"Narrative Options" mechanical?

[MJS]

Hello Good People

it was suggested to me, in the Narrative Option thread, to start another for the questioning of the premise - so here we are. I had chimed in, with a few others, that I truly do not see the problem at all.
My background: Mentzer Red Box kid who quickly moved on to the venerable 1E. It was in 1E where my friends and I made the most system changes. My buddy and I rewrote the UA Barbarian to something we preferred, I wrote tournaments, played a ton of RIFTS, 2E. My 3x mechanic knowledge is mostly from Bioware PC titles, as the old group went off and had families and whatnot. I've played some PF also and find it very familiar in a good way - all the colorful character options I'd simply allowed in 1E are fully flowered in modern systems, and I love that.

Ok, that out of the way - I am first off a bit disturbed by the language itself - "narrative control/options". IMO nobody, not even DM, has narrative control of a D&D game, and indeed that is, to me, a defining characteristic. The players play, the DM referees and plays with them, but NO ONE is driving the bus. That's the magic.

I keep hearing that fighters, poor fighters, have nothing to do. We've been hearing that, of course, for decades, and to me it seems that the fighter class "cause" is the rallying cry of munchkinism, of video gamey mechanics that make no sense in RPGing. To me, you have to describe your actions. MMORPG mechanics circumvent all of that. Is truly an endless cycle - the player wants more narrative options, which is not attainable through mechanics.
For instance, in the other thread it is suggested to have an "its not there" card, so non spellcasters can make things go poof, for some reason. Nothing personal, but I think that might be the worst idea ever.

If spellcasters are totally dominating the game, as a DM, I will... Hurt them...in a good way of course. If theyre scribing reams of scrolls is problematic, make it harder. Make them only scribable on a full moon, or something. But even so, I simply do not equate a characters ability to interact with the gameworld with spells or skills.

I cant even tell you how many times a fighter altered the game with something they did or said. My feeling is that the fighter class may be the most challenging in the game to play *interestingly*, but a lack of player ability is not a good reason to pile on mechanical options. There is no end to it, and the "its not there" card idea is the crystallization of all that. Its almost anti-imagination.

What say you?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Ok, that out of the way - I am first off a bit disturbed by the language itself - "narrative control/options". IMO nobody, not even DM, has narrative control of a D&D game, and indeed that is, to me, a defining characteristic. The players play, the DM referees and plays with them, but NO ONE is driving the bus. That's the magic.

I see that perspective. However, I find it hard to imagine that a DM could ever be only a referee. He is responsible for everything outside of the PCs, and whatever world he chooses to play in and whatever game he chooses to run, I don't see a truly laissez faire DM. A true referee doesn't decide when the rules are worthwhile to employ and when not (whereas "handwaving" is de rigeur in D&D). Nor does he change the rules as he goes (which is part and parcel of DMing). On a more philosophical level, the DM largely decides the tone of the game.

To me, the distinguishing aspect of D&D is that the DM has essentially 99% control, and the players only control the 1% things that their characters control. And indeed, that's what makes it a true "role playing game", and that 1% is enough to make it so that no one person is driving the bus and the results of the game are unpredictable. Giving players power outside of their characters' knowledge and abilities takes you into different territory, which can either be framed positively (as a story game) or negatively (as pure immersion-breaking metagame mechanics). In my view, that different territory is interesting for other games, but inappropriate for D&D.

For instance, in the other thread it is suggested to have an "its not there" card, so non spellcasters can make things go poof, for some reason. Nothing personal, but I think that might be the worst idea ever.

Well, I've seen worse ideas, but yes I think that is a very bad one.

If spellcasters are totally dominating the game, as a DM, I will... Hurt them...in a good way of course.

It's good that you're DMing that way, but this statement does undermine your idea that the DM isn't in control.

I cant even tell you how many times a fighter altered the game with something they did or said. My feeling is that the fighter class may be the most challenging in the game to play *interestingly*, but a lack of player ability is not a good reason to pile on mechanical options. There is no end to it, and the "its not there" card idea is the crystallization of all that. Its almost anti-imagination.

I don't think fighters are all that hard to play interestingly. Often spellcasters are more gimmicky and harder to connect with or understand. I do think it requires more imagination to play a fighter, and I do think there is some room to give fighters better abilities without treading into "plot coupon" territory.

What say you?

I say that the idea that spellcasters have more narrative control is mostly an illusion, and that there are decent storygames out there, but D&D is not one of them, and that someone needs to pick up the D&D line of mechanics that ended with 3.5 and continue evolving it, because it isn't broken.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm sympathetic to this point of view, as I think that the majority of "balance" is something that happens at the game table, and not in the rule books.

