Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase

[Max_Killjoy]

@ Max_Killjoy: There is a Begging The Question underlying your entire position. Is your definition the common one? If you are the one who is using a technical, pedantic definition, then a lot of your arguments about "collaborative storytelling" being misleading ect, collapse. I won't dispute that you have baggage concerning the term, but I have only heard of the forge through you. That's the only way I know it has baggage at all.

And you've also never heard of actual group storytelling exercises, collaborative fiction groups, improv theater or experimental theater being called "collaborative theater", storytelling games or storygames (the heavily author-stance stuff)... or anything else that's often referred to as "collaborative storytelling" or a nearly identical terms... but that isn't an RPG?

[Tanarii]

@ Max_Killjoy: There is a Begging The Question underlying your entire position. Is your definition the common one? If you are the one who is using a technical, pedantic definition, then a lot of your arguments about "collaborative storytelling" being misleading ect, collapse. I won't dispute that you have baggage concerning the term, but I have only heard of the forge through you. That's the only way I know it has baggage at all.

The only person that can be using an overly pedantic definition to try and tell me what I'm doing, when I say I do not consider myself to be doing that, are the people trying to tell me what I'm doing.

[kitanas]

And you've also never heard of actual group storytelling exercises, collaborative fiction groups, improv theater or experimental theater being called "collaborative theater", storytelling games or storygames (the heavily author-stance stuff)... or anything else that's often referred to as "collaborative storytelling" or a nearly identical terms... but that isn't an RPG?

I took drama in school, so no, not only have I heard of some of those activities being referred to as collaborative storytelling, that was part of how they were described to us as we were assigned to do it. That is part of why I see collaborative storytelling as what you're doing, not why you're doing it, and why I feel collaborative storytelling is a good fit to describing what you're doing when you're playing a RPG

[kyoryu]

I took drama in school, so no, not only have I heard of some of those activities being referred to as collaborative storytelling, that was part of how they were described to us as we were assigned to do it. That is part of why I see collaborative storytelling as what you're doing, not why you're doing it, and why I feel collaborative storytelling is a good fit to describing what you're doing when you're playing a RPG

With all respect, and I truly mean that:

If you consider those things to be similar to how you play RPGs, then we are playing RPGs *very differently*.

Which is kind of the other thing that I think is useful to bring up - while collaborative storytelling may quite well be a good analogy for how many people in this thread play RPGs, not everybody plays that way. If someone says "yeah, that doesn't describe what I'm doing", maybe listen to them, rather than condescendingly explain how they're wrong?

[Pelle]

You seem to be insisting that only the person using a term gets a say in what it means, and that they need give no thought to what the term means to those reading or hearing the term, or its broader implications or any confusion it might cause.

This is a good point, but what you seem to be missing is that people here say they are using this term when speaking to new gamers, who don't know this alleged baggage. They report that when using this term to distinguish rpgs+storygames from boardgames, it is relatively effective to get them to understand the main difference. Also when they are themselves playing according to your preferred style. When communicating with you or Tanarii, you obviously interpret the term in a particular way, and one needs to use a different one. That doesn't neccessarily invalidate the term for other persons hearing it.

I had also never heard of this Edwards guy before you bringing him up in these boards. I doubt my boardgaming friends have either. (I'm also not a native speaker, so I'm not using that particular term anyways.)

[kitanas]

With all respect, and I truly mean that:

If you consider those things to be similar to how you play RPGs, then we are playing RPGs *very differently*.

Which is kind of the other thing that I think is useful to bring up - while collaborative storytelling may quite well be a good analogy for how many people in this thread play RPGs, not everybody plays that way. If someone says "yeah, that doesn't describe what I'm doing", maybe listen to them, rather than condescendingly explain how they're wrong?

