GURPs vs FATE

[TristramEvans]

At least two of the threads today seem headed in this direction, again, so I thought I'd try an experiment. Obviously, no subject directly related to RPGs is verboten here at The Pub, but some are much more contentious (and a headache for staff) than others, and this one tops that list. But it's at it's worst I think when it's back and forth sniping, vague references to opinions expressed elsewhere online, and an excuse for tribalistic fence-building. So instead of allowing that to continue, I'm going ahead and starting this thread, and laying down a few ground rules first. And going to be aggressively pruning it as a tangent out of other threads - if you want to legitimately debate it, do so here, otherwise it's just a tangent that's going to inevitably end in flames.

So here's the deal...

1. Let's start with an assumption of good faith. Yeah, I know there's histry. I know there's posters here who really don't like each other, or at least dislike the opinions others have on this subject. But if we don't start from the assumption that people's responses are made in honesty and without a secret agenda, there's no point in discourse.

2. Leave the stuff that happens off the Pub off the Pub. OK, so maybe you encountered someone who said something somewhere, or you've heard some group express some opinion and it gets your goat. We get it. But unless it's something people actually present can account for or respond to, it serves no purpose to bring up. By that same token, try not to speak in generalities or group people together. We're all individuals with our own opinions, and everyone can speak for themselves.

3. Don't use any terminology without providing your definition. It just leads t continued assumptions and miscommunication. We're talking about stuff far too nerdy and too specialized to have a common dictionary definition to fall back on. In that respect, don't attack or argue with people over their definitions, that will get us nowhere and just take the conversation in circles. The point is not the terms themselves, it's understanding what a person means when they use them.

4. By that same token, part of acting in good faith is, once you know how a poster is using a term, respond to their points or arguments on those terms, not your own.

5. Obvious logical fallacies - goal-post shifting, strawmen, appeals to popularity etc. won't be tolerated. These are also bad-faith arguments. If you need a refresher on these here: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/common-logical-fallacies. However, likewise, if you think a person is engaging in a fallacy or bad faith argument - let the mods arbitrate that, don't try to argue it with them.

6. If you find yoursef getting angry, or otherwise emotionally upset, step back, tae a breather, and remember none of this matters - at all. It may be you cannot change anyone's mind. The point here is for everyone to have the opportunity to communicate their POV and to foster understanding. Agreement isn't a necessary part of that. If you feel like you're arguing against a brick wall, just walk away. As long as you've clearly laid out your position, that's all that matters. there's no winners or losers. None of this affects your life or how you game.

7. Don't expect other posters to bend over backwards to reassure you that your PoV or your opinions are "Okay". You should already know this and not need anyone to tell you this. A person expressing their opinions and preferences should not be defacto interpreted as an attack on your own.

8. Jennifer Aniston and Brain Damage Boy don't need to be named or discussed. We already know their opinions, and the arguments they've made. This thread isn't about them.

9. No personal attacks, no group attacks.

10. As is probably implied, this thread will be more heavily moderated than usual. If you are upset with a mod call, then recall the Site and community forum is the right place to discuss that, and mods aren't obliged to put up with abuse anymore than any other poster.

 

[TristramEvans]

I'll kick this off shall I?

My definition of an RPG is, simply "Rules for adjucating interactions in a shared imaginary space"

This is pretty all encompassing, and I do tend to think that way - the hobby is pretty all-encompassing, of both multitudes of games and multitudes of playstyles.

So if I was to distinguish a game as a "storygame", specifically meaning not an RPG, I'd say that the games' primary purpose would have to be not interactions, but instead the creation of a shared narrative. I say "primary purpose", because any RPG can also, by default, create a shared narrative, even if the primary purpose is to role-play a character or characters.

I don't know many Storygames of this type. And I like most of the ones I do know, despite thinking they are not RPGs. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Hogshead I have a great fondness for. Ditto De Profundis, the only Lovecraftian game of any type that I actually consider lovecraftian in the true literary sense.

Narrative RPGs, OTOH, is not really a term I'm completely comfortable defining or using yet, and for me it mostly is just a distinguisher from traditional RPGs.

So for me, a traditional RPG represents a paradigm as established by the Anderson Braunstein games - a GM as the referee/judge/arbiter, and each player responsible for playing a single character, and making choices in the game based on that character's PoV. Thus, for me, a Narrative RPG is any game that significantly deviates from one or more of these premises - either the GM's role is split between players, or the player's role in the game requires choices based on a 3rd-person perspective.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, I largely agree about applying the term RPG broadly. To me, if it involves playing a role and rules, then that’s pretty much it...you got yourself a RPG.