From what I've read, a great deal of the complaints come from the mechanization of (that is, the introduction of game mechanics for) non-combat "narrative" options, mostly in the form of non-combat-focused skills and spells.

Insofar as the skills system goes, it seems that it's often interpreted to be a substitution for role-playing - that is, you don't need to role-play out a conversation with the NPC whom you need to convince to help you, you just need to make a successful Diplomacy check. Is Diplomacy a cross-class skill for you, and you have a low Charisma? Then don't bother talking, let the guy with the higher score try it instead.

I once read a blog post, I can't find it now, where someone talked about how this is the opposite view of how he experienced role-playing initially. That is, when you came across a situation that required a skill check, what was being measured was the creativity in how well the player could role-play his character through the situation. It was only if this failed that things fell back to a random roll of the dice. Now that sentiment has been reversed, and characters that can game the skill system are the primary method of out-of-combat interaction, with role-playing taking a back seat to that.

Even more than this, however, is the primacy of non-combat spells. For example, the idea that you don't need to use diplomacy at all - either in role-playing or a skill check - when you can just use magic to charm someone. There's no need to worry about overland travel when you can teleport, etc.

Personally, I find that these complaints showcase the difference between theorycrafting and game-play more than anything else. Very few are the times when spellcasters will have the perfect spell(s) for a given situation, I've found, even if they have loaded up with scrolls full of utility spells (something I have yet to see happen). It's the GM's job to make sure that certain characters don't get to hog the spotlight over the others, after all - hence the above sentiment that balance is found in actual play (which doesn't mean they should continually screw spellcasters over, either; rather, if one character keeps assuming "narrative control," then the GM needs to introduce checks).

All of this, of course, seems to be symptomatic of a larger problem - that people seem to think that any instance of GM adjustment of adjudication is indicative of a failure of the game rules, rather than a natural part of the game. Simply put, in a game where anything can be attempted by the players, no rules can ever provide perfect balance (even leaving aside that no one can yet definitively define what balance is) between all character choices, options, and action results.

The idea of balance, as most people seem to envision it, is a myth that can't be reached...and yet chasing it seems more popular than ever.

 

[Imaro]

Ok, that out of the way - I am first off a bit disturbed by the language itself - "narrative control/options". IMO nobody, not even DM, has narrative control of a D&D game, and indeed that is, to me, a defining characteristic. The players play, the DM referees and plays with them, but NO ONE is driving the bus. That's the magic.

I would say in a broad sense I agree with this assertion. I think in a well run (and played) game all participants contribute to the narrative and it's direction, but the dice in and of themselves keep any one person (including the DM unless he is disregarding the results) from having narrative control. Now I do believe, like [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] commented, that the DM has a greater control over the narrative then any one player concerning everything but the PC's characters, but I think that this is how the majority of traditional rpg's are set up and played. I also think (and yes, this is just my oppinion) that the majority of players and DM's are comfortable with this clean and unambiguous division of responsibilities. Personally I enjoy games which give narrative control over to players... but, you have to have players that want to experience the game in such a way for it to work well... and D&D being the gateway game, I'm not sure if including such mechnics (unless presented as an optional add-on) is worthwhile or even a disereable thing for the majority of D&D's fanbase.

I keep hearing that fighters, poor fighters, have nothing to do. We've been hearing that, of course, for decades, and to me it seems that the fighter class "cause" is the rallying cry of munchkinism, of video gamey mechanics that make no sense in RPGing. To me, you have to describe your actions. MMORPG mechanics circumvent all of that. Is truly an endless cycle - the player wants more narrative options, which is not attainable through mechanics.

For me this whole argument gets a little fuzzy, as spells are presented as "narrative control" abilities... yet (IMO) they don't give any more potential control over the narrative than attacks, feats, skills or ability checks have the potential to.

For instance, in the other thread it is suggested to have an "its not there" card, so non spellcasters can make things go poof, for some reason. Nothing personal, but I think that might be the worst idea ever.

Yeah, I wasn't to fond of this suggestion either...

If spellcasters are totally dominating the game, as a DM, I will... Hurt them...in a good way of course. If theyre scribing reams of scrolls is problematic, make it harder. Make them only scribable on a full moon, or something. But even so, I simply do not equate a characters ability to interact with the gameworld with spells or skills.

Another area that blurs the discussion... are we discussing power and versatility of spellcasters or narrative control? I think they are seperate issues.

