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

[FrogReaver]

As I said, I don't know what you and @clearstream mean by "possible". Do you mean ecologically possible? Biochemically possible? Something else?

I mean possible in the absolute broadest sense of the word. If there’s a reason something is not possible then it doesn’t fit here.

Anyway, once you've constructed your dog-to-wolverine continuum, where do thylacines fit on it?

Presumably the continuum would be how dog like, how Wolverine like, how thylacine like. In which case this criticism doesn’t apply.

Is there an actual, ecologically and biochemically possible pathway from (say) humans to (say) octopuses, or to (say) bats?

It’s unclear why this matters. Like it’s interesting but relevancy?

My understanding - coming from treatments of evolution and biology in philosophy of science (in which I am educated), not from the study of science itself (in which my education finished with high school) - is that the answer is no, because both in ecology and in biochemical development the actual trajectory taken is relevant.

let’s assume you are correct? We know that something like 1 to a handful of initial organisms evolved into the vast array of life forms we see today (and have evidence for even more that are now extinct). Doesn’t really matter if humans don’t have a path to octopuses since we know both did evolve from some common ancestor.

So while it is presumably true that bats and humans have some common ancestor, and that octopuses and humans have some far more remote common ancestor, I don't think it is true that there is some imaginary intermediate stage between humans and bats that is ecologically or biochemically possible; nor between humans and octopuses.

Why?

There is no reason to think that "any theoretical RPG that could exist" is on a continuum. As @AbdulAlhazred said, these games may be more like watches. Or they may be more like animals, with ecological and biochemical explanations for their natures.

There is! I can imagine taking any rpg and making tiny change after tiny change until it transforms into another.

 

[thefutilist]

To swipe from @pemerton

I think doing a cross word puzzle and reading a book of fiction exist on a continuum. They both happen on a page and involve words. I mean you can read cross word puzzles right? and the words don’t necessarily refer to anything that exists? That’s the same as fiction.

In fact these crossword/fiction reader types are binary thinkers. They see the world in black and white. When I do cross words, I often read a bit of the novel I’m working through. In fact it would be weird to just read a novel without breaking it up with some crosswords.

I mean nothing is actually the same is it. Can you step into the same river twice? I don’t think so. So why say that crosswords and fiction reading are fundamentally discrete?

 

[pemerton]

Even if we had a coherent definition of narrativism (which I still somewhat doubt) narrativist elements can appear in games to different degrees. So it is not whether something is or isn't narrativist, it is how narrativist it is.

So, "narrativism" - as used by Edwards, and hence by me - is a description of an aesthetic goal of RPG play.

So I don't think that the notion of "narrativist elements" makes sense, in my usage. It does make sense to talk about episodes of narrativist play. As Edwards notes with his Clancy-esque hardware analogy, these episodes of play may be punctuated by episodes of play with a different aesthetic goal.

If by "narrativist elements" you mean elements of design - eg a particular mechanic or technique - that are commonly associated with RPGs designed to facilitate narrativist play, then it is obvious - isn't it? - that these can appear in RPGs that are not primarily used for, or designed to facilitate, narrativist play.

For instance, various techniques that first appeared in Apocalypse World - eg carefully described GM "moves" - are used in a range of PbtA games that are not primarily aimed at, or used for, narrativist play.

And the same is true of so-called "neo-trad" RPGs:

In the Forge sense, I think neo-trad is a species of high concept simulationism, or in some contexts perhaps it is exploration-heavy gamism where the stakes of "loss" for the player are very low. But in establishing exploration (in the Forge sesen) as its primary concern, or as a significant concern, it uses a different authority structure from that present in the examples that Edwards talked about 20 years ago. This different authority structure is partly a matter of "ethos" - centring the player more than is traditional - but also is established and mediated, at least to some degree, by new techniques that have been developed, or at least become mainstream, over that two-decade period.

This blog - What does it take to be a “neotrad” role-playing game? - identifies some of the techniques that are present in neo-trad oriented RPGs but absent from trad-oriented ones.

Asymmetric gameplay; a "Chekhov's gun" approach to mechanics; "bounded bookkeeping" and other means of supporting the GM's role in framing and adjudication; and no rule zero: these are primarily about rejecting the purist-for-system design legacy that remains common in many trad-oriented RPGs. By making the GM's job easier - with more support/scaffolding for decision-making, and reducing the technical challenges inherent in implementing a decision (for instance, no need to have drawn up complex maps to support wargame-style action resolution) - these also permit the shift of authority towards players without that impeding the actual processes of play.

