RPGs as Stories, or Board games?

[Zander]

I wish there were no differences between the two. In other words, I prefer games in which the rules facilitate the story, not constrain it.

IMHO 3.0 and 3.5 deviate too far from classic fantasy (my preferred genre) and need to be adapted to fit the settings D&D was originally designed to portray. Moreover, there are elements in 3.0 and 3.5 (such as grids, movement and AoO) that give the latest versions of the game a distinctly wargamy feel. Also, too much of the game (including PC actions) are reduced to die rolls instead of being player decisions. I understand the necessity for these rules, but they should have been more flexible.

I hope when Hasbro or whoever comes to design 4E, they take this flexibility into account so that the narrative, and not the rules, shapes events.

 

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

Beg pardon? From the structure of that sentence you seem to suggest that one of these phrases has something to do with the other. How do you see 2nd edition resembling any of the modern rules-lite games?

I'm sorry, that was a remnant from a part of my post that I cut out, to make the main body more readable and on-topic..
I thought it was getting too specific to several campaigns and people I know.
I cut it, but I missed a few lines that referred to a no-longer existing argument

I found that many people in 2nd edition games saw the system as bad, and Knew it was bad.. The rules were a mess in some areas, so people were forced to ignore the majority of them. They focused on the story, because that was what mattered.
When they came to 3rd edition, and they the rules actually worked better, if they payed attention to them, the players felt like deviance from them was less good. These 3rd ed. rules actually did a decent job, so the story should run using these.


"The story should constrain to these", I think is the key phrase. Sure, as I mentioned, every game will have both elements.. But when I feel you've gone from one to the other is when the story of your game is altered to fit into a rulesystem. You decide "I can't have my Fighter have XYZ because he wouldn't have enough feats or diplomacy to keep that many followers, etc.."
Players try to think of fun ways to build a story that exist within the Rules- "Hrmm.. I wonder what a Level 15 fighter, with the PRC blah would be like".

I will leave one final comment, WRT S'mon's comment of railroading- Storytelling is important, but not the GM telling a story. What matters to me in my stories is having the GM and the players work together to tell a story, often in places the GM had never thought to go, and never intended to pursue. It's the collaborative process that we share.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Choice 3 - a balance between the two. As is I cannot answer your poll.

The Auld Grump

 

[WayneLigon]

More story-oriented.

We enjoy the tactical part of the game; most of us enjoy combat, engage with the rules, and we like travelling to far places, killing things and taking their stuff along with most other people.

But we enjoy the story part more, regardless of the game system we're playing. Everyone has a character background. We add character traits and backstory to them almost every session, even if it's just 'No, I don't think my character would do that'. We also engage with the world. We ask questions about it and come up with answers. We create new NPC's sometimes; either handing the GM an immediate family tree or maybe even just naming and engaging with the spearcarrier we just met.

We go on the GM's adventure and work with him to make it happen, but as often we wind up making our own adventure. There have been many times when I've been on the GM side of the screen that I didn't have to do squat; I had an active group of players with characters that each had their own (but complimentary) goals. They could work towards those goals and if they happened to put their foot right into the plot I had planned, so much the better. I long ago learned to listen to the players because they'll tell you what they want. 'I'll go listen to the old storyteller in the market'. 'Are there any bounty posters up?'. 'What if we....?'

In another RPG I was in, there was a famous quote from one woman: 'I can't beleive we're roleplaying buying paint'. We've done that. Without wasting the GM's time on trivia, we'll go do trivia sometimes. We had a tremendous victory in our Mutants and Masterminds game the other night, something that will literally change the course of how that world develops from then on. So the next session we did almost complete down-time; we relaxed, we shopped, we travelled, we had fun. We also talked about the implications of what we'd done and how everything might shake out.

So we do more story than tactical, though a well-done tactical session is appreciated just as much.

 

[The_Universe]

I chose the second option - but I honestly wish there had been a third "halfway between" choice. In very general terms, I want my players to help me tell a story. That being said, it's the tactical/wargaming/boardgaming aspect that lets them do so in a meaningful way. If it weren't for that, I'd just be writing a novel - which I can do, I suppose, but it's really not the same thing as "gaming."

So, while I know I wouldn't have as much fun with an RPG that doesn't have a story aspect to drive it, I also know that I wouldn't have as much fun with an RPG that doesn't have the tactical combat aspect, either.

 

[Mallus]

In another RPG I was in, there was a famous quote from one woman: 'I can't beleive we're roleplaying buying paint'.

That reminds me of the d20 Mod. campaign where my rich teenage character bought a Hello Kitty replica katana for the parties dirt poor martial artist...

I prefer the interactive-story side of things. I like the game when its more a game of manipulating narratives (plots, plans, moral dilemmas) than figures on a battlemat.

Though I like a good, fully-mapped smackdown session as well. And I even run dungeons from time to time, though they're liable to contain things like ancient tuxedoed golems and indescrutable violins as treasure....

 

[Wombat]

My tastes are well known here -- I got into rpgs specifically to get away from wargames.

So we have a good number of sessions where this is very little, or even no, combat, and only haul out the dreaded Battle Board (hex based) every other session at most.

OTOH, we have a large binder filled with mini-fiction, NPCs (often shopkeepers, relatives, and the like, rather than "helpful" in a gaming sense), maps, family trees, legends, and the like.

That's just the way we like it.

 

[barsoomcore]

I chose "Story" because, ultimately, that's why I run games. To make up stories with my friends.

I like a little battlemap finangling now and then, but I don't play boardgames or wargames at all because without story it's just math to me.

I guess I figured "which of these two elements would I be willing to lose?" -- I'd play a game that was all story, no tactics before I'd play a game that was all tactics, no story.

 

[John Morrow]

I realized that there are two pedigrees which modern games can claim, yet in some ways they are completely incompatible.

Actually, there are more than two different pedigrees, which is why I can't answer your question. I play for neither tactical rule-oriented reasons nor the "interactive storytelling" reasons that you detail later on (e.g., a sense that the story should go a certain way). Children don't play cops and robbers to tell a story. Children don't have a sense of plot, conflict, climax, etc. but are simply pretending to be someone else, nor do they necessarily have any sense that the game should turn out any particular way.

If you are really interested in this, take a look at:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/

In particular, I recommend the early Glenn Blacow model from 1980:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html

Robin Laws' excellent expansion of Blacow's model from his GMing book Robin's Laws:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html

Also take a look at the rec.games.frp.advocacy Threefold model for the distinction that I'm talking about:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/

I personally don't like it but The Forge's GNS model is also useful for a lot of people. I do think that some of the other models used by people on The Forge are more useful, though, and worth a look.

[Edit: A few horrible spelling errors just too bad to ignore.]

 

[John Morrow]

In particular, I recommend the early Glenn Blacow model from 1980:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html

By the way, if you think the Blacow model is irrelevant to D&D 3e, you might want to check out this post (originally by Ryan Dancey, posted to the Pyramid message boards):

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html

D&D 3e was consciously designed as a style-straddling game with something for everyone.