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

[Manbearcat]

But that was never the problem. I don't see people playing super cautiously in other games either, and they do set goals and go for them and take risks. And sure, I see how that advice and some of the mechanics encourage it. But if you were doing that anyway, they really didn't do anything, did they?

On "I don't see people playing super cautiously in other games either," I guess it really depends upon the game. I can tell you from 1984 through 1999 (and all the one shots since), every B/X Pawn Stance Dungeoncrawl game and every RC Hexcrawl game I ran featured developed and deployed S.O.P.s that optimized for risk profile and resource management.

The 3.x FR game I GMed from 1999 playtest through 2004 featured cautious play until about level 4 and then relatively loose play as spellcasters overwhelmed play until about level 15 and then the threat amped up again and play became a giant collection of developed and deployed S.O.P.s (where the spellcasters were, of course, featured) from that point until the game ended at level 21.

5e D&D? Yes, I would imagine it doesn't lean cautious because of the baked-in power relationships between PCs and encounter budgets/threat level throughout the course of play.

On 'set goals and go for them," I would need to know a whole lot more because I've been in these conversations where "set goals" might mean operationalized the hyper-generic, evolved play meta of D&D like "we have goals to murderhobo!"...or "will side/fetch quest for PC rez <only because the player of the PC didn't say they wanted to play a new character...if they did want to play a new character then no can do side/fetch quest-giver)." Stuff like that isn't_exactly what I have in mind.

I would need to know a lot more. Something like a player who has picked:

Class: Paladin of Kord (war, strength, storms)
Goal: The player has introduced a secret heresy upon play and wants to advance it. They believe that the proper interpretation of Kord's scripture yields peace through strength and war only as last resort (but a decisive one).

Making play about that? Yes, that is what I have in mind. We'll find out if they're right or wrong about the interpreation. We'll find out if the schism leads to reformation of the faith or ruination or crazy collateral damage and status quo. We'll find out of Kord is pleased or very much not.

Also, I think some of the mechanics in Blades kinds go against the idea. Like sometimes the negatives are really bad. For example damage is a big deal and healing slow. So completely unsurprisingly I see people in D&D taking more risks in combat and engaging violence more readily, because healing is rather easy.

You've said a lot of things about your Blades games that makes me wonder what is exactly going on.

* I mean, this might feel a small thing, but Black Lamps? The Lampblacks, The Crows, and The Red Sashes are the three most foundational gangs in early play in Duskvol. And it seems like one of, or the, primary Gang your Crew interacted with...and you didn't know their name (and how that told you their trade, their history, their motivations for crime)? I mean, its just an observation, but that really makes it feel like the investment in play was not terribly high. Its a little more strange given that the fundamental motivating factor of the Lambplacks is that they're called the Lampblacks because they were the members of the former lamp-lighters (and snuffers) guild for the city which turned to crime when they were replaced by electric lights. Their name is their core conceit. Its an odd thing in terms of attentiveness and investment into the game to misname your primary Faction Enemy whose name is basically their identity. It would be one thing if it was just some rando name. Like if you called The Crows The Ravens and they weren't your (or one of your) Crew's primary antagonist in the early game? Ok, no big deal. But your primary antagonist in the game is the ex-lamplighter (and snuffer; hence the name) guild that turned to crime after electroplasmic devices rendered their trade obsolete...hence their name and their name/trade-related reason for being a criminal gang now....and we misname them?

Earlier (and I took no offense...but I certainly noted it), you said you felt like my description of what I care about in play (stakes-intensive challenge or conflict or both) and what I do not want table time spent on (any free roleplay that is color-heavy and affectation-heavy but conflict & stakes-free that goes beyond maybe 5 minutes at most) yielded something like "that seems like the fiction would be really lacking richness". I can understand how my "color and affectation do not move The Needle of Enriched Play for me" statement would lead you to that assessment if you really care a lot about table time being spent to a fair degree on free roleplay wedded to color and affectation but decoupled from conflict and stakes. But, what moves The Needle of Enriched Play for me is the plight and nature of the lamplighters guild, called The Lampblacks because of it, who have turned rogue after having their meaningful days' work and livelihood taken from them due to the advancement of technology. Understanding that premise and motivation, highlighting it, advancing it, making it a cog in their representation in play (but absolutely central if the PCs are a Crew whose nature is to care about such working class grievances or maybe if we have a PC with the Vice of Obligation; the downtrodden)...and a means for bringing in things like revolt/revolution in Coalridge and related Crews (like The Lost)...that is what enriches play for me.

Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk about that. Maybe it was just a weird thing and that isn't happening in your home game (where players are forgetting the name of their primary Gang Enemy that also happens to be their actual former trade in the city...and is the foundational reason for their current status). Maybe everyone knows and cares about the Lampblacks and their instantiation in your game is the GM "Bringing Duskvol to Life." Maybe people have taken sides on the dramatic needs of the former lamplighters guild. Maybe they just don't care about the labor class concerns or the proliferation of dangerous electroplasmic devices. Who knows. Its just a weird thing kind of like calling Luke Skywalker Sky Lukewalker or calling Gimlee Legolas for someone who has just watched Star Wars or read LotR and considers themselves invested as a consumer of the fiction.


* And Harm being ubiquitous, healing slow, and therefore the game becomes turtley or cautious? I mean, I don't even know what turtley or cautious means in terms of the structured play loop of Blades in the Dark. What even happens? You can't just opt out of doing stuff and the GM better be putting the crosshairs on individual PCs and bringing the heat in terms of Faction/Setting Clocks. Players have to do stuff to deal with the game of perpetural spinning plates. Turtling or bunkering down isn't an option. Forward is the only way through. The only thing I can think of is maybe the players pursue low Tier gangs, never punch above their belts, and really set up and pursue an abundance of Deception and Social Scores whereby muscle/physical obstacles are infrequent? But...if that is so, then Recovery shouldn't be much of an issue? And...even then...the GM's Faction Clocks, Entanglements, Crime Bosses, and the introduction of Rivals into Scores are going to bring threats into play that might manifest as Harm at some point?

But beyond that? Ubiquitous Harm and slow Recovery reads like a total tell that something is really, really, really amiss in your game. If Harm is flying around in your game to a degree that its generating some kind of Blades in the Dark turtling (again, whatever that might be)...I just don't know? Harm is only one of an enormous number of varying (and play dynamism-infusing) Consequences that a GM can mete out and it only applies in very particular, very telegraphed situations (and even in those situations there are often better, more compelling Consequences to mete out). If Harm is that ubiquitous in your game, either (a) your GM is struggling with their creativity and dynamism or (b) your GM isn't clear on what they're supposed to be doing or (c) the players are picking the most Assault-heavy and punch-above-your-belt sequences of Scores imaginable (which is hard to imagine...but I guess its possible). And even then, the players have so many means to mitigate Harm (Armor/Loadout, Resistance, spreading it around with Protect when fictionally amenable and then that protector using Armor/Resistance, Special Armor for specific types, or playbook moves that throttle back Harm or specific types of it) before the old standard of trading Effect for better Position or deploying Loadout that improves one or the other (thereby throttling back prospective Harm).

And Recovery is slow? I mean....PCs each get 2 x DTAs every Downtime. A fair number of Crews (2/3 of the games I've GMed) either (a) have a physicker in their Crew or (b) their Crew Contact or a PC Friend is a doctor/physicker, so there is no investment in DTAs beyond the Recovery DTAs spent on their clock. However, the ones that don't have a physicker on their roster extended, can just have one PC (the one with a buffed Acquire an Asset playbook move) spend 1 x Acquire an Asset for an Expert, get a +1d assist from a Friend/Contact, and then maybe buy the result up. Now, for the whole loop that rented physicker will give everyone 2 to 4 dice for their Recovery DTA. Then you have the Infirmary Claim (+1d Recovery) and other various Advances/Features that buff Recovery. And every time your Clock ticks 4 you reduce every single instance of Harm by one (not just 1 instance of Harm...maybe that is what you guys are doing to feel this "slow Recovery" you're citing?) so if you had 2 boxes each of Harm 2 and Harm 1 filled...now you only have Harm 1 from your Harm 2 injury types. And further still, your ticks on new Recover clocks roll over (you don't lose ticks in excess of your current Clock...maybe that is another thing you guys are doing wrong?).

