially since...
3) Whatever points are made can be summed up in a few sentences.
It's 2024. Any evidence on line to back up anything, and I do mean anything, can be linked to. Opinion and hearsay are fine and all, but if that's all you have to support your argument, then that's all your argument is.
(and the whole "full circle" thing was me referencing scaremongering of the 80s trying to protect people from that "Satanic Dungeons & Dragons game". Only now we have Pundit trying to protect us from "lib Storygamer games" it would seem.)
If you are going out of your way to state not only that you haven't watched the subject of this thread but that you intentionally refuse to do so, but continue to comment otherwise, it means you are posting off-topic by your own admittance.
Do not post again on this thread.
Quote from: Mishihari on April 02, 2024, 03:02:38 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 02, 2024, 07:33:47 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on April 01, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
I'm late to this party. Can anyone explain if there's something actually wrong with story games, or is just that the designers and players are a bunch of irritating poopyheads? And what exactly is the difference between an rpg and a storygame anyway? I thought I understood it but I've read conflicting things in various places.
If you watch the video I literally explain all of that.
That probably seemed rude on my part, sorry. I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time. I was hoping for a two sentence summary.
Many things take more than two sentences to explain.
Quote from: Omega on April 02, 2024, 08:44:49 PM
Quote from: GhostNinja on April 01, 2024, 09:34:19 AM
Quote from: Omega on April 01, 2024, 01:51:03 AM
That would be nice if the storygamer fanatics would leave everyone else alone. But we are right back to the same infiltration and co-opt tactics from ten years ago. The return of their hateful little terms and the rest.
Therein lies the problem. There wouldnt be such resistance if they'd just leave everyone else the hell alone.
I am not sure what you are seeing, because none of their tactics and styles can be found in the games I play and I know there are many designers who ignore them. It's easy to play the games we enjoy and just ignore them.
It is in how they push it outside of RPGs they 'create' and is seem more in the warped ideology they push on various forums. And the attempts to co-opt RPGs. Fake 5e is likely going to be not so subtly pushing their agenda.
Storygamers are also the degenerates who forced "safety tools" into the hobby. Almost everything bad in our hobby today first appeared in the hobby in the Storygames movement.
Quote from: yosemitemike on April 02, 2024, 07:14:21 PMThey insist on insinuating themselves into everything they can, co-opting it and making it all about themselves.
You left out the part where they kick out the people who made the stuff in the first place after claiming they were "gate-keeping". No matter how much you hate marxists, it's not enough.
Quote from: Omega on April 03, 2024, 03:37:41 PM
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 10:01:25 AM
Vampire the Masquerade and all it's subgenre's are still around and thriving.
Storygaming comes back to 2nd Edition AD&D where all you had to do was pickup a copy of Dungeon magazine or a module around that time and realize you are just reading someone's novel that decided to put RPG stats in.
What's Old Is New Again.
Nice try. But all the WoD RPGs are not storygames. And neither were the Dungeon modules.
Try again please.
You are telling me the walls of texts in early Dungeon magazines do not qualify for "Storygaming" where the author literally spends pages gorging the reader on prose and expecting you to follow his process to a T? War of the Lance ring a bell?
Quote from: Mishihari on April 03, 2024, 03:54:26 AM
@Zeno & Omega, thanks for the explanation
Storygames actually sound fun to me. I'm a storyteller by nature - what DM isn't? - and have enjoyed the few occasions I've done it cooperatively with others. Giving it some structure with rules as a game sound intriguing.
Such games though are very different than RPGs and trying to combine them sounds like a disaster.
Narrative games can work quite well with the right crowd. If you try to run them for OSR types, you are probably going to have a bad time. They are an entirely different sort of rpg with different goals. I don't agree with the storygames vs rpgs dichotomy. I would consider them different subsets of rpgs in general except for the odd outlier like Alice is Missing where they left out the g in rpg. A lot of storygames are made to do a pretty specific sort of thing. They work pretty well to do that thing but start falling part if you want to do anything else. Some, like The Mountain Witch, are made to do one specific scenario. I'm not sure what a game that tried to combine OSR style sandbox gameplay with a narrative system would even look like but I doubt it would work on any level for anyone.
Quote from: Brad on April 03, 2024, 05:28:58 PM
Quote from: yosemitemike on April 02, 2024, 07:14:21 PMThey insist on insinuating themselves into everything they can, co-opting it and making it all about themselves.
You left out the part where they kick out the people who made the stuff in the first place after claiming they were "gate-keeping". No matter how much you hate marxists, it's not enough.
I would include that as part of the process of co-opting something. They insinuate themselves into a space, set themselves as gatekeepers in the name of fighting largely invented gatekeeping and then try to force out anyone who doesn't get with their program.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 06:31:31 PM
Quote from: Omega on April 03, 2024, 03:37:41 PM
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 10:01:25 AM
Vampire the Masquerade and all it's subgenre's are still around and thriving.
Storygaming comes back to 2nd Edition AD&D where all you had to do was pickup a copy of Dungeon magazine or a module around that time and realize you are just reading someone's novel that decided to put RPG stats in.
What's Old Is New Again.
Nice try. But all the WoD RPGs are not storygames. And neither were the Dungeon modules.
Try again please.
You are telling me the walls of texts in early Dungeon magazines do not qualify for "Storygaming" where the author literally spends pages gorging the reader on prose and expecting you to follow his process to a T? War of the Lance ring a bell?
Seeing as how the 1e Dragonlance modules included rules to fudge any "untimely" deaths (PC and NPC) that would screw up events in future modules, it's probably got a bit of precursor storygame DNA (sorta like a dinosaur is the precursor of a bird), but is more accurately a set of heavily railroaded modules.
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 03, 2024, 07:27:42 PM
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 06:31:31 PM
You are telling me the walls of texts in early Dungeon magazines do not qualify for "Storygaming" where the author literally spends pages gorging the reader on prose and expecting you to follow his process to a T? War of the Lance ring a bell?
Seeing as how the 1e Dragonlance modules included rules to fudge any "untimely" deaths (PC and NPC) that would screw up events in future modules, it's probably got a bit of precursor storygame DNA (sorta like a dinosaur is the precursor of a bird), but is more accurately a set of heavily railroaded modules.
Most of the story games from The Forge and its descendants were a reaction
against railroaded modules. They were by designers who hated how players were railroaded, and instead wanted to give players GM-like power to control the story so that railroading was impossible. That's not to everyone's taste, but it's a very different thing than railroading.
The cluster of games that most embraced railroading were the 1990s trend of cinematic action games like Deadlands and Torg. There was a period in the 1990s when modules - including many D&D modules - were often written with an explicit sequence of acts and scenes.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 03, 2024, 04:36:32 PM
Storygamers are also the degenerates who forced "safety tools" into the hobby. Almost everything bad in our hobby today first appeared in the hobby in the Storygames movement.
I never made that connection before. I never understood safety tools outside of a convention setting but they make some sense in the story game world when everyone is throwing their own whims and strange ideas into the adventure instead of having an all powerful Game Master controlling the nonsense and keeping things on track.
Quote from: yosemitemike on April 03, 2024, 07:01:06 PM
Narrative games can work quite well with the right crowd. If you try to run them for OSR types, you are probably going to have a bad time. They are an entirely different sort of rpg with different goals.
This!
The irony is that when you get into highly mechanical games, you see "roll playing" more and more, because narrative "games" lack the mechanics to give players much of anything else to focus on. Not saying people don't role-play in D&D/RoleMaster/etc., but we've all seen (and probably done) roll-playing in those games from time to time. Hard to do that with something like, say, Nobilis.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 06:31:31 PM
You are telling me the walls of texts in early Dungeon magazines do not qualify for "Storygaming" where the author literally spends pages gorging the reader on prose and expecting you to follow his process to a T? War of the Lance ring a bell?
To paraphrase Pierre Berton, there is no difference between OSR shitbeards and storygaming swine, and the surest way to demonstrate this is to point this out to an OSR shitbeard.
The OSR shitbeards can hand-wring about storygamers "taking over the hobby" but the overwhelming majority of RPG players play with their friends, the same friends they've been playing with for years, playing the same way they've been playing for years regardless of what the rules in the book say. It's only the terminally online who get het up about this stuff. I could host the average "storygamer" con in my bathroom.
The en suite. Not the big one.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 03, 2024, 04:36:32 PM
Storygamers are also the degenerates who forced "safety tools" into the hobby. Almost everything bad in our hobby today first appeared in the hobby in the Storygames movement.
It sure as hell feels like it sometimes.
Also note that they love to give themselves power and all too often abuse it as DM and player. They seem to gravitate to railroading "for the fiction!"
I've had a running battle with these fucks on MUCKs where they always fucking push to make the places they infest in character only and lobby to ban or even get rid of any OOC places and mechanics. And 50% of the time they end up abusing being in character or even force themselves on others.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 06:31:31 PM
Quote from: Omega on April 03, 2024, 03:37:41 PM
Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 03, 2024, 10:01:25 AM
Vampire the Masquerade and all it's subgenre's are still around and thriving.
Storygaming comes back to 2nd Edition AD&D where all you had to do was pickup a copy of Dungeon magazine or a module around that time and realize you are just reading someone's novel that decided to put RPG stats in.
What's Old Is New Again.
Nice try. But all the WoD RPGs are not storygames. And neither were the Dungeon modules.
Try again please.
You are telling me the walls of texts in early Dungeon magazines do not qualify for "Storygaming" where the author literally spends pages gorging the reader on prose and expecting you to follow his process to a T? War of the Lance ring a bell?
You failed at trying again.
WW claimed alot of things that were blatantly false. The WoD rules are no more storygame than D&D is. Blocks of prose do not a storygame make.
Try again please.
Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2024, 09:12:15 PM
Most of the story games from The Forge and its descendants were a reaction against railroaded modules. They were by designers who hated how players were railroaded, and instead wanted to give players GM-like power to control the story so that railroading was impossible. That's not to everyone's taste, but it's a very different thing than railroading.
The cluster of games that most embraced railroading were the 1990s trend of cinematic action games like Deadlands and Torg. There was a period in the 1990s when modules - including many D&D modules - were often written with an explicit sequence of acts and scenes.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Torg was not even remotely railroad or storygame. It had the card element but that was it and it had a defined system of what you could and could not do. I know. I was there for the playtests and GMed it alot.
