Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase

[Tanarii]

Yes, I think we do. As one final note here I should mention is that I also view the player and GM as acting as the ballgame. They are just functioning as the announcer on top of that. I don't quite view those tasks as mutually exclusive.

Schrodinger's Announcer? Simultaneously defines the event and provides an account of it, until you open the box and the campaign ends?

[Max_Killjoy]

I find that the Alexandrian has a major error in his analyses, that's why the conclusion is also faulty.

We have two major and distinctive layers to talk about:
1 - "Rules for running a game of D&D" aka "playing D&D"
2 - "Rules for playing a character in a game of D&D" aka "roleplaying a D&D character"

The fault is, that any decision made for (1) can also result in "rules elements" that will find their way into (2), else you'll get a dysfunction.

That's why I mentioned the CaS / CaW divide earlier as an example. 3E acknowledge that both exist and offered the option to play CaS by using the CR structure, or play CaW by ignoring it. The result is that CaS-based games lack in verisimilitude a bit, while CaW-based games can't manage balance. The dysfunction is that you simply cannot have both at the same time.

So the conclusion is faulty as it´s based on the assumption that for "classic play", (1) cannot directly influence (2) - which would be "disassociate mechanics" - while things are fine and acceptable when staying "hidden" by making it the GMs job to handle.

So it´s like saying "I want to play a high adventure game, but please hide the fact that we're playing a high adventure game from me, else I cannot enjoy it"

You keep talking about "rules for running a game of D&D aka playing D&D" as if that's an established thing everyone knows about and that no one will object to as an assumption or concept. What exactly are you referring to with that?

Is this simply the idea that there should be communication between everyone at the table before the campaign, with discussion of the particulars, such as setting, tone, system, etc? Because this hardly strikes me as something that needs a formalized set of rules.

Or is it something else?

Because it´s the difference between "game" and "toy" and makes for the "G" in RPG because of that.

Then I have no idea what you're getting at that is supposedly creating two different levels of rules here.

Still curious as to where this idea of two different layers of "rules" comes from and what it claims.

[kitanas]

Schrodinger's Announcer? Simultaneously defines the event and provides an account of it, until you open the box and the campaign ends?

More like both, at the same time. Like if our hypothetical baseball announcer was also a playing in the game as he announced it. I'd say this happens automatically in TTRPG's because the action required to do so is the same, talk about what is happening in game.

[Florian]

Still curious as to where this idea of two different layers of "rules" comes from and what it claims.

"Traditionally", we divide participant of the game between "players" and "referees", with one having access to the PHB, the other the DMG.

Now let me ask you: How have you learned to play D&D? By being taught by someone, By reading the DMG or by reading the PHB and extrapolating some rules or going over to acknowledge that you need the DMG to make it work? This will inform you that player (+PHB) and referee (or rather: GM + Dmg) will provide the "working" game.

(Sorry, it can be pretty draining for me to discuss stuff like that in english. The german language offers some more precise terms with clearer meanings and I'm frustrated at not operating at the communicative level I'm used to)

[Tanarii]

More like both, at the same time. Like if our hypothetical baseball announcer was also a playing in the game as he announced it. I'd say this happens automatically in TTRPG's because the action required to do so is the same, talk about what is happening in game.

That just doesn't work for me. I reject that merely talking about an event automatically = "an account of an event". Just because that's what it does for real events, it does not follow that's what happens for a fictional event being invented. The fictional event must be established before an account of it can be provided.

[kitanas]

That just doesn't work for me. I reject that merely talking about an event automatically = "an account of an event". Just because that's what it does for real events, it does not follow that's what happens for a fictional event being invented. The fictional event must be established before an account of it can be provided.

Why does it not follow? What is the differentiation? IE if I was hypothetically listening to the narration of your game, how would I be able to tell if it was an account, or the establishment of the fictional event?

[Florian]

Why does it not follow? What is the differentiation? IE if I was hypothetically listening to the narration of your game, how would I be able to tell if it was an account, or the establishment of the fictional event?

Watch a pattern repeat itself: Tanarii will tell you that his only concern is playing his character, "in character". Should the GM, say, DU, arrange things in such a way that it will provide a "story", then it was not his intend.