I don't know how you play RPG's, but I play them by sitting around a (virtual) table, talking with my friends, and rolling (virtual) dice.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is a good point, but what you seem to be missing is that people here say they are using this term when speaking to new gamers, who don't know this alleged baggage. They report that when using this term to distinguish rpgs+storygames from boardgames, it is relatively effective to get them to understand the main difference. Also when they are themselves playing according to your preferred style. When communicating with you or Tanarii, you obviously interpret the term in a particular way, and one needs to use a different one. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the term for other persons hearing it.

I had also never heard of this Edwards guy before you bringing him up in these boards. I doubt my boardgaming friends have either. (I'm also not a native speaker, so I'm not using that particular term anyways.)

We've seen a split between those who've said (paraphrasing), "I use the term and here's why, but now that you've explained why you don't like it I understand why you say it doesn't apply to your approach to gaming"... and those who continue to say (not all that much paraphrasing required) "It doesn't matter what you think your doing when you game, it doesn't matter what you get out of gaming... this is what you're actually doing, and this term applies to you even if you think it doesn't."

The former position I don't have a problem with... the latter position is dead wrong and will always be dead wrong.

[Tanarii]

I don't know how you play RPG's, but I play them by sitting around a (virtual) table, talking with my friends, and rolling (virtual) dice.

Which is something that doesn't sound anything remotely like Drama, Group storytelling exercises, Collaborative fiction groups, Improv theater, Experimental theater, or collaborative storytelling to me.

It might actually be something similar to them in your particular group. But none of what you just described necessarily screams any of them to me. Because what you described are things in common with the vast majority of Roleplaying Games. Not something in common with the "Drama" type things. Any commonality between those "Drama" type things and roleplaying games lies elsewhere than what you just described.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't know how you play RPG's, but I play them by sitting around a (virtual) table, talking with my friends, and rolling (virtual) dice.

So do a lot of "storygamers".

So do a lot of people playing board games.

So do a lot of people who really are engaged in "collaborative storytelling" when they play an RPG.

So do a lot of people who really are not engaged in "collaborative storytelling" when they play an RPG.

Meanwhile, there are people playing RPGs that don't have any dice at all.


In other words, your response not only ignores all the issues that are actually at the heart of this discussion, it also doesn't really distinguish RPGs from things that are not (or probably are not) RPGs. It leaves the impression of either being deliberately evasive, or of resting on a lot of unspoken presumptions about all the other things going on at that (virtual) table and in the minds of the other players involved.

Which is something that doesn't sound anything remotely like Drama, Group storytelling exercises, Collaborative fiction groups, Improv theater, Experimental theater, or collaborative storytelling to me.

It might actually be something similar to them in your particular group. But none of what you just described necessarily screams any of them to me. Because what you described are things in common with the vast majority of Roleplaying Games. Not something in common with the "Drama" type things. Any commonality between those "Drama" type things and roleplaying games lies elsewhere than what you just described.

Exactly.

And furthermore, going in the other direction from there, the description given can be apply to things that are fairly clearly not RPGs.

[kyoryu]

I don't know how you play RPG's, but I play them by sitting around a (virtual) table, talking with my friends, and rolling (virtual) dice.

So you're playing craps online?

Or you're being overly reductionist to try to make a point?

[Jormengand]

That's a bit like claiming someone can call people "racists" (because they've decided that it means "person who drives", on the basis that racing a car involves driving it, so anyone who drives is doing what race-car drivers do, and that racist is to racing as horticulturalist is to horticulture), and that anyone who objects to being called a "racist" is the one in the wrong. After all, the person using the word means something completely harmless by it and for them there's no implication or insinuation of anything else, right?

No, this annoys me as much as it does you - because they're deliberately redefining it to mean what they want it to mean. Further, the "White people can't suffer from racism" types have deliberately argued that the common definition of racism (prejudice and discrimination based on ethnicity) is invalid in favour of their less common one (systematic oppression, and only systematic oppression, based on broad groups like black and white and never based on narrow groups like white eastern European or black Carribean).