Breaking it down from there is a little trickier. I don’t know the best terms to use....we have “Traditional” or “Story Games” or “Narrative Games”, but they’re all so inconsistently used that I tend to not find them all that useful.

 

[David Johansen]

Would you consider story cards or dice or one of those tell the story going around the table games to fall into your definition of story games or even rpgs?

I think much of the bad blood comes from as early as the old saw about "roll playing and role playing" & "D&D is just a wargame" and a whole decade of people trying to define why their game is good by D&D is bad. And of course, White Wolf's condescending tone hitting a decade worth of geeky high school kids that played Basic D&D and second edition AD&D and wanting to redefine themselves in college. Toby Maguire in Spider-Man 3.

D&D is a game with a focused subject and playstyle and games generally measure themselves from where it stands. Oddly enough, it stands right on the line that demarcates wargaming so most of the movement is away from wargaming towards story gaming. And we've all had that guy in a group who has to tell us that we're doing it wrong and aren't having the right kind of fun.

I wonder if there ought to be some kind of an introductory manual to the hobby that helps the fresh enthusiast so hot to display their mastery of roleplaying games to understand just how much has gone on in their absence.

 

[TristramEvans]

Would you consider story cards or dice or one of those tell the story going around the table games to fall into your definition of story games or even rpgs?

Hmm...well do you mean something like Once Upon A Time? I'd definitely consider that a Storygame and not an RPG. I'm not sure I know what story dice are, but I guess if it's the same intention, my answer would be the same.

I wonder if there ought to be some kind of an introductory manual to the hobby that helps the fresh enthusiast so hot to display their mastery of roleplaying games to understand just how much has gone on in their absence.

I think that would be incredibly useful, but hard to pull off without being contentious. I'm just thinking of the blowback that the Old School Primer received, as innocuous as it's intentions were.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Would you consider story cards or dice or one of those tell the story going around the table games to fall into your definition of story games or even rpgs?

I’d say that games like Microscope or Fiasco are indeed RPGs. Why wouldn't they be? The participants are playing a game that involves them taking on the roles of fictional characters.

What would that be other than a roleplaying game?

I think the problem is that at the hobby’s inception, D&D and the other early games that spawned from wargaming were labeled roleplaying games. Which they are, of course, but that’s taking a pretty broad term and applying it narrowly.

So now many think that’s the only way for the term to be used. But why? It seems to relate to tribalism and the other elements that TristramEvans sited in his OP.

“RPG” should be the umbrella under which all these games dwell.

 

[David Johansen]

Story dice are just dice with some words on them that you roll to get elements of a story. There are cards that are used the same way.

The primer would be something like the Geek Social Phalusies. A humorous list of dumbass things people think and say and an explanation of why they're stupid. A brief history of the hobby would also be included. Maybe we could get Jack Chick to illustrate it?

 

[TristramEvans]

Story dice are just dice with some words on them that you roll to get elements of a story. There are cards that are used the same way.

I mean, my mind is awash with possibilities, so I'd have to see the specific implementation to make a call. I guess the question is ultimately, are these narrative elements the primary purpose and a player roleplaying a character incidental to the procedure, or is it a narrative element applied to situation where the person is role-playing? Like, I could see dice or cards used to replace the random events charts used by RPGs, and by extension, assigning players the responsibility to interpret the results (which goes back to the sharing of GM duties). But if all that is happening is a story-telling roundhouse, like Munchausen, without any arbitrated interacting with a shared imaginary space, then I wouldn't call that an RPG.

 

[robertsconley]

I consider RPGs to be games focused on players interacting with a setting as their character with their interaction adjudicated by a human referee.

I consider storygames focused on a group creating a collaborative narrative using the rules of a game.

That the primary difference between the two is that Storygames have far more meta game mechanics that anybody can use to manipulate the unfolding narrative. As opposed to in character mechanics which are used to resolve what players do as their character.

The problem is the same problem with distinguishing wargames from RPGs that main difference is one of focus. A set of mechanics used in one is a war game, another it is a RPG, and another way still it is a storygame. However there are consequences to each choice of focus. And the result that certain things are emphasized in one but not in the other. Although the same type of mechanics are present in all forms.

