Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase

[Max_Killjoy]

Right, except that wasn't what was being discussed in that instance. What was being discussed in that instance was whether the players should have any mental image of the world their characters are supposedly being role-played in at all.

So the below wasn't meant as a claim that the primary thing that RPGs is for is "collaborative storytelling"?
It wasn't meant as a claim that "collaborative storytelling" is what makes an RPG an RPG and not a wargame?

Maybe that's why you don't like the idea of collaborative storytelling, because you're not playing RPGs to do the primary thing that RPGs are for.

Not to mention that by most people's definition of story, roleplaying does tell a story.

As already repeatedly covered in detail on this thread, "a story could be told about it after the fact" is not equivalent to "tells a story".

[Jormengand]

So the below wasn't meant as a claim that the primary thing that RPGs is for is "collaborative storytelling"?
It wasn't meant as a claim that "collaborative storytelling" is what makes an RPG an RPG and not a wargame?

As already repeatedly covered in detail on this thread, "a story could be told about it after the fact" is not equivalent to "tells a story".

He doesn't seem to like collaborative storytelling because he doesn't seem to like roleplaying, given his objection that it's "Sucking the soul" out of D&D. Roleplaying is the primary thing that RPGs are for.

And whatever you may think the definition of storytelling is, I'm afraid that it's one that a lot of people don't share, and linguistic discriptivism is a harsh master.

[Max_Killjoy]

Roleplaying is the primary thing that RPGs are for.

Even that is stretching it a but unless one uses one of the broader definitions of "roleplaying"... as covered previously. Would have to go out to "making decidions for a character in an ongoing agreed set of circumstances" to not exclude legitimate whys and hows of playing RPGs. I'd say "in an agreed set of fictional circumstances", but some would mistake "fictional" for "storytelling".

Never mind that you seem to be conflating or equating "roleplaying" with "collaborative storytelling" in reading his statement.

And whatever you may think the definition of storytelling is, I'm afraid that it's one that a lot of people don't share, and linguistic discriptivism is a harsh master.

Asked and answered.

The thread has already covered why the term is not broadly applicable AND all the reasons why it's problematic internally to the "hobby".

[Lacuna Caster]

He doesn't seem to like collaborative storytelling because he doesn't seem to like roleplaying, given his objection that it's "Sucking the soul" out of D&D. Roleplaying is the primary thing that RPGs are for.

I would say if you're defining RPG as an activity where you role-play and there are some rules attached, then yes, RP is trivially a necessary condition for RPGs. I don't know if that's exactly what it's for, however. Water Polo requires a ball, a net, and a swimming pool, but it doesn't exist for the sake of balls, nets and swimming pools.

As already repeatedly covered in detail on this thread, "a story could be told about it after the fact" is not equivalent to "tells a story".

I'm one of those 'death of the author' people, so I'm not particularly concerned with whether the players deliberately intended to produce a story. I think it's either there or not.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm one of those 'death of the author' people, so I'm not particularly concerned with whether the players deliberately intended to produce a story. I think it's either there or not.

To me, the important questions are why people game, how they game, and what they enjoy about it.

The divide (the gulf, the chasm, really) between intentional or incidental story is tangled up in those questions, and any assertion that a particular player is engaged in "collaborative storytelling" is an assertion about why they're gaming, how they're gaming, and what they enjoy about gaming.

[Jormengand]

Even that is stretching it a but unless one uses one of the broader definitions of "roleplaying"... as covered previously. Would have to go out to "making decidions for a character in an ongoing agreed set of circumstances" to not exclude legitimate whys and hows of playing RPGs. I'd say "in an agreed set of fictional circumstances", but some would mistake "fictional" for "storytelling".

Never mind that you seem to be conflating or equating "roleplaying" with "collaborative storytelling" in reading his statement.

Asked and answered.

The thread has already covered why the term is not broadly applicable AND all the reasons why it's problematic internally to the "hobby".

