Costick on Story/Games

[GregCostikyan]

To explain a bit... The presentation was somewhat hastily cobbled together on the basis, originally, of a Game Developer magazine article I wrote years ago (at http://www.costik.com/gamnstry.html">www.costik.com/gamnstry.html--which I tried to modify to incorporate some of the game styles that have evolved (or that I've encountered) since then.

As a result, the original thesis of the article (smooth variation between Cortazar and the tabletop RPG) now seems not entirely so neat, since we go beyond tabletop to LARPs, narrativist games, etc., and there the original thesis starts to break down.

So I think most of what people are detecting here is a bit of incoherence, to which I'll agree; my thinking on the subject is somewhat in transition, although I do think that the nature of theater (and in particular improv), and how it interrelates to more narrativist games is important. And I'm sure I'll revisit the subject, at some future time, hopefully with a more coherent framework for doing so.

I should also note that the "story-telling hostility" some seem to have detected in my presentation is real, in a sense, but also not, in another sense. Whenever I meet someone who comes from outside the industry and wants to develop a computer game, he or she almost invariably starts by talking about character, story, or world-background--which makes me tear my hair out. All of that crap can be retrofitted--first, tell me what the player does, what "the verbs" are, to use Crawford's terminology (with whom I am indeed still in touch... Though I think he's wrong on a lot of things, and vice versa.) Since I was writing for Game Developer, what I was trying to get across was that story is -not- essential to games--but also to avoid the trap of saying "games have nothing to do with story," which is patently false, at least for many game styles. Instead, I wanted to make the point that there are tradeoffs involved. My audience, in other words, was people like Chris, Hal Barwood, and Mark Barrett--all of whom are very articulate on the nature of story in digital games, but who, I often feel, give short shrift to non-narrative games (which, not incidentally, have considerable virtues, like, say, replayability). If I'd been writing for the audience here, I'm sure the tack would have been somewhat different.

[Marco]

I think there are two ways you can look at "story" (and I'm going to start with standard lit and then try to apply it to RPGs).

1. Structure.
2. Meaning.

In the first case, one can analyze the structure of a story and make some sort of commentary on the craft of the author.

In the second, one can make a judgment as to the impact of the piece on a personal basis (and it's usually extrapolated to some degree to everyone: "Amercian Beauty has a powerful message.")

Structure, for an RPG, is going to be tricky--even for something like Sorcerer. In real time, real authors change their minds frequently (see the editing and re-write phase of writing). There are very few people who would claim that not-re-writing or a story without editing will be as strong as one that has been worked on.

As such, RPG's are, actually more linear than finished static fiction. The RPG action (usually) continues on no matter what. The author of a book can go back and loop around and work on things until he or she is satisfied with what happens and how it happens.

Meaning, OTOH, can (and certainly does) exist across all art. In a play there is no "going back" (yes, the script has been crafted--but the performance is always live). And yet it can move us as well as a movie (which involves multiple takes and lots of editing).

Now: I think there clearly are ways to get good, tight structures out of games from a GM perspective (for example, the GM's control of pacing) but you will never (in most games, anyway) achieve the refining step that traditional fiction has.

And, indeed, going back and "doing it over" would detract from the meaning element for most of us, I think.

By the standard of Structure, more structure at a certain point (the refining step) will mean less meaning (IMO, mostly, anyway).

But if you judge based only on meaning as your measure of 'story' then, no, you can max that out without any difficulty.

-Marco

[Gordon C. Landis]

Mike (and all),

My point regarding "local to CRPGs" was just that nothing in my earlier, long post was meant to challenge that EXACTLY what was in the slide presentation might be useful there.  I just wasn't finding it applicable to RPGs in GNS/Big Model terms.

I think you're mistaking my claim about the use of "Play" to be a claim about the use of "game" - I claim that his "But play is fundamental to what it means to be a mammal/We play to explore the functioning of the world-system" [emphasis added] and " [...] play comes first" could be a restatement of Exploration.  Taking us all the way back to Sim as prioritized Exploration and all the confusions that misunderstanding that can lead to.

Because he's right, play does come first (Exploration is the foundation, Sim prioritizes it, but Nar/Game also need it, etc. etc.).  I also think he's bang-on (thanks for posting, Mr. Costikyan!) with this:

[...] story is -not- essential to games--but also to avoid the trap of saying "games have nothing to do with story," which is patently false, at least for many game styles

But the conclusions about story (in a Nar sense, anyway) that seem to be implied in the slide presentation (that it must be linear/pre-determined/has an optimal path) don't follow from that, as far as I can tell.