[Max_Killjoy]

"Traditionally", we divide participant of the game between "players" and "referees", with one having access to the PHB, the other the DMG.

Now let me ask you: How have you learned to play D&D? By being taught by someone, By reading the DMG or by reading the PHB and extrapolating some rules or going over to acknowledge that you need the DMG to make it work? This will inform you that player (+PHB) and referee (or rather: GM + Dmg) will provide the "working" game.

(Sorry, it can be pretty draining for me to discuss stuff like that in english. The german language offers some more precise terms with clearer meanings and I'm frustrated at not operating at the communicative level I'm used to)

In my experience, most RPGs / systems don't divide up into a players' book and a GM's book -- this seems to largely be a D&D / Gygaxian approach. The WEG d6 Star Wars various editions didn't, HERO 4th and 5th edition didn't, White Wolf's various lines didn't, most of the PDFs I have of various things for research don't. They may have had some books with the words "gamemaster" or "player" or "storyteller" in the title, but nothing in those books was really divided out that way OR crucial to running or playing using that system or in those settings or whatever, they were just titles on the books.

As for how I learned the details of RPGs. For AD&D, once I learned about it, I bought the PHB, the DMG, Monster Manuals, etc, and didn't restrict myself to any one player or DM "table role", I just read everything I could get my hands on. Starting in the mid 80s, I collected WEG Star Wars books and read through them cover to cover repeatedly, made sample characters, messed with the dice, etc, for many years, but never had a chance to play the game until I was in college. Same thing with White Wolf, HERO, etc -- read everything I can get my hands on, pick brains, read internet stuff (going back to the days of Usenet), etc.

Most of the people I played with were also like this, people who knew the systems inside and out, and often had GMed before even if they weren't GMing the current campaign. The idea of two different "layers" of rules would never have occurred to us -- we all knew and analyzed and discussed the rules of the games, and none of the games (in the sense of the systems OR in the sense of the campaign) we were playing had any divide or difference, it was simply a "rules set".


E: which also reminds me of something I was going to post earlier. You've said that we don't sit down and "play D&D", we sit down and play a game using D&D, that D&D is not the game. It has been my observation, even just reading these forums, that many players do in fact expect to sit down and specifically play D&D. They expect rules-as-written, with all the published material being fair game, and take umbrage when a DM restricts their choices based on the setting or balance concerns. There will be claims that D&D is a universal system for fantasy games, but any effort to tweak the system for other settings or to better match setting expectations... will be met with stiff resistance from some of those same players.

HERO, on the other hand, there's almost no one who would say that you're "playing HERO". The system is a toolkit with tools meant to be used or not used as fits the setting and campaign and "power level" and so on. Even if a group is "playing Champions", they understand that the system is just a toolkit for creating superheroic campaigns and "mapping" those settings etc.

[Tanarii]

Why does it not follow? What is the differentiation? IE if I was hypothetically listening to the narration of your game, how would I be able to tell if it was an account, or the establishment of the fictional event?

Why is anyone listening to the gameplay relevant? All that matters is the intent of the player and DM.

Edit: To answer more fully, generally there is no way for an outside observer to tell the difference between an emergent story and a story being told intentionally to be a story.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Reference to old-school point-and-click adventures. You know, here's a scene, there is stuff in it to interact, make the right choices and you proceed to the next scene (Door, Orc, Pie...)
So, the "story" is basically told and will reveal itself when you succeed at playing the game. (I kick in the door, kill the pie and kiss the orc...)

Zork is an even older school than point and click adventures.

Being released commercially in the 1980’s, the Zork Series debuted back when most (all?) home computers had monochrome monitors and no mouse. The original trilogy are pure “Text Adventures”. A later sequel, Beyond Zork: the Coconut of Quendor, was still primarily text in its interface, but added a simple on screen map to aid in navigation. It wasn’t until Return to Zork was released in 1993 that the game took on a graphic based point and click environment.

Zork Games in general were much more about exploration and puzzle solving then a series of scenes where you had to make the right choices to get to the next scene. The way you describe it, I would envision a screen with stuff to interact with, and only after solving the stuff on screen A can I move on to screen B. On the other hand, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Text Adventure game fits that model fairly closely, having a fairly linear progression.

