The Gaming Den

There was this game a friend was all excited about, this game used to flaunt the term but, sadly, its definition of SG was "built-in rules for legitimized railroading."

I got burned with that game, and now I'm wary about games which use the term as part of the sales pitch.

And then I remembered that the term isn't exactly uniform, or even a common standard (pretty much like every other term in the hobby, it's not like we have a Royal Language Academy of Roleplaying).

At least as far as my gaming table is concerned, we usually relate it with Shared Narrative (tools that give the player momentary authorial faculties over the game). We love M&M's Edit-a-Scene feature, we love FATE's Aspects, we love metagame currency but... what if I'm wrong and I'm mixing completely wrong terms? What if SG has nothing to do with Shared Narrative? What if it actually is the opposite of Shared Narrative and player empowerment? (given the hate SG gets from many players, that may be the case).

Also, what if there really is an official term and I don't know it?

Enlighten me please.

"Story Games" is a term from the Forge. As such, it doesn't actually mean anything. The Forge specialized in coining words that sounded like they meant something but then "defining" them with rambling twenty thousand word essays that were not internally consistent. That should be an exaggeration, but it isn't.

The basic idea of a "story game" is that it is like an RPG, but "more story focused". Now, an RPG is by definition a "cooperative storytelling game", so really if you want to make it have "more story" the only real way to do that is to reduce the emphasis on the "cooperative" part (making it more railroady) or reduce the emphasis on the "game" part (making it more freeform). As such, I am always extremely leery when someone tells me that their latest heartbreaker is a "Story Game".

But that doesn't have to be bad. Mouseguard is decent enough at what it does, and considers itself to be a "Story Game". It's just that the movement that it comes from is intellectually bankrupt.

-Username17

I tried Mouseguard once. The campaign failed badly and did moderate but irreparable damage to one of my friendships. Maybe the guy running it is just not suited for this game. It seems to function assuming that you will follow for the most part the tropes and traditions set forth in the comic, and if you break from them, the GM is supposed to berate you back into line.

Now, I've never read Mouseguard, because it started coming out at a point in time when I did not have a regular comic store, nor money to buy comics with anyway. Apparently in the MG universe, capes are Serious Business. I can appreciate that, as capes are one of the very few pieces of clothing mice in that setting wear with any regularity at all. I decided to play a scout, because mice are no bigger in this world than ours, and they have no fewer predators either. The GM balked when I said I wanted to have a cloak that is either green or brown, because one of the first steps to telling the party about a hawk overhead is not getting snatched up by said hawk because you have a giant EAT ME sign tied around your neck. The GM balked at this saying that capes are given to you by your mentor and they have symbolic meaning and represent something fundamental about your character as seen by your mentor. My response is that this is all well and good, but if that piece of symbolism makes it harder for me to do my job and risks my character's life or the life of the party then I was going to leave it at home and use something a little more practical.

The game continued for, I think, two more sessions afterwards, but this set the tone for the game.

I don't like to be accused of metagaming just because I make a basic assumption based on practicality. So what I'm saying is that if "Storygaming" means "Forcing you to make stupid decisions in the name of having a more in-depth background", then the members of this movement can go suck a barrel of cocks.

I imagine Toon falls under the category of "story games", considering there's no real way to win or lose the game. I have good memories of playing Toon.

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:The GM balked when I said I wanted to have a cloak that is either green or brown, because one of the first steps to telling the party about a hawk overhead is not getting snatched up by said hawk because you have a giant EAT ME sign tied around your neck. The GM balked at this saying that capes are given to you by your mentor and they have symbolic meaning and represent something fundamental about your character as seen by your mentor.

Now, see, this should have been a character defining thing: Your character is a very practical mouse. No nonsense, thinks things through, a bit grim and serious. So maybe your mentor would acknowledge that down-to-earthness in your character and choose a practical cape for scouting with some symbolic embroidery or something about whatever other character traits he thinks are important. Or maybe he wouldn't get it and give you something wildly impractical that your character would never choose for themselves. And then your character either has an estranged relationship with his former mentor over a cape and the whole cape thing is a touchy issue for him, or you go along with it while secretly bemoaning how ridiculous you look, or even talking him into doing the practical thing and getting a reputation for being really stubborn. Any of those would work.

But your GM shouldn't balk at it out-of-character. That just turns it into a stupid RL argument instead of an interesting character argument.

Well, and you got upset about a world defining trait. I mean, you guys were both asshats in this case.

If you're going to play a SuperHero game, you don't complain that your outfit looks ridiculous.. you just assume it will.

If you're playing Mouse Guard.. Guard Mice have Cloaks.. and Cloaks are Very Important(tm). Or you work it out like Grek did.. and make it an interesting roleplay thing.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

FrankTrollman wrote:"Story Games" is a term from the Forge. As such, it doesn't actually mean anything. The Forge specialized in coining words that sounded like they meant something but then "defining" them with rambling twenty thousand word essays that were not internally consistent. That should be an exaggeration, but it isn't.

As far as I can be bothered to work out, all of GNS "theory" can be boiled down to three short definitions.
Narrativist: Things Ron Edwards Likes.
Gamist: Things Ron Edwards Doesn't Like.
Simulationist: Things Ron Edwards Doesn't Understand.

I mean, there are definitely meaningful differences between GURPS and Wushu (or Amber, or Breaking the Ice, or PDQ, or whatever), but the Forge is remarkably unhelpful in explaining them.

Morat wrote:As far as I can be bothered to work out, all of GNS "theory" can be boiled down to three short definitions.
Narrativist: Things Ron Edwards Likes.
Gamist: Things Ron Edwards Doesn't Like.
Simulationist: Things Ron Edwards Doesn't Understand.

I don't want to fatten my sig, but this is definitely going into the speshul folder. Beautiful.