What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Daggerheart Discussion)

[Stalker0]

In the current debates in the daggerheart forums, there is the talk that Daggerheart is a "narrative game". This claim is made primarily as an opposition to 5e, which is "not a narrative game". But what exactly is a narrative game? I thought about it, and here's what I've come up with.

We can imagine a few tiers to consider:

Narrative Presentation
In this version, narrative is more a style of presentation than it is anything to do with the mechanics of the game itself. The game actively mentions that players should feel empowered (and GMs should encourage) to actively create elements of the world. While all TTRPG give players descriptive control over their characters, this is more about the world itself. The idea that a player can decide what kind of scar an NPC has, or what metal is holy for god XYZ, etc.

If there are standard adventures for the game, the game might stop at points and specifically note that players get to decide XYZ about the world they find themselves in.

In this area, I would agree that Daggerheart IS narrative. It clearly wants players to feel empowered in these areas, and mentions a few times in its example adventure for GMs to let the players decide some things about the world.

Narrative Mechanics
In this version, a narrative game offers some mechanic that "breaks the mechanic", perhaps through the spending of a limited resource. A good example of this is Buffy the RPG, in which the Slayer is quite powerful by the core mechanics, while the side characters gain meta currencies that literally let them change a scene, sometimes extensively. This is mainly on the player's side, as most games assume the GM as the creator of teh world has the ability to make changes as they see fit to the story.

Daggerheart I would say is NOT a narrative game under this category. While the GM can make certain alterations through the fear mechanic, the players don't have similar capabilities expressed in the rules.

Freeform Resolution
In a standard TTRPG mechanical framework, players decide they want to do something, they utilize some random determiner (cards, dice, etc), and than the GM decides what the ultimate outcome of that action is. And the focus here is on the WHAT that happens, rather than the HOW. I think most games are perfectly fine with players describing how a certain attack hit or how they used that weird fact about mimes to solve a given puzzle, etc. Where games differ is more what the actual result of the action is.

In this version, while the GM might constrain what a "success" or a "failure" in the resolution has to entail, the game gives the player a wide berth to decide how that resolution comes about and what are the other secondary consequences. As an example, a player succeeds at a persuasion roll against the court lady. The GM notes this means that the lady will give up the secret password to the secret entrance. However, the game empowers the players to run with it further. The player decides the lady falls head over heels for them....in fact so much so that it becomes an awkward point later on.

I would say Daggerheart is NOT a narrative game under this context. The rules give the GM a lot of berth in resolution mechanics with the "succeed/hope, succeed/fear, fail/hope, fail/fear", but it is still up to the GM to decide what the actual resolution is (which is pretty standard in nearly all TTRPGs). Most mechanics in daggerheart are fairly packaged, you have a power card that does X thing, and while the player is welcome to narrative the look and feel of those abilities, the actual game resolution remains anchored in the mechanic itself.



Those are my initial thoughts, what do you think?

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Hot take incoming… the GM and players make a game narrative or not, rules are very much secondary. I would argue that any game can be played as a “narrative” game. Sure mechanically RAW some games are harder to do that with than others or even possible antagonistic to it, but a good GM and a group of good players that want to play in a narrative style can do it with any game.

 

[Theory of Games]

In the current debates in the daggerheart forums, there is the talk that Daggerheart is a "narrative game". This claim is made primarily as an opposition to 5e, which is "not a narrative game". But what exactly is a narrative game? I thought about it, and here's what I've come up with.

We can imagine a few tiers to consider:

Narrative Presentation
In this version, narrative is more a style of presentation than it is anything to do with the mechanics of the game itself. The game actively mentions that players should feel empowered (and GMs should encourage) to actively create elements of the world. While all TTRPG give players descriptive control over their characters, this is more about the world itself. The idea that a player can decide what kind of scar an NPC has, or what metal is holy for god XYZ, etc.

If there are standard adventures for the game, the game might stop at points and specifically note that players get to decide XYZ about the world they find themselves in.

In this area, I would agree that Daggerheart IS narrative. It clearly wants players to feel empowered in these areas, and mentions a few times in its example adventure for GMs to let the players decide some things about the world.

Narrative Mechanics
In this version, a narrative game offers some mechanic that "breaks the mechanic", perhaps through the spending of a limited resource. A good example of this is Buffy the RPG, in which the Slayer is quite powerful by the core mechanics, while the side characters gain meta currencies that literally let them change a scene, sometimes extensively. This is mainly on the player's side, as most games assume the GM as the creator of teh world has the ability to make changes as they see fit to the story.

Daggerheart I would say is NOT a narrative game under this category. While the GM can make certain alterations through the fear mechanic, the players don't have similar capabilities expressed in the rules.

