Advice for new "story now" GMs

[Lanefan]

Additionally, and I believe you disagree with this stance, but I believe System Matters.

You're right in that I largely do disagree with that stance, mostly because when I look at an RPG system my first (and maybe only) thought is whether I can kitbash it into doing what I'd want it to do. Big-tent systems have an advantage here as they're already intended to be somewhat flexible, but I've found - mostly through converting adventures from other systems to run in my own game - even there some are much more flexible than others.

I would far rather just learn one system really well and then make it work for whatever I need than learn a multitude of systems bespoke to each play style.

If you're not a kitbasher and instead just want to pretty much use games as written, then System Matters clearly makes sense.

 

[pemerton]

The thing is, and as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, most of what's in the OP is IMO very good general advice for any GM regardless of style or game type. My questions, and I suppose pushback to a point, revolve around why that advice is only - or only seems to be - intended for or directed at this one specific style, and by extension why that one specific style is seemingly thus being placed above others.

The advice is for "story now" GMing. This is why it contradicts your own preferred approach, as has come through in multiple posts over the past few pages.

If you want to start a thread on advice for GMs who want to use secret GM timelines to control the flow and thematics of ingame events, nothing is stopping you doing that.

 

[Manbearcat]

You're right in that I largely do disagree with that stance, mostly because when I look at an RPG system my first (and maybe only) thought is whether I can kitbash it into doing what I'd want it to do. Big-tent systems have an advantage here as they're already intended to be somewhat flexible, but I've found - mostly through converting adventures from other systems to run in my own game - even there some are much more flexible than others.

I would far rather just learn one system really well and then make it work for whatever I need than learn a multitude of systems bespoke to each play style.

If you're not a kitbasher and instead just want to pretty much use games as written, then System Matters clearly makes sense.

Lanefan, this position makes no sense. I’ve seen it so, so many times on here and every time I see it I just can’t understand what is happening in the gears of someone’s mind to produce this, rubber stamp it, then send it out in the world.

System Matters isn’t some indie, hippie dippie puffery that reflexively needs to be pushed back against “because culture war.” It’s an organizing principle for most everything that just so happens to apply exactly to TTRPGs. And what you’ve written above (and have written before) is an exact expression of System Matters!

Let’s review:

* System Doesn’t Matter!

* I don’t like this aspect of this game’s engine! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!

* I’m going to sub out this aspect of this game’s system and bolt in/on my own widget/process! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!

* Voila! Now the game engine works the way I want with my new widget/process in place! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!


What in the world? How does that follow? Sub out TTRPGs and do the same exercise with virtually anything else and see if the latter sentence follows from the former.

System obviously matters and so says the person expressing the above!

 

[kenada]

The thing is, and as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, most of what's in the OP is IMO very good general advice for any GM regardless of style or game type. My questions, and I suppose pushback to a point, revolve around why that advice is only - or only seems to be - intended for or directed at this one specific style, and by extension why that one specific style is seemingly thus being placed above others.

I don’t think the intent is to exclude other styles but to provide advice in a certain context. People might feel unsure about running Story Now games. Knowing that some common techniques are still useful (perhaps with certain considerations or restraints) might help remove a barrier to running those games. It also helps clarify which common advice is useful because some is definitely going to be self-defeating or undermine your priorities.

 

[Lanefan]

Lanefan, this position makes no sense. I’ve seen it so, so many times on here and every time I see it I just can’t understand what is happening in the gears of someone’s mind to produce this, rubber stamp it, then send it out in the world.

System Matters isn’t some indie, hippie dippie puffery that reflexively needs to be pushed back against “because culture war.” It’s an organizing principle for most everything that just so happens to apply exactly to TTRPGs. And what you’ve written above (and have written before) is an exact expression of System Matters!

Let’s review:

* System Doesn’t Matter!

* I don’t like this aspect of this game’s engine! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!

* I’m going to sub out this aspect of this game’s system and bolt in/on my own widget/process! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!

* Voila! Now the game engine works the way I want with my new widget/process in place! So System Doesn’t Matter (huh?)!

Put that way, I see what you mean and understand why what I say appears confusing.

So how, then, should I phrase the idea that having/learning a different system for each thing doesn't matter when one can instead make one already-known system more or less do it all through selective kitbashing?

