Lots of RPGs are inspired by other media. Movies, television,

In a lot of ways, narrative focused systems and storygames are at least one way of doing this. They focus purely on the idea of roleplaying as collaborative storytelling, allowing people to engage with it in ways entirely unique to the medium, rooted not in the laws of reality or systemic assumptions but the structures and themes that govern storytelling itself.

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>>51876047
>>51876088
Could you guys fuck off back to The Forge circa 2004?

>>51876248
Why?

>>51876248
slob on my knob like corn on the cob

>>51876047
What the fuck are you talking about. The medium of rpgs is statblocks using dice to decide outcomes without using anything else to inform it and theme it the medium of rpgs is a fucking string of meaningless numbers

>>51877157
Is an RPG actually an RPG when reduced to abstract numbers?

Have you never seen heard of an RPG purporting to be like a book, a movie, a TV show, etc?

>>51877245
Numbers is what makes them games instead of just people standing there making up stories

>>51876047

You must first define the medium of RPGs. I typically conceptualize RPGs as being reducible to two primary components, which exist in a tension with each other. The first is narrative story telling (which tends to have a deterministic element) and the second is chance based gaming (which is inherently unpredictable). Engaging RPGs on their own merits means reconciling these two conflicting qualities.

Conventionally game designers will encompass story elements with a strong focus on the setting of a game, relying on the players to provide their own narrative, or author "modules" describing narrative elements suitable for varied characters. They will try to address the chance based element by either making their game "balanced" or "realistic". Both of which are attempts to make the game seem "fair" and give the players a sporting chance.

>>51877303
The collaboration is what gives those numbers meaning though. RPGs are both. We interpret certain numbers to mean positive outcomes in game while others are negative.

>>51877597
Ok so what the fuck does any of what op said mean then by that logic all rpgs are informed by their own medium

>>51877303
There being a system in place is what makes table top rpgs "games", not the numbers or even the dice.

>>51877597
>The collaboration is what gives those numbers meaning though.

Yes, but games tend to be competitive rather than collaborative. This can manifest as a "narrative" competition in RPGs. GMs may engage in "railroading" the party to tell the story they want to tell. Likewise party members may engage in "derailing" the narrative process in an attempt to tell the story they want for despite the objections of the GM and other players.

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>>51876047
>I'm not able to differenciate medium and content.
Please tell me about the rpgs you were involved in where cinematography played a part.

>>51877245
In which way exactly?

>>51881797
Different media tend towards different storytelling styles. This is exemplified any time a property changes to another medium line when a book or video game is adapted into a movie. You will not get identical content from different media.

As for your other question take a game like Primetime Adventures which explicitly aims to emulate prime time television. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is designed to emulate comic book storytelling. Dungeons & Dragons itself purports to be inspired by fantasy stories by Howard, Lieber, Tolkein, etc. Call of Cthulhu is explicitly inspired by the fiction of HP Lovecraft and others.

Cinematography or prose or paneling do not play literal roles but some games aim to emulate the storytelling styles of other media. This can lead to disconnects precisely because RPGs work in their own way apart from other media. I mean, it's a cliché to say that a railroading GM should go write a novel.

>>51878955
Some RPGs - well known ones - don't embrace that. Many players and GMs try to emulate the stories of other media while also trying to emulate the storytelling conventions of those media even if they are at odds with what how RPGs work.

>>51882268
Ok it took a while but i think I finally get what your saying, stop me if I'm wrong but is your point that people should stop creating linear stories to direct players down since that misses the point of roll playing games and instead should create npcs with goals that act and react according to the pcs in a way that only a real human being can

>>51882249
>1st line
I disagree. Those are restrictions, not storytelling styles. No artform is total (in that it gives complete imput, or even as much imput as RL), so the same work in different media is like different, fragmental aspects of the same thing.
If you copy a work repeatedly without adding medium-specific content each time, you'll end with nothing in the end.

A good artist will play with the restrictions of the medium he uses, but I don't think he can transcend reality with the content he communicates.

>the rest
That's cultural evolution. Superheroes come from pulp books, that come from popular novels, that come from theatrics, that comes from ballads,...
Some art form becomes popular, so it has many works produced, and others media draw inspiration from the popular ones to regenerate themselves. It has few things to do with the medium itself. Eventually, I concede that videogame/rpg elements are making an entrance in some isekai manga and LNs, which is pretty new afaik because direct inspiration from games was quasi unexistant beforehand (never seen a movie based on poker rules, with a story completely unrelated to card games)

>>51882551
To a degree yes that is a key element of RPGs that I don't think enough games embrace in rules design. The act-react interplay of PCs and NPCs goes unwritten in general RPG play wisdom when it probably should be made more explicit.

It is common for GMs to plan plot points as often as setting details which overwhelms many so they end up asking for advice. I think that's because they came into RPGs with that very linear storytelling structure you brought up. They think that RPGs are like books, movies, television, etc and that leads them astray because the strengths of RPGs are not spelled out strongly enough or widely enough.

>>51883808
What I mean is that RPGs have their limitations like any medium but I don't think enough RPGs fully embrace those limitations and make them work.

A common saying about RPGs is that you cannot win an RPG except by having fun. I think that is false thinking which only makes RPGs confounding. Of course you can win at an RPG. We went into the dungeon, killed the dragon, got the treasure hoard. We won. And you can lose in an RPG too. Any time a character dies that player lost in some way. What makes RPGs different is that they can continue from those moments of victory and loss.

>>51887060
If I understand correctly, you're speaking of rpgs as storytelling tools.
The issue is that rpg storytelllings is tied to the DM. Why you do have rpgs with clear messages (RaHoWa or Bellum Maga, for the most infamous examples), it's always up to the GM to adapt to the group.
And I don't mean railroading or not, I mean influencing players via adventures and storytelling.
How can you study something that is mostly party-dependant?

For example, we managed to play AoR games as stormtroopers instead of rebel agents, after one guy remarked that we were playing traitors and terrorists. Only our backgrounds played a role in that choice, yet it completely defeats the ideological purpose of a star wars game.
It's way harder to twist the intended message of a movie or a book on a large scale.