[kyoryu]

Zork Games in general were much more about exploration and puzzle solving then a series of scenes where you had to make the right choices to get to the next scene. The way you describe it, I would envision a screen with stuff to interact with, and only after solving the stuff on screen A can I move on to screen B. On the other hand, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Text Adventure game fits that model fairly closely, having a fairly linear progression.

Not really. While there were some linear bits, as a whole the game was a set of unconnected areas that you could do in arbitrary order. Its structure was closer to that of your typical Bioware game than anything.

Though the structure of an old-school Infocom game is fairly close to that of a roleplaying game, in that it meets the "here's teh situation, what do you do?" model to a T, even if the math behind it doesn't match up for anything. The idea in Zork of "bring the treasures back to the house" is a close analogue to gp for xp in old school D&D.

[Max_Killjoy]

On that and as a note, often in forum arguments, it's possible to see yourself as contesting another posters 'extreme' viewpoint, 'defending' against aspects of it with your moderate point of view, as opposed to being the opposite 'extreme'. For the record, that's how I viewed myself coming into this thread: Defending against an extremist definition with a more moderate viewpoint. Aggressively defending though. Pretty sure many other posters see themselves doing the same in their counterpoints.

On this -- I've found that it's very hard to talk about what's wrong with a position or claim, without people assuming you're making your own claim or somehow running with the assumptions of the position or claim you're refuting.

So... if the GNS model asserts a set of exclusive creative agendas that can't be mixed without harming the game and must be handled by systems and campaigns specifically designed exclusively to foster those agendas... but I assert that an actual RPG sits in the space where factors that can be expressed using those creative agendas as shorthand would overlap on a Venn diagram, even as the priorities vary within that overlapping area... then somehow that becomes not my criticism of GNS/Big Model, but supposedly an active statement of my own specific position as if I'm making my statement starting from their presumptions.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Not really. While there were some linear bits, as a whole the game was a set of unconnected areas that you could do in arbitrary order. Its structure was closer to that of your typical Bioware game than anything.

Though the structure of an old-school Infocom game is fairly close to that of a roleplaying game, in that it meets the "here's teh situation, what do you do?" model to a T, even if the math behind it doesn't match up for anything. The idea in Zork of "bring the treasures back to the house" is a close analogue to gp for xp in old school D&D.

Kyoryu, I agree, and that was largely my point - for Zork.

Hitchhiker was a standout in the genre for being strongly linear, with several sections you had to complete before you could move on. Notably, there was little backtracking. Once you left your house, you quickly got to the point where you could not re-enter your house. After leaving the pub area and ending up with the Vogons, you can’t return for obvious reasons. Once you get in the HoG, you can’t return to the Vogons. Once on the HoG, you have seem to have more options, but - as I recall in the sections I figured out - figuring out a puzzle generally put you into a scenario which you got to go through once, and could not return to. By and large, Hitchhikers had plenty of moments where you could not progress because you forgot to pick up an item or solve a puzzle in a section you could not get back to. Plenty of needing to start from the beginning or from an earlier save. Oh, and remember how many of those puzzles had time limits? Take too many turns, and oops, gameplay may continue, but you can’t win anymore.

So for Zork, Florian’s description was way off base. But in fairness, I think it is not too far off for Hitchhiker’s. (Aside from still not being point and click).

[Knaight]

In my experience, most RPGs / systems don't divide up into a players' book and a GM's book -- this seems to largely be a D&D / Gygaxian approach. The WEG d6 Star Wars various editions didn't, HERO 4th and 5th edition didn't, White Wolf's various lines didn't, most of the PDFs I have of various things for research don't. They may have had some books with the words "gamemaster" or "player" or "storyteller" in the title, but nothing in those books was really divided out that way OR crucial to running or playing using that system or in those settings or whatever, they were just titles on the books.

A lot of this is more system length than anything - distinct GM sections within a book are really common, it just doesn't need to be a whole book because the rest of the industry has realized that it doesn't take a thousand pages of core rules to make a game.