I mean, in general, if you define the word to only mean what you want it to mean and not what anyone else uses it to mean, of course it won't be applicable to describe what they use it to mean. But that's no more the point than if I decided that because "Fast" means "Rapid", no-one can use it to mean "Immobile" (as in "Held fast"), it wouldn't be applicable to describe things which are immobile. But people do use it to mean that, so it is applicable in those cases. Similarly, whether you like it or not, "Story" has a meaning that you may not be familiar with but a lot of people clearly are. So does "Role playing" and "Collaborative" and all the other words you're claiming can only be used in one specific meaning. You can certainly insist that we're wrong to apply it in those cases, but you come off as a prescriptivist with a point to prove.

[Max_Killjoy]

I mean, in general, if you define the word to only mean what you want it to mean and not what anyone else uses it to mean, of course it won't be applicable to describe what they use it to mean. But that's no more the point than if I decided that because "Fast" means "Rapid", no-one can use it to mean "Immobile" (as in "Held fast"), it wouldn't be applicable to describe things which are immobile. But people do use it to mean that, so it is applicable in those cases. Similarly, whether you like it or not, "Story" has a meaning that you may not be familiar with but a lot of people clearly are. So does "Role playing" and "Collaborative" and all the other words you're claiming can only be used in one specific meaning. You can certainly insist that we're wrong to apply it in those cases, but you come off as a prescriptivist with a point to prove.

Nope.

From a purely descriptivist point of view, the term "collaborative storytelling" does not describe what some/many gamers are doing.

At a very technical level it can be broadly applicable to playing RPGS if one pedantically breaks it down to the component words and applies the broadest possible meaning of each individual word, and then assumes that the actual term being discussed is applicable in that manner. But at that point it doesn't tell you anything about why, how, or what -- it has become a fluffword, without any actual meat.

Furthermore, we've already covered in detail how the term is loaded down with immense amounts of baggage from past contentious debates internal to the RPG community that it will never be free of (see, history of The Forge, etc) -- and how it is easily confused with specific types of games that overlap with, or are similar to, RPGs ("storytelling games", "storygames", etc).


Some gamers are sitting down to actually collaborate in telling of a story -- that is their intent, and that is what they are actively doing. More power to them... the more gamers gaming, the more types of games available, the more types of campaigns going on, and the more fun being had playing games, the better.

But there are plenty of other gamers who are not sitting down at the gaming table to tell a story, and definitely not collaborating to do so.


All of this has been covered in the thread already, you're just repeating arguments that others have already made more than once, and you're getting responses that have already been given more than once. Your position has already been refuted repeatedly. The discussion has long since passed by the points you want to assert.

[Jormengand]

Nope.

From a purely descriptivist point of view, the term "collaborative storytelling" does not describe what some/many gamers are doing.

But it does, because people are using it to mean that and that's how language works. The reason I'm repeating these arguments is that I don't think very much of the way that you've ostensibly "Addressed" them.

And the best part is, I predicted early on that this would turn into a massive debate between two sides both hellbent on arguing that their way of using language - language which is defined by its speakers - was the one true way. And guess what! That's what happened!

Just, please, accept that something can be collaborative storytelling by some definitions and not others, and that either phrase has a meaning, just a different meaning dependent on the speaker.

[Lord Raziere]

This discussion is to starting to remind me of the min-max/optimization definition debate, but in reverse. I don't think they're at all different.

Personally I say either both terms omni-apply or they don't, I don't care which, just as long as there is no double standard between optimization and storytelling definitions.

[Max_Killjoy]

But it does, because people are using it to mean that and that's how language works. The reason I'm repeating these arguments is that I don't think very much of the way that you've ostensibly "Addressed" them.

And the best part is, I predicted early on that this would turn into a massive debate between two sides both hellbent on arguing that their way of using language - language which is defined by its speakers - was the one true way. And guess what! That's what happened!

Just, please, accept that something can be collaborative storytelling by some definitions and not others, and that either phrase has a meaning, just a different meaning dependent on the speaker.