 

[Arminius]

I don’t think the particular terminology is all that important. If Rob’s distinction of “story games” from “RPGs” is the same as Tristram’s between “narrative RPGs” and “traditional RPGs” then they are saying pretty much the same thing. The real argument to be had is whether the distinction is meaningful at all. (I think it is.)

 

[Trippy]

I’m not entering this debate until I complete my Dry January.

 

[Nobby-W]

OK, I'll bite.

So, here's some actual experience using Scum and Villainy as a more general purpose RPG in a way that doesn't quite fit its heist-downtime cycle. For those not aware of the system, S&V is a space opera game based on the same system as Blades In the Dark.

By and large, the system functions as a role playing game. You have characters, skills, task and combat resolution, wounds, systems for resources and encumbrance that are somewhat abstract but functional, a system for character advancement. It has various systems that would be characterised as narrative such as flashbacks and metacurrency.

I find the metacurrency, flashback and clock systems work well. From a straight gameplay perspective they're a good, functional mechanic, and the players are using them. They are good tools and enable a more head-first style of play. I like FATE's FATE point economy for much the same reason. It's helpful in bringing players out of a paranoid mindset and into the pulpy action-adventure vibe I'm aiming for in the game. I like them enough that I would consider retrofitting them to other systems due to the style of play they facilitate.

Although the games I'm running are PbP I don't see the metacurrency systems reducing the tension in the game.

Now, there are a variety of systems I could have used for running these games, for example Traveller, Savage Worlds, or FATE. I've used Scum and Villainy and overall I've found it working reasonably well.

Having said this, I've found a couple of mechanical issues with S&V for the games I'm running:

• As the games are not strictly adhering to the heist-downtime cycle of the parent systems, the players are burning their metacurrency allowance a lot faster than they can replenish it. S&V adds a second metacurrency system in the form of gambits that mitigates this to some extent. I'm tempted to add a house rule akin to D&D's short rest that supports a minor intra-adventure replenishment process.
• The combat system is a little clumsy in modelling unusual foes - I recently had a brawl against an opponent on combat stim drugs that I felt it didn't work mechanically all that well for. It went OK but didn't really do what I had intended. However, the players were cool with it and it didn't break anything it shouldn't have so it was OK.

I haven't gotten into the ship improvement (or HQ improvement in the case of The Outfit) as the games haven't gotten to the point where that matters (PbP games unfold much more slowly than games in a realtime medium).

Forged In The Dark (in its variants) can certainly be used as a general purpose role playing system without a lot of modification. The HQ/Starship metagame is really just another system.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don’t think the particular terminology is all that important. If Rob’s distinction of “story games” from “RPGs” is the same as Tristram’s between “narrative RPGs” and “traditional RPGs” then they are saying pretty much the same thing. The real argument to be had is whether the distinction is meaningful at all. (I think it is.)

Well, yes, the point in us individually defining the terms before using them is only to clarify what we actually mean, or are trying to say, when they come up. Too often these terms are just thrown into a conversation on the forums, and everyone will naturally default to their own definition when responding, which leads to inevitable miscommunications. The point of this thread certainly isn't to standardize the lexicon.

 

[TristramEvans]

I’d say that games like Microscope or Fiasco are indeed RPGs.

I'm not familiar with Fiasco at all, but it is a game that is often demarked as "not an RPG", I can't recall specifically for what reason. What sets it's rules system apart as so unique?

 

[ffilz]

To me, story game is a broad category of games that includes RPGs. I use this definition because it seemed to be the definition of Story Game at storygames.com. I agree with Rob that when the game becomes more about the metagame and less about the individual characters, and especially players stop identifying with individual characters, then I have a hard time seeing a game as an RPG. I don't think Universalis is an RPG, but it certainly is a Story Game by just about any definition of such. Now does it help this kind of discussion that I consider D&D, RuneQuest, Traveller, Dogs in the Vinyard, and Burning Wheel to all be RPGs but also Story Games? I dunno. Maybe I can buy into a definition for Story Game that is exclusive of RPGs.

For me, the Lumpley Principle - "System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." - describes what seems to differentiate an RPG from a war game. I also find Rob's definition of RPG to be useful, but doesn't quite capture the unique spark. Maybe Lumpley Principle defines Story Game in the broad sense I use, and Rob's definition clarifies which Story Games are also RPGs because the Lumpley Principle certainly applies to Universalis (note - I have observed a demo game of Universalis and read the rules, but never played myself) while Rob's definition certainly doesn't.

