Quote from: MaddmanThis is an excellent point.  I've gotten the best portrayls of genuine emotion out of players in my Buffy game.  Why?  Because these are credible characters, as you put it.  They aren't a collection of powers that want revenge on someone.  They have parents, a school to go to, hopes for the future, relationships.  How is a character supposed to get sophisticated emotions out there if they don't associate themselves with society or have things they care about?

The first step is to get rid of the idea of an 'adventurer'.  It implies someone that is outside of the cares of society and perhaps this hinders getting these sophisticated emotions out of players that Pundit is talking about.

As for the game lines, I'd have to know exactly what products he is talking about to comment.  Though Unknown Armies does occur to me as a game that would do what he is talking about.

I agree with both this point - that it is the relationships with others and society as a whole that create real emotion - and Balbinus' point - in that it is easier to emesh a character into a web of relationships if the character is really human to begin with. Working with superheroes tends to produce ersatz angsty comic book emoticons because it's harder to set them into a living, functional set of relationships.

-clash

Quote from: GrimGentBut even if the player doesn't object in any way and Ungar simply keels over, the group is still creating the story of a man who dies before his time, before finishing something important. The "subplot" is resolved by the death: he never fulfilled his goals.

Beautifully put, GrimGent! It's the more poignant for being unfulfilled.

-clash

I think that playing easily identifiable roles, or in an easily identifiable place IE things that we as players can experience in our day to day lives, can certainly lead to the creation of a more emotionally mature roleplaying experience.

But i don't think it ends there by any means. The most important factor in gaining that complexity is context. If your character is operating in a vacuum, where the world stops over the next hill, outside the door or beyond his own actions, then you're stripped of a context for your character to play in. Inserting that context into a genre game that we haven't experienced in real life is more challenging, but it can be done. It just needs a bit more work.

Quote from: RPGPunditRPGs are for when you want games, not stories.

Awesome truth.

Quote from: RPGPunditThat thread was trying to analyze why it is that game designers, and most GMs, are incapable of portraying more sophisticated concepts and emotions in their games, than the most basic infantile expressions, often even more basic than the sort of junk you find on television.

...but why the fuck would game designers need to portray "more sophisticated concepts and emotions"?

As you say, IT'S A FUCKING GAME! RPGs are Games! Anyone who tried to make RPGs into anything more than games by trying to inject sophisticated concepts and emotions are, altogether now, filthy pretentious Swine!

So why do you turn all queer now and wanting more Sophisticated Concepts and Emotions in your game? Wanting those things in a GAME is the realm of the SWINE! C'mon man, you're going all Mark Foley on us now...

Quote from: RPGPunditThis thread wasn't actually an "asking a question" thread, it was a manifesto thread.

(OH, ok then. Then this is a manifesto response. I'm not actually interested in reading any response you might have)

Quote from: flyingmiceSince RPGs have much more vivid characters than White and Black, the stories created from RPG play take on far more emotive power and resonance than other games, particularly with a group who enjoy the character aspect of play. Because of this, people tend to fall into the trap of thinking it's the story that's the desired end product when, like any game, it's the actuality of doing now that's vital. Aiming for story rather than play, IMO, produces better structured but not necessarily more powerful story, and interferes with some people's - I certainly know iinterferes with my - play by littering it with artificialities. You lose the sense that this is a life being lived, and replace it with the sense that this is a character being scripted, even though the scripter is yourself.  

-clash

Well fuck me. Now I get why I liked your RPG so much.

RPGPundit

Quote from: GrimGentBut even if the player doesn't object in any way and Ungar simply keels over, the group is still creating the story of a man who dies before his time, before finishing something important. The "subplot" is resolved by the death: he never fulfilled his goals.

You're missing the point. The point is that if the game is about dying when you take 50 points of damage, its not about creating a structured story. It will have story-like elements, but whatever "story" is created will end up being a random account of the things that happened in the session, and that's it.