Quote from: yosemitemike on April 03, 2024, 07:01:06 PM
A lot of storygames are made to do a pretty specific sort of thing. They work pretty well to do that thing but start falling part if you want to do anything else.
In other words, a design failure (see "living world" or ask Pundit about it). A game that is good for
only a single thing cannot be considered good in any way.
Specialization is good,
overspecialization like this is universally bad.
Quote from: Omega on April 04, 2024, 11:03:47 PM
Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2024, 09:12:15 PM
Most of the story games from The Forge and its descendants were a reaction against railroaded modules. They were by designers who hated how players were railroaded, and instead wanted to give players GM-like power to control the story so that railroading was impossible. That's not to everyone's taste, but it's a very different thing than railroading.
The cluster of games that most embraced railroading were the 1990s trend of cinematic action games like Deadlands and Torg. There was a period in the 1990s when modules - including many D&D modules - were often written with an explicit sequence of acts and scenes.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Torg was not even remotely railroad or storygame. It had the card element but that was it and it had a defined system of what you could and could not do. I know. I was there for the playtests and GMed it alot.
Did you run any of the published modules? I don't have them all, but the ones I have are divided into literally "Act One", "The Major Beat", "Scene 1", "Scene 2", "Scene 3", and so forth. There is a long storyline, and every scene is laid out for it.
I don't mean to single out Torg, because the vast majority of published modules are pretty linear - but some games embrace that more thoroughly than others, and I thought the scope of explicit acts and scenes in structure were more blatant than some other games.
Quote from: Omega on April 04, 2024, 11:00:58 PM
WW claimed alot of things that were blatantly false. The WoD rules are no more storygame than D&D is. Blocks of prose do not a storygame make.
I distinctly remember the first time I played Vampire: The Masquerade. Our characters were trying to plan out breaking into a place, and I asked one of the other players "How long does your invisibility last for?" and the player answered "It lasts for one scene." Then I responded with, "No, I was asking
in-character how long does your invisibility last." Then there was a long pause and the player didn't answer.
I agree that Vampire: The Masquerade is rules-wise largely a traditional RPG, aside from some scene mechanics. However, it's also true that a traditional RPG with an all-powerful GM can easily be used to railroad players.
2000s-era story games were not the source of railroading. There was tons of valid complaints about railroading in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Quote from: jhkim on April 05, 2024, 02:35:58 AM
Did you run any of the published modules? I don't have them all, but the ones I have are divided into literally "Act One", "The Major Beat", "Scene 1", "Scene 2", "Scene 3", and so forth. There is a long storyline, and every scene is laid out for it.
I don't mean to single out Torg, because the vast majority of published modules are pretty linear - but some games embrace that more thoroughly than others, and I thought the scope of explicit acts and scenes in structure were more blatant than some other games.
And yet the modules still play as normal modules. You people seriously need to stop taking things at face value. Just because WW called their games Storytelling does not automatically make them so. And just because Torg modules used Act, or Scene does not make it a storygame or railroad. They are somewhat linear. But not lockdown like the rare few that are pretty railroads.
Quote from: Omega on April 05, 2024, 04:25:13 AM
Quote from: jhkim on April 05, 2024, 02:35:58 AM
Did you run any of the published modules? I don't have them all, but the ones I have are divided into literally "Act One", "The Major Beat", "Scene 1", "Scene 2", "Scene 3", and so forth. There is a long storyline, and every scene is laid out for it.
I don't mean to single out Torg, because the vast majority of published modules are pretty linear - but some games embrace that more thoroughly than others, and I thought the scope of explicit acts and scenes in structure were more blatant than some other games.
And yet the modules still play as normal modules. You people seriously need to stop taking things at face value. Just because WW called their games Storytelling does not automatically make them so. And just because Torg modules used Act, or Scene does not make it a storygame or railroad. They are somewhat linear. But not lockdown like the rare few that are pretty railroads.
Well, if jhkim was actually interested in discussion, he'd immediately recognize the difference between terminology and gameplay. But, since he is "defending" storygames (or that storygames are RPGs or elements of storygames have always been in RPGs, or whatever "no, your distinction isn't true because of this one minor exception" that he always babbles out), he will suddenly become a drooling moron when it comes to any nuance (unless it's a nuance he plans to use).
Having played Torg a bunch when it first came out (I still have the mottled d20 that came in the original box set that I use for "special" rolls), it had its issues mechanically, but they weren't storygame mechanics at all. Railroady sometimes, maybe, but not "collaborative fiction" in any sense.
I wonder if the folks who are objecting to you here are purposely mis-defining storygames, or if they are just that dense...
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 05, 2024, 01:37:33 AM
Quote from: yosemitemike on April 03, 2024, 07:01:06 PM
A lot of storygames are made to do a pretty specific sort of thing. They work pretty well to do that thing but start falling part if you want to do anything else.
In other words, a design failure (see "living world" or ask Pundit about it). A game that is good for only a single thing cannot be considered good in any way.
Specialization is good, overspecialization like this is universally bad.
"Monopoly" begs to differ on that opinion about specialization. It only does one type of game well too.
Remember, Storygames aren't RPGs.
Trying to use a storygame to run an RPG and expecting it to be good for that is as unrealistic as trying to use Monopoly to run a dungeon delve.
Calling a Storygame a failure because you can't use it to run an RPG is like calling a hammer a failure because you can't use it as a scroll saw.
We get it; you don't like hammers and trying to add hammer-like features to a scroll saw is silly and should be prevented. It doesn't make a hammer intrinsically bad; just not something that does what you're interested in.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 05, 2024, 07:52:00 AM
Well, if jhkim was actually interested in discussion, he'd immediately recognize the difference between terminology and gameplay.
He's just arguing to argue, there's no way around it. Vampire is a regular fucking RPG, it's not a "storygame" in the sense this thread uses it and he knows it, but it obliquely "proves" his point in some twisted ass way. Sometimes he posts useful stuff, sometimes it's just trolling bullshit, but the problem is he can't even tell when he's doing it, so is it really trolling?
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 05, 2024, 07:52:00 AM
Having played Torg a bunch when it first came out (I still have the mottled d20 that came in the original box set that I use for "special" rolls), it had its issues mechanically, but they weren't storygame mechanics at all. Railroady sometimes, maybe, but not "collaborative fiction" in any sense.
I never said that Torg was "collaborative fiction". Here was what I said regarding Torg:
Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2024, 09:12:15 PM
Most of the story games from The Forge and its descendants were a reaction against railroaded modules. They were by designers who hated how players were railroaded, and instead wanted to give players GM-like power to control the story so that railroading was impossible. That's not to everyone's taste, but it's a very different thing than railroading.
The cluster of games that most embraced railroading were the 1990s trend of cinematic action games like Deadlands and Torg. There was a period in the 1990s when modules - including many D&D modules - were often written with an explicit sequence of acts and scenes.
Quote from: jhkim on April 05, 2024, 10:35:31 AM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 05, 2024, 07:52:00 AM
Having played Torg a bunch when it first came out (I still have the mottled d20 that came in the original box set that I use for "special" rolls), it had its issues mechanically, but they weren't storygame mechanics at all. Railroady sometimes, maybe, but not "collaborative fiction" in any sense.
I never said that Torg was "collaborative fiction". Here was what I said regarding Torg:
Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2024, 09:12:15 PM
Most of the story games from The Forge and its descendants were a reaction against railroaded modules. They were by designers who hated how players were railroaded, and instead wanted to give players GM-like power to control the story so that railroading was impossible. That's not to everyone's taste, but it's a very different thing than railroading.
The cluster of games that most embraced railroading were the 1990s trend of cinematic action games like Deadlands and Torg. There was a period in the 1990s when modules - including many D&D modules - were often written with an explicit sequence of acts and scenes.
No, you lying twat,
this is what you said about Torg in the very quote that was in my post:
QuoteDid you run any of the published modules? I don't have them all, but the ones I have are divided into literally "Act One", "The Major Beat", "Scene 1", "Scene 2", "Scene 3", and so forth. There is a long storyline, and every scene is laid out for it.
I don't mean to single out Torg, because the vast majority of published modules are pretty linear - but some games embrace that more thoroughly than others, and I thought the scope of explicit acts and scenes in structure were more blatant than some other games.
And you said it in response to this statement:
QuoteSorry to burst your bubble but Torg was not even remotely railroad or storygame. It had the card element but that was it and it had a defined system of what you could and could not do. I know. I was there for the playtests and GMed it alot.
And collaborative fiction is one of the hallmarks of storygames...
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 08:14:13 AM
"Monopoly" begs to differ on that opinion about specialization. It only does one type of game well too.
We're talking about RPGs and adjacent space games, not about boardgames. Your argument is irrelevant.
(https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000667050139-9nvfm2-t500x500.jpg)
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 05, 2024, 12:46:34 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 08:14:13 AM
"Monopoly" begs to differ on that opinion about specialization. It only does one type of game well too.
We're talking about RPGs and adjacent space games, not about boardgames. Your argument is irrelevant.
I don't see how.
You're yelling that something not designed to be an RPG (games Pundit normally bans talking about on the RPG thread for being off-topic) sucks when you try to use it as an RPG and that makes it bad..: because it can't do what it was never designed to do.
Complaining that a Storygame is bad because it is too specialized to be a good RPG is identical to saying Monopoly is bad because it is too specialized to be a good RPG.
Something not doing what it was never designed to do doesn't make it intrinsically bad. You judge a board game on how well it plays as a board game. You should judge a story game on well it plays as a story game... because it's NOT an RPG.
It's also fine to not like story games (or board games or war games or rpgs), but saying a story game is bad for not being an rpg is literally the same as saying a hammer is badly designed because you can't saw lumber with it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM
... because it's NOT an RPG
This is literally it. Period. Storygames are not RPGs. Just like writers or directors are not actors.
It really isn't that complicated.
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 05, 2024, 12:46:34 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 08:14:13 AM
"Monopoly" begs to differ on that opinion about specialization. It only does one type of game well too.
We're talking about RPGs and adjacent space games, not about boardgames. Your argument is irrelevant.
I don't see how.
You're yelling that something not designed to be an RPG (games Pundit normally bans talking about on the RPG thread for being off-topic) sucks when you try to use it as an RPG and that makes it bad..: because it can't do what it was never designed to do.
Complaining that a Storygame is bad because it is too specialized to be a good RPG is identical to saying Monopoly is bad because it is too specialized to be a good RPG.
