Telling a Story vs. Having Fun
- Thread starter wingsandsword
- Start date
Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
Stories are when the players are talking about what their characters did in past sessions over a few beers. The story is what they do, and how I react to that, not my attempts at creating amateur theater hour. Give the players a world to adventure in and they will create some kind of story, and it probably wont be one I thought of beforehand. I'm just a referee and world moderator I guess. I throw plot hooks out but that is about the limit of my attempts to fit the players into some story idea I may have. As a player I feel constrained when I know the DM is really trying to make some kind of storytelling experience.
Wyrm Pilot
First Post
Your friend was missing the point entirely -- "fun" is the reason even Vampire: The Overacting is called a "role-playing game," not "role-playing work" or "role-playing art."
Some people find the story to be the element that contributes most to their sense of fun; your friend appears to be one of those. But even to someone for whom the story is the only contributing factor, if telling that story wasn't fun for them they would choose another hobby.
Yes, the story is (usually, for most people) important to the very nature of the game; but fun is the reason for the game.
Cheers,
Wyrm Pilot
____________________
Some people find the story to be the element that contributes most to their sense of fun; your friend appears to be one of those. But even to someone for whom the story is the only contributing factor, if telling that story wasn't fun for them they would choose another hobby.
Yes, the story is (usually, for most people) important to the very nature of the game; but fun is the reason for the game.
Cheers,
Wyrm Pilot
____________________
Wombat
First Post
I can't choose here.
For our group, telling a good story is fun. That is why, collectively, we play the game -- to tell a good story that is fun for all of us.
Thus we do not distinguish between the two.
On the other hand, if it is about "playing a miniatures battle or having fun", we definitely side with fun. This explains why we shy away from D&D RAW.
For our group, telling a good story is fun. That is why, collectively, we play the game -- to tell a good story that is fun for all of us.
Thus we do not distinguish between the two.
On the other hand, if it is about "playing a miniatures battle or having fun", we definitely side with fun. This explains why we shy away from D&D RAW.
Odhanan said:
But this is still about the words - it is about your definition of "story".
I suggest to you that one can tell a story improvisationally. The rules and adventure-preparations are the framework within which the improvisation takes place. Grasp that, and we lose much of what seems to be the problem behind storytelling - that we will force the players into a particular ending.
As Psion notes, this isn't true. One can very well tell a story in an RPG without any such immunity. All that's required is some forethought and deliberation when designign the pieces and putting them in their starting places. We do not need to know where the pieces will land to have a good guess that their motion will be compelling.
With the quotes ("storylines") you implicitly show that the definition is important, and we are again back to the words, rather than the ideas.
I think it is clear that Psion and I do not conform to your definition. Please, take that as a given, and you can stop making assumptions about what we must do in order to tell a story. Instead, please listen to what we say we do, and accept that we consider it telling a story.
I will not be surprised if we find out that you and Psion and I are all doing very similar things, but you don't call it storytelling, and we do.
wingsandsword
Legend
Maybe I shouldn't post at 6 AM anymore.
I didn't mean that a fun game inherently has no story, or that it is only one or the other, I should have made the poll question be is the game more about having fun or telling a story. If everybody is having fun although the plot is flimsy, versus everybody is bored and frustrated but it has this complex and intricate story that is unfolding.
In this argument, the "Story" proponent was firmly arguing that the end goal of the game is for the GM to tell a Story, and that's what is most important (in other words, if the PC's had a miserable time and the system was clunky, it's still a success if the GM likes the story he told). I was arguing that the end goal is to have fun, story may be a part of that, like there is a plot in any movie, but if you aren't having fun, there is no point for the story.
He was using as an example of his ideal game a WoD game he ran, where he scripted out the entire story well in advance, kept the PC's as mortals with no special powers but had lots of elder vampires, high ranked werewolves, and master mages around (so that their powers could prevent the PC's from doing anything that ran contrary to the story, and making sure that the PC's weren't key players in the story so they could not make any decisions that would not go along with the story), and considered the game a success because he told the story he wanted to tell, the PC's didn't mess it up and sat there and listened to it, and he felt satisfied. As a player in that game, I can say that it was a huge railroad game, it was pretty boring (breathless, long-winded descriptions of even minor events and throwaway NPC's, repeatedly roleplaying out trivial encounters, long scenes where he plays several NPC's that are having a discussion, or otherwise interacting), and if you told him you weren't having fun, he made it clear that you were there to watch his story unfold as he performed, and walking out on the game in the middle because you were bored week after week and weren't having fun would be like walking out of a movie before the climax.