IF your goal is to create a "Story", then you will have to run the whole thing very differently, and it stops being a Roleplaying Game.

RPGpundit

As with most issues the truth is in the variation of grey btween two extremes. If we remove all story from an RPG we get something like this:
GM: There is a room with three figs in it.
Player one: I attack fig 2 and deal 3 hp.
Player two: I attack fig 1 and deal 5 hp.
Player three: I use Stealth and move behind the figs.

Sounds a lot like a minis game to me. On the other extreme we have cooperative story telling:
Jim the Horrible: I stride into the room bellowing my challenge tot he three Troll witches of the Underdark! "Prepare to taste the wrath of my blade slayer of children!"
Organa the Pure: Outraged at the cruel and senseless acts, the cleric of Athena rejects the Trolls, placing a curse upon them.
Narator: Jim the Horrible engages the Trolls. Swords flash as he darts in and out of the reach. Organa calls upon her goddess to make Jim the Horrible's arm swift and strong. The fighting is intense and bood flows from the wounds of the Trolls as well as those of the fierce barbarian warrior. One strike to a Trolls exposed neck and the Trolls lose one of thier brethren. A slash to the thigh and the tallest of the three fall. No sooner has this victory seemed assured then the last and largest troll has Jim the Horrible hard pressed.
Kirin the Elf: I enter to find Jim the Horrible, my long time comrade, hard pressed by a garish green Troll. I fire a single arrow from my powerful bow into its eye killing it instantly.

As with most stories, it takes more words to describe than that of a game turn. My simple point being, I think there is story involved in RPGs as much as mechanical game play. If you remove one or the other then you are no longer player and RPG, you are playing a minis (or board) game or you are telling a cooperative story.

As to the original post, I personally do not believe complex emotional structures have a place in RPG rules/settings. They are the reserved domain of the GM. It is only in the execution of the campaign that the need fo rsuch structures can be evaluated and included. To do so with the setting would only complicate an already complex structure.

Bill

Quote from: flyingmicePlay is the immediate happenings - what is going on, who is doing what. Story is the recounting of play as a linked series of events.

Exactly.

QuoteAll play creates story

I would amend this to, "recounting any play is a story."  As we agree, the story is not the event but the recounting of the event.  This is nothing that would be contested by anyone: people tell stories about chess games they play, about fish they catch, and about toast they eat, and no one disagrees that (while not always interesting) these are stories.

Quote from: MaddmanI think a lot of gamers have taken a stance against 'story' because they associate it with railroading.

No, I take a stance against "story" because a concern with story creates a concern with story quality, and having read dozens of books on writing stories, things designed to improve story quality tend to have a detrimental effect on what I do want, which is verisimilitude.  I play for the experience of playing.

Quote from: MaddmanThe first step to communication is using common terms.  When I say story, all I mean is an imagined series of events.  If that isn't taking place in your games, we do not share the same hobby.

That definition of "story" is so broad as to be useless.  If any imagined series of events is a story, what would it mean for something to be a "good story" or a "bad story"?  And if you can't distinguish between the two, then of what use is this observation?  

I offer this essay for you consideration:

http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/suckitudinous.html

...and suggest that Holly Lisle's point is that a good story is more than just "an imagined series of events".  I wish the postmodernist meme to redefine everything so that it means anything and thus nothing would just crawl into a corner and die.

Quote from: Pebbles and MarblesLikewise with board games.  I don't pretend to be the bishop in chess.  

I've always looked at a chess game as pretending to be the general. I'm manipulating the army in way that allows me to defeat the enemy while protecting my liege.

I know, not much of a contribution, but it's what I got ATM .

Quote from: Pebbles and MarblesLikewise with board games.  I don't pretend to be the bishop in chess.

You've never played a game like Axis and Allies while speaking in appropriate accents and taking on the role of the leader of the nation in question?

