Quote from: robiswrong;861916The thing that seems to define narrative games is that they include some level of the second interaction.  Now, personally, I don't see why that makes them "not roleplaying" any more than some elements of the third type of interaction, but that's me.

I don't think that weighting is of much interest to most people. We don't care whether it's more, because it's like whether you'd rather be dead from lead poisoning or mercury; the 'dead' part either way is the big deal!

Quote from: robiswrong;861951I played hockey last night.  We could tell a story about my hockey game, but the goal of it was not to create a story, and playing hockey is not telling a story.

I think that there's two interesting statements that can be made.

1) You can tell a story about the events in any RPG

2) The goal of all RPGs is to tell a story

I agree with the first.  However, I don't see that as significant, as I think it's a case of the larger statement "you can tell a story about anything".

I disagree with the second.

I agree with this, to the extent that I don't think proposition 2 really deserves anything but dismissal with laughter (though we may grant it more in generosity).

Some people might push that line, claiming story-focused games just do the same old thing only better, because they place a high value on being seen as following the herd even when they innovate, but I think that does the enterprise a disservice.

what defines a narrativist game?

Whatever label some one slaps on anything and proclaims it is. And eventually whatever a narrativist game was supposed to be stops having any meaning because it eventually means everything.

Doesnt help that the original declaration of what was supposed to be a narrativist game was so muddled that its anyones guess what was really meant.

Quote from: Bren;861955If you are really only saying that "you can tell a story about anything" than I am still misunderstanding you. It seemed to me you were saying and claiming more than that.

It seemed that one point was that all RPGs generate a story in the trivial or tautological sense that any sequence of events retold after the events is technically a story. And one can tell a story about anything that has happened. I think we all agree on that point.

Yeah, I might have misspoken. It wouldn't surprise me if I responded to something I perceived as going too far in the other direction with something more extreme than I actually intended.

QuoteBut here it seemed to me that you went farther than a tautological sense of "one can tell a story about anything that has happened":

Perhaps at some point, but not with that statement, I don't think.

QuoteNow first, nDervish wasn't talking about a character in an RPG, but a real bomb disposal technician. Let's pass over that as nDervish already covered that in a post of their own.

Yes, I get that now. I thought he was describing a bomb disposal technician character, which would have been something different than actually being an IRL bomb technician on the job. Someone else mentioned playing hockey IRL, too, in what I believe was a similar context. I think both fail as relevant counterexamples, though, because an IRL person doing IRL things is not the same as an IRL person declaring the actions/statements of a fictional character.

QuoteFor the sake of discussion let's pretend that we are talking about a player describing what their character is attempting to do in the game world. You seem to be saying that at the point that the player describes an attempted action like "I cut the green wire" that this, right in the instant of speech, is somehow telling a story. I don't agree and here's why.

I would say it's not telling a complete story in and of itself, but it is contributing to a story, certainly. An action statement here, a line of dialogue there, it all adds up. I think that layer of removal -- having to communicate the actions/statements of a fictional character to others -- makes it at least somewhat different from an IRL person simply doing an IRL activity.

QuoteIt is no more a story than a chess player saying "Pawn to King's Rook Seven" is telling a story.

I think you covered some important differences in the part I snipped out, but in addition to that, a chess piece is not a fictional character, nor is it meant to be perceived as one. Merely moving a piece on a board isn't the same thing as stating(I'd say the word "narrating" applies here) the actions and statements of a fictional character under your control, even if you do so in the first person.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;862292I think both fail as relevant counterexamples, though, because an IRL person doing IRL things is not the same as an IRL person declaring the actions/statements of a fictional character.

It is true that cutting the green wire yourself and declaring your imaginary character is cutting the green wire are two different acts. I think this difference is not as clear cut as it might at first seem.

• If your character in the game world is playing a roleplaying game and you declare that your character declares that her character declares....well you can see where this is going. The difference between performing an act and declaring an act to be performed can get a bit fuzzy in this recursive set of declarations.

• Also not all declarations of, or orders for, character actions are spoken. One can, and I have, acted out actions by my character.