In all the hours I've GMed Blades, I think I've seen a handful Cohorts perish via Harm and only 2 x PCs. That's it. And that is a metric eff-ton of hours in the last 7 years. 3 games from Tier 0 to Tier 4 or 5 and 6 others from Tier 0 up to between Tiers 1 and 3.

Now I've lost a fair number of PCs in the Blades in the Dark games I've run (and had the equivalents of TPKs). No one who has ever played in one of my games would ever consider me sentimental such that I go soft on PCs as a GM. I'm fans of PCs, but I'm more than happy to see them into retirement, banishment, death, insanity, or whatever fate (honestly, those PC tales are overwhelmingly the most memorable for me). But PCs in Blades just don't perish in any frequency due to Harm 4. Now and again, yes. But overwhelmingly, PCs in Blades typically perish because (a) everyone Stresses out of a Score and we need to figure out just what the hell happened (who is dying, who is going into a spirit bottle, who is incarcerated in Ironhook or worse, who was maybe an informant and now is an Enemy of the remaining Crew due to the setup, who has been sacrified to a Forgotten God/dess, who is in a Bluecoat interrogation room and being brutalized, who is being turned into a supernatural horror, or whatever else) to pick the game up where we left out or (b) you hit your 4th Trauma or (c) you go to Ironhook Prison permanently and we decide to leave you there or (d) you hit Trauma 3 and that seems like a fitting time for that character to retire out.

 

[clearstream]

Reading posts in this thread, I'm observing two competing descriptions of observed play.

The first that I'll call a "modalities" description, describes combinations of playstyle and game design as distinct modes such that one is playing in one mode or another mode. To my reading, @Campbell has presented with clarity such a description. In this case, when there are modes of play A and B, one is either playing in mode A or one is playing in mode B.

The second that I'll call a "hybrids" description, deconstructs playstyle and game design granularly for reassembly in a vast number of ways. To my reading, @Crimson Longinus has been working from such a picture.

Hybridists are naturally puzzled about the apparent protectiveness over and exclusivity reserved for what appear to them to be redeployable principles and structures (including mechanics) that can be used together or apart and in more or less degree. Modalists don't see how the play they cherish could possibly arise except in the presence of all the parts working together.

Stepping back a bit, over the arc of modern game development I have seen in the early stages a rapid process of branching hybridisation that eventually settles on what comes to be known as a game genre. The process is still continuing and surprising hybrids turn up all the time, receive some focused attention and development, and either whither or flourish as a new genre. The autochess genre is a recent example in videogames. Player culture has expanded and evolved in parallel.

So I believe it is right to formally call out and label a mode and say that it has a distinct nature when all the parts are present. And equally, that it is right to feel able to deconstruct and say that those parts can be found in and serve other play even if that play doesn't amount to the mode.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

On "I don't see people playing super cautiously in other games either," I guess it really depends upon the game. I can tell you from 1984 through 1999 (and all the one shots since), every B/X Pawn Stance Dungeoncrawl game and every RC Hexcrawl game I ran featured developed and deployed S.O.P.s that optimized for risk profile and resource management.

The 3.x FR game I GMed from 1999 playtest through 2004 featured cautious play until about level 4 and then relatively loose play as spellcasters overwhelmed play until about level 15 and then the threat amped up again and play became a giant collection of developed and deployed S.O.P.s (where the spellcasters were, of course, featured) from that point until the game ended at level 21.

5e D&D? Yes, I would imagine it doesn't lean cautious because of the baked-in power relationships between PCs and encounter budgets/threat level throughout the course of play.

