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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2179412" data-attributes="member: 27012">To clarify, I am very interested in "what happens to the characters" and "what the characters do".  I'd rarely consider the result a good story, though.In fact, I'd argue that most role-playing games don't make good stories, which is why listening to other people talk about their campaign or what their characters did last week can be so utterly boring.  Yes, some games do make good stories and good writers can also turn role-playing sessions into good stories.  But I also think that a lot of people play games that wouldn't be good stories if told to anyone else but they don't care, because story is not the reason they are playing -- but they also aren't playing simply as a tactical board game, either.But another way, for many people, role-playing is an experience, not a creative excercise.  Riding a roller coaster isn't about going from point A to point B (in fact, you often go from point A to point A), nor does it make for a good story.  It's an experience.  And for a lot of people, the draw of role-playing lies in the experience of doing it, not the stories you can tell about what you did.  As another analogy, looking at pictures or slides that someone else took on their vacation can also often be boring because looking at a picture of a volcano, tree, ruin, etc. is not a substitute for the experience of going there.</blockquote>