But I'm afraid that when I say that roleplaying games are an excercise in collaborative storytelling, most people know what I mean, a nd if I insisted that they weren't, most people would assume something misleading, because almost all people's definition of storytelling, IME, is the same one I'm using, not the one you're using. That is, if I said the game wasn't about collaborative storytelling, they would assume something that isn't true. Because I say it is, they assume something which is true. That is the opposite of misleading.

[Max_Killjoy]

But I'm afraid that when I say that roleplaying games are an excercise in collaborative storytelling, most people know what I mean, a nd if I insisted that they weren't, most people would assume something misleading, because almost all people's definition of storytelling, IME, is the same one I'm using, not the one you're using. That is, if I said the game wasn't about collaborative storytelling, they would assume something that isn't true. Because I say it is, they assume something which is true. That is the opposite of misleading.

And this, right here, illustrates a core aspect of the problem perfectly.

You've gone from the broad technical breakdown meaning of "collaborative storytelling" being applicable to playing RPGs... to "RPGs are an exercise in collaborative storytelling" / "RPGs are about collaborative storytelling". Those are two VERY different assertions.

I'd be willing to say "fair enough" on the former assertion and let it go... but it slips so easily into the latter assertion, and that shift (sort of a flipside of moving the goalposts, forward instead of back) has so often been quite deliberate on the part of the people who stake the former and then use it to prop up the latter.

There are plenty of people who play RPGs and are not engaged in an exercise in collaborative storytelling, for whom the game is not about collaborative storytelling, and describing what they're doing as "an exercise in" or "about" collaborative storytelling will never be true, and will never lead people to assume something which is true.

[Jormengand]

There are plenty of people who play RPGs and are not engaged in an exercise in collaborative storytelling, for whom the game is not about collaborative storytelling, and describing what they're doing as "an exercise in" or "about" collaborative storytelling will never be true, and will never lead people to assume something which is true.

As I've explained repeatedly, they ARE engaged in BDCS, whether they like it or not. The fact that you use NDCS as your definition doesn't stop what you're doing from being BDCS, and if I refer to it as collaborative storytelling, most people will think I'm talking about BDCS. Similarly, if I say that "There are plenty of people who play RPGs and are not engaged in an exercise in collaborative storytelling", most people will assume that means that you're not engaging in BDCS and be very confused. "What, you mean there are RPGs where you don't describe what your character's doing at all? How does that work?" they ask, because they happen to be using the same definition as me and are just as confused by your definition as you are indignant at mine.

[Max_Killjoy]

As I've explained repeatedly, they ARE engaged in BDCS, whether they like it or not.

Nope. They're not.

Because as we've just seen in your last post, "BDCS" is nothing but rhetorical slight-of-hand for pushing "NCDS" as universal.

Spoiler: emphasis changed to make it clear

Show

But I'm afraid that when I say that roleplaying games are an excercise in collaborative storytelling, most people know what I mean, and if I insisted that they weren't, most people would assume something misleading, because almost all people's definition of storytelling, IME, is the same one I'm using, not the one you're using. That is, if I said the game wasn't about collaborative storytelling, they would assume something that isn't true. Because I say it is, they assume something which is true. That is the opposite of misleading.

A sizeable chunk of RPG players are not collaborating to tell a story. They aren't using "author stance". They aren't making decisions for "the good of the story". They aren't thinking about story at all, either in basic or advanced terms. For those players, "story" isn't part of why they play, or how they play, or how they experience the game, or what they enjoy about the game.

[Jormengand]

A sizeable chunk of RPG players are not collaborating to tell a story. They aren't using "author stance". They aren't making decisions for "the good of the story". They aren't thinking about story at all, either in basic or advanced terms. For those players, "story" isn't part of why they play, or how they play, or how they experience the game, or what they enjoy about the game.

