Storytelling vs Roleplaying

[maddman75]

This depends, I think, on one's definition of "better". The designers (and many fans) of 4e pretty clearly consider "stories" with as much misfortune (especially sudden PC death) in them as in old D&D unsatisfactory. Reducing the probability of dying from a failed save versus poison from so many chances in 20 to so many in 1000 may make the outcome seem only the more arbitrary.

So your argument is that poison that has a good chance to kill a character makes for a better story.

All mechanics support some agenda behind what the story should work like. The old D&D attack tables support the idea that an experienced swordsman should hit a foe more often.

Mechanisms explicitly directed at "authorial control" can enable participants to avoid such derailing of whatever stories they have in mind. Heroes and villains alike can have "plot protection" to preserve dramatic structure when the dice are heedless of such niceties.

Yes, and? I don't see how random dice determining an outcome is different in principle than some limited resource. Or some combination of the two. You're talking as if the players were all GMs, which is not the case in any game I've seen.

That is simply not a consideration in most games. There is no plot to preserve in Chess, Backgammon or Parcheesi! A historical wargame may constrain players from departing too much from history (using anachronistic tactics, making implausible alliances, refusing the very battle that is the scenario's subject, etc.) -- but it is central to the game concept that the course and outcome are dependent on a combination of player skill and luck.

Roleplaying games are very different from chess and backgammon. Neither chess nor backgammon create stories.

D&D -- and thereby the whole RPG field -- originated with that same expectation. Finding out not merely how but whether the characters survive and succeed, fail or perish was rather the point of the game! If Ulrica the Unready met a quick and ignominious end, one rolled up a successor and the game continued: an endless game, an ever-emerging story.

The assumption a priori that Ulrica is the heroine of a great saga is a marked departure.

Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

We have already established what kind of character Ulrica is, although we may haggle over the scope of her entitlement to survival and success.

In the old game, Ulrica's story was simply whatever happened in play. That might turn out to be an epic tale, a cautionary anecdote, or a mere footnote in the rolls of the dead ("eaten by owls"; "set on fire and drowned"; "petrified and sold as an objet d'art").

Yes. Different game rules tend to create different kinds of stories. That's why we have different rulesets, and the idea of GM fudging results and making spot rulings - they eliminate these border cases where an unsatisfactory result is created.

That is another benefit IME to metagame mechanics. They tend to eliminate GM fudging. There's literally no need, that is put into the players' hands. Heck, I don't even roll dice in BtVS. I couldn't fudge a roll if I wanted to!

 

[Ariosto]

That the play style requires such support is a direct consequence of its departure from the original design, just as the "play style" of that departed from the wargame and so necessitated new "supports".

 

[ExploderWizard]

I wouldn't call it a departure from anything- rather more vocal support for a play style that has always existed.

I'm not sure about always but at least as far back as Dragonlance.

 

[Ariosto]

So your argument is that poison that has a good chance to kill a character makes for a better story.

I have made no such argument. As I wrote:

This depends, I think, on one's definition of "better".

Different game rules tend to create different kinds of stories. That's why we have different rulesets ... That is another benefit IME to metagame mechanics. They tend to eliminate GM fudging. There's literally no need, that is put into the players' hands.

That is the very point I made in the post you quoted -- along with the point that there is no need for fudging if the premise of the game is that the dice fall as they may.

 

[Ariosto]

I don't see how random dice determining an outcome is different in principle than some limited resource.

Timing, for one thing. Dramatically, it might be inconvenient if Frodo -- or even Boromir or Gollum -- were to meet an untimely end, or if some other character failed to pass on at the appointed hour.

The utility is not limited to a tale of triumph, but is equally applicable to tragedy or comedy.

Neither chess nor backgammon create stories.

They do indeed, as often as one cares to tell them. The key is that they create stories, though -- they do not reliably tell stories already conceived, and that is fundamental to their interest as games.

 

[Scribble]

I'm not sure about always but at least as far back as Dragonlance.

I hear this a lot but I don't buy it.

I mean look at the back of the AD&D 1e DM's guide for the inspirational reading list. What was supposed to be gleaned from that reading list if not the idea that the game gives you the ability to create your own stories? Too me it seems only natural that players would be assumed to be the heroes of the story.

Whether or not they succeed is the real game, and that's still the case.

I think the biggest difference is that the game is now giving players a little more chance to use player skill, rather then solely relying on chance, to fulfill that role.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have made no such argument. As I wrote: That is the very point I made in the post you quoted -- along with the point that there is no need for fudging if the premise of the game is that the dice fall as they may.

This key point brings up a question. If the aim of play is to adventure to whatever end fate brings the characters thereby creating thier story then how is needing to fudge not changing this aim to begin with?

It's a circular defense:
With mechanic X we don't have to fudge. With the old rules we had to fudge to get result Z that we knew we wanted. Mechanic X gets us to point Z in a more orderly fashion.

What determines point Z and why is it so important to get there?

Why use mechanics if certain events HAVE to happen and other events CANNOT happen at the wrong time? In any event such devices are for story telling rather than event resolution.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think the biggest difference is that the game is now giving players a little more chance to use player skill, rather then solely relying on chance, to fulfill that role.

Player skill has been progressively driven from the mechanics in ever increasing steps since the launch of 2E and NWP/skills.

 

[Scribble]

Player skill has been progressively driven from the mechanics in ever increasing steps since the launch of 2E and NWP/skills.

An increase in available tools doesn't equate to a decrease in a persons ability to do something.

It might change the way someone approaches the problem, but doesn't eliminate the skill needed. (Often it lets them better showcase their ability.)

 

[LostSoul]

Why use mechanics if certain events HAVE to happen and other events CANNOT happen at the wrong time? In any event such devices are for story telling rather than event resolution.

I was asking this question recently.

It's because you can't get everything you want with storytelling mechanics. (If you can, the game is broken.) You have to make a choice between priorities. Do I want to use my plot tokens now to desert the army and make it to Switzerland, or to make sure my lover lives through her pregnancy?