Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase

[Max_Killjoy]

This is downright conspiratorial. Your position is that on a page primarily about written fiction with the potential to be edited by that huge audience some agenda driven* niche RPG player (a much tinier population segment) edited the page, which we only found out about because someone on your side of the argument tried to bring it in as evidence.

*Because the idea of agendas as something held only by specific people in a dispute against non-agendad neutral parties is so totally rational.

The more obscure the Wikipedia page, the MORE likely it is to be subject to those sorts of issues, because no one else is looking on a regular basis.

It's not conspiratorial, it's a known issue with publicly editable wiki-style pages.

[Knaight]

The more obscure the Wikipedia page, the MORE likely it is to be subject to those sorts of issues, because no one else is looking on a regular basis.

Collaborative fiction isn't obscure. Books written by multiple authors show up all the time, which pulls this back in the realm of some tiny subgroup vandalizing a much more widely viewed page.

[Max_Killjoy]

Collaborative fiction isn't obscure. Books written by multiple authors show up all the time, which pulls this back in the realm of some tiny subgroup vandalizing a much more widely viewed page.

Ironically, one of the most extensive sources of how unauthoritative Wikipedia is, for this and other reasons, is an article on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

Citing a single line in that article is about as definitive on the subject as Tanarii citing the other search in the first place.

And the other irony here is that the rush isn't see conspiracies, but rather the rush to be smugly dismissive ends up with someone jumping on a bit of snark in a forum post as if it were proof of the person making it being some sort of conspiracy nut. Oh dang, I must have misplaced my tinfoil hat.


As noted, the article is a bit of a mess, either way... the sentence right before the one you quoted says (emphasis added) "Other forms of collaborative fiction have evolved from the practices of tabletop and role-playing video game gamers and related 'fandom' activities. Role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons are often seen as a process to generate narratives though each characters interactions." And that's another reason I wonder just what sort of authoring and editing process the article as been through. In the two sentences, it seems to contradict whether RPGs are, or are often seen as, collaborative fiction, and then it meanders off into rules restricting anti-social players.

E: the page history isn't exactly illuminating either way, with the last edit for that section I spotted in the list dated a year and a half ago, roughly https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...action=history

[Max_Killjoy]

And on the flip side, if we are going to take Wikipedia as authoritative, rather than as informative as to where to begin our digging on a subject, then perhaps consider why "storytelling" might just involve more than a handful of gamers sitting down to each play their own character (aside from the GM, which as I've said is a different discussion) to qualify as storytelling, based on the following -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling .


E: But I've spent enough time discussing a specific subject with a group of experts who've largely given up editing wikipedia pages related to their field because no matter how many times they correct the articles, someone comes along and changes them back "because everyone knows", to have faith in wikipedia as authoritative on any subject.

Spoiler

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In this case, armor and armor combat in WW2, with myths about the supremacy of the Tiger and the inferiority of the Sherman being practically unkillable no matter how much research and sourcing one might post to back up their edits.

[Tinkerer]

Huh, actually something caught my eye a little while ago there. Might I enquire if the term "collaborative fiction" is in any way preferable to "collaborative storytelling"?

As I mentioned my largest disagreement here is from Tanarii's curious definition of story in RPGs as

My definition of story in RPGs is "using narrative resolution instead of causal resolution".

A definition which Max_Killjoy has stated on other occasions and which seems to imply that a story can only use narrative resolution, that it would be impossible to have a causal resolution story in RPGs.

[Max_Killjoy]

Huh, actually something caught my eye a little while ago there. Might I enquire if the term "collaborative fiction" is in any way preferable to "collaborative storytelling"?

As I mentioned my largest disagreement here is from Tanarii's curious definition of story in RPGs as



A definition which Max_Killjoy has stated on other occasions and which seems to imply that a story can only use narrative resolution, that it would be impossible to have a causal resolution story in RPGs.

For me it's more about intent and structure, and whether they're present. Story that may emerge is not the same as deliberate storytelling.

Narrative resolution/rules can bake intent and structure into the actual mechanics of some games, but that doesn't mean that storytelling can't occur without them, or that storytelling can't occur with causal resolution. So the question of how the rules work is not on exactly the same axis as "storytelling or not".

