Neonchameleon
Legend
To me there's a huge difference between storygames and storytelling games. There is a system called the Storytelling system and another called the Storyteller system (I forget which is which); they are the systems used in the White Wolf games like Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampire: the Requiem, or Exalted. Fundamentally I find that in the micro the Storytellx system is little different to D&D in that it's a fairly simple pass/fail system (although at least hits matter) with a lot of mechanics that don't add to much. And in the macro they lead to 90s style railroads and tightly controlled adventure paths much of the time.It would be helpful to know which "'story' games" and "cinematic type storytelling games" are being described here.
When I think of "story games", or non-trad-type games, I think of Prince Valiant, Cthulhu Dark, Wuthering Heights, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic, Agon, In A Wicked Age . . . and none of them (at least in my experience) remotely fits these descriptions.
I think this is borne out by my actual play posts.
Meanwhile Storygames came out of the basic impulse "We want to do what the White Wolf games promise but almost never deliver on". Not an adventure path to be seen in any storygame I can think of. The macro outcome is intentionally utterly uncertain outside one shots - and part of the joy of one shots is that death and failure are both much more on the line.
And it's a distinction without a meaningful difference. You're just slapping a coat of paint over the top and trying to convince me that it's a different building. The thing that matters is does the lock get picked? Does the coat of paint have a non-zero effect in sprucing up the building? Yes. Will it change the size, layout, or shape? Not in the slightest.How so?
Player rolls poorly to pick a lock and I narrate it as a lock that has the character stumped. Next lock, player rolls really well and the narration points out how easy that lock was.
No bind, no contradiction. Why? Because obviously those two locks weren't the same design or manufacture; and that too is trivially easy to narrate.
And even if I've already replied to the OP about how success with consequences is very common in Storygames I missed a huge point here; you're decrying a huge source of uncertainty. In D&D there is one player who controls the world (the DM). One player who writes or at least runs the dungeon (the DM). One player who has a lot of knowledge and a lot of certainty.Specifically, uncertainty in potential results. Swinginess. Random happenings because the dice get a mind of their own. That sort of thing.
I have played and like some "story" games, but one thing many of them lack is uncertainty. Their mechanics tend to favor participants being able to say things that become true in the fiction (even if they don't call it that).
Meanwhile in what you are describing there isn't just one player with the ability to say things that become true - but five or six. Which means that we have a situation where everyone is throwing in their own recipies and creating uncertainty. It's a lot less certain than D&D because of it.