Storytelling Games

[LostSoul]

In Burning Wheel, resolution has two components: the character's intent or goal, and the action the character takes, called the task.

You use the resolution mechanics whenever there is a conflict between characters in the fiction.

There are a lot of rules meant to simulate the game world - how to heal from anything more than a scratch is pretty complex! - but because the players have to use their judgement to determine what their intent is, if there is a conflict, what tasks are used, which characters are involved in the conflict, etc., the 1-in-8000 chance of ruining the story doesn't come up often.

My point is that when you make that judgement part of the resolution system, you can more easily create stories that the group will be happy with.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That judgement has always been part of RPGs. In the past it was called "GM Fiat".

There is a wide range in taste as to what will ruin the game, of course.


RC

 

[LostSoul]

That judgement has always been part of RPGs. In the past it was called "GM Fiat".

I'm talking about that as well, of course, but also the choices the players make for their characters. Burning Wheel doesn't spread the traditional DM's authority around like some other games do.

 

[Ariosto]

RC, I have made no claims at all about "the game Hussar sampled", nor am I much interested in doing so.

It makes sense to me that "role playing" should be the primary activity of a role-playing game. It makes sense to me that "story telling" should be the primary activity of a story-telling game.

Those may be more or less useful descriptions of design goals, and designs may be more or less successful in meeting goals.

 

[Barastrondo]

The big problem from this perspective with the traditional RPG is that its concerns are primarily with verisimilitude. Although I use it advisedly, "simulation" seems an inescapable term. By whatever measure of "realism" applies, it is considered realistic that situation X could have result Y and so it is a possibility. The chance may be "unrealistically" small, but it is still possible.

Are you including "genre convention" as something that can be simulated? Simulation is another one of those terms that tends to take on various meanings depending on who's using it. For example, some people would say that, say, Street Fighter: the RPG is not even a little bit simulationist, but it simulates the combat of a fighting game very well indeed.

It's no problem, of course, if "the story" is simply whatever in the event happens. That's obviously not what we're discussing. The kind of story we're discussing is not the accidental, incidental, after-the-fact anecdote of real life but Story in the literary sense. A "story telling game" by its nature presumes that there is in the first place a story to be told.

Sure, just not a pre-existing one. The story is usually assumed to be created as you tell it. (After all, it's not a story-reciting game, yes?) Like the Microscope example of play I cited, you can get the same tension of "wanting to see how the story turns out" even as you're engaging mechanics to shape it in some fashion. Presumably each of the players have something in mind — but that's hardly any different from most other RPGs where players have something in mind (like getting to the bottom of the dungeon without dying or diablerizing the prince), and the game mechanics question whether that will happen or not.

There might in fact be several stories vying to be told, that competition -- whether among players or between players and game system -- providing the actual game structure.

Absolutely. The whole point of a story-focused game is that it's a game, and the outcome is unclear. Otherwise, it's just storytelling, full stop. (Or narrative tyranny.)

The key here is that the prime determinant of outcomes is not some disinterested evaluation of, say, the physics of hot lava -- even of Fantasy Physics Hot Lava. Instead, the factors that matter are such things as whether John Doe is the Hero of the Story, and what the Story is about.

Yep. And the mechanics of the game, whatever game that might be, determine how those factors take shape and which ones might "win out." You might know you're in a tragedy, but not know yet just what form your inevitable fall might take. You might not even know whether it's going to be a full-bore tragedy or not until the final plot twist is played.

 

[Ariosto]

Sure, just not a pre-existing one.

It of necessity is a pre-existing one, or else there can be no "non-story" or "wrong story" to distinguish from it and thereby entail the construction of "story-telling" mechanisms apart from mere role-playing.

 

[Ariosto]

Presumably each of the players have something in mind — but that's hardly any different from most other RPGs where players have something in mind (like getting to the bottom of the dungeon without dying or diablerizing the prince), and the game mechanics question whether that will happen or not.

I have addressed at length the difference that I see, and that seems to be in harmony with how some other people see it.

"Hardly any different" are slippery words indeed, and that line of rhetoric seems quite common around here.

For me, the "Conan versus R.E. Howard" division in perception, powers and purpose is the clearest separation. Yes, Bob might sometimes imagine himself in Conan's place -- but does Conan ever imagine himself in Bob's? Does he make decisions based on considering himself a fictional "property"?

