Implying there isn't a gaming culture war underway between roleplayers and storygamers

Oh god. It's one of those "characters should never die except for narrative purposes" faggots.

Yes. More and more people are pushing this silly idea that the GAME (because it is a game) shouldn't be dictated by rules and mechanics but rather by narrative and "character arcs". This rears its head around in a lot of different forms like the "rule of cool" style DMs and the "never say no. say yes, and" rpg bloggers who have somehow convinced themselves that they're on an elevated level of consciousness when it comes to role playing games.

In actuality, they're just free form role players and we all know that those people are 99% unbearable faggots.

There isn't. One faggot being this mad doesn't constitute a war, much less one involving the whole culture of the hobby.

>Millions of people inspired to play
I remember being this naive.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/6517/roleplaying-games/roleplaying-games-vs-storytelling-games

A thread died for this bullshit. I hope you know that OP. I hope it keeps you up at night.

>Another bait thread died for this bait thread
Wowitsfuckingnothing.png

, What a tragedy.

The weak should fear the strong.

I don't think I'd be complaining about unbearable faggots in your position, user.

Glass houses and all that.

Let them fight.

They'll still always revert to being allies when the LARPers raise their foul and odious presence.

I'm the polar opposite of a storygamer and I agree that illusionism is complete horseshit.
Not much of a conflict there.

>"no, you"

k faggot

Pretty much this. Luckily most of these unbearable storygame faggots congregate on Google+, where the rest of the world can ignore them.

>Let me break that down: Roleplaying games are self-evidently about playing a role. Playing a role is about making choices as if you were the character. Therefore, in order for a game to be a roleplaying game (and not just a game where you happen to play a role), the mechanics of the game have to be about making and resolving choices as if you were the character. If the mechanics of the game require you to make choices which aren’t associated to the choices made by the character, then the mechanics of the game aren’t about roleplaying and it’s not a roleplaying game.

Goddammit I love this guy.

Preferably lower~

youtube.com/watch?v=6jJIVK-daGk

>Characters not dying is bad for the story
Possibly correct
>Characters dying due to randomly generated gameplay mechanics is good for the story
Autistic and wrong

Remember when Frank Herbert rolled dice everytime he narrated a combat scene in order to see who died? Paul sure was lucky he made all his saves.
Remember when all the members of the Fellowship died one-by-one and were replaced? And at the end Dorfo Fraggins, Dwarf Thief, wondered aloud whether a Fellowship that had all its parts replaced over its lifetime was still the same Fellowship?
Don't even get me started on the near miraculous statistical anomaly that was Sherlock Holmes succeeding 2500 inspection checks in a row while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was rolling for what happens in his stories.

Maybe what this fellow is looking for is a creative writing club, not a pen and paper club

Sauce?

Doesn't make the stone any less real friendo

Which side are you arguing?

>implying Sherlock didnt take a 10 99.9% of the time

>putting PCs in genuine peril when it's not dramatically appropriate in the first place and then crying that the rules lets characters die when it's not appropriate
>Refusing to make a character death into interesting storytelling as your party works to revive their ally

Not that poster, but is seems that's he's arguing that arbitrary death isn't fun and sometimes you need the human factor to realize when a random fluke of the die is going to totally fuck a character over and be able to correct it.

Only that people who think adhering to randomly generated dice rolls somehow inherently creates a better story, in the literal story book sense, are wrong.

The GMs coddling their players and fudging all death rolls are, ironically, at least closer to approximating how actual story-writing works.

>Playing a role is about making choices as if you were the character.

But that's wrong. Role-playing is simply pretending to be someone else. An actor reading a script is role-playing. A kid doing a mock interview is role-playing. I'm not a fan of storytelling games, but this dude is just changing definitions to better fit his argument.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing

>Characters dying due to randomly generated gameplay mechanics is good for the story
>Autistic and wrong
Depends on the kind of game you're playing.
I'm running an old school D&D campaign at the moment, and one of the best sessions has been the one where two pcs died due to freak circumstances none of us could have predicted and some horrendous bad luck.

It was dramatic and exciting in a way that wouldn't have been the same if it was planned.

>roleplaying vs narrative again

Look, it's just roguelikes VS pre-constructed worlds.

Some people like a random thing every time and don't mind if it sort of doesn't have as much consistency or narrative punch, some people like a pre-made world that has things to find and do.