One instance I recall was a character who had a magical amulet that granted wishes in a fairy tale sort of way. During the entire scene involving my character acquiring and using the amulet I kept my hand on an actual medallion that I happened to be wearing. I figured that so long as I was doing that in the real world as a representation of my PC doing the same thing in the game world, the GM couldn't argue that my character forgot to hang onto the amulet. For some reason which I can't now recall I thought there was some likelihood that someone or something would try to snatch my amulet. The fact that my character was had a very high strength (about 18 (94) or so) made me think that hanging on to the amulet was a pretty good way to prevent theft.
   Here too I think the separation of real world and game world actions is not quite so clear cut. Also, I was obviously not narrating anything in regards to my character who was also continuously holding his amulet.

QuoteI would say it's not telling a complete story in and of itself, but it is contributing to a story, certainly.

But in this sense, rolling the dice is also contributing to a story. Yet I think very few people would describe the act of rolling the dice as narration much less telling a story.

QuoteI think that layer of removal -- having to communicate the actions/statements of a fictional character to others -- makes it at least somewhat different from an IRL person simply doing an IRL activity.

While I agree they are different. I don't think the difference is particularly important or meaningful.

QuoteI think you covered some important differences in the part I snipped out, but in addition to that, a chess piece is not a fictional character, nor is it meant to be perceived as one. Merely moving a piece on a board isn't the same thing as stating(I'd say the word "narrating" applies here) the actions and statements of a fictional character under your control, even if you do so in the first person.

Here's where we don't seem to agree. While agree that my doing something in the real world and my having my character do something in the game world are not identical, I don't see any bright line between this sequence of possible actions.

• Moving the chess piece or ordering the movement of a chess piece and taking an opposing piece.
• Moving a unit on a board game map and ordering and rolling its attack.
• Moving a stand of miniatures (or an individual figure) on a sand table and ordering and rolling its attack.
• Moving a figure of a PC on a battle mat and ordering and rolling its attack.
• Moving a character in an imaginary space and ordering and rolling its attack.

This leads me to conclude that utterances directing a character in an imaginary space are more akin to moving a chess piece than they are to telling a story. After those actions have occurred any of the five situations can be narrated which creates a story of some kind and of some quality (often not a very high quality). A plethora of books that recount famous chess matches attest to the narration even of chess games as a thing that is done.

I love you guys.

I swear... this topic has been beaten so hard into the corner that it's turned into a fucking diamond. LOL

Unless you are larping or playing a combat with boardgame-like rules, the way you do something in an RPG is by saying you are doing it. It's basically a speech-act (q.v.).

Calling this narration--and treating manipulation of speech symbols as distinct from other types of signification--is to spiral down a logical whirlpool.

Quote from: tenbones;862315I love you guys.

I swear... this topic has been beaten so hard into the corner that it's turned into a fucking diamond. LOL

Dinosaurs turned into coal and coal under heat and pressure turns into diamond, so it makes sense that if you beat a dead horse hard enough, long enough, and with enough heat you eventually get a diamond.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;862292Yes, I get that now. I thought he was describing a bomb disposal technician character, which would have been something different than actually being an IRL bomb technician on the job. Someone else mentioned playing hockey IRL, too, in what I believe was a similar context. I think both fail as relevant counterexamples, though, because an IRL person doing IRL things is not the same as an IRL person declaring the actions/statements of a fictional character.

That's actually where I was going with it next.  

The main point of the bomb tech example was to determine whether your position is "playing an RPG is storytelling because you verbally describe your actions" (in which case the bomb tech would be telling a story, too) or "playing an RPG is storytelling because you verbally describe fictional actions" (in which case a real bomb tech isn't telling a story, but a player who says the exact same things while playing a bomb tech character is telling a story).

Based on the quote above, it appears that, to you, what makes it "telling a story" is that it's referring to a fictional action.  I still disagree, but now we know more precisely where the disagreement is.

As for why I disagree, my internal experience of in-character roleplaying is substantially different than my internal experience of telling a story and much closer to my internal experience of actually doing a thing.  The fact that the thing I'm doing happens to be imaginary doesn't change that.