Mike - does that help?  I feel like there's something your looking for from me that I'm not providing, but I can't quite figure out what that is . . .

Gordon

[Mike Holmes]

Well, Gordon, I'd say that we're sorta spinning at this point. I think we understand each other, but I don't know that we've gotten anywhere.

Thanks, Greg, for posting. Sorry about the extra "c" in your name; got no idea where that comes from. :-)

But, am I right, generally? Is the message that one should shoot for both story and game quality? Or just that you can't avoid it?

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Greg,

I don't know if you'll be back to read this, but I wanted to say thanks and breaking out your points. I understand exactly what you're talking about now.

I spent a few months at a video game company a little over a year ago. Strangely, I, the outsider and the writer, was the one surprised that the very thick design document for the game was filled character, story and world background. Because of my experience here at The Forge, I was the one who was really concerned about "what the player does, what ithe verbsi are". And fought like hell to get us to focus on that.

I think I was seen as uppity.

Anyway, what threw me off about your presentation were the almost haphazard references to Sorcerer, MLWM, and other Table Top RPGs. I truly believe they offer a range of play options and design strategies that are a world apart from the concerns of CRPGs. Though, as you point out rightly, CRPGs can have their fair share what are thought of as story elements.

Christopher

[Christopher Kubasik]

Oh, and I agree with John, that Story Now does not require good output stories to be created. The process is so personal that any story that happens to have broad appeal will be accidental. Could happen, but it just isn't a goal of the form. The story only has to appeal to the people playing, and only as they create it. Which can be a far cry from what they'd accept from an external author. That is, I think that the same story for the same person might be "good" for them if they create it, and not good enough if they do not. It's like cooking the fish you caught - they always taste the best. But even more personal, because some of you is caught up in the creation.

Exactly.  In Greg's terminology (which I think matches many people's usage), it's not the story which they're enjoying.  Now, we use that in the term "Story Now" -- but it is arguably a deceptive label.  There is another quality which is the core: perhaps the creative mode of thought, or perhaps the sense of satisfaction at having created the story (which is different than enjoying the story itself).  I think that's what Greg is trying to get at.

Yeah. I said the same thing in my first post. When I echoed Gareth's comments about Nar being a story-creation medium. That's the fun. Did my post get lost in the abyss or something?

As for the realm of appeal of the stories created...

I go back and forth on this. Right now I'm kicking around the idea that Nar-made stories are like "little myths" for the very small tribe of players at the table. They speak to them about what matters, what they think is true or of value in story terms. The tale isn't crafted in such a way yet that it could be appreciated by others. The short hand, cues and the very act of being there at the making makes the meaning immediate and personal.

On the other hand, I think stories are weird in that folks often find value in tales clearly not written for them. I was moved to tears reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. I dare anyone to tell me how that makes any sense.

So, I think there are two things impeding engaging someone with a story created at an RPG session:

a) The person wasn't a member of the tribe. I appreciate this is a stumbling block, but I also am not sure its insurmountable, because....

b) The story has yet to be crafted into an actual "finished" product. I liken playing Nar to the process of writing. I can outline a story fifteen times in one week (and often do.) The act of outlining is fun. And it's also the same story each time. But it's also clearly a different story, because it's not coherent enough in the telling to be clear to others. (A fact I can only recognize after playing the new outline in my head.... and sighing with the realization I didn't get it yet.)

I see Nar play as story-creation.... But at the level of fun, still drumming up the story phases on the way to making an actual story.

Someone would have to take the Moose in the City events and then shape it, with purpose and craft, into a Children's Book, or a Screenplay, or a Saturday Morning Cartoon -- or whatever. And each of those tellings would be very different because of the natures of the forms.

I know somewhere around here a while ago we went around the difference between the "story" which is the rough, raw material of narrative, and the actual telling that gets made and distributed that is also a "story".  But it's two different things.

There's the "story" of the Trojan War. Then there's Homer telling of elements of that story. And then there's Shakespeare's telling of elements of that story. The "story" is this vauge shapeless thing that's definitely a narrative of sorts -- but actually cannot be pinned down into any actual shape.

I see whatever is created at a Nar game as that sort of thing. It's not yet a telling of a story. But it is a "story."

(People with degrees can feel free to jump in with specific terms.)

So... Someone telling a story with a lot of digressions, and stopping to remember the names of characters who don't really matter and whatnot is going to bore his audience. But someone else, telling the same story well, will engage the audience. It's not nescesarily the "story's" fault.

