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

[Scott Christian]

It's funny, but I have been watching a ton of Actual Plays for weeks now, and I have yet to be able to observe any difference in the pacing issues between prepared and improvised games. In fact, some of the absolute worst games for pacing are ones that used published modules. Pacing seems to be the hardest thing to get right in TTRPG play. Personally, I think it's the fact that more than one person is involved in setting the pace of things, and GMs defer to players whenever they want to indulge. I know in my own experience pacing issues are found in equal measure in both improvised and prepared games. I know from observation alone it's impossible to tell the difference. A couple of the AP I watched that I thought for sure were improvised turned out to be prepared, and vice versa. I am now convinced that there are no actual real advantages with fully improvised games over prepared ones, or the opposite. Like many things in life, it's all down to personal preference.

Well, my comment was for two things, not just pacing. I replied to:

Stories have a structure that does not really work in play. RPGs are messy, ephemeral things in play, with terrible pacing and contradictory plot elements.

My statement replies to pacing and contradictory plot elements.

Let's discuss pacing first since that was what your comment was about. I have taught for over 20 years. Lesson plans are almost identical to running a session. There are teachers that are great at predicting the pace of a lesson. Some have an innate talent, and others just learned it through experience. And some are terrible at it, both seasoned and new teachers. And even when you tell them, "This is going to take two class periods," they don't believe you. It just seems to be something that some people can't learn.

I say all this because, not only have I taught a lot of lessons, but I have also observed more lessons than probably most administrators on the planet. And I can say this: I can tell when someone has prepped, done an outline, or hasn't prepped. This carries over to my gaming experience. Maybe I am an anomaly, but I assure you, I can tell.

And I will reiterate what I said above: It can still be a great story if not prepped. But there is a difference.

As for contradictory plot elements, I don't want to start a flame war. But I am absolutely certain improv has more contradictory elements than someone who has done a boatload of prep. Might there be an outlier or two? Sure. But the average improv game has more than a game that has had logical and feeling thoughts put into it.

 

[zakael19]

Well, my comment was for two things, not just pacing. I replied to:

My statement replies to pacing and contradictory plot elements.

Let's discuss pacing first since that was what your comment was about. I have taught for over 20 years. Lesson plans are almost identical to running a session. There are teachers that are great at predicting the pace of a lesson. Some have an innate talent, and others just learned it through experience. And some are terrible at it, both seasoned and new teachers. And even when you tell them, "This is going to take two class periods," they don't believe you. It just seems to be something that some people can't learn.

I say all this because, not only have I taught a lot of lessons, but I have also observed more lessons than probably most administrators on the planet. And I can say this: I can tell when someone has prepped, done an outline, or hasn't prepped. This carries over to my gaming experience. Maybe I am an anomaly, but I assure you, I can tell.

And I will reiterate what I said above: It can still be a great story if not prepped. But there is a difference.

As for contradictory plot elements, I don't want to start a flame war. But I am absolutely certain improv has more contradictory elements than someone who has done a boatload of prep. Might there be an outlier or two? Sure. But the average improv game has more than a game that has had logical and feeling thoughts put into it.

With respect, improv GMing within a collaborative table framework is far more adaptable and easy to run then something like a high-prepped module; and never has that sudden "oh crap" feeling of the players doing stuff that is out of scope and you need to go 'uhhhh, give me a minute guys' or suddenly figure out how much strong arming needs to happen to "get them on track."

I consider it to be far more in line with facilitated collaboration sessions in small-teams (which often have a very short "Goal" which you then flesh out together based on oh, say, procedures like a good "play to find out game" provides) then planned and structured lessons (which I have both given and sat through plenty).

 

[Neonchameleon]

My point is that when a story emerges from play, by definition that story (the tale of our band of weirdos liberating gold from a dragon's hoard, for example) is not complete until the game reaches some sort of resolution.

But what I am really trying to express is that when we play, we aren't in a sotry following a plot and acting in a coherent way meant to evoke Story. We are playing a game. Because of the nature of RPGs, that means we produce a story in that play.

Now, there are games that want you to play within a story. Modules from the 90s are a common offender in this regard, but even things like the "cinematic" adventures for Alien do something similar. And of course there are storygames whose sole purpose is to envelop the participants in story as part of play. But in all of those examples, it is necessary to restrict some choices that would otherwise be available to the players in order to force story beats and structure.

The thing here is that there are mechanics that can encourage story and mechanics that can harm story, and this is independent of whether the mechanics are meta.

I find D&D has mechanics that harm story; hit points where you get hit and nothing happens except number ticks down. Classes and levels where your growth is on rails rather than as a response to what happens in the setting (3.X and 4e both had micro-adjustments as character growth while TSR editions had your character's equipment being a log of what they'd done).

Meanwhile Apocalypse World has almost no meta-mechanics but has a whole lot of mechanics that help the story, from Hx encouraging working together to The Harm Move so damage is almost always consequential to literally changing your playbook and with it your role in the world as you level up.

