Powergamers like story and drama just as much as everyone else, in my experience. There'a no dichotomy between playing for the power fantasy and for cooperative storytelling.

It's not the story-focused as a whole who tend to cause problems either. It's the fishmalks in particular who like to complain about how "boring" competent characters are, and lobby to nerf them.

I just like to play the game.  I want my character to be able to function without me having to consider the implications of a dozen different variable factors.  I understand that some people love that level of complexity.  I don't, and I don't believe that makes me a story gamer by default.  Let me consider 3 or 4 variables, maximum; and throw the dice.  Let the dice decide the outcome.

There are more labels applied to RPG enthusiasts, and different types of games than I have encountered in any other areas of discussion; except perhaps politics and human sexuality, which by the way don't enhance my gaming enjoyment whatsoever.

I think it's very important to let players make use of all the skills their characters have. And that includes persuasion, lockpicking, investigation etc. To make non-combat specialists shine. I think the biggest mistake you can make is only rolling for combat skills and just roleplaying the rest. Rolling other skills rewards inventive roleplaying and let other characters have a moment in the spotlights at certain times. This keeps everyone happy at the table.

I'd say system matters. The more widgets you have in CharGen, the more open the game becomes to power gamers, who can be difficult to contain if what they've built is by the rules. Even so, I wouldn't say these two player types cannot co-exist at the same table. I've had group combinations with both types (though a vast majority of my players just want to hang out and roll some dice). If I had to choose, though, I'd rather have someone concerned more with story, as in how the campaign is taking shape, and how their character interacts with it, than with someone more concerned with making their red "I win!" button bigger. Just a preference, of course.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;1096623I think it's very important to let players make use of all the skills their characters have. And that includes persuasion, lockpicking, investigation etc. To make non-combat specialists shine. I think the biggest mistake you can make is only rolling for combat skills and just roleplaying the rest. Rolling other skills rewards inventive roleplaying and let other characters have a moment in the spotlights at certain times. This keeps everyone happy at the table.

If they're there, as part of the system, then, hell yes -- it would seem criminal not to let players exploit them. I'm not sure I'd call rolling the dice "inventive roleplaying," though. I DO agree that, in a mechanical skills system, allowing a character to shine where they've been built to shine should absolutely be encouraged. I do feel like something is missing, however, if everything just comes down to a roll. Sometimes, a monumentally great idea should be rewarded without one, IMHO.

Quote from: Mankcam;1096596Hardly anyone else in my gaming group spends time in rpg forums, so the whole storygame vs powergame thing is unknown to them.
They each have their own style of playing, and that's about it.
I don't see the divide being as vast as it is often discussed in forums.
We just play rpgs.

Bing! Same here. I'm the only one who bothers reading forum posts and such. Same philosophy as pedagogy--if you see a good idea, STEAL IT!:-) Everyone else I know just wants to play.

Speaking of that...I wonder if posting on forums and such is mainly the province of those of us who predominately, or exclusively GM?

Quote from: cranebump;1096643Bing! Same here. I'm the only one who bothers reading forum posts and such. Same philosophy as pedagogy--if you see a good idea, STEAL IT!:-) Everyone else I know just wants to play.
Speaking of that...I wonder if posting on forums and such is mainly the province of those of us who predominately, or exclusively GM?

I expect that about 90% of regular online rpg forum posters would be people who enjoy being GMs, as opposed to those whose involvement in the hobby is predominantly through playing PCs.

So I expect that the views expressed throughout these forums are not indicative of the widespread rpg player-community.
Especially regarding traditional vs storygame rpgs, I think that gap is definately not that huge in reality as it seems in the online rpg community.
In most game shops I come across, the divide still seems to be "D&D & D20 OGL rpgs" versus "Other RPGS"

Quote from: cranebump;1096642If they're there, as part of the system, then, hell yes -- it would seem criminal not to let players exploit them. I'm not sure I'd call rolling the dice "inventive roleplaying," though.

Inventive in a way that players can come up with the most creative solutions to get out of hairy situations. Instead of hitting everything on the head with something metal.

Quote from: Mankcam;1096736I expect that about 90% of regular online rpg forum posters would be people who enjoy being GMs, as opposed to those whose involvement in the hobby is predominantly through playing PCs.

So I expect that the views expressed throughout these forums are not indicative of the widespread rpg player-community.
Especially regarding traditional vs storygame rpgs, I think that gap is definately not that huge in reality as it seems in the online rpg community.
In most game shops I come across, the divide still seems to be "D&D & D20 OGL rpgs" versus "Other RPGS"

I agree. Most players don't seem to know or to care about all this stuff. When I played WoD and spend time on the forum there I never even heard about storygames at all. They only played WoD and occasionally D&D. So only traditional games.

Quote from: Omega;1096597And we have a new applicant for village idiot. Please get in line.

Well, considering my first and only experience with it was over 25 years ago, and not a pleasant one...

Call it an instant negative bias, I guess.

In my experience a hard line between storygamers and powergamers is purely hypothetical. I've never met anyone who would self-identify as either.

This is an imagined conflict. I know some people who have more fun with story elements, and some people who have more fun with conflict, but the only place you get trenches and labels and partisan feelings is on the Internet, not at the gaming table.

It's just a hypothetical conflict of style with no application beyond game theory and rules development to encourage different play styles.

In practical terms this is a made-up, trumped-up, theoretical divide with no appreciable meaning.

//Panjumanju

Is it imagined? Nearly almost especially if you play with your *friends*.

They may have decided to compromise. Maybe?

Or maybe you can play VtM or ASoIaF the same way you play SR or PF. Can you? If *system matters*, do all rpgs play the same regardless of player type?

Played with complete strangers recently? It's the bulk of my running adventures and - I see a divide. Your *friends* ideas of how to play rpgs blurred when they became your *friends*.

I'm certain that *system makes strange bedfellows*.

Experiment: run an rpg adventure with strangers AND no "session zero". Then, document imaginary player type.

Begin -

All of the classification systems I have ever seen fail to classify the people I have actually played with; the more honest classifications admit that pure examples are hypothetical.

Storygamers: are these ones who want a story from the GM, or ones who want a game system in which story elements are earned, traded and used in the mechanics, or ones who want something more coherent than a randomly generated dungeon populated from the wandering monster table, or ones who just never want combats?

Powergamers: are these ones who value character advancement highly, or ones who manage resources carefully to achieve maximum success, or ones who expect to win any combat that does occur, or who insist on fighting anybody they meet?

At the extreme, they have opposed preferences: powergamers kill everything and resist naming their characters; storygamers demand combat free railroading. So they would have to be in conflict.

In practice, even those with a strong preference still value some of the other preference. Powergamers mostly like a scenario for a context to their combats, and storygamers need at least a little conflict in their story. And if they're worth playing with, they are able to compromise anyway.

Quote from: Mankcam;1096596We just play rpgs.

What? You haven't ready countless articles on How to Roleplay Properly? I bet you are making silly mistakes like having fun at your table and enjoying the games.

Quote from: Mankcam;1096736I expect that about 90% of regular online rpg forum posters would be people who enjoy being GMs, as opposed to those whose involvement in the hobby is predominantly through playing PCs.

Not necessarily by choice - I'd love to just play in a Campaign.

Quote from: soltakss;1097106What? You haven't ready countless articles on How to Roleplay Properly? I bet you are making silly mistakes like having fun at your table and enjoying the games.

Yeah, who would of thought? No academic degrees needed to play !!!  Yep, many-a-silly mistake is made at our tables, heh heh