What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Apocalypse World Discussion)

[Neonchameleon]

Apocalypse World was deliberately written to be a narrative game with Vincent Baker explicitly stating "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards." And among those who enjoy narrativist games it is incredibly influential and generally a favourite of those who do - while it has almost none of the features of those that use Narrativism or narrativist games as a snarl world; 5e has more metacurrencies than AW.

So what are the features that make it a great PC-focused narrativist game? In my opinion they include the following:

• Relatively low GM authority, setting the focus on the PCs
  • The Apocalypse World GM is the "MC" or "Master of Ceremonies" - i.e. possibly the most important player but the first among equals
  • There's no fudging of rolls possible when the GM never rolls a dice. And the actions are chosen by the players
  • The GM doesn't write the world - indeed the world (although controlled by the GM) is created during Session Zero
  • The GM is explicitly instructed to "be a fan of the player characters"
• The characters are distinctly part of the setting and aren't some random doofuses who met in a bar and have nothing to do with events
  • The setting is explicitly created round the PCs
  • The PCs explicitly mostly have jobs and bases of operations in the setting so are invested in the area
  • Many of the playbooks have explicit NPC relationships
• Character growth and development of the type that makes for good stories is focused on
  • Minimal "number goes up" development - no levels, no bloating of hit points and only slight stat progression. Instead growth is more extending the character's abilities or even transforming them. Possibly even changing playbooks. Characters end up changed and in logical ways but not always anticipated ways
  • You get XP for showing the side of you that others want to see (highlights) or for interacting with other PCs in stressful situations, whether helping them or interfering (Hx). Or for move specific recklessness.
  • There are ways back from "No one could have survived that" - but no ways back without consequence, and changing your playbook is huge
• "Story Now" - the story is now and not preauthored
  • Success-with-consequences mechanics mean that scenes aren't going to go as expected; no one can predict the outcome
  • They also lead to "but ... therefore" which leads to better stories than "yes ... and" (which is where success or failure mechanics go)
  • There is a lot of room for character choice, both before and as a consequence of actions
• "Story Now" - you get to events fast and things happen fast. There's no faffing around waiting (other than for pizza/chatter)
  • The mechanical parts of character creation are fast
  • The characters start with intertwined and slightly double edged backstories so there's no need for "meet up scenes"
  • You don't slow the game down to look things up in the manual
  • Every roll is consequential and has the potential to go very wrong or very right (even when it's "just" damage there's the Harm Move)

These are not limits to what AW does that makes it great for narrative focused games - but they are big parts of it. And it means that by the end of the second session (with the first containing group character creation) no one knows where their character or the situation is going, just that it's moving fast and no one will come out unchanged.

Fate, for example, has some of this including at least some non-linear growth and intertwined backstories as well as a lower authority GM than trad gaming - but in general it's largely independent of Fate's fate points.

 

[gorice]

This is a good post, but I'm going to quibble about one thing: The GM (MC) has tonnes of authority, and the setup is explicitly very traditional. It's just that they are enjoined not to do railroady BS. Like, some of the hard scene framing in the examples of play would make your average 5e DM blush.

 

[Emberashh]

I don't think this needed a whole new topic.

 

[pawsplay]

This is a good post, but I'm going to quibble about one thing: The GM (MC) has tonnes of authority, and the setup is explicitly very traditional. It's just that they are enjoined not to do railroady BS. Like, some of the hard scene framing in the examples of play would make your average 5e DM blush.

Eg. You step into the dragon's lair. It roars and breathes fire. Make a Move to avoid becoming a marshmallow.

 

[overgeeked]

They also lead to "but ... therefore" which leads to better stories than "yes ... and" (which is where success or failure mechanics go)

The storytelling trick that blogger is not really understanding or explaining comes from this video.

The quote is: “If the words “and then” belong between those beats, you’re [screwed]. Basically. You’ve got something pretty boring. What should happen between every beat that you’ve written down is either the word “therefore” or “but”... This happens and therefore this happens, but this happens, therefore this happens.”