I cant even tell you how many times a fighter altered the game with something they did or said. My feeling is that the fighter class may be the most challenging in the game to play *interestingly*, but a lack of player ability is not a good reason to pile on mechanical options. There is no end to it, and the "its not there" card idea is the crystallization of all that. Its almost anti-imagination.

What say you?

I agree with a caveat... I deifinitely think the fighter could do with more out-of-combat resources in those versions of D&D that have codified them.

 

[Dragoslav]

I keep hearing that fighters, poor fighters, have nothing to do. We've been hearing that, of course, for decades, and to me it seems that the fighter class "cause" is the rallying cry of munchkinism, of video gamey mechanics that make no sense in RPGing. To me, you have to describe your actions. MMORPG mechanics circumvent all of that. Is truly an endless cycle - the player wants more narrative options, which is not attainable through mechanics.

I don't know which mechanics you're considering "video gamey," but if it's things like the 4e Fighter's marking ability, I don't see why that has to be any more video gamey than your basic attack. The player is under no imperative to describe his character's attack--he can just say, "I attack. 26 vs. AC. I attack. 15 vs. AC. I attack..." Which is remarkably similar to auto-attacking in an MMORPG.

Part of the problem is that Wizards don't have to "describe their actions." The DM says that there is a mountain in the PCs' path, so the Wizard says, "I cast Fly and fly over it," while the Fighter player says, "I'm going to climb the mountain," at which point the DM begins subjecting him to an arbitrary amount of skill checks, each one making it increasingly likely that the PC will fail, while the Wizard just pressed the "I Win" button.
Incidentally, I don't see why "I don't want my Fighter to be constantly overshadowed by the Wizard" = munchkinism.

If spellcasters are totally dominating the game, as a DM, I will... Hurt them...in a good way of course. If theyre scribing reams of scrolls is problematic, make it harder. Make them only scribable on a full moon, or something. But even so, I simply do not equate a characters ability to interact with the gameworld with spells or skills.

Not all of us want to have to spend time and creative energy trying to rein in the power of magic-using PCs. Me, personally, I think declaring that Wizards' class features don't work except under precise conditions of my choosing is a very ham-fisted approach to reining in their power level.

Whether you consider spells or skills (part of) a character's ability to interact with the gameworld, that's what they are. What else do you call a Wizard's utility spells like Charm or Knock? Or skills like Climb, Diplomacy, Bluff, Perception...?
If this turns out to be an edition issue, then all anyone can really say is that, in later editions, skills are an important part of the game, whereas in earlier editions, they weren't. D&D Next will cover both of those styles.

I cant even tell you how many times a fighter altered the game with something they did or said.

If you could give one or two examples, that would help the rest of us understand what your idea of "narrative control" is.

My feeling is that the fighter class may be the most challenging in the game to play *interestingly*, but a lack of player ability is not a good reason to pile on mechanical options. There is no end to it, and the "its not there" card idea is the crystallization of all that. Its almost anti-imagination.

I'm not necessarily a proponent of such mechanics, but I think calling them "anti-imagination" is unfairly harsh. If anything, they require more imagination, because simulationist mechanics that tell you exactly what happened are more cut-and-dry than mechanics that require you to come up with a post-facto explanation for what happened.

I think a class feature that would work for giving Fighters more narrative control would be something like, "When attempting to climb, on a successful check, you no longer have to make any more checks to continue climbing, regardless of how high the obstacle is."
It doesn't obviate the obstacle like just making it disappear would, but it makes it so that when you say, "I climb the mountain," you mean "I climb the mountain."

 

[I'm A Banana]

When you think about casters vs. fighters, the big point is: what do the rules allow non-spellcasters to do to affect the game? It's important that it is in the rules, hard-coded, because that gives the player agency and control over the resolution of the actions they take. But pre-Non-Weapon-Proficiency Fighters, for instance, don't have much mechanically except attack rolls and defenses. All they can do by the rules to affect the game is hit things.

Now, at a good table, that's fine -- no one notices the absence of other interesting things, because the DM is solid and inventive and it works. Good tables fix all problems. But it is a problem, because if that fighter wants to do something, they can't rely on the rules, they need to rely on the DM's control of the situation -- and DMs vary wildly in their level of responsibility and skill. The player is essentially asking the DM for permission to do something. It works well if the DM is a benevolent dictator, but a bad ruling can sour an entire night, and the player of the fighter relies in the DM making good rulings more than the player of the wizard. Because the wizard, by the rules, has more stuff they can do -- make fireballs and charm people and fly and make things invisible. All without really asking for DM permission, because the rules let them do it. The DM can always deny (and in early e's, denial was often encouraged), but the assumption is to allow.