Another issue is the collaborative part... if one player is trying to tell a story, and is definitely not trying to tell a story, are they collaborating?

I've actually had this sort of thing happen to me, where another player became increasingly frustrated with me over multiple sessions until (as I later learned) the GM finally pulled him aside and asked why he was so frustrated. It turned out that I wasn't cooperating with the story he wanted to tell about his character... a story I had no idea he was telling, let alone that I was supposed to be doing certain things. My suggestion to the GM was that if the other player expected or even needed other characters to behave and respond in certain ways, it would be better to put NPCs into those roles.


E: regarding your question of whether "fiction" would be better than "storytelling", that depends on how one takes the word "fiction". If one takes it narrowly, then no, it makes no difference. However, while I can't find it now, there have been some discussions here about using "the fiction" as a broader umbrella term to mean "the invented and imagined elements of the game, such as the setting and characters and events", and used that way, yes, one could say "collaborative fiction" and not immediately imply a deliberate act of crafting actual stories.

[Darth Ultron]

For me it's more about intent and structure, and whether they're present. Story that may emerge is not the same as deliberate storytelling.

This was my point many pages ago. You can have a bunch of people sit in a group and say stuff, but that does not mean they are storytelling.

More so with the typical RPG, with a DM and Players: Each Player can only tell the story of their single character...so that is not exactly a ''collaboration''.

[Florian]

This was my point many pages ago. You can have a bunch of people sit in a group and say stuff, but that does not mean they are storytelling.

More so with the typical RPG, with a DM and Players: Each Player can only tell the story of their single character...so that is not exactly a ''collaboration''.

*Sigh*

DU, you steadfastly cling to the model that there're character and then there's the world. This is known as Sim World as doesn't have to be true.

[Max_Killjoy]

*Sigh*

DU, you steadfastly cling to the model that there're character and then there's the world. This is known as Sim World as doesn't have to be true.

Let's not confuse DU's self-reported "it's my world and my story and you're just here for the train ride" DMing style with anything resembling or called "sim", "simulationist", or "simulationism".

[kyoryu]

Let's not confuse DU's self-reported "it's my world and my story and you're just here for the train ride" DMing style with anything resembling or called "sim", "simulationist", or "simulationism".

Indeed. Based on self-description, his style of running games does not appear to be representative of any common style that I'm aware of.

[Darth Ultron]

DU, you steadfastly cling to the model that there're character and then there's the world. This is known as Sim World as doesn't have to be true.

Not sure what your talking about?

[Knaight]

Indeed. Based on self-description, his style of running games does not appear to be representative of any common style that I'm aware of.

Really? Because I can think of one, just not one anyone else is likely to admit to.

[Darth Ultron]

Indeed. Based on self-description, his style of running games does not appear to be representative of any common style that I'm aware of.

Well, I represent the Classic Common Style that I see nearly every gamer I have ever met use: DM makes the Story and Adventure....and the Players play along.

It's true there is the Other Way: The Everyone Group game, where everyone is a player and everyone takes a turn taking control saying what happens. Though it does seem that this type of game is popular with people that have a very different world view me, so much that we can't even associate (Like this is the type of person that will walk out of the game, refused to game with me and never speak to me again, ever if I show up to the game wearing my Make America Great Again hat.)

And somewhere just below that is the very popular Second Life game, where the Casual DM makes up some random stuff..but never has any sort of coherent lineal plan or ideas, then just waits to react to whatever the players do. This is really popular with DM's that ''don't have the time''.

The Other Way is sure really made for game systems that have that built into the rules. So it really only works with that sort of game. You can Second Life any game, but then not much happens in that sort of game. To have any sort of story and adventure....it does seem like everyone does come back to the Classic Way.

So...

[Tanarii]

Yeah... because if we are going by Wikipedia the phrase collaborative storytelling doesn't show up as a definition within Role-Playing Game, indeed in the same paragraph distinctly placing the Role-Playing Game as a sub-categorization of storytelling game.

