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2018-01-04, 02:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Okay, lets be clear here then.
When you say "collaborative storytelling", are you including
1) Those that are playing their character in the fictional universe as if it's a "real person", by making decisions about what they attempt to do? And DMs like me, that primarily focus on resolving those attempts and communicate the results, thus creating in-game events? ie those that establish what occurs / happens in terms of in-game events?
2) Those that mean players and DMs who create an account of events, descriptions of what has already been established to occurred / have happened in terms of in-game events?
I initially ranted in the other thread because I'm pushing back against people who try to include #1 under the idea of "an account", because that's not what it is. When you objected, that inspired me to take it to another not-off-topic thread. That's the entire purpose of this thread. If we can establish that you are not intending #1 to be included in the phrase "collaborative storytelling", then as the person that initially objected to my statement, I'm happy to agree that anyone using it to mean #2 is using the term meaningfully, and declare /thread.Last edited by Tanarii; 2018-01-04 at 02:18 PM.
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2018-01-04, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Frankly, from my perspective you are disproportionately concerned about slippery slopes. In particular:
- You are worried that if you don't fight the assertion that TTRPGs are, broadly speaking, an act of storytelling that is collaborative, then people will be emboldened to claim that all TTRPGs must be played with the intention of crafting a very specific sort of novel-like story—instead of "playing the character" and letting events unfold as they may.
- You also seem very worried that if we allow a definition of "story" that is broad enough to encompass all TTRPGs—games that near-universally describe themselves as storytelling games—we are capitulating to the toxic influence of a philosophical movement that threatens western society.
For issue (1), there is simply nobody in this thread doing that, or even gesturing toward it. Some people have proposed broader definitions of "story" that drop the "account" or "description" clause, but nobody here has said that you personally are, or should be, playing the game specifically to create a structured 3-act story with character arcs and narrative causality, etc. In fact, I'd say everybody in this thread almost certainly agrees that no player should be compelled to play that way.
I see no reason to engage with a bad-faith argument being put forth by people who are not present in this discussion.
For issue (2), seriously? This discussion isn't a Trojan horse for, nor a consequence of, postmodernism.
You don't need to subscribe to a specific ideology or use a postmodernist lens to look at a group of people sitting at a table, opening a book that starts with "this is a storytelling game", describing a bunch of imaginary characters' actions and consequences to each other, and then conclude that they're pretty clearly creating a story together.
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2018-01-04, 02:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Anyone know if Tanarii is Ignoring me, or just ignoring me? Doesn't matter, really, I'm just curious.
I think what Knaight and I and several others in this thread are saying is that #1 can be included inherently, necessarily and definitively in at least one defensible and well-established definition of the phrase "collaborative storytelling." Correct me if I'm wrong, Knaight.Awesome avatar courtesy of Dorian Soth.
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2018-01-04, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Just because the term means both doesn't mean that the term lacks meaning. It is an umbrella term which encompasses both definitions. Just because both styles are under the same term doesn't mean that the term is meaningless. A car and a motorcycle are both vehicles and clearly two different things. That doesn't mean the word vehicle is meaningless, just meaningless if you are trying to use it to describe the difference between a car and a motorcycle.
Speaking of definitions let's take a look at account.
Account: a report or description of an event or experience.
You describe your attempt to perform an action and the GM describes the result. It seems pretty open and shut to me.Firm opponent of the one true path
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2018-01-04, 02:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Provided that they're communicating this to the other players/GMs by describing what their characters do (including attempts)/what happens, yes. This is how I GM (for the most part), and I'd absolutely consider it a form of collaborative storytelling. So would most of the people in this thread, which is enough to suggest a widely shared definition, which is what it takes for a phrase to have meaning.
Your two categories presented are basically two thirds of Kyoru's game play types. Your type 1 is his type I, your type 2 is his type III, and I'd put both under the heading of collaborative storytelling. What wouldn't fit is his type II, the sequence described by a varying long repetition of "Player X moves their piece according to the rules".
Nope. We're on the same page on this one.Last edited by Knaight; 2018-01-04 at 02:38 PM.
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2018-01-04, 02:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
But what's happening here is some people saying "but your motorcycle is actually a car". For example:
Speaking of definitions let's take a look at account.
Account: a report or description of an event or experience.
You describe your attempt to perform an action and the GM describes the result. It seems pretty open and shut to me.
