Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 4994872" data-attributes="member: 3820">Right. What you're describing is not the difference between "story games' and "roleplaying games." It's the difference between "controlling GM" and "enabling GM." Outside of a story game, it may take the form of something like the advice to DMs in the old Temple of Elemental Evil. Obviously, this isn't something with story in mind. Rather, it's the GM being controlling to get the logistics of a game with strong resource management play back in its settings. You see the same thing whenever there's GM advice to somehow arrange for a player to lose a magic item that's too powerful. Making sure that a "desired" outcome takes place no matter what the players would like is certainly not a story-related problem. I agree. And that's why I strive against the idea that story games "have a predetermined ending in mind" for any given scene, much less the overall plot.Edit: For clarification, this is why I'm kind of sensitive to it: Let's assume two GM, A and B. (Aggro and Gutboy Barrelhouse if you prefer). GM Aggro loves the idea of narrative to the point of wanting to write stories in which the PCs are but puppets. All his stories have predetermined endings, and he strives to punish them if they deviate from his scripts. To Aggro, the game is to complete the story in his head and prove to his players how clever and creative he is.GM Gutboy Barrelhouse imprinted on the Tomb of Horrors and Grimtooth's Traps in a bad way. He doesn't care about story at all, but he loves to "get" and worse, "outwit" his players. He likes arbitrary deathtraps with no reasonable clues for avoidance. In one room, drink from the decanter and you die because of the poison. In another room, don't drink from the decanter and you don't get the antidote to the odorless, colorless poison gas filling the room... and there are no clues to differentiate between the two. To Gutboy, the game is to rack up a high body count and prove to his players how clever and creative he is.Both of these are pretty crummy GMs. However, I think it's more common to see assumptions that all story games play out like a game under Aggro than to see assumptions that all non-narrative games play out like a game under Gutboy Barrelhouse -- even though they're exactly the same kind of assumption, and with pretty much the same amount of accuracy. I don't like those assumptions, even though I sort of see where they're coming from. Since storytelling as a goal for a game is a bit newer concept, it's more recent that you've seen a number of rookie GMs making Aggro mistakes. There was likely a higher spike of rookie GMs making Gutboy Barrelhouse mistakes back in the '70s and '80s. But yeah, I absolutely agree that GM style and narrative-vs.-procedural style are two separate axes. I just don't think that "predetermined results" are an artifact of narrative style exclusively, or that they are going to show up in a narrative game just by definition. Predetermined starts to scenes, very likely. But as we all agree, there's a world of difference between pulling out a bunch of miniatures and running through a futile combat and just starting a scene by asking the players "So why are you in jail?"</blockquote>

Verification