Something not doing what it was never designed to do doesn't make it intrinsically bad. You judge a board game on how well it plays as a board game. You should judge a story game on well it plays as a story game... because it's NOT an RPG.
It's also fine to not like story games (or board games or war games or rpgs), but saying a story game is bad for not being an rpg is literally the same as saying a hammer is badly designed because you can't saw lumber with it.
I do not understand if you're far too dense to comprehend the issue or if you're arguing just for the sake of arguing (but I suspect the former).
The problem is not that storygames are (of course) not RPGs, the problem is that
fucking storygamers keep pushing their design errors in RPG space pretending that they are legitimate and correct choices, ignoring whoever says to them that whatever they're peddling violates basic design principles and unwritten conventions based on a 50 years history.Having said that, do not bother to reply since you're going to the ignore list. I'm amused by stupidity but up to a certain point.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 05, 2024, 10:54:09 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM
... because it's NOT an RPG
This is literally it. Period. Storygames are not RPGs. Just like writers or directors are not actors.
It really isn't that complicated.
I don't like PbtA, and I think I don't like storygames because I find the way the systems work not to my liking. However, if "Storygames" are not RPGs then what are RPGs?
Is D&D and RPG just because it says it on the label? Because then PbtA also fits that idea. What makes D&D a
true(TM) RPG and PbtA a storygame?
And if PbtA is
not a storygame, then what is a storygame?
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 05, 2024, 07:52:00 AM
I wonder if the folks who are objecting to you here are purposely mis-defining storygames, or if they are just that dense...
Sometimes feels like just that damn dense. "Me see storytelling! Game MUST be storytelling!!!"
I can just see these morons defending D&D Idle RPG as being a really real RPG because it says RPG in teh titlez!" you know. A game that plays itself and has no role playing at all.
Quote from: Corolinth on April 05, 2024, 03:15:03 PM
(https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000667050139-9nvfm2-t500x500.jpg)
Nice try but this is not a dead horse. Its someone trying to claim A is B when A is not B. Again.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 05, 2024, 10:54:09 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM
... because it's NOT an RPG
This is literally it. Period. Storygames are not RPGs. Just like writers or directors are not actors.
It really isn't that complicated.
According to storygamers actors are really real "role playing". Because their definition is "everything on earth"
Quote from: Cipher on April 06, 2024, 02:28:52 AMQuote from: FingerRod on April 05, 2024, 10:54:09 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM... because it's NOT an RPG
This is literally it. Period. Storygames are not RPGs. Just like writers or directors are not actors.
It really isn't that complicated.
I don't like PbtA, and I think I don't like storygames because I find the way the systems work not to my liking. However, if "Storygames" are not RPGs then what are RPGs?
Is D&D and RPG just because it says it on the label? Because then PbtA also fits that idea. What makes D&D a true(TM) RPG and PbtA a storygame?
And if PbtA is not a storygame, then what is a storygame?
Sorry for the delay, Cipher.
An abstract example would be a marionette, that goofy puppet with strings held from above a little box or stage area.
You are playing an RPG if you control the puppet, speak as it, and interact with the set/stage using only your puppet. You are playing a single role. If you paint the set, manufacture set changes/add elements, or control the actions of other puppets, then you are playing a story game.
RPGs today dip their toe into story game elements. Bad roleplay does as well, usually by narrating not only your action but the environment around you. There is a tipping point, the point when Justice Stewart would "know it when he saw it".
PBTA puts a full foot into it. Degrees of success, the narration control given to players, and the HST mechanic are examples. The MC maintains a lot of narrative control, just not as much as a GM/DM. By the time you get to FATE or Fiasco, both feet are in.
Quote from: Omega on April 06, 2024, 04:11:02 AMQuote from: FingerRod on April 05, 2024, 10:54:09 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2024, 04:54:17 PM... because it's NOT an RPG
This is literally it. Period. Storygames are not RPGs. Just like writers or directors are not actors.
It really isn't that complicated.
According to storygamers actors are really real "role playing". Because their definition is "everything on earth"
Exactly.
I think this was a very solid video, in that it talks about things folks don't oftentimes even consider.
I do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming, as illustrated by Pundit's example with spellcasting in Lion and Dragon... but also as shown in games like Ascendant that have a firm focus on simulationism and the living world that is referenced for Emulation. (It's heavily based on player character stats probability-wise as to what you get, tho, and there's usually at least a small chance of failure, which is not subdivided.) I think because it helps integrate randomness, mechanics, and a living world and elevate them relative to fiat while actually allowing the DM to simulate the living world more easily and improvise probable outcomes more effectively.
I do indeed hate illusionism though, because it's almost the antithesis of both player agency and a living world, as well as gameplay and simulationism. If I wanted to hear a railroaded story from a dictatorial narrator... I'd read a book, and presumably not a CYOA one.
Still not sure whose bright idea it was to try to infiltrate the OSR with storygaming. Seems a very odd place for it from my perspective, even for the non-rules-compatible ostensible renaissance side.
Not sure I agree that story games aren't RPGs, since it seems like folks are defining mainly based on what it must not have rather than what it must have, (like, I kinda feel like if you have a character you play according to imagined internal thoughts and game rules and there's a living world, meta currency and the like doesn't necessarily negate that, even if it may in some ways discourage connection with it) but I would mostly agree that they usually tend to have weak mechanics and poor gameplay. Though that may just be because Forge folks always looked down on that, and it floated downstream? (Dresden Files RPG was interesting, though I didn't really like the scene declaration stuff that didn't flow from character action, since that's not my cup of tea. Folks got into their characters, though, and I strove for emulation and a living world when DMing, so by those counts...)
Anyway, interesting thoughts, and I've really enjoyed the discussion and hearing folks opinions thus far.
I dunno, the same kind of people who claim that storygames are RPGs are usually the same ones who claim that Dread is also a RPG (and nothing says role-playing like a Jenga tower).
Storygames that operate ostensibly as rpgs, are rpgs, as Obi Wan would say from a certain point of view.Participants of these games are all playing a role, and that role is story editor. Whatever character or avatar that some players are using in the game is not the role they are playing. The group as a whole edits and refines a story being created as play goes on, thus everyone is playing the role of story editors.
Either players get to make shit up about the world during regular gameplay, or the GM is the final arbiter and players can ask about the world and declare their characters actions for the GM to resolve and narrate. Likewise, meta currency for fudging the world is either at the player's or GM's authority. It's possible to blur the lines and run an edge case of one as the other, but narrative authority is either distributed or the GM is the sole arbiter.
Quote from: jeff37923 on April 16, 2024, 06:08:21 PMI dunno, the same kind of people who claim that storygames are RPGs are usually the same ones who claim that Dread is also a RPG (and nothing says role-playing like a Jenga tower).
I mean on the one hand, yeah, some storygames probably aren't RPGs. But I also don't think that everything that's a storygame isn't an RPG, if that makes sense? I basically feel like if it does satisfy immersion in roleplaying a character, and emulation of a living world, and has related game mechanics, then for me it's an rpg even if it has storygaming elements or is arguably a storygame. (Like with certain FATE games like the original Dresden Files RPG, probably, since I feel like those are storygames?) Though obviously definitions are pretty darn subjective, and I guess other folks will have their own and their own reasoning. Societally I'm not really sure what the consensus is, but I'd guess that if Dread is marketed as an RPG that might I guess be proof that my definition is also more constrained than the average gamer's?
I've never played Dread nor especially looked into it, so feel free to take what I say with a fair bit of salt, but... I feel it would likely fail a test of emulation/living world/basic simulationism. In that I don't think there's a arbitrating world outside the characters. If the reason why characters die is solely the collapse of a Jenga tower on their turn to pull rather than an in-world reasoning, and outside of that they can do whatever, then it's just Jenga with people improvising short stories I feel? Admittedly with people telling stories about characters, but ones that ostensibly don't have any mechanical constraints to their action outside when they die, hence a failure too probably of immersion within a character, as they don't have specific traits, limitations, and attributes. Especially not ones that impact their interaction with the world. I could be totally wrong about how this works, but my understanding was that it's just Jenga with horror storytelling, right? Kinda like how the game Mafia has a narrator but is not really an RPG?
Quote from: Exploderwizard on April 16, 2024, 07:24:08 PMStorygames that operate ostensibly as rpgs, are rpgs, as Obi Wan would say from a certain point of view.Participants of these games are all playing a role, and that role is story editor. Whatever character or avatar that some players are using in the game is not the role they are playing. The group as a whole edits and refines a story being created as play goes on, thus everyone is playing the role of story editors.
I guess I'm not sure it's quite that clear cut, in that I feel like even with a metacurrency or set of moves that allow environmental distortion on the player's part (ex: luck points, fate points, DM-arbitrated circumstantial declarations), the player may still also be playing a character with limitations and some noticeable degree of immersion. I would agree that unless exercised directly through in-game actions or abilities of the player character it will indeed potentially distract from that role, via also playing the editor so to speak... But I don't think it entirely negates that role, especially when the editor's agency (so to speak) over the environment is solidly constrained by both mechanics and DM arbitration.
Quote from: Wisithir on April 16, 2024, 09:45:38 PMEither players get to make shit up about the world during regular gameplay, or the GM is the final arbiter and players can ask about the world and declare their characters actions for the GM to resolve and narrate. Likewise, meta currency for fudging the world is either at the player's or GM's authority. It's possible to blur the lines and run an edge case of one as the other, but narrative authority is either distributed or the GM is the sole arbiter.
On which note, I feel like GM authority over circumstantial editing, meta-currencies, and the like is also a very solid point. Touched on briefly above. In that if the ultimate authority on the world rests with a singular person and there are rules constraining editing mechanically with DM as arbiter, I feel it can indeed blur the lines. For me I'd say it might give the potential for a storygame to also be an RPG. Because then emulation and a world with consistent internal reasoning hasn't necessarily all been fed to the wolves of player whim driven narrative fiat if that makes sense? Basically, if there are constraints on the player as an editor, then the constraints on said player as a character may still potentially be meaningful to some degree, allowing for immersion, even if the storygame aspect distracts from it or waters it down, maybe?