What I am doing when I play a character in an RPG is not collaborative storytelling. I am not telling a story, nor am I collaborating to tell a story. There are many other gamers who would say the same thing, and they would be right. THEY get to define why they game, how they game, and what they enjoy about gaming. YOU do not get to define their reasons for gaming, their methods of gaming, or their experience of gaming for them.

The most telling part of this entire "discussion" is that one side is saying "You can describe what you do as collaboratively storytelling if that's what you enjoy, but that's not what I'm doing when I play and not what I enjoy"... and the other side is saying "I'm collaboratively storytelling and so are you -- even if you don't think you are, even if you hate the idea, even if that ruins gaming for you, that's still what you're doing".


This has been explained in this thread repeatedly, in far more depth that I'm bothering with right now.

[Jormengand]

The most telling part of this entire "discussion" is that one side is saying "You can describe what you do as collaboratively storytelling if that's what you enjoy, but that's not what I'm doing when I play and not what I enjoy"... and the other side is saying "I'm collaboratively storytelling and so are you -- even if you don't think you are, even if you hate the idea, even if that ruins gaming for you, that's still what you're doing".

Yes, some people do things which they don't think they're doing! And further, some people have a definition that's different from yours, so it can entirely both be doing collaborative storytelling and not collaborative storytelling, just like I can be fast as in rapid which means that I'm not fast, as in immobile. So yes, what you're doing is collaborative storytelling. It also isn't collaborative storytelling. But that doesn't mean that it's meaningless any more than the word "Fast" is. It's just that under certain definitions, what you're doing is storytelling, even if it emphatically isn't under other definitions. You can say you don't like those definitions, but they're still there.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes, some people do things which they don't think they're doing! And further, some people have a definition that's different from yours, so it can entirely both be doing collaborative storytelling and not collaborative storytelling, just like I can be fast as in rapid which means that I'm not fast, as in immobile. So yes, what you're doing is collaborative storytelling. It also isn't collaborative storytelling. But that doesn't mean that it's meaningless any more than the word "Fast" is. It's just that under certain definitions, what you're doing is storytelling, even if it emphatically isn't under other definitions. You can say you don't like those definitions, but they're still there.

Purple monkey dishwater down cheese sky mortification elk whipsaw bland, gorblepork.

[Florian]

Yes, some people do things which they don't think they're doing! And further, some people have a definition that's different from yours, so it can entirely both be doing collaborative storytelling and not collaborative storytelling, just like I can be fast as in rapid which means that I'm not fast, as in immobile. So yes, what you're doing is collaborative storytelling. It also isn't collaborative storytelling. But that doesn't mean that it's meaningless any more than the word "Fast" is. It's just that under certain definitions, what you're doing is storytelling, even if it emphatically isn't under other definitions. You can say you don't like those definitions, but they're still there.

Seems hard to accept that the thing with a motor, four wheels and a steering wheel is a car, not a bike, not a trike and especially not a boat.

[Jormengand]

Purple monkey dishwater down cheese sky mortification elk whipsaw bland, gorblepork.

Clevvah, verr clevvah. Yu hav discvvri tah, wen u chagne lagnuga to teh ponti taht et ees ni langa usfel foar commnacat'n, tehr ees nu ponti. But that doesn't mean that language can't be changed in a way which allows people to communicate different concepts from you via the same words, which is happening in both the case of "Fast" and "Story" but for some reason we accept that it's okay for "Fast" (and other brilliant ones like "Sanctioned") but you don't accept that that's fine for people to use "Story" in a way that you, personally, are not familiar with. It doesn't stop people communicating with things that you don't recognise as having those definitions, hells, it doesn't stop me communicating with neologisms that I make up on the spot, something that I regularly do with people who have enough understanding of language for me to make a new one and for them to get what I mean.

God, you must hate vernaculars and dialects.

[Max_Killjoy]

Seems hard to accept that the thing with a motor, four wheels and a steering wheel is a car, not a bike, not a trike and especially not a boat.

