Quote from: chirine ba kal;980576So, my General, you played in my Barsoom game at Free RPG Day - was it 'trad' or 'story'? Inquiring minds want to know, especially after all the grief I've gotten for the way I game; I'd like to know what it is that I do that seems to cause them to break out into a rash...

Totally off topic, but I would have loved to have been able to participate in this!

Quote from: finarvyn;980655Totally off topic, but I would have loved to have been able to participate in this!

Man you go off topic that sounds far more interesting than the game theory wank off.

*I too would have loved to be in on this game ak Ohum Oktay Weez.

Quote from: Voros;980599I also think to claim that storygames are somehow stretching the term game to absurd deformity less than convincing. When kids get together and play house or cops and robbers or pretend to be superheroes it would be distorting the term to somehow claim they aren't playing a game. We all understand that those are games. Hence the eternal cry of childhood 'Let's Play a Game!' It would be absurd to try and exclude that most fundamental form of play from the definition of game.

When I was a kid, we said "let's play Cops & Robbers", but we never, ever, called it a "game". Just because people are "playing" doesn't mean what they are doing is "game". That's the exact stretch that makes the conversation especially irritating to folks on both sides, and the fact that you felt differently about what a "game" is, is exactly my point.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;980576So, my General, you played in my Barsoom game at Free RPG Day - was it 'trad' or 'story'? Inquiring minds want to know, especially after all the grief I've gotten for the way I game; I'd like to know what it is that I do that seems to cause them to break out into a rash...

"Free Kriegsspiel" is what causes the skin disorders; you don't have a huge set of weighty tomes that you thumb through continuously.

Your games are straight traditional; the player has absolute agency over their character and the referee has absolute agency over everything else.  There is no thought to "what would create a good narrative or story," it is entirely "This is the situation; based on the PC actions, what is the logical outcome."  Outside of declaration of their own actions, players do not have the right of fiat; a player cannot say "The captain of the flyer is my father" and have it be taken as absolute truth, though suggestions are always possible.

This list is not exhaustive, but it points to a few of the things commonly associated with what are often called story games.  Nor is it intended to be taxonomic.

It worked so well because many of us knew each other, we were all there to have fun and relax, and several of us knew the environment up, down, left, right, and sideways.

Quote from: Zalman;980658When I was a kid, we said "let's play Cops & Robbers", but we never, ever, called it a "game". Just because people are "playing" doesn't mean what they are doing is "game". That's the exact stretch that makes the conversation especially irritating to folks on both sides, and the fact that you felt differently about what a "game" is, is exactly my point.

Interestingly, Rob Kuntz made the same point when I was chatting with him at GaryCon a few years back; "They're playing, but it's not a game."

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;980634The vitriol came about because storygamers were led by Ron Edwards, who said that bad gaming (by "bad" he meant D&D) caused actual brain damage; when asked to clarify, he said it was just like child sexual abuse. So the nastiness was instigated by storygamers. Until that guy came along, storygamers were regarded by the rest of us as like diceless gamers (to whom they are closely related) - odd, but harmless.

Quote from: Zalman;980658When I was a kid, we said "let's play Cops & Robbers", but we never, ever, called it a "game". Just because people are "playing" doesn't mean what they are doing is "game". That's the exact stretch that makes the conversation especially irritating to folks on both sides, and the fact that you felt differently about what a "game" is, is exactly my point.

Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm . .  . left without anything to add to these cogent posts.

Well, fuck me.

Quote from: Zalman;980658When I was a kid, we said "let's play Cops & Robbers", but we never, ever, called it a "game". Just because people are "playing" doesn't mean what they are doing is "game". That's the exact stretch that makes the conversation especially irritating to folks on both sides, and the fact that you felt differently about what a "game" is, is exactly my point.

So kids playing pretend aren't playing a game? I'd disagree. I think you're defining what a game is now and projecting it back.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980679"Free Kriegsspiel" is what causes the skin disorders; you don't have a huge set of weighty tomes that you thumb through continuously.

Your games are straight traditional; the player has absolute agency over their character and the referee has absolute agency over everything else.  There is no thought to "what would create a good narrative or story," it is entirely "This is the situation; based on the PC actions, what is the logical outcome."  Outside of declaration of their own actions, players do not have the right of fiat; a player cannot say "The captain of the flyer is my father" and have it be taken as absolute truth, though suggestions are always possible.

This list is not exhaustive, but it points to a few of the things commonly associated with what are often called story games.  Nor is it intended to be taxonomic.

It worked so well because many of us knew each other, we were all there to have fun and relax, and several of us knew the environment up, down, left, right, and sideways.

I believe you've played DW, do you consider that a 'storygame'?

What storygames in particular have you played?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980679"Free Kriegsspiel" is what causes the skin disorders; you don't have a huge set of weighty tomes that you thumb through continuously.

Your games are straight traditional; the player has absolute agency over their character and the referee has absolute agency over everything else.  There is no thought to "what would create a good narrative or story," it is entirely "This is the situation; based on the PC actions, what is the logical outcome."  Outside of declaration of their own actions, players do not have the right of fiat; a player cannot say "The captain of the flyer is my father" and have it be taken as absolute truth, though suggestions are always possible.

