Storytelling vs Roleplaying

[Ariosto]

To me, this is 100% role playing. If it's not roleplaying, then, to be honest, I have no interest in roleplaying whatsoever. If the only way I can roleplay is to passively consume whatever plot the GM/DM decides to create this week, then bugger that for a game of soldiers. I have no interest. I want to be able to effect changes in the campaign.

To me, that is not role-playing in the traditional RPG sense; it is story-telling. While I am not wild about FATE, I think it better suited to the purpose than 4E.

"Passively consuming a plot" is most emphatically not what traditional RPGs -- especially old D&D -- are about! One effects changes in the world just as one does in playing one's real-life role: through one's choice of actions.

The distinction is really as simple as that. A role has limits to its perception and powers, and role-playing is working within those limits.

As the Author of a world via narration, one is not bound by the limits of a persona. Indeed, I wonder to what end one would incorporate a Game Master into such a game!

 

[I'm A Banana]

To me, that is not role-playing in the traditional RPG sense; it is story-telling.

But they were playing roles! Hussar's character was the poor guy and there was a character who was a loud guy, and those were their characters, and those were their roles, and they were acting as if they were in their roles, so thus they were role-playing.

I think any definition of "role-playing" that doesn't include Hussar's example is a functionally arbitrary definition. If role-playing doesn't mean playing a role, then everything I know about the English language has just been hit upside the face with a truck. It is almost worse than the "what is anime?" or "what is fantasy?" discussions.

 

[Agamon]

Sounds like a fairly typical game session. Does player 2 have some impediment to speaking in the 1st person?

It was an example that not all players speak in character (thus, he's kinda telling a story about what his PC is doing).

As far as catagorizing roleplaying and story based games the easiest measure is the amount of roleplaying/interaction advice and material vs the amount of staging, scene setting, shared narrative material. Overall beyond having a good time, what is the most prominent feature/play experience presented in both rules and tone? Is it roleplaying a created character in a fictional world or creating shared stories?

Whatever crumbles your cookies, I say. Let's not forget that 4e has been played for over a year by the rules (or dare I say suggestions, as much of the book is) of the DMG 1. Suggesting options in the DMG 2 to perhaps change up the style of play doesn't illegitimize the game as an RPG.

Once again, as I and KM have said, roleplaying and story telling are not mutually exclusive. Through roleplay, you are indeed telling a story, and you can weave a story in which one can roleplay. To say that one chapter in the DMG2 has turned D&D into a story-telling game the likes of Once Upon A Time (the only example you've given of such a game that I can recall) seems odd to me.

Edit: whoa, I came back in after the apropos MP sketch. My bad.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

You guys are going to be reinventing GNS theory in this thread before long.

 

[Ariosto]

Kamikaze Midget, it is the extension to doing more than playing a role, and the end necessitating that means, that is key.

From that other thread:

The primary goal of a wargame is to fight, thus a wargame.
The primary goal of a roleplaying game is to roleplay, thus a roleplaying game.
The primary goal of a storytelling game is to create/tell stories.

That seems to me an eminently sensible basis for taxonomy.

 

[Glyfair]

Telling people that their chosen thing just doesn't live up to what it's supposed to be, is going to be insulting. "It's not really roleplaying, it's something else. Not that that something else is bad mind you, it just isn't quite what I do." is the basic message here.

But you are missing the first point. The first thing you need to do in this sort of discussion is agree on a meaning for the term "roleplaying game."

In fact, I think the most argument laden term in such discussions is the term "roleplaying." To some, you are roleplaying if you are sitting down playing an RPG. It doesn't matter if you playing D&D and only treating your character as a combat game piece, they consider that "roleplaying."

On the other hand, there is the "role assumption" definition of roleplaying. When you are speaking and acting (and sometimes thinking) as if you are your character.

In fact, both definitions are correct. However, if you try to use them interchangably in the same conversation you are going to have misunderstandings and disagreements.

Of course, most such discussions tend to quickly get into arguing how much "role assumption/roleplaying" is the proper amount, and then you can end up with some voracious arguments. At least you will both agree on what you are arguing about then

 

[Ariosto]

You guys are going to be reinventing GNS theory in this thread before long.

