D&D (2024) Ways to turn 5e into a Story Now game (+)

[Manbearcat]

@Manbearcat

I read your post, in relation to mine, as (i) emphasising that framing is fairly straightforward, provided you're wanting to frame "story now" style and work with the players on that, and (ii) extending my point about "handling this in a mostly informal way" to cover not only resource recovery, but also resource deployment and consequence narration.

And to me that makes sense. It fits with how I approached AD&D, and Rolemaster, when I was using them for broadly vanilla narrativist play.

This might work best between levels 3 and (say) 8. At higher levels, the scope/power of D&D magic might push things closer to either player-side railroading, or to GM-side railroading in response.

Do you want a Leo Toast or a Mountain Man w/ Whiskey Head Nod?

 

[Manbearcat]

@Manbearcat

I read your post, in relation to mine, as (i) emphasising that framing is fairly straightforward, provided you're wanting to frame "story now" style and work with the players on that, and (ii) extending my point about "handling this in a mostly informal way" to cover not only resource recovery, but also resource deployment and consequence narration.

And to me that makes sense. It fits with how I approached AD&D, and Rolemaster, when I was using them for broadly vanilla narrativist play.

This might work best between levels 3 and (say) 8. At higher levels, the scope/power of D&D magic might push things closer to either player-side railroading, or to GM-side railroading in response.

But more seriously, I actually think this sort of project (where the system fights you) is a good idea because it can help you and the players focus on the fundamentals of GMing and playing a Story Now game. Those fundamentals of orientation of communication of discipline and constraint over content generation and management (in PC building, in situation-framing, in decision-space management and action declaration, in consequence-handling, in everyone being curious and "holding on lightly", in players being curious about other player's characters and looking forward to their on-screen time and moves made)? They don't just materialize out of nowhere. You've got to onboard them mentally and socially and keep working at it until the chemistry (internal and external) clicks.

So I think its a good project (I've kind of changed my mind on this over the years).

BookTenTiger gets a Leo Toast as well (I know you're jealous...you though I saved Leo only for you).