You've got that back to front.
The most popular modern storytelling games originated as a subgenre of role-playing games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_game

Collaborative fiction has a Wikipedia entry. Storytelling game has a Wikipedia entry. Collaborative story doesn't have one.

Not to put a fine point on it, but this completely ignores how google works. As far as they are concerned, "collaborative storytelling" and "storytelling game" are ... uh, not quite synonymous, but the second closest match. The closest being actually collaboration while storytelling.

However, I fully admit it was an appeal to popularity. But that's the secondary point of this thread: a small group of people are choosing to misuse and misapply the original meaning of "collaborative storytelling" in a way the majority to do not, by applying to to ALL roleplaying.

The primary point being that doing that in a way to apply it to all roleplaying makes the phrase lose the ability to meaningfully describe an distinguish between different kinds of roleplaying: playing a character as a person, playing a character with an eye to the emergent story, and actively playing the narrative. Only 2 of which can reasonably meet the definition of "story". (This is not to say that a player can't be doing more than one.)

[Max_Killjoy]

The primary point being that doing that in a way to apply it to all roleplaying makes the phrase lose the ability to meaningfully describe an distinguish between different kinds of roleplaying: playing a character as a person, playing a character with an eye to the emergent story, and actively playing the narrative. Only 2 of which can reasonably meet the definition of "story". (This is not to say that a player can't be doing more than one.)

Part of the disagreement, I think, comes down to whether someone see the "why" and "how" of actually playing the game is the important distinction (as you're laying out in the paragraph I'm quoting), or if a broad and "close enough" description of RPGs is the important thing. When it comes to this terminology issue I'm very firmly in the former camp -- the term doesn't describe how or why I play the games.

Add in all the tons of baggage and the high risks of conflation, and the term just doesn't work for me at all, and I would (obviously) strongly object to having what I'm doing as a player in an RPG session called "collaborative storytelling".

[Tanarii]

Part of the disagreement, I think, comes down to whether someone see the "why" and "how" of actually playing the game is the important distinction (as you're laying out in the paragraph I'm quoting), or if a broad and "close enough" description of RPGs is the important thing. When it comes to this terminology issue I'm very firmly in the former camp -- the term doesn't describe how or why I play the games.

I'll be honest, I'm emotionally invested in my objection to the label exactly because I know why and how I'm playing the game, and it has nothing to do with story. In fact, it's anti-Predetermined-Narrative/Plot, in the same way Free Will is anti-Fate. That's why I object to it so strongly, even though it's specifically the "predetermined" that pushes my buttons.

Also:

Ironically, one of the most extensive sources of how unauthoritative Wikipedia is, for this and other reasons, is an article on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

Citing a single line in that article is about as definitive on the subject as Tanarii citing the other search in the first place.

It wasn't my intent to make an Appeal to Authority, but in retrospect, that's certainly what it was, as well as an (intentional) Appeal to Popularity.

I hate it when people I generally agree with on topic help keep me honest, it's harder to get all emotionally invested in telling them they're clearly wrong when they're clearly right hahaha

[Tinkerer]

You've got that back to front.
The most popular modern storytelling games originated as a subgenre of role-playing games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_game

Pretty sure I don't. Quote from the "Role-playing game" article "Such role-playing games extend an older tradition of storytelling games where a small party of friends collaborate to create a story." Additionally as was brought up "Both authors and major publishers of tabletop role-playing games consider them to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling."

This is why the definition of the word story factored in so heavily earlier. Because I think that we are approaching this from the same place but with the definition of that one word being different.

I'll be honest, I'm emotionally invested in my objection to the label exactly because I know why and how I'm playing the game, and it has nothing to do with story. In fact, it's anti-Predetermined-Narrative/Plot, in the same way Free Will is anti-Fate. That's why I object to it so strongly, even though it's specifically the "predetermined" that pushes my buttons.

This is a subject which I am in strong agreement with you on if you were to remove the term story from the argument. Aside from you using that one word in what seems to me to be a bizarre manner the rest seems fairly sound. Heck even Storytelling Games are almost always anti-predetermined-narrative/plot. That is the whole point of having multiple authors in a linearly progressing story, you don't get to control everything.