Even when NWP's and skills came around, fighter-types often got fewer points and less diversity than other classes, because they were predefined to be all about combat. Monolithic specialization like that doesn't lead to a very diverse play experience, honestly, at least without substantially asking the DM for permission to do things.

And then along comes 4e and your fighter can have a power that says "All the orcs in the room rush me, and I spin around to hit them all!" And now you can have the rules say that something happens. Still basically in combat, but that's 4e's powers system for ya.

Personally, a lot of the "narrative control" options seem waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too frickin' meta for me. And I'm definitely from the camp of "no one is driving the bus" (or more specifically, random chance and die rolls drive the bus and the rest of us just try to hold on and react). So while I'm sympathetic to the ends, a lot of the means leave me personally cold. I like the idea of taking some of that control AWAY from spellcasters (ie: spells are no longer assumed things that you can always use effectively) as a first step.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I don't think WotC (or TSR) have come out with "good" narrative-driven mechanics, and you will often have to steal such mechanics from other games.

FATE, for instance, has some very good mechanics, but you need a very good DM for that. In the last FATE sci-fi session I was in, our PCs were in a spaceship and were chased out of a star system by ... well, we didn't know who, other than they were hostile.

We escaped, thinking that ended the encounter, but nope. They didn't follow us, not exactly. Instead, they started a public relations campaign against us, making us out to be criminals. We engaged in a skill challenge (it's called "dramatic conflict" or something like that in FATE) where the enemy essentially attacked our pooled social stress pool. Their goal was to discredit us, while our goal was only to protect ourselves, but also to find out who they were and why they were attacking us. We did lots of computer hacking, looking at their finances, cutting them off from supporters, and so forth, and during the battle their tactics changed. (Sometimes they were hitting us hard with a tactic until we finally cut it off, other times their attacks "bounced" so they quickly shifted to trying something else.) Every PC was able to suggest and use their varying skills to help out. That to me is an example of a great narrative conflict, but it's not something covered in D&D.

To a lesser extent (IME) Vampire the Masquerade allowed for similar conflicts. 4e's skill challenge system supports (to some extent) the same thing, although in a social skill challenge, there's a good chance that only half the PCs can provide significant contributions. Unfortunately, in Shadowrun, this is the kind of thing that a hacker might do completely by themselves (one issue with Shadowrun, it's entirely possible for some PCs to not be physically present for much of the game, in in-universe terms). Hopefully D&DN's "downtime" system can do something similar.

Yes, wizards have more options. Whatever non-combat options a fighter has, so does the wizard. A fighter with low Charisma and no training in Diplomacy and Intimidate can attempt to influence a potential patron, and so can a wizard who also has low Charisma and no training in Diplomacy and Intimidate. (Both will likely fail, but that's how it works, right?) And then the wizard can cast Charm Monster. And if the patron has a priest on standby, making sure no one casts spells, the wizard can that night polymorph into something small and sneak into the patron's room, unmorph, Charm Monster them, then leave, and the next day try again, only now the patron is bowing and scraping...

Need to slip into a city undetected? The rogue can use his contacts to arrange for smugglers to slip the PCs into the city, or the wizard can Teleport you into the slums. The former involves trusting a group of crooks not to betray you and possible discovery by the guards, the latter involves a chance of the wizard flubbing a percentage roll and that's about it. The former can take days, the latter a minute. I have to wonder if one reason for 4e's unpopularity among wizard fans were the removal of potentially narrative abilities from the wizard's toolkit. (The wizard could do the same thing one level earlier in 4e, but can only teleport to an existing teleportation circle, which will likely be in a well-guarded mage tower or temple, and that's assuming the wizard knows the code for that circle, which will take work. At that point, using the rogue's street contacts is just as smart, taking longer but with fewer risks. At higher levels you could make your own teleportation circle, but you'd need to get into the city first! At 28th-level you can finally teleport where you want, if you don't mind 10 minutes of chanting.)

 

[MJS]

I don't know which mechanics you're considering "video gamey," but if it's things like the 4e Fighter's marking ability, I don't see why that has to be any more video gamey than your basic attack. The player is under no imperative to describe his character's attack--he can just say, "I attack. 26 vs. AC. I attack. 15 vs. AC. I attack..." Which is remarkably similar to auto-attacking in an MMORPG.