This list is not exhaustive, but it points to a few of the things commonly associated with what are often called story games.  Nor is it intended to be taxonomic.

It worked so well because many of us knew each other, we were all there to have fun and relax, and several of us knew the environment up, down, left, right, and sideways.

Um, okay; I think I get it. I'm just not familiar with what's being called 'game theory' here; I'm used to what it used to be the term for, back in the day.

Fascinating discussion. I seem to know less and less every day. I think I'm not even sure what 'trad' and 'story games' mean. 'Course, my gaming experience is so very limited, it should not be a surprise to me that this is the case.

Quote from: finarvyn;980655Totally off topic, but I would have loved to have been able to participate in this!

I thought that it was quite fun. Lots of heroics and derring-do, lots of swashbuckling and Technicolor adventure. I had a good time running it.

For me, the exemplary 'Story Game' is something like Fiasco or Once Upon a Time, where the actual gameplay targets the development of a story as the game's primary aim. There may be aspects that allow roleplaying along the way, but in actual fact, it is possibly to play these games without roleplaying much.

A roleplaying game, on the other hand has it's primary aim of playing the role of somebody in a fictionalised or virtual setting. It too can generate a story as a by product, but the degree in which this is important (which can vary from one game to another) is still secondary to the primary aim of simply interacting with the setting via a role you play.  

The notion of power structures within each game set up - as in collaborative design of a setting or shared responsibility for refereeing during the course of a game - are common features to both, but not definitive of one category or another.

So, Fiasco is a story-game which allows players opportunities to roleplay, and FATE is a roleplaying game with storytelling ambitions. That's the difference.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;980646I dislike much of the terminology of the 'story-game' movement, including questionable definitions and the tendency to tribalise and proselytise particular games and systems over others, as opposed to any particular objections to games themselves.

For example, I dislike the term 'traditional' - which implies that certain games are orthodox and uncreative in their design - or 'simulationist' which is largely used as an insult by some.

I like traditional -- but then I have positive connotations with the word (something "traditional" is often something that works. It's also something that hip young people rail against until they realize that it's a tradition because it works. Both of those are good things in my mind).

GNS committed innumerable crimes against the term Simulationism, so that it's almost useless. Which is a shame.

GDS-Simulationist made a lot of sense and is a very viable concept for diagnosing GMing decisions (you rule based on what you think would happen, even if that makes for a less interesting story or leads to an anticlimactic or overwhelming challenge).

GNS-Simulationism started as some kind of exploration of story and then devolved into something undefined because they couldn't pack all the negative things they had in mind into the "exploration" definition.

I thing GDS deserves more glory than it ever got, but I'd avoid using those terms as written since GNS really did a number on them.

Cheers,
-E.

Role-playing game vs. Storygame isn't a War at all.  There are not all that many Storygames, really.

You did and still do see resentment and internet drama over roleplaying games with increasing amounts of "narrativium", ie. OOC metagame mechanics there for various reasons having to with narrative control and author stance, especially when the mechanics are not optional and/or difficult to remove and especially when the game is using a long-standing IP that historically did not have those mechanics.

However, in broader gaming discussion, like the chans, reddit, even purple,  the idea that certain games are "pretty narrative", might be "too storygamey for me", or "kinda forgey" is just accepted and people move on.  

It's really only on this site here that we always get "theRPGsite narrative dance" where people will claim games have no OOC elements, aren't created to provide any narrative elements, engage in some flavor of distinction denial, crying foul at some form of "narrative persecution" when someone attempts to state an opinion, etc.

Quote from: CRKrueger;980710It's really only on this site here that we always get "theRPGsite narrative dance" where people will claim games have no OOC elements, aren't created to provide any narrative elements, engage in some flavor of distinction denial, crying foul at some form of "narrative persecution" when someone attempts to state an opinion, etc.

   Well, that isn't helped by the Pundit still waging war against the Forge and 'the Swine', especially since it's impossible to put him on Ignore.

  (Personally, I'm at the point where I'm happy to leave "roleplaying games" to the immersion purists and go with 'Dramatic Adventure Game' for the more mixed ones. But I'm also ready to say that the OSR can have D&D if I'm allowed to keep 4E, the 2E fluff and settings, and a few odds and ends from BECMI. )

It does work the other way too, with little attitude issues that you pick up here and there.

When Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 4th edition was announced, for example, it didn't take long for gamers to rush online to start arguing that the game needed to remove 'simulationist' aspects from the game system (whatever that meant). In conversation with a fan of Monster Hearts, she tried to explain that this was a "deeper" game than Vampire: The Masquerade because it was a 'narrativist' game (she couldn't actually explain how specifically it made for a deeper experience, nor how it was more definitively 'narrativist' in design).  

The terms have filtered into common use in the hobby, but often as not they are meaningless and really just a crutch for gamers trying to proselytise their own preferences.