In short I don't get why you interpret story as predetermined-narrative.

[Tanarii]

In short I don't get why you interpret story as predetermined-narrative.

I don't. That's just the one that particularly pushes my buttons.

But playing my character as a person interacting with their fictional environment and events resulting has nothing to do with story. In the same way that living my life and events resulting has nothing to do with story.

Events are not an account of events.

Edit: ie narrative is the first thing that leaps to mind when I think of story. But I acknowledge that you can also choose play a character with an eye to the emergent / resulting story. But that's different from me choosing to play them as if making choices for them as a person.

[enderlord99]

I consider "story" to mean "sequence of events being described (either after occurring* or a after not-occurring*) but I understand many will disagree with me.

*The latter being called "fiction" and the former "non-fiction."

[Tinkerer]

I don't. That's just the one that particularly pushes my buttons.

But playing my character as a person interacting with their fictional environment and events resulting has nothing to do with story. In the same way that living my life and events resulting has nothing to do with story.

Events are not an account of events.

Edit: ie narrative is the first thing that leaps to mind when I think of story. But I acknowledge that you can also choose play a character with an eye to the emergent / resulting story. But that's different from me choosing to play them as if making choices for them as a person.

However these events are not occurring. All that is occurring in the real world is your account of these fictional events as the game is played. Hence these are not events but rather a fictional account of events. If we were discussing LARPs you would have a much stronger stance here but for tabletop gaming you along with the GM are providing an account of the events in your character's life.

One of the things in this conversation which is frustrating people is the insistence that people saying that it is a form of storytelling means that they are referring to people who keep an eye to the emergent story. That is not the case. Nobody is saying that you are doing that.

[Lord Raziere]

This is a subject which I am in strong agreement with you on if you were to remove the term story from the argument. Aside from you using that one word in what seems to me to be a bizarre manner the rest seems fairly sound. Heck even Storytelling Games are almost always anti-predetermined-narrative/plot. That is the whole point of having multiple authors in a linearly progressing story, you don't get to control everything.

In short I don't get why you interpret story as predetermined-narrative.

Yeah, if I wanted everything pre-determined, I have writing fan-fic for that. while I like writing on my own, it gets kind of difficult at times because there is no one to respond to and thus fill the gaps between moments that you want. thus pre-determined narrative is often figuring out how to make sure one moment connects to another in a logical or at least plausible manner, and figuring out why other things don't happen so that the narrative doesn't trail off in places that isn't to your plans.

like say I want to write a person who doesn't like war in a war story. since the person doesn't like war, they will try to avoid it. but since its a war story, they have to get involved to get to the moments where the person who doesn't like war can react to the war and thus examine war and its horrors upon someone's mind and what they can do about it. so how do I connect Point A: anti-war person in their home to Point B: anti-war person in war reacting to horrors of war? its the same for writing backstories really, you have to connect the dots to make sure the backstory connects to the start of the game.

in roleplay proper, narrative is more about opportunities due to its improvisational nature. often its just seeing that there is an opportunity for the character to logically show this side of them and thus make them a better character for reacting like that. this same anti-war person in roleplay, is more about properly recognizing the moments where they should be reacting to war's horrors and roleplaying it out in a plausible way so that it feels both real and emotional. the point is getting to those moments that the character was made for, the method doesn't really matter to me, but honestly I wish I were better at connecting the dots on my own in writing. I have so many moments I want to do, but its always the scenes that connect them together and make one logically flow to another that is the problem.

[Knaight]

But playing my character as a person interacting with their fictional environment and events resulting has nothing to do with story. In the same way that living my life and events resulting has nothing to do with story.

Events are not an account of events.

Your character isn't real. This critical difference between your character as a person and you has been pointed out and ignored many times, but your character isn't real. They exist initially only in your head, and for existence outside of that - which is required in an RPG - you have to communicate what they do to other people at the table. Those other people at the table are also communicating what happens with the elements of the setting you control.

In the fiction, there are events. The fiction itself though, that construct made of your PC, the other players PCs, the GM's NPCs, and the non-character aspects of the GM's settings? In the real world, the fiction is something you build, and absolutely an account of events. What we're calling storytelling is the crafting of that fiction.

