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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6420644" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't really know what a "storygame" is - it's a label I typically see applied to explain why what someone else is doing is not RPGing.</p><p></p><p>But let's take Burning Wheel. Players can make checks to establish that the NPCs their PCs want to meet are there to be met (the Circles mechanic). Players, as part of PC generation, can purchase relationships which, in the default approach to BW gameplay, the GM is obliged to integrate into the framing of situations?</p><p></p><p>BW also has various forms of "action point", earned via various sorts of RP decisions made by the players, that can be spent to boost checks or, in some situations, to renarrate failures.</p><p></p><p>Does this make BW a storygame? Because to me it is just another RPG.</p><p></p><p>OGL Conan has a fate point mechanic that allows minor narrations. It's actually more liberal in this respect than BW, because in BW to meet a friendly NPC requires making a successful check, and if the check fails then the authority shifts to the GM to introduce some sort of complication arising out of the failed attempt to hook up with an NPC.</p><p></p><p>So to me, BW's Circles mechanic is not very different from a Streetwise or Gather Information mechanic. Whereas OGL Conan's fate points are more overtly about player fiat.</p><p></p><p>I've never seen OGL Conan described as a storygame, though.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure this is right. In classic D&D, for instance, the players make decisions in part on the basis of knowledge about the level of threat - for instance, decisions about dungeon levels, decisions about whether or not to tackle the wilderness, etc, and these are not really based just on "playing a role". They're also based on understandings about the way in which the rules establish a gameworld default that is suitable for a certain sort of adventurous game play.</p><p></p><p>Once you get to non-classic modules, which is nearly everything published in the last 30 or so years, I think the influence of these considerations only grows. For instance, the AD&D Oriental Adventure modules (just to pick some examples that I know reasonably well) take for granted that the players will engage the situations in a spirit of protagonism. They are not simply exercises in world and character exploration.</p><p></p><p>In my experience a bad player can make any RPG hell - especially, but not only, if that bad player is GMing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6420644, member: 42582"] I don't really know what a "storygame" is - it's a label I typically see applied to explain why what someone else is doing is not RPGing. But let's take Burning Wheel. Players can make checks to establish that the NPCs their PCs want to meet are there to be met (the Circles mechanic). Players, as part of PC generation, can purchase relationships which, in the default approach to BW gameplay, the GM is obliged to integrate into the framing of situations? BW also has various forms of "action point", earned via various sorts of RP decisions made by the players, that can be spent to boost checks or, in some situations, to renarrate failures. Does this make BW a storygame? Because to me it is just another RPG. OGL Conan has a fate point mechanic that allows minor narrations. It's actually more liberal in this respect than BW, because in BW to meet a friendly NPC requires making a successful check, and if the check fails then the authority shifts to the GM to introduce some sort of complication arising out of the failed attempt to hook up with an NPC. So to me, BW's Circles mechanic is not very different from a Streetwise or Gather Information mechanic. Whereas OGL Conan's fate points are more overtly about player fiat. I've never seen OGL Conan described as a storygame, though. I'm not sure this is right. In classic D&D, for instance, the players make decisions in part on the basis of knowledge about the level of threat - for instance, decisions about dungeon levels, decisions about whether or not to tackle the wilderness, etc, and these are not really based just on "playing a role". They're also based on understandings about the way in which the rules establish a gameworld default that is suitable for a certain sort of adventurous game play. Once you get to non-classic modules, which is nearly everything published in the last 30 or so years, I think the influence of these considerations only grows. For instance, the AD&D Oriental Adventure modules (just to pick some examples that I know reasonably well) take for granted that the players will engage the situations in a spirit of protagonism. They are not simply exercises in world and character exploration. In my experience a bad player can make any RPG hell - especially, but not only, if that bad player is GMing. [/QUOTE]
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