I'd suggest most telling of RPG adventures are of the former sort.

I'd argue that Nar style play will most like provide a story-creation process that will satisfy the people at the table. Satisfaction would come from the fun of making -- and a story that has meaning and movement for the folks who made it up. A "good enough" story. Something, more times than not, you could work with and actually work up into an actual good "telling" of the story.

But to reach a larger audience one would have to figure out how to do that telling. This is not slighting Nar created stories in the least. A solid gamist session translated into a good telling would need so much more material that wasn't addressed in play that the actual raw material would vanish under the weight of it.

And this, by the way, is why I cried at passages in Beowulf. The story we've inherited was shaped into something well told. And Heany told it well again.

Christopher

[Mike Holmes]

I think you're right, Chris, in that, basically, the recounts of RPG play that people give are, as Ron has put it, "breathless and then" tellings. They're basically done pretty poorly. If, in fact, a person did take the time to craft it into a work of literature, then I think that the stories created could resonate with others.

It's just that this has nothing to do with the act of playing an RPG. That is, there is no intent in a RPG to create the story in any way other than it appeals to the group making it (in part because they are making it). I've sometimes said that RPGs are a "degenerate" art form, but I now take that back. I think that they merely are improvisational, and intended to produce something that does not resemble other forms of art.

Right now I'm kicking around the idea that Nar-made stories are like "little myths" for the very small tribe of players at the table.

Yeah, inspired a bit by Lerich's ideas, this is where I'm at, too. I think that RPGs are collaborative myth-telling. Interestingly, I think that seeing them as ritual, I understand better the need that some feel to have them have gamism elements to them as well. It's like a rite of passage. The player has to show his own self-worth to be allowed to participate. Or, rather, the player is showing that his telling of the myth must be more real, because of his prowess.

This is even true in the internalized ritual of playing a CRPG, it seems to me. Basically you get to see the story unfold only if you are crafty enough to be worthy of seeing it.

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Mike,

You wrote, "It's just that this has nothing to do with the act of playing an RPG. That is, there is no intent in a RPG to create the story in any way other than it appeals to the group making it (in part because they are making it). I've sometimes said that RPGs are a "degenerate" art form, but I now take that back. I think that they merely are improvisational, and intended to produce something that does not resemble other forms of art."

Perhaps. But as I've suggested twice already (though nobody seems particularly interested in the notion and I'll stop after this third time), perhaps the emphasis on and "end product" is the wrong emphasis.

If we forget about books or finished movies, and instead look at the act of creating... We see that every writer goes through a process that shares similiarities than a Nar group  does:

Spinning things around on the fly, building on what's come already (based off elements that were happily frontloaded (such as Kickers), testing what's a pleasing response to oneself in terms of the story's forward motion or ideas.

Sure, in a novel or a screenplay the writer will go back and pave over a draft... But that doens't mean the draft on the way to the final draft wasn't a story. It was worth writing out. It was fun, challenging part of the process. Generated ideas and shape needed for the next draft.

I'm still confounded why people, when saying Nar isn't like finished products like books are plays, are even insisting on comparing them to books or finished plays. It's nothing like books or finished plays.

It very much like, though, the process one goes through to getting to a finished book or play. Right? Is this such a transgressive idea? Am I accidently posting in invisible letters? Could someone please respond to this?

In my view the idea of whether or not Nar play is a "degenerate" art form is nonsensicle. It's like saying the fourth draft of the screenplay I wrote is part of a degenerative tradition. It isn't. It's an act of creation that's in process. It's a good part of the process, playful, full skill, but not what I'd show to the world as is.

Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

For the record, all of Christopher's posts in this thread are 100% in accord with my position on this topic. I've felt no need to post because of his contributions, and I also think that other folks are being discourteous in failing at least to indicate whether they understand what he is saying.

Best,
Ron

[James Holloway]

Spinning things around on the fly, building on what's come already (based off elements that were happily frontloaded (such as Kickers), testing what's a pleasing response to oneself in terms of the story's forward motion or ideas.

I suspect that the difference between this kind of story-creation experience in Nar gaming and the finished-product-emulation experience that makes up certain types of Sim is at the root of the difficulties surrounding the use of the word "story" in RPGs.

To say nothing of other types of game.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi James,

Bingo. And I've only put this together the last few weeks. I'm sort of kicking myself about it now.

Final point that I should have made in the previous post:

Writing a "draft" often doesn't feel like writing a draft. If you're on your game, it feels like "This is is it, here we go, this is the one!"

