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

[gorice]

To be honest I think calling "narrative" games writer room games is a more accurate and less loaded nomenclature. I really don't like it when people, companies and groups try to change language in very unorganic ways to fit their desired meaning or in this case marketing. Narrative was originally used as a marketing term by the forge bros to describe how much better their games were than "traditional" or "trad" games. Trad was the negative term, Narrative was the positive. That seems to have switched as more people use narrative game as a way to describe something they are not interested in playing.

[citation needed]

 

[Aldarc]

To be honest I think calling "narrative" games writer room games is a more accurate and less loaded nomenclature. I really don't like it when people, companies and groups try to change language in very unorganic ways to fit their desired meaning or in this case marketing. Narrative was originally used as a marketing term by the forge bros to describe how much better their games were than "traditional" or "trad" games. Trad was the negative term, Narrative was the positive. That seems to have switched as more people use narrative game as a way to describe something they are not interested in playing.

IMHO, it seems kind of hard to claim that you are interested in "more accurate and less loaded nomenclature" when you used loaded language like "forge bros" in the same breath.

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Please name some of these writers room narrative games.

Note that 'narrative games' is not a forge term.

Ahem...

The Forge :: Narrativism: Story Now

 

[MacDhomnuill]

[citation needed]

The Forge :: Narrativism: Story Now

 

[MacDhomnuill]

IMHO, it seems kind of hard to claim that you are interested in "more accurate and less loaded nomenclature" when you used loaded language like "forge bros" in the same breath.

Some of us were on the forge and were involved in the flame wars and watched the implosion in person (in forum?). I assure you the descption "bro" is both accurate and would have been worn with pride by many of the most toxic folks on the forge.

 

[Aldarc]

Some of us were on the forge and were involved in the flame wars and watched the implosion in person (in forum?). I assure you the descption "bro" is both accurate and would have been worn with pride by many of the most toxic folks on the forge.

I fear that you became what you are raving against and brought that toxicity into this thread.

 

[Celebrim]

To me, that's because if the goal is to produce a narrative during play, the game mechanics should allow us to play, effectively, in real time. That is, you should be able to get through a two-hour movie's worth of game in about two hours.

I think that's an unreasonable and often counterproductive demand. It just might be possible to do a script reading of a two-hour movie in two hours, but even that's questionable on the "it takes 1000 words to paint a picture" standard. But even if you could do a script reading of a two-hour movie in two hours, to try to recreate that experience in a game you'd end up with just a script reading. And I have seen games actually end up doing that.

By comparison to a movie, reading a script no one has to think and choose their words. In the finished movie, they cut out all the bits where participants in the movie making have to question the director about the fictional positioning. But those bits are essential to the game.

This is an improvisational story in the purist sense, and even professionals with plenty of theater experience take far more than two hours to generate two hours of edited story content. Vox Machina played for how long to produce the story of the cartoon?

So no, I don't think the goal is ever to make content that is real time in the same way that a movie is and attempts to force that are going to take a lot of the improvisation, agency, and game out of the game.

 

[soviet]

Ahem...

The Forge :: Narrativism: Story Now

Yes. Narrativism/narrativist. Not narrative.

 

[gorice]

The Forge :: Narrativism: Story Now

I don't see how you got from that essay to any of those assertions. I also don't think it's productive to unearth ancient grudges in any discussion whose aim is enlightenment.

 

[Aldarc]

Even if we account that "narrative game" is something of an exonym that is frequently imposed on games, there are probably things about these games that get them labeled as such, even if by their detractors. Note: these qualities may be found in other "non-narrative" games too, but it's often a combination of these things. Likewise not every game that gets labeled a "narrative game" will have these things or to the same extent.

These games often include, but are not limited to...

• ..."Fiction First" Principles, Rules, and/or Mechanics
• ...an interest in the fictional stakes and/or consequences in conflict resolution
• ...a mechanical interest in the dramatic beats of the player characters and/or fiction
• ...a greater concern for Emulation > Simulation
• ...ways for players to declare narrative truths or story details in the fiction

I will add that for some people I have interacted with here, it only takes the below to get labeled as a "narrative game."
* ...a game that has any mechanic that breaks their idiomatic sense of in-character roleplay immersion