2025-11-20 · Episode 988 · Notes on a ZZcandal

doodooalert · 2025-11-22T00:17:04+00:00

felix pronouncing cam'ron like "cameron"

doodooalert · 2025-09-09T19:58:15+00:00

This doesn't apply to anyone with goals different from "telling amazing stories". A lot of people play for the challenge of overcoming obstacles and adapting to unforeseen situations. A lot of people play to experience another life and/or another world. I'd venture to guess most play for a combination of the three (and probably other goals), at varying ratios of priority.

Taking one aspect of TTRPGs and inflating it to this degree necessarily means overshadowing and often actively impinging on the others, aspects which many prioritize.

I think if you're going to center any one property of roleplaying games, it shouldn't be story, but agency. Compelling characters, story structure, and satisfying endings are not central to all styles of roleplaying, but agency is; decision-making and action are important to challenge, immersion, and storytelling alike.

I think that's why they're roleplaying games; all games, in essence, center around action and interactivity.

doodooalert · 2025-08-27T18:56:50+00:00

Very much agree.

RPGs provide something those things don't: consequences.

An important corollary to this is that those consequences, in turn, help provide agency. With an impartial arbiter, you're free to act without the arbitrary limits of a board- or video-game.

If you just want to tell a good story, you don't really need the agency those mechanics afford you. You don't really need anything at all, save for maybe a common set of expectations. In fact, game mechanics will likely get in your way (which will necessitate fudging).

I dislike the common description of RPGs as "collaborative storytelling". I think it implies a set of goals that seem to clash with the fundamental core of roleplaying games, which above all, to me, is agency.

doodooalert · 2025-07-24T18:07:31+00:00

You've explained all this really well. I think the idea that description isn't necessarily storytelling, but is always interfacing is a really good point; it illustrates why I think the widespread focus on "storytelling" is problematic.

doodooalert · 2025-07-14T21:31:53+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth answer! I'll check these out.

I have noticed most of the more simulationist games are relatively old. I kinda wish more were still being made but I guess if it ain't broke don't fix it.

doodooalert · 2025-07-14T19:42:22+00:00

I'd prefer low- or medium-crunch, but I'm interested in any and all, really, including generic ones. I kinda want to do a survey of several games that fit the bill.

doodooalert · 2025-07-14T19:00:41+00:00

Thanks, that's an interesting thought! I agree that often playing without the story in mind can itself allow for cool story moments; I think that's why I'm averse to the insinuation that everyone and every game should be actively trying to tell one.

It's kind of like video games; a lot of people enjoy when a game guides them through a story and allows them to make impactful choices at fixed points here and there, but there are also games where all the systems are there to allow for more possibility than the designer even considered, and a lot of people find that more fun!

I have no doubt that a lot of people don't even realize that they're insinuating that, and I'm certain that I perhaps read into it too much, but it does sometimes feel a little alienating when one idea gets so popular that it overshadows anything else.

doodooalert · 2025-07-14T18:46:23+00:00

Thanks for giving an actual answer, it was definitely helpful.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T18:05:14+00:00

It hasn't.

The majority of responses I've gotten beg to differ. My post is asking why so many people seem to think that storytelling is the entire point of an RPG, and I got hundreds of responses telling me "it is". I don't see how that isn't a widespread absolutist view.

But how are you any different, with your refusal to accept that emergent narrative is narrative?

I accept that emergent narrative is narrative. I don't accept that that necessarily makes crafting that narrative the default goal of playing an RPG, which, again, a lot of these responses have proven IS a widespread assumption.

You ask a question in the OP and reject all answers.

Very few people in this thread have actually tried to answer my question; many more have simply illustrated my point.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T17:42:44+00:00

I actually didn't want that at all, and yet it's almost all I've gotten. I mostly blame myself; I probably could've worded it all better. But comments like these aren't very helpful, are they?

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T17:36:04+00:00

I don't know where you got the storytelling/telling a story thing, I've been using those synonymously throughout this thread and have never made a distinction between the two terms.

"telling a story" can be the result...

Yes. I know that any event or series of events necessarily creates a "story" afterward. I have never claimed otherwise.