What they're talking about is consequences and twists linking beats or scenes together. If there are no consequences or twists, your story is boring. On a micro scale, this is what the PbtA success ladder does. It adds consequences and twists into the story on an action-by-action scale. But you also need to do that between scenes to make the story hang together.

 

[pawsplay]

At the risk of oversimplifying a long, complicated discussion that spans three different models of RPGs, and the post-model world we live in:

"Narrativist" games are games that fulfill a specific kind of gaming experience Edwards thought was under-supported. His response was to envision a "narrativist" game, and lots of designers followed suit with Story Now games. But a lot of those games addressed the premise by adding more game to it. In a sense, what was wanted was something that mechanically supported that "Narrativist" premise.

But a game with sufficient mechanistic aspects becomes less narrative. You can make a game that aggressively addresses Story Now with very few freeform elements at all. As long as the players are forced to make choices that confront the premise, it can fall under the umbrella of Story Now, "narrativist" games.

So, a PbtA game that wants to address a story premise in an organic way, but it loaded with mechanistic elements to bring those situations into play, occupies a kind of mid-point on the mechanistic (determination-based) to narrative (fiction-based) pole. The structure of a PbtA itself doesn't really insist on addressing either a story premise, or just beats that are appropriate to a genre. Different games fall on different places on that measure. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is definitely more narrative than mechanistic, but it's built around a pretty concrete style of play; I'm comfortable calling it a 6 or 7 out of 10.

By the same token, you can take an old-timey D&D module, and play it completely straight. However, if you allow the players to attempt any conceivable action, and the GM supports that freedom by trying to be even-handed, and the whole group is completely ready to go "off-script" if that occurs in the natural course of play, and the players are caught up in the imaginative act of being their characters, then that also reaches toward a mid-point. Like, the last time I played classic D&D, we did Castle Amber, and I'll tell you what, it was a wild ride. In the background there were hit points and experience points and so forth, but in the forefront, it was about the things we did. If you think of Castle Amber is a playground in which to experiment with different actions, and the GM is willing and able to extend the limited rules-set to adjudicate actions on the fly, I don't think it's hard to get a game that is like a 4 out of 10 on the narrative-o-tron.

I don't think you have level 9 or 10 narrative play without getting pretty close to notecard games, or mostly freeform. Similarly, I don't think you can get down to like a 1 (almost entirely mechanistic) without using a very mechanistic system and restricting the area of play to something that is pretty easy to quantify in the chosen system. Something like Rolemaster actually won't do it, because for all its mechanistic qualities, it tends to actually ignore things that are considered trivial for adventurers. Something like Dungeon Fantasy, played with a focus on tactics, can probably do like a 2.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But a game with sufficient mechanistic aspects becomes less narrative. You can make a game that aggressively addresses Story Now with very few freeform elements at all. As long as the players are forced to make choices that confront the premise, it can fall under the umbrella of Story Now, "narrativist" games.

This to me is not as load bearing a foundation as I think you think it is. Essentially you seem to be saying that two things are in direct opposition in a near zero sum game when they are merely in conflict. Weight and speed may be in conflict but this doesn't make a hot air balloon faster than a jet fighter.

So, a PbtA game that wants to address a story premise in an organic way, but it loaded with mechanistic elements to bring those situations into play, occupies a kind of mid-point on the mechanistic (determination-based) to narrative (fiction-based) pole.

And here is where it shows. Mechanistic is not the opposite of fiction based. This isn't a scale, it is two separate numbers in conflict but not contradiction. And continuity and callbacks are bedrocks of actual stories. Adding mechanics makes it easier to have continuity and callbacks/

The structure of a PbtA itself doesn't really insist on addressing either a story premise, or just beats that are appropriate to a genre. Different games fall on different places on that measure. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is definitely more narrative than mechanistic, but it's built around a pretty concrete style of play; I'm comfortable calling it a 6 or 7 out of 10.