Because that's how I interpret the phrase System Matters when used in these discussions - that one is expected and encouraged to buy and learn a whole new system for each different style or type or milieu of game one wants to play even while staying in the medieval-fantasy realm. That's what I push back against, that and the concept of RPG rule systems being so tightly designed that they don't allow for uses other than exactly that for which they were intended.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're right in that I largely do disagree with that stance, mostly because when I look at an RPG system my first (and maybe only) thought is whether I can kitbash it into doing what I'd want it to do. Big-tent systems have an advantage here as they're already intended to be somewhat flexible, but I've found - mostly through converting adventures from other systems to run in my own game - even there some are much more flexible than others.

The problem is, the stance of the game towards PROCESS, who gets to say what, how, when, is baked into every subsystem in the game. Its not something you can 'kitbash' for. Anyone can graft another subsystem onto a game, or remove one, or rewrite all or parts of one, etc. What you CANNOT do, in any significant sense, is to reconstruct 5e (for example) as a narrativist game. It just ISN'T.

Nor, from my perspective are these trad systems, particularly 5e, all that 'big tent'. 5e had the chance to simply leave in place many of the narrativist innovations of 4e. Instead we were literally hurled out of the tent on our asses! I wouldn't say that reflects on other RPGs in any sense, but here I am... Honestly I can't blame them, it just isn't possible to revamp the core level of how the game is structured, from a play perspective, and not end up with a new game.

I would far rather just learn one system really well and then make it work for whatever I need than learn a multitude of systems bespoke to each play style.

But, from my perspective, your play is a pretty narrow slice of RPG play, so its not surprising.

If you're not a kitbasher and instead just want to pretty much use games as written, then System Matters clearly makes sense.

I've played D&D since it was 3 little brown books and called "Dungeons & Dragons", nobody needs to explain to me about 'kit bashing' etc. Heck, when I was 12 and I couldn't get a copy of the rules, I just wrote my own. This is not about whether you can or will adapt games, its about there's fundamental core differences between these types of games.

Now, like 4e is based on 3e, you can go from trad to narrativist with a rewrite and keep a lot of elements, if you are not worried too much about changing what they do, why, and how. But they are pretty different, and clearly 3e fans noticed that!

So, again, advice, use a system that is intended for what you want to do. I'd rather adapt a narrativist system like a PbtA to an entirely new genre than try to force D&D to do narrativist style play.

 

[kenada]

Because that's how I interpret the phrase System Matters when used in these discussions - that one is expected and encouraged to buy and learn a whole new system for each different style or type or milieu of game one wants to play even while staying in the medieval-fantasy realm. That's what I push back against, that and the concept of RPG rule systems being so tightly designed that they don't allow for uses other than exactly that for which they were intended.

If you already understand Story Now and know what good play should look like, you can kitbash a game to do it. There have been examples posted in this thread of just that (e.g., @pemerton has mentioned classic Traveller and Rolemaster). The reason why people are encouraged to buy and learn new games, especially if they’re not familiar with Story Now, is because those games have done the work already of making a game supporting that agenda.

That’s also where the advice of following the game’s rules applies. If you apply traditional intuition to a Story Now game, you’re very likely going to end up running a traditional campaign instead of a Story Now one. It’s like trying to run everything as as a dungeon crawl even when the PCs are just trying to buy supplies or negotiate an alliance with a new faction. It might work, but it’s probably not going to provide the expected experience.

 

[pemerton]

From here and here:

When a person engages in role-playing, or prepares to do so, he or she relies on imagining and utilizing the following: Character, System, Setting, Situation, and Color.

• Character: a fictional person or entity.
• System: a means by which in-game events are determined to occur.
• Setting: where the character is, in the broadest sense (including history as well as location).
• Situation: a problem or circumstance faced by the character.
• Color: any details or illustrations or nuances that provide atmosphere.

At the most basic level, these are what the role-playing experience is "about," but to be more precise, these are the things which must be imagined by the real people. In this sense, saying "system" means "imagining events to be occurring." . . .

The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the attention given the imagined elements, is Exploration. Initially, it is an individual concern, although it will move into the social, communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements becomes an issue of its own. . . .