Under Jorg's assertion, someone could keep talking about driving their "ship" to work every day, and anyone who thought they meant that they take a water vehicle to work every day would be at fault for not understanding that person's "other definition of ship" was referring to a land vehicle with four wheels, a motor, and a steering wheel.

[Jormengand]

Under Jorg's assertion, someone could keep talking about driving their "ship" to work every day, and anyone who thought they meant that they take a water vehicle to work every day would be at fault for not understanding that person's "other definition of ship" was referring to a land vehicle with four wheels, a motor, and a steering wheel.

Conversely, while we're sparring with scarecrows, no relationship that people wish would happen in their favourite anime is a "Ship" on the basis that it doesn't float when you put it in the sea.

[Tanarii]

Even that is stretching it a but unless one uses one of the broader definitions of "roleplaying"... as covered previously. Would have to go out to "making decidions for a character in an ongoing agreed set of circumstances" to not exclude legitimate whys and hows of playing RPGs. I'd say "in an agreed set of fictional circumstances", but some would mistake "fictional" for "storytelling".

Personally I define roleplaying at the broadest sense as "making decisions for an imaginary character in the imaginary environment." Which has nothing inherent to do with storytelling.

Personally my preferred subset of roleplaying is "making in-character decisions for my imaginary character in the imaginary environment."

Which still has nothing inherent to do with storytelling. I personally view it as similar to something a method actor does in terms of deeply getting in character, but not the communicating a tale part. Because I'm making actual decisions for what my character does. Not deciding what should happen to my character based on underlying narrative.

[Max_Killjoy]

The core divide here is about what's important.

Is technical pedantry about individual words important -- or are understanding and clarity important?

Again, by engaging in technical pedantry regarding the individual words "collaborative", "story", and "telling", and then stitching the broadest meanings possible together, once can create a way for "collaborative storytelling" to be a broad enough to technically apply to most gaming. Yay for you, I guess.

However, the meaning is by that point so broad and so open that it tells you NOTHING about what's actually going on internally or at the table for a significant segment of RPG players. It tells you NOTHING about WHY they game, NOTHING about HOW they game, and NOTHING about what they experience and enjoy at the gaming table.

There's a critical question right there at that yawning divide between "telling a story" and "events occur that a story could be told about" that the ultra-broad meaning of "collaborative storytelling" completely ignores, and that the "story happens no matter what" argument completely ignores. There's a huge difference between sitting down to play an RPG without "story" in mind, and sitting down to play an RPG with the deliberate intent of "telling a story", and conflating the two is deliberately dismissing a portion of the gaming community as either non-existent, or too stupid to understand their own motives and enjoyment.


This if further compounded by multiple issues, both within and without.

First, the use of "collaborative storytelling" outside the gaming community to reference things that are not RPGs at all. Story circles, collaborative fiction workshops, improv, etc, all are referred to at times as "collaborative storytelling". We already struggle in RPG discussions with the way that some people try to conflate RPGs with these other activities as if RPGs are identical to those activities (see also, fiction writing, wargames, and other similar but distinct activities).

Second, the close similarity to "storygames" or "storytelling games" -- which occupy a somewhat overlapping but not identical space to RPGs -- ends up causing conflation and confusion within the gaming community.

Third, there's the baggage -- and it goes back to before The Forge, even. Way way back, it starts with someone asserting that the only good way to game is to focus on "the needs of the story".

http://whitehall-paraindustries.com/...ry_bad_rep.htm

"Originally r.g.f.a was a typical advocacy group on Usenet where someone could scream that RuneQuest was better than D&D and get immediate foes claiming the reverse. In short, it was a dumping ground for flamewars. This changed however as the group membership abandoned exchanges about which game was better instead talking about characteristics of gaming itself. Rec.games.frp.Advocacy in effect became the first noticeable RPG Theory group online.

Into this enter one David Berkman (one of the authors of Theatrix). Berkman advocated a style of play based around 'what was good for the story', not what the mindless dice or needs of simulation would call for. 'Advocated' as in 'this is the best way, any other way is stupid' type of advocating.

