Endorph posted:

i dont know what the gently caress this thread is about

PurpleXVI posted:

Storygames: The cool, right thing that happens when I play my favourite RPG's.

Wrongfungames: The wrong, bad thing that happens when plebs play their favourite RPG's or when they play my favourite RPG's but play them wrong.

Cleaned up the terminology some for everyone who was having trouble following the conversation.

OtspIII posted:

Just ducking in for a second to say I've been thinking about this a lot since last night, but that I won't really have any free time to post for a few hours.

One thing I will note is that I actually think dungeon crawls (which isn't exactly D&D, but is a playstyle pretty closely related to it) are probably the style of play that I think most heavily leans towards. . .I really need a better term for this than "stuff happens" gameplay. Each room starts as an independent puzzle/challenge, allowing but not requiring larger context to be brought in as appropriate. But even then, the general trend is to start with a bunch of "events" and still end up with a "story" with a "narrative" about what happened during the session, but all that just gets come up with as people think back on what they've done rather than while they're in the thick of it.

Err, I guess the one complaint I have about your definitions is that I feel like the "a record of" part of your definition of "narrative" is actually pretty important and has a lot of implications. Basically, it implies that a narrative is a conscious effort to prune a description of a set of events and give it a sort of "meaning". Think of the term "controlling the narrative" about a subject matter.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Oh great, now we can choose between roguelikes and visual novels. Thanks.

Endorph posted:

Glorified Scrivener posted:

Thanks and I’ll try to organize my thoughts more clearly.

In the first part I was trying to describe the style of play that I’m most familiar with, which roughly adheres to a dynamic of; Initial Situation -> Player Actions (+ GM Reaction) -> (New) Situation; repeat. Depending on the game the initial situation is set up by a GM or collaboratively by the players, the characters then take actions in response to the initial situation, creating a new one that requires further actions.

This can be complicated or refined all sorts of ways –the initial situation might include a timeline of actions that npcs will take until the player actions intersect with them, etc.

So attempting to use Effectronica’s earlier definitions, in this style of play the Plot would arise from the order of Events, with each Event being the result of player interaction with a situation, which creates and sets up the next Event. In this the player’s decisions at each juncture are influenced by how they initially conceived the character, what’s happened to them already and what they desire to have happen to them. This biographical element forms a major part of how each player perceives the story of that game and informs their choices going forward.

Now to make a fool of myself by discussing doors; I agree that the door being locked or unlocked depending on the drama of the situation doesn't make for a boring game – but also that it can potentially make for a game that never has boring moments. Which I admit sounds stupid. But if you elide everything surrounding the dramatic portions of the game with narration, so that choices only ever exist in dramatic contexts, it lessens the impact of those moments because they’re all dramatic. Even most roller coasters have long slow climbs that build tension and anticipation because they're not fast downhills.

So, in the example given, if the players come across a door that stops them dead in their tracks, how they determine to get past it isn't boring. I assume there’s a reason they want it open and multiple ways to open it, even if none of them are immediately at hand and they might have to seek one out and come back to that door later on.

UnCO3 posted:

This is starting to sound a bit GNS.

Anyway, here's some bullshit to contribute: a useful heuristic for whether something's on the storygame side of the spectrum might be the role of a character's failure in the mechanics. Does failure mechanically drive the story forwards? Does the game give equivalent mechanical significance and depth to a character's failure? Does it account for multiple types and layers of failure, both concrete and abstract, where a character can succeed on one level and fail on another? Does the game give players influence over when and/or how their character fails? Could a character conceivably fail to achieve their goals over and over again without the player losing interest or feeling that they've somehow failed? If you look at systems like Apocalypse World, FATE, Dogs in the Vineyard, Don't Rest Your Head and so on, the answer to most of these questions is yes - the systems themselves are built to make failure something that the players are mechanically and creatively involved in, and something that drives their story.

It's not perfect - Metrofinal would definitely be classified as a storygame even though ultimate success is explicitly guaranteed - but answering the question 'is failure interesting for everyone involved' does seem useful.

UnCO3 posted:

Ah come on mate, it's a waste of time to say you think I'm wrong but don't have the time to explain why. Give me a reference or a premise or something to work with.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Okay in all seriousness real short summary: People get very, very angry if you don't carefully define the difference between an RPG and a "storygame," and there's an entire website dedicated to it (RPGSite), the owner of whom sincerely believes there is some sort of insane thoughtcrime conspiracy to destroy RPGs forever.

I made jokes about this in the chat thread, which people didn't get, because it's a chat thread in Trad Games, so somebody made this thread to continue the discussion, which isn't a discussion anyone needs to be having ever, because holy poo poo


It's so


goddamn stupid.

FactsAreUseless posted:

The storygames vs. RPGs thing is stupid on its face, and writing this many words about it is stupid, and also the words in the word pile are stupid words, like "heuristic" and "wobbling."

FactsAreUseless posted:

Did you think it was in good fun when I mocked you for melting down in QCS also?

DalaranJ posted:

Can you clarify your earlier chat thread comment about not liking 'fail forward'? Do you think it is poor when taken outside the context of consensual railroading, or do you dislike it altogether regardless of play mode?

Everblight posted:

So because we met our Patreon goal for our podcast, I've been roped into running a game of Dread live on stream Saturday. Of course, before we met the goal, I promised that it would be JURASSIC DREAD, with dinosaurs.

Any advice or ideas on how exactly to integrate dino-horror? Obv I'll be cribbing from Jurassic Park and friends, but I have no idea how to actually pick a setting. Some ideas

• Players' plane crash-lands, Land of the Lost style
• Trapped in a museum overnight, skeletons come to life
• Time Travel
• Planetary Colonization (crash and rescue ship can only pick up at a specific other location at a specific time, to encourage motion?)

Also, is Dread okay if it goes kinda gonzo, rather than totally straight? It's entirely possible the goofyness of the scenario may not lead to the most spine-tingling role play.