Just like I would play a roguelike bullet hell but would not play a roguelike zelda clone, I would play a gamist dungeoneering game but would not play a gamist grand adventure game.

I strongly disagree. Real stakes and a real sense of danger are what makes the story meaningful.

sorta, in that rogue-like kinda way.

Yes.

I for one think the danger should be calibrated to the level of danger fantastic heroes have.
So death is almost right off the table except for maybe once or twice per campaign unless you are playing some high lethality game of thrones shit.

This is a false comparison because it implies that randomization makes the narrative less impactful when it is the opposite. The removing of stakes destroys narrative weight.

>in the literal story book sense
Why would you aim for that?

>I'm not a fan of storytelling games, but this dude is just changing definitions to better fit his argument.

Honestly, I've never really read a good description of a 'Storytelling Game' that does't read as 'RPGs that were made after I was 16 and thus RPGs were at the best they'll ever be'

It's way less impactful when the party has been entirely replaced midway through the campaign, yes.

The random roll method just doesn't hold together as well and deliver as coherent a package as the narrative design, by its very nature.

What is she from?

That is a really stupid comparison obviously being made to try and bolster your point by being disengenuous.

but user, I like roguelikes. I chose both examples as things that are entirely valid and enjoyable if used correctly.

Incorrect. This only holds true in a game where death happens constantly, which is untrue in essentially every game with randomization. You will experience a few character deaths at moments of horrid luck or extreme danger. The fact you don’t know when it is coming gives your decisions meaning.

I disagree with you strongly sir and would not enjoy gaming with you.

It's exciting in the context of being a player in the session, with stakes and interests in the story at the moment.
From an outside perspective, as if a third-party were reading a novelization, it would probably be incoherent to have characters die due to circumstance.

The story is good from "that was a great session, it was really tense", which isn't the same as saying a story is good from a "Dune is a great story" sense.

Except comparing it to a rogue like is extremely disengenuous as the only similarity they share is ‘death exists as a consequence’ for actions. I honestly can not tell if you’re a troll or just horrid at comparisons.

That's fine. It won't be the first time someone let their strong opinions get in the way of using the appropriate game design for the appropriate situation.

Isn't roleplaying about creating a setting and plot hooks and then letting the players write their own story? Players wanting to go to the brothel doesn't mean that the DM is a crap writer, it means that the players are tasteless plebs; but hey, it's their game let them do what they want. If you want characters railroaded down a carefully narrated story, go write a fucking book and stop telling people how you think they should be having fun.

Are you saying that Critical Role needs to be a storygame with a narrative because it's really for the audience watching at home and not the players or DM?

Actually, they share a much deeper similarity. That of all parts having to be properly interchangable regardless of the character you bring into the situation if you want to maintain your arc.

And if you aren't maintaining arcs, right there that means your game is already far less planned out than the other methodology, leading to less thought out worlds to explore.

I would also disagree with this, as stories where characters feel as if they only die when ordained to feel extremely boring. I have read stories like this and seen players construct stories like this during play. They are hogwash. I much prefer the occasional unexpected death as it does add weight.

If I were to compare two campaigns I have been in, one with only narrative death and one with gameplay death the gameplay one was from the outside a far more meaningful story as it held weight and didn’t merely exist as a wish fulfillment exercise for its players.

see, when you use hyperbole like that, it makes your argument seem flawed.

>Forgefags being horrified that people enjoy GAMING once again
Couldn't feel better about it, even when the Critical Role people aren't anywhere near the kind of old school D&D play I prefer.

And randomization removes arcs? I submit as counter evidence every game I have GMd and played in save a few narratavist ones.

>Oh god. It's one of those "characters should never die except for narrative purposes" faggots.
You know I never see anyone bring up this point of view unless they're arguing against it to make their equally extreme viewpoint look reasonable. Isn't there a word for that? Hay-man? Straw-boy? No one actually thinks that. Plenty of people do believe character death shouldn't be ARBITRARY, but that allows for death from bad decisions or poor planning.

did you not read the first half of that post?

What in this is hyperbole? I’ve seen in a narrativist game this exact pattern on multiple occasions.

I really don't understand why people fetishize PC death. Is it because you think it makes you a "hardcore player," or is your empathy so bad that it's the only kind of stakes or consequence that means anything to you?

