The Divide: roleplaying vs storytelling and the need for a GM

Collaborative Storygames  vs Role-Playing Games

After writing my post about PBTAs, and after a number of recent discussions in the Reddit Sub /rpg, I realised I had to revisit the relation between Roleplaying Games and Collaborative Story games in more detail. Now, this is a subject that was covered before (and very well, in my opinion) by the Alexandrian. What I am trying to do with this article is prodding a little deeper into the historical perspective, parallels that repeat themselves over time, and try to guess where we are going from here.

The evolution of gaming has seen several significant transitions, each introducing new ideas while preserving artifacts from the past. In this post, I will focus on two such transitions: from Wargames to Roleplaying-games (RPGs), and from RPGs to Collaborative Story Games. 

RPGs emerged from the wargaming tradition in the 1970s, fundamentally changing the focus of play from tactical combat to immersive, character-driven exploration. 

In the late 20th century, collaborative storygames began to gain traction, introducing another shift, away from personal immersion and challenge, and toward structured, collective storytelling.

 This article argues that collaborative storygames are almost as distinct from traditional RPGs as RPGs are from wargames, and that understanding this distinction is key to appreciating the strengths and limitations of each. It also observes some of the most popular games in history are hybrid/transitional games, because they can often serve as the big tent that caters to groups with different preferences and to players with multiple interests. 

What is curious about this idea is that it contradicts the well-known GNS-related theories that were in vogue circa 2005, which advocated that RPG design should aim for "coherent creative agendas", ie, a “well-designed” rpg should strive to be clearly focused on one out of these three: challenge to the player, simulation, or storytelling. 

It is my personal opinion that roleplaying games were about the conjunction of several elements coming together, and that dividing them in these three different types will essential break them. 

And yet, I also advocate that RPGs are a different beast from story games.  

Am I contradicting myself? I think not. There is a space for pure wargames, for roleplaying games with wargame elements, wargames with RPG elements, RPGs with story game elements and vice-versa.

In the end, each game is its own thing, and labels have a useful, but inherently limited, scope.

RPGs: Born from Wargames but Something More

Traditional RPGs, such as the first of them all, Dungeons & Dragons (1974), evolved directly from miniature-based wargames like Chainmail. Wargames centred on tactical decision-making, with players commanding armies or units on a battlefield. The key innovation of RPGs was their shift in perspective: instead of commanding armies, players controlled individual characters and experienced the fictional world from their characters’ points of view.

This change wasn’t just mechanical; it was experiential. Players weren’t just strategising to win a battle—they were inhabiting fictional personas, exploring worlds, and facing challenges from the perspective of  those personas. In a tactical combat, for instance, where a traditional wargamer would use all the information he had on the opposing force to choose the best possible attacks, a roleplayer would reject to do that, arguing that it wouldn't make sense for his character to know certain monsters given the character's background.

Meanwhile, the gamemaster (GM) was introduced as a facilitator, worldbuilder, and referee, creating a living world for players to engage with. Because tactical combat was still a big part of the game, the GM took care of taking decisions for the opposition to the player characters (PCs). The GM’s role was essential for the combination of first-person exploration and problem-solving that defined RPGs.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the GM is the guarantee of the players’ freedom, ie, the GM allows the players to choose actions for their characters that go beyond anything the designers of the adventure/scenario had thought of, while at the same time letting the players focus on their characters’ point of view.

Collaborative Storygames: A Different Goal

Collaborative storygames, which began to emerge prominently in the late 1990s, differ fundamentally in their goals and structure. While RPGs aim to immerse players in a fictional world and present them with challenges to overcome, storygames prioritise the co-creation of a somewhat structured narrative. They consider that the goal of the game mechanics is to assist the players in creating a "satisfying" narrative in a satisfyingly collaborative way. In games like Fiasco (2009) or The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1998), players work together to construct a story, often without the need for a GM.

From this perspective, the gamemaster—a cornerstone of  RPGs—becomes non-essential. In RPGs, the GM creates a world that feels alive, complete with secrets, mysteries, and challenges for the players.  But this role is not necessary in storygames, where the focus is not on unveiling secrets nor overcoming challenges posed by a fictional world they can only affect through the actions of their character. In story games, the narrative is the direct result of the system and the choices it delegates to the players. The main concern of the mechanics of a storytelling game is distributing narrative responsibilities amongst players and facilitating the creation and resolution of conflicts/plot elements. And given that every player is a narrator, and that immersion is not necessary, it follows that even if you are the greatest ever believer in the Czege principle, you only need more than one player at the table to have a different creator and solver for each challenge, and none of them needs to be a Game Master.

 (Note: I am not a great believer in the Czege principle myself, having had so much fun writing adventure stories where you  create problems and solve them yourself; also, as an engineer and researcher, half of my work is defining problems, and the other half is solving them, and it is a great job).

What led me to write this article was realizing that the question of why a GM is needed in a storygame is in some ways analogous to the question of why is tactical combat needed in an RPG. Because, like tactical combat in an RPG, and from a storygame perspective, the GM is an artefact of the type of game that served as a starting point. 

Given this insight, the resilience of tactical combat in RPGs may give us a clue to the resilience of  GMs in story games.

Tactical combat is immensely popular in RPGs - if you look at a list of the most popular RPGs, you will see that more than 75% of reported campaigns on Roll20 are of RPGs with a strong tactical combat focus (D&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun,...). I would argue that the legacy of wargames is still going  strong and will probably be around for a long time. Moreover, games that enable several playing goals/styles seem to have an upper hand over heavily focused ones. 