I'm not doing a great job avoiding stream of consciousness here, I guess, and looking back it seems I've written quite a bit in replies here, so hopefully I'm not cluttering the thread too much, lol. I kinda just got excited when folks added in more thoughts, and much of what was said seemed interesting and had me feeling like I should maybe think more about it and perhaps revise some of what I had previously been thinking.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 01, 2024, 01:31:56 AMQuote from: Abraxus on March 31, 2024, 08:35:35 PMIs this not the third video on the same topic at this point.
We get it Pundit your bored and starting to do threads for shit and giggles. Sometimes less is more. Or at the very least book an appointment with a qualified mental healthcare specialist for your Dagger heart/Matt Mercie/story game OCD/Obsession.
Someone sure is sounding defensive...
No he isn't lol. Get some other interests, you sound like you have mental problems
Quote from: Zenoguy3 on April 02, 2024, 04:59:45 PMQuote from: Mishihari on April 02, 2024, 03:02:38 PMThat probably seemed rude on my part, sorry. I just pretty much don't watch any videos at all - too many demands on my time. I was hoping for a two sentence summary.
The short version is that storygames are bad games because they are warping their mechanics to the end of cooperativly creating a story as opposed to emulating a world. This fails since the ideal version of cooperative story creation is cooperative narrative improvisation with no mechanics at all, so any system that introduces mechanics makes the system worse at what it's trying to do.
What is emulating a word? Did you mean simulating?
Why is simulating a world better than creating a story?
How can we be certain that simulating a world is mutually exclusive with creating a story?
Why does it fail? What does it mean to fail? What goal does it fail to achieve? How did you determine this?
How did you determine the ideal version of cooperative story creation? Whose ideal is it?
I don't like storygames as a concept.
I've written a lot of stories over the years and you cannot force a story. In a ttrpg I would rather allow my pcs to make choices on their own than force each of them to play as a certain archetype with a pre-planned character arc. Storygames are extremely restrictive while being rules-light, and I say this as someone who has looked into several games run by Powered by the Apocalypse. Often I find that none of the playbooks appeal to me, at all, but I'd have to create a whole new set of archetypes that I personally prefer, but others may not, and at the end of the day I'd rather play something else.
Greetings!
Well, *Stories* are an integral and essential focal point of RPG's. That story element is essentially what differentiates RPG's from playing Monopoly or Chess. So, I love stories, and storytelling is essential to RPG's.
The whole "Storygame" thing though, as a different kind of RPG, is enormously different in focus than traditional RPG's. I certainly don't like "Storygames" as a style of game. *Shrugs* Oh well, though, right? Evidently some people must love these kinds of games, because they keep being made. Yes, few people seem to play them, but then again, who cares? Sufficient numbers of fat, blue-haired rainbow freaks seem to love these kinds of games. They can play these games, and have gay dance proms, and adventures with progressive, Woke coffee houses where everyone is a bisexual gender-fluid furry while role-playing having hot-mess orgies and gangbangs with each other.
That is essentially what they want in their games. Let them do them. Let them wallow in their terrible games.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
damn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours
Quote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours
Greetings!
This directed at me?
Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.
If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.
If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!
Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on April 17, 2024, 10:09:25 PMQuote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours
Greetings!
This directed at me?
Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.
If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.
If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!
Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Check its posting history. It's a troll (and not a particularly intelligent or entertaining one). Just roll your eyes and move on to someone with a semblance of a coherent thought... **roll eyes**
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,
It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.
Quote from: Anon Adderlan on April 18, 2024, 10:48:02 AMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,
It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.
There have been versions of degrees of success going all the way back to Chainmail, but they had a
mechanical difference between the degrees (failure, drive back, success/kill). Those are different from what I was referring to, and I should have said it better. But..
I will use Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley to illustrate what I was driving towards. When investigating, you will ALWAYS be successful. You get the bare minimum of what you are looking for on a 1. You get everything you were looking for on a 4, that and more with a 5 and "more" than you wanted on a 6.
It doesn't matter if you are looking for Al Capone's tax records or going through your first cousin's underwear drawer, success is one d6 roll away.
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 10:56:21 PMI mean on the one hand, yeah, some storygames probably aren't RPGs. But I also don't think that everything that's a storygame isn't an RPG, if that makes sense? I basically feel like if it does satisfy immersion in roleplaying a character, and emulation of a living world, and has related game mechanics, then for me it's an rpg even if it has storygaming elements or is arguably a storygame...
Of course there can be degrees, instead of it being a binary yes/no proposition. However, keep in mind that when reduced to a yes/no proposition, that's short-hand for "did a line get crossed?"
You can be traveling due North. You can be traveling mostly North (almost but not quite "due North") but also slightly West (thus no longer truly, actually due North, by definition). Keep adding more West at the expense of North, eventually you aren't traveling "North" anymore by any reasonable description. A wag can try to cloud the issue with some sleight of hand about Northwest or North Northwest or West Northwest or Up Down Sideways Northwest or however you want to talk about it. However, all that does when examined clearly is focus on which boundaries are meaningful (or not, as the case may be).
With an RPG, there's a lot more room. At a bare minimum we have roles, play, and games--which even in their simplest forums are complex by themselves, let alone when they interact in one thing. Then tack on the actors, audience, the GM, the accounts of what happened, when those accounts are consumed, and any meaning assigned there of. Oh, and to put the cherry on top, the whole thing is in service to both single person and group imagination. This is the environment that allows the wag to play semantic games.
You can insert all kinds of things into an RPG at the table that aren't really part of the RPG itself, and it still be (mostly) and RPG. Heck, they are nearly always social things, with chatter, and food, and generally like a party. At some point, you put enough of that in, it stops being an RPG and becomes a party. Same with putting anything else in that isn't about you making a decision as your character or the GM controlling the world's reaction your actions. That doesn't prove that parties and all that other stuff are RPGs. It just proves that RPGs are resilient mediums.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 18, 2024, 11:35:35 AMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 10:56:21 PMI mean on the one hand, yeah, some storygames probably aren't RPGs. But I also don't think that everything that's a storygame isn't an RPG, if that makes sense? I basically feel like if it does satisfy immersion in roleplaying a character, and emulation of a living world, and has related game mechanics, then for me it's an rpg even if it has storygaming elements or is arguably a storygame...
Of course there can be degrees, instead of it being a binary yes/no proposition. However, keep in mind that when reduced to a yes/no proposition, that's short-hand for "did a line get crossed?"
You can be traveling due North. You can be traveling mostly North (almost but not quite "due North") but also slightly West (thus no longer truly, actually due North, by definition). Keep adding more West at the expense of North, eventually you aren't traveling "North" anymore by any reasonable description. A wag can try to cloud the issue with some sleight of hand about Northwest or North Northwest or West Northwest or Up Down Sideways Northwest or however you want to talk about it. However, all that does when examined clearly is focus on which boundaries are meaningful (or not, as the case may be).
With an RPG, there's a lot more room. At a bare minimum we have roles, play, and games--which even in their simplest forums are complex by themselves, let alone when they interact in one thing. Then tack on the actors, audience, the GM, the accounts of what happened, when those accounts are consumed, and any meaning assigned there of. Oh, and to put the cherry on top, the whole thing is in service to both single person and group imagination. This is the environment that allows the wag to play semantic games.
You can insert all kinds of things into an RPG at the table that aren't really part of the RPG itself, and it still be (mostly) and RPG. Heck, they are nearly always social things, with chatter, and food, and generally like a party. At some point, you put enough of that in, it stops being an RPG and becomes a party. Same with putting anything else in that isn't about you making a decision as your character or the GM controlling the world's reaction your actions. That doesn't prove that parties and all that other stuff are RPGs. It just proves that RPGs are resilient mediums.
So essentially if I read this right, the argument is roughly that storygaming waters down the rpg components of an rpg. To some degree I would concur with that proposition. I do think it can detract from both living world emulation/simulation, and character immersion, for instance. Intuitively, that does make sense to me as something that oftentimes happens.
I guess likewise, though as you say RPGs are a multifaceted experience, and an effective confluence of multiple things each with their own definitions... I think a good rpg doesn't gain much of anything purely rpg related from meta currency mechanics and the like within storygaming, though I guess maybe it could flesh out a particularly weak rpg and make it playable or something.
On the flipside, I feel that as with the North vs West paradigm, unless North has utterly vanished, one is still I guess moving northwards if the northward movement is properly noticeable? I'm not trying to claim that west is north, that is to say, or that storygame is RPG, just that both can coexist within the same medium. Heck, for some folks, a blend may even be the type of rpg they like. (Not as much myself a fanatic of that kind of thing, though to each their own tastes.)
The devil is always in the details:
- Add OOC chatter to a game session, good or bad? Some people hate it like the plague. For others, the game itself is no fun if they can't revel such chatter. Most people are somewhere in between.
- Have music playing in the background? Likewise, everything from absolute ban from the GM or even the whole group to playing loud, constantly.
- Having the GM portray some interesting NPCs for you to interact with in character? Is there anyone that dislikes that?
- The player to your left hitting your thumb with a hammer every time you roll poorly? The only people that like that are sick and/or lying.
Some of these activities are more central to playing an RPG than others. :)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 18, 2024, 03:14:49 PMThe devil is always in the details:
- Add OOC chatter to a game session, good or bad? Some people hate it like the plague. For others, the game itself is no fun if they can't revel such chatter. Most people are somewhere in between.
- Have music playing in the background? Likewise, everything from absolute ban from the GM or even the whole group to playing loud, constantly.
- Having the GM portray some interesting NPCs for you to interact with in character? Is there anyone that dislikes that?
- The player to your left hitting your thumb with a hammer every time you roll poorly? The only people that like that are sick and/or lying.
Some of these activities are more central to playing an RPG than others. :)
First, Steven Mitchell, I had never noticed your location until today- Roll Tide Roll.
And I agree that there are certain elements that are more central than others. I also believe it is super easy to tell them apart at the table. Nobody is going to confuse how Basic D&D plays and feels with Cthulhu Dark or Apocalypse World.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 11:22:37 AMQuote from: Anon Adderlan on April 18, 2024, 10:48:02 AMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,
It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.
There have been versions of degrees of success going all the way back to Chainmail, but they had a mechanical difference between the degrees (failure, drive back, success/kill). Those are different from what I was referring to, and I should have said it better. But..
I will use Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley to illustrate what I was driving towards. When investigating, you will ALWAYS be successful. You get the bare minimum of what you are looking for on a 1. You get everything you were looking for on a 4, that and more with a 5 and "more" than you wanted on a 6.