 

[Nobby-W]

And a few thoughts on using metacurrency and "narrative" mechanics in my gaming experience with them.

Metacurrency points (Inspiration, Bennies, Stress, FATE points etc.) allow a player to goose an important roll. They add a resource management aspect, but allow a player to ensure success on stuff that matters to their agenda. If you're going to use them at all, there should be enough in circulation for players to use them at least a few times per session; this integrates them into the game experience and is (IMO) more fun than my experience of one inspiration per session from D&D 5e.

How you earn metacurrency points can also be an influencing factor on game play. For example, I like FATE's compel mechanic as a way to encourage flawed characters and as a means to bribe paranoid players into coming out of their shell a bit. My experience is that it has been a helpful way to get players out of a paranoid D&D mentality and into a more pulp-action mind set. Other systems award them for more abstract things such as role playing or cool ideas but FATE's compel mechanic is the best application of metacurrency-to-encourage behaviour that I've seen. Players can also earn FATE points through self-compels, role playing to their character flaws. However the compel mechanic is tied up in aspect design, so it is dependent on players getting their head around how to use aspects properly - which is arguably the systems biggest weakness.

Clocks are a good way to move things away from a simple pass/fail, or single point of failure and the visible countdown is also a good tension builder. I like clocks for things like stealth as it gets away from the situation where a single failure disrupts an entire mission. This makes them good for the heist type games intended for the Forged in the Family, but they can be used for a lot of other things.

Flashbacks are another nice mechanic from Forged In the Dark (I forget where else they came from) but they allow little bits to be retconned in a manner a bit like the flashbacks from the Ocean's 11 series of films. They are a nice way to simulate competency porn in a game system, and they move heists from big planning exercises into a more action-first experience.

 

[TristramEvans]

To me, story game is a broad category of games that includes RPGs.

Interesting. So what then is the definition of storygames as a category that would include RPGs?

For me, the Lumpley Principle - "System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." - describes what seems to differentiate an RPG from a war game.

I'm a bit confused as to how that would differentiate it from a wargame - don't wargames also involve systems that are employed to define the imaginary events during a game?

 

[TristramEvans]

Clocks are a good way to move things away from a simple pass/fail, or single point of failure and the visible countdown is also a good tension builder. I like clocks for things like stealth as it gets away from the situation where a single failure disrupts an entire mission. This makes them good for the heist type games intended for the Forged in the Family, but they can be used for a lot of other things.

Can you explain how clocks work as a mechanic, as the last thread they were mentioned in there seemed to be competing definitions with me walking away with the impression they were simply a visual representation of a timeine or schedule - which does not seem to be what you are describing here?

 

[Brock Savage]

I don't have much to offer the thread right now but I have two questions.

1. Can someone please explain to me why the distinction between Storygame and RPG is so important that people draw a line in the sand over it? I feel like I have asked this one before but never get a satisfying answer.
2. Who the heck are Jennifer Aniston and Brain Damage Boy?

 

[Nobby-W]

Can you explain how clocks work as a mechanic, as the last thread they were mentioned in there seemed to be competing definitions with me walking away with the impression they were simply a visual representation of a timeine or schedule - which does not seem to be what you are describing here?

Not exactly a timeline. It's more of an accumulating success or failure.

One might start a clock for guards getting suspicious when the party is trying to sneak into the enemy's HQ. When they fail a stealth check or some such, you advance the clock. When the clock runs out then something happens like the guards come searching for the party.

This gets away from a single failed stealth check derailing the whole adventure and also allows the DM to use the clock to build up tension.

You can use clocks for other things where you want something to build up, or for opposed actions where the differing sides could pull the clock in either direction. They can be done for longer term things like factions' agendas if you want as well, although I think the key point here is that exhausting the clock is not necessarily strictly based on time or advancement of something out of the players' control. It can be based on other events such as skill checks.

 

[Nobby-W]

[ . . . ]

1. Can someone please explain to me why the distinction between Storygame and RPG is so important that people draw a line in the sand over it? I feel like I have asked this one before but never get a satisfying answer.​

Buggered if I know.

2. Who the heck are Jennifer Aniston and Brain Damage Boy?​

Buggered if I know.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don't have much to offer the thread right now but I have two questions.

1. Can someone please explain to me why the distinction between Storygame and RPG is so important that people draw a line in the sand over it? I feel like I have asked this one before but never get a satisfying answer.

