Quote from: finarvyn;1060099Sorry. Guess I was being too literal.

It's OK. It's probably just residual SAN loss from GURPS Vehicles.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060271What a remarkably Pundit thing to say. I'm all against SJW crap but the fear of "storygames" is simply the inverse.

To be fair, these forums tend to have lots of folks who want to put the "game" back in RPG.  By which I mean they want a competitive experience with winners and losers.  Storygames are kind of the antithesis of gaming to them.

(and honestly, from a semantics/etymology stance, they may be right)

Quote from: san dee jota;1060288To be fair, these forums tend to have lots of folks who want to put the "game" back in RPG.  By which I mean they want a competitive experience with winners and losers.  Storygames are kind of the antithesis of gaming to them.

(and honestly, from a semantics/etymology stance, they may be right)

Y'know, I sorta wanna say the opposite. I feel that way because I find Storygames in practice just shifts the competition into a social popularity meta-game. I hate that; it feels like table bullying with cliques and out-groups. Enough with the semantics, solipcisms, and shakedowns to curry favor for the win, can we have a more neutral adjudicator instead?

Or maybe we've been playing them all wrong, as we're constantly reminded. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Opaopajr;1060307Y'know, I sorta wanna say the opposite. I feel that way because I find Storygames in practice just shifts the competition into a social popularity meta-game. I hate that; it feels like table bullying with cliques and out-groups. Enough with the semantics, solipcisms, and shakedowns to curry favor for the win, can we have a more neutral adjudicator instead?

Maybe it's my ignorance, but if you have a clique in a group of 3 to 6 players that is conniving to get their way in a collaborative exercise, that group isn't long for the world anyway.  Or everyone joins the clique.  Either way, the problem isn't long lasting.  The stakes are too low to be worth fighting over, and the population is too small to be sustaining of the clique.  

Quote from: Opaopajr;1060307Or maybe we've been playing them all wrong, as we're constantly reminded. :rolleyes:

Maybe, honestly?  If someone approach games competitively, it stands to reason that wanting to "win" a storygame would be a driving goal for that person.  Granted, I feel they are in fact doing it wrong, but that's more a limitation of the storygame's design goals of team built stories than necessarily bad play on anyone's part.

But like I said earlier, I'm not convinced "storygames" should really be considered "games" as much as something else.

Quote from: san dee jota;1060288To be fair, these forums tend to have lots of folks who want to put the "game" back in RPG.  By which I mean they want a competitive experience with winners and losers.  Storygames are kind of the antithesis of gaming to them.

(and honestly, from a semantics/etymology stance, they may be right)

Such things never left and the screeching against "storygames" is hypocritical tribalism. Does everyone enjoy the same things? Absolutely not, but to say that things aren't RPGs because they're not OSR-ish is ignorance. I'm ecstatic that the old ways aren't the only ways.

Now, where the leaky mindset of the kind of crowds that tend to gravitate towards said "storygames" infects the world, that's a place I agree is too far. But to paint a game like, for example, Blades in the Dark, as not-an-RPG is stupidity as is assuming anyone who enjoys it, or games like it, are doing it wrong/aren't gamers/are SJWs.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060321Such things never left and the screeching against "storygames" is hypocritical tribalism. Does everyone enjoy the same things? Absolutely not, but to say that things aren't RPGs because they're not OSR-ish is ignorance.  I'm ecstatic that the old ways aren't the only ways.

I -like- Microscope, and Kingdom, and The Quiet Year, and Dialect.  They're great, different, and I'd recommend them to anyone looking to try something new.  I'm just not sure they're "games" the same way Axis & Allies is or D&D can be.  I'm honestly wondering if we need some sort of "improvised communal storytelling with light role-playing elements" term to describe them.

Put another way, you can emulate the "game" aspects of D&D with a scripted computer program easily enough (as the past few decades have proven).  I don't think you could do the same thing with Microscope (unless we develop strong AI or something).

