Semantics: Roleplaying vs. Storytelling

[Jonathan Walton]

This is another by-product by the recent emphasis on "going mainstream" in design, publication, and publicity.

Now, I know Ron has said he's not too fond of the term "storytelling game" because of it's connection with White Wolf products, but I've come to realize, especially in working on recent projects, that the term "roleplaying game" isn't as inclusive as I'd like.  I'm wondering whether the "storytelling" term could be reappropriated from White Wolf and freed up for general use, since it might, in fact, be more appropriate to describe the directions that "roleplaying" may be heading in the future.

Take, for example, Universalis, which is becoming the poster-child for a non-traditional game.  In many Universalis games, very little role-playing will go on.  Players will be creating setting and conflict, manipulating characters in Pawn (and the occasional Author) Stance, but the bulk of the game has very little to do with the players taking on various roles.  Is it really a "role-playing game" at all, then?  I'm not trying to argue that Ralph and Mike's game is a different breed, just that it pushes the envelope in several ways and has outgrown the term "roleplaying."  It does, however, still seem to be a "storytelling game."

Likewise, all three of my current projects (Storypunk, The GM is Dead, and a new Harry Potter game I may be starting soon) have players take on the roles of themselves, blantantly making the characters avatars of the players.  In these kind of games, the "roles" are barely even there, serving as merely a thin layer of seperation where they exist at all.  Are these "role-playing games"?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But they are still clearly "storytelling games," in my opinion.

So my question is this: if we're going to continue to push the envelope of game design, if we're going to try to gain mainstream recognition and credibility, and if roleplaying is not always going to be characterized by "playing roles," wouldn't "storytelling game" (once divorced from its origins) serve our purposes better?

[Le Joueur]

So my question is this: if we're going to continue to push the envelope of game design, if we're going to try to gain mainstream recognition and credibility, and if roleplaying is not always going to be characterized by "playing roles," wouldn't "storytelling game" (once divorced from its origins) serve our purposes better?

I think gaming should be characterized by 'playing roles.'  I get the best results by calling them "Who Do You Want to Be" games.

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I've been searching all over for the thread in which this issue was beaten to death with a thorny stick. Can any of the old-timers help me find it?

Best,
Ron

[Jonathan Walton]

Ron,

Are you talking about http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1920">this thread, "Group Storytelling vs. Roleplaying"?  I just found it.

[Jonathan Walton]

Having just read the entirety of that older thread, I think I'm asking a significantly different question, partially because this is a "publishing" thread and not a "theory" one.

I'm not asking what the terms "roleplaying" and "storytelling" mean to gamers.  I'm asking what they sound like they mean to Joe Average.  If you forgot all the esoteric socialization that makes you part of the roleplaying community, and I tried to sell you a "roleplaying game" that had no roles in it for you to play, wouldn't you think I was on crack?  Sure, the Holy Roman Empire may not have been holy, Roman, or an empire, but that's confusing as hell too :)

If I'm writing roleplaying games for a mainstream audience, but they don't contain much that is obviously recognisable as "role-playing," would it not be better to call them "storytelling games"?  If the shoe fits...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jonathan,

That's an interesting thread, but it's not the one I was thinking of. The one I'm thinking of (but cannot find, or rather have been too swamped without further memories, like which forum, who started it, etc) began with an identical query to yours.

Best,
Ron

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hi, Ron.

It might not be the thread you had meant, but this issue came up at the end of the Mainstream thread and my comments on the issue were posted there just before you shut down that thread.

[Jonathan Walton]

I don't know, Jack.  I think the issue I'm addressing is a little different from the one you talked about in "Mainstream."  White Wolf games were obviously just "roleplaying games" with the pretentious title "storytelling game" tacked on to them.  At the core, once you ignored the high-falutin' talk that disguised their Gamist foundations, they weren't much different from the things that had come before.

But I'm talking about things that, 20 years ago, wouldn't have been considered roleplaying games at all.  Like Baron Munchausen.  Nobody would have put the Baron in the same category with D&D.  This isn't really trying to take a roleplaying game and give it a pretentious, sellable title to make it appeal to the masses.  This is about finding a meta-category that all these games can belong to, since they're thematically associated with roleplaying.

If your standard D&D junkie picked up something called The Baron Munchausen Roleplaying Game, he'd find that it was nothing like what he expected "roleplaying game" to entail.  In fact, on the Hogshead site, the blurb for the Baron says "is it really a roleplaying game at all?"*  These are the type of games I'm trying to classify, because, when we begin to push the envelope, we'll end up with many, many more like it, games that seem to defy the definition of roleplaying.

*Strangely enough, the Baron's game is all about role-playing, really, but it still gets placed outside the box.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hi Jonathan.

I think my point is, or was supposed to be this: I don't see too much reason to cook up a new name for RPGs, even RPGs that seem to break the mold like Universalis or Baron Munchausen.

I mean, there was a time when it was not impossible for someone to think that an RPG had to be set in a quazi-medieval fantasy world, right? This is obviously false. Now the question is when does it cease to be an RPG and then requires a new term. I, for one see it from a fairly different angle.

I think that the term "roleplaying game" or "RPG" has long since outgrown the definitions of the individual words. What I mean is the meaning will stretch to include whatever game the publisher decided to designate "RPG" within reason. This is also confounded further by computer gaming which has all but stolen the term roleplaying and RPG from us.