Right. I am not saying that cautious play never occurs, just that I haven't personally encountered it much. I don't think I have ever played in the proper old school dungeon Vietnam mode. And I actually try to make attrition and resources matter (not boring ones like arrows and stuff, but HP and spells slots etc) in my D&D using gritty rests and stuff like that, but I still do not see people playing particularly cautiously.

So yes, obviously if you come from culture where cautious play is very prevalent, and then get into a game that diminishes or prevents that, it feels like big shift. But if you didn't have the issue in the first place, then you really are not gonna notice the impact.

On 'set goals and go for them," I would need to know a whole lot more because I've been in these conversations where "set goals" might mean operationalized the hyper-generic, evolved play meta of D&D like "we have goals to murderhobo!"...or "will side/fetch quest for PC rez <only because the player of the PC didn't say they wanted to play a new character...if they did want to play a new character then no can do side/fetch quest-giver)." Stuff like that isn't_exactly what I have in mind.

I would need to know a lot more. Something like a player who has picked:

Class: Paladin of Kord (war, strength, storms)
Goal: The player has introduced a secret heresy upon play and wants to advance it. They believe that the proper interpretation of Kord's scripture yields peace through strength and war only as last resort (but a decisive one).

Making play about that? Yes, that is what I have in mind. We'll find out if they're right or wrong about the interpreation. We'll find out if the schism leads to reformation of the faith or ruination or crazy collateral damage and status quo. We'll find out of Kord is pleased or very much not.

Right. And that is something you could easily do. Look at Critical Role, huge chunks of the play revolves around personal stories and issues of the characters. My current D&D game is intentionally pretty episodic pulp adventures in style of Conan & co, so I wouldn't say characters are super deep nor most of the game revolve around their personal issues, but still we have still dealt with their family dramas, old enemies, difficult relationship with their culture and stuff like that. And of course the main direction of the game is mostly dictated by one character's obsession about ancient lost secrets. Granted, that is in certain sense an excuse to have pulpy fantasy adventures.

But the basic structure of making the game to be about characters is super simple. Have players come up with concept themes and backstories for characters, then the GM mines those for content of the game. People have done this forever in one way or another. Usually it is just one ingredient among many, but of course one can easily make it the main ingredient if one wants. Personally I prefer a mix of more personal and more external stories. Like in a TV shows some episodes are more character centric and some more external issue centric.

You've said a lot of things about your Blades games that makes me wonder what is exactly going on.

* I mean, this might feel a small thing, but Black Lamps? The Lampblacks, The Crows, and The Red Sashes are the three most foundational gangs in early play in Duskvol. And it seems like one of, or the, primary Gang your Crew interacted with...and you didn't know their name (and how that told you their trade, their history, their motivations for crime)? I mean, its just an observation, but that really makes it feel like the investment in play was not terribly high. Its a little more strange given that the fundamental motivating factor of the Lambplacks is that they're called the Lampblacks because they were the members of the former lamp-lighters (and snuffers) guild for the city which turned to crime when they were replaced by electric lights. Their name is their core conceit. Its an odd thing in terms of attentiveness and investment into the game to misname your primary Faction Enemy whose name is basically their identity. It would be one thing if it was just some rando name. Like if you called The Crows The Ravens and they weren't your (or one of your) Crew's primary antagonist in the early game? Ok, no big deal. But your primary antagonist in the game is the ex-lamplighter (and snuffer; hence the name) guild that turned to crime after electroplasmic devices rendered their trade obsolete...hence their name and their name/trade-related reason for being a criminal gang now....and we misname them?

I know their background, and whilst interesting, their working class plight didn't much feature, as they were our antagonists from the get go, so we were not predisposition to be very sympathetic towards them. Though my character, who is of the lowest class of our team, was initially most positive towards them.

So you made a huge deal about me getting the name wrong. And if you stop to consider it, there is very simple reason for this. For the same reason I might indeed call Crows Ravens and Red Sashes Red Scarves etc. I am a Finn, we don't play in English. And it would be weird to have English words pop up in a Finnish in-character speech. So every name with an obvious meaning, every concept we need to refer to in-character, we translated. Factions, districts, names of things. That's how casual about this game we were. So most of the time I'd call them Mustalamput, and so when I try to remember what it is in English, I just translate it back and such glitches may occur.

