Story-creation games (storygames) - are they RPGs?

[prosfilaes]

Sure they're playing roles. Most likely, they're playing multiple roles from a stance similar to how DM's play NPC's. Or, they could be focusing on a single role, much like a DMPC.

Again, aren't you arguing that DM's can't roleplay?

A DMPC is when the DM is trying to be a (non-DM) player and a DM. If you have a DMPC, then you're taking a player role in the game, even if at the same time you're taking a DM role in the game.

I don't believe it's a roleplaying game without a player, without someone firmly adopting a role. Even if you're roleplaying multiple characters, there's still something different about being character-focused, and driven to interact with a world via a character or characters, or being god-mode and interacting with a world using characters to tell a story.

I'd argue that no, collaborative novel writing isn't generally roleplaying, but, probably because collaborative novel writing isn't generally done sitting around a table together.

Neither are a lot of RPGs, any more.

 

[Hussar]

Neither are a lot of RPGs, any more.

Even though I play over virtual tabletop, I'd still say that virtually all RPG's are played in real time around some form of tabletop. Of course, there's always PBP, which is another beast as well. But, most games are not written with PbP in mind.

I don't buy the idea that the DM is not roleplaying. Then again, I don't buy the idea that the only way to role play is to specifically focus on only one role at a time either.

 

[SeprenMaelstrom]

I feel like a storygame, as the OP describes it, to be a branch of the RPG tree. Mind you it meanders off into its own air space, but it still got its beginnings there and is similar enough to claim relation. I feel it's more of a subgenre than a genre all its own. That's where the stylistic differences of how the story unfolds, how the players interact, and what sorts of rules are in play to do what, all really count.

I think a DM can absolutely be roleplaying! I'm a new DM myself, and granted it only happens much on days I'm feeling more outgoing, but a DM can definitely roleplay the NPCs that PCs interact with. It can depend on the person's preferences, but fleshed-out, in-depth dialogue and interaction are a part of many DMs' styles. When I think of a memorable / interesting character that I like, I tend to give them notable qualities or traits - speech patterns, appearance, voice, things like that. Even if it's not always the same character for long, without as much invested into them, it can be roleplaying without a doubt. Depending on your crowd as a DM, you can totally deliver a great session for your players if you bring a fun, intimidating, quirky or otherwise memorable character to life for them.

In some ways, roleplaying for the DM can be tougher than for the PCs, IMO. Players can develop their one [or two, or so] characters, create full backstory, and add depth over time while playing off of the others in the group. A DM will not always have so much focus and needs to be able to liven multiple characters over time, often uniquely so as to stick them to memory.

 

[prosfilaes]

I don't buy the idea that the DM is not roleplaying. Then again, I don't buy the idea that the only way to role play is to specifically focus on only one role at a time either.

It's a definitional thing, but I think the "I" matters; the more you move away from "I'm doing this" the less it's a roleplaying game, and the more it's something else. An RPG requires investment in the character.

 

[Mircoles]

The story games give me a headache, because I'm always left with an empty feeling afterwards. as if I just spent 4+ hours not really doing much of anything.

There doesn't seem to be a "game" feel to them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't personally care if they are considered RPGs or not. They are definitely different from typical rpgs, so I think it is in the interest of the people who make and promote them to highlight those differences so people understand what the products are. I do think some sort of designation (like "storygames") is useful here because if you like them, it helps you seek them out, and if you dislike them it helps you avoid accidental purchases.

 

[Desdichado]

In one way of arranging biology. It's not always followed, even there, as the very existence of herpetologists proves. (The smallest clade into include all reptiles also includes mammals and birds.)

I know this isn't really the point of the thread, but... no, it doesn't. Birds are indeed reptiles, but mammals are not. The clade Reptilia includes the ancestors of birds (non-avian therapod maniraptoran dinosaurs) and therefore also includes birds, but clade Reptilia is "higher" than clade Amniota, the last group that includes both reptiles and mammals. There have been proposals to replace the term Reptilia with that of Sauropsida that comes with less Linnean baggage, but to date, such proposals have met with limited traction.

Although, yeah--the discipline of herpetology specifically includes "reptiles" and "amphibians" but not birds. But the discipline of herpetology as a label pre-dates the introduction of cladistic analysis to biology.

 

[steenan]

For me role-playing games and story games are classifications that go in different directions. They have a big overlap, but neither is contained in the other.

Calling a game a "story game" is about what it aims for: creation of an interesting story by a group of people. Calling a game a "role-playing game" is about what happens during play: people taking roles of various characters and playing them out.

One may play a character, trying to create a good story. Or play a character, trying to immerse in a detailed, verisimilar, fictional world. Or play a character, trying to win against whatever fictional obstacle is presented. Or something else entirely. Only the role-playing games that focus on story creation are story games.

And one may try to create a good story by playing a character that takes part in it. But it may also be done without playing any characters, or with playing characters only occasionally. Only the story games that achieve their goals by having people act out fictional personas are role-playing games.

 

[Umbran]

I know this isn't really the point of the thread, but... no, it doesn't. Birds are indeed reptiles, but mammals are not. The clade Reptilia includes the ancestors of birds (non-avian therapod maniraptoran dinosaurs) and therefore also includes birds, but clade Reptilia is "higher" than clade Amniota...

The standard I know is:

Amniota -> Sauropsida and Synapsida (the synapsids lead to Mammals)

Sauropsida -> Mesosauridae and Reptilia (reptilia, several clades further along, leads to birds and modern reptiles).

I add for those not familiar with clades as separate from the modern form of Linnean taxonomic classification. All these are in:

Kingdom Animala
Phylum Chordata
sub-Phylum Vertebrata
Infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates)
super-Class Tetrapoda

But from there, we start breaking up. Tetrapoda includes:
Class Amphibia
Class Sauropsidia - which has sub-class Diapsida which includes super-order Dinosauria, which includes the progenitors of birds)
Class Aves (Birds)
Class Synapsida/Mammalia

So, in the taxonomic classification, Birds have been "lifted out" to their own Class, while their progenitors are down in a sub-category of a different class.

 

[Desdichado]

The standard I know is:

Amniota -> Sauropsida and Synapsida (the synapsids lead to Mammals)

Sauropsida -> Mesosauridae and Reptilia (reptilia, several clades further along, leads to birds and modern reptiles).

Reptilia was proposed by Gauthier in 1988 as a node based crown group containing all living animals covered under the Linnean definition, and of course their prehistoric ancestors. In 2004, Anderson and Modesto proposed a stem-based definition as all amniotes closer to the sand lizard and nile crocodile than to Homo sapiens, which is equivalent to Sauropsida in Laurin and Reisz's node-based definition of Sauropsida as the last common ancestor of mesosaurs, testudines and diapsids and all their descendents. The relationship of Parareptilia and Reptilia seems to have been an issue of considerable debate, and continues to be a question of which phylogeny are you looking at today.

And a new study just released a few months ago on the cranial morphology of Mesosaurus itself threatens to throw the door open to re-evaluting its phylogenitc position all over again.