Human beings will find any excuse to break into groups, and declare every one not in the group as "badwrong"

Once, it was a survival mechanism. Nowadays, it's the reason we can't have nice things.

Who the heck are Jennifer Aniston and Brain Damage Boy?

Ignorance is bliss, trust me.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Flashbacks are another nice mechanic from Forged In the Dark (I forget where else they came from)

My first experience with them was from the Leverage RPG (Cortex Plus game). I don't know if there was an earlier game that Cam Banks and Rob Donoghue cribbed it from or if that was the origin of the mechanic though.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Braunstein may have been an RPG, I dunno. I think it sits on the fence. I think Dave Arneson added something to Braunstein to set off the RPG movement (and then Garry Gygax took the idea and put enough of an approximation of it onto paper and published it that made it available to the masses).

I tend to think Braunston is to RPGs as Phillip K Dick is to cyberpunk. You could call it a proto-rpg. Its something that was maybe ahead of its time, but was too early to be part of 'the scene.'

 

[CRKrueger]

Forged In The Dark (in its variants) can certainly be used as a general purpose role playing system without a lot of modification. The HQ/Starship metagame is really just another system.

Ok, I’ll be honest. This type of argument seems to me to be on the line of disingenuousness.
Yes, I could also play a PbtA game by removing all 7-9 result choices from the player and have it be a random roll or the GM decides. In doing so I’d be defeating the entire purpose of PbtA, and I doubt there’s anyone on the planet doing that. The same with removing the entire “Here’s how you function as a gang” part of BitD as well as the Flashbacks since there is no actual planning, that’s the whole point.

You can’t have a game specifically designed (and very well designed) to deliver a narrative experience, which is what everyone who plays the game wants out of it, and then say “Oh well, if you take all that away, it’s like all the Non-Narrative RPGs.”

 

[CRKrueger]

To me, story game is a broad category of games that includes RPGs. I use this definition because it seemed to be the definition of Story Game at storygames.com. I agree with Rob that when the game becomes more about the metagame and less about the individual characters, and especially players stop identifying with individual characters, then I have a hard time seeing a game as an RPG. I don't think Universalis is an RPG, but it certainly is a Story Game by just about any definition of such. Now does it help this kind of discussion that I consider D&D, RuneQuest, Traveller, Dogs in the Vinyard, and Burning Wheel to all be RPGs but also Story Games? I dunno. Maybe I can buy into a definition for Story Game that is exclusive of RPGs.

For me, the Lumpley Principle - "System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." - describes what seems to differentiate an RPG from a war game. I also find Rob's definition of RPG to be useful, but doesn't quite capture the unique spark. Maybe Lumpley Principle defines Story Game in the broad sense I use, and Rob's definition clarifies which Story Games are also RPGs because the Lumpley Principle certainly applies to Universalis (note - I have observed a demo game of Universalis and read the rules, but never played myself) while Rob's definition certainly doesn't.

If you think that RPGs are a subclass of Storygames, then do you also think that all RPG sessions create stories?

 

[Dammit Victor]

I would define a roleplaying game (RPG) roughly as a game in which players assume a role (like Captain Tautology) and narrate that character's actions with some kind of task resolution mechanic. The differential characteristic here is that the scope of the character's possible actions is defined by a shared reality rather than the game's rules; it's the ability to take meaningful actions that are not defined by a limited set of codified rules.

I feel like a lot of advocates of old-school RPGs, the early D&D purists in the OSR and the like, treat this as a spectrum running from Old-School -> Modern Games -> Story Games.

It seems to me more like a... horseshoe, where movement from Old School Games to Modern Games means more codified abilities and more of an emphasis on "plot", less emphasis on player skill and clever interactions in the shared reality, which curves back toward more emphasis on "character" and more emphasis on clever interactions between players in Story Games.

I'm a big fan of Cortex Prime as my "storygame" of choice. And I've noticed that I can play "new D&D" with "old D&D" rules, but it's actually much more difficult to play "old D&D" with "new D&D rules". On the other hand, it's practically trivial to play "old D&D" with Cortex Prime rules.

Not calling anyone out here, because OP thoughtfully required that any use of a contentious term be accompanied by a useful definition-- but I've noticed that in conversations where that rule is not in effect, the term storygame means the person using it has a certain narrow band of roleplaying they enjoy-- the One True Way-- and then everything else is defined as either a "boardgame" or a "storygame", depending on how codified its ruleset is.