By your definition of story, yes. But given that you've characterised the argument which succinctly explains the reason you're wrong as "Rhetorical sleight of hand", I don't really know how to explain to you that, again, when I say something that leads people to the truth, it is not misleading. You are insisting that I should tell people something which would put them under a misapprehension and accusing me of being misleading, and the irony is flying straight over your head.

EDIT: Also, the fact that I'm making it abundantly clear that NDCS is not universal whereas BDCS is doesn't sit true with your assertion that I'm trying to push NDCS as universal, like I'm some shill for Big Story rather than someone who thinks you're wrong because, news flash, language doesn't work the way you think it does.

[Max_Killjoy]

when I say something that leads people to the truth

You're not. As explained, by multiple people at this point.

EDIT: Also, the fact that I'm making it abundantly clear that NDCS is not universal whereas BDCS is doesn't sit true with your assertion that I'm trying to push NDCS as universal, like I'm some shill for Big Story rather than someone who thinks you're wrong because, news flash, language doesn't work the way you think it does.

You just shifted from your "BDCS" assertion to pushing the exact position taken by "NCDS", in the post I quoted.

Here it is again (emphasis changed to make it clear):

But I'm afraid that when I say that roleplaying games are an excercise in collaborative storytelling, most people know what I mean, and if I insisted that they weren't, most people would assume something misleading, because almost all people's definition of storytelling, IME, is the same one I'm using, not the one you're using. That is, if I said the game wasn't about collaborative storytelling, they would assume something that isn't true. Because I say it is, they assume something which is true. That is the opposite of misleading.

That's not "BDCS" -- it's not using "collaborate storytelling" as a shorthand quick explanation for someone who isn't familiar with RPGs.

What it is, is a strong assertion that RPGs are inherently an exercise in telling stories, inherently about telling stories, and that is absolutely an "NDCS" assertion.

And if you really didn't mean it that way -- if you really can't see the yawning chasm between "RPGs can be described as BDCS" and "RPGs are an exercise in storytelling, they're about storytelling" -- then it just illustrates how easily that term slides from something that's technically true but doesn't really tell us much ("BDCS") to something that is actively, perniciously, destructively misleading (the assertion that all RPG play is "story").

"Collaborative storytelling" doesn't lead people to "truth" or anything resembling it; as an attempt at a universal descriptor it's at best meaningless, usually misleading, and at worst actively deceptive.


(PS -- don't lecture people about "how language works" when your assertion amounts to one that words and terms mean whatever you want them to mean, and you can disregard any other baggage, history, or impact those words or terms might have.)

[Jormengand]

You're not. As explained, by multiple people at this point.

When your "Explanation" is in direct contravention to reality and what happened when I did this with real people, it's kinda hard to tell.

You just shifted from your "BDCS" assertion to pushing the exact position taken by "NCDS", in the post I quoted.

Here it is again (emphasis changed to make it clear):




That's not "BDCS" -- it's not using "collaborate storytelling" as a shorthand quick explanation for someone who isn't familiar with RPGs.

What it is, is a strong assertion that RPGs are inherently an exercise in telling stories, inherently about telling stories, and that is absolutely an "NDCS" assertion.

And if you really didn't mean it that way, then it just illustrates how easily that term slides from something that's technically true but doesn't really tell us much ("BDCS") to something that is actively, perniciously, destructively misleading (the assertion that all RPG play is "story").

That is BDCS - collaborative storytelling in the definition most people are familiar with. If I'm telling people that something is to do with collaborative storytelling, most of them will understand what I mean because they have the same definition as me. You can say that something is inherently about telling stories and that can still be a BDCS assertion. To clarify:

(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.)

I say "RPGs are about collaborative storytelling" and literally everyone I have explained that to understands that that I mean the 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. Therefore, if you are playing a RPG, you are doing BDCS no matter whether you like it or not. So when you say "What it is, is a strong assertion that RPGs are inherently an exercise in telling stories, inherently about telling stories, and that is absolutely an "NDCS" assertion.", that's bullcrap. If it were an NDCS assertion, I would have said that RPGs can be about telling stories, because not all RPGs are NDCS, but it's a BDCS assertion, and all RPGs are BDCS, which is why I said that all RPGs were storytelling - by the BDCS definition, they are.