Only afterward do you realize, "Nope."

And do it again.

In another anology for this purpose: a portrait painting teacher of mine said to my class one night, "It is time for you all to decide, before you put down your first brushstroke, that you are going to make a kick ass painting."

Not that we would. Not by far. But he was getting us to understand there's a big difference between showing up to "learn" and showing up to "paint" and it was time for us to start painting.

I bring this up to clarify that in no way am I suggesting Nar play can be played as a lazy version of storytelling because it's a "draft" of a story.

To play Nar is to play a full court press. You know this one is it. You put everything into it. You show up to "story". "Story" as a verb -- it's wrong, I know, work with me. Like "a painting" (noun) and "painting" (verb).

You commit fully -- to yourself, to your fellow players -- bringing to bear whatever is most important and alive to you, what matters most, what is most receptive and responsive to the others you're working with.

Whether you make a kick ass story or not is not the point. The point is, for it to work, you and your fellow players are playfully playing as if this just gonna be great by the time its done: making choices, sifting through options, recalling patterns and motifs, creating new high and low points, forcing the characters into choices (that spark creative actions on the part of the players) and so on.

Draft, in short, is not a "warm up." And what I said about Nar play being a draft in the process of perhaps (but perhaps not) creating what could be a "finished" telling of a story should not be taken to mean that Nar play isn't really committing to the creation of a story. It's all about that committment. That's the point.  Whether it pans out of not is the risk you take with the commencement of any creative effort.

Christopher

[John Kim]

And what I said about Nar play being a draft in the process of perhaps (but perhaps not) creating what could be a "finished" telling of a story should not be taken to mean that Nar play isn't really committing to the creation of a story. It's all about that committment. That's the point.  Whether it pans out of not is the risk you take with the commencement of any creative effort.

I think we're pretty close here on major points, but I think there's still important differences.  Here's a key thing -- I personally approach game creation is different than story creation.  I will be more specific:
1) If I want to get together with a group of people to play out an RPG, I will approach it one way.  
2) If I want to get together with the exact same group of people to collectively create the best story I can, I will approach it differently.  For example: in preparation, rather than only character creation, I would probably hash out an outline of the plot.  

Going back a bit:

As far as I'm concerned, RPG Narratvism is simply one more lit genre, with its own needs and process of creation. Yeah, making an RPG Story Now is not like making a novel. But making a novel's not like making an epic poem. So?

This is part I disagree with.  Both a novel and an epic poem (and a movie and a play and even a painting) have a particular relationship of author to audience through a physical medium.  Gaming is not just another literary genre.  For myself, I consider it important to break out of thinking of it that way to see what gaming can really do as a different form.  

To resolve this, an important question in my mind is this: how much does a good game session correlate with the quality -- even to those people -- of the stories generated.  i.e. Take a set of games people play and rate them 1 to 10.  Then presume that they forget the games somehow and simply tell them the stories generated (all with equal quality telling), and ask them to rate those stories 1 to 10.  

Now, obviously the above is a thought experiment rather than a practical method.  But I'll throw in my opinion anyway.  I think there will be a correlation but it will be a relatively weak one.  In other words, there are a bunch of other factors which have nothing to do with story which determine the quality of a game session.  There is a quote that I found interesting on the subject, from Stephen King's On Writing:

"When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story" he said.  "When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

Gould said something else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.  Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.  Once you know what the story is and get it right -- as right as you can, anyway -- it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.

This suggests that you should write a draft differently than you would consider a finished product.  In particular, I think it is relevant for many suggested RPG techniques (like aggressive scene framing) which try to skip past things which are not the story. cf. Tony's thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15083">What are the tools of pacing?, say.  King here suggests not doing that in the draft.  That the draft can and indeed should have things which are not the story.  

I think there's a different process going on during the draft -- I would call it "exploration" although not necessarily in Ron's usage of the term.  To me, it is precisely the differences between good gaming and good story creation which are interesting and which I'd like to understand better.  I think that's part of the clash here, as Christopher puts it:

But when he (Greg) writes, "To think of games as 'a storytelling medium' leads to futile attempts to straightjacket games, to make them more effective stories at the expense of gameplay," he's only revealing a narrow-thinking on what the medium can offer.

Watch: "To think of Story Now as 'a gaming medium' leads to futile attempts to straightjacket Story Now, to make them more effective games at the expense of Story."