I've never played Cthulhu Dark and it isn't particularly to my taste, but this has nothing to do with degree of success. In the game, you automatically succeed only if failing means that the scenario ends - like failing to find a critical clue pointing the PCs to the rest of the scenario. The rules specify that when rolling the opposed failure die "(They can't do this if you're investigating and you
must succeed for the scenario to proceed)."
There's an age-old critique of investigative RPG scenarios that if the PCs fail at some points, then they get stuck and miss most of the scenario. A dungeon parallel would be if the dungeon entrance is hidden and needs a roll to find. If the PCs fail to find the entrance to a dungeon then they have to just walk away and the whole adventure design is wasted.
There are many ways around this, but a lot of them are story based -- even if used in traditional RPGs -- like "Schrodinger's NPC". If the PCs arrive late, they don't miss the grateful NPC delivering them the crucial clue. Instead, whenever the PCs arrive is exactly when the NPC is being attacked so the PCs can save them and get the clue. However, it makes no sense in the game world that the NPC and their attackers would wait around for the PCs to arrive.
As another example, auto-success in investigation is also a big part of Robin Laws' GUMSHOE system. I hated the GUMSHOE system after trying it a few times, but it's had people who did like it.
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Quote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 03:36:33 PMAnd I agree that there are certain elements that are more central than others. I also believe it is super easy to tell them apart at the table. Nobody is going to confuse how Basic D&D plays and feels with Cthulhu Dark or Apocalypse World.
I've played both Dungeon World and D&D 5e (along with various other games like Call of Cthulhu and FATE) with the same group. Obviously, there are noticeable differences in the dice mechanics, but it also doesn't feel like a different type of activity. In Dungeon World, the only thing a player does is describe what their PC is trying to do, and the DM calls for rolls to succeed based on that.
There's a huge difference between Dungeon World and a GMless story game like Microscope or Fiasco where players are declaring background or creating scenes.
Back in the 1980s when I played Basic D&D as a kid, my play wasn't very different. Except for combat, most play was freeform - with players saying "I try X" and the DM saying what happened, sometimes calling for ad-hoc roll based on their ruling.
Quote from: jhkim on April 18, 2024, 08:12:42 PMQuote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 11:22:37 AMQuote from: Anon Adderlan on April 18, 2024, 10:48:02 AMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 16, 2024, 12:46:15 PMI do think degrees of success are distinct from storygaming,
It isn't, it's just another thing Pundit is adding to the pile of things they don't like and calling it 'storygaming'.
There have been versions of degrees of success going all the way back to Chainmail, but they had a mechanical difference between the degrees (failure, drive back, success/kill). Those are different from what I was referring to, and I should have said it better. But..
I will use Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley to illustrate what I was driving towards. When investigating, you will ALWAYS be successful. You get the bare minimum of what you are looking for on a 1. You get everything you were looking for on a 4, that and more with a 5 and "more" than you wanted on a 6.
I've never played Cthulhu Dark and it isn't particularly to my taste, but this has nothing to do with degree of success. In the game, you automatically succeed only if failing means that the scenario ends - like failing to find a critical clue pointing the PCs to the rest of the scenario. The rules specify that when rolling the opposed failure die "(They can't do this if you're investigating and you must succeed for the scenario to proceed)."
There's an age-old critique of investigative RPG scenarios that if the PCs fail at some points, then they get stuck and miss most of the scenario. A dungeon parallel would be if the dungeon entrance is hidden and needs a roll to find. If the PCs fail to find the entrance to a dungeon then they have to just walk away and the whole adventure design is wasted.
There are many ways around this, but a lot of them are story based -- even if used in traditional RPGs -- like "Schrodinger's NPC". If the PCs arrive late, they don't miss the grateful NPC delivering them the crucial clue. Instead, whenever the PCs arrive is exactly when the NPC is being attacked so the PCs can save them and get the clue. However, it makes no sense in the game world that the NPC and their attackers would wait around for the PCs to arrive.
As another example, auto-success in investigation is also a big part of Robin Laws' GUMSHOE system. I hated the GUMSHOE system after trying it a few times, but it's had people who did like it.
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Quote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 03:36:33 PMAnd I agree that there are certain elements that are more central than others. I also believe it is super easy to tell them apart at the table. Nobody is going to confuse how Basic D&D plays and feels with Cthulhu Dark or Apocalypse World.
I've played both Dungeon World and D&D 5e (along with various other games like Call of Cthulhu and FATE) with the same group. Obviously, there are noticeable differences in the dice mechanics, but it also doesn't feel like a different type of activity. In Dungeon World, the only thing a player does is describe what their PC is trying to do, and the DM calls for rolls to succeed based on that.
There's a huge difference between Dungeon World and a GMless story game like Microscope or Fiasco where players are declaring background or creating scenes.
Back in the 1980s when I played Basic D&D as a kid, my play wasn't very different. Except for combat, most play was freeform - with players saying "I try X" and the DM saying what happened, sometimes calling for ad-hoc roll based on their ruling.
Serious question, why would you argue with me over a game you have never played? They use the same mechanic for "doing other things".
Quote from: Cthulhu Dark, a game Fingerrod has played and jhkim has not...When you do something other than investigating, roll dice as above...Again, your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 4, you succeed competently. Blah blah blah.
I have played the game several times. I've even read Graham's book. It is a good read. And it is a fun game when I am in the mood for a STORYGAME and have the right people. But it isn't an RPG.
Dungeon World was designed as a hybrid product, in part, by a world famous robot rapist. Why shift the goal posts? That one was rhetorical, my friend, because you shifted them right into making my earlier point...
Quote from: Robot Rapist's Kickstarter CampaignDungeon World emerged from our love of two things--modern game design and old-school RPG action. We wanted to create a game with the wide-eyed excitement and wonder of your first time playing a fantasy RPG and the rules that draw on a long history of innovation and creativity. The best of both worlds!
So there you have it. Even with a hybrid product, they admit they are different from traditional RPGs because they use rules that have a "long history of innovation and creativity"...AKA storygame bullshit. They also admitted these two things come from different worlds. Credit to them for their honesty.
If you think Basic D&D plays like Apocalypse World or the aforementioned Cthulhu Dark, bro, I cannot do anything for you. Basic D&D + DM fiat does not equal storygames in design or feel at the table.
Thoughts?
Quote from: jhkim on April 18, 2024, 08:12:42 PMThere's an age-old critique of investigative RPG scenarios that if the PCs fail at some points, then they get stuck and miss most of the scenario.
It's a "critique" usually made by someone that doesn't understand how
games work: they're not novels, failure must
always be an option. This means that in a game based on finding clues adding systems that negate the possibility of not finding clues is a design error.
To clarify my general point -- Cthulhu Dark and Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games have distinctive mechanics influenced by story games, and they have advice and mechanics that prioritize story. However, there are lots of older RPGs that also prioritize story, like the Storyteller System (Vampire: The Masquerade) with its scene mechanics and Demeanor/Nature and such; or Cinematic Unisystem (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) with its drama points and cinematic options.
In both Cthulhu Dark and PbtA, the players only act by saying what their character is trying to do. There isn't even an out-of-character option like spending drama points for a plot twist. They aren't the same as old-school D&D, but loads of games of the 1980s and 1990s have prioritized story. They're much closer to D&D than they are to a GMless story game like Fiasco or Microscope where players regularly take out-of-character actions.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 09:43:25 PMSerious question, why would you argue with me over a game you have never played? They use the same mechanic for "doing other things".
Quote from: Cthulhu Dark, a game Fingerrod has played and jhkim has not...When you do something other than investigating, roll dice as above...Again, your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 4, you succeed competently. Blah blah blah.
I have played the game several times. I've even read Graham's book. It is a good read. And it is a fun game when I am in the mood for a STORYGAME and have the right people. But it isn't an RPG.
I don't care whether you call it an RPG or not. But when you talk about the level of success as if there is no failure, that's dumb. Your supposed quote isn't actually what the book says, and in any case, just below the level of success mechanics, there's a section called
"Failing" that says:
Quote from: Cthulhu DarkIf their die rolls higher than your highest die, you fail, in the way they described. If not, you succeed as before, with your highest die showing how well you succeed.
Returning to the example above: you're escaping from the hotel window. This time, someone thinks it would be more interesting if your pursuers caught you. When you both roll, they get the higher die. You are caught.
So a roll of 1 is a minimal success - only if no one (including the GM) suggests a failure. If anyone suggests a failure, then the roll of 1 will most likely fail.
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Quote from: FingerRod on April 18, 2024, 09:43:25 PMIf you think Basic D&D plays like Apocalypse World or the aforementioned Cthulhu Dark, bro, I cannot do anything for you. Basic D&D + DM fiat does not equal storygames in design or feel at the table.
Thoughts?
Does Basic D&D have the same design and feel at the table as Storyteller System? Does Basic D&D have the same design and feel at the table as Amber Diceless Roleplaying? Does Basic D&D have same design and feel at the table as Cinematic Unisystem?
I think all of these games have different design and feel. There are limits to what is an RPG, and there are a bunch of edge cases where people can reasonably disagree. But not all RPGs must have the same design and feel as Basic D&D. That's clearly overly limited.
Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2024, 02:02:34 AMHowever, there are lots of older RPGs that also prioritize story, like the Storyteller System (Vampire: The Masquerade) with its scene mechanics and Demeanor/Nature and such...
Tell me that you've never played the game without actually telling me that you've never played the game.
Nature/Demeanor is practically the WoD version of alignment, nothing more and nothing less, while "scene" is actually a fancy way of saying "we can't assign a numerical value to the duration of this activity, use your judgement to tell when it's finished". Nowhere in the rules you'll find things like "when the scene ends fade to black and start a new one with a different setup in another location", which is what you'll find in actual
scripted media.
The WoD games are not storygames, they're actually fairly traditional social sandbox toolkits (which is the reason why Ron Edwards so deeply despised them: they're not storygames).
The
published campaigns for WoD are another matter entirely, they're generally massively railroaded shitshows meant to advance the metaplot (an example: Under a blood red moon, the crossover Masquerade/Apocalypse campaign that narrates the siege of Chicago by the Garou. No matter what you do and no matter if you're playing as a vamp or a wolfie, in the end Lodin dies).
Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2024, 02:02:34 AMSo a roll of 1 is a minimal success - only if no one (including the GM) suggests a failure. If anyone suggests a failure, then the roll of 1 will most likely fail.