"Collaborative storytelling" doesn't lead people to "truth" or anything resembling it; as an attempt at a universal descriptor it's at best meaningless, usually misleading, and at worst actively deceptive.


(PS -- don't lecture people about "how language works" when your assertion amounts to one that words and terms mean whatever you want them to mean, and you can disregard any other baggage, history, or impact those words or terms might have.)

Quit lying and drop the persecution complex. You know that pretending that people are saying crap that they aren't so you can look down on them just makes you look like a jerk, right?

[Max_Killjoy]

(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.)

I completely missed this, so when I first noticed you using "BDCS" and "NDCS" I thought you were following the pattern established in the thread before you jumped in... referring to, respectively, "a broad meaning of 'collaborative storytelling' can be used as simple shorthand to describe RPGs to those unfamiliar with them" (which is fair enough but not particularly illuminating) versus "RPGs are unavoidably an act of, and about, storytelling" (mistaken or a lie). Instead, you've flipped that entirely on its head, so that the broad and open meaning is of "collaborative storytelling" is what you're calling narrow, and the narrow and specific meaning of "collaborative storytelling" is what you're calling broad.

So, unsurprisingly, your use of the terms was misleading, and made it appear that you were drifting back and forth between the two. The only person putting words in your mouth or making it appear you were saying something you insist you were not... was you.


Your entire argument about my position is based on a false assertion. "Post facto" is not part of my definition of "story" for the purposes of RPG analysis, or more broadly for that matter.

I've repeatedly noted that "Story Now" and variations thereon -- sitting down and deliberately creating story in the course of play, with no preplanning, or only broad conceptual preplanning of arcs, themes, and conflicts -- is a perfectly real and absolutely valid approach to playing an RPG if someone enjoys it. That's their "why", and "how", and "what". (More broadly, "creating story as you go" is the approach of improv theater, and the approach of "seat of the pants" fiction writers who don't outline or preplot their stories.)

But it's not everyone's "why" and "how" and what".

There's a yawning chasm between sitting down to tell a story, and sitting down to do something about which a story might later be told. For whatever reason, you're either rejecting or ignoring the key issue here -- why is someone sitting down to play, how do they play, what do they get out of playing. To say that all RPG gamers are "collaboratively storytelling" is to grossly misrepresent the "why", "how", and "what" of some gamers.

If they're not sitting down to tell a story... if they aren't thinking about story and aren't deliberately engaged in creating story as they game... and story isn't what they're getting out of the game, then they're not "engaged in collaborative storytelling" and it isn't "about collaborative storytelling".


To assert that all RPG play is universally "storytelling" because events occur about which a story could be told, is to assert that every moment of every life of every human who ever lives is "storytelling". Which might be something that naval-gazing continental philosophers are intrigued by endlessly discussing... but I'm not.


Even Mr Edwards understood years ago that "Story Now" and "Story After" (to use his terms) are fundamentally and absolutely two different approaches to playing RPGs.

[Max_Killjoy]

You know that pretending that people are saying crap that they aren't so you can look down on them just makes you look like a jerk, right?

What? You didn't realize that's what you've been up to every time you insist that people are doing something that they're not doing, thinking something that they're not thinking, and feeling something that they're not feeling?

Or, as someone else noted a bit up the page:

Which is kind of the other thing that I think is useful to bring up - while collaborative storytelling may quite well be a good analogy for how many people in this thread play RPGs, not everybody plays that way. If someone says "yeah, that doesn't describe what I'm doing", maybe listen to them, rather than condescendingly explain how they're wrong?

[Tanarii]

I say "RPGs are about collaborative storytelling" and literally everyone I have explained that to understands that that I mean the 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. Therefore, if you are playing a RPG, you are doing BDCS no matter whether you like it or not.