Quote from: san dee jota;1060324I -like- Microscope, and Kingdom, and The Quiet Year, and Dialect.  They're great, different, and I'd recommend them to anyone looking to try something new.  I'm just not sure they're "games" the same way Axis & Allies is or D&D can be.  I'm honestly wondering if we need some sort of "improvised communal storytelling with light role-playing elements" term to describe them.

Put another way, you can emulate the "game" aspects of D&D with a scripted computer program easily enough (as the past few decades have proven).  I don't think you could do the same thing with Microscope (unless we develop strong AI or something).

All of those are games, certainly. D&D and A&A are both games and vastly different, so that comparison doesn't click with me. As far as a computer modeling a game goes, that's another poor comparison, as no computer can adjudicate the potentials of table-play. That's a White Whale that's still being chased.

What I've noticed is that the majority here don't like how certain play styles are urged in certain games. They despise that the mindset of player entitlement and hand-waving storyisms are being injected into their "pure RPGs". Solution? Don't play with people who don't like what you like. I don't go to tye local store and bitch about D&D and Pathfinder, I simply don't play them. I play several "storygames" (as well as some not) and by a large degree dislike D&D. I find D&D boring, I find OSR games bland, I find much of the darlings here to be "Meh..." games in capturing my desire to play them. Still, I respect that people enjoy them and I recognize that while they're not my cuppa, they're often remarkably well-crafted games.

Where I think the lines get blurred is that sadly, "storygame" and "SJW" are often (justifiabley) linked. The same is true for non-storygames now, which sucks. Frustratingly, indie gaming seem to attract SJW knuckleheads, and I find annoying to be lectured about "Ists & Isms" (sounds like another game waiting to be banned) when I'm reading my escapes. I find it almost as irritating to be told that the games I play aren't games, are "narrativist shit", etc. It's all unnecessary and reductive.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060337It's all unnecessary and reductive.

I'll agree without hesitation on that.  But it's something for people to bitch about on the internet.  

Narrative storygames are not RPGs. They are narrative storygames. Just like how card games and board games are both games, but play quite differently. If people want to babble about how card games and war games are the same thing, that's their Freedom of Speech in action, but we don't need to pretend their bullshit means anything.

Maybe there are storygame groups not drowning in SJW stupidity. It's possible, but I haven't seen it. At our local events, I saw who got drawn into that crowd and let's just say that the actual RPG tables lost nothing by their passing. For that, I must thank the Forge.

As for competitive vs. cooperative, I would argue RPGs are more cooperative than storygames. The storygame tables I've seen have near continual skirmishes for spotlight, like a bad improv group, trying to push the narrative in their direction to maximize their personal spotlight time. "Winning" at their tables isn't about killing the dragon or getting the most loot, but about hogging the talking stick.

But if players are looking for a theatrical improv experience, narrative storygames provide that much better than actual RPGs.

As for a competitive game experience, actual RPGs do that extremely poorly.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060271What a remarkably Pundit thing to say. I'm all against SJW crap but the fear of "storygames" is simply the inverse.

I have never seen storygamers act immature as it were. Occasionally Id say its more the mental age limit of a small faction of these storygamers when you get crackheaded declarations like "Reading a book is Role Playing!" "Watching grass grow is Role Playing!" and so on ad nausium. Though that then edges into the storytelling faction. Most aren't like that and instead are just sometimes fanatical about removing a chunk of the G from RPG. Or at least chaining the evil DM in a little corner and reducing them to a vend-bot. Though over the years all the little hate terms they like to use have seen less and less use at least.

Quote from: san dee jota;1060288To be fair, these forums tend to have lots of folks who want to put the "game" back in RPG.  By which I mean they want a competitive experience with winners and losers.  Storygames are kind of the antithesis of gaming to them.

(and honestly, from a semantics/etymology stance, they may be right)

That is about as far from the truth as you can get. Try again please.

Quote from: san dee jota;1060342I'll agree without hesitation on that.  But it's something for people to bitch about on the internet.  