One interesting definition of "storygame" I've seen is that it's any game that has an intentional storyline, one or more defined arcs of beginning to middle to end that players are designed to progress through in order: basically, the near-entirety of RPG module design from the mid-80s onward. They are storygames because there's a story, and player agency is handcuffed to the expectation that the players will attempt to complete the story.

It's informed my own philosophy about roleplaying games in recent years-- I now try to express the premise of my game in terms of (multiple) developing situations that players may attempt to advance or quell as they see fit, with an intial goal of replacing myself with the players as the source of the majority of events that the players intersect with.

Except my current game, which is... in some ways both more and less of a complete railroad than practically any modern supers game.

 

[CRKrueger]

I don't have much to offer the thread right now but I have two questions.

1. Can someone please explain to me why the distinction between Storygame and RPG is so important that people draw a line in the sand over it? I feel like I have asked this one before but never get a satisfying answer.

Storygames vs. RPGs isn’t really important.
Narrative RPGs vs. Non-Narrative RPGs, however are the sticking point. Tristram wants definitions, so here goes.

Narrative RPGs provide core, unavoidable mechanical support for Storytelling and Authoring in a RPG by giving the players choices and metacurrencies that the character could not possibly know to use, or have the power to choose.

Non-Narrative, or Traditional RPGs do not do this. They may have a Luck system, but that is not a core mechanic and easily discarded. PbtA uses a dice system that most often will come up with the 7-9 number, which usually presents the character with a choice, but quite frequently presents a choice the character cannot make and wouldn’t be aware of. That is how PbtA delivers its Narrative Authority.

If you like Roleplaying mixed with Storytelling and Authorship, it’s the bees knees.
If you like Roleplaying without mixing in Storytelling and Authorship, it’s directly incompatible with your playstyle.

If you notice these kerfluffles, you’ll find out that 90% of the time they start when someone who likes Roleplaying+Storytelling/Authorship starts telling everyone else how Game X is no different from other RPGs, being told by people who just like to Roleplay without the Narrative stuff, that the game is quite different, which then means the Just Roleplayers are grognards, onetruewayists etc, for reminding people they’re not the only ones in the hobby.

 

[Nobby-W]

Ok, I’ll be honest. This type of argument seems to me to be on the line of disingenuousness.
Yes, I could also play a PbtA game by removing all 7-9 result choices from the player and have it be a random roll or the GM decides. In doing so I’d be defeating the entire purpose of PbtA, and I doubt there’s anyone on the planet doing that. The same with removing the entire “Here’s how you function as a gang” part of BitD as well as the Flashbacks since there is no actual planning, that’s the whole point.

You can’t have a game specifically designed (and very well designed) to deliver a narrative experience, which is what everyone who plays the game wants out of it, and then say “Oh well, if you take all that away, it’s like all the Non-Narrative RPGs.”

The mods asked youparticipants not to engage in this sort of thing and in two paragraphs you've just packed enough straw men to populate a Worzel Gummidge convention. And that's before one gets into the projection and other rhetorical devices you've just used.

 

[TristramEvans]

Ok, I’ll be honest. This type of argument seems to me to be on the line of disingenuousness.

As per rule 1, let's not assume dishonesty on the part of any poster. The criticism is fine, without the assumption that the statements are made in bad faith, just a different PoV.

 

[CRKrueger]

The mods asked youparticipants not to engage in this sort of thing and in two paragraphs you've just packed enough straw men to populate a Worzel Gummidge convention. And that's before one gets into the projection and other rhetorical devices you've employed.

I’m not the one who said:
“Forged In The Dark (in its variants) can certainly be used as a general purpose role playing system without a lot of modification. The HQ/Starship metagame is really just another system.”

That was you. It’s one of the standard responses actually. “Well, it’s mostly Traditional.” That’s right up there with “I can bounce back and forth between In and Out of Character all night long, it’s no big deal, everyone has fun.”

At some point, you just have to conclude the following...
1. The thought processes of In-Character Immersion are so alien to you, that you’re incapable of accepting that people Roleplay at different levels and not all mechanics are compatible with all the levels. As a result, you don’t even realize that when you say it’s just the same, what you’re doing is a OneTrueWayist attack because you’re basically denying that other playstyles besides yours exist. That’s very hard to believe, because I can understand perfectly why you like games that give you those Narrative Mechanics.
2. So if it’s not alien to you, what are you, trolling?