Only if no one suggests a failure? You make it sound like it is a standard part of every action, but it is not.
This is the section heading that discusses the mechanic, btw. Keep reading your rulebook for the game you never played to The Rules in Detail section... :)
Quote from: Cthulhu DarkIF SOMEONE THINKS THE STORY WOULD BE MORE INTERESTING IF YOU FAILED, THEY DESCRIBE HOW YOU MIGHT FAIL AND ROLL A DIE
I just checked my watch, it is still a story game. And that mechanic is a way for others to participate in the STORY. It 100% is not used as part of standard resolution.
And when 1 is barely a success, 2 is you do it but not well, 3 you do it adequately, etc. those are called DEGREES OF SUCCESS. And again, the failure story mechanic does not change that. It is only used as a way to introduce something "more interesting". The person doing the action can always reroll, using insight, until they get their way. Annnnnd....if the player doing the action doesn't think the failure is interesting for their character or the story, then most of the time people back it out. A table etiquette thing.
I cannot believe you keep digging deeper on this lol.
Quote from: jhkimDoes Basic D&D have the same design and feel at the table as Storyteller System? Does Basic D&D have the same design and feel at the table as Amber Diceless Roleplaying? Does Basic D&D have same design and feel at the table as Cinematic Unisystem?
I think all of these games have different design and feel. There are limits to what is an RPG, and there are a bunch of edge cases where people can reasonably disagree. But not all RPGs must have the same design and feel as Basic D&D. That's clearly overly limited.
Never said that all RPGs must have the same design and feel as Basic D&D. All I said is that it plays different at the table than Apocalypse World and the story game you have never played above. You quoted me and then argued about Dungeon World and 5e playing the same at the table.
I do think we agree that there are limits to what is an RPG, and also agree on there being edge cases where people can reasonably disagree. 100%. And I hope you take the original quotes and the digs about you not playing the game in the spirit they were intended. Just having a bit of fun with you.
If Dungeon World and Basic D&D play the same at the table, you are playing at least one of them wrong. Maybe both, but I'll admit it's logically possible that it is just one.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 17, 2024, 10:21:26 PMQuote from: SHARK on April 17, 2024, 10:09:25 PMQuote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours
Greetings!
This directed at me?
Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.
If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.
If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!
Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Check its posting history. It's a troll (and not a particularly intelligent or entertaining one). Just roll your eyes and move on to someone with a semblance of a coherent thought... **roll eyes**
Greetings!
*Laughing* So true, my friend. Thanks for reminding me!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 19, 2024, 02:42:44 AMQuote from: jhkim on April 19, 2024, 02:02:34 AMHowever, there are lots of older RPGs that also prioritize story, like the Storyteller System (Vampire: The Masquerade) with its scene mechanics and Demeanor/Nature and such...
Tell me that you've never played the game without actually telling me that you've never played the game.
Nature/Demeanor is practically the WoD version of alignment, nothing more and nothing less, while "scene" is actually a fancy way of saying "we can't assign a numerical value to the duration of this activity, use your judgement to tell when it's finished". Nowhere in the rules you'll find things like "when the scene ends fade to black and start a new one with a different setup in another location", which is what you'll find in actual scripted media.
The WoD games are not storygames, they're actually fairly traditional social sandbox toolkits (which is the reason why Ron Edwards so deeply despised them: they're not storygames).
The published campaigns for WoD are another matter entirely, they're generally massively railroaded shitshows meant to advance the metaplot (an example: Under a blood red moon, the crossover Masquerade/Apocalypse campaign that narrates the siege of Chicago by the Garou. No matter what you do and no matter if you're playing as a vamp or a wolfie, in the end Lodin dies).
I would agree that despite the mechanical framework being named the Storytelling System and the DM being called a Storyteller, WoD games and even the published adventures aren't actually storygames.
Yeah, Nature does mechanically affect willpower regain in some instances, I guess, but that's more like declaring a key intrinsic motivation mechanically and then reaping the results of playing to that (or not) over the course of the adventure I'd say. Likewise, scene lengths are entirely up to DM discretion, sure, as are plot based effects of powerful beings and the like, which does add a fair bit of DM fiat into things, even from a mechanical perspective, yes. Don't even get me started on DM interpretation on powers and stuff like the Mage spellcasting systems. But ultimately... the authority rests in one person's hands, even if that authority does include narrative fiat overlap with mechanics to some degree.
For a long while, I was confused on storygaming as a matter of definition and thought that kind of thing might qualify. I used to think storygaming was a style of gaming that emphasized storytelling and prioritized that over all else, either by turning the game into a democratized storytelling experience or by setting fire to player agency so the DM could tell their own story and all else such as player agency or mechanics be damned. This in turn made me think that the Giovanni Chronicles, for instance, were effectively a "storygaming adventure", in part because of all the railroading and forced monologue grandstanding that didn't really care about mechanics or the like, just about telling the pre-written story, or the story the DM presumably wanted to tell.
But that's not actually correct. I now know that the actual generally accepted definition of storygaming, since story as an emphasis to some degree or another is a part of most ttrpgs by default, tends to be on narrative and scene/circumstantial control that would normally be adjudicated by the DM, going into the hands of the players. Which potentially breaks immersion into your character, emulation/simulation of a living world, and blah... Basically a different setup that is distinct from a standard RPG for different reasons.
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 19, 2024, 02:43:45 PMI would agree that despite the mechanical framework being named the Storytelling System and the DM being called a Storyteller, WoD games and even the published adventures aren't actually storygames.
Of course you'll agree, because the actual "storygame" concept as we know it now came into existence mainly as a
reaction to the WoD (the Forge in its main, Edwards led incarnation began in 2001).
Good ol' Ron famous hissy fit about "brain damage" is an oblique jab at WoD players and authors.
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 19, 2024, 04:04:09 PMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 19, 2024, 02:43:45 PMI would agree that despite the mechanical framework being named the Storytelling System and the DM being called a Storyteller, WoD games and even the published adventures aren't actually storygames.
Of course you'll agree, because the actual "storygame" concept as we know it now came into existence mainly as a reaction to the WoD (the Forge in its main, Edwards led incarnation began in 2001).
Good ol' Ron famous hissy fit about "brain damage" is an oblique jab at WoD players and authors.
I'll readily admit to not knowing much about the specifics of the conversational origins of all that. Partly as I wasn't old enough to even read in/access a forum at the time. Interesting to know, I guess. I had oftentimes heard that he hated D&D and simulationism, but didn't know that he hated even WoD, which always struck me either as neotrad or (for the railroaded adventures) trad gameplay.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 19, 2024, 06:54:37 AMI just checked my watch, it is still a story game. And that mechanic is a way for others to participate in the STORY. It 100% is not used as part of standard resolution.
And when 1 is barely a success, 2 is you do it but not well, 3 you do it adequately, etc. those are called DEGREES OF SUCCESS. And again, the failure story mechanic does not change that. It is only used as a way to introduce something "more interesting". The person doing the action can always reroll, using insight, until they get their way. Annnnnd....if the player doing the action doesn't think the failure is interesting for their character or the story, then most of the time people back it out. A table etiquette thing.
I cannot believe you keep digging deeper on this lol.
FingerRod: "My GM always let me succeed with no risk of failure, because at our table it's standard table etiquette not to allow anyone to fail if they don't want to."
Dude, that may be the etiquette at your table, but that's not the standard etiquette for all tables, and it's not what the Cthulhu Dark rules say. No, I haven't played Cthulhu Dark, but I was very involved with story games in 2010 and read it when it was released. I had been a participant on The Forge and administered the Indie RPG Awards, and played lots of its siblings and predecessors like Lady Blackbird, Blowback, etc.
In general, I find it is more fun to have the risk of failure. In my groups, it was normal for the GM and others to introduce risk of failure, even if the rules allowed for the GM to grant auto-success. If I were playing Cthulhu Dark, I'd be using the failure rules to their fullest as written - the same way that I have introduced failure and adversity in other story games like Lady Blackbird, Polaris, etc. For me, it's been more fun that way.
Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2024, 05:41:16 PMQuote from: FingerRod on April 19, 2024, 06:54:37 AMI just checked my watch, it is still a story game. And that mechanic is a way for others to participate in the STORY. It 100% is not used as part of standard resolution.
And when 1 is barely a success, 2 is you do it but not well, 3 you do it adequately, etc. those are called DEGREES OF SUCCESS. And again, the failure story mechanic does not change that. It is only used as a way to introduce something "more interesting". The person doing the action can always reroll, using insight, until they get their way. Annnnnd....if the player doing the action doesn't think the failure is interesting for their character or the story, then most of the time people back it out. A table etiquette thing.
I cannot believe you keep digging deeper on this lol.
FingerRod: "My GM always let me succeed with no risk of failure, because at our table it's standard table etiquette not to allow anyone to fail if they don't want to."
Dude, that may be the etiquette at your table, but that's not the standard etiquette for all tables, and it's not what the Cthulhu Dark rules say. No, I haven't played Cthulhu Dark, but I was very involved with story games in 2010 and read it when it was released. I had been a participant on The Forge and administered the Indie RPG Awards, and played lots of its siblings and predecessors like Lady Blackbird, Blowback, etc.
In general, I find it is more fun to have the risk of failure. In my groups, it was normal for the GM and others to introduce risk of failure, even if the rules allowed for the GM to grant auto-success. If I were playing Cthulhu Dark, I'd be using the failure rules to their fullest as written - the same way that I have introduced failure and adversity in other story games like Lady Blackbird, Polaris, etc. For me, it's been more fun that way.
Nice resume, who cares? You got caught trying to represent a game you've never played. Simple as that.
For the record, I tried with you this time.
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 19, 2024, 04:28:21 PMI'll readily admit to not knowing much about the specifics of the conversational origins of all that. Partly as I wasn't old enough to even read in/access a forum at the time. Interesting to know, I guess. I had oftentimes heard that he hated D&D and simulationism, but didn't know that he hated even WoD, which always struck me either as neotrad or (for the railroaded adventures) trad gameplay.
Yeah, the Forge was the manifestation of the "Not Invented Here" principle for tabletop games, with Edwards as its lead priest. Everything that didn't follow GNS/Big Model principles pretty much to the letter was criticized heavily.
Quote from: FingerRod on April 19, 2024, 09:30:11 PMNice resume, who cares? You got caught trying to represent a game you've never played. Simple as that.