It might well be an incidental thing you did, but it's still something done. Matters like whether it was what you were intending to do or focusing on are irrelevant. I'm not intending to or focusing on producing a bunch of dirty dishes or a bit of egg and flour on the counter when I make quiche. I'm focusing on making quiche, and those are a downright unwanted side effect. Yet I still make a bit of a mess in the kitchen.

Edit: ie narrative is the first thing that leaps to mind when I think of story. But I acknowledge that you can also choose play a character with an eye to the emergent / resulting story. But that's different from me choosing to play them as if making choices for them as a person.

Nobody is saying these are the same, and as I said earlier your style of playing them as if making choices for them as a person is the rpg default. Consider the vitriol aimed at metagaming, which playing with an eye to the story absolutely is. It's not seen as a valid tool for other styles of play but as a terrible thing nobody should do.

You and Max are both tilting at windmills here. You play RPGs in the dominant fashion, everyone else here either primarily plays it in the same fashion or respects that fashion of playing, and some tiny communities with minimal influence (some WoD fans, The Forge) which occasionally use community specific jargon are being cast as dominant forces within the hobby dictating terms, against which your style of play is some tiny resistance movement that plays the game right in the face of the corruption of the industry. It's ridiculous.

[Tanarii]

As I said before, now several of you are trying to argue that communication at the player level is all that's require to turn "events occur" into "account of events". This is not the case.

Telling what my character tries to do, and the GM describing the result, establishes an event. It does not provide an "account of events". In that, it's identical to me trying to do something IRL, and something happening. Yes, it's not really happening. But it's the equivalent thing to an event happening the fictional environment.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is a subject which I am in strong agreement with you on if you were to remove the term story from the argument. Aside from you using that one word in what seems to me to be a bizarre manner the rest seems fairly sound. Heck even Storytelling Games are almost always anti-predetermined-narrative/plot. That is the whole point of having multiple authors in a linearly progressing story, you don't get to control everything.

In short I don't get why you interpret story as predetermined-narrative.

And to get further down the rabbit hole, here is where we can parse "narrative" or "predetermined narrative".

If we take "narrative" to mean the specific plot (which I've seen), then we're looking at a narrower objection to stories that are laid out and played out.

If we take "narrative" to mean something broader (which I've seen), then we're looking at an objection to preplanning for deliberate conceptual elements (arcs, archetypes, etc) even with zero specific plot.

Very roughly, is it using "narrative" as a noun or an adjective?


Personally, my objection to the "collaborate storytelling" term lies in motive and means, and isn't dependent on whether there's a specific predetermined plot in mind. When I play a character, there's no intent to tell or create a story, and the tools and structures of storytelling aren't used.

[Tinkerer]

As I said before, now several of you are trying to argue that communication at the player level is all that's require to turn "events occur" into "account of events". This is not the case.

Telling what my character tries to do, and the GM describing the result, establishes an event. It does not provide an "account of events". In that, it's identical to me trying to do something IRL, and something happening. Yes, it's not really happening. But it's the equivalent thing to an event happening the fictional environment.

An account is simply "a report or description of an event or experience." Exactly what we are looking at here. The word has it's roots in accounting for Pete's sake, it's literally just a description of events. Hence why it often comes up in court proceedings. Of the multitude of words we have for someone describing events it is one of the driest and most literal terms.

[Knaight]

In that, it's identical to me trying to do something IRL, and something happening. Yes, it's not really happening. But it's the equivalent thing to an event happening the fictional environment.

Which is why the account doesn't exist in the fictional environment. The account only exists in the real environment.

[enderlord99]

This will be my second, and last, contribution to this thread.

[Max_Killjoy]

Your character isn't real. This critical difference between your character as a person and you has been pointed out and ignored many times, but your character isn't real. They exist initially only in your head, and for existence outside of that - which is required in an RPG - you have to communicate what they do to other people at the table. Those other people at the table are also communicating what happens with the elements of the setting you control.

"The character isn't real" is tangential at best to the critical issues involved in whether actually storytelling is going on. It's been ignored because it's utterly inconsequential, a red herring.