E: which also reminds me of something I was going to post earlier. You've said that we don't sit down and "play D&D", we sit down and play a game using D&D, that D&D is not the game. It has been my observation, even just reading these forums, that many players do in fact expect to sit down and specifically play D&D. They expect rules-as-written, with all the published material being fair game, and take umbrage when a DM restricts their choices based on the setting or balance concerns. There will be claims that D&D is a universal system for fantasy games, but any effort to tweak the system for other settings or to better match setting expectations... will be met with stiff resistance from some of those same players.

The D&D player base is full of people who will setting lawyer the implicit setting incredibly hard while not acknowledging that as setting lawyering (another reason I don't like those systems), but that's not too relevant to the idea of two layers.

That's more simple - that there's the layer of interacting with the rules, and that there's the layer of interacting with the setting that's been built out of those rules. I don't find the two layer model particularly useful, but the idea that the rules set is first used to build a bunch of setting elements (PCs, NPCs, etc.) and then you interact with those is clearly true. It's the old rules-scenario divide that also exists in a lot of wargames, and that emphatically doesn't exist in most boardgames or videogames.

[Max_Killjoy]

A lot of this is more system length than anything - distinct GM sections within a book are really common, it just doesn't need to be a whole book because the rest of the industry has realized that it doesn't take a thousand pages of core rules to make a game.

Setting and NPC secrets aside, I don't recall those GM sections usually having the explicit or implicit "keep out all non-GMs" or "if you're not GMing don't read this section you cheater" warnings that I recall from D&D.

If nothing else, I think the "rules for players" and "rules for GMs" division isn't a fair assumption to make about all players and all games, and a hard "player" vs "GM" split beyond the context of a single campaign is a bad assumption for any analysis or theory -- in my experience we all GMed at some point, and we all played PCs at some point.

[Max_Killjoy]

The Supremacy of Context

"For the purposes of this article, I am defining “context” as being “information which prevents the fiction or some element of the fiction from being arbitrary”, where the “fiction” is defined along Dungeon World-inspired lines as “the imaginative construct that is the focus of play in RPGs and story games”."

Somewhat related, and an interesting different angle on the inclusion of "story" and "setting" in RPGs, and the "purpose" of setting.

Personally, I think an RPG setting can be, if constructed carefully, a place to game in, a place that-could-be-real, and a place to tell stories in, all at once, and that it does't need to fixate on one thing.

[kyoryu]

Kyoryu, I agree, and that was largely my point - for Zork.

Hitchhiker was a standout in the genre for being strongly linear, with several sections you had to complete before you could move on. Notably, there was little backtracking. Once you left your house, you quickly got to the point where you could not re-enter your house. After leaving the pub area and ending up with the Vogons, you can’t return for obvious reasons. Once you get in the HoG, you can’t return to the Vogons. Once on the HoG, you have seem to have more options, but - as I recall in the sections I figured out - figuring out a puzzle generally put you into a scenario which you got to go through once, and could not return to. By and large, Hitchhikers had plenty of moments where you could not progress because you forgot to pick up an item or solve a puzzle in a section you could not get back to. Plenty of needing to start from the beginning or from an earlier save. Oh, and remember how many of those puzzles had time limits? Take too many turns, and oops, gameplay may continue, but you can’t win anymore.

So for Zork, Florian’s description was way off base. But in fairness, I think it is not too far off for Hitchhiker’s. (Aside from still not being point and click).

That's why I describe it as being very similar to a Bioware game - an entry section, a middle where there's several unrelated sections that can be done arbitrarily, and a final section or two that again go linear.

[Darth Ultron]

Are those conditions for a real story necessary, sufficient, or both, and how did you arrive at this determination?

Necessary and common sense.

Why is this the worst possible sort of non-game?

If there is a script, an exact detailed account of what each character will do and how everything happens...it's not even a game. It's just acting...or reading a play(or screenplay).

Why is that barely a story?

A Story needs things like a focus and a plot and a start and and ending. Having a couple people just randomly say stuff only makes a ''tell the tale'' type story.

You can do any thing for a time...say an hour...then stop and write down what you did for that past hour. It is ''officially'' a story, but only barley. It's like bread and water are a meal. A real story needs all sorts of things to be a real story, it is not just ''what I did for a time.''