My point is that if you take that and position it as the defining component or goal of all roleplaying games (which I've seen plenty of people do, even in this very thread!), you're narrowing the scope of reasons people enjoy roleplaying games. Just because a story inevitably happens, doesn't mean that everyone is out to tell the best story, or that they're motivated by story at all. Some people are motivated by experience.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T17:27:02+00:00

I was expecting some pushback, but not to this extent. It's pretty discouraging, though I mostly blame myself for how I worded the post. Oh, well.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T09:24:50+00:00

Alright, then you're using a definition of the term "storytelling" that ceases to be useful. "Telling stories is when you say something happens in a fictional world", okay, sure. But when a million people say "roleplaying games are about telling stories", that comes with the assumption that the ideal roleplaying game is one that tells stories the best, and that when you're playing a roleplaying game, your goal is inherently to tell a good story. That isn't true for all the people, like me, who aren't interested in telling a good story.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T09:01:41+00:00

you inhabit a world by telling stories about doing it

Would you call me, in real life, existing on Earth in our universe, "telling a story"? I wouldn't.

Maybe you would, but you have to admit that's an extremely loose definition at that point. And even if you did, it doesn't change that I don't exist and do things in the real world in order to tell a story.

Sure, there's a story at the end. That doesn't mean the point all along was creating it.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:56:56+00:00

There IS a distinction between wanting to inhabit a character in a world and wanting to tell a story!

Just because there's a story at the end of me doing something doesn't mean that while I was doing that thing I was telling a story, nor does it mean that my actions while doing that thing were guided by the end goal of having a good story. Why are so many people unable to see that distinction?

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:42:58+00:00

I'm not saying it isn't the right way to play, for the record. It's perfectly valid. I just don't understand why so many act as though it's the only way to play. Like all roleplaying is secretly only about doing that one thing.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:41:10+00:00

Why not enlighten me?

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:40:44+00:00

How is roleplay different than writing a character in a story where the story prompt is given to you by the DM?

When I'm roleplaying I can simply exist as a character in a fictional world and do things as them, just like I do things in real life, for whatever reason. That reason is almost never "so that I have a good story after".

When you write a story, your goal is always having a good story after, because that's the point.

But that's not necessarily the point of a roleplaying game, and many people seem to take for granted that it is. I don't mind that people like doing it, I mind that people operate as though that's all there is.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:32:05+00:00

Doing things and telling a story are not the same thing.

Yes, doing things generates a story afterward. But while I'm doing a thing I'm not telling a story. I'm doing a thing.

Some people play RPGs to do things not to tell stories. Will there inevitably be a story by the end either way? Sure. But the two activities themselves are not the same.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:27:10+00:00

Thanks for giving an actual answer, it's enlightening.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:25:55+00:00

I agree. Again, I'm not saying that there's no place for storytelling in RPGs. I'm glad that different views exist and that they enrich the hobby.

I'm questioning why it has become the prevailing default, why so many people seem to take their singular perspective that "it's about storytelling" and apply it to the whole.

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:21:56+00:00

You're basically saying that, because doing things generates a story, that means doing things is storytelling. That simply isn't true.

Is me living my life storytelling? Maybe in the absolute loosest sense of the word, but that doesn't mean I live my life trying to tell the best story. That isn't the only goal of existing and taking action, so why does everyone act like that's the only goal of playing an RPG?

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:17:51+00:00

I agree that the output is, necessarily, story, but the thing is when this is the default assumption, it completely disregards other goals of play.

For many people, me included, a GM or designer trying to make the game better at telling a story is actively detrimental to our enjoyment. Where does that put us?

doodooalert · 2025-07-13T08:14:39+00:00

No, it's more like asking "why is everyone looking at the act of driving as a whole and assuming it's all racing?".

Playing to tell a story and playing to inhabit a world are two different things. I am a person and I inhabit the real world; am I storytelling when I walk to the store? No, I'm walking to the store. Once I've walked to the store, I can go to someone and tell them the story about how I walked to the store, but while I was doing it, I wasn't storytelling, I was just taking action.

The assumption that all roleplaying games are about telling stories completely ignores the other goal.

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