You are attempting to define a motorcycle as a car.Last edited by Tanarii; 2018-01-04 at 02:41 PM. Reason: changed to first person
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2018-01-04, 03:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
In the fictional setting, it isn't an account. In real life, where there's some amount of people sitting around a table* what just happened is that one person described a fictional character doing something, and then another person just described what that fictional character doing something caused. In real life, what we just saw was two people provide two linked descriptions of a sequence of fictional events. Generally these two descriptions are part of a much longer sequence of descriptions, which one might describe as an account.
You're describing a picture of a motorcycle as a motorcycle. On its own there's no issue with that (if someone points at a picture of a motorcycle and asks what that is someone saying "a picture" is almost certainly being profoundly unhelpful), but you're also claiming that it isn't a picture. Worse, you're claiming that picture is a meaningless word, because it doesn't tell you anything about what's in the picture.
*Or behind screens, or standing around a counter, or sitting on the floor, or lying down on nearby couches or whatever.
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2018-01-04, 03:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Ok... so I give two definitions and then concede that I am perfectly willing to use the second meaning for the sake of this debate... and you go on and on about how silly the first definition is. How is that constructive at all? I already conceded that I'm not going to use it anymore.
Good grief. Now do we have to get into a debate on what the term "an account" means?
If you don't think you are giving "an account" of something when communicating during an RPG session, then... I don't even know what you think that word means.
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2018-01-04, 03:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
You're describing a picture of a motorcycle as a motorcycle. On its own there's no issue with that (if someone points at a picture of a motorcycle and asks what that is someone saying "a picture" is almost certainly being profoundly unhelpful), but you're also claiming that it isn't a picture. Worse, you're claiming that picture is a meaningless word, because it doesn't tell you anything about what's in the picture.
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2018-01-04, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Yes, I am slightly egomaniac. Why didn't you ask?
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Originally Posted by Fyraltari
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2018-01-04, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
That is my position. As far as I can tell, the claim that describing a character's actions is somehow not storytelling only makes sense if we are taking the perspective of the fictional character, for whom this is not a "description" of things they are doing but simply "things I am doing".
The problem is that we are not fictional characters, and therefore must give an account of our character's thoughts and actions in order for them to become part of the shared fictional world for everyone else.
In other words, the act of internally imagining and deciding what one's character might do is, arguably, not storytelling in the sense of "TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling games".* That's fine.
But the act of describing that to the people around you as part of a larger collective story is absolutely "collaborative storytelling" under the definition we are discussing, and the definition TTRPGs use to describe themselves as "storytelling games".
* Of course, it very much is storytelling in certain psychological and philosophical senses. I think we can set these contexts to the side as distractions at this point.
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2018-01-04, 03:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
So what if they're "commentating" a fictional sports match in real time? A match that only "exists" in that they are imagining it and describing it to each other?
By this definition, since nobody is "watching the match" (or experiencing the game world), that makes them clearly storytellers, no?
To put it another way: Does the Welcome to Nightvale podcast "tell a story"? Or is it merely a fictional radio show, factually describing events as they happen, in a way that is somehow not a story?
Assuming you aren't "attempting" something that violates the game rules, the attempt still happens.
When you describe your character swinging a sword, the sword remains swung in the story whether it hits or not.
When you describe your character begging the queen for assistance, their words remain said in the story whether they are convincing or not.
When you describe your character chasing after the mysterious figure who slipped around the corner, they still run to the corner in the story whether the figure has disappeared or not.
I can see how it feels like failure means "nothing happens" in a mechanical sense—you tried to make X happen, you failed, X did not happen. But that failure is still part of the story. It might not be an interesting part of a particularly good story, depending on what you/your group does with it, but it's a part nonetheless.Last edited by Cynthaer; 2018-01-04 at 03:48 PM.
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2018-01-04, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
The players are litteraly making it from nothing. You can't have a more involved interaction than that. The story having no physical existence is only making that point stronger : the definition of events is the experience.
To put it another way: Does the Welcome to Nightvale podcast "tell a story"? Or is it merely a fictional radio show, factually describing events as they happen, in a way that is somehow not a story?Last edited by Cazero; 2018-01-04 at 04:03 PM.
Yes, I am slightly egomaniac. Why didn't you ask?
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Alas, poor Cookie
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Originally Posted by Fyraltari
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2018-01-04, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
That's part of the point, actually.
When playing, is the player treating the character as a person-who-could-be-real and from a close/tight POV, or are they treating the character as a story element from an authorial POV?
For those who do the former, the "all RPGs are storytelling" position, especially as expressed by some in this thread, comes across very much as "You can't do that, and if you think you are doing that, then you're wrong".It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
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2018-01-04, 04:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
You very much can do that, indeed the majority of the time that is how people play. The people in the "all RPGs are storytelling" position are saying that by doing that you are still telling a story. Which is to say that you are still providing an account of the character's (sometimes only attempted) actions.
