Ambrosia Software Web Board: Whence "Team Story"? - Ambrosia Software Web Board

On the Cythera web board, we have team stories. Everyone knows this. But I'm not sure where the term "team story" comes from. A Google Search for "team story" mostly returns stories about teams, not by teams.

I was curious and thought I'd try to do some archaeology, but it's a bit difficult because the forum's search doesn't return results before April 2001 or so. Fortunately, I now have copies of all the posts from the forum.

The first reference I can find is Avatara using "'team' stories" with quotes to refer to The Buildup and War's Fortune. However, neither of those topics nor the casting call for War's Fortune say anything about "team stories". From my recollection, on the Ares boards we called them "RPGs", but of course it wouldn't make any sense to refer to team stories as "Cythera RPGs".

Next reference I can find is ferazel_09 using "team stories" normally. Also, between then and late October 2000, the term appears in ferazel_09's signature (If you recall, signatures on the old UBB became part of the post and old posts didn't change when users had new signatures).

Then, in Once Again... Part I - writing, Talos refers to Once Again—sorry, I mean The Cytherian Legends—as the "first team story". By this time, I believe that The Undine Stronghold had ended, and The tale of the Treasure and LKH (for story) had started, though we don't have all of the ending dates. No one in Undine Stronghold-The Aftermath calls it a team story, though.

Surprisingly, no one says "team story" in the Tavern until the 411th post of "Tavern continued", at which point maybe 7 TSes had completed. And the first reference I can find to "TS" as an abbreviation isn't until much later still.


I assume that Avatara's post is the origin of the term, but of course it's possible that we adopted it from somewhere else that I can't search right now.

Interesting ^_^ I also noticed that they weren't called TSes from the start, though they were always called stories, and to me it seems natural to call them team stories or group stories.

I don't have any insight to offer, except that you can still search all the way back on the forums if you use the Advanced Search feature.

Hmm, that's interesting. The advanced search turns up posts from other forums. Interesting ones include:

"First Story" (Oct 29), from the Ferazel boards, in which ferazel_09 says:

ferazel_09 said:

"Make a team story" (Nov 28), from the EV boards, in which Rogan tries to start a team story and the people there don't seem to know what he means.

"AVARA IS ALIVE!!!!" (Oct 4), from the Avara boards, in which Avatara says "team-story" and takes credit for them:

Avatara said:

So it seems pretty certain that the term is unique to the Cythera boards.

If I got it from somewhere else, it would've been Ares. Either something in the Officer's Club (the bar?) or maybe communication on GameRanger or something. Though I didn't really participate in the forums until June/July so I don't know if I was talking with a lot of Ares people on GR yet.

Also, I get the feeling you chose your links for an alternative and nefarious purpose. :/

I think Fiery has realized that you're powerless against him, because while you could rampage and delete all topics more than 5 years old (as you've threatened to do before), he would still have all of them on his backup.

Edit: Also, I think it's awfully fun to read old Tyry posts from back when he was conceited. Here's my Tyry impressions:

Tyry in 2000:
Tyry: I'm writing a post.
Someone else: Meh, whatever. So am I.
Tyry: Brace yourself, my post will blow your mind!

Tyry in 2013:
Tyry: I'm working on a post.
Me: Oh, cool.
Tyry: You're too excited, now you're going to be disappointed.

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 09 November 2013 - 02:05 PM

Avatara, on 09 November 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

I don't think the Ares connection bears out. The oldest instance of "team story" there is from ferazel's post to Hehe on account of his signature referencing Cythera's TSes. My recollection about us calling them RPGs in Ares bears out, e.g. the Ares Charcter Info thread.

Quote

Nope! Unfortunately, this time I don't have to do any cherry-picking.

I'm pretty sure the term was in use when I started posting, but I can't add anything more than that.

The term was likely popularized through #cythera. ferazel_09 was actively recruiting participants on IRC because that's how he got me into it, in Nov 2001. I don't know who came up with it, but it was probably quickly adapted to help explain the concept to new members.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 09 November 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

Wait...Avatara's not conceited now ?

I thought that was a requirement for being a moderator.



An interesting analysis. I'm kind of surprised to learn that TS is not a more generally used term for that sort of activity.

iKaterei, on 14 November 2013 - 01:03 AM, said:

I think my best guess is that Avatara was responsible for coining it, but that it spread through ferazel. It entered his sig in the early days of the term, and if he was recruiting then anyone that came to the stories through him would use it too.