This was unacceptable to other members of the forum, those who based their gaming upon the desire to recreate a internally consistent game world that would allow deep immersion role-play. In such a campaign, even examining the 'plot', let alone altering it in the name of ‘improvement', was an ice cold bath dumped upon their life passion."

But The Forge cranked it up to 11, and tried to snap off the dial.

https://refereeingandreflection.word...ing-the-forge/


If you don't understand why this is such a contentious issue and why the problems inherent in calling it all "collaborative storytelling" will never be explained away via pedantic definitions and postmodernist lingusitics wankery, you really need to read and understand the history covered by those two linked articles.


The core matter here is that other people don't game for the same reasons you do, other people don't game the same way that you do, and other people don't have the same experience when game that you do -- and calling it all "collaborative storytelling" is inevitably and unavoidably ignoring those differences.

You do not get to tell other people why they game, how they game, what the do and do not enjoy about gaming, or how they experience gaming -- and when you call what all RPG players do "collaborative storytelling", that is exactly what is happening.

[Max_Killjoy]

Personally I define roleplaying at the broadest sense as "making decisions for an imaginary character in the imaginary environment." Which has nothing inherent to do with storytelling.

That's far closer to a neutral, non-exclusionary definition of "roleplaying", and you're correct, it has nothing to do with storytelling.

To make it an RPG, IMO, requires a couple of other basic elements.

[Tanarii]

That's far closer to a neutral, non-exclusionary definition of "roleplaying", and you're correct, it has nothing to do with storytelling.

Thats exactly what it supposed to be, and it also suffers from the "so broad it starts to become meaningless" syndrome to a large degree. But for the reverse reason: I coined it (or possibly stole it) to point out that many kinds of "roleplaying" under a broad umbrella, and a preferred subset of Roleplaying is not One True RolePlaying.

Not to tell people that insist they are not roleplaying that they actually are roleplaying. If they tell me they aren't and my definition is too broad and doesn't really apply to what they're doing because that's not their goal, more power to them. I'm not going to insist they are actually Roleplaying anyway.

Also note I said "nothing inherent to do with storytelling". It's possible to make decisions for what your character does based on an underlying narrative, or with the goal of generating an entertaining storytelling. It's not supposed to exclude story. It just doesn't require storytelling.

To make it an RPG, IMO, requires a couple of other basic elements.

Oh, there are plenty of other elements to roleplaying games. I was only talking about a broad possible definition of the roleplaying element, and how I personally view it.

[Darth Ultron]

What I am doing when I play a character in an RPG is not collaborative storytelling. I am not telling a story, nor am I collaborating to tell a story. There are many other gamers who would say the same thing, and they would be right. THEY get to define why they game, how they game, and what they enjoy about gaming. YOU do not get to define their reasons for gaming, their methods of gaming, or their experience of gaming for them.

Yup, I'm one of Those Gamers.

[kyoryu]

Here's the thing.

There may be some definition of "collaborative gaming" that is, indeed, universally true and applicable.

That's irrelevant.

Because the image that it conjures up in the minds of many (perhaps most?) people is something very different, and something that many RPGers would argue is explicitly not what they are doing. So whether they are technically doing that doesn't matter. Insisting on this does not improve clarity for others, and comes off as aggressive, and possibly offensive or condescending to others.

As such, "all RPGs are collaborative storytelling" is not a helpful statement.

[Max_Killjoy]

Here's the thing.

There may be some definition of "collaborative gaming" that is, indeed, universally true and applicable.

That's irrelevant.

Because the image that it conjures up in the minds of many (perhaps most?) people is something very different, and something that many RPGers would argue is explicitly not what they are doing. So whether they are technically doing that doesn't matter. Insisting on this does not improve clarity for others, and comes off as aggressive, and possibly offensive or condescending to others.

As such, "all RPGs are collaborative storytelling" is not a helpful statement.

Exactly, and that's the point I've (again) been trying to get across.

And I thought most of the participants on the thread had at least said "that's an understandable position" even if they didn't agree with it in part or whole, some number of pages back.