I don't treat the character as a story element from an authorial POV instead treating the character as an individual with their own thoughts, desires, and feeling however saying that means I'm not engaged in the storytelling process completely ignores what those words mean.Last edited by Tinkerer; 2018-01-04 at 04:10 PM.
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2018-01-04, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
The character is a fictional element being played by a real player. There's no way around that, and that's all it takes to qualify by the definition that's generally being used here. A close/tight POV (actor stance in Forge jargon) doesn't change that, and neither does a deliberately distant POV (author stance in Forge jargon).
Also as someone who would class all RPGs as storytelling (with the possible exception of something that is literally just a series of subsystem interactions where the character is just a stat block) I'd consider that close POV to be pretty much the default, especially for players.
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2018-01-04, 04:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
First, I'd still question if "creating story as a byproduct" really is storytelling.
Second, "you can still do that" is entirely missing the point... some players have no interest in telling a story, and making the game "story no matter what" lessens their engagement and enjoyment.
Again, I think "storytelling" is something more deliberate and involved than just being the verb-form of the broad "story is any account of events" formed by tacking "telling" on the end of story.
And what about those players whose enjoyment of the game takes significant negative impact when thinking about the characters as fictional elements, let alone when letting "intentional story" concerns into the equation?Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2018-01-04 at 04:50 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-01-04, 04:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
I would simply say that, in treating them like actual characters, and treating the setting like an actual setting, and having the two generate emergent events in their interaction, you are telling a story. Collaboratively.
I'm not entirely sure (2) is...really part of the RPG itself. It sounds like something to be done afterwards, transcribing it into a sharable work. I could be wrong, though. But (1) is pretty much what I think people mean when discussing RPGs as "collaborative storytelling." It's not that you're setting out deliberately to "tell a story," but there is a story that's emerging from these events.
It is, in essence, character-driven storytelling. The story emerges from the characters being themselves in the setting provided by the GM.
I will say that you are storytelling, collaboratively, when you "do that." But I won't say "you can't do that." You absolutely can. It just happens to be telling a story.
You and Tanarii are convincing me that "collaborative storytelling" is a good term for about 2/3 of RPG activities. The only part that seems to stand outside it is the gameplay portion. The style of play that ignores RP in favor of characters-as-game-pieces in a dungeon-delving/combat simulator would avoid collaborative storytelling, but the moment anybody tries to get into their characters, there's some effort - intentional or otherwise - towards collaboration on telling a tale.
So I think it is, to rebut the OP's thesis, a useful term. No, not everything done in an RPG is collaborative storytelling, but a LOT of it is, especially in the modern paradigm that focuses on characters as characters, rather than as mere semi-disposable game pieces.
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2018-01-04, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
The game hasn't changed. Everyone involved in it is still doing exactly the same thing. It's merely being classified differently under a different (and in this case more standard) classification system. If that somehow affects your enjoyment of the game that's on you.
I'm reminded of my dad's hatred for all things casserole here. They were just the worst, as far as he was concerned. He loved lasagna, but if you ever point out that lasagna was a casserole it would somehow ruin it for him, despite it being exactly the same as it ever was.
The difference was that he realized he was being irrational, instead of systematically redefining the word casserole to exclude lasagna while making ridiculous arguments about how definitions work in general.
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2018-01-04, 05:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Here's the thing. I think you are flat-out wrong about how most people play TTRPGs. Consider:
I will third this sentiment. I treat my characters more as fully-realized persons with internal desires than as pawns to be moved about for story purposes.
Moreover, we could go around the entire thread taking a poll, and I'd bet money that 95-100% of the people who have posted so far would agree: Most TTRPG players are more interested in inhabiting a character and discovering their impact on the story than they are in twisting the characters to fit the story.
You claim that our argument is coming across poorly to that type of player, but we are also that type of player! So how could we possibly be claiming that "you can't do that"?
Now I feel you are acting in bad faith. Show me one place in this entire thread where someone has told you to play the game a different way, or said that you personally need to change what you enjoy about the game. It has not happened, nor has it been implied.
Moreover, saying "story no matter what" implies that we are demanding you prioritize the story over something else (presumably characterization or whatever else you are enjoying). This only makes sense using Blackjackg's second definition of "collaborative storytelling" from a few pages ago: "2. An approach to roleplaying games that emphasizes equitable collaboration toward a well-crafted story."
