The fact that despite several pages, not one person has managed to make a single example of playing an RPG without generating story pretty much proves that.
Right. However, the term
collaborative storytelling is generally used to describe something else. As I mentioned in the last few pages of this thread. "Generating a story through play" is different in colloquial use than "storytelling game" or "collaborative storytelling".
http://bleedingplay.wordpress.com/push/collaborative-roleplaying/ said:
In “collaborative” games, rights and responsibilities formerly held solely by the GM have been extended to all the players. Players may be given more input about the background and setting, play multiple characters, be responsible for creating situations, invoke rules, resolve outcomes and more. With these features, collaborative roleplaying games take advantage of the multiple viewpoints people bring to a game. Instead of primarily utilizing one person’s ideas – those of the GM – they find ways to intentionally weave together the many creative strands that are present. The historical GM/Player split is but one possibility along a continuum of collaboration, and new games that incorporate ways to make gaming more of a team effort capitalize on the inherent potential of gaming: the creativity of the entire play group.
As you can see from this link, a "collaborative" role-playing game relates more to players getting in on traditional GMing, not "people sitting around having a story arise from play."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_game said:
A storytelling game is a game where two or more persons collaborate on telling a spontaneous story.
["Story" link: Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, or by coincidence.
"Story" is this sense is used as "plot", which means that each player would need to "collaborate" on the game by making a conscious decision to add events that make up a story. If you make decisions in-game, but without the intent to create plot points in the story, you are not engaging in the "collaborative storytelling" as used in this sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troupe_system said:
([or
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/collaborative+roleplaying/en-en/) A Troupe system is a way of playing role-playing games which spreads the game master's responsibilities among each of the players. The term was coined in Ars Magica.
It is also known as collaborative role-playing, a term used by other games with a similar mechanism.
In a "traditional" role-playing game, one person typically acts as the gamemaster (known as Story Guide or SG in Ars Magica), and largely controls what happens in the game-world, what non-player characters do, and how the world at large reacts to the actions of player characters. However, in "Troupe" style play there is a presumption that different players will be SG at different times, when the game strays into their area of responsibility. There are multiple SG's who apportion various parts of the game-world and have more-or-less full control within their domain. One player may be the SG for a particular noble (the Duke of Burgundy, for example) and any adventures (stories) played in the Duchy of Burgundy or where the Duke is the antagonist. Another may control all the faeries in the campaign, and most or all faerie-focused stories. Most often, one player will be the "alpha" SG and coordinate overall interactions and continuity between these "beta" SG's and their various spheres of play.
In this method, also known as "collaborative role-playing", people take turns taking over normal "GM" duties. Again, there's a common theme to the term "collaborative role-playing" that exceeds "people sitting around having a story arise from play" or the like.
Basically, like it's been said, it seems like you're using a loaded term in that it means something else from what you mean (to some people). Saying "every RPG will produce a story" means something else from the above definitions of "collaborative storytelling" in the context of an RPG. And, if you're approaching things from a more literal definition standpoint, I'd say that unless the players explicitly intend to create a story, then they aren't "collaborating" on it. I can link those definitions and make my argument if you'd like, but linking definitions gets me enough flak to discourage me from doing it more often, no matter how clarifying it is.
I'm really not trying to be purposefully argumentative here. I do agree with you in that every campaign will result in a story. But, the phrase "collaborative storytelling" is charged with meaning already within the context of RPGs, and arguing with people who disagree might seem bewildering without knowing why that is. As always, play what you like
Of course as 'story' goes, it tends to the picaresque - it resembles the jumbled nature of real life far more than it resembles a novel trilogy.
