Storytelling vs Roleplaying

[pawsplay]

I tend to define rpgs as:
- One or more players inhabits a role, having an imaginary experience
- Some resolution system is used to adjudicate events in the game
- Any possible action within the game is permitted as a "move."

To me, then roleplaying is an activity which facillitates this kind of game. I think you can classify games in a number of useful ways, such as:

- Fantasy wargaming: classic style, associated with "simulation" and some gamist elements
- Storytelling: newish style, associated with emulating dramatic tropes and psychologically immersive experiences
- Postmodern style: even newer style, associated with metagaming, deconstruction/reconstruction, and examinations of texts between characters, environments, and imaginary events

Of course, good luck finding a pure example. That doesn't make distinctions useless, but it does mean that finding the precise boundaries for any taxonomy is very frustrating.

But i will definitely say that storytelling games, however they are defined, are definitely a subset of roleplaying, provided that at least one player adopts a role.

 

[Doug McCrae]

EW and Ariosto, what games do you consider to be 'story games' but not roleplaying games?

 

[pawsplay]

EW and Ariosto, what games do you consider to be 'story games' but not roleplaying games?

I am neither EW nor Aristo, but I can answer under my taxonomy.

Capes: The players own situations, not roles. You don't play a character, you have a character.
Baron Munchausen: Only a limited number of conceivable actions are permitted.
Freeform play by post: There is no method of resolution other than conventional social rules.

 

[Ariosto]

I believe there is a tension between adversity and storytelling. It's more of a continuum than a binary, with different groups drawing the line in different places.

Yes. It is a matter not just of adversity but of surprise. Discovering what lies over the hill or beyond the door is different from dictating what is there.

Likewise, "play-acting" an earnest attempt to accomplish something, when one in fact chooses to make it more difficult for the character (or even decides that the attempt shall fail) -- because it enables one later, as a player of an abstract game, to add a bonus (or even ensure success) -- is a big step out of the role.

Adversity then is on another plane, separate from the character-role. It comes in via game limits on one's ability to enforce one's preferred story against the opposition of some other story.

When role-playing itself is given a lower priority than adversity, it may be that "authorial control" of the imagined world is trivially acceptable so long as its effects are seen as trivial. "I look for an X" becomes, "I find an X, and our interaction happens this way."

When (as seems common among the "GNS" folks), everything is reduced to a question of "narrative control", then role-playing ceases to be the actual means of play. One might end up with a "role-playing themed" game, just as one might dress up one's latest "Euro-style" board or card game as superficially "about" the Battle of Waterloo or farming on Fiji.

There's nothing "wrong" with that, to the extent that people have fun playing. A "war-themed" game such as Stratego or Risk, though, is not quite what "wargamers" typically have in mind when they seek a "wargame".

The utilitarian purpose of such terminology is to facilitate matching game designs with players likely to appreciate them (and players with like-minded fellow players). Unfortunately, there is no well-intended enterprise that "geek culture" cannot pervert into yet another chance to practice the herd reaction against perceived threats.

 

[Obryn]

The utilitarian purpose of such terminology is to facilitate matching game designs with players likely to appreciate them (and players with like-minded fellow players). Unfortunately, there is no well-intended enterprise that "geek culture" cannot pervert into yet another chance to practice the herd reaction against perceived threats.

A good first step if you want to be seen as something other than an edition warrior in lexicographer's clothing might be to stop abducting & redefining common terms. As an example, the Buffy RPG allows players some plot control among more traditional elements. It's a role-playing game, though - pretty clearly, IMO. Under a different taxonomic structure, it might not be, and that's unacceptable if you're taking a utilitarian approach to this question.

So why not start there? Use a common definition of roleplaying games, familiar to hobbyists, and avoid the ickiness and inevitable conflicts associated with trying to tell someone playing a roleplaying game that they're really not because you know better. Re-define the term for the game you yourself are playing, and leave "role-playing game" as the umbrella term it is today.

Heck, if you're looking for utility, how does it help to re-define an existing and common term in a non-traditional way?

-O

 

[LostSoul]

I think the utility of this discussion is that people can say, "Okay, here is this technique; this is what I think it's good for and what it doesn't do so well."

Then people can discuss that.

For example, "Third-person teasers" from the DMG2 preview, where the players play some other, DM-generated PCs in order foreshadowing some element of the game world. This is what I think about that:

This technique isn't good if you want to maintain player-PC role-identification; that is, the PC knows what the player knows.

It's not so good if you want to figure out what was revealed in the teaser scene for yourself.

It's good for ratcheting up the tension.

It's good if you want to show things to the players that the PCs would have no way of knowing.

It's good for creating sympathy with NPCs.

That kind of discussion I could see being useful.

 

[catsclaw227]

My goodness.

While, from a purely theoretic-intellectual standpoint, this discussion is interesting. But I would venture to guess, most roleplayers (or story players, or whatever) couldn't care less how they are labeled.

If I am having fun gaming with my buddies, and are playing an RPG (or even a "story game" posing as an RPG, as is suggested by some) then we are friggin roleplaying!

I wonder how much creating these distictions really help the hobby or help gaming in general. There seems to be a trend lately in categorizing and plugging gamers into silos. For me, it's a bit discouraging and it hasn't made visiting various RPG boards as much fun.

 

[Mallus]

Yes. It is a matter not just of adversity but of surprise. Discovering what lies over the hill or beyond the door is different from dictating what is there.

Note that it's possible for a player to 'dictate' what's over Hill A and still 'discover' what's beyond Hill B (because they are not the author of Hill B).

For example, one of my players and I essentially collaborated on his homeland. Even though he participated in it's creation, and gave me a lot of inspirational material, I control all the fine details, in edition to having final say over the 'truth' of the place.

I don't foresee any difficulties with him role-playing a visit home, should the campaign move in that direction.

 

[Doug McCrae]

So why not start there? Use a common definition of roleplaying games, familiar to hobbyists, and avoid the ickiness and inevitable conflicts associated with trying to tell someone playing a roleplaying game that they're really not because you know better. Re-define the term for the game you yourself are playing, and leave "role-playing game" as the umbrella term it is today.

Yeah, leave the term 'roleplaying game' where it is and refer to subsets of rpgs - 'gamist rpgs', 'narrativist rpgs', etc. Not only does this not annoy people it has another, quite wonderful advantage:

It's the currently accepted terminology! You'd be using language the same way other people do! Nice!!

 

[Ariosto]

... trying to tell someone playing a roleplaying game that they're really not because you know better ...

... is not something I have undertaken. Perhaps someone else has, and you simply cannot be bothered to distinguish individuals and their statements from each other.

Now, perhaps Obryn and McCrae would be so kind as to share the definition of "role-playing game" that they consider the proper one? If we are to be bound by it, then it would be nice to know what it is!