[Aliquid]

Exactly, and that's the point I've (again) been trying to get across.

And I thought most of the participants on the thread had at least said "that's an understandable position" even if they didn't agree with it in part or whole, some number of pages back.

most people would stop arguing with you if you stuck to this point, rather than getting sidetracked on the meaning of the word “story”.

If someone says “but you are telling a story” don’t fall for it... just say

“Maybe I am by your definition of ‘story’, but that doesn’t change the fact that the phrase is misleading and not useful for describing RPGs”.

Then go into detail about what it is misleading, not why it is “wrong”

Don’t even dismissively say “your overly broad definition of ‘story’” or suggest their use of the word is wrong, because then people will still fixate on that specific topic... which really isn’t the issue.

95% of the people posting here agree that your style of play and reason for playing is totally legit.

[Cosi]

It is basically nonsense to describe a group of people producing a sequence of fictional events as "not collaborative storytelling". You are collaborating on a story. The assertions to the contrary are word salad. Also reflective of a deeply warped understanding of reality where it is impossible to do something that has significance you don't appreciate, or for the same thing to mean different things to different people.

What I am doing when I play a character in an RPG is not collaborative storytelling. I am not telling a story, nor am I collaborating to tell a story. There are many other gamers who would say the same thing, and they would be right. THEY get to define why they game, how they game, and what they enjoy about gaming. YOU do not get to define their reasons for gaming, their methods of gaming, or their experience of gaming for them.

The most telling part of this entire "discussion" is that one side is saying "You can describe what you do as collaboratively storytelling if that's what you enjoy, but that's not what I'm doing when I play and not what I enjoy"... and the other side is saying "I'm collaboratively storytelling and so are you -- even if you don't think you are, even if you hate the idea, even if that ruins gaming for you, that's still what you're doing".

It seems like you need to do more than just assert "that's not what I'm doing". Like, we'd all agree that it would still be correct to describe what you were doing as "playing a RPG" even if you insistent you weren't doing that, right? By that same logic, it seems at least conceivable that you could assert that something was a synonym for "playing a RPG", and if you wanted to claim you weren't doing that you would need to present an argument about how those things weren't equivalent.

[Tanarii]

most people would stop arguing with you if you stuck to this point, rather than getting sidetracked on the meaning of the word “story”.

Hey, that (and the rest I truncated for space) is some good advice at this point.

[Florian]

Personally I define roleplaying at the broadest sense as "making decisions for an imaginary character in the imaginary environment." Which has nothing inherent to do with storytelling.

Personally my preferred subset of roleplaying is "making in-character decisions for my imaginary character in the imaginary environment."

Which still has nothing inherent to do with storytelling. I personally view it as similar to something a method actor does in terms of deeply getting in character, but not the communicating a tale part. Because I'm making actual decisions for what my character does. Not deciding what should happen to my character based on underlying narrative.

Basically, you're skipping the first step and solely focus on the second step, which seems to be the cause of all this confusion on the topic.

The first step is a group of people meeting up to play a game together where everyone plays one character and participates in the game by describing what that character does. You work together to play the game, so it is collaborative and the method is by telling stories about what happens.
There is simply no game when no-one provides the fictional content to interact with and no-one choses to act upon that.

You're focusing too much on the second step, how you chose to participate in the game and interact with the fictional content. The "Illusion" I mentioned earlier is that you're participating in a game and you are handed content to interact with, even if you want to handle things "as natural as possible", you still narrate all the actions and contribute to the overall fiction.

[Jormengand]

Here's the thing.

There may be some definition of "collaborative gaming" that is, indeed, universally true and applicable.

That's irrelevant.

Because the image that it conjures up in the minds of many (perhaps most?) people is something very different, and something that many RPGers would argue is explicitly not what they are doing. So whether they are technically doing that doesn't matter. Insisting on this does not improve clarity for others, and comes off as aggressive, and possibly offensive or condescending to others.

As such, "all RPGs are collaborative storytelling" is not a helpful statement.