* And Harm being ubiquitous, healing slow, and therefore the game becomes turtley or cautious? I mean, I don't even know what turtley or cautious means in terms of the structured play loop of Blades in the Dark. What even happens? You can't just opt out of doing stuff and the GM better be putting the crosshairs on individual PCs and bringing the heat in terms of Faction/Setting Clocks. Players have to do stuff to deal with the game of perpetural spinning plates. Turtling or bunkering down isn't an option. Forward is the only way through. The only thing I can think of is maybe the players pursue low Tier gangs, never punch above their belts, and really set up and pursue an abundance of Deception and Social Scores whereby muscle/physical obstacles are infrequent? But...if that is so, then Recovery shouldn't be much of an issue? And...even then...the GM's Faction Clocks, Entanglements, Crime Bosses, and the introduction of Rivals into Scores are going to bring threats into play that might manifest as Harm at some point?

I didn't say game becomes turtley and cautious. I said D&D characters are more eager to resolve things with violence, as getting hurt is less serious business in that game. In Blades we don't usually storm in guns blazing, we try to approach things with stealth and guile when possible. Though of course that's not always an option. And it actually is something I like about the game. Risks feel more real, like you were a normal human instead of an invincible superhero.

And yeah, perhaps healing isn't super slow, but it is slower. It is serious resource sink that you must burn your precious downtime activities on and being hurt causes actual penalties. And bear in mind, we're pretty early stages of this game, so our gang doesn't have a lot of resources.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Reading posts in this thread, I'm observing two competing descriptions of observed play.

The first that I'll call a "modalities" description, describes combinations of playstyle and game design as distinct modes such that one is playing in one mode or another mode. To my reading, @Campbell has presented with clarity such a description. In this case, when there are modes of play A and B, one is either playing in mode A or one is playing in mode B.

The second that I'll call a "hybrids" description, deconstructs playstyle and game design granularly for reassembly in a vast number of ways. To my reading, @Crimson Longinus has been working from such a picture.

Hybridists are naturally puzzled about the apparent protectiveness over and exclusivity reserved for what appear to them to be redeployable principles and structures (including mechanics) that can be used together or apart and in more or less degree. Modalists don't see how the play they cherish could possibly arise except in the presence of all the parts working together.

Stepping back a bit, over the arc of modern game development I have seen in the early stages a rapid process of branching hybridisation that eventually settles on what comes to be known as a game genre. The process is still continuing and surprising hybrids turn up all the time, receive some focused attention and development, and either whither or flourish as a new genre. The autochess genre is a recent example in videogames. Player culture has expanded and evolved in parallel.

So I believe it is right to formally call out and label a mode and say that it has a distinct nature when all the parts are present. And equally, that it is right to feel able to deconstruct and say that those parts can be found in and serve other play even if that play doesn't amount to the mode.

This is an excellent post, and indeed seems to be what is going one. This is what I meant when I referred others being "dogmatic" in their approach. It might seem more negative than I mean to, but point being that where others seem to see clear black and white categories, I see spectrums.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Right. I am not saying that cautious play never occurs, just that I haven't personally encountered it much. I don't think I have ever played in the proper old school dungeon Vietnam mode. And I actually try to make attrition and resources matter (not boring ones like arrows and stuff, but HP and spells slots etc) in my D&D using gritty rests and stuff like that, but I still do not see people playing particularly cautiously.

So yes, obviously if you come from culture where cautious play is very prevalent, and then get into a game that diminishes or prevents that, it feels like big shift. But if you didn't have the issue in the first place, then you really are not gonna notice the impact.

Cautious play can also originate from the deadliness of the simulated system. RQ and CoC combats are notoriously deadly, and some systems (Harn) build in infections and diseases and all that terrible stuff. Now, players choose those systems because they want a more deadly "realistic" game, but I've also found that players switching from, say, CoC back to D&D carry the cautiousness they learned in the previous system, so suddenly players aren't so eager to bash down the door and go storming in. There's a culture of cautiousness, but systems do "teach" that culture to some extent.