The necessity of maintaining a shared "secondary reality" and mental gamespace between those involved in the game, does not in and of itself make for "storytelling". Communication must occur or there is no game. Presenting that as being an automatic act of storytelling is nothing less than an assertion that all communication is supposedly storytelling. AND it comes across as a "gotcha", a cheap rhetorical trick, whereby those who are decidedly NOT engaged in storytelling are told "well you can't play without communicating, so you're doing story no matter what".

In the fiction, there are events. The fiction itself though, that construct made of your PC, the other players PCs, the GM's NPCs, and the non-character aspects of the GM's settings? In the real world, the fiction is something you build, and absolutely an account of events. What we're calling storytelling is the crafting of that fiction.

It might well be an incidental thing you did, but it's still something done. Matters like whether it was what you were intending to do or focusing on are irrelevant. I'm not intending to or focusing on producing a bunch of dirty dishes or a bit of egg and flour on the counter when I make quiche. I'm focusing on making quiche, and those are a downright unwanted side effect. Yet I still make a bit of a mess in the kitchen.

None of that makes playing a character in an RPG into an inherent act of collaborative storytelling -- which would require two or more players intentionally cooperating for the actual deliberate purpose of telling a story (preplotted or spontaneous story being largely irrelevant to this entire discussion).

Nobody is saying these are the same, and as I said earlier your style of playing them as if making choices for them as a person is the rpg default. Consider the vitriol aimed at metagaming, which playing with an eye to the story absolutely is. It's not seen as a valid tool for other styles of play but as a terrible thing nobody should do.

And saying "you are engaged in collaborative storytelling" is saying "you're metagaming". This isn't a judgement of those who want to engage in collaborative storytelling, or use "narrative rules", it's simply an acknowledgement of the fact that both require decision-making and affecting the game from outside the character.

Or maybe it's not fair to use the term "metagaming" in that way, because it has a history and carries baggage, and it can't really be used as a neutral descriptive term. Maybe it's more likely to start arguments than further communication.

Huh.

You and Max are both tilting at windmills here. You play RPGs in the dominant fashion, everyone else here either primarily plays it in the same fashion or respects that fashion of playing, and some tiny communities with minimal influence (some WoD fans, The Forge) which occasionally use community specific jargon are being cast as dominant forces within the hobby dictating terms, against which your style of play is some tiny resistance movement that plays the game right in the face of the corruption of the industry. It's ridiculous.

And that little retelling is precisely what happens when the focus is on narrative instead of facts, on interpretation instead of reporting. In that paragraph, you've taken individual things that have happened, laid out a story from the series of events, and presented that story as truth (even through it is not, at the factual level, true).

If you check the actual record of the posts on this thread, the people who've been talking the most about the baggage of the term, and the broader confusions the term can cause, and the usage of the term outside of this odd little hobby-specific sort of literalist term-of-art that's been created ("It's collaborative because you're sitting at the table talking about it, and storytelling because a series of events that you have to talk about emerges!")... have been kyoryu and I, not that most of you seem to have noticed his posts on the subject at all.

No one has tried to present a "character-focused" style of play as waging some sort of desperate resistance against the oppression of The Forge -- that's all your inference / imagination. What we have said is that The Forge and others specifically used the same arguments being used here by the "all gaming is storytelling" side, to push a very specific and self-serving agenda about what was and was not "good gaming", and that their impact on the term "collaborative storytelling" left it unavoidably NOT a neutral, purely descriptive term.


And if most players really are just engaged in character-focused gameplay without any regard for crafting a story or concern for what story might emerge, then they are not engaged in collaborative storytelling, and for them to say that they are... is misrepresenting what they're doing.

[Max_Killjoy]

This will be my second, and last, contribution to this thread.

That's an interesting not-quite-parallel. Thank you.

[Knaight]

And that little retelling is precisely what happens when the focus is on narrative instead of facts, on interpretation instead of reporting. In that paragraph, you've taken individual things that have happened, laid out a story from the series of events, and presented that story as truth (even through it is not, at the factual level, true).

It's what happens when you don't try to pretend subtext doesn't exist.