But you know perfectly well that nobody here is arguing this. We are speaking of the first definition: "1. A category of games characterized by collaboratively creating a story." We have asked you to change precisely nothing about how and why you play TTRPGs.
So let me be very clear.
- Whatever aspects of TTRPGs you enjoy are valid. You do not need to change your preferences.
- However you like to play TTRPGs is valid. You do not need to change your playstyle. (Assuming it's not hurting your gaming group.)
- The actions and statements of your characters are a part the overall story being created by your gaming group.
- You still do not need to care about this story, as a story.
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2018-01-04, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
I see. So now all communication is classified as "telling a story" or relaying "an account"?
This is exactly what I mean by expanding definitions to the point of where they are meaningless and useless. You've managed to not only do it with the word "story", but now also with "an account". Kudos for consistency, I guess.
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2018-01-04, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-01-04, 05:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
No, Tanarii, no... no no no. Nobody is saying that "all communication is telling a story", nor is anyone saying that all communication is "relaying an account". Nobody is saying that or even suggesting that. When you describe the definitions we use, YOU are the one expanding the definition.
I'm starting to feel that I'm going to have to give a definition of every single word being used... and even then I don't know if it would stop these bizarre conclusions from being drawn.
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2018-01-04, 05:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Okay, hold up.
Max_Killjoy. Buddy. Has this entire argument seriously just been because remembering it's make-believe just, like, takes you out of the moment?
Because most of us probably feel the same way! Getting really sucked into a game is fun! It's like watching a good movie—sometimes you just want to get drawn into what's on the screen, not think about it as a movie created by humans for money.
Granted, it can also be fun to create a story together while thinking of it as a story (see Fate, for instance), but there's a reason D&D and most popular TTRPGs have mechanics where you try something and then discover what happens (e.g., D&D skill checks) instead of explicitly narrative mechanics where you use resources to decide what happens (e.g., Fate's fate points).
What I'm not seeing is what this discussion has to do with any of that.
If you like to forget that it's fiction while you're playing, make sure you're playing with a group who like to play in-character and aren't constantly cracking real-world jokes.
If you don't like to think about it as fiction while you're not playing, then why in god's name are you posting here of all places? You could walk away and never open this thread again, and there's not a damn thing any of us could do to ever make you think about TTRPGs as stories, short of stalking you.
But just like watching the Avengers for fun doesn't make it not a movie, the fact that you don't enjoy thinking about a game as a story doesn't make it not a story.
And I don't think it's reasonable to ask that an entire industry worth of storytelling game designers and players stop calling it "storytelling" just because you don't like thinking about it that way.
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2018-01-04, 06:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
There's huge quantities of communication that don't fit in either of those categories by our allegedly overbroad definitions. We're talking about a very narrow slice of communication here, specifically a series of descriptions of fictional events, where each description is linked to prior descriptions in a fictional chronology, produced by more than one person. That mouthful of a sentence is a pretty broad description of essentially every roleplaying game, and that, specifically, is what is being called collaborative storytelling.
Tons of communication doesn't fit that pattern.
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2018-01-04, 06:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
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2018-01-04, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
I feel like you are being deliberately obtuse.
Both people you quoted are clearly talking about the communication that happens as part of playing a TTRPG. Players describing their characters' words and actions. GMs describing the events of the world around them.
If it will help make you stop strawmanning, I will clarify that there are certain things players communicate while playing that are not part of the story. For instance, all of the out-of-character discussions, such as questions about rules, updates on what's in someone's inventory, tactical planning, and so on.
Nobody is expanding the definition of "account". We are referring to the core gameplay element where players describe their characters' words and actions to each other.
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2018-01-04, 06:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
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2018-01-04, 06:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Ah, my mistake I misread your statement. I was simply mentioning that account is a very broad word which does indeed cover many forms of communication. This conversation had one interesting side effect though, it definitely made me think about the tenses which we use while gaming. I think I may have to open a thread on that. Maybe tomorrow, my eyes hurt.
Account: a report or description of an event or experience.Firm opponent of the one true path
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2018-01-04, 06:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase
Before this goes too far off the rails, I believe Knaight is not saying that is the only thing that could be called "storytelling".
They're just saying that in this discussion, that communication pattern is the only thing we're explicitly classifying as "collaborative storytelling".
(Personally, I would say that the entire reason we have sports commentators is to translate mere "events" into "stories", but I wouldn't call two commentators talking "collaborative storytelling" in the same way that a TTRPG is.
In a philosophical sense, sure, but the whole point is we don't have to get philosophical to conclude that TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling games.)