A Tale of Two Games: Fiasco vs. Call of Cthulhu

The distinction between traditional RPGs and collaborative storygames can be illustrated by comparing two iconic games: Call of Cthulhu (1981) and Fiasco (2009). Both are highly regarded, yet their goals and player experiences highlight the divide between role-playing games and story games.

In Call of Cthulhu, players take on the roles of investigators exploring mysterious, often horrifying, scenarios. The Game Master (aka the Keeper of Ancient Lore) creates a fictional world filled with clues, puzzles, and threats, offering players a living, breathing environment to explore. The fun comes from immersing yourself in your character's perspective, and the challenges is to solve the mysteries proposed to your character, while surviving the world’s dangers. The story in Call of Cthulhu emerges organically from the interactions between the players’ choices and the Keeper’s world-building. 

(It is often forgotten that although  Call of Cthulhu is historically mentioned as one of the first RPGs that moved the focus away from tactical combat, it still has an extremely robust tactical combat system that it inherited with just a few simplifications from Runequest).

In contrast, Fiasco is a collaborative story game where the primary goal is to craft a compelling narrative. There is no game master. Instead, players share responsibility for creating scenes, relationships, and outcomes. Moreover, characters in Fiasco are narrative tools rather than immersive avatars, and decisions are made from an external perspective, focusing on what would make the story more dramatic or interesting for everybody. Players are not concerned with overcoming purely intellectual challenges or solving mysteries as their characters; instead, they actively shape the direction and resolution of the narrative as a whole. To honour the Czege principle, in each scene players take turns defining the dramatic problem to be addressed in a scene and resolving it.

The presence (or absence) of the game master underscores the divide. Call of Cthulhu relies on the Keeper to maintain the illusion of a consistent, immersive world. Fiasco rejects the need for such a figure, as the narrative emerges from structured collaboration.

The Legacy Artifact Problem

Just as RPGs inherited many conventions from wargames, in many story games the GM remains, but their role is redefined or minimised. For example, in Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) games, the GM still facilitates the narrative but typically has less control over outcomes, as a considerable part of the story results from player moves.

This can create a sense of disconnect for players expecting the immersion and problem-solving of traditional RPGs. In story games, players are often asked to think about the story from an external perspective: “What would make the narrative more interesting?” rather than “What would my character do?” For some, this shift can feel disorienting or dissatisfying, as the character becomes less a personal avatar and more of a narrative tool. 

I am of the belief that the more you can harmonise the intents of the different types of players, the more popular your game is going to be. I, for one, am a very old-fashioned, immersion and character-focused roleplayer, and I can appreciate games that have a large component of story gaming, as long as the balance is right. I think Swords of the Serpentine is a good example. On the other hand, I feel a lot less attracted to Powered by the Apocalypse games.

Communication Challenges Between Communities

Discussions between proponents of collaborative storytelling and traditional roleplayers often become contentious due to differing fundamental goals. Traditional roleplayers seek immersive experiences, valuing the sensation of “being” their characters within a fictional world. In contrast, fans of collaborative storygames prioritize the creation of engaging narratives, sometimes at the expense of individual character immersion.

A notable example of this divide is found in the writings of Ron Edwards, co-founder of The Forge and proponent of GNS Theory. Edwards controversially suggested that many roleplayers suffer from “brain damage” due to traditional gaming practices, being thus incapable of creating coherent stories. Additionally, Edwards questioned the validity of Simulationism as a "creative agenda", viewing it as a form of retreat from the responsibilities inherent to Gamism or Narrativism. 

These assertions highlight a fundamental misunderstanding: the assumption that players either prioritize narrative creation or only care about intellectual challenge. For him what he called simulationism was empty because it required challenge, and always generated an emerging narrative. Moreover, traditional roleplayers often focus on the experience of the fictional world, valuing both character development and in-game achievements. For them, the primary creation is the character itself—their reactions, growth, and successes (and failures) within the game’s setting. This experiential focus contrasts sharply with the goals of collaborative storygames, focused on creating an original, but typically derivative, narrative.

And it is this chasm that leads to friction when one group fails to even acknowledge the differing priorities of the other.

The Hybrid Space: PbtA and the Transition

Games like Apocalypse World (2010) and its descendants, instead of the pure, "agenda-coherent" games that GNS posited, sit at the crossroads of traditional RPGs and storygames. They retain elements of RPGs, such as player characters with distinct goals and a GM-like figure, but they also incorporate narrative mechanics that distribute storytelling authority more evenly among players. These hybrids, however, often lean heavily toward the storygame side, encouraging players to think in terms of narrative beats rather than character-driven problem-solving, and often having little concern for character ownership. 

For players who prefer "traditional" RPGs, this hybrid approach can feel like a difficult, unpleasant compromise. As described in my blog post on PBTA, there often is a sense of disconnection from the character—a feeling that the player is representing the character for the sake of the story, rather than experiencing the world as the character.

Conclusion: Two Niches, One Shared History

Collaborative storygames and traditional RPGs share a common lineage, but their goals are fundamentally different. Traditional RPGs aim to immerse players in a fictional world where they overcome challenges as their characters. Collaborative storygames focus on co-creating narratives, often asking players to step outside their characters and think like storytellers.

The two forms coexist in the same niche largely because of their shared history and the relatively small size of their respective audiences. However, as these forms evolve and gain recognition, understanding their differences can lead to better appreciation—and more productive conversations—among their players. There are few things as frustrating as being told that your concerns are "non-issues" or that you simply "don't get it".