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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 9254191" data-attributes="member: 86653">At a guess, this is where we'd diverge in our definitions. The emergent story in RPGs is what happens when you combine the referee's prep with the players' choices and the chaos of math rocks. Emergent storytelling here is simply shorthand for not railroading. The referee as honest collaborator with the players to see what happens. That oft repeated phrase from PBTA and FitD games is apropos: play to find out what happens. Whatever story the game can said to have is organically emergent from prep, choices, and dice...it is not imposed upon the players by the referee. The referee can absolutely prep NPCs, factions, worlds, etc and can absolutely give those NPCs, factions, etc goals and motivations and set them in motion. But the referee shouldn't force the PCs to deal with those NPCs, factions, etc. Nor should the referee force specific outcomes on the players. Respecting player agency and being an honest collaborator are the goals. You're not collaborating if your thumb is on the scale. You're dictating a pre-defined story to your players. The players can and should decide what their goals are and pursue them. To not do that, to wait for the referee to feed them the "story" is to shortchange the whole experience of playing RPGs. An experience vaguely similar to MadLibs or a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with dice isn't what I want from RPGs. And I certainly don't want the referee to undermine my choices as a player to force me to engage with whatever story they've decided I really need to sit though. I'll read the novel after they write it down. I don't need to play through their rough draft.I would disagree with that bolded bit as it necessarily removes 5-word stories from your definition of story. Unless you mean these terms in the literal sense rather than how they're typically used in discussions of story. Things like beginning, middle, and end story structure, act structure, etc simply don't apply to something like a 5-word story. Take the 6-word story that's most likely not by Ernest Hemingway. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." You can literally say it's broken up into three 2-word pieces ("For sale," "baby shoes," "never worn") but you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that this flash fiction follows three-act structure.I'd say it absolutely is. An RPG campaign isn't defined as a single overarching story. A campaign can just as easily be a series of linked one shots. Because even if the individual episodes (one-shots) are not thematically linked to each other, the PCs link them together. The campaign is the story of what happens to this group of adventurers, whatever that may be. That's the overarching story, regardless of if it's episodic or serialized. Whether specific PCs live or die during the campaign is also irrelevant as the overarching story is about the group as a whole, not specific characters surviving to the end.The definition of "story" where's it's determined in advance is where people who prefer emergent storytelling balk the most. You absolutely can have a story without it being determined beforehand. Ask anyone who's played a PBTA or BitD game. Tell them what they played through wasn't a story simply because it emerged from play rather than was defined ahead of time.Story is what you piece together after the game is played. Story is what actually happened in the game. You go left when the module said you had to go right, that's part of the story. The players are supposed to have an easy time with the guards but a tough time with the boss, but the chaotic math rocks said hell no! That's part of the story. That's not something you can or should determine ahead of time.For me, yes, referees should only ever strive for emergent storytelling at the RPG table. To do otherwise is to shortchange both the game and the players from a truly collaborative storytelling experience. That is, to deny them the very thing that makes RPGs unique.</blockquote>

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