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[SweeneyTodd]

Yeah, I think you're right. I think the issue is "Don't railroad". I think any game designer or GM who does it is stuck in the frickin' 80s. I honestly didn't realize anybody would still think it was a good idea.

My issue, to distill it down, was that with that as a given, we still need to figure out how to play. "(GM) merely acts as guide to the game" and "the GM should get along" can mean a ton of different things. "GM proposes, player disposes" is great advice. You can also do "Player proposes, GM disposes", and you're not railroading, but play is probably really different. I was hoping this thread would take "Don't railroad" as a given very quickly (which I kinda think it did), and then be about discussing techniques that can make that happen while having the game still be about something. (That something not being "You guys have to do this", but rather whatever the GM and players decide is most interesting.)

I can't read mythusmage's mind, but I think a lot of his frustration comes from the fact that he means more than he's saying. "Act as if you are living in a virtual world" is vague to me, and doesn't say anything about what you're supposed to actually do at the table. For him, I think it's descriptive of a particular paradigm that implies how you do things at the table. I don't know what that actually is unless he says it.

 

[fusangite]

That's how I understand it, yes.

The concept of storytelling, and in fact, mainly, its emphasis in games like the WOD lines, pushes some GM to get frustrated when players "don't get along with the story". And IMO, that's because of the base assumption that is harmful to the nature of RPG (i.e. social interactive games of let's pretend).

Agreed. This is a bad thing. Fortunately, that's not the last word on the subject.

It is sad that bad and inexperienced GMs often conflate "story" and "railroading"; it results in people feeling justified in railroading their PCs when they're not. And it results in "story" getting a bad name when associated with RPGs.

But, fortunately, storytelling, as an activity does not, by definition have to be centred on an all-powerful narrator and a set of people playing "guess what I'm thinking now" with him. It can also be a truly interactive collaborative process; and more and more games are beginning to incorporate these principles as we can see with the increase in systems that use mechanics like "story points" and the like.

Like it or not, many people gravitate to RPGs because they perceive it as a storytelling activity. Some of these people, after getting involved and discovering most RPGs aren't like that, will become attracted to other approaches to gaming like a focus on mechanics or life-like immersion. But others will not; others will continue to try to participate in storytelling; the individuals in this category should probably check out games designed with the "Story Now" agenda in mind.

The game elements should get along with everyone for everyone to have fun, not the reverse.

Agreed. Hence the disagreement with mythusmage who posited the view that nobody should see RPG play as storytelling even if that individual had fun seeing the activity that way.

If that wasn't the case, why would I read so much subjects of GMs wondering why they can't control their PCs? My answer is almost always "because you're not supposed to control them - all you can do is propose. They dispose." It's part of the job of a GM to realize that s/he does not control the game but merely acts as a guide to the game. Sometimes the players don't want to follow the guide and in most cases the GM should get along.

I agree. I'm on your side generally in these debates.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And in case you've missed it, RPG as Story is just plan wrong. RPGs cannot be stories or, to be precise, like stories because you cannot predict how things will turn out in the course of play.

Where your argument falls apart is in assuming that you have to predict how things will turn out in the course of a story.

An RPG will never be a novel or a narrative, it will never be a TV series, or a brilliantly scripted play. It's far too amorphous and free-flowing for that.

That doesn't mean that elements of the game dissolve the elements of story. A story is a series of events. No where does it say that a story has to be a predicable or even controllable series of events.

 

[Odhanan]

Let me give you an example at how "storytelling" goes against role-playing.

Ever played Vampire The Masquerade? I did for a long time. My favorite sessions ever did not involve any successions of events that I -storyteller- would have crafted and put together for the PCs. They simply involved the PCs trying to make their hole in Paris by Night. Which meant essentially that they were walking around and interacting with this or that NPC, blackmailing, sucking up, backstabbing... whatever.

That's for me the essence of a "good" Vampire game. And this is in complete contradiction with the concept of "storytelling" on a RP practice point of view. Of course, you can speak of ways in the core book in which you can use oral techniques to implement mood at the game table, of ways in which you emphasize this or that element in the surroundings or the characters the PCs encounter, but you can't as a GM "tell a story". "Cooperative Storybuilding" would be a better expression than "storytelling". I would point out the social particularity of RP and non-story status of the game, since it would be "in the course of being built" instead of "told".

 

[Odhanan]

Like it or not, many people gravitate to RPGs because they perceive it as a storytelling activity.

I don't think people come that much to RPGs to tell stories. I think that they are interested in the "let's pretend I'm somebody else" first and like to bash goblins. I think the storytelling approach is widely popular for already practicing roleplayers rather than newbies (which doesn't mean that some newbies can't come to RPGs because of it of course, but they are a minority). Practicing roleplayers perhaps trying to make sense of their passion by elevating it to the status of Art with a capital A.

 

[Odhanan]

"GM proposes, player disposes" is great advice. You can also do "Player proposes, GM disposes", and you're not railroading, but play is probably really different.

In fact, I would go a step further: the best games I've ever played or run where games in which both concepts were fulfilled:

GM proposes then players dispose
and
Players propose, GM disposes

The true interactivity of role-playing which makes the whole fiction come alive.

There's only one way IME to get to that enjoyable point of role-playing: through confidence. Players should trust the GM's judgment, and the GM should trust his players. When you start thinking in terms of "that PC is munchkin" or "the GM tries to trap me" respectively, you're already putting your role-playing experience in jeopardy.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I'm with you. Interactivity is essential to roleplaying. I don't think anybody's arguing against that.

I'm letting you guys have the ground that storytelling as you define it is noninteractive. That's why I'm sticking to talking about Fizzgig-telling, which is similar but interactive. Yes, I feel silly about it, but it's less heartburn-inducing than continuing to argue that there is a possible definition of storytelling which is interactive.

So just go with this: Fizzgig-telling has nothing to do with railroading, and nothing to do with the "Storytelling" moniker slapped on 90's White Wolf games. All my posts in this thread refer to Fizzgig-telling, not storytelling. Making that change allows me to agree with you and mythusmage without changing my mind at all.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Cooperative Storybuilding" would be a better expression than "storytelling".

Methinks you create a false dichotomy.

RPG's are storytelling, they're just more than one person telling the story, and each storyteller, each player or DM, is reacting to the story the others are telling.

 

[Odhanan]

Yeah I understand better. I don't know for you, but I'm glad we are going back to a constructive discussion!

 

[fusangite]

What seems to have happened on this thread is that some have decided that storytelling has a narrower definition than I believe it does in practice.

(a) Predetermined: Some are arguing that for an activity to constitute storytelling, it must relate a predetermined series of events, or at least have a predetermined outcome. In my view, this is not a necessary feature of storytelling. Most storytelling has this property but some does not.
(b) Single Writer/Narrator: Some are arguing that for an activity to constitute storytelling, it must have a single author or narrator who has absolute final authority over all aspects of the story.
(c) Non-Cooperative: Linked to the above quality, some are arguing that storytelling cannot, by its nature, be a cooperative group activity.
(d) Audience: Some are arguing that for storytelling to take place, those involved must be divided into two categories: narrator and audience. Again, while this is common in storytelling, it is not a defining characteristic.

Storytelling can and does take place without being any of these things.