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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Note that everything innerdude stated about stake setting is inimical to what I want from a role-playing game. There is a strand of Narrativist play born from those ideas and it’s usually this strand that people point to when they talk about a writers room approach and so on.


I’ll illustrate the way I’d do it, although the example is going to be a little contrived. Also note there’s lot of superficial similarities. Assume we’re playing Sorcerer and I’m the GM.


Player: I want to meet the Princess alone, would it be a faux pas to ask the King for that as my reward for wining the duel?

Me: I don’t know about alone, alone. You could ask for a date or whatever the mediaeval equivalent is called. Maybe a walk in the gardens and there would be a chaperone walking a distance behind you.

Player: Fine. So let’s see if I win this duel.

We roll and the player wins. He approaches the King.

Me as the King: My noble knight, what is thy reward?

Player: My Lord, I ask merely for a date with your daughter, a walk in the gardens mayhap.

I think about the Kings priorities. Maybe I’ve established him (off-screen) as being really status obsessed.

Me as the King: I admire your ardore good knight but it takes more than winning a tournament to court a princess. Maybe perform such deeds as make you worthy of being a lord and thence ask again. (and the court as a whole chuckles)

Player: Ah, my lord, I was dependant upon your beneficent. It was foolish of me.

Me: Wait, that’s really going to make the king angry with you.

Player: Yeah but I’m showing him up in front of the court, kind of forcing his hand.

Me: (I think about the Kings priorities.) Yeah that makes sense. So it’s a conflict then. Will your words embarrasses the king enough for him to relent or is he going to hold fast. Also if you fail, things will go badly for you. And either way you’ve made an enemy of him.

Player: I’m ok with that.

We roll and the player wins.

Me: There’s a shocked gasp from the court and the King turns red. He says in a strained tone. ‘well never let it be said that I am not beneficent, you shall have your walk in the gardens’

Me: look at my prep and see that this night is the night I’ve written down that the assassin murders the princess.

Me: so next day as you’re preparing for your garden stroll. There’s a scream. The princess has been murdered in the night.

What would you say to the notion that there's a continuum between entirely predefined plot trad play and what @innerdude outlined, with your mix of predetermined elements and Narrativist play somewhere in the middle?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think we just wanted to keep our rival gang busy by setting another gang upon them.

Sure, but again this is something you can do in any game.

But not every game requires it, right? Do you think a game that requires it will be different than a game that doesn't?

How would it? Like sure, I could choose whether I stab a person with finesse or skirmish, but as I have three in former and zero in the latter, it is really not a choice is it?

If the GM forced you to use Skirmish in one game, but another game allowed you to use Skirmish or Finesse, then I'd say you have a choice.

I mean... you're discarding one of the two things being compared.

And in most games you can try different approaches. In D&D you can present your approach of getting a NPC to do what you want more as intimidation than persuasion.

Not if the GM has decided that the person you're trying to intimidate cannot be intimidated. The GM is free to say "intimidate won't work... you can try persuade if you want. Maybe you can bluff him. But he won't be intimidated."

The GM in Blades can't really make something impossible. In extreme cases, he can set the Effect to "No Effect" but even then you can push to bring the Effect up to Limited.

Sure, but again, that's just the setup, and would have similar effect in another game too. If a Vampire game is set in one city, then we need to deal with the NPCs and factions of that city.

But other games don't specifically restrict things in that way. That's the point. They may. But they may not. There's a difference between something that IS and something that MAY BE.

Everything in Blades is designed very deliberately to create a constant escalation of tensions with the crew and their surroundings.

Yes, sure. But for example in this specific instance it is more about the setup than any specific mechanics. Like that we have situation where we have allies, and rivals and we vie for control of the underground of the city. That this is the fictional situation naturally directs what the action will be about. I could see the overall dynamic working very similarly with more trad system with such a setup.

Okay. What trad game works this way? What would you add to a game of D&D that would make it work this way?

Isn't it pretty telling that the closest thing that D&D has to this kind of stuff... BIFTs... are the first thing jettisoned by most groups?

I am not saying that mechanics do not matter at all or are interchangeable, but I still feel the main thrust and themes of the campaign really do not, nor cannot rely on the mechanics, they rely on the fiction.

But the fiction can indeed be shaped by mechanics.

I don't know if it's you or your GM for Blades, but it seems that there's a lack of understanding about what the mechanics are meant to be doing, and how that directly and significantly relates to what's happening in the fiction.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's a generic move in DW to convince someone, but the PC requires leverage to trigger it, which means fictional position that is evaluated by the GM. This sort of arrangement will exist in all Narrativist play, trust me. Fundamentally what can be accomplished by an action will always have limits set by fiction, or maybe even mechanics. Always the framing of these limits is at least partly up to the GM or some other mechanism. Otherwise you would not have an RPG.

So you are saying if the DM decides the fictional position doesn’t meet the requirements that the PC cannot even make that move?

 

[innerdude]

So you are saying if the DM decides the fictional position doesn’t meet the requirements that the PC cannot even make that move?

Yes.

*Edit to follow up -- the player is welcome to then declare some other action, one that does not trigger the move in question, one that triggers a different move (or no move at all), to such point that the fictional state has been modified in a way that (s)he can then enact the move previously disallowed by fictional positioning.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes.

And DW is supposed to be an example of narrative, character driven play?

 

[innerdude]

Because as I described above --- Dungeon World both implicitly and explicitly expects the GM to hold character theme, stakes, and intent above his/her conception of the game world.

Not every moment of DW play, or Ironsworn play, or BitD play, is going to differ wholly from the basic D&D play loop of

PC action declaration >> GM eval of action >> rules input / determinant >> outcome.