Freeform Resolution
In a standard TTRPG mechanical framework, players decide they want to do something, they utilize some random determiner (cards, dice, etc), and than the GM decides what the ultimate outcome of that action is. And the focus here is on the WHAT that happens, rather than the HOW. I think most games are perfectly fine with players describing how a certain attack hit or how they used that weird fact about mimes to solve a given puzzle, etc. Where games differ is more what the actual result of the action is.

In this version, while the GM might constrain what a "success" or a "failure" in the resolution has to entail, the game gives the player a wide berth to decide how that resolution comes about and what are the other secondary consequences. As an example, a player succeeds at a persuasion roll against the court lady. The GM notes this means that the lady will give up the secret password to the secret entrance. However, the game empowers the players to run with it further. The player decides the lady falls head over heels for them....in fact so much so that it becomes an awkward point later on.

I would say Daggerheart is NOT a narrative game under this context. The rules give the GM a lot of berth in resolution mechanics with the "succeed/hope, succeed/fear, fail/hope, fail/fear", but it is still up to the GM to decide what the actual resolution is (which is pretty standard in nearly all TTRPGs). Most mechanics in daggerheart are fairly packaged, you have a power card that does X thing, and while the player is welcome to narrative the look and feel of those abilities, the actual game resolution remains anchored in the mechanic itself.



Those are my initial thoughts, what do you think?

Okay I'll be that guy: "Narrative" relates to "the spoken or written account of connected events; a story".

So. That makes all or at least 99.9% of tabletop rpgs Narrative games. It's improvisational narration, right?

 

[soviet]

Narrative is a weird term, I generally see it used in a pejorative or at least dismissive sense. 'Ugh that's a narrative game'.

People that tend to like the games that I think 'narrative' loosely aims at generally use more specific descriptors.

 

[pemerton]

Narrative is a weird term, I generally see it used in a pejorative or at least dismissive sense. 'Ugh that's a narrative game'.

In the Daggerheart thread, some defenders of the system are using "narrative game" as part of their defence.

But I agree with you that it is not, generally, a useful description. Mostly I see it used to describe a "writers' room" approach, where the RPG play is less "game" in some strict-ish sense, and more "collaboration" over what happens next. "For the good of the story" or "What's best for the story" are concepts that would figure in this sort of play.

The most mechanised version of this that I can think of is Fate. I think it's also not that uncommon, but unmechanised, in D&D play going back to DL.

A further weirdness is that (say) Apocalypse World and offshoots often seems to be bundled into the "narrative game" box, even though it is not "writers' room" at all.

 

[Aldarc]

Narrative is a weird term, I generally see it used in a pejorative or at least dismissive sense. 'Ugh that's a narrative game'.

People that tend to like the games that I think 'narrative' loosely aims at generally use more specific descriptors.

Cynical Take: Do gamers who mostly exclusively traditional games hate the game and thread crap nearly any chance that they get about how game mechanics aren't the best way to create a story regardless of whether that's how the game actually works? If yes, then it's possible you are dealing with a narrative game.

In the current debates in the daggerheart forums, there is the talk that Daggerheart is a "narrative game". This claim is made primarily as an opposition to 5e, which is "not a narrative game". But what exactly is a narrative game? I thought about it, and here's what I've come up with.

How much experience do you actually have playing games that are often labeled "narrative games"? Like what are your benchmark examples of narrative games that inform your reasoning?

 

[innerdude]

The most common element or throughline of those who have no experience with narrative games seems to be, "Any game where I cannot directly infer a discrete chain of fictional world causal processes that map directly to a game mechanic, its inputs, and its outputs."

 

[pemerton]

The most common element or throughline of those who have no experience with narrative games seems to be, "Any game where I cannot directly infer a discrete chain of fictional world causal processes that map directly to a game mechanic, its inputs, and its outputs."

I would add: where "I" refers to "I the GM". That inference being opaque to the player doesn't make it "narrative'!

 

[soviet]

I would add: where "I" refers to "I the GM". That inference being opaque to the player doesn't make it "narrative'!

Well as you know many trad GMs are running an entire world simulation in their heads. Weather patterns, intercultural tensions, socioeconomic forces, the eroding impact of high fantasy magic on a pseudo-medieval feudalist civilisation that cannot logically sustain itself.

"Aren't they just making something up that sounds right to them, and dressing it in a veneer of dispassionate verisimilitudinous inevitability?"

No they aren't, how dare you!

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me the simplest way to designate something as a "narrative" game is to just check whether the game has a separate mechanical suite for combat, or if it uses the same exact mechanics for combat as it does everything else. D&D has its own suite of mechanics for combat, so it isn't. Champions has its own suite of mechanics for combat, so it isn't. FATE's mechanics are a single suite that can be used for arguments or obstacle courses or fist fights, so it is. And many other games have mechanics that don't presume combat is going to occur at all, so they are as well.