I don't think these are equivalent straightjackets.  There are centuries of study of story, and thus a strong paradigm of what a story is, how it is constructed, and how it is analyzed.  In contrast, the field of ludology is extremely new.  Being a 'gaming medium' isn't a straightjacket because there isn't a strong paradigm constraining you.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Christopher (and all),

I certainly agree that the creation of a novel (or etc.) is a better place to look for Nar-parallels than the "end product."  I think the end product is seductive to talk about because there is another important aspect of Nar play that isn't about the creation, but rather about the (and I'm making up terminology here) effects of the end product.  When Nar players get together to "do story," they are not just doing story-creation, they are also doing story . . . appreciation?

I've both heard about and experienced the "loneliness" of story creation, and how wonderful it is for a writer to learn that his or her work actually communicated to someone - to know that a connection was made with a reader.  In Nar play, that happens (or fails to happen) right alongside the process of creation.  We kinda skip over the end-product and go right to the effect of the end product.  Maybe calling specific attention to that as well as the creation aspect is helpful?  In the context of CRPGs, that effect of the end product portion is easier (it seems to me) to acheive than the creation portion, though still no easy task.

Gordon

[Christopher Kubasik]

It took a while for this to percolate.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I learned as much about the process of wrting screenplays from learning to paint as I did from discussions about screenwriting. That shouldn't make any sense if one looks at the two forms one way (in a kind of academic one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other distinction making way), but makes perfect sense if one is trying to master the creative business of making things. In that case, the applicable metaphores and cross-pollination of the understanding of process and new perspectives on technique and craft come fucking flying out at you.

People in RPGland seem to me to be particularly twitchy about comparing different forms of creativity with others, using big broad distinctions so we remember that RPGs are "special" -- "They're not movies!" "They're not books!"

Okay. But movie acting isn't stage acting. But I can still learn to be a better screen actor by studying on the stage. (Oddly, the reverse is not particularly true.)

"But books and movies have finished products!" Well, yes -- no.  Epic poems originally did not.  The process of rehearsing a play is all about the script -- and a gazillion other things that actually make a play a play and are all the stuff people bring to the production independent of the script -- gestures and actions which wed the text to flesh and blood and make a production distinctly more than the text at hand. It makes it a play -- which, aside from the concerns Harold Blood and David Mamet -- is exactly how it should be.

When I'm testing out my screenplay stories, I have what I call the 'party pitch'. At a party or gallery opening or anywhere I find someone who might be interested, I tell my movie's story in five minutes are less. When I feel my tongue getting caught up in my mouth I know I'm discussing a plot point that either needs to be hammered out or dropped -- because as an intuitive storyteller, I'm not buying it. And when the person listening is leaning in, I know the story is working, and when they're leaning back -- I know my story is off track and I've accidently made a matter of minutia to the story far too important for the broad plot.  Yes, I'm going to have a "product" eventually -- but part of my process is intensely oral. Just like a solid RPG session where people are responding with cues to where the interest is and so on.

Some people say, (as Gordan did), that writers are a lonely lot... and RPG is social. Well, writer's are a lonely lot now. Before the novel and the printing press, stories tellers told their stories socially. Playwrites were not sitting in garrets slipping manuscripts out under the door for the actors to go have a good time.  Moliere wrote -- and was a stage manager and director. Shakespeare (depending on who's biography you believe), acted alongside the people he wrote for.  The Master Painters of centuries past had whole schools of apprentices helping them out on their masterpices.  

Creativity used to be a very communal practice. The Enlightenment (in my view) turned all creativity into an odd burden on the individual. The 'genius' of the creator had to reveal the true meaning of his soul instead of doing what artists had done in the past -- tell a tale that engaged the audience or make a painting that held the viewers gaze. (No easy task mind you -- and success depend on bringing to bear thematic elements and more that made the work "mean" something to people).  'Writer's Block' is a relatively new concept apparently. I read an article discussing how it realy didn't come about until.... The Enlightenment.

When I refer to works above, and in other threads point that there's no shame of thinking of RPGs sessions that want to be about the process of making stories, I'm not talking about the finished products. I'm talking about the action and process and techniques and craft that any group should happily borrow and steal if if jazzes them up.

Yes, movies are their own form.  And it's a good thing they stopped being filmed version of stage craft.  But to deny that theater is something films stole from would be weird.

"But RPGs have dice! They're a game!" people say.