If that's the issue, then again I'd point out that there's a difference between "describing" an action and "declaring" an action. Basically as Bren wrote above, if you're playing with one of those giant garden chess sets where you sit up high and have other people actually move the pieces for you, and you say "Pawn to King Four", you aren't describing; you're declaring.

Now, fictional narration is a problem in ways that factual narration is not. We can back up and suppose I'm reporting the chess match to someone over the phone so they can follow along on their own chess set. When I say "Pawn to King Four" I'm definitely not declaring, I'm describing. That would also be the case if, say, between moves I told you what the garden looks like and what the players are wearing.

But suppose the people on the phone got bored of the chess match and asked me to extemporaneously make up a story. Now if I say, "The man rode his horse across the fields," my words are simultaneously effecting and describing a fictional action. On this basis you might start to think that playing an RPG is "narration" after all.

Seeing as it's the middle of the night, I'm going to violate Internet debate convention and admit I don't have a well-formed answer to this line of reasoning. But I do think it's wrong at least to the extent that it ignores the varieties of social-cognitive stance that people may have in relation to the RPG. Clearly if we play a game of "I narrate, then you narrate", we're engaging in improvised narration. But if we play a game of "describe your actions within a virtual space and I will interrupt you to describe the result", we're doing something else--I wouldn't accept a definition of "narration" or that treated the role-playing in a military or business training exercise as equivalent to telling stories at a campfire.

Maybe more when I have time.

Quote from: Arminius;862324Unless you are larping or playing a combat with boardgame-like rules, the way you do something in an RPG is by saying you are doing it. It's basically a speech-act (q.v.).

Calling this narration--and treating manipulation of speech symbols as distinct from other types of signification--is to spiral down a logical whirlpool.

Right. Saying that talking or typing makes sufficient difference becomes utterly ludicrous since there are games played that way that hardly anyone would say fit the story-telling bill, while there are games with graphical and tactile interfaces that hardly anyone would say do not.

Quote from: Bren;862337Dinosaurs turned into coal and coal under heat and pressure turns into diamond, so it makes sense that if you beat a dead horse hard enough, long enough, and with enough heat you eventually get a diamond.

Quote from: Arminius;862381Seeing as it's the middle of the night, I'm going to violate Internet debate convention and admit I don't have a well-formed answer to this line of reasoning.

Good.  Neither do I.  What I've already said here in this thread is pretty much as far as I've gotten in my attempts to understand how/why playing an RPG and telling a story are distinct to me.

Quote from: Arminius;862381Clearly if we play a game of "I narrate, then you narrate", we're engaging in improvised narration. But if we play a game of "describe your actions within a virtual space and I will interrupt you to describe the result", we're doing something else--I wouldn't accept a definition of "narration" or that treated the role-playing in a military or business training exercise as equivalent to telling stories at a campfire.

Agreed.

Honestly, as we've gone back and forth on this, I've had a hard time deciding whether we agree or not overall, but this last quote here is really the thing that I get worked up about. To me, at least, "I narrate, then you narrate" is not even remotely the same as "describe your actions within a virtual space and I will interrupt you to describe the result" and, when someone says "playing an RPG is inherently the act of telling a story", it seems to me that they're trying to say that both of those are the same thing, usually with an agenda of trying to say that my preferred play style (describing actions within a virtual space) doesn't exist, except perhaps as a subset of the other style.

And, relevant to the thread's original topic, that's the primary difference between traditional RPGs and narrativist RPGs/storygames as I understand the categories:  Traditional RPGs are geared towards the exploration of a virtual space, while narrativist RPGs/storygames are more about "I narrate, then you narrate".

Late to the party, but I've found this article pretty good on what constitutes narrativist games:

https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/a-formula-for-narrativism/

I noticed some folks here tend associate narrativism with story-games and scene-authorship or something. As the article says, it´s not really the case. In fact, I've played a bunch of narrativist games (it's my favorite style! ) but never came across one that uses those kind of mechanics.

Itachi,
That's pretty much my game sessions.