Indeed. I've made several comments about Dungeon World not being a very good PBTA game; for one example its hard coded class structure reminiscent more of D&D than other PbtA games means that many avenues of character growth and large twists that Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts encourage are simply not available. Thirsty Sword Lesbians for what it's worth feels to me like a PBTA "Greatest hits album"; it makes no actively bad choices but there's nowhere it makes me say "wow!" or really nails its theme the way e.g. Monsterhearts (to which it owes a lot) does.

By the same token, you can take an old-timey D&D module, and play it completely straight. However, if you allow the players to attempt any conceivable action, and the GM supports that freedom by trying to be even-handed, and the whole group is completely ready to go "off-script" if that occurs in the natural course of play, and the players are caught up in the imaginative act of being their characters, then that also reaches toward a mid-point. Like, the last time I played classic D&D, we did Castle Amber, and I'll tell you what, it was a wild ride. In the background there were hit points and experience points and so forth, but in the forefront, it was about the things we did. If you think of Castle Amber is a playground in which to experiment with different actions, and the GM is willing and able to extend the limited rules-set to adjudicate actions on the fly, I don't think it's hard to get a game that is like a 4 out of 10 on the narrative-o-tron.

I don't think you have level 9 or 10 narrative play without getting pretty close to notecard games, or mostly freeform.

I'm going to disagree with what I believe to be your fundamental argument here. Pure Freeform isn't even close a level 9 or 10. Bone might be weight that doesn't add power - but freeform without structure is a beached jellyfish. It's about a four. When you start to add some structure and implicit mechanics like the "yes and" structure of Improv then you're rising to about a six or seven and a land-based octopus. And you can easily add a point for familiarity and another point for group cohesion. You need some structure and some starting positions and something to maintain continuity.

Similarly, I don't think you can get down to like a 1 (almost entirely mechanistic) without using a very mechanistic system and restricting the area of play to something that is pretty easy to quantify in the chosen system. Something like Rolemaster actually won't do it, because for all its mechanistic qualities, it tends to actually ignore things that are considered trivial for adventurers. Something like Dungeon Fantasy, played with a focus on tactics, can probably do like a 2.

An interesting one here would be something like Montsegur 1244.

 

[pawsplay]

Essentially you seem to be saying that two things are in direct opposition in a near zero sum game when they are merely in conflict. Weight and speed may be in conflict but this doesn't make a hot air balloon faster than a jet fighter.

Well, I'm not saying that. Your hot air balloon/jet fighter comparison makes a lot of sense to me as a metaphor. What I am saying about PbtA games is that they admirably meet their aims, but not by being "narrative." They have some goals, but the most distinctive thing about a PbtA game is that it's a 2d6 roll over engine with three levels of success, and both PCs and NPCs are obliged to respond, at some level, to un-asked for conditions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, I'm not saying that. Your hot air balloon/jet fighter comparison makes a lot of sense to me as a metaphor. What I am saying about PbtA games is that they admirably meet their aims, but not by being "narrative." They have some goals, but the most distinctive thing about a PbtA game is that it's a 2d6 roll over engine with three levels of success, and both PCs and NPCs are obliged to respond, at some level, to un-asked for conditions.

Apocalypse World itself has a number of features that aren't common to all PbtA games - and the resolution mechanic is distinguishable, but barely, from FitD game.

For example in Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts but not e.g. Dungeon World or from memory Thirsty Sword Lesbians you create the setting you are playing in as part of character creation. And I'm not joking when I call the AW playbooks the best use of RPG classes I've seen since 1974 (again not carried forward into Dungeon World)

 

[LesserThan]

Apocalypse World was deliberately written to be a narrative game with Vincent Baker explicitly stating "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards."

When was it made and when was the "Story Now" thing written?

Edwards said "recently" GNS theory was a mistake he regrets from the Forge days.

Spoiler: Language