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

[SteveC]

Ironically I would say that the need to go after him and things he said elsewhere is a textbook example of ad hominem (especially when it involves misrepresentation of what he said) and throws objections to his theses into doubt.

As someone involved with the discussion (in a very minor way), I can tell you that Ron said a lot of bad things about D&D. Vampire, and the World of Darkness were not my thing, so I didn't argue on that front at all. He said a lot of disparaging things about a ton of different games. He had a definite perspective on what gaming was and should be. And I disagreed with it. With swearing.

But times have changed. I don't hold anything against him (other than not particularly liking Champions Now).

What I am saying is that the Narrative RPGs we are seeing today aren't based on the assumptions that Ron had. PbtA and Forged in the Dark games call themselves Narrative and explain what they mean by that. I think that outside of a place like Enworld which trends as old, not many people have even heard of Ron Edwards and his theory. If you came onboard D&D during 5E I don't think there's any reason you would know who he is.

Ron's interesting to read as an academic. I didn't place my worldview around what he wrote at the time, and I think that other people have made much more interesting strides in RPG theory since then. If there are almost no RPGs that would qualify as Narrativist, but plenty that count themselves as Narrative, the definition has changed. And it is just muddling the water to try and make them fit into a theory that they weren't designed to fit.

 

[Celebrim]

If my understanding of Story Now is correct, it allows players to add things to the game that had not previously been established as existing. This would be contrary to a simulationist approach.

Not exactly. Story Now requires that each scene be framed as an act in a previously existing conflict that tests the stakes of that conflict, where initial conflicts are introduced by the players and then tested, and that the resolution of the conflict is always a matter of player choice. Introducing new elements to the fiction is a tangential concept.

In other words, Story Now requires whomever is responsible for framing scenes to tailor that scene to the conflict that has been signaled by the player. Cut to the chase. Let's have the story the player wants now. See also "play to find out what happens".

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

It is true that D&D and any other trad game will encourage "safe" tactical play where you minimize risks, but on the other hand that doesn't mean that what actually happens in play is safe tactical play where the players are minimizing risk. Players aren't perfect dispassionate decision-making machine and in real life "hilarity ensues" with rash actions, over complicated plans,

Given how much "stupidity" players will get up to on their own without any mechanism to guide it other than imperfect information, I wonder whether a system that strongly encouraged players to take rash action or to fail spectacularly wouldn't overcompensate and create something that is a parody of a parody rather than a natural story.

I think the big problem that D&D has isn't that it doesn't have particular mechanics, but that the system itself punishes stupidity. D&D would be more appropriate if you could more easily avoid death as a consequence of doing something stupid.

I think the simplest way to adapt D&D for AT would be some kind of modification to how lethal the system is. You should give characters some way to avoid death if they're knocked out so that death is much less likely and capture is more likely.

 

[Celebrim]

I think the big problem that D&D has isn't that it doesn't have particular mechanics, but that the system itself punishes stupidity. D&D would be more appropriate if you could more easily avoid death as a consequence of doing something stupid.

I think the simplest way to adapt D&D for AT would be some kind of modification to how lethal the system is. You should give characters some way to avoid death if they're knocked out so that death is much less likely and capture is more likely.

If you were talking about 1e AD&D I'd be sympathetic to your argument here, but in terms of 5e D&D (a subject I'm not an expert on) a lot of the complaints I hear coming out of the system is just how ridiculously hard it is to kill anyone in the system. And D&D in general has always been just a raise dead spell away from making death not have as much consequence as you'd think.

But I agree that if you want to mimic a cartoonish aesthetic you have a system where a character can get toasted and thus out of play for the rest of the scene perhaps, but then are alright again at the beginning of the next scene - albeit perhaps captured and needing to plan a daring escape. Part of this though is just a table agreement for everyone not to be ruthless and bloodyminded.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think the big problem that D&D has isn't that it doesn't have particular mechanics, but that the system itself punishes stupidity. D&D would be more appropriate if you could more easily avoid death as a consequence of doing something stupid.

Bwuh? D&D has one of the least consequential injury rules in any RPG I have ever played this side of Toon. In most RPGs when you get hurt you get injured and there is a death spiral as you get less competent. Also in most RPGs injury doesn't only get in the way it takes longer to recover than it does from an athletic event (and yes, AD&D fans, one month is about the length of time it takes to recover from a marathon). Also in most RPGs I've played there aren't nearly so many routes to escape death as there are in D&D.

D&D is not a lethal system. It is, however, a system where pretty much the only meaningful mechanical consequence you can't simply shake off is death.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If my understanding of Story Now is correct, it allows players to add things to the game that had not previously been established as existing. This would be contrary to a simulationist approach.

However, I don’t think a narrative game is necessarily Story Now (although it certainly can be). So a game can be both narrative and simulationist.

That's an interesting idea. Can you give me an example? And preferably not genre simulationist; that almost never what I mean by the term.

 

[TwoSix]

If you were talking about 1e AD&D I'd be sympathetic to your argument here, but in terms of 5e D&D (a subject I'm not an expert on) a lot of the complaints I hear coming out of the system is just how ridiculously hard it is to kill anyone in the system. And D&D in general has always been just a raise dead spell away from making death not have as much consequence as you'd think.