Part of the problem is that Wizards don't have to "describe their actions." The DM says that there is a mountain in the PCs' path, so the Wizard says, "I cast Fly and fly over it," while the Fighter player says, "I'm going to climb the mountain," at which point the DM begins subjecting him to an arbitrary amount of skill checks, each one making it increasingly likely that the PC will fail, while the Wizard just pressed the "I Win" button.
Incidentally, I don't see why "I don't want my Fighter to be constantly overshadowed by the Wizard" = munchkinism.



Not all of us want to have to spend time and creative energy trying to rein in the power of magic-using PCs. Me, personally, I think declaring that Wizards' class features don't work except under precise conditions of my choosing is a very ham-fisted approach to reining in their power level.

Whether you consider spells or skills (part of) a character's ability to interact with the gameworld, that's what they are. What else do you call a Wizard's utility spells like Charm or Knock? Or skills like Climb, Diplomacy, Bluff, Perception...?
If this turns out to be an edition issue, then all anyone can really say is that, in later editions, skills are an important part of the game, whereas in earlier editions, they weren't. D&D Next will cover both of those styles.

If you could give one or two examples, that would help the rest of us understand what your idea of "narrative control" is.

I'm not necessarily a proponent of such mechanics, but I think calling them "anti-imagination" is unfairly harsh. If anything, they require more imagination, because simulationist mechanics that tell you exactly what happened are more cut-and-dry than mechanics that require you to come up with a post-facto explanation for what happened.

I think a class feature that would work for giving Fighters more narrative control would be something like, "When attempting to climb, on a successful check, you no longer have to make any more checks to continue climbing, regardless of how high the obstacle is."
It doesn't obviate the obstacle like just making it disappear would, but it makes it so that when you say, "I climb the mountain," you mean "I climb the mountain."

Wow, what a great forum. This is in no particular order...
1. Video-gamey mechanics - I will avoid this term, as its divisive. What I mean is, any ability that mimics spell function. So yes, standard attack can easily become like pressing "x" on a gamepad, sort of. I am speaking more to abilities proposed in the parallel thread, like a Paladin summoning followers. I am 100% for the paladin rousing the farmers, but never as a spell-like ability. I want to enjoy the process. Another was a Disguise ability, where the character disappears, comes back a few rounds later, perfectly disguised as any NPC thr player chooses. Well. Do you have a Comanche outfit in your backpack, or not? I would rather have the rogue blackjack the guy in an alley and steal his . Not use Disguise like an Illusionist casts alter self.

2. If your Fighter IS constantly overshadowed by the Wizard, my point is to DO something. (Including skewering the wizard if they dont get along) You don't need stuff on a character sheet to interact. The fighter climbs, the wizard flies. Great example. That Wizard better hope to hell she doesn't have an encounter up there, with no fighter to hide behind. I'm not a vindictive DM, but if a Wizard did that, and triggered a random encounter with 13 harpies, so be it. Wizards are supposed to be smarter than to go flying off by themselves. I would even warn the player of such a possibility. I'm a nice guy : )

3. "Munchkinism" is another term I will avoid. The feeling is that, because wizards are wizards, fighters are bored, so give them more abilities, even ones that mimic spells. I think that bored players is terrible. The last game I ran, our faces all hurt from smiling too much. This was in 3E with a dash of Basic - perhaps not that different from Next. But anyway, I realize skills and abilities ARE interactions, but they should not define or limit a PCs involvement.

4. I played an elf fighter in a long campaign. We did all sorts of crazy stuff to stay alive. To get down a hallway at the brigands, we tore the doors off the dungeon, and made them into a giant shield to get us into melee range. Fighter characters often sway entire scenarios through their roleplaying - in ways no teleport spell ever could. Don't get me started on paladins. Or barbarians starting bar fights.

5. I said a DM is referee because its Gygax terminology, not as akin to a baseball umpire.

6. I like the assumption to allow. Its just how we get there. I am just concerned that players may never be satisfied, trying to scratch an itch that I don't believe is a mechanical problem.

 

[MJS]

Also, teleporting can be very dangerous. You dont always know what you are beaming into. It can attract extra-planar attention as well. A wizard that overuses teleport might well face some natural/unnatural consequences down the line...

 

[ExploderWizard]

What say I?

I say narrative options are about as applicable to D&D as the price of whelk pelts. That is, not at all.

Mainly because actively playing a roleplaying game is not in any way constructing a narrative.

Magic is flashier and can accomplish more than the mundane. Therefore in order that magic not be the ultimate dominating force it needs to be a somewhat unreliable and finite resource. At will magic and powerful effects that almost always work as intended will slide the scale towards overpowering magic.