Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[zarionofarabel]

I think my TTRPG sessions are like documentaries. Some stuff happens, then after the session you can recount the series of events that happened. Sometimes the sessions have a classic story structure to them, sometimes they don't. As for what to call what happens DURING a session, well, that has a unique descriptor, which is "playing a TTRPG" that is wholly unique, though it has comparisons to storytelling and gameplay.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whether it be an hour within any of the movies or the middle movie as a stand alone...it's a story. They way I see RPGS bring played out is that the story is being created via play at the same time as play.
The story for me is a large part of what makes RPGS different to boardgames. The way its being framed here is that the story comes after in RPGs and thus RPGs and boardgames would be the same during play.

Is that your experience? Are RPGs at your table like a boardgame and only considered different when play is done and the story is complete?

No, that is not my experience. My experience is that I am interacting with the setting and the other characters through the medium of my PC in play. That is, I am functionally living that character's life (with some obvious abstractions) and am no more "creating a story" while I do than I myself am doing living my actual real life. Story is what happens when you re-tell events afterward. As I have said several times before in this thread, before that, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What exactly makes your Ironsworn experience feel like an actual game to you? To me all that sounds like a few folks telling a story to each other. I don't see any "game" there.

That’s a rather crappy interpretation. I didn’t really describe the mechanics at all…just pointed out that they exist and therefore constrain the participants.

It’d be like if I said “what makes your D&D experience a game? It sounds like the GM telling you a story.”

If you have any actual questions, I’ll be happy to answer them… but phrasing like that? Come on.

 

[GobHag]

RPGs generate story, but you don't play one.

Yes we do? Or at least I do. The Season of Ghosts AP I played in was plotted out and good