Theory: Coming to the Table

[Mallus]

And if more interesting means I get to say, "I swing my sword and a meteor falls on him", then count me out.

Well, in the context of a game designed to simulate fantasy adventure stories, that's pretty much the textbook definition of 'interesting'.

The whole point is to play a character I can recognize as a real person. Personally, I cannot call down meteors on people in real life. Magic? Sure, but magic works for a reason. Otherwise it's just pretty worthless.

Why do you play a game with spells like 'Meteor Swarm' in it unless you want to personally call down meteors on people's heads? You are really not computing here.

 

[bert1000]

#3, the GM "narrating" the world doesn't exist. No one is narrating anything. The GM is merely progressing the world along according to its' own design in consequence to the PC's actions...

As any one who knows the parlance of RPGs can tell you, "playing the game" happens once you sit down and start acting in character. That other stuff is peripheral to RPGs as well. And Narration is nothing to do with RPGs other than as a bad style of GMing - railroading.

Maybe it's just our definitions of narration?

You can collectively agree on the tenants of a world, but because of the limits on the pre-determined details of that world (not to mention the dynamic of time), the world can not dictate everything going on without some player's (usually the GM's) authority/narration.

For example, a party in D&D wakes up and looks outside. What is the weather like? The GM decides it is lightly snowing and narrates the scene as such because:

1) it is winter within the game world
2) winter is cold enough to snow some of the days within the game world
3) GM has decided to use his/her narrative authority to decide it is cold enough and snowing at that moment

The GM could have easily decided it was not snowing, and this too would be conistent and permissible within the world. Neither outcome is strictly dictated by the world.

Frr this decision, the GM gets to play God, if that's how you want to describe it, but I fail to see how that lessens your roleplaying enjoyment.

In a rpg this seems to happen pretty frequently to me.

 

[howandwhy99]

We play them if we feel it is interesting. We dont play defecating, cutting our fingernails, eating every meal, picking noses, every time they sleep.

heck we have rules that allow players to cut scene so they can do something interesting if the current event has played out and is boring.

immersion is nice, boredom is fatal.

That's interesting. We have things called "Plans" we use to take care of those and skip over details we've already conquered.

Like how to listen at a door. Then check for traps. Then how to disable certain traps if certain traps are found. And then were we stand and in what order when the door is opened. And by who and how.

>>EDIT: Aka Door Opening Sequence #1.

That's just one example of skipping over stuff that the Players already figured out in game and now have good means of getting around.

Plus, if something goes wrong during any of that, the GM can zoom back in on the details as they once again become important.

 

[howandwhy99]

What do you call all those words coming out of the DM's mouth, the ones describing the homey warmth of the inn's fire or the blood jetting out of an orc's smashed cranium?

That would be telling the players what they ask about. And saying things like "you feel the house is homey" is off limits. Homey is how the PCs feel about it. Not something the DM tells them their PCs feel about it.

So the way around 'playing God' is to simply deny the agency of both the players and the DM and claim that they're merely objective chroniclers and judges of the stuff they are in the process of making up?

So this is a muse thing?

I see. So the players and DM making a world up outside of the game is somehow playing God too? It seems more like they are just devising the world they want to play in. Like saying, "Let's play ToEE" and going with that. Is that playing God too?

Define 'playing god'. Does that include action/fate point systems, the ability to add to the character's backstory during play. We know you don't like it, but is it exactly that you don't like?

Good lord, it's stopping playing your PC and having to think like a Player to shape the world to your liking vs. having to overcome it as a PC. This really isn't something I care to define as I'm not here to tell other people how to play things I don't care to play.

D&D is a 'storygame' as far as I'm concerned. It's a game with significant story-like elements. How is it not?

You've been misinformed. Stories can't be "games" as I pointed out earlier. You can't win or lose at a story. It's already preconceived. Railroading Players through "stories" is widely considered bad DMing.

Narrations is simply a way of describing the talking part of the game, ie, most of the game. It's the bulk of RPG play, in the same way that running up and down a grass field is the bulk of football/soccer. Why does that word bother you so much?

Because narration doesn't exist in roleplaying games. It bothers me because the whole of it is a conceit devised by a small cadre of RPG-hating theorist in a small corner of the RPG community with the intention to denigrate everything that actually IS an RPG as "incoherent". And it's players as brain damaged.

Well, in the context of a game designed to simulate fantasy adventure stories, that's pretty much the textbook definition of 'interesting'.

Why do you play a game with spells like 'Meteor Swarm' in it unless you want to personally call down meteors on people's heads? You are really not computing here.

Please don't be disingenuous. I'm illustrating someone acting like a God. Not someone who magical power. I'll try and be clearer next time.

 

[apoptosis]

You've been misinformed. Stories can't be "games" as I pointed out earlier. You can't win or lose at a story. It's already preconceived. Railroading Players through "stories" is widely considered bad DMing.

If stories cant be games neither can roleplaying. You cant win or lose at roleplaying either.