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 the way I play RPGs.

Reiterating this, because it is the part you just can't seem to get, to wrap your head around. Because you're so focused on winning, on telling us what we're actually doing, whether we like it or not.

And then ... you claim the person you're telling this to has a persecution complex. /rolleyes

[Rhedyn]

RPGs are about role-playing to play a game or to play a game to/with role-playing.

If I play Monopoly in-character as a racecar, then Monopoly becomes an RPG. Is that game about cooperative story telling? Not intrinsically.

A pure RP experience is not an RPG. You aren't playing RPGs unless a game is involved. Likewise if you aren't RPing, you are playing a game not an RPG.

None of that has anything directly to do with the cooperativeness of the story telling, or if there is any story telling at all.

RPGs are far more about living a story than telling one.

[Max_Killjoy]

RPGs are about role-playing to play a game or to play a game to/with role-playing.

If I play Monopoly in-character as a racecar, then Monopoly becomes an RPG. Is that game about cooperative story telling? Not intrinsically.

A pure RP experience is not an RPG. You aren't playing RPGs unless a game is involved. Likewise if you aren't RPing, you are playing a game not an RPG.

None of that has anything directly to do with the cooperativeness of the story telling, or if there is any story telling at all.

Generally correct in that you need the RP part and the G part. Story, or Narrative, (narrowly defined for purposes of utility) is optional -- not bad, not wrong, just optional.

RPGs are far more about living a story than telling one.

I'd say that they can be either (with a BROAD meaning of "story") -- that either is a valid approach to playing an RPG -- but that the fundamental point of contention in this thread is certain persons rejecting the very existence of the former, or that there's a difference between the the former and the latter.

That is, it's fine to "live" or "tell" the events going on for the characters, but for some reason some gamers either reject that "live' is an option at all, or assert that the two are one and the same.

[Rhedyn]

I could also say fish are far more about rocks than deer are about rocks.

What things are more about between two things does not mean either of those things are that other thing.

[Max_Killjoy]

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 the way I play RPGs.

Reiterating this, because it is the part you just can't seem to get, to wrap your head around. Because you're so focused on winning, on telling us what we're actually doing, whether we like it or not.

And then ... you claim the person you're telling this to has a persecution complex. /rolleyes

It's especially interesting that he keeps saying that he's never personally encountered the term causing confusion... apparently as a rejection of the possibly that it cause any confusion for anyone ever. (Despite the repeated statements from other posters -- of which I've been just one -- that in their experience it has caused confusion, and repeated explanations of both the external and internal potential points of confusion and overlap.)

Of course, buried in there is the "strong CS" assertion that all gaming is literally an act of and about collaboratively telling stories -- which goes far beyond the purely technical, descriptive, and broad "a series of imagined events is generated in a group activity" assertion "weak CS" that most proponents of have long since said is a "live and let live" proposition.


But the most telling difference in this thread is between three broad groups:

1. "Strong CS does not describe how I play. It's cool if you play in such a way that it fits, but it really doesn't fit what I do, and I don't use the term. Let's live and let live."
2. "Strong CS does describe how I play. It's cool if you play in such a way that it doesn't fit, and I understand why you don't want to use even Weak CS as a descriptor. Let's live and let live."
3. "Strong CS describes all gaming, all gaming is an act of storytelling and about storytelling, and if you think that it doesn't describe what you do when you game, then you're wrong about your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. I will continue to assert that you're engaged in storytelling even if you explain in detail how you're supposedly not. Because the term CS works for me, it must work for everyone."

For clarity...

Weak CS -- collaborative storytelling is a descriptor using broad meanings of "collaborative", "story", and "telling", that can be used as a first broad umbrella term to introduce what an RPG is and what's going on. It is not an assertion about the particulars of why and how people play or what they're getting out of the games.