For the record, I tried with you this time.
I hate defending jhkim here, but that's a bitch argument. It's akin to saying if you haven't watched a movie you can't say it's a bad movie. If you haven't played a video game you can't say it's a bad video game. If you haven't eaten a shit sandwich with bacon you can't tell me it's a bad sandwich.
There are plenty of ways to interact with something and form a valid opinion. Don't get pissy just because it isn't the same opinion/conclusion you have.
Quote from: rgalex on April 20, 2024, 12:15:27 PMQuote from: FingerRod on April 19, 2024, 09:30:11 PMNice resume, who cares? You got caught trying to represent a game you've never played. Simple as that.
For the record, I tried with you this time.
I hate defending jhkim here, but that's a bitch argument. It's akin to saying if you haven't watched a movie you can't say it's a bad movie. If you haven't played a video game you can't say it's a bad video game. If you haven't eaten a shit sandwich with bacon you can't tell me it's a bad sandwich.
There are plenty of ways to interact with something and form a valid opinion. Don't get pissy just because it isn't the same opinion/conclusion you have.
Except that wasn't his argument. He pointed out that jhkim hadn't payed the game,
and his understanding of the rules was wrong. And, it being jhkim, jhkim just doubled down on his (
maybe accidental) misunderstanding of the rules...
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 18, 2024, 02:23:16 PMSo essentially if I read this right, the argument is roughly that storygaming waters down the rpg components of an rpg. To some degree I would concur with that proposition.
It is more that storygamers, like the woke, are never satisfied with what they have and have to fuck with everyone else. AND they then turn around and do the very things they accuse RPGers of doing.
Universalis is my personal example of just one hair short of the final end result. It is storytelling. Not even a game anymore. Remove the bid for control of the story element and its near pure storytelling. That they waste hundreds of pages essentially telling you to play round robin. It calls itself an RPG. But it is anything but.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 18, 2024, 03:14:49 PMThe devil is always in the details:
- Add OOC chatter to a game session, good or bad? Some people hate it like the plague. For others, the game itself is no fun if they can't revel such chatter. Most people are somewhere in between.
- Have music playing in the background? Likewise, everything from absolute ban from the GM or even the whole group to playing loud, constantly.
- Having the GM portray some interesting NPCs for you to interact with in character? Is there anyone that dislikes that?
- The player to your left hitting your thumb with a hammer every time you roll poorly? The only people that like that are sick and/or lying.
Some of these activities are more central to playing an RPG than others. :)
None of those are storygaming though.
Quote from: rgalex on April 20, 2024, 12:15:27 PMI hate defending jhkim here, but that's a bitch argument. It's akin to saying if you haven't watched a movie you can't say it's a bad movie. If you haven't played a video game you can't say it's a bad video game. If you haven't eaten a shit sandwich with bacon you can't tell me it's a bad sandwich.
There are plenty of ways to interact with something and form a valid opinion. Don't get pissy just because it isn't the same opinion/conclusion you have.
If I have never heard of a game outside hearsay from someone else then NO I do not have any valid opinion on the game. This is why I do not participate in threads on games I do not either actually have, or have played.
I might get a general idea of I will like or not a system from a review. But I prefer to actually see for myself as some reviews are so skewed for god unknown reasons. Some jackass wrote a flowery review of Faltasy Wargaming as a rebuttal to my rather skathing review of it. You can tell the poor sod has no damn clue and is just grasping at straws. He even tried to play the legal threat card.
Quote from: Omega on April 20, 2024, 01:58:05 PMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 18, 2024, 02:23:16 PMSo essentially if I read this right, the argument is roughly that storygaming waters down the rpg components of an rpg. To some degree I would concur with that proposition.
It is more that storygamers, like the woke, are never satisfied with what they have and have to fuck with everyone else. AND they then turn around and do the very things they accuse RPGers of doing.
Universalis is my personal example of just one hair short of the final end result. It is storytelling. Not even a game anymore. Remove the bid for control of the story element and its near pure storytelling. That they waste hundreds of pages essentially telling you to play round robin. It calls itself an RPG. But it is anything but.
I feel like there's probably some overlap between the RPG community and Storygaming folks, not least because it seems to me like there are indeed some RPGs with storygaming elements. (Arguably it does from my perspective water down the rpg side of things, but I digress.) So I'm not sure the battle lines so to speak are necessarily drawn for everybody.
There probably are indeed a fair number of storygamers and storygame theorists who are toxic. (Likewise, I'll admit the same for RPGs, much though I wish it weren't true as arguably sizably more a member of that community than the other.) Cultural association of many of those games with the woke for whatever reason may well be part of that, I would concur. And although I have very little knowledge of Universalis I would agree that it's quite obviously not an rpg on account of a lack of both emulation and immersion among other things. So yeah, there's definitely some incorrect or dishonest marketing floating around out there.
That said, it does seem like a bit of an oversimplification to me to say that all folks who play or make storygames or RPGs with storygame components are that way. I do sometimes worry about competing marketing to the same audience lessening the demand for the core rpg experience, but I can't really blame that on the consumers, or even most of the producers, I feel, of more content.
As a tangential interest... With respect to storygames turning around and doing the things storygame theorists claim RPGs do, I'm not really well versed in that enough to comment. I'm kinda surprised to hear that, since I see storygaming as almost orthogonal to rpg stuff, and weakening the focus on it. If you have some examples of that sort of thing, I think that would be prospectively interesting to hear about, though.
Quote from: Omega on April 20, 2024, 02:14:36 PMQuote from: rgalex on April 20, 2024, 12:15:27 PMI hate defending jhkim here, but that's a bitch argument. It's akin to saying if you haven't watched a movie you can't say it's a bad movie. If you haven't played a video game you can't say it's a bad video game. If you haven't eaten a shit sandwich with bacon you can't tell me it's a bad sandwich.
There are plenty of ways to interact with something and form a valid opinion. Don't get pissy just because it isn't the same opinion/conclusion you have.
If I have never heard of a game outside hearsay from someone else then NO I do not have any valid opinion on the game. This is why I do not participate in threads on games I do not either actually have, or have played.
I might get a general idea of I will like or not a system from a review. But I prefer to actually see for myself as some reviews are so skewed for god unknown reasons. Some jackass wrote a flowery review of Faltasy Wargaming as a rebuttal to my rather skathing review of it. You can tell the poor sod has no damn clue and is just grasping at straws. He even tried to play the legal threat card.
In all fairness, while he didn't play it jhkim did at least read it and participate in conversations and evaluations of it. Which I'll be honest is more than I myself have done for that system. Fingerrod's feedback from live play was valuable, but I do think it was useful to hear another point of view on it as well, even if I suspect the live play is probably the more common experience, I guess? I dunno, doesn't seem like something I'd want to play regardless, but was interesting to hear the discussion at least.
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 20, 2024, 02:31:59 PMQuote from: Omega on April 20, 2024, 01:58:05 PMQuote from: KindaMeh on April 18, 2024, 02:23:16 PMSo essentially if I read this right, the argument is roughly that storygaming waters down the rpg components of an rpg. To some degree I would concur with that proposition.
It is more that storygamers, like the woke, are never satisfied with what they have and have to fuck with everyone else. AND they then turn around and do the very things they accuse RPGers of doing.
Universalis is my personal example of just one hair short of the final end result. It is storytelling. Not even a game anymore. Remove the bid for control of the story element and its near pure storytelling. That they waste hundreds of pages essentially telling you to play round robin. It calls itself an RPG. But it is anything but.
I feel like there's probably some overlap between the RPG community and Storygaming folks, not least because it seems to me like there are indeed some RPGs with storygaming elements. (Arguably it does from my perspective water down the rpg side of things, but I digress.) So I'm not sure the battle lines so to speak are necessarily drawn for everybody.
There probably are indeed a fair number of storygamers and storygame theorists who are toxic. (Likewise, I'll admit the same for RPGs, much though I wish it weren't true as arguably sizably more a member of that community than the other.) Cultural association of many of those games with the woke for whatever reason may well be part of that, I would concur. And although I have very little knowledge of Universalis I would agree that it's quite obviously not an rpg on account of a lack of both emulation and immersion among other things. So yeah, there's definitely some incorrect or dishonest marketing floating around out there.
That said, it does seem like a bit of an oversimplification to me to say that all folks who play or make storygames or RPGs with storygame components are that way. I do sometimes worry about competing marketing to the same audience lessening the demand for the core rpg experience, but I can't really blame that on the consumers, or even most of the producers, I feel, of more content.
As a tangential interest... With respect to storygames turning around and doing the things storygame theorists claim RPGs do, I'm not really well versed in that enough to comment. I'm kinda surprised to hear that, since I see storygaming as almost orthogonal to rpg stuff, and weakening the focus on it. If you have some examples of that sort of thing, I think that would be prospectively interesting to hear about, though.
I don't like PbtA, but I've seen in this thread a lot of folks saying that "storygames" are not RPGs. In order for us not to fall into true Scotmanship, what would you define as "rpg stuff" and how is that different than "storygames"?
I repeat, I don't like PbtA, which is supposedly the poster boy for "narrative" games or whatever other fluff term is used. I am not defending PbtA or "storygames" I just want to understand what this forum means when they use the term.
Quote from: KindaMeh on April 20, 2024, 02:35:07 PMQuote from: Omega on April 20, 2024, 02:14:36 PMIf I have never heard of a game outside hearsay from someone else then NO I do not have any valid opinion on the game. This is why I do not participate in threads on games I do not either actually have, or have played.
In all fairness, while he didn't play it jhkim did at least read it and participate in conversations and evaluations of it.
Right. I agree with Omega in general that one should have played or read the rules. In the case of Cthulhu Dark, I opened my copy and reread the whole thing before replying, which is easy in this case since the rules are less than 3 pages. They're also free. Here's a direct link to the PDF:
http://catchyourhare.com/files/Cthulhu%20Dark.pdf
There's a section entitled
"Doing Things" that covers the die roll and degrees of success, and immediately after that there is a section entitled
"Failing" about how if anyone thinks that failure would be interesting, then an opposed die is rolled to check for failure.
I'm fine calling it a story game, but it's clearly wrong to say that no failure is possible.
