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

[Neonchameleon]

The latter is what I would call simulationistic. But is any game that isn't simulationistic necessarily narrativistic? I don't think so.

I'd say that classic D&D mechanics such as "consequence free hit points" and "hard bounded classes" are very much neither. There are several reasons for G being one of Edwards three categories.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i admit i don't have a ton of experience with narrative games, most of what i do have comes from some of the games the McElroys have dipped into, but i'd say one of the core defining features of a narrative game is that it doesn't care so much about the nitty-gritty and 'how we got here' mechanics of actions and more focuses on broad themes of characters and the intent of actions alongside success or failure and the consequences thereof.

by 'how we got here' mechanics i mean having/explaining having things before you can use them, your wizard needing to know fire bolt rather than just being able to conjour fire with their magic for example, or if you wanted to pick a locked door you'd be expected to have thieves tools, or something on you that you could justify the attempt like a dagger, in a narrative game you'd just have to be a rogue and thus it makes sense you'd have the tools to pick the door, or use some resource or mechanics to pull the lockpicks out of thin air in a 'here's something i prepared earlier' fashion, how'd you get them? it doesn't matter, you have them now and the important part is what happens when you attempt to pick the lock.

 

[SteveC]

This is shaping up to be a typical Narrative rpg thread. There isn't a consistent definition of what a narrative rpg even is. We go back to Ron Edwards' exercise in academic discussion and find that games calling themselves Narrative rpgs don't fit that definition. Somehow, even decades later, we treat what Ron did as being objectively true. It's just a theory, and one I disagree with. D&D's playstyle is something he called out, for instance as being actively bad.

There are a ton of popular rpgs that talk about being Narrative games let's let them have that definition. Fate, PbtA, Forged in the Dark all have that as a design goal and they are casting a long shadow on other games design. The more recent Fabula Ultima is influenced by a lot of those games. And Daggerheart is as well.

You can play just about any rpg as a Narrative game. You certainly can play D&D that way. Some games just have more built-in tools to bring it to the front of the house. If you remember the 100+ page discussion on Backgrounds in D&D, a lot of the posters were saying certain Backgrounds had Narrative effect. And there was a pretty sizable backlash against that.

With the 1.3 Daggerheart playtest, you see a lot more discussion of this style of play. I expect we'll see more of this going forward to make it more of an explicit part of the game. What I'd really like to see is more of how the players can work to shape the Fiction with mechanics, for instance. There are very decent rules elements on how the GM and random rolls can do that already, and there's some of it in character abilities. Let's do more of that, please!

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is shaping up to be a typical Narrative rpg thread. There isn't a consistent definition of what a narrative rpg even is. We go back to Ron Edwards' exercise in academic discussion and find that games calling themselves Narrative rpgs don't fit that definition. Somehow, even decades later, we treat what Ron did as being objectively true. It's just a theory, and one I disagree with. D&D's playstyle is something he called out, for instance as being actively bad.

Did he? Because my read of him was that he was trying to rehabilitate D&D for his audience - under the Gamist banner. What he normally called out as bad was White Wolf/Storyteller.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did he? Because my read of him was that he was trying to rehabilitate D&D for his audience - under the Gamist banner. What he normally called out as bad was White Wolf/Storyteller.

Calling out anything people are enjoying is a discreditable thing to do.

 

[SteveC]

Did he? Because my read of him was that he was trying to rehabilitate D&D for his audience - under the Gamist banner. What he normally called out as bad was White Wolf/Storyteller.

He used the term "brain damaged". So I was an Internet Warrior back in those days and said some rather uncharitable things in response. I think the discussion was the first time I ever heard the phrase "badwrongfun." Since then I even picked up Ron's take on Champions a few years ago to see what his game design looked like, so I'm not mad anymore but it was a rough exchange.

 

[Neonchameleon]

He used the term "brain damaged".

To refer to Storyteller. I'm not calling him a good or a polite person -just saying he wasn't going after D&D.

 

[kenada]

Isn't this is just nit-picky semantic pedantry though? (Which I appreciate to certain degree.) But surely it is clear that even though people might not use the exact same word ending they are attempting to refer to the same thing?

It seems like a necessary distinction in light of complaints that “narrative” is being redefined from its plain meaning in a harmful way. The word used is similar, but it’s not that word. I think it helps avoid confusion by preferring “Story Now” to “narrativism”, which I believe many others here who discuss these games also prefer to use.

 

[SteveC]

To refer to Storyteller. I'm not calling him a good or a polite person -just saying he wasn't going after D&D.

I'm not sure about that. I had quite a few discussions on Usenet about this that used language Eric's Grandmother would not have approved of. Ron was not a fan of old-school D&D. I did a quick search on it, and the brain damage has been the subject of a lot of discussions, including on Enworld.

 

[SteveC]

Isn't this is just nit-picky semantic pedantry though? (Which I appreciate to certain degree.) But surely it is clear that even though people might not use the exact same word ending they are attempting to refer to the same thing?

I wanted to circle back to this post and say how much I agree with it. Both enjoying the pedantry and questioning how useful it is.

If you look at games that tell us they are Narrative in nature, they talk about what that means to them. I was just looking at Blades in the Dark and it has a pretty standard discussion about the Fiction, and how the game is a Conversation, and how the GM, the players, and randomness will all play a roll in shaping that Fiction.

That's the working definition I see games using right now and I see Daggerheart as being in that same sphere. I think it still has a ways to go to get there, but it is headed there. Modern Narrative games aren't using the same definition of "Narrativism" or John Kim's "Dramatism" and I think that most people playing RPGs now have never really heard the older discussion. Now I (and other Enworld posters) are old, so we know about it. But does that discussion really help?