But the basic structure of making the game to be about characters is super simple. Have players come up with concept themes and backstories for characters, then the GM mines those for content of the game. People have done this forever in one way or another. Usually it is just one ingredient among many, but of course one can easily make it the main ingredient if one wants. Personally I prefer a mix of more personal and more external stories. Like in a TV shows some episodes are more character centric and some more external issue centric.

I know their background, and whilst interesting, their working class plight didn't much feature, as they were our antagonists from the get go, so we were not predisposition to be very sympathetic towards them. Though my character, who is of the lowest class of our team, was initially most positive towards them.

There's a couple good ways to do this - I always enjoyed HeroQuest's, write a 100-word story about your character that can be translated into "Keywords" (skills really) that can be rolled against to invoke a passion (fear, hatred, love etc) when a character's action may be in doubt, or to merely guide direction of actions/roleplay during the normal course of play. Using a roll need not be done by the GM/player to "force" a character's behavior, only used when guidance is needed.

Pendragon also uses opposed passions (Honest - Deceitful, Prudent - Reckless) in a similar manner.

Now, the deeper relationships like ("Deep desire to promote freedom and justice after seeing his family sold into slavery by the empire") can also be translated in this way to Passions - Hatred (Slavery), Love (Family), Love (Freedom), Hate (Injustice), Hate (Empire) that can be used when needed. The GM or narrative group) can also draw on these deep desires as themes as part of adventures or even as an overall theme. In our last RQ game , one player's father had disappeared mysteriously when he was young, and his character's very reason for adventuring was to discover what had happened to his father -- and that most definitely shaped the campaign we played, though not exclusively.

I didn't say game becomes turtley and cautious. I said D&D characters are more eager to resolve things with violence, as getting hurt is less serious business in that game. In Blades we don't usually storm in guns blazing, we try to approach things with stealth and guile when possible. Though of course that's not always an option. And it actually is something I like about the game. Risks feel more real, like you were a normal human instead of an invincible superhero.

And yeah, perhaps healing isn't super slow, but it is slower. It is serious resource sink that you must burn your precious downtime activities on and being hurt causes actual penalties. And bear in mind, we're pretty early stages of this game, so our gang doesn't have a lot of resources.

I do think D&D wouldn't be hurt by making the game a bit less superheroic (though that is also part of the charm). Making healing slower and less easy is one way that can be done.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk about that. Maybe it was just a weird thing and that isn't happening in your home game (where players are forgetting the name of their primary Gang Enemy that also happens to be their actual former trade in the city...and is the foundational reason for their current status). Maybe everyone knows and cares about the Lampblacks and their instantiation in your game is the GM "Bringing Duskvol to Life." Maybe people have taken sides on the dramatic needs of the former lamplighters guild. Maybe they just don't care about the labor class concerns or the proliferation of dangerous electroplasmic devices. Who knows.

Oh and about this. I want to reiterate (third time, I think) that wen I say that I don't think everything needs to be about conflict and casual conflict free roleplay has purpose, I of course don't mean that there should be no conflict and that I wouldn't love conflict ridden in-character roleplay. I do, that's the best! But the casual, explorative roleplay has its purpose. It adds richness and creates emotional connections so that when the conflict occurs, it has more impact. Like here if we want the players to care about the plight of the working class people dispossessed by industrialisation, it is one thing to read a sentence about it happening from a book, and quite another to interact in-character with actual people (well, actual imaginary people) whose lives have been affected and see their troubles. That personal connection is what makes it real and gives it emotional weight.

 

[FrogReaver]

You say this as if it is surprising.

If, in normal D&D, a player declares, "My character is going to swim to shore," when the character is currently in a stone-floored dungeon room with no water or other liquid to swim through, a rational GM isn't going to ask for an Athletics check to see if they successfully swim. The action declaration doesn't make sense in the situation currently established - this is essentially the same.

Character-driven play does not mean that the character can expect to suddenly act contrary to the fiction currently established. Some work may be necessary to change the fiction first.

