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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6062250" data-attributes="member: 87792">And RPGs include <a href="http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml" target="_blank">FATAL</a>.  Your point?This is a whole new set of questions - and I don't think a good story game has any one set definition other than that it inspires people to tell better stories and more easily than sitting round in a circle with no rules would.Most story games derive from RPGs - but I'd hesitate to call <a href="http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/" target="_blank">Fiasco</a> an RPG although it is very definitely a Story Game.  It is, however, an outstanding game.  In fact it might be a platonic ideal of story games - it has an almost defined length of time (about half an hour per player), and creates a story with defined beginning, middle, and ending - and in which one of the focal characters can die in the first scene and it doesn't matter.  The characters have no meaningful stats (merely a list of needs, important items, and locations), and there's a defined tilt point in the game at which point everything goes pear shaped for all the characters in a semi-arbitrarily chosen way.  It also has no GM at all (the facilitator is merely the person who owns the book and makes sure you have enough black and white dice).Story games are almost all like RPGs becase almost all stories are about people and with a group of people identifying with an individual is a good way to push a story along.Pretty much this.  Trad RPGs generally concern themselves with measuring the measurable and more or less ignoring the rest.  My standout example here is GURPS on alcholism where the rules for alcoholism go into detail about the effects of alcohol on the character's body - but don't say why (other than because of addiction) they might want a drink.Story Games generally work on the basis that intangibles matter.  "Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it  through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one  molecule of mercy."  But that doesn't make justice and mercy unimportant - and the type of story games that are close to RPGs generally involve putting an arbitrary weighting in to account for these intangibles which are, after all, the driving factors in many stories.  The <a href="http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/sv_leadsheet.pdf" target="_blank">stats in the offical RPG</a> for superpowered angst-fest TV show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallville" target="_blank">Smallville</a> are literally your values and your relationships with PCs and significant NPCs.  And for the RPG of a show where Clark Kent can leap small buildings in a single bound and Lex Luthor can buy the whole place, these are far more important in the show than those powers and abilities unless it's a Monster-Of-The-Week episode.The only game I can think of that's got a mechanic that's as jarringly meta as the one you describe is <a href="http://danielbayn.com/wushu/freebies.html" target="_blank">Wushu</a>  - and the way the Wushu rules work in practice is that everyone always rolls all possible dice; the meta-mechanic simply draws evocative descriptions out of all the players (fitting half a dozen elements into your description isn't too hard).Other than Fiasco (where the PCs are their own worst enemies and there is no GM) and Paranoia (where the PCs are each others' worst enemies) I'm not aware of a game that asks this.  I am, however, aware of a couple of games that ask you to tell the DM why the BBEG is after your character as part of character creation to assist him statting it.  This is a compltely different matter. [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION], I refer you to the <a href="http://www.story-games.com/forums/" target="_blank">Story Games Forums</a>.  Hardly Tarnowski's favourite place.</blockquote>

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