So long as we don't get into such preciousness as GNS jargon, in which none of the terms mean what they conventionally mean. Bet your chicken nuggets I'm not about to call a play style "pervy"!

 

[Hussar]

To me, that is not role-playing in the traditional RPG sense; it is story-telling. While I am not wild about FATE, I think it better suited to the purpose than 4E.

"Passively consuming a plot" is most emphatically not what traditional RPGs -- especially old D&D -- are about! One effects changes in the world just as one does in playing one's real-life role: through one's choice of actions.

The distinction is really as simple as that. A role has limits to its perception and powers, and role-playing is working within those limits.

As the Author of a world via narration, one is not bound by the limits of a persona. Indeed, I wonder to what end one would incorporate a Game Master into such a game!

But, in traditional RPG's all of your choices are presented by the GM/DM. You have absolutely no control over anything. If I choose to have my character go over that hill, it is entirely up to the DM to decide if there is anything to do on the other side of that hill. At no point, in a traditional RPG, can I have any impact on what I will find on the other side of that hill. Thus, as a player, all of my choices are passive. Or rather, at best they are reactions to whatever the DM presents me with, which is exactly the same thing.

I cannot change the world through my actions since all of my actions are limited by what the DM will allow.

Now, I do 100% agree that this is one style of roleplaying. Certainly. But, it is passive/reaction roleplay. I have no options for changing anything other than whatever levers and buttons my character can push. And every single one of those levers or buttons must be given the tacit or explicit approval of the DM.

Therefore, by your definition, the DM cannot roleplay. After all, he is doing EXACTLY what the players are doing in my scenario all the time. He is changing the scene and the setting to suit his own purposes (presumably to make the game more interesting). Exactly what the players in SotC are doing.

So, if the DM is roleplaying, why am I suddenly not roleplaying for doing the exact same thing?

 

[Thunderfoot]

I'm confused. You mean to tell me that all this time that my wife and I have been dressing up and pretending to be other people right before we make the sexy, we may not have actually been roleplaying? I thought my impression of Tarzan was dead on.

For The WIN!!!!

 

[I'm A Banana]

The primary goal of a wargame is to fight, thus a wargame.
The primary goal of a roleplaying game is to roleplay, thus a roleplaying game.
The primary goal of a storytelling game is to create/tell stories.

This is creating a false dichotomy.

More than that: it's also making up terns and definitions.

I've heard of minis games that basically revolve around combat, sure. And in that case the role-playing is basically out just as it is in a game of RISK or Poker. But I haven't heard them called War-Games, and the primary goal isn't to fight, but to have fun and win against the other player through strategy.

I've heard of role-playing games, but they've run the gamut from WoW to Final Fantasy to D&D to T20 to GURPS to, heck, Magic the Gathering in some instances. Some of them have you playing against a computer or other players, others feature a GM to give you obstacles, but that you're not playing "against," in the competitive sense.

I've heard of RPG's that focus on narrative elements like plot, scenes, character development, etc., but these are not an entirely different species of game as much as they are a refinement of role-playing to a specific end. Mostly these are like other RPG's, but they have a special kind of focus.

I've also heard of games that are about storytelling: things like a "pass the baton" kind of game where one person writes a sentence, the second person writes the next sentence, etc. These games don't concern themselves with playing a role, but they are about telling a story. They don't go around identifying as "storytelling games" as far as I know, they're just "games." Games in which you happen to tell a story, like Hungry Hungry Hippos is a game in which you happen to slam a lever as fast as possible (which actually skirts kind of close to an RPG what with your little plastic avatar and his inferred hunger).

Kamikaze Midget, it is the extension to doing more than playing a role, and the end necessitating that means, that is key.

No, what is key is that a role-playing game involves playing a role.

Anything that is beyond that, anything that is MORE than that, isn't about whether or not someone is "role playing" anymore. Clearly, they are. Your concern is with whatever that "more" is, so define that thing, and maybe we can all be on the same page.

Don't call it role-playing, 'cuz it really doesn't seem like it is.