I would use as an example of an ideal game my last D&D campaign, especially early on. I had 5 of my friends come up to me over the course of about a week and say they wanted me to run a D&D game, so we all got together one night and worked on making a campaign. We discussed what campaign setting we were interested in using, the general tone of the campaign, and then discussed house rules and what books we would be letting in, until I came to a consensus with my players about the system (D&D 3.5), setting (Forgotten Realms), tone (lighthearted with occasional serious moments, mostly action and dungeon crawls with some politics), and house rules. Once we'd agreed on the game, we played once a week, the players had fun roleplaying their characters and going on adventures every week, sometimes wandering from city to city, sometimes blasting their way through a dragon's lair or a kobold nest, and a larger overarching plotline slowly starting to weave many of their prior adventures into a coherent story. If the PC's weren't having fun, I wasn't doing my job, and if anybody wasn't having fun to please tell me so we can fix it.
I didn't mean that a fun game inherently has no story, or that it is only one or the other, I should have made the poll question be is the game more about having fun or telling a story. If everybody is having fun although the plot is flimsy, versus everybody is bored and frustrated but it has this complex and intricate story that is unfolding.
In this argument, the "Story" proponent was firmly arguing that the end goal of the game is for the GM to tell a Story, and that's what is most important (in other words, if the PC's had a miserable time and the system was clunky, it's still a success if the GM likes the story he told). I was arguing that the end goal is to have fun, story may be a part of that, like there is a plot in any movie, but if you aren't having fun, there is no point for the story.
He was using as an example of his ideal game a WoD game he ran, where he scripted out the entire story well in advance, kept the PC's as mortals with no special powers but had lots of elder vampires, high ranked werewolves, and master mages around (so that their powers could prevent the PC's from doing anything that ran contrary to the story, and making sure that the PC's weren't key players in the story so they could not make any decisions that would not go along with the story), and considered the game a success because he told the story he wanted to tell, the PC's didn't mess it up and sat there and listened to it, and he felt satisfied. As a player in that game, I can say that it was a huge railroad game, it was pretty boring (breathless, long-winded descriptions of even minor events and throwaway NPC's, repeatedly roleplaying out trivial encounters, long scenes where he plays several NPC's that are having a discussion, or otherwise interacting), and if you told him you weren't having fun, he made it clear that you were there to watch his story unfold as he performed, and walking out on the game in the middle because you were bored week after week and weren't having fun would be like walking out of a movie before the climax.
I would use as an example of an ideal game my last D&D campaign, especially early on. I had 5 of my friends come up to me over the course of about a week and say they wanted me to run a D&D game, so we all got together one night and worked on making a campaign. We discussed what campaign setting we were interested in using, the general tone of the campaign, and then discussed house rules and what books we would be letting in, until I came to a consensus with my players about the system (D&D 3.5), setting (Forgotten Realms), tone (lighthearted with occasional serious moments, mostly action and dungeon crawls with some politics), and house rules. Once we'd agreed on the game, we played once a week, the players had fun roleplaying their characters and going on adventures every week, sometimes wandering from city to city, sometimes blasting their way through a dragon's lair or a kobold nest, and a larger overarching plotline slowly starting to weave many of their prior adventures into a coherent story. If the PC's weren't having fun, I wasn't doing my job, and if anybody wasn't having fun to please tell me so we can fix it.
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Arnwyn
First Post
This poll makes absolutely no sense. Why is there a distinction between the two?
(Though I would sure vote against "performance art"!
)
Edit: Maybe a better poll question would have been: is it more about telling a story, or playing a game? (Edit 2: And maybe the WW fan was actually right, and that Vampire/the Storyteller system really is a better... ahem... 'venue' (?) for his "performance art".)
(Though I would sure vote against "performance art"!
)Edit: Maybe a better poll question would have been: is it more about telling a story, or playing a game? (Edit 2: And maybe the WW fan was actually right, and that Vampire/the Storyteller system really is a better... ahem... 'venue' (?) for his "performance art".)
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Kanegrundar
Explorer
I voted fun so fast it made my own head spin!
When I game, it's to have fun. Period. A story is *created* in the midst of having fun. I never go in looking to tell my players a story, after all I'm not their nanny trying to put them to sleep.
We create the story together, but that's secondary to the fun.
When I game, it's to have fun. Period. A story is *created* in the midst of having fun. I never go in looking to tell my players a story, after all I'm not their nanny trying to put them to sleep.
We create the story together, but that's secondary to the fun.
Psion
Adventurer
Arnwyn said:This poll makes absolutely no sense. Why is there a distinction between the two?
(Though I would sure vote against "performance art"!
Edit: Maybe a better poll question would have been: is it more about telling a story, or playing a game? (Edit 2: And maybe the WW fan was actually right, and that Vampire/the Storyteller system really is a better... ahem... 'venue' (?) for his "performance art".)
I think the noise level in the thread would be a bit lower if the poll had been omitted. The initial post had enough food for thought for a good discussion.