See this really doesn't get us anywhere.

While the class is called a roleplaying game it originally was called other things as well (this nomenclature just stuck the longest) including fantasy gaming, fantasy wargaming, fantasy strategy games etc.

If easily could have been called Storygaming or other things. It is just the name of a particular class of games that involve a lot of abstraction.

 

[howandwhy99]

If stories cant be games neither can roleplaying. You cant win or lose at roleplaying either.

See this really doesn't get us anywhere.

Please reread what roleplaying games are again. Roleplaying is pretending to be another person. It's like life. You win or lose at it like you win or lose at life.

If you don't think you can win or lose in real life, I can't help you.

While the class is called a roleplaying game it originally was called other things as well (this nomenclature just stuck the longest) including fantasy gaming, fantasy wargaming, fantasy strategy games etc.

If easily could have been called Storygaming or other things. It is just the name of a particular class of games that involve a lot of abstraction.

Now you're just equivocating to include things like Warhammer miniatures and the fantasy boardgames. That's totally unnecessary. If you don't care what your games are called, why try and usurp the name of RPG? Stick with what you've got and be proud of it.

 

[apoptosis]

Please reread what roleplaying games are again. Roleplaying is pretending to be another person. It's like life. You win or lose at it like you win or lose at life.

If you don't think you can win or lose in real life, I can't help you.

Now you're just equivocating to include things like Warhammer miniatures and the fantasy boardgames. That's totally unnecessary. If you don't care what your games are called, why try and usurp the name of RPG? Stick with what you've got and be proud of it.

No i don't think you can actually win or lose at life. You could set up conditions or goals in life to win or lose but at life itself, no you cannot win or lose that is just silly. Well unless you consider death as losing in which case you just lose.


I am sorry but that really just doesnt make much sense to me.

 

[howandwhy99]

Maybe it's just our definitions of narration?

You can collectively agree on the tenants of a world, but because of the limits on the pre-determined details of that world (not to mention the dynamic of time), the world can not dictate everything going on without some player's (usually the GM's) authority/narration.

So you keep trying to say. And I keep proving you wrong. The DM is describing the world as it enfolds before the players in character. How is that narration? There is no storytelling going on there. Narrations are told after the fact.

I have no problem with Narration. I have a problem with people falsely redefining it and trying to stick it in RPGs. It's just not the case.

For example, a party in D&D wakes up and looks outside. What is the weather like? The GM decides it is lightly snowing and narrates the scene as such because:

1) it is winter within the game world
2) winter is cold enough to snow some of the days within the game world
3) GM has decided to use his/her narrative authority to decide it is cold enough and snowing at that moment

The GM could have easily decided it was not snowing, and this too would be conistent and permissible within the world. Neither outcome is strictly dictated by the world.

Frr this decision, the GM gets to play God, if that's how you want to describe it, but I fail to see how that lessens your roleplaying enjoyment.

In a rpg this seems to happen pretty frequently to me.

Well, in that case the GM has probably written out with the weather is like for the coming weeks or months after having randomly generated it from the rules best fit to simulate the agreed upon world. (how's that for a run-on sentence?)

In other scenarios, the GM does their best to cover the corner cases according to the world as it already stands. Again, this is not "narration" or "just making it up as we go along". That's bad DMing and the reason why RPGs were created was to stop such capricious behavior by GMs. They are judges and act according to the world as it stands, firm but fair.

 

[howandwhy99]

No i don't think you can actually win or lose at life. You could set up conditions or goals in life to win or lose but at life itself, no you cannot win or lose that is just silly. Well unless you consider death as losing in which case you just lose.

I am sorry but that really just doesnt make much sense to me.

This specific point isn't an argument you should make.

Have you ever tried to do anything in life? Have you ever wanted to succeed at anything? Were you ever afraid at failing? Have you ever made a plan and have it succeed or fail?

Or does everything "just happen" to you.

We could all just roleplay rocks, but that would get pretty dull in no short time.

 

[LostSoul]

Because narration doesn't exist in roleplaying games. It bothers me because the whole of it is a conceit devised by a small cadre of RPG-hating theorist in a small corner of the RPG community with the intention to denigrate everything that actually IS an RPG as "incoherent". And it's players as brain damaged.

I think you're pretty much on the same page as some of them:

GM says, "Roll!" Player says, "I got a 20! I get to narrate!" (launches into long and involved monologue about how this opponent is really his long-lost mother, to the consternation of the GM who'd been playing the NPC all along as someone totally different, say, Barnabas the stablehand) The GM is now forced to junk 80% of his prep and re-write the whole scenario in the next microsecond as the player looks at him expectantly.

I'm saying, this isn't what most people are talking about, when we talk about non-railroady Narrativist play. This is kind of a consensual-storytelling, make-it-up-as-we-go, round-robin type thing. Frankly, it's pretty boring in most circumstances and tends to create wandering, meaningless pseudo-narratives.

That's what I think you mean when you say "playing God" and that playing God isn't playing an RPG.