What will differ is the way the GM is expected to apply the eval >> determinant >> outcome loop with regard to player intent and stakes vis-a-vis "How I, the GM, think the game world should work and function at any given moment."

 

[innerdude]

I think I've said it probably a dozen times by now on this forum, but if anyone who has no experience with "narrative" style games wants to understand the mindset for it, go play a 2-2.5 hour session of Ironsworn solo.

Then come back with how you saw events playing out in your mind, and how you had to keep ideas about the "state of things" open until the mechanics directed you in a way that the fictional world came together where you made the surprising discovery of, "Oh! So THAT'S what happened!"

Like, it's to the point where I'm almost going to just disregard what anyone says about "narrative" style RPGs if they haven't done it.

The Ironsworn base game PDF is COMPLETELY FREE. There's not a soul reading these words that couldn't have a copy of it in their hands / laptop / phone / tablet in 15 seconds. If you want to keep arguing from a state of total and complete ignorance, I mean, sure, whatever.

If you want to actually understand it and stop guessing and pretending about it, just go do it. You'll get more understanding of how "narrative" style RPGs are supposed to work in 2.5 hours of playing Ironsworn than you will in a lifetime of reading threads like this one.

 

[Manbearcat]

What work does the below do on play?

That should be a bloody easy question to answer. And if your answer is "it doesn't do any work because system doesn't really matter and its all social contract (opt-in or opt-out of whatever...even when the rules explicitly say "play by the rules and use the game system as-is...but if you want to Change the Game; here is how')," then I wish folks would just come right out with it so we know what claims we're each advancing. Its impossible to present networks of evidence and confounders if you don't know what claim you're dealing with.

Alternatively, if you're like "well, my players are passive and don't present and don't advance goals...", then refer them back to the above. Play Goal-Forward, damnit. Not enough for you passive players who don't play with ambition, who don't present nor advance goals? Ok, how about this in concert?

Don't safeguard your characters. They're tough. Make them earn it. Make them get up off the canvas and get back in the fight when they get whooped. They've got the moxie and the means. And if the story is them perishing (one way or another) in a blaze of haunted, gothic, bloody glory? Awesome. Good either way.

Be ambitious. Have a goal. Despite the odds and forces arrayed against you, attack it like a rabid dog until you come away with the bone or you're put down for good. Either way is awesome.

Still not enough? Ok, what about incentives and reward cycles:

Take significant risk, accept thematic consequences/setbacks/trouble, address/express/struggle with your character's and crew's thematic porfolio, earn rewards that generate horsepower, momentum, evolution, and trajectory of characters, setting, situation.

If none of this does sufficient work to generate a particular and novel play paradigm...if players are still passive, unambitious, goal-vacuums, turtley derpburglars, and expecting the GM to just spoonfeed them theme & premise neutral opportunities...and/or the GM is willing and wanting to do just that and play some kind of weird "Score Crawl + GM Setting Solitaire?"

Then why in the world are you playing Blades in the Dark? I mean...you're not playing it. But why are you wasting your time with a giant rulebook and system (and the above is only a fraction of the material that works in concert to support a very clear, very novel gameplay paradigm) instead of just social contracting your way through a pre-existing game that you've already internalized and hacked/drifted/sculpted to a particular form of play a million times before? Just do that! Don't waste your time with a giant new rulebook and novel system!

 

[FrogReaver]

IMO, there’s like 4 or 5 of you with similar but different perspectives. Answering for each other is starting to muddy the waters for me more than it clears things up.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But not every game requires it, right? Do you think a game that requires it will be different than a game that doesn't?

But it was not required. We could have just chosen to rob a jewel shop or something. It was just something we chose to do.

If the GM forced you to use Skirmish in one game, but another game allowed you to use Skirmish or Finesse, then I'd say you have a choice.

I mean... you're discarding one of the two things being compared.

I mean most games do not have confusingly overlapping redundant skills in the first place. I just do not see this as meaningful or interesting expression of agency.

Not if the GM has decided that the person you're trying to intimidate cannot be intimidated. The GM is free to say "intimidate won't work... you can try persuade if you want. Maybe you can bluff him. But he won't be intimidated."

The GM in Blades can't really make something impossible. In extreme cases, he can set the Effect to "No Effect" but even then you can push to bring the Effect up to Limited.

Are you sure? Doe this mean anything, however ludicrous, is possible? I don't think so.

But other games don't specifically restrict things in that way. That's the point. They may. But they may not. There's a difference between something that IS and something that MAY BE.

Sure. I don't think this makes the game better for supporting this sort of play, it merely is more limited in what it can support.

Everything in Blades is designed very deliberately to create a constant escalation of tensions with the crew and their surroundings.

Sure, that it does, and I think that is concrete effect the mechanics create. I just don't think this makes things more player driven.

Okay. What trad game works this way?

Vampire. Ars Magica. I think many games.

What would you add to a game of D&D that would make it work this way?

Just establish the fiction.

Isn't it pretty telling that the closest thing that D&D has to this kind of stuff... BIFTs... are the first thing jettisoned by most groups?

BIFTs are simplification of a nuanced concepts. It's like personality and motivation training wheels. It is nice if you need it, but I don't think many people do. Again, it really is about the fiction, not the mechanics.

But the fiction can indeed be shaped by mechanics.

I don't know if it's you or your GM for Blades, but it seems that there's a lack of understanding about what the mechanics are meant to be doing, and how that directly and significantly relates to what's happening in the fiction.

Yet you cannot articulate it either. No, I don't think we are playing it wrong, it just isn't that special.