GAH I'm tired of being forbidden to use "Story"

[Christoffer Lernö]

I know I know, it's not well defined.

But then please please give me a word to describe the history of the in-play events during a session of play - and let me use it. I want to use this for both a finished session and to describe the same sequence of events while it is still in progress.

I think the natural word to use would be "story" as in "we are telling a story together" but I guess there are objections to that.

What about "adventure" or *sigh* "tale"?

Usage would be stuff like "when we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the ****** enough" or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the ******" or "The events of the ******* are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a premade ******"

Pretty please?

[Marco]

It's espically problematic when the participants want a game that employs a multi "act" progress building to climax and then denoument, and contains story-like literary tropes such as foreshadowing and symbolism.  In games where the participants prise a continuous arc, character development, and satisfying conflict definition and resolution it seems natural to call the play "story focused."

The problem isn't that "story oriented" is vague--it can be--it's that some of the narrativist text discusses 'creation of story as a priority of play' which then compounds the confusion and creates unnecessary misunderstandings.

I say: use story, everyone knows what you mean (in a general sense). When addressing Ron's Paradox (he calls it the Impossible Thing) simply use different words.

I don't think that games that claim that players are the protagonists and the GM is the story teller are trying to do somthing impossible--I think that when the statement is read (and the language carefully defined in the mind of the reader) so that the players must be authoring story at the same time that the GM authors the story is the moment it becomes a "paradox."

This is the similar to saying that GURPS's claim to be "universal" is somehow misleading (or, even "moronic") since GURPS doesn't support all GNS play-styles. When choosing the name, it's clear that SJ didn't mean anything at all about GNS modes of play. He meant something like multi-genre or "can be used to play a wide variety of roles from sci-fi to fantasy to modern day."  It's also crystal clear to me that the world at large knew what he meant.

-Marco

[Le Joueur]

...Give me a word to describe the history of the in-play events during a session of play....  I want to use this for both a finished session and to describe the same sequence of events while it is still in progress.

Usage would be stuff like, "When we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the ****** enough," or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the ******," or "The events of the ****** are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a pre-made ******."

Here's what I use: game or narrative.  (Around here you occasionally have to point out that you didn't say 'Narrativist,' but not too often.)

Follow:

"When we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the game enough," or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the game," or "The events of the game are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a pre-made game."

"When we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the narrative enough," or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the narrative," or "The events of the narrative are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a pre-made narrative."[/list:u]
Or both.


"When we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the game enough," or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the narrative," or "The events of the game are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a pre-made narrative."[/list:u][/list:u]Just a suggestion from a wordsmith....

Fang Langford

[Matt Machell]

I tend to use Scenario. It's not so loaded with baggage as Story.

So, for your examples given above:

"when we're playing, I don't feel the characters can influence the outcome of the scenario enough" or "The players and the GM are taking turns to create the scenario" or "The events of the scenario are mainly reactions to the players' actions rather than something from a premade scenario"

-M

[Mike Holmes]

This is the similar to saying that GURPS's claim to be "universal" is somehow misleading (or, even "moronic") since GURPS doesn't support all GNS play-styles. When choosing the name, it's clear that SJ didn't mean anything at all about GNS modes of play. He meant something like multi-genre or "can be used to play a wide variety of roles from sci-fi to fantasy to modern day."  It's also crystal clear to me that the world at large knew what he meant.

The objection here has noting to do with GNS per se. According to GURPS. Generic means what you say above. And we all agree that it is designed to support a lot of different genres of play.

But then it goes on to say that it's Universal and says specifically that Universal means that the game play provided by GURPS can satisfy all players needs. Which is just not true. There are all sorts of player needs that GURPs just doesn't handle. For example, it's too light a system for some, and too heavy for others. These may not have been well identified at the time, but they existed. So it was untrue when they published, it, and untrue now.

Mostly just an advertising claim, really, so it's not surprising that it's not true.

As far as the term "story" goes, Ron has only said that one needs to be careful how one uses the term, and to be specific. In fact, he has reduced his own theory to the point where he doesn't even really use it himself. Just so that others who use the term can do so without having to worry about the GNS definition. So claims that Narrativism somehow currently confuses the issue are unfounded. (In fact, considering that Ron has bent over backwards mostly to accomodate your personal definitions of the term story here, Marco, I think you should really rethink what you said above).  

We can say that Ron has his own ideas of what constitutes a story, certainly, but that's his whole point. Not only does he have his ideas of it, so do others, and they, too, do not all agree. One should merely be careful. This is common sense, not political.

PF, have you considered using "plot"? This is a very specific term that referrs specifically to the chain of events as they occur in-game. A fang said, narrative is good, too, indicating precisely what was said in terms of in-game description.

Mike

[Marco]

Mike,

You might be right--it's the story-oriented vs. creation-of-story thing that's always gotten to me (to me they seem to be saying the same thing). "Plot" works well for all intents and purposes.

In terms of GURPS, I don't have my 3rd ed book here, but I took it to mean (and the GURPS website, I think, kinda bears this out) that the term Universal means exapndible to multiple game-worlds and Generic means that the rules have no genre-specific flavor (see the "Powered By GURPS" link). We can discuss the GURPS promo material in PM if you disagree with me.

Maybe somewhere they said they thought it would satisfy everyone and all styles--if they did, they *were* moronic, I'd have to agree with that.

-Marco

[Tim C Koppang]

I'd just like to put in my vote for narrative.  Although it's dangerously close to Narrtivism, it seems the least confusing.

Game is ok, but too broad.  People could take it to mean the entire act of roleplaying.

Plot is precise; I like it.  However, so many people use plot to refer to the GM's preplanned adventure or scenario (also both terms that I think refer exclusively to pre-planning in one way or another) that the extra baggage isn't worth it.  For example, how many times have you heard players say, "We've found the plot!"  Of course they are referring to a set of pre-planned events that the GM has constructed in one way or another before the game began.

Narrative and story are synonyms in most uses, and so I think with the former you get the advantages of story, but without all the rpg history baggage.

[Christoffer Lernö]

plot, narrative and game works, thanks. Now I just have to choose which one of them I'm to use :)