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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 9843388" data-attributes="member: 467">This started in another thread but I thought I would spin it off into its own thread before it goes wild.What do you think of TTRPGs (broadly) in relation to "story." Are RPGs "stories." Are they "story generators"? Something else? How do the particular mechanics of a game interact with what you think the relationship is? How about adventure structure, particularly for campaign length adventures, from At The Mountains of Madness to The Enemy Within to Curse of Strahd?For you, personally, are you telling a story when you play a TTRPG?For my part, I think you are creating a story through play, but that story is not what happens at the table per se. Rather, the story is how we talk about it after the game is done. 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. But once play is done, the thing that remains with us is the story that RPG play generated. Perhaps most interestingly, that story is different for every participant.Now, you can force games to be more like stories by demanding certain beats be present and forcing pacing, etc... But every single element that makes play more like a story makes it less like an RPG -- because RPGs are defined by their embrace of player agency. In trad games this is mostly the GM, but more modern games give players tools to put their fingers on the scale as well.As is probably obvious, I am an advocate of playing to find out and presenting situations rather than plots or adventures.Where do you stand? What is your preference when it comes to TTRPG play and story?</blockquote>

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