Exploration means "shared imaginings." The sharing has to be explicit and agreed upon, usually through the spoken word although any form of communication counts. The imaginings have to be the subject that is shared, which is why me reading aloud to my wife does not constitute Exploration. We are independently imagining based on the spoken word, but neither she nor I is telling the other what we imagine from that point. Exploration means that such communication is occurring.

The five elements of Exploration are interdependent: Character + Setting make Situation, System permits Situation to "move," and Color affects all the others. This concept applies only to the imaginary causes among the elements; the real people's actual priority or cause among these things, in social and creative terms, varies widely.​

To say that "system matters" is, I think, to say one, or both, of two things:

(1) The way a group of RPGers arrange the five elements of exploration in their RPGing makes a meaningful difference to the play experience. In this thread I've given examples of this, by looking at different ways that setting, character and situation can be related within "story now" RPGing.

(2) The means by which in-game events are determined to occur - or to put it another way, the means during play by which shared imaginings are established - has a profound impact on the RPG experience. (This second meaning is what is meant in this fairly well-known essay.)​

I think (2) is so obvious that it barely needs defending. I mean, here's one way of establishing shared imaginings during RPG: one (authoritative) participants tells the others what to imagine. Here's another way: two participants suggest mutually excusive possibilities, and dice off to determine which it is that everyone is required to imagine. It seems self-evident that these are different RPG experiences.

My posts in this thread have mostly addressed GMing techniques useful for "story now" RPGing in a system-agnostic way. But there is certainly scope to talk about what features of systems will or won't support "story now" play.

 

[pemerton]

If you already understand Story Now and know what good play should look like, you can kitbash a game to do it. There have been examples posted in this thread of just that (e.g., @pemerton has mentioned classic Traveller and Rolemaster).

Within limits.

To go back to something I've mentioned many times, Classic Traveller has no method for resolving action declarations pertaining to on-world exploration or travel other than via GM-authored map-and-key. And for reasons already covered upthread, this is not a very good fit for "story now" RPGing. One possibility would be to write a new sub-system, perhaps modelled on the Dungeon World perilous journey move: I think it might take some work to get that right, to make it fit with other aspects of the game like Vehicle skills, various technical skills relevant to maintenance and repair, etc. (One reason the interstellar jump rules don't have the problem that on-world exploration has is because (i) all jumps take a week regardless of distance, and (ii) once a jump is successful, there is no chance of "getting lost", and (iii) there are no "wilderness" encounters while in jump space. In other words, the jump resolution subystems operate, overall, within a closed resolution context quite different from onworld activities.)

My solution has been to not resolve onworld exploration, and just to treat it as part of framing and colour. (This doesn't make vehicle skill useless; it still matters in chases and evasion.)

 

[kenada]

Within limits.

To go back to something I've mentioned many times, Classic Traveller has no method for resolving action declarations pertaining to on-world exploration or travel other than via GM-authored map-and-key. And for reasons already covered upthread, this is not a very good fit for "story now" RPGing. One possibility would be to write a new sub-system, perhaps modelled on the Dungeon World perilous journey move: I think it might take some work to get that right, to make it fit with other aspects of the game like Vehicle skills, various technical skills relevant to maintenance and repair, etc. (One reason the interstellar jump rules don't have the problem that on-world exploration has is because (i) all jumps take a week regardless of distance, and (ii) once a jump is successful, there is no chance of "getting lost", and (iii) there are no "wilderness" encounters while in jump space. In other words, the jump resolution subystems operate, overall, within a closed resolution context quite different from onworld activities.)

My solution has been to not resolve onworld exploration, and just to treat it as part of framing and colour. (This doesn't make vehicle skill useless; it still matters in chases and evasion.)

So what you’re saying is it could be done if you kitbash a functioning subsystem from another game onto Traveller, but you need to understand what good Story Now play looks like to do it properly.

I’d bet the expedition stuff @Manbearcat does in his games would probably work for on-world exploration (based on your description of it as map-and-key). I also expect a large part of why that works is he has a robust model of what good Story Now play looks like and how to operationalize it in play.

Anyway, I wasn’t trying to say this was a best practice or good idea —just that it’s possible.