>muh storygaming
Stop co-opting the term "storygaming" to better fit your narrative.
Powered by the Apocalypse isn't storygaming. FIASCO is.
Learn the fucking difference already.

That you can't fathom any possible benefit to a roleplaying game that doesn't have death as a thing besides "wish fulfillment exercise".
That's a stretch for even the dumbest of poster.

>roleplaying vs. storytelling

Is this just a rebranding of Simulationist vs. Narrative? Because that "gaming culture war" has been going on for a while and has kind of already gotten to the point where everybody's got a little bit of chocolate in their peanut butter and vice-versa.

Or are we talking specifically about that screenshot's view of player death? Even so, that's really just an extension of Simulationist vs. Narrative anyway. Simulationist systems will typically provide rules for the kinds of things that might result in death, and the results of those rules dictate whether a character dies or not. Narrative systems tend to provide additional safeguards (assuming that the system is one that wants its characters to live long lives) such as meta-currency or "what happens at 0 HP" rules that differ between PCs and NPCs.

Either way, if this guy thinks that Critical Role is somehow responsible for the existence of Narrative games he's off his rocker.

I don't either.
There's LOADS of more interesting things that can happen to a character than death, but they always jump to that immediately.

eleventh post best post
the rest of you go home and think about what you did

I did, and you are wrong on that account. A sudden death of the main constituent of the arc and a sudden shift in the story has a lot of narrative weight. It has happened to me before.

As an example it happened when he had pursued one of our PC’s character’s family intrigue, he had been a noble and his family were attempting to assassinate him. They succeeded and suddenly we were plunged into a scenario with nearly no allies and only a few leads. It was one of the best stories I have ever played in trying to pick up the pieces after his death and survive the web we had been caught in.

I can see it’s benefits. I can see far more drawbacks. That’s my issue.

Effectively ditching whatever previous story you were going with.

In a very literal sense, all character deaths in what you would call a story only happen 'when ordained'.
Authors kill characters as it serves the story in books, plays, movies, television, etc.

People are conflating the "story existing within the game" with the "story of us, the authors, as we create the story via gameplay"; the difference between the story of Sherlock Holmes and the story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writing Sherlock Holmes.
From a players perspective it's perfectly likely that a high-lethal campaign full of RNG-related twists is highly engaging; but what the OP's image is complaining about (as far as I can tell) is that it also somehow means the created stories within the game are also superior, which I'm going to say is observably wrong just because no successful book, movie, film, etc. that I know if was written in any way like that.

And even that seems hyperbolic, as it's an apples and oranges thing, so you weighing the benefits and cons really means you aren't getting it.

It's like someone going on about whether the hammer or the screwdriver is a better tool based on bashing or piercing power.

And this is bad in what way? Because a story is new, or because a twist occurs, it in no way makes the story bad. In fact a story with no twists I would say is bad for that very reason, and narrarivist games should have twists as well. Having luck make your twists rather than they be preconstructed adds a great deal of drama and weight.

>and this is bad in what way?
Because it is less structured, and delivers a less coherent package, making it less enjoyable for many.
That is why different people play in different ways, because they find different modes of play enjoyable. Both of these things are acceptable. But like I said, I try to use them for the situations they are best at.

>article literally says that in he's that DM just lets characters die because of die rolls.
>Compares that "not terribly aware" view to his own ultra-enlightened gun-control positions.

>"Ur buildin a strawman"

Make a point.

I am weighing its pros and cons on a personal level. Like I said I can see it’s benefits, for me I think they make for worse stories and worse characters, and encourage laziness. This is what I have seen and experienced.

I can see how you would get more use out of one tool or another, but making wide judgements based off of personal experience really has no purpose other than argument starting with people who have had different experiences. These arguments will never go anywhere, and never have.

And the situations they are best seems purely based on what the players want. This entire argument comes down to ‘play how you enjoy the game’. It’s asinine trying to force others to enjoy the game in your way.

I personally think narrativist games are lazy and make for far less interesting stories. Does that mean you should play my way? Or that ‘badwrongfun’ is occurring? No.

There are enough games and players for everyone to get their way.

>characters shouldn't die based off die rolls
Yes?
We're playing a roleplaying G A M E not a stinkin' roleplaying excercise.

This entire thread was made to start an argument as the OP article shows.