Contrariwise, however, saying "Not all RPGs are collaborative storytelling" could equally be an unhelpful statement if it makes people think that not all RPGs have to do with the broader definition of storytelling. Just as what you're doing may not be narrow-definition collaborative storytelling (hereafter NDCS) and people used to NDCS will get confused if someone who uses broad-definition collaborative storytelling (BDCS) refers to what Max is doing as "Collaborative storytelling", so will people used to BDCS get confused by Max's insistence that roleplaying games aren't about CS. Insisting that it's CS - as in, BDCS - will confuse people who naturally think of CS in terms of NDCS, but insisting that it's not CS, as in not NDCS, will equally confuse other people. That's just a drawback of linguistic ambiguity in general, and not the exclusive fault of people who use BDCS.

(Here, NDCS is Max's and a couple of other posters' definition where it's only a story if you're telling someone what happened post facto for the purpose of the story, while BDCS is almost everyone else's definition where a story is a story no matter whether it's describing events that are happening right now or will happen and where the very act of role-playing, just like the very act of writing, creates one.)

[Florian]

That's irrelevant.

Nope. It´s a basic statement on how to play a roleplaying game. Someone needs to describe the fictional content and someone else must interact with it and the result of the interaction will become part of the fictional content in turn. That's how it works and is the fundamentals of it, else you have no game.

[Max_Killjoy]

Contrariwise, however, saying "Not all RPGs are collaborative storytelling" could equally be an unhelpful statement if it makes people think that not all RPGs have to do with the broader definition of storytelling.

Then you've missed part of the point entirely.

That broader definition of "storytelling" is part of what makes it unhelpful in the first place.

It's similar to the utter nonsense that calls brushing your teeth before going to bed or taking a shower in the morning as "a ritual" -- it might be pedantically, technically accurate, by a very broad meaning of "ritual", but that very broad meaning strips "ritual" of any specificity or utility as a word, and misrepresents what's going on with the actual act of showering or brushing teeth -- particularly if someone is doing it for purely functional reasons.

Nope. It´s a basic statement on how to play a roleplaying game. Someone needs to describe the fictional content and someone else must interact with it and the result of the interaction will become part of the fictional content in turn. That's how it works and is the fundamentals of it, else you have no game.

And here's where someone goes back to deliberately conflating "shared fictional content" with "telling a story", which is why many of us who are not collaborating to tell a story when we play an RPG stopped using the words "fiction" and "fictional".

That the events of the campaign are taking place in a secondary world, and the secondary world and the events there in need to be sufficiently agreed upon and communicated between the participants in the gameplay, does not automatically make the gamplay into storytelling. It CAN BE storytelling, if that's what the players want, but it does not HAVE to be. If someone is not there to tell a story, and they are not collaborating to tell a story, then they are not engaged in "collaborative storytelling".

Accuse me of getting caught up in definitions, but here we can see clear evidence of what that's in reaction to -- every time we give ground on the definition of a word and start using other words, the "story uber alles" zealots start the cycle over with an assault on the meaning of those other words instead. So if I refuse to give ground on words any more and argue definitions relentlessly, it's 100% in response to the fact that it's never, ever ever enough for the "story uber alles" zealots.

Going back to the days of the Usenet debates, and through the days of The Forge, the "story uber alles" zealots have been trying to define everyone else, or at least their experiences and enjoyment completely out of the hobby and the community, and push their agenda as the OneTrueWay of RPGs. Sometimes it's because they don't care as long as they get what they want out of gaming, and sometimes it's because they really believe that if everyone just accepted their OneTrueWay then everyone would be happier and games would be better.

And yes, if you're insisting that you know the why, how, and what of other people's experiences better than they do, if your theories leave no room for variation or differences, if you can't let go and accept that not everyone wants the same things you do and that this doesn't make them somehow defective or mistaken or ignorant... then you're being a zealot.


Stop trying to negate or purge other people's reasons for gaming, their approaches to gaming, their experiences of gaming, and their enjoyment of gaming.