 

[Barastrondo]

It of necessity is a pre-existing one, or else there can be no "non-story" or "wrong story" to distinguish from it and thereby entail the construction of "story-telling" mechanisms apart from mere role-playing.

I honestly haven't had any experience with story games that played out that way. Did you see the example of Dinosaur Hruck? Scenes arise from questions like "why did this happen?" and "what happens when character X must confront choice Y?" The answers aren't predetermined. There is no "non-story" or "wrong story," there are simply many multiple possible stories, and you see which one is born from play. You only get a "non-story" if people don't play by the rules, or they quit early and go home without finishing the game.

If that sounds too much like "a roleplaying game", well, that's why I don't differentiate that much between the two in the first place. The goals can be different, but the process of "playing a game to see how things turn out" is similar at the core. Uncertainty is certainly an element in the story games my coworkers and I have messed with (hence the "game" aspect), it's just that there's a wider variety of assumptions that might be preset.

But I'll admit I haven't seen all the story games out there. Have you read any that set up mechanics for determining the ending ahead of time? I'll gladly confess that although I haven't seen any yet, that may just mean I haven't encountered the same ones as you have.

For me, the "Conan versus R.E. Howard" division in perception, powers and purpose is the clearest separation. Yes, Bob might sometimes imagine himself in Conan's place -- but does Conan ever imagine himself in Bob's? Does he make decisions based on considering himself a fictional "property"?

Either way, though, we're talking about Bob's decisions. Conan is ultimately Bob's creation, and Bob decides what he does, be it traveling to a fantasy version of a real-world culture Bob is interested in because Bob wants to write about that culture or making a rash decision because Bob can't honestly see him doing anything else. Story games aren't about the character understanding its place as a fictional creation, unless metafiction is the genre, like the Game of Immortals we threw into a Changeling supplement. (And even then the True Fae don't think of themselves of fictional; they just believe that reality adheres to narrative rules because they can't imagine a world so random that it wouldn't. And in Arcadia, well, they're right. Faerie plays that way.)

Story games are all about characters behaving in believable fashion, and usually according to very detailed characterization — most I've encountered are based on the narrative conceits of pretty serious fiction, in which character decisions and consequences are more important than plot. The main difference is that the game may skip right to asking a player "What does Conan value more, his woman or his pride?" by setting up a situation in which he has to choose. The situation is chosen by "Bob," of course. The answer to the question, though, determines on how the game plays.

 

[Ariosto]

The answers aren't predetermined. There is no "non-story" or "wrong story," there are simply many multiple possible stories, and you see which one is born from play.

Simply role-playing does that just fine! It worked in the "Braunsteins", and it worked in Blackmoor, and it's just as effective playing LBB D&D today. There's not a bit of warrant there for any puffery about "a ground-breaking new experience" that "gives you unparalleled story-telling options" or yadda yadda.

The whole point of calling something a "story-telling" game is to emphasize that it produces something different from what a traditional RPG produces. If the latter is "story", it's still not the right kind of Story. It certainly won't pass muster with Forge-y folks, and a lot of Rpg.net will at the very least make some ado about fetching out their scented handkerchiefs.

To the extent that you define "not S", you are (literally by definition!) defining "S". It's like carving a sculpture: just start with a piece of rock, and chip away whatever doesn't look like a sculpture.

That extent certainly does not have to be (and indeed should not be, for anything resembling a game) anywhere near as complete and particular as, say, "The Tower of the Elephant" in published form. It does need to be concrete enough to warrant the distinction from the "stuff happens" product of less literary games, or else what is the point? "It's way better because it's just the same" is very silly.

Either way, though, we're talking about Bob's decisions.

We're talking about two very different domains of what the player decides, and how, and why.

If we're not, then we're probably talking not about Bob the Player-Author's decisions but about your "controlling GM". That's not a "story telling game" -- it's just a really bad imitation of an RPG (IMO, YMMV, SRMA, OVWP, BNI).

 

[LostSoul]

The whole point of calling something a "story-telling" game is to emphasize that it produces something different from what a traditional RPG produces. If the latter is "story", it's still not the right kind of Story. It certainly won't pass muster with Forge-y folks, and a lot of Rpg.net will at the very least make some ado about fetching out their scented handkerchiefs.

Do you want to explain why?