That’s why I brought up disingenuousness, because otherwise you’re essentially saying IC Immersion Roleplayers are no different than you, we just think we are, and we’re back straight to Brain Damage Boy.

 

[CRKrueger]

Let me ask an honest question.

Do you really think it’s a coincidence that people who like FATE, PbtA, FitD, Cortex+, etc are the peeps who always say that it’s easy Roleplaying back and forth?

Do you really think it’s a coincidence that people who like Non-Narrative games and don’t care much for the games above are the peeps who say those games interfere with their Roleplay?

You really going to tell me there’s no difference between the sets of mechanics?
You really going to tell me we mean the exact same thing when we say Roleplay?

I don’t give a fuck what “Real Roleplaying” is, I’m not a psychiatrist. But I know games with Narrative Mechanics deliver a different experience, because they’re designed exactly to do that.

Which is fine. Just stop telling me they’re the same thing and stop calling me a OneTrueWayist with the same breath that you deny my playstyle exists.

 

[Chris Brady]

I cannot meaningfully contribute as both terms mean the same thing to me. Also, I find the distinction as another form of tribal/faction partitioning that people are either put into, or willingly segregate themselves, to seem superiour over others.

 

[CRKrueger]

I cannot meaningfully contribute as both terms mean the same thing to me. Also, I find the distinction as another form of tribal/faction partitioning that people are either put into, or willingly segregate themselves, to seem superiour over others.

So because your playstyle and roleplaying method allows for no difference, no one can have a playstyle where it does. In other words, you’re being the superior one at the same time you’re calling others the same thing.

Thanks for perfectly proving my point I guess.

 

[Chris Brady]

So because your playstyle and roleplaying method allows for no difference, no one can have a playstyle where it does. In other words, you’re being the superior one at the same time you’re calling others the same thing.

Thanks for perfectly proving my point I guess.

This is Word Salad. I have no idea what you are talking about.

But I will guess, seeing as you enjoy attacking me, this is probably derogatory and implying that I'm somehow lacking.

Let me clarify for you in the back:

I've found that people who use the term 'Storygame' often imply or let others imply that it's a derogatory term for a type of player that is somehow 'lesser'. I do not make that distinction. In fact, I firmly believe that every single person's gaming style is unique to try and categorize them as 'Old School' or 'New School' or Story gamer or (Personal opinion) other nonsense as to be divisive and keep themselves from trying new experiences. Even the 'OSR' people have completely conflicting ideas as to what makes it Old School. Story Games are in the same boat for me.

One man's Story Game is another's RPG.

 

[Séadna]

So as said there's games that have mechanics purely for adjudicating character actions within the world and those that offer authorship abilities. I'd say two things.

First: Even within the former for me there's a good difference between when those that require the player to have detailed knowledge of adjudication rules (i.e. many player facing rolls) and those that come close to concentrating all the rules in the GMs hands and so players only imagine being their character with little interaction with the rules. Mostly this comes down to the groups style rather than explicit differences in the core, but they have a very different feel.

Second: I think what often happens in these threads is that Krueger (and maybe robertsconley) has the total absence of authorship rules as a very distinctive feature and thus the sliding scale of more or less authorship rules is beside the point. Any such rules directly stops the immersion process.

It's similar to a Historical Roman game vs a Fantasy Roman game. If you take Mythic Rome from Mythras, it's flat out not pure historical since there are fantasy races and so on. Many of us would say it's "near historical" or "lightly mythic" but there's a clear difference between Rome as controlled by the actual senate and Rome as controlled by a cabal of Immortals. I could easily see any of that stuff ruining the game for somebody who wanted direct immersion as a historical patrician making real life choices.

Basically depending on how important these things are to you it's a sliding scale or a switch.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

It works better if you see the distinctions as broad descriptors of of design schools rather than hard and fast categories (much like Eurogames vs Ameritrash). And I do think differentiation is useful, for setting expectations if nothing else.

So to answer Brock's question:

Can someone please explain to me why the distinction between Storygame and RPG is so important that people draw a line in the sand over it? I feel like I have asked this one before but never get a satisfying answer.

Because the "but they're all the same games" isn't useful for pitching games to players and it's too broad to lead to meaningful discussions of RPGs. It's like the perennial "actually, Chess is a wargame" argument. Amusing for arguments on the Internet, but not benefical to deeper analysis of wargames.

And it does fall into three rough camps.