So in past discussions such DM authority seemed to be thought of as anthema to narrative style play.

That’s where the surprise came in.

 

[pemerton]

If the assemblage changes the story changes

In that case the story is not supervening on the assemblage: the relationship is closer to one of identity.

But in ergodic literature, it's not true that changing the assemblage changes the story. Eg I can take different paths through a choose your own adventure book and still have the same story revealed.

you're excluding players from the assemblage. Remember they are author and audience. They're part of the play.

Yes I am. Players aren't part of any assemblage on which any story supervenes, or by which any story is constituted.

Also, I think it's impossible, or close to impossible, for the author of ergodic literature to also be the audience. Because if you are author, you don't need to "assemble" the story in any ergodic fashion. You know what you have authored.

In any event, I think all these notions have extremely limited utility for the RPG case.

It might make sense to talk about a "ludonarrative" in the case of 4e D&D combat, which - by mechanical design - generates a heroic rally in play. But the stories that I report when I talk about my RPGing - eg Aedhros encountering Thoth, or Golin killing Megloss after Megloss killed Gerda after Gerda nearly killed Fea-bella after Fea-bella confronted Gerda after Gerda stole Fea-bella's Elfstone - are not "ludonarratives". They are just stories, which were created by me and my friends in the course of RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

the most important takeaway her is that this reveals the structure which makes this sort of game more of an exercise of collaborative storytelling and less about immersing to the viewpoint of the character. It really is the player haggling with the GM about storybeats, rather than the character haggling with the duke about a deal. The former pair can agree that the duke's daughter will not be killed by unknown third party before the meeting, the latter cannot.

You characterisation is not remotely my experience of play.

The GM in AD&D can't refuse the fighter who builds a castle their little army. Or a 4th level paladin who prays, their warhorse. That doesn't make it "haggling over story beats". It just means that there are rules of the game that limit what the GM is permitted to say about what happens next.

Whether or not the GM's hitherto-unrevealed prep can entail outcomes that contradict what the player wants to obtain via their successful action is a further question of rules and procedures. ( @thefutilist posted an illustration upthread.) But what permissions the GM enjoys has nothing to do with what imaginary people do or don't have the causal power to do. I mean, the imaginary gods of the typical fantasy world probably have the power to snuff out the life of a PC on a whim, but that doesn't mean that (say) the rules of AD&D permit a GM to just declare a PC dead because a god has so willed it.

 

[FrogReaver]

So yes, obviously if you come from culture where cautious play is very prevalent, and then get into a game that diminishes or prevents that, it feels like big shift. But if you didn't have the issue in the first place, then you really are not gonna notice the impact.

Not having that issue sounds applicable to my groups too. When I first started to rpg I was extremely cautious, but our group hasn’t been that way in a long time. If anything we might be not cautious enough - and that’s primarily in d&d 5e.

Maybe my d&d game has more narrative elements than traditionally thought. Like we aren’t greatly big on character backgrounds driving play - but what players start to establish in play about their characters that does tend to drive play hard.

Like our great old one warlock in 5e d&d wanted to try and start a cult. From there on his cult became a big part of the fiction. It grew, did lots of culty things and even needed set back on the right path when entrusted leadership was leading it somewhat off path. It was far more than ‘im wearing a blue shirt kind of flavor’ but we never battled the cult in direct combat either.

Or take my character a tempest cleric. I was interested in taking the weather as omens. (Sometimes even using augury for aid and sometimes making it up myself). Before this character weather conditions were rarely ever brought up. But because I drove that the dm started including it. Can I point to any big thing doing this drove me or the party toward? No, but fictionally it did start to impact all the players decision making process about whether to take a certain course of action now. Sometimes the dm would even intentionally signal good sign or bad sign by changing weather conditions, etc.

Maybe I should ask the thread directly, are these examples of player driven, narrative elements in my 5e d&d games?

Stuff like this is not untypical of our games.

And maybe if this is viewed as fairly player driven/narrative it explains why we don’t see such a huge difference in our d&d games and more narrative games.