The Food Analogy

[bsss]

I don't really buy that, based on many years of experience with many people. Sure, sometimes it is fully collaborative, but I think that is very much the exception. Most players (again, IME) are not passive, per se, but they definitely eat the meal more than they prepare it. And that's not a bad thing. Too many chefs spoil the soup, and all that.

Different degrees of it can exist and still be TRRPGing, for sure, but I play at tables and with games where the players have the ability (mechanical or just because we're storytelling) to say "hey wouldn't it be cool if X" and we just roll with it. I have GMed games where basically my only role was arbiter and 95% of the session was letting the players loose.

Both approaches work, but because of that, it means the imbalance implicit in the metaphor does not work for me. And add that characters and play contribute to what we make, even if there is an imbalance in a particular instance, and I don't think there's anything I can really hang my hat on with the cooking analogy.

If I strain myself, I see it like a self-serving family-style buffet.

 

[Reynard]

Doooood.... need to get you at our table sometime. So much fun when everyone is collaborating. Promise promise, it's not actually too many cooks in the kitchen. It's a well oiled machine cranking out the best stories - your stories cause you made em with us

Not sometimes fully collab - always fully collab.

I bet we are also probably using different definitions of "collaboration".

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I bet we are also probably using different definitions of "collaboration".

What is yours then? Never hurts to be on same page for terms in case they are pivotal.

 

[Reynard]

What is yours then? Never hurts to be on same page for terms in case they are pivotal.

I would use the word in its most literal sense. That is, while we are all "creating a story together" when we play, general players doing player things aren't collaborating, they are playing. This includes more open, player driven games where they decide where to go and what to do. "Collaborating" would mean actively creating parts of the world and/or adventure. I think this is relatively rare outside of what world building players sometimes do when writing backstories.

So that is why I said that in the context of the analogy, players are absolutely essential to the experience of the meal, but they aren't helping to cook.

Of course, there are games and playstyles where players are very much "in the kitchen." But these are uncommon when compared to most traditional games and playstyles. Even the most popular game in the world is still a "chef" based game, after all.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I would use the word in its most literal sense. That is, while we are all "creating a story together" when we play, general players doing player things aren't collaborating, they are playing. This includes more open, player driven games where they decide where to go and what to do. "Collaborating" would mean actively creating parts of the world and/or adventure. I think this is relatively rare outside of what world building players sometimes do when writing backstories.

Ok, cool. So yeah, I follow you there. If we go back to my example where the GM prepped a 'negotiate to get more domain area' and the players decided 'naw, we gonna work with other vamps to kill this prince and pick our own.' = does that fall into "creating parts of the adventure? seems so yes...

then we can also mention other common things "I spend XP and buy a apartment as my new haven, it has N properties and is located a X in town." while the 'allowance' to do so came from the rules and not the GM fiat of 'whatever the GM feels like' = it is fundamentally identical. A feature and area of the world was not there before, and is there and is relevant now. And the GM can't say no, since its a rule that allows the player to place it and define it. So again, we have players actively creating parts of the world? seems so yes...


Side note:
I think D&D does not have rules to do this maybe? I dunno, my knowledge of 5e is limited. Certainly not in the core (maybe some expanded book of castles and keeps, i dunno). But a game system can also contribute to what holds players back too... which can alter perspectives on what is. And I am not sure I find any value is saying 'well since D&D is more popular/common', it's the main truth here...cause that is just adding emphasis to the limitation, not discussing the main topic in its own right.

 

[bsss]

I think D&D does not have rules to do this maybe? I dunno, my knowledge of 5e is limited. Certainly not in the core (maybe some expanded book of castles and keeps, i dunno). But a game system can also contribute to what holds players back too... which can alter perspectives on what is. And I am not sure I find any value is saying 'well since D&D is more popular/common', it's the main truth here...cause that is just adding emphasis to the limitation, not discussing the main topic in its own right.

For whatever it's worth, I agree with you that I don't think what we're describing is that uncommon at all. Firstly, Session 0 is commonly an "everyone comes together to discuss what our game will be about", which I think would count, but I can think of a number of systems that have some form of players spending resources (commonly XP, sometimes other resources dedicated to this purpose) to define something that is true about the in-game world, sometimes on the fly. In some games, it's an expensive spend, in other games it can happen many times a session. Plus, I don't think it's likely that the majority of creativity is one-way at the majority of tables. The player having an idea about any topic and proposing it to the GM may be more encouraged or less encouraged in the rules, or more/less reliant on Rule 0, but I think it's part of the tradition that the gameplay reacts to and riffs on ideas from the whole table, and I want to believe that it happens, generally speaking, all the time.

D&D may not encode all of the things that we're talking about, but they're present in the nature of playing a game together. Whether or not that counts as "helping to cook" just further weakens the analogy in my mind.