Trad RPGs (I like this term least but we don't have a better one) - RPGs where players play a role from the perspective of that role and the rules are set up to facilitate interaction with the game world. Example: Vampire the Masquerade. Despite its insistence on using terms like "Storyteller" what I've just described is how it actually plays, by the RAW. As an aside, while in most cases we're talking about a fictional role that isn't always the case. Both Villains & Vigilantes and Timelords have the players playing themselves in a fictional universe and are still clearly trad RPGs.

Narrative RPGs - The players are still playing a role from that perspective of that role, but as well as that they are also making decisions about the game from the perspective of themselves as a player, rather than a character. Example: FATE.

This is a bit clunky, so it's best illustrated with an example.

Ryan looks at his sheet and says, “Hey, I have If I Haven’t Been There, I’ve Read About It on my sheet. Can I declare that I’ve studied this language at some point, so we can communicate?”

This adding of a "story detail" is quite obviously a decision made by the player, not the character and for me that's the crucial element of a narrative RPG.

Finally we have Storygames. In these, the primary focus of the players, the GM (if it has one and storygames are more likely to be GMless) and the mechanics are about filling in the detail for a very specific narrative. Example: My Life With Master. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Scenes are resolved mechanically. Players can alter the details of those scenes, but the outcome is not only determined by the dice, but is determined before the scene plays out. And the end game is similiarly deterministic, with the character stats used to determine how the character's story ends.

Of those, Trad and Narrative are both still unquestionably RPGs in my view, Storygames aren't. They came out of RPGs but have diverged enough to be similar to the difference between RPGs and wargames. And it's noticable that the people that actually play these games regularly seem to increasingly agree with that distinction. This is from the London Indie RPG Meetup Description:

London Indie RPG Meetup is a friendly and vibrant community that meets regularly to play role playing and story games which are typically small press, independent or unpublished.

They don't see the two as the same thing. So people fiercely defending the right of storygamers to call their games RPGs seem to me to be missing the fact they actually don't want to.

Practically, I don't think this should lead to them having their own subforum on here. Not only is there historical baggage with that approach, we simply don't have enough actual storygamers to justify it. In the same way as a handful of us talk about LARP on the main forum and currently there's no reason to separate those threads off.

If you think that RPGs are a subclass of Storygames, then do you also think that all RPG sessions create stories?

I don't think RPGs are a subclass of Storygames, I do think that all RPG sessions create stories. As do wargames and any boardgame with a decent theme/setting.

I broadly agree with your distinction between Trad and Narrative RPGs but find your definition of "story" far too narrow. You only seem to include set narrative in it and preclude emergent narrative entirely.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

As per rule 1, let's not assume dishonesty on the part of any poster. The criticism is fine, without the assumption that the statements are made in bad faith, just a different PoV.

While I agree with that, I will also say that it would really help if people could apply the same standard to Kruger's posts and react to what he actually says.

Because from what I'm seeing, Rob and I have repeatedly made similar arguments on here and we don't get the same reaction at all.

 

[cranebump]

This always come down to “if the GM isn’t in control of every single thing beyond your character, well, then, it must be a story game, because if I allow any player input at all into my finely crafted snowflake world it will break its beautiful filaments.” Seriously, it just never ends. I’ve had back-n-forths with people about Dungeon World who insist it’s a story game because they don’t understand how Spout Lore works (because they haven’t actually played the damned game, yet feel strangely qualified to make a comparison). This is a turf war, as much as anything else. I’ve played trad systems, and DW and FATE extensively. In all cases, players make decisions and responses get adjudicated. In such cases where a player may be invited to provide lore, the GM still has control over what goes in (or whether anything does). Haven’t found the level of “immersion” to be any different, and I say this having run the same people through multiple systems (God love ‘em).

Of course, here’s where someone tells me I’ve been doing it wrong...:-/

 

[robertsconley]

Second: I think what often happens in these threads is that Krueger (and maybe robertsconley) has the total absence of authorship rules as a very distinctive feature and thus the sliding scale of more or less authorship rules is beside the point. Any such rules directly stops the immersion process.

To be clear my take is not about whether a rule confers authorship, but whether handles something that the players does as their character, or it is something else that the players does.

For example in some games like Amber, creating a setting is not meta-gaming because it is a power that some characters have in the setting of Amber. While in other systems, creating a setting for the campaign is a collaborative effort that the players participate in not players as their characters.

My test whether something a meta-game mechanic is straightforward does the mechanic adjudicates something a character does as if I was standing within the setting witnessing the action.