Storytelling vs Roleplaying

[Mallus]

Anyway. We end up in this orcish cave. All at once everyone is trying to describe it. "It's big and open." "There's a waterfall." "Sigils of the Red Raven clan are on the walls, showing their history." "This is a sacred cave, where they do their sacrificial orcish rituals."

I'm sitting there having no idea where the hell my PC is, unable to make any decisions because I don't know what's going on.

Is this really all that different from when each party member wants to strike off in a different direction?

 

[Mallus]

It is similar to how an author can write about a character in a novel and describe his thoughts and actions from his limited viewpoint without needing to make him aware of his status as an element in a story.

Exactly.

Also, I have to wonder, if the player isn't the author of their character, who is?

 

[Mallus]

"Just codifying the method, universal in rpgs," glibly dismisses too much, I think.

It doesn't dismiss anything. It established a starting point, a common ground. Like I demonstrated, in traditional D&D play the DM and player are frequently collaborators in creating the game environment.

Would you like to disagree w/that?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Exactly.

Also, I have to wonder, if the player isn't the author of their character, if he's not writing him at the same time he's assuming his role, where does the character come from? Who does write him?

From the perspective of the character, he/she simply exists. There is no author. Do you wonder who your author is and who is writing you as you go about the business of life? Most people probably don't.

 

[Doug McCrae]

American football isn't really football cause you don't kick the ball much. Let's call it handball instead. Y'know, to minimise the risk of confusion.

 

[maddman75]

From the perspective of the character, he/she simply exists. There is no author. Do you wonder who your author is and who is writing you as you go about the business of life? Most people probably don't.

I'm not a character.

Characters don't exist outside the person creating them (author) or viewing them (audience).

The player is both author and audience for their own character. The other players and GM are audience. The GM is director, but has no control over the script, just stage directions and bit parts.

This is what roleplaying is, and has always been.

 

[Tistur]

Hi, all. I just thought I'd let people know that this entire thread has been very helpful for me, in figuring out why my players are playing the way they are. We're playing a Serenity game, where players get "Plot Points" and can spend them on different things, including changing the world (with the GM's approval and probable twists.) Most of my players are only spending these points on enhancing their die rolls (even though there is not that much rolling per session).

I asked them about this. They couldn't express their reluctance to use them. I offered my own opinion (the following is probably highly paraphrased):

Me: "I know for me, when I'm playing, a large part of the fun is discovering the world, and adding things myself negates that."

Player1: "Yeah, I do enjoy the challenge, using what's there to construct a solution to the challenge at hand, like my character would."

Some of the other players just kept forgetting they could use the points to influence the world, however. These tend to be the players who play a character with certain characteristics no matter the game. I think letting the GM twist whatever a player comes up (or outright veto it) is the best balance I've seen in play. And by using up a resource, not everyone is throwing around descriptions and items all the time.

As a player, however, I really agree with ExploderWizard. If I'm doing something to influence the game world, my character should be able to explain it later when recounting her heroic adventures.

 

[ExploderWizard]

American football isn't really football cause you don't kick the ball much. Let's call it handball instead. Y'know, to minimise the risk of confusion.

Quite right mate. I dunno why Americans need 50 lbs of armor to play rugby.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm not a character.

You sure?

Characters don't exist outside the person creating them (author) or viewing them (audience).

OK. I don't remember saying characters were real people.

The player is both author and audience for their own character. The other players and GM are audience. The GM is director, but has no control over the script, just stage directions and bit parts.

This is what roleplaying is, and has always been.

The player makes all decisions for the character but the character usually doesn't have the knowledge that he/she is just a puppet being controlled by an outside force (the player). If the DM is handling things well there will be no "script" and the players will need only information about the world apart from thier characters rather than "direction".

 

[LostSoul]

Honestly LS, I would peg that more as a table issue than a game issue. If everyone is constantly trying to sort of "one-up" the next guy, then this is perhaps not the game for them. I would suggest sitting down and working out how this sort of thing is expected to go, at least at a basic level, before play even starts.

But, yes, I can see how this could be an issue in a game.

Yeah, it was a table issue, and that's how we dealt with it.

It was also an artifact of how BW works, which is a more traditional system; I've played games that are much more "player adds world definition" games, and since they were set up for it, we didn't have problems.