Story emerges from play but different games are differently good at that. (And this is without going into games like Fiasco)

 

[Reynard]

And I will reiterate what I said above: It can still be a great story if not prepped. But there is a difference.

Again, that is only relevant if your intent is to "tell a story." Which it shouldn't be, because an RPG is going to do that regardless of whether that is your aim or not. it is inherent in the form.

As for contradictory plot elements, I don't want to start a flame war. But I am absolutely certain improv has more contradictory elements than someone who has done a boatload of prep. Might there be an outlier or two? Sure. But the average improv game has more than a game that has had logical and feeling thoughts put into it.

That's just your bias and is not a universal experience.

 

[pemerton]

Right, and, while I don't have any data on this besides my own experience, I think that's probably true for a lot of people who play RPGs. What I find odd about this thread is the contention that the participants in a session can receive this "stuff" (i.e. the events happening around the characters and the things they do in response that are being talked about at the table) and not receive the story the stuff constitutes until some later time (e.g. after the participants have had a chance to piece it all together in their minds into a connected narrative which, for some reason, requires a period of rumination). I think, for this to be true, there must be some rather disjointed RPGing going on out there, in which events do not cohere until they can be pieced together retrospectively.


I've had thoughts of recording audio from some of my sessions but have been content to write play reports from my notes and memory after the fact. Apart from being just a transcript of events in the fiction, however, I also try to include my decision making about what fiction was introduced and how, and about mechanical resolution, both why it was resorted to and how it played out, including things like results of die rolls, which I find interesting in and of themselves, apart from the fiction that was generated and talked about in gameplay.

Yes, I also write a lot of those sorts of actual play reports.

If you look at my Torchbearer 2e reports, you'll see that they have the least detail when it comes to extended conflict resolution. I don't think that's any sort of coincidence - those are the part of TB2e play where the decision-making and game play becomes the most disconnected/disjointed relative to the fiction. And thus is the least remembered (by me), and the least amenable to an interesting write-up.

I was speaking to someone recently about a type of "risk" in TB2e's extended resolution procedures (it can also arise in Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits): while the extended conflict is being resolved, it will work, mechanically, even if no fiction is established. (Actions - which must be chosen from a list, with each action on the list having a particular mechanical significance - can be declared and resolved, "hit points" tallies adjusted, etc, until one side or the other reaches zero.) But then, when it comes time to work out the final resolution, establishing the compromise (which has to be done, unless one side suffered no hit point loss at all) requires drawing on the preceding fiction. Which can be tricky if there wasn't much of it!

Anyway, that previous paragraph is a bit of a tangent, but does identify an example of a RPG procedure which can have the effect of "deferring" the experience of story during play.

 

[pemerton]

"What about the other players?" is not really an issue; the other players are no less engaged if they are trying to take on Nosferatu the Vampire because they killed [PC's] mother than because they enthralled the realm's princess.

Yeah, I do find the argument that we can't have player-driven play, because it excludes player B when the focus is on player A's concerns; therefore, all of play has to be focused on the GM's concerns; or on stuff that all the players are equally indifferent to, a strange one!

As you go on to say in your post, that's simply a reason to put in even more player-driven stuff, coming from all of the players.

 

[pemerton]

The thing here is that there are mechanics that can encourage story and mechanics that can harm story, and this is independent of whether the mechanics are meta.

<snip>

Apocalypse World has almost no meta-mechanics but has a whole lot of mechanics that help the story, from Hx encouraging working together to The Harm Move so damage is almost always consequential to literally changing your playbook and with it your role in the world as you level up.

Story emerges from play but different games are differently good at that. (And this is without going into games like Fiasco)

Yes, absolutely, I've been making this point in multiple posts throughout this thread.

The idea that (say) Moldvay Basic and Apocalypse World, both prepped and played following the procedures and advice set out in their respective rulebooks, are equally apt to produce a story in the moment of play, is quite bizarre to me. They're different games, with different procedures, that will produce different experiences.

And you're also absolutely right that this has nothing to do with "meta-mechanics".

 

[Reynard]

Yes, absolutely, I've been making this point in multiple posts throughout this thread.

The idea that (say) Moldvay Basic and Apocalypse World, both prepped and played following the procedures and advice set out in their respective rulebooks, are equally apt to produce a story in the moment of play, is quite bizarre to me. They're different games, with different procedures, that will produce different experiences.

And you're also absolutely right that this has nothing to do with "meta-mechanics".

Purely trad games certainly produce stories, arguably more organic ones.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Purely trad games certainly produce stories, arguably more organic ones.

No one is saying they don't produce stories. But they produce them far more slowly.

Given the amount of GM force involved in trad RPGs (as opposed to old school ones) I'd also say that Apocalypse World and Masks for example produce stories significantly more organically than most trad RPGs.

 

[Reynard]

No one is saying they don't produce stories. But they produce them far more slowly.

Given the amount of GM force involved in trad RPGs (as opposed to old school ones) I'd also say that Apocalypse World and Masks for example produce stories significantly more organically than most trad RPGs.

I don't buy it. Story mechanics by definition take the "organic" out of it.