Strong CS -- collaborative storytelling is inherent in the act of playing an RPG, all RPG play is irrevocably and unavoidably about storytelling and an act of storytelling, even players who don't sit down to tell story, aren't taking story into consideration, and don't enjoy or look for story in their RPGs, are still engaged in collaborative storytelling.



.

[kyoryu]

Here's a question:

Is there anyone that is a proponent of using the term because of the weak/broad definition of "collaborative storytelling" that is not a proponent of the narrow/strong definition?

[Knaight]

Is there anyone that is a proponent of using the term because of the weak/broad definition of "collaborative storytelling" that is not a proponent of the narrow/strong definition?

Yes. While I obviously don't have a comprehensive list, I can say that I'm on it - I mostly run fairly traditional games, I GM for a lot of new players, and that particular term is really useful to distinguish RPGs from other types of games. It's useless for detail work, but I still like the term. Meanwhile the narrow/strong definition is similarly vague, but now it's trying to be a precise technical term for categorization. The standards are different there.

It's also worth remembering where this thread started. It was with a claim that the term "collaborative storytelling" was literally meaningless; even if only the narrow/strong definition holds that's still not true.

[kyoryu]

Yes. While I obviously don't have a comprehensive list, I can say that I'm on it - I mostly run fairly traditional games, I GM for a lot of new players, and that particular term is really useful to distinguish RPGs from other types of games. It's useless for detail work, but I still like the term. Meanwhile the narrow/strong definition is similarly vague, but now it's trying to be a precise technical term for categorization. The standards are different there.

Do you like it as a general description of RPGs?

It's also worth remembering where this thread started. It was with a claim that the term "collaborative storytelling" was literally meaningless; even if only the narrow/strong definition holds that's still not true.

Oh, yeah, I agree with that.

[kyoryu]

In other words I have the suspicion that given the two sets of people:

A) People who think "collaborative storytelling" is a good description for RPGs in general

and

B) People whose primary game style fits in with the "narrow" definition of "collaborative gaming"

That just about everyone, if not everyone, that is in the set A is also a member of set B (note that I'm not presuming the opposite)

[Knaight]

Do you like it as a general description of RPGs?

I like it as part of a general description of RPGs provided that the description has some other traits. It's one of a few different descriptions that I'll use depending on who I'm describing things to, with particular application for board game players or people unfamiliar with RPGs but who are at least likely to be aware of both genre fiction and the likes of Monopoly. It's not something I'd use for anyone with an actual theatrical background I know of, or CRPG players.

Also I fit within group A but not group B for your two categories. I suspect this is fairly common, particularly judging by how many people described Max Killjoy's description of how he played RPGs as basically how they did so as well.

[Florian]

RPGs are about role-playing to play a game or to play a game to/with role-playing.

If I play Monopoly in-character as a racecar, then Monopoly becomes an RPG. Is that game about cooperative story telling? Not intrinsically.

A pure RP experience is not an RPG. You aren't playing RPGs unless a game is involved. Likewise if you aren't RPing, you are playing a game not an RPG.

None of that has anything directly to do with the cooperativeness of the story telling, or if there is any story telling at all.

RPGs are far more about living a story than telling one.

To pick up a previous point: RPGing is a group activity that needs interaction between the participants. If you don´t interact with the other players, like by describing what your character does, then you stop participating in the game. This generally needs the interplay/exchange between a player and a gm of some sorts, because there has to some content to interact with in the first place.

It would be pretty weird to have four people sit at a table, totally quit and each playing a solo game of Traveller by him- or herself.

This is basically where the broad definition of "Collaboration" comes in, because you have to work together with at least one other player and we use language as a medium, so non-sequiturs are rarely an option. "You are in a room, there's a table and a Pie. What do you do?" will rarely be answered with "No", "Purple purple 17" or "I fight the dragon". The whole exchange will rather create a somewhat more coherent string of events, like "ok, so overall, you suspected a trap, attacked the table and got eaten by the pie".