If getting upset about games of make-believe is my biggest "problem" life is good!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1060348Narrative storygames are not RPGs. They are narrative storygames. Just like how card games and board games are both games, but play quite differently. If people want to babble about how card games and war games are the same thing, that's their Freedom of Speech in action, but we don't need to pretend their bullshit means anything.

Maybe there are storygame groups not drowning in SJW stupidity. It's possible, but I haven't seen it. At our local events, I saw who got drawn into that crowd and let's just say that the actual RPG tables lost nothing by their passing. For that, I must thank the Forge.

As for competitive vs. cooperative, I would argue RPGs are more cooperative than storygames. The storygame tables I've seen have near continual skirmishes for spotlight, like a bad improv group, trying to push the narrative in their direction to maximize their personal spotlight time. "Winning" at their tables isn't about killing the dragon or getting the most loot, but about hogging the talking stick.

But if players are looking for a theatrical improv experience, narrative storygames provide that much better than actual RPGs.

As for a competitive game experience, actual RPGs do that extremely poorly.

Assuming we define "storygames" the same way, I cannot agree that they're not RPGs. Take my beloved Blades in the Dark and the assumption it's a storygame. It's an RPG, pure and simple. It's a game where people play roles. I've run it for four groups, three of them online, and there's only been one of the issues you describe, thankfully. There was one guy who got upset about not having a voice, he was told to speak up, he got upset about it, then he no longer played. Problem solved. His behavior had nothing to do with the game and he described similar things in his D&D game. It was him, not the game.

What I do think is a place we can agree is that those games are easier for attention-whores to flock to, creating the drama-fests you describe. It's really should be an instance of hating the players, not the game. Are some narratively focused games pure crap? Yes, absolutely. Great games such as FFG Star Wars/GeneSys, Blades in the Dark, Cypher and a few others have been unfairly maligned for being "storygames" and therefore not RPGs, which simply isn't true.

Again, those games might not be for you, which is perfectly fine, however they're not inferior "non-RPGs".

Quote from: Omega;1060349I have never seen storygamers act immature as it were. Occasionally Id say its more the mental age limit of a small faction of these storygamers when you get crackheaded declarations like "Reading a book is Role Playing!" "Watching grass grow is Role Playing!" and so on ad nausium. Though that then edges into the storytelling faction. Most aren't like that and instead are just sometimes fanatical about removing a chunk of the G from RPG. Or at least chaining the evil DM in a little corner and reducing them to a vend-bot. Though over the years all the little hate terms they like to use have seen less and less use at least.

I never felt shackled as a GM for what are often considered "storygames", in fact it's quite the opposite. I enjoy many of  the things more simulationist gamers don't like (player agency currencies, failing forward, etc.), but those things have never made me feel defanged, as it were.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060360If getting upset about games of make-believe is my biggest "problem" life is good!

Absolutely!! An extremely true point that is ALWAYS worth repeating.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060364Assuming we define "storygames" the same way, I cannot agree that they're not RPGs. Take my beloved Blades in the Dark and the assumption it's a storygame. It's an RPG, pure and simple.

I have not read nor played Blades in the Dark so I can't comment about it.

But if its a narrative storygame, then its a narrative storygame which are not RPGs.

And that's okay. Magic is card game. Ogre is a wargame. These games are not inferior for not being RPGs, but they are not RPGs.

LARPS are also great for improv and drama, but LARPS are neither RPGs nor narrative storygames.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060364It's a game where people play roles.

So is Munchkin, Talisman and Diablo. They're all fun games. None of them are RPGs.

And none of them are lesser or inferior to RPGs. They are excellent in their own right as their own types of games.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1060364It's really should be an instance of hating the players, not the game.

I don't hate people who have hobbies I don't enjoy. That's just lame.

But I'm not going to eat the bullshit sandwich sold by the storygame crowd who want to claim control of our hobby. And considering the storygame crowd has an ugly crossover with CTRL-Leftists and their totalitarian idiocy, its unsurprising to see the same tactics being used in our hobby, the culture wars and the political realm.  

A key SJW tactic is to control language by changing basic definitions. We can all refuse their agenda by refusing their false definitions.