Without the “storytelling”, there’s very little point to the “game”.

This isn’t just a Dream Factory centric observation – although the idea has been baked into the DNA of Dream Factory and probably will be baked into every other game I ever make:

It’s all about the story-telling. Or to be more accurate, It’s all about the story experiencing.

Whether you are a GM or a player, either way, you are the audience for the story being developed by your gaming group. Now, I’m not going to say what “correct” or the “right” kind of play is. Except I sort of am – but please, I don’t mean it literally. I know quite well that we each, individually and in groups, can and should pursue our fun or other rewarding experiences wherever we find them.

But a roleplaying game has a bit of a baked-in idea – that we are using characters that we play (or inhabit, or manipulate, or “own”, or act through/portray/guide/etc) to not only interact with a developing story, but often use the lens of that character’s perspective as our camera lens through which we experience the story.

So the story matters.

In my experience, roleplaying games tend to go to one extreme or the other. Classical roleplaying games tend to try to simulate to some degree the aspects of the entities of the game, with things like strength attributes and structural damage capacity rating – and then contain rules for how to determine if your character swinging (with a 17 Strength) an axe (with a damage rating of 12) using his melee skill (rated at Rank 7) at a door to chop through it (the door’s toughness rated at 27) – does the character chop through it? How quickly? These classical games are in large part like little computer simulations, but instead of a computer program run on a computer, the rule set is the program and they are run in the minds of the GM and the players. The key guiding point is some level of accuracy, that is, given all the data (character strength, Axe sharpness and weight, skill, and the material and structure of the door) would the character be able to break the door down?

Classical RPGs therefore ask “what ought to happen?” to mean “what is realistic, given the setting?”

The newer indie narrative style games work differently. Though they are varied and individual, my experience of them in general is that they function by making a game of the story elements themselves. So rather than rule sets simulating the reality of the game world, they have rule sets meant to induce certain player behavior and/or experiences. For example, an indie narrative RPG might have a rule that each time a character suffers embarrassment, humiliation, or shame in the story in game, they acquire points which can be spent to decide critical things – like stopping the evil plan or breaking down doors. This creates a situation that induces the players to play towards horrible personal experiences in character for the story power to decide important turning points.

Indie RPGs therefore use the game mechanics not to simulate the game world, but to create (hopefully) interesting feedback loops of behavior wherein the rule set channels or promotes directly the desired texture and atmosphere.

However, I tend to feel extremely “meh” ultimately about both. I don’t care if a story is an accurate simulation of “what would really happen” if its boring, frustrating, or simply not the compelling tale it could be. And to constrain or induce specific behavior through overly artificial mechanics seems cumbersome and the wrong focus.

The focus, I think, should be on creating an experience the audience will remember, one that is moving, compelling, surprising. Special. Emotional, even. Unique. You know that feeling you get after seeing an amazing, mind-altering, life-changing TV show or movie? Yeah, like that.

There’s NO reason you can’t have that in your roleplaying too.

All you need is a roleplaying game with rules that stay the %$!#@ out of your way until you need them. Rules that let your group tell the story it wants to tell, without intruding to either promote un-needed accuracy (like that door really needed to fall 3.7 seconds faster) or to heavy-handedly push it’s own agenda (like the game would be better if everyone over-acted).

The rules ought to be there to handle it when there is disagreement or uncertainty about what happens next.

And that’s pretty much all they should ever do – meaning until that occurs, there shouldn’t even be the NEED for rules. Until that happens, the rules should shut the *bleep* up!

And funnily enough, that’s why I made Dream Factory.