This is definitely true. I've been actively trying to get my 5e character killed for the past dozen sessions, without being too obvious about it, and it just doesn't happen. The character has dropped to 0 hit points at least 10 times, and I've had one revivify and one raise dead to keep the character going. Now that we're 10th level with a cleric, realistically the character would need a disintegrate spell or something like the Void card in the deck of many things to not keep going.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hot take here, but DW isn't a nar game and anyone that thinks it is just fooling themselves. There is really anything about the game that more empowers you to play "story now" than D&D.

Yeah, I'm calling you on this one. Dungeon World, a PbtA-based game, is a hack of Apocalypse World, and @pemerton literally just quoted the text from AW 1e which states unequivocally that it is exactly that. Here it is, in post #43

You all go on and on about 'jargon', and how much you all 'hate it', and then you do this, try to write your own versions of reality by simply changing the meanings of words to suite you. That doesn't fly! DW is a Narrativist style RPG, that is it is built around the concept of a player-driven style in which a narrative unfolds which has the player characters as the protagonists - in the true sense of the word.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The fiction does not matter in resolution. It's quite possible to play D&D as a skirmish game without any roleplay, and many people do. People roleplay because they enjoy roleplaying, not because it helps them win the battle.

This is nonsense at multiple levels. First of all, D&D is not simply an endless skirmish game of battle after battle with nothing in between. Certainly playing it that way would - at best - represent an extreme and idiosyncratic style of play. But EVEN THEN the fiction matters a whole lot! 5e (and AD&D before it) don't even have exact concepts of positioning and such, all of that is fiction. Highly fiction-dependent actions are always on the table, like "I jump onto the Dragon's back!" and they CANNOT be fully resolved without recourse to said fiction! Beyond THAT even, it is entirely possible, and common, for players to select tactics and individual opponents, initiate specific moves, etc. for reasons who's motivation is entirely rooted in fiction! This is BUILT INTO THE GAME. I mean, sure you can ignore the RP implications of being a Paladin and NOT go challenge the Black Knight to single combat, but that is EXACTLY the sort of thing the game intends!

No. I'm a scientist, I don't believe anything. Newton was wrong, although this theories are useful within a limited set of parameters. Einstein was also wrong, but unlike Newton he was wise enough to admit it. Gravitation is a work in progress, we are a long way from a definitive answer.

OK, so does that mean when NASA uses Newton's methods to calculate the trajectories of spacecraft that they're wrong? No, not unless such craft fly deep into a very large gravity well, or we're interested in very minor relativistic effects (they do become relevant for GPS for instance). Just because a theory is incomplete does not make it WRONG or useless. It is perfectly reasonable to point out the limits of something, but that isn't the same as throwing it out. Nobody has thrown out Newton!

I agree absolutely. It can be useful when seen in it's correct light. But when the 20 year old flawed thesis starts to be cited as proof, then it becomes more of a problem than a solution.

All anyone stated was that it was describing things about specific games that we play, and that we understand the play of. You aren't attacking a 'proof' of anything, you are attacking the validity of our lived experiences.

F = Ma is still useful, even though it is not TRUE. But if you try to use it in the wrong circumstances, it can lead to catastrophic error.

Then please explain where the flaw lies in the theory which was used as the basis of writing Apocalypse World and where the error is. Please be specific enough to have a meaningful discussion of those specifics, because details matter. I mean, if I use Newton to calculate the orbit of Mercury, yes, there's an error, but it is a SMALL error and the results are still quite useful in general, details matter!

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is nonsense at multiple levels. First of all, D&D is not simply an endless skirmish game of battle after battle with nothing in between. Certainly playing it that way would - at best - represent an extreme and idiosyncratic style of play. But EVEN THEN the fiction matters a whole lot! 5e (and AD&D before it) don't even have exact concepts of positioning and such, all of that is fiction. Highly fiction-dependent actions are always on the table, like "I jump onto the Dragon's back!" and they CANNOT be fully resolved without recourse to said fiction! Beyond THAT even, it is entirely possible, and common, for players to select tactics and individual opponents, initiate specific moves, etc. for reasons who's motivation is entirely rooted in fiction! This is BUILT INTO THE GAME. I mean, sure you can ignore the RP implications of being a Paladin and NOT go challenge the Black Knight to single combat, but that is EXACTLY the sort of thing the game intends!

OK, so does that mean when NASA uses Newton's methods to calculate the trajectories of spacecraft that they're wrong? No, not unless such craft fly deep into a very large gravity well, or we're interested in very minor relativistic effects (they do become relevant for GPS for instance). Just because a theory is incomplete does not make it WRONG or useless. It is perfectly reasonable to point out the limits of something, but that isn't the same as throwing it out. Nobody has thrown out Newton!

All anyone stated was that it was describing things about specific games that we play, and that we understand the play of. You aren't attacking a 'proof' of anything, you are attacking the validity of our lived experiences.

Then please explain where the flaw lies in the theory which was used as the basis of writing Apocalypse World and where the error is. Please be specific enough to have a meaningful discussion of those specifics, because details matter. I mean, if I use Newton to calculate the orbit of Mercury, yes, there's an error, but it is a SMALL error and the results are still quite useful in general, details matter!

The funny thing is, after we rejected 4e as our regular RPG experience after about a year or so of play, a couple of friends and I used the system exactly as a series of context-less arena fights, for about six more months. It's a lot of fun that way, and it sidesteps all of our complaints about the game.