Quote from: Omega on April 20, 2024, 02:02:43 PMQuote from: Steven Mitchell on April 18, 2024, 03:14:49 PMThe devil is always in the details:
- Add OOC chatter to a game session, good or bad? Some people hate it like the plague. For others, the game itself is no fun if they can't revel such chatter. Most people are somewhere in between.
- Have music playing in the background? Likewise, everything from absolute ban from the GM or even the whole group to playing loud, constantly.
- Having the GM portray some interesting NPCs for you to interact with in character? Is there anyone that dislikes that?
- The player to your left hitting your thumb with a hammer every time you roll poorly? The only people that like that are sick and/or lying.
Some of these activities are more central to playing an RPG than others. :)
None of those are storygaming though.
Never said they were. They are other examples of things you could do while playing an RPG. Only the third one is part of playing an RPG. For the rest, focus on them enough, eventually you wouldn't be playing an RPG anymore. They are analogous to story game things like that, and for purposes of discussing playing an RPG should get the same tertiary importance only to the degree that the group is fine with mixing non-RPG peanut butter with their RPG chocolate. :)
KindaMeh is trying real hard to be nice and include everything. I'm just showing how that doesn't work, for story games or anything else that is not central.
My response, likewise, would probably be that if it has the core rpg attributes of character immersion and living world emulation included as notable components of the experience then it's an rpg, music or no music, storygame or no storygame. While still recognizing that storygame focus is not rpg focus. Some people like music to set the tone of an rpg, some like a degree of OOC chatter being allowed and won't play without it. That's part of their taste in RPGs, even if those things are not actually part of an RPG's core definition. Storygaming one could argue is similar to music or the like in that sense, sure.
I'd say story games are a bit different though in that they actively water down and subtract from the core RPG focus directly, not just proportionally, in that they discourage both immersion and emulation. To Cipher, I'd say a storygame constitutes when circumstances in-game that are beyond the influence of the player character and within the realm of the game master are adjudicated by the player as an editor to the world, acting outside their character. This breaks immersion in your character. It also messes with the dungeon master's ability to ensure a coherent and living world through emulation, to say nothing of making simulationism nigh impossible.
Quote from: Cipher on April 20, 2024, 03:49:26 PMI don't like PbtA, but I've seen in this thread a lot of folks saying that "storygames" are not RPGs. In order for us not to fall into true Scotmanship, what would you define as "rpg stuff" and how is that different than "storygames"?
I repeat, I don't like PbtA, which is supposedly the poster boy for "narrative" games or whatever other fluff term is used. I am not defending PbtA or "storygames" I just want to understand what this forum means when they use the term.
Well, I think there are two different ways you can look at it, at least from my point of view of the generally opposition to storygames:
First, a main criticism might be that storygames privilege the construction of a simultaneous narrative over every other part of the game. In D&D, no matter which edition, the attempt is made to create a coherent, cohesive setting within which the players' characters interact. Narrative might flow from the game (we might tell stories about what happened later), but each player is playing their character as an inhabitant of the setting reacting to the in-world fiction as if it was real. It doesn't matter the genre, the amount of "railroading," the inclusion of gonzo elements, or the way that fluff doesn't quite match up to the crunch, the primary motivating factor of decisions within the game occur based on in-setting concerns. Now, this is not to say that most (or even any) games live up to this ideal completely, but that's the general thrust of the criticism. Storygames are creating a story first. The in-setting conceits are useful only as far as they help create the shared narrative. They can be manipulated, changed, or even jettisoned whenever the shared narrative would benefit from it. RPGs do not have to be true (or even mostly) simulations, but they are directed towards responding to what is happening in the setting, not building the setting as another tool to create story.
Secondly, many criticisms of storygames highlight that the mechanics of the games provide mechanics designed to empower players to change or control the events of the game based on meta concerns. A traditional RPG has a single person (usually the DM) in charge of construction of the setting, as well as moderating the players' interaction with it. The mechanics depend on independent adjudication based on the in-setting probability of success, not the effect of the outcome on a simultaneous story. So, you can spot storygame mechanics because they give players tools to shape the outcome of the game to create outcomes desirable for some meta view of the game, as opposed to outcomes that are based in setting conceits. This is why I don't agree that things like luck points, bennies, or other meta-currency are indicative of storygame tendencies. These metacurrencies are still directed at player character level outcomes (did I get hit?, did I die?, etc.) as opposed to mechanics like jhkim described in Cthulhu Dark, where other players can roll against you to get the outcome they think is dramatic or "better" for the story. There is no "in-setting" rationale for a mechanic like that.
So, in short, a storygame is a game that emphasizes the conscious construction of a narrative over the presentation of a coherent and consistent setting and its realities, with mechanics that don't represent in-setting concerns and move control of the setting and events away from the DM and towards construction of a shared, simultaneous narrative.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 20, 2024, 08:52:12 PMQuote from: Cipher on April 20, 2024, 03:49:26 PMI don't like PbtA, but I've seen in this thread a lot of folks saying that "storygames" are not RPGs. In order for us not to fall into true Scotmanship, what would you define as "rpg stuff" and how is that different than "storygames"?
I repeat, I don't like PbtA, which is supposedly the poster boy for "narrative" games or whatever other fluff term is used. I am not defending PbtA or "storygames" I just want to understand what this forum means when they use the term.
Well, I think there are two different ways you can look at it, at least from my point of view of the generally opposition to storygames:
First, a main criticism might be that storygames privilege the construction of a simultaneous narrative over every other part of the game. In D&D, no matter which edition, the attempt is made to create a coherent, cohesive setting within which the players' characters interact. Narrative might flow from the game (we might tell stories about what happened later), but each player is playing their character as an inhabitant of the setting reacting to the in-world fiction as if it was real. It doesn't matter the genre, the amount of "railroading," the inclusion of gonzo elements, or the way that fluff doesn't quite match up to the crunch, the primary motivating factor of decisions within the game occur based on in-setting concerns. Now, this is not to say that most (or even any) games live up to this ideal completely, but that's the general thrust of the criticism. Storygames are creating a story first. The in-setting conceits are useful only as far as they help create the shared narrative. They can be manipulated, changed, or even jettisoned whenever the shared narrative would benefit from it. RPGs do not have to be true (or even mostly) simulations, but they are directed towards responding to what is happening in the setting, not building the setting as another tool to create story.
Secondly, many criticisms of storygames highlight that the mechanics of the games provide mechanics designed to empower players to change or control the events of the game based on meta concerns. A traditional RPG has a single person (usually the DM) in charge of construction of the setting, as well as moderating the players' interaction with it. The mechanics depend on independent adjudication based on the in-setting probability of success, not the effect of the outcome on a simultaneous story. So, you can spot storygame mechanics because they give players tools to shape the outcome of the game to create outcomes desirable for some meta view of the game, as opposed to outcomes that are based in setting conceits. This is why I don't agree that things like luck points, bennies, or other meta-currency are indicative of storygame tendencies. These metacurrencies are still directed at player character level outcomes (did I get hit?, did I die?, etc.) as opposed to mechanics like jhkim described in Cthulhu Dark, where other players can roll against you to get the outcome they think is dramatic or "better" for the story. There is no "in-setting" rationale for a mechanic like that.
So, in short, a storygame is a game that emphasizes the conscious construction of a narrative over the presentation of a coherent and consistent setting and its realities, with mechanics that don't represent in-setting concerns and move control of the setting and events away from the DM and towards construction of a shared, simultaneous narrative.
Greetings!
Yeah, my friend! Good stuff, Eirikrautha! I agree.
Fuck "Storygames". The people that like them have generally seemed mostly Woke and retarded to me, so that is another reason why I reject Storygames. Yes, there is a few normal people that like Storygames, but the reputation and impression stands for a good reason. Mechanically, aesthetically, and ideologically, Storygames definitely seem poisonous. Say NO to Storygames.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on April 17, 2024, 10:09:25 PMQuote from: Domina on April 17, 2024, 06:55:32 PMdamn that's a hell of a lot of words to say you're mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours
Greetings!
This directed at me?
Tell you what, it isn't about "you're being mad that other people's preferences aren't the same as yours." That is frankly, a gross oversimplification, and at the end of the day, missing the larger issue.
If the rainbow degenerates kept their mouth shut, and did their weird fucking games by themselves, that wouldn't be the problem. The problem comes when all of this weak, pussy degenerate BS is then adopted and embraced by others, who then start pumping it into books and adventures that normal people then are faced with, again, and again, and again. That degeneracy starts to corrupt the entire hobby.
If YOU like that BS, great! Knock yourself out, and dive into the cesspool deep!
Many other gamers in the hobby are sick of it, and such corrupting trends pushed by degenerate storygames does nothing but harm the hobby.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
In what way does it harm the hobby?
What does "corrupt" mean?
Why is storygaming bad?
Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 17, 2024, 10:21:26 PMCheck its posting history. It's a troll (and not a particularly intelligent or entertaining one). Just roll your eyes and move on to someone with a semblance of a coherent thought... **roll eyes**
Not a single one of my posts has trolled anyone, and you will not be able to provide an example to the contrary. Disagreeing with people is not trolling.
Quote from: Domina on April 23, 2024, 06:00:20 PMIn what way does it harm the hobby?
Why is storygaming bad?
If only someone at the start of the thread had posted something like, I don't know, a
video answering these exact questions....
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 24, 2024, 03:05:31 AMQuote from: Domina on April 23, 2024, 06:00:20 PMIn what way does it harm the hobby?
Why is storygaming bad?
If only someone at the start of the thread had posted something like, I don't know, a video answering these exact questions....
So no answer then.
Quote from: Domina on April 23, 2024, 06:00:20 PMSo no answer then.
Oh I'm sorry, you're blind
and deaf. You're still able to write, though, keep going.
Quote from: Domina on April 23, 2024, 06:00:20 PMIn what way does it harm the hobby?
What does "corrupt" mean?
Why is storygaming bad?
It harms the hobby when you have the extremists who try to infest RPGs and want to literally abolish the game part of RPG and the Role Play part and just sit around telling stories. The always end up going firther and further off the deep end.
Corrupt as in inserting storygamer screeds into existing RPGs. Fake "its still 5e" and its screed that the DM is there to serve the players and every player is a DM if that sees it to print. Or the push to shackle and chain the DM from "harming" the players.
Storygaming is not bad. But storygamers can not leave everyone else the fuck alone. I've said this time and again. We would not be having these conversations and fighting a running war with storygamers if they would just leave everyone alone and stop lying through their teeth at every turn.