Story Games! Do they even exist, or does the phrase just mean RPG’s with a dose of pretension and identity politics? What makes a “story game” different from other roleplaying games? What do we love—and what do we hate—about them?
- 0:31 Defining a “story game”
- 2:56 Ryan Dancey: “Step 1: Redefine the Hobby” (it looks like the internet ate the original article)
- 8:44 A negative definition of “story games”
- 12:11 Narrative arcs instead of genres
- 14:01 Jedi in the Vineyard
- 14:35 A first story game: Dogs in the Vineyard vs. Penny for My Thoughts
- 15:46 Do story games belong in a small niche?
- 16:56 Removing mechanics for violence can make violence in your game terribly unsatisfying.
- 18:15 Story games may have no more difficult audience than people who play “traditional” RPG’s
- 24:22 Do people want to be engaged creatively? (see also “How Much Do You Want to be a Wizard?” at Playing D&D with Porn Stars)
- 24:44 Fear of public speaking vs. fear of death
- 25:32 “Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says,” Washington Post, 23 June 2006
- 27:45 Friday Night Improvs
- 30:57 Lines, veils & backgrounds
- 36:03 In pursuit of more reliable fun
- 40:50 How much “crunch” does a game need?
- 43:09 Pretension & identity politics
- 44:53 For someone who claims to not like D&D very much, I sure do bring it up a lot.
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Woot! Autistic represent!
I’ll freely admit that while I’m no longer doing calculus in my head (in fact, some of my table math easily proves I am now a math idiot), it’s still appealing in many ways to mess with stats, roll a die, hope for a 20, see some high numbers for damage to a critter.
There is something nice and rewarding at a base reptile brain level for going in, stomping a critter, stealing it’s treasure, and giggling about it on the way out. Sometimes you want the simple and direct approach. And it requires little social dexterity. Just think about every social encounter we’ve had. You can say “Your Mom!”, roll a die, and have it work. So even if you are a social flub, you can still do social things without concern whether you trash the speaking part or not.
And, much as you said, socially inept people like me flocked to it. It did give a bunch of us degenerate nerds something to gather around and do in a social sense without having to be socially adept. I think I was the only true nerd of the group, and we never did a lot of stat bragging. It was more difficult to do that in the older editions.
For the record, I’ve done a ton of public speaking. I am in no fear of social situations. Doing presentations or speaking on topics I know a thing or two about I excel at. If I’m shoved into a room with a bunch of strangers, I’ll work through it OK. You put me in a wild situation, I’ll get myself out of it.
You try to place me in any of that in a story game? Brain fart. I haven’t quite figured out why this is the case yet. I know full well that until my brain wraps itself around the game and it’s mechanics, I’m close to useless. I think this was fully displayed during our IAWA game where it took me minutes to get into it and run with it (Woo hoo! Super simple!) where as when we played Ganakagok, I just couldn’t wrap myself around how to get the mechanics to work for me, so I spent the latter portion trying to make my character’s stage exit flashy. I did learn to never under any circumstances be a hero to the people.
Now, the Edition Wars as you have said (which made me chuckle to myself… so true…) they are significantly different to each other. I can explain this in terms of say a vehicle. Let’s say the first edition of the D&D car had two sticks. Push both forward, you go forward. Push one forward and one back, you turn. Now, a new version of the car comes out. This one has a wheel to do the turning part, some pedals to manipulate the acceleration in subtle ways, this weird pedal/stick combo to go faster with less RPMs, fun little dials to show fuel consumption… I can go on. The fact of the matter that in terms of mechanics, there’s a lot different going on. The end result? You’re still in a four wheeled vehicle that gets you from point A to point B.
Even though I’ve played OD&D, 2nd AD&D and 3.5, I do really like 4E. There is only so much crunch one should subject yourself too. Level of crunch should be an option.
“Why are there six pedals when there are only four directions?”
You know Mike, I think that sums it up nicely. That or, “Lines? Time doesn’t flow in lines! It goes in circles, and that’s why clocks are round.”