Yes. I've been saying play how you enjoy the game for a while.

Like I said, I wouldn't play a roguelike zelda, but I would play a roguelike R-type. Because a lot of the fun of zelda for me is investigating novel pre-constructed scenarios, wheras an R-type can have random bullet arrangements and I'd be just as good.

Though, I would still prefer a non-random bullet hell in many situations, as pre-constructed patterns tend to be more difficult than roguelike ones, due to the need of the roguelike genre to carry you through multiple boss fights on one life.

Let’s take this argument to its extreme and remove character death. Should character consequence only occur with player conscent? Such as loss of property, injury, etc?

I do not think anyone argues for this as it removes the aspect of the game being just that, a game, and makes it a collective story telling exercise.

Really this comes down to one thing, whether someone thinks the loss of a character should be out of their hands.

and I am here to tell people they are arguing over not much.

>Remember when authors roleplayed their characters with no planning for the rest of the book and never used any deus ex machina?

No? Then maybe roleplaying isn't writing a novel.

Roleplaying will never generate a good story.
Better making something exiting while you are playing than attempting an impossible task.

I've liked a lot of the stories I've heard in roleplaying.
However, most of them were made by people adhering to neither one nor the other end of this spectrum, and were somewhere in the middle. Which is the best place to be.

I still say comparing it to a roguelike is extremely disingenuous. Compare the story of your average roguelike to your average RPG campaign. He difference is staggering.

As well as the example of roguelike necessitate starting over where as campaigns simply change direction with the loss of components. Essentially each component gives the game a direction as as they are changed that direction shifts rather than the repetition of a roguelike.

That is what I disagree with for this analogy. Repetition.

>Make a point.
No u. The author never says any of the shit you claim in your previous post, just that they think games should have mechanics to prevent RANDOM and ARBITRARY character death.

I have heard more good stories on the pure gaming side than the pure narrativist side in all honesty. Also what would you count as ‘the middle’?

user, consider something like hand of fate when you talk about story in roguelikes.

It's possible, but due to the arbitrary nature of whether someone will or will not be in a place, requires a lot looser of a setup, and a much less rigid world.

Because something is written on wikipedia doesn't mean it's automatically true.

Is character death what you are against? Basically that consequence being on the table? Or any consequence being randomized?

I don't think I've ever heard a pure gamist story.
Even the most gamist groups I've heard of fudge a die occasionally. I've only ever seen 100% no narrativism in, well, games without a narrative, like poker.

And what players find exciting just differs between players, some of whom want a game where you can live and die by the rolls, and some who just want an avenue to display a character they thought up.

Honestly though this argument is basically just some people who think they're playing L5R getting angry at people thinking they're playing Exalted, when in reality they're playing FUCKING Dungeons and Dragons

Why is this a problem when Revenants exist? If you have a story-arc for a character you just CANNOT live without then

>Find a deity that makes sense based on whatever events have/will be happening in that arc
>That deity decides that "dead guy" is important enough (The deity can see the strings of fate and knows this character needs to exist for bad thing not to happen)
>Let the player come back as a Revenant
>When your 10/10 story arc is over they die

I’m not even sure what point you are trying to make in this post. Stories changing does not make them any less meaningful. In fact I would say from personal experience campaigns I have participated in that had sudden change due to death often ended up better than they were before. Sure some crashes and burned, but as I said above the one involving us trapped in Intrigue we didn’t understand was extremely fun and interesting both from an outside and internal perspective.

Because only like one in 50 GMs let you play a skeleton.

>play a skeleton
Huh?

>Mortal Form: You have the same size, speed, racial traits, and racial ability score increases as your mortal form. For example, if the mortal body you choose to inhabit is a Mountain Dwarf, you gain +2 to your Constitution score and +2 to your Strength score -- you also gain a medium sized body and a base walking speed of 25 feet. If you inhabit the body of a Half-Orc, you gain +2 to your Strength score and +1 to your Constitution score -- you also gain a medium sized body and a base walking speed of 30 feet. Etc.

I have been in quite a few games with zero dice fudging. When I GM I do zero dice fudging. I roll in the open and the dice are as they fall.

I didn't say it makes them less meaningful. I said it makes them less structured and deliver a less coherent package, which some people dislike. Hence multiple ways to play the game, and discussions like this.