Why is that the worst type of story?

At best it is a mess a vaguely linked random messes of whims, and at worse it's just a pure mess of chaos. Each person player author controller can do whatever they want as they are all equal. They can agree on things...but they don't have too. And even when they agree they won't agree exactly the same. And each person can talk over, chance and destroy whatever anyone else does...as the last one to speak gets to do anything they want.

(Also, in a Classic game like DnD, generally the dice determine if a PC drops their weapons. If the GM is deciding that, it's more a "frustrated novelist storytelling experience." than a game)

Right, except we are not talking about the Almighty Rules...we are talking about Storytelling. Classic games like D&D don't have storytelling rules.

More realistically, there's a kind of game setup where everyone is doing something like "what the DM does in a sandbox game". Whether or not the DM in a sandbox game creates story is something that I see we disagree on, but suffice it to say that you're wrong about everything.

So your idea of a Sandbox game is just the Random Mess?

And the DM always creates the story. Sure I player can say ''my character wants to go kill a dragon'', but that is not creating a story in any way shape or form.

It´s more like you just don't seem to have first-hand experience with the subject matter and repeat some BS you have picked up somewhere, because what you describe doesn't match with experience and reality of people that actually gamed it that way and can tell about it.

It's true I have not played every RPG to ever come out.

So unless I'm able to offer up a neat little term,

I'd point out that I make up my own little terms all the time......and no one likes that :)

"Traditionally", we divide participant of the game between "players" and "referees", with one having access to the PHB, the other the DMG.

But it's all the same rules? So how are there different rules again?

Watch a pattern repeat itself: Tanarii will tell you that his only concern is playing his character, "in character". Should the GM, say, DU, arrange things in such a way that it will provide a "story", then it was not his intend.

As a DM it's always my intention to provide a Story. In fact there will be the main Adventure Story, a Group Story and each character will have at least one Story.

[flond]

Right, except we are not talking about the Almighty Rules...we are talking about Storytelling. Classic games like D&D don't have storytelling rules.

Except that DND has rules that correlate to actions. If someone dies, that means they're dead. If someone tries to climb a wall, and fails, that means they've failed. And if they succeed, it means they've succeeded. If you're not taking that into account, you're not playing a "Storytelling game" you're being a Telltale GM. "Your choices matter! (Except they don't)." and, if you're going to do that...well, actual Telltale has much better production values!

And the DM always creates the story. Sure I player can say ''my character wants to go kill a dragon'', but that is not creating a story in any way shape or form.

And if the players decide to run away from that dragon, or try to negotiate with a dragon. Or start robbing houses to hire someone else. The dms "Story of a dragon slaying" isn't going to happen, now is it? (And if you think that's disruptive or unlikely, well, that's how I feel about you forcing your plot in all of the time.)

[Darth Ultron]

Except that DND has rules that correlate to actions. If someone dies, that means they're dead. If someone tries to climb a wall, and fails, that means they've failed. And if they succeed, it means they've succeeded. If you're not taking that into account, you're not playing a "Storytelling game" you're being a Telltale GM. "Your choices matter! (Except they don't)." and, if you're going to do that...well, actual Telltale has much better production values!

The rules are only for actions, and just about only character actions. So most rules don't have any effect on the Story or effect the Story at all.

Even a characters actions don't effect the Adventure Story much...unless they are at a change point. and those are rare in a good story.

And if the players decide to run away from that dragon, or try to negotiate with a dragon. Or start robbing houses to hire someone else. The dms "Story of a dragon slaying" isn't going to happen, now is it? (And if you think that's disruptive or unlikely, well, that's how I feel about you forcing your plot in all of the time.)

What the players have the characters do does not matter much as they follow the adventure story. Though it is a bit dumb of them to ignore things the DM has put in the setting. If the DM adds a weapon of dragonslaying, it's just dumb for the players to say ''well, we won't have anything to do with that as the DM made that up''.

Though yes the players do have to play through the Adventure Story....that is how the game works. The players can say they don't want to play if they don't want too. Otherwise, the Adventure Story runs on.