There are probably plenty of words out there in the English language that no longer add up to be the sum of its parts (e.g. awful does not mean "full of awe" anymore but really bad) Why shouldn't RPG no longer mean "playing a role?" I think this is already happening and people are dealing with it, as they always do.

...

What I'm getting at is I don't think we really need to consider a term for new games that push the boundaries of what an RPG is. I, personally, think it's a waste of time, really. I personally would leave that up to the individual publisher to try to come up with a new term for their RPG they may not think is an RPG anymore and let history tell if they're as foolish as Pacesetter or White Wolf about it.

I mean, it can be fun to come up with a taxonomy (is that the word I mean?) for this. But it's useless, really unless you have something to go into that category and then you get people to actually use it.

I mean, I'll bet that most people, when they have cause to, call Sorcerer an RPG or a Roleplaying game, not "An Intense Role-Playing Game" even though it says that on the cover. (and this may not be the greatest example and, no, I'm not picking on Sorcerer. It just happens to be the game I have handy)

So, what I'm saying, or trying to say is that this really is a non-issue. I mean, look at Pepsi Blue or Code Red Mountain Dew. I don't really taste the original product in those, but the name recognition got people to buy it. So I say, call Universalis and Baron Munchausen RPGs. Who cares if they're not like anything that has been called an RPG before? I just think that this is an issue that tends to resolve itself and the time and energy it takes is better spent on the actual project. But that's my opinion.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Guys,

I'd really like to get a chance to read that original thread -- casue I think this is a vital issue.  (Even if others have beaten it with a thorny stick, I suspect it might be gently cared for and nursed back to health.)

Anyone have any clues about it's whereabout?

Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Dammit, I'm sorry I mentioned it now. We've spent a whole lot of posts on this thread about some other damn thread, and I apologize for that, Jonathan.

In the meantime (as I wade through the forums, cursing), I find all of Jack's post completely convincing. I also think that to the interested almost-gamer-who-doesn't-know-it (can we invent a word for this person?), any terminological ambiguity is off-putting.

I'm speaking as a long-time comics reader, and following my observation -or perhaps inference - that it wasn't the term "graphic novel" that did the job for comics, but rather critically-undeniable content, a shift in content from fringe (superheroes, which I again repeat that I really like, but they are fringe) to mainstream (most especially Sandman), and in some stores (the ones who've prospered) a different approach to sales and presentation. My accompanying observation and inference is that insisting on "graphic novel" was widely - if not universally - perceived as pretentious.

Ideally, I suppose, the cover shouldn't say anything. Maus wasn't presented as a comic or as a cartoon or a graphic novel, or anything - it was just "Maus." However, I'm not sure this is wise regarding role-playing games, for which the activity is being advertised. One doesn't have to sell "reading" for a comic, whether it's Maus or the latest issue of Flash, but at this time, one is selling "role-playing" as well as whatever title is being offered.

Best,
Ron

[quozl]

I'm speaking as a long-time comics reader, and following my observation -or perhaps inference - that it wasn't the term "graphic novel" that did the job for comics, but rather critically-undeniable content, a shift in content from fringe (superheroes, which I again repeat that I really like, but they are fringe) to mainstream (most especially Sandman), and in some stores (the ones who've prospered) a different approach to sales and presentation. My accompanying observation and inference is that insisting on "graphic novel" was widely - if not universally - perceived as pretentious.

Best,
Ron

But pretentious to whom?  Obviously, it's pretentious to those who are already fans of the medium.  But did it seem pretentious to those that were not fans?  Personally, I didn't think it was pretentious at all and it actually got me to look at comics again but I don't know if that view was shared by the majority of non-comics fans.  Do you have any data on this?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jon,

H'm, I should have clarified. By "perceived as pretentious," I am referring specifically to those people who were not comics readers but were potentially so, and interested in it just enough to get turned off by the pretentiousness.

I recognize that you did fall into this category, but don't fit my profile at all, which is why I'm emphasizing that this is an observation and inference on my part, not a blanket description nor an established trend.

Best,
Ron

[quozl]

Hi Jon,

H'm, I should have clarified. By "perceived as pretentious," I am referring specifically to those people who were not comics readers but were potentially so, and interested in it just enough to get turned off by the pretentiousness.

I recognize that you did fall into this category, but don't fit my profile at all, which is why I'm emphasizing that this is an observation and inference on my part, not a blanket description nor an established trend.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the clarification.  I guess in order to tell if it was a trend or not, we could check if "graphic novels" sold more than "normal comics" or if the comic industry did worse during the rise of the graphic novel.  Does anyone have access to that kind of data?

[Maurice Forrester]

Obviously, it's pretentious to those who are already fans of the medium.  

I was a fan of comic books at the time when the phrase "graphic novel" came into use.  I certainly never found it to be pretentious.  It always struck me as a useful term to refer to something that wasn't a comic book in the sense that I understood the term "comic book" but that did make use of the same medium as that of the comic book.  (I won't dispute the fact that there were lots of bad graphic novels, but that's not really the point.)

For the same reason I find "graphic novel" to be a useful term, a new term for games that clearly aren't roleplaying games would also be useful.  However, I'm not convinced that the games that have been mentioned here are sufficiently different from roleplaying games to warrant that new term.   Introducing a new term for games that differ only in their nuances from roleplaying games is likely to cause confusion rather than expand the market.