Well, as I've said before, I'm not concerned about the term game anymore -- not when it comes to Narrativist play. I am, however, very delighted by the word, "play".  Writing (for me) is a form a play. Tiring and frustrating on occassion, but play nonetheless. Shooting a movie, rehearsing a play, painting a still life are all forms of play.  And so are sports -- for example, and we can clearly call sports a game.

And I borrow from sports all the time.  When I meet a would-be screenwriter who's written his painful, personal story about how the world wronged him (and there are a lot of these!), I always suggest its time to put the fact aside and figure out what the protagonist wants. So that the world that's out to crush him isn't the only thing that's active.

Then I bring in sports anologies: boxing. Opposing sides moving toward one another, searching for weakness in the opponent, trying to win.  Football -- two teams racing against a clock as the events of the game cause physical and psychological tear. Who will stay focused? We watch their efforts move the ball up and down the field. Who's going to get it to the goal first.

Same with Macbeth. Same with Aliens. Is it all Macbeth or Aliens is? No. But we can learn from it. (Just as sport franchise make a "story" for their teams and borrow the other way!)

The "game" thing... sorry... but these days I say bah! Different activities will have their own proportions of game and story. But if you want to play in the realm of narrative process I say fucking go to town. No apologies.

But this means to stop focusing on end product and start looking at how people (writers, directors, actors, painters) actually work.  

Look. I'm weird. I've acted professionally. I've written several novels. Write screenplays. I make no claim for the quality of the work. But I damned well slogged through the work.  When I see Story Now as a clear cousin to these activities, it's because I see the parallel in process. Cause, honestly, that's what you have to learn to do. The day something is done is the rare day. Most of it is process.  RPG sessions, to me, are process.

Now John brought up a couple of good points... But I see them in a completely different light.

When King says write the first draft with the door closed, for yourself -- I see that as clearly being group's shared "little myth" idea I kicked out earlier.  The narrated events are ready for the world yet. It's what the group came up with for themselves.  To present it to the world, one would have to work on it further -- the other drafts King refers to where you strip out anything but the story.

I also see the first draft King referse to differently than John. I don't assume that King writes 9,500,000,000 word manuscript that's full of anything in his mind during the writing process and then winnows that down to "'Salem's Lot."  I'm assuming he's telling the tale, with lots of curley cues and bits and pieces that make a lot of sense at the time -- becuase they make sense to him.  And then he goes back and hacks out the bits that simply -- in retrospect -- don't fit into what he's decided is the story. (Another author or editor, after getting the same first draft to finish, might find a different story.)

That's why I don't see scene framing as contrary to the idea of "draft". Only King could tell us if he simply rambles five hours a day while tyiping, and then edits it into a story after the fact. But my guess is he's probably picking points to start scenes, putting his characters in situations, writing the scenese as best he can -- and then getting onto the next one... He'll tie up a lot of the work later.

Also, in a Story Now session thing that are "not story" might be discussions about a moral issue and so forth. There's a whole lot of stuff going on at the table that isn't the story. And a lot of that would have to be cut (or translated into an active scene) to hand this off to the world as a story.

"On Writing" is a good book, by the way. One of the things he says is along the lines that he doesn't "write" the story, so much as "find it" like an "artifact" that's out there, waiting to be found, he has to clean up and present to the world. Not a bad attitude for Story Now players.  When they sit down to play their like a group of writers who've front loaded details of character and situation -- and are about to find the story that's already there, waiting for them to reveal it.

But these are my perespectives on King's work from my experience.

I don't think the bugaboo about the difference between RPGs and other forms is that big a deal once you move from concerns of presenting finished work to that of creative process. I think different creative forms have plenty to teach each other about process.

I think dice are simply a kind of "creative rail" that the story follows -- the same way the text in a play is a "creative rail" that an actor's peformance follows. (A good actor wil always surprise you -- but follow the dialogue... the same way dice in Story Now force players to write with surprise while following the results of the dice. A 1:1 analogy? No. But I hope by now I've made the point that's not my point.)

If people don't care about all this stuff, that's fine, too. But to build these walls between different forms and say they're impermeable makes a little sense as not learning what makes each form distinctive and unique.

Christopher

[Mike Holmes]

Is pointing out differences in form the same as saying that they have no relation at all?

I think the easiest thing to say about comparisons between RPGs and other forms is that, yes you can learn things about one from another form, but that doesn't make them identical by any means.

Basically, Chris, you're not saying that they're identical, and we're not saying that they're totally unrelated. I think we all agree that it's somewhere in between. Basically we have to look at the individual elements and consider which apply and which do not. And realize that the analysis is going to be somewhat subjective.

Mike