If the players might be a problem, the DM can always ask the players what adventure they would like before the game starts. and assuming the DM can get a coherent answer, then the DM can make that adventure.

[flond]

The rules are only for actions, and just about only character actions. So most rules don't have any effect on the Story or effect the Story at all.

Even a characters actions don't effect the Adventure Story much...unless they are at a change point. and those are rare in a good story.



What the players have the characters do does not matter much as they follow the adventure story. Though it is a bit dumb of them to ignore things the DM has put in the setting. If the DM adds a weapon of dragonslaying, it's just dumb for the players to say ''well, we won't have anything to do with that as the DM made that up''.

Though yes the players do have to play through the Adventure Story....that is how the game works. The players can say they don't want to play if they don't want too. Otherwise, the Adventure Story runs on.

If the players might be a problem, the DM can always ask the players what adventure they would like before the game starts. and assuming the DM can get a coherent answer, then the DM can make that adventure.

So, yes. You run "Telltale RPGs". Now there's not anything wrong with it, but it is pretty simplistic. Yes, if there's a sword of dragonslaying, a dragon, and empty corridors between the two, the path is obvious. But don't go around claiming "Use sword on dragon" is an epic. Or the best use of an rpg. People play in those, yes, because they're easy. They're comfort food rpgs.

[Max_Killjoy]

So, yes. You run "Telltale RPGs". Now there's not anything wrong with it, but it is pretty simplistic. Yes, if there's a sword of dragonslaying, a dragon, and empty corridors between the two, the path is obvious. But don't go around claiming "Use sword on dragon" is an epic. Or the best use of an rpg. People play in those, yes, because they're easy. They're comfort food rpgs.

Someone once named that style "Story Before", as opposed to "Story Now" (Edwardian "Narrative") or "Story After" (emergent story).

And "Story Before" is all cool, provided there's buy-in and that's what the players agreed to.

[flond]

Someone once named that style "Story Before", as opposed to "Story Now" (Edwardian "Narrative") or "Story After" (emergent story).

And "Story Before" is all cool, provided there's buy-in and that's what the players agreed to.

This is a fair cop. (Except of course that I don't think DU makes any attempt to clear anything.)

(I do object though, to the idea that this is the epitome of story in rpgs)

[Max_Killjoy]

This is a fair cop. (Except of course that I don't think DU makes any attempt to clear anything.)

(I do object though, to the idea that this is the epitome of story in rpgs)

It is not the epitome, it's simply something some players may like, even if I personally do not.

And you are correct about the parenthetical -- he has said that he considers player agency and player buy-in to be "poisonous" or something of the sort.

[Florian]

@Max:

Good morning. Somehow you seem to struggle to connect the dots that you yourself can name.

First, there's the marked divide when you have different, not connecting rules sections. "This is for players", "This if for GMs", "This is how to build the world", "This is how to gm the game", and so on.

Second, when you have different sets of "styles", that will inform what the actual game is and heavily modify how to understand the "player rules". As we have DU along, lets stay with "Story Before" as "hard rules", as that will inform us what the game is about and that we need to follow some rules in regard to "player buy-in", "range and limit of agency", "reward mechanics", so on.
That leads to the second layer, that is about "story as setting" or "story in setting" (or meshing both). This is about the difference between "We play Giantslayer" and "We play in Golarion and the AP is Giantslayer", subtle, but a difference.

The origins of GNS as an analytical tool deal with exactly those difference and why something is "sand in the gears" and why using the term "I play D&D" doesn't help at all - ie finding out and being honest about why more often than not a table with "RAW is the game" and "The story is the game" gamers will often run into trouble (Ex for this is again DU with the "power gamers", mostly meaning someone feeling that RAW beats Story, thereby actually being in the wrong "game").

[Darth Ultron]

So, yes. You run "Telltale RPGs". Now there's not anything wrong with it, but it is pretty simplistic. Yes, if there's a sword of dragonslaying, a dragon, and empty corridors between the two, the path is obvious. But don't go around claiming "Use sword on dragon" is an epic. Or the best use of an rpg. People play in those, yes, because they're easy. They're comfort food rpgs.

