Abby asked:

Hello! Can you tell me more about the games you play? I haven't played role/story type games for years (from my D/D days!) Thanks!

Story games is a loose definition for roleplaying games where the players are more concerned with building an interesting overall story instead of having "their" character succeed. In a traditional roleplaying game your decisions determine whether your character survives a fight, but in a story game we might play to find out whether that same character finds her long-lost brother, or overcomes her worst fears, or is corrupted to become what she hates. We may all be rooting for what looks like a tragic outcome, because we think it's more interesting than a happy ending.

They're also different from traditional roleplaying games in that there is a lot more creative equality at the table -- instead of having a GM who sets a scenario that the players respond to, story games generally involve everyone in the process of deciding what's interesting and what's going to happen in the game. Lots of story games have no GM at all.

All of which may sound very touchy-feely / loosey-goosey, but most story games have very concrete rules to keep things moving in a productive fashion, to determine outcomes, and decide which ideas happen and which don't. You can have a very intense head-to-head war of ideas, because the rules let everyone contribute different ideas but still arrive at a clear outcome.

That's story games in a nutshell. There are lots of different story games with different designs and structures of play, but generally they're all trying to arrive at these same things.

Anybody else have insights into the mysterious world of story games that they'd like to add? Even if you've only played a few games with the group, don't be shy: give us your perspective of what story games look like to a newcomer.

UPDATE: Better yet, read the Story Games Seattle FAQ

I wrote up a guide to the tricky skill of antagonism in story games:

Antagonism 101

Some of this is stuff I've already talked about at meetups, but it's immortalized here so people can ponder at their leisure. Hopefully folks will find it helpful. Antagonism comes up in just about every story game under the sun, so it's a useful skill to get good at.

Good link. I left a comment.

I strive for at least a little story in most RPGs (and even some boardgames) I play, and I see out players who feel the same way. It's great to find people who will accept the complications that arise for them them for the sake of more interesting characters and stories.

And, if you want some specific examples, you can look at some of these games online. Though really you have to play them to see how fun they are.

Geiger Counter

Archipelago II

Lady Blackbird

Danger Patrol

Two and a half years later, here's a much more concise explanation on the difference between story games and other role-playing games:

Defining Story Games

I wanted to thank the organizers for working on and posting the excellent FAQ, which includes good info on story games. I think it would be helpful to list the exceptions to the rule also, such as AW-themed games like Monsterhearts which was directly pitched mire than once :)

Actually it's the other way around: Apocalypse World games don't fit our model. That's just folks getting bored and breaking our own rules. It's not the end of the world if it happens every now and then but it's not something we'd encourage.

Actually it's the other way around: Apocalypse World games don't fit our model. That's just folks getting bored and breaking our own rules.

It didn't appear that way to me - a session or two ago Monsterhearts was pitched right off the bat, it wasn't a last resort or anything like that. A newcomer was told that he couldn't pitch a GMed story game, but then the very next session a GMed game (Monsterhearts) was pitched; you can see how this is inconsistent and confusing.

I wasn't there but I agree with what you're saying. We've had some talks among the organizers about how to handle that.