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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6297087" data-attributes="member: 42582">By &quot;story&quot; I have in mind, at least in this context, the sorts of things that many RPGers aim at - both Forge-y narrativists and old-fashioned 90s-style railroaders. There is a recognisable plot, with protagonists, complications and some degree of resolution.On this conception, imagining someone standing on a platform watching a very fast train run along infinite tracks while shining torches doesn't count as a story!If I was posting on a cultural studies board I might have stated my claim a bit more cautiously. By &quot;narrative history&quot; I am thinking of something like (say) Leon Wolff's In Flanders Fields, which has chapters and tries to frame the events that it is presenting in terms of cognisable &quot;episodes&quot;. A contrast would be (say) an archaeological catalogue (one I happen to have on my shelf at the moment is the companion book to the BBC TV series In Search of the Dark Ages), or social history such as EP Thompson's Whigs and Hunters (though this also contains narrative elements within it).Of course if people want to take up the issue about whether it is possible to have meaningful non-fictional accounts of history, I'm happy to have that discussion!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6297087, member: 42582"] By "story" I have in mind, at least in this context, the sorts of things that many RPGers aim at - both Forge-y narrativists and old-fashioned 90s-style railroaders. There is a recognisable plot, with protagonists, complications and some degree of resolution. On this conception, imagining someone standing on a platform watching a very fast train run along infinite tracks while shining torches doesn't count as a story! If I was posting on a cultural studies board I might have stated my claim a bit more cautiously. By "narrative history" I am thinking of something like (say) Leon Wolff's In Flanders Fields, which has chapters and tries to frame the events that it is presenting in terms of cognisable "episodes". A contrast would be (say) an archaeological catalogue (one I happen to have on my shelf at the moment is the companion book to the BBC TV series In Search of the Dark Ages), or social history such as EP Thompson's Whigs and Hunters (though this also contains narrative elements within it). Of course if people want to take up the issue about whether it is possible to have meaningful non-fictional accounts of history, I'm happy to have that discussion! [/QUOTE]

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