Telling a Tale is the way the anti-D&D folks do it: they just do a pile of random unplanned stuff and then stop at some point...look back...and then tell what happened and call it a (Barley) Story. This is the easy, casual way to run a game that a lot of people like.

My way is more Focused Storytelling: The DM makes the Stories, and the players run through the stories.

Someone once named that style "Story Before", as opposed to "Story Now" (Edwardian "Narrative") or "Story After" (emergent story).

And "Story Before" is all cool, provided there's buy-in and that's what the players agreed to.

I don't really get the hate for the Story Before, as that is the only way to have a Good Real Story. The Story Now is just the random mess, and the Story After is the Barley Story.

Like for example: The set up is The player makes a backstory for a character of their sister was kidnapped, but the player makes up no details and specifically leaves the story open for the DM to fill in. So then the game starts with a typical first adventure, like say goblin bandits with it's own story. But both the DM and the Player do want to do the save the sister story as part of the game and tie it in with the groups adventure. And the Player, being just a Player can not do anything to make the save the sister story happen outside the game or metagamewise, the only thing they can do is in character take actions(like they can ask a npc if they have seen her).

Story Before: Well the DM takes a couple minutes and comes up with a who/what/why/how the sister was grabbed, a rough timeline and where she is now. Then, knowing all the details, the DM can start the active story of Save the Sister, by dropping a clue(or three, per the standard) in the bandits lair. This is the only way to advance a real story.

Story Now: Well, the DM does nothing. They have their novel of setting notes, but don't do anything because they refuse to make a story or do anything without reacting to the players. So the players randomly have their characters do random things in the game. The DM has not made any details of the sister story, so they can't drop a clue. And even if they did drop a clue, it would just be a random one based on nothing: as the DM has nothing to base it on. And at worst :The player can look at the non-clue, randomly say whatever is whatever and not follow the clue as no matter where they go or what they do the DM will just make the sister story out of thin air, right in front of the character.

Story After: Well, this DM does nothing as well. Except this DM won't make the story right in front of the character.

So, the only way to have a Good, Real Story is to have the Story First.

[Max_Killjoy]

@Max:

Good morning. Somehow you seem to struggle to connect the dots that you yourself can name.

Is that pattern of stars a bear... or a cooking utensil?

First, there's the marked divide when you have different, not connecting rules sections. "This is for players", "This if for GMs", "This is how to build the world", "This is how to gm the game", and so on.

And again, that's a far more prominent thing in some systems than in others. It's been a big deal in some editions of D&D, but in contrast multiple editions of HERO have zero rules and no special rules section for GMs.

Some systems don't have rules for wouldbuilding at all, or leave that to advice and guidelines given in specific "genre" supplements or sections.

Some systems don't have disconnected rules for GMs, or have a section that's full of non-rules advice for GMs, or...

This reminds me of one of the recurring gremlins of RPG theory and analysis -- people come into the hobby via a specific very popular system (D&D in the US, maybe The Dark Eye elsewhere, whatever), see how that system is written and played, and then find something else that suits them far better... and then frame everything and everyone else's experience in the context of the popular system vs their personal "revelation" system or idea.

Or they stay with that first system and frame everything in the context of how that first system does things and how its playerbase / community does things.

Second, when you have different sets of "styles", that will inform what the actual game is and heavily modify how to understand the "player rules". As we have DU along, lets stay with "Story Before" as "hard rules", as that will inform us what the game is about and that we need to follow some rules in regard to "player buy-in", "range and limit of agency", "reward mechanics", so on.

That leads to the second layer, that is about "story as setting" or "story in setting" (or meshing both). This is about the difference between "We play Giantslayer" and "We play in Golarion and the AP is Giantslayer", subtle, but a difference.

The origins of GNS as an analytical tool deal with exactly those difference and why something is "sand in the gears" and why using the term "I play D&D" doesn't help at all - ie finding out and being honest about why more often than not a table with "RAW is the game" and "The story is the game" gamers will often run into trouble (Ex for this is again DU with the "power gamers", mostly meaning someone feeling that RAW beats Story, thereby actually being in the wrong "game").

Yup, people like different things and in different amounts, and different tastes can clash, and it's good to discuss that and try to avoid problems. None of that is contentious. It's good to do some analysis on those questions.