Quote from: Pebbles and MarblesI definately agree that there's a narrative created in games other than RPGs, but I think the very act of taking on a role in a RPG makes the experience intrinsically different that a comparison to the likes of baseball or backgammon isn't particularly meaningful.

Why?  

If I'm playing a character playing baseball or backgammon and enjoy the experience, in character, in much the same way I enjoy doing such things myself, then how is the experience intrinsically different?

Quote from: Pebbles and MarblesHowever, I still don't see how it would be possibly to run a RPG and not have "story" as an element of play.  Said "story" might not be particularly detailed, it might lack all hint of subtext*, but it's still present in some way, is it not?

Once the concern shifts toward the quality of the story produced, then the focus and nature of the game changes.  Once the GM and/or players are concerned with story quality then the lack of detail, subtext, and so on becomes a problem and GMs and players become tempted to force those things into the game to make it produce a better story.  That has a detrimental affect on other goals for playing.

Quote from: Pebbles and MarblesIf I'm missing something, let me know.  If someone can point me towards an example of playing a RPG where a story of some manner is never created, I'd appreciate it, just out of curiousity's sake.

It isn't a matter of creating or not creating a story.  It's a matter of trying to create a good story and trying to avoid a bad story which makes a story-oriented game very different from a world-oriented game because what makes a bad story can produce strong verisimilitude and what makes a good story can destroy verisimilitude.

Quote from: hgjsI would amend this to, "recounting any play is a story."  As we agree, the story is not the event but the recounting of the event.  This is nothing that would be contested by anyone: people tell stories about chess games they play, about fish they catch, and about toast they eat, and no one disagrees that (while not always interesting) these are stories.

Yes - thank you for clarifying. That is exactly what I was fumbling at.

-clash

Quote from: RPGPunditYou're missing the point. The point is that if the game is about dying when you take 50 points of damage, its not about creating a structured story. It will have story-like elements, but whatever "story" is created will end up being a random account of the things that happened in the session, and that's it.

IF your goal is to create a "Story", then you will have to run the whole thing very differently, and it stops being a Roleplaying Game.

RPGpundit

I'm not one to be over restrictive in definitions - the greater meaning of Roleplaying Game may very well cover a game focused on storytelling, and it's not my job to define it - but it certainly produces a game very different than what I am interested in from a roleplaying game. Storytelling games, like De Profundis and Baron Munchausen, can be a lot of fun, but the type of fun they produce is not anything like the type of fun a traditional RPG produces. Other than that, I'm in full agreement with Pundit.

-clash

Quote from: John MorrowIt isn't a matter of creating or not creating a story.  It's a matter of trying to create a good story and trying to avoid a bad story which makes a story-oriented game very different from a world-oriented game because what makes a bad story can produce strong verisimilitude and what makes a good story can destroy verisimilitude.

Thank you, John - very well put!

-clash

Quote from: John MorrowNo, I take a stance against "story" because a concern with story creates a concern with story quality, and having read dozens of books on writing stories, things designed to improve story quality tend to have a detrimental effect on what I do want, which is verisimilitude.  I play for the experience of playing.

In what ways?  Can you give me some examples?  I've become rather experimental as of late, and trying to put structures in to make for better stories (strong pacing and scene framing, ending sessions with either a satisfying climax or cliffhanger, etc) has consistantly made for better gaming.  The last three years has produces more memorable games than the previous fifteen.  Verisimilitude I can groove on, I'm big into genre emulation.  Story isn't the only consideration and yes there's good and bad stories.

Do the things I mentioned interfere with verisimilitude, or was it something else you've encountered?  I don't see why verisimilitude needs to suffer at the hands of story, if the kind of story you want the game to create falls into your genre.

My definition is for those that say games aren't stories, because I can't wrap my mind around something that isn't a story yet could reasonably be called an RPG.  If you don't like it, that's fine.  I don't want to get everyone using the same words as me, just trying to let you know where I'm coming from.