GNS is to RPG analysis what Freud or Jung are to psychology.

It pushed to the forefront an existing awareness that there are problems to be solved and questions to be asked, got some of the questions right... and then proceeded to get other questions and most of the answers very very wrong in service to one man's issues and troubles (in the case of GNS, Mr Edwards).

And yet like Freudian and Jungian psychology, Edwardian RPG analysis has people who will swear by its Truthiness and warp all observations to fit the theory until the day they die, no matter how much we find out that the theory got dead wrong.

GNS is mistaken in its specific categories of what people like (each is too broad, the list is too short), and in its assertion that people can only like one of them, and its assertion that a system or campaign can only do one of them at a time while being functional.

I'd like to say that the discussion has long since moved on, but The Forge gave RPG theory and analysis such a bad name that it's been largely stunted ever since, with people still referring to bits and pieces of GNS as Truth, and the terminology still stuck with their assumptions.

https://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/remembering-the-forge/
http://whitehall-paraindustries.com/Theory/Threefold/rpg_theory_bad_rep.htm

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html
http://trustrum.com/wotc-market-research/

http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/

[Tinkerer]

The origins of GNS as an analytical tool deal with exactly those difference and why something is "sand in the gears" and why using the term "I play D&D" doesn't help at all - ie finding out and being honest about why more often than not a table with "RAW is the game" and "The story is the game" gamers will often run into trouble (Ex for this is again DU with the "power gamers", mostly meaning someone feeling that RAW beats Story, thereby actually being in the wrong "game").

That is exactly why people dislike GNS theory. For starters it was entirely superfluous when it was released, being essentially a ripoff of the Threefold Model simply with the emphasis placed on different points. Secondly it is entirely too divisionary of a model encouraging people to ignore the other aspects and indeed being outright insulting to other methods (routinely calling people who enjoy combat idiots or morons for example). Thirdly it fails as a tool of analysis because of that divisiveness due to the fact that the categories are not mutually exclusive. As an example if it were describing a car the three aspects could be something like colour, engine, and body type.

One of the few things that Max_Killjoy and I agree on is that GNS theory is complete and utter garbage. I personally prefer to ignore it and leave it in the dustbin hence why this is... heck the first time I've discussed it in years. If you are interested in a better version I would highly encourage you to check out The Angry GM's Eight Kinds of Fun.

EDIT: Well nevermind. I really need to stop walking away when I'm halfway through my post.

[Max_Killjoy]

That is exactly why people dislike GNS theory. For starters it was entirely superfluous when it was released, being essentially a ripoff of the Threefold Model simply with the emphasis placed on different points. Secondly it is entirely too divisionary of a model encouraging people to ignore the other aspects and indeed being outright insulting to other methods (routinely calling people who enjoy combat idiots or morons for example). Thirdly it fails as a tool of analysis because of that divisiveness due to the fact that the categories are not mutually exclusive. As an example if it were describing a car the three aspects could be something like colour, engine, and body type.

One of the few things that Max_Killjoy and I agree on is that GNS theory is complete and utter garbage. I personally prefer to ignore it and leave it in the dustbin hence why this is... heck the first time I've discussed it in years. If you are interested in a better version I would highly encourage you to check out The Angry GM's Eight Kinds of Fun.

Which I have conveniently provided a link to above.

Maybe it's a failing on my part that I keep seeing the detrimental effect GNS had on the terminology and assumptions of RPG discussion and analysis.

EDIT: Well nevermind. I really need to stop walking away when I'm halfway through my post.

Happens to me all the time. Or I hit the "post" button, walk away, and realize I forgot something, or have another thought come to mind.

[Florian]

I think it´s fair to say that the whole discussion the Forge spawned was more productive outside the US industry and RPG community because of different structures and culture- less Indy vs. the Mainstream (because the Mainstream sucks) and less separation between the different systems and between fan base and companies.

It´s simply different when authors and owners from all major RPG companies hang out on the same forums as (more vocal and active) parts of the player base do, ie it´s not the "cult of Edwards" that talk about it, but the guys in charge of the best-selling RPG discussing it with the fan base.