Clear agency for PCs and shared party creation: these mean that "world/setting exploration", "fish out of water" PCs, "hunting for the adventure" and similar aspects of much trad RPGing are foregone: the focus of exploration shifts to character and situation, where the situations are clearly drawn. In addition, these technical innovations further support the realignment in authority to players, without that realignment pulling the rug out from under the GM, because the GM can see what the players' concerns are and can know where they are heading in the play of their PCs.

The incorporation of these techniques is summed up thus:

"it’s got the production values, ease of use and plentiful campaign material of a traditional RPG, combined with the kind of clever and thematic rules design usually found in the indie games”, he said. . . .

a tabletop roleplaying games need to be abreast of the times, requiring less time and effort, cutting downtimes, taking some useless responsibilities away from the master job and, generally speaking, be competitive with other entertainment media. “Modern” RPGs (or indie, or new wave) are a very good answer to these needs but they offer a different game experience so many gamers are not comfortable with their approach.​

That "not comfortable" is about departures from sim, or exploration-heavy gamism. Neo-trad remains in the "comfort zone" but changes the ethos and techniques.

I think understood in the above terms, neo-trad is broadly identifiable as a thing: an ethos/orientation to RPGing that certain games set out to support.

I definitely want to the players to make their own choices, I just want those choices to be about things the characters can actually choose. So a player can certainly choose what moral choice to make even though they cannot choose where the wizard towers are!

Apocalypse World and Prince Valiant fully conform to your stated preference here for how certain declared actions (like "I try and remember that . . ." or "I look around for . . .") are resolved.

But players making their own choices doesn't, on its own, tell me whether or not you are playing narrativist. Like, I've spoken with people who play Planescape and they say that players can make their own choices - but the moral significance of those choices is typically established by the setting as authored by Monte Cook et al and as adjudicated by the GM. So the players are not authoring rising conflict across a moral line.

Campaigns can deal with different stuff at different moments. This is the simple and obvious truth you for some reason seem to have really hard time grasping.

I have no trouble grasping this. I'm the one who posted the Edwards passage about toggling between narrativism and simulationism. But I do think there is a question of "primacy". For instance, if the players get to author rising conflict across a moral line today, and then the GM tomorrow gets to (say) establish as a cosmological fact that the true moral answer is this other thing, then my prediction is that that will make for unsatisfactory RPGing.

And it can happen in other ways too - eg rather than cosmology, the GM could do this by playing a NPC who (it is established) is a moral exemplar or lodestone for the PC (eg a cleric's god, or Batman to Robin, or whatever). I've seen this sort of thing. It doesn't make for good play in my experience.

My dislike of alignment and other such external moral frameworks is on the record. My favourite situations are morally complex ones where there are no obvious right or wrong, and the characters need to make meaningful moral choices. Though of course those can still exist alongside with more morally clear-cut situations in the same campaign just fine. Sometimes we want an episode that is a moral conundrum, sometimes we just want to stop "bad guys" doing bad stuff. It is fine.

I don't know, in your games, whether the PCs are "adventurers", and - if they are - how they find themselves on adventures, and who decides what their goals are, and how the pursuit of those goals manifests (if it does) rising action across a moral line. So I don't know what the context is in which these moral choices arise, nor the context in which "bad guys" who need to be stopped turn up.

Maybe you're playing relatively vanilla narrativist, maybe not.

 

[FrogReaver]

To swipe from @pemerton

I think doing a cross word puzzle and reading a book of fiction exist on a continuum. They both happen on a page and involve words. I mean you can read cross word puzzles right? and the words don’t necessarily refer to anything that exists? That’s the same as fiction.

If this is your impression of the reasoning here then something’s gone incomprehensibly awry.

In fact these crossword/fiction reader types are binary thinkers. They see the world in black and white. When I do cross words, I often read a bit of the novel I’m working through. In fact it would be weird to just read a novel without breaking it up with some crosswords.

This is probably the worst attempt at parody I’ve ever seen.

I mean nothing is actually the same is it. Can you step into the same river twice? I don’t think so. So why say that crosswords and fiction reading are fundamentally discrete?

You do realize parody on forums usually just serves to inflame right?

 

[thefutilist]

You do realize parody on forums usually just serves to inflame right?

To be fair, you’re right. I apologise. I find the analogy apt but my framing was condescending.

 

[pemerton]

Everything about the ‘helpfulness for specified task X’ meets your definition of spectrum above.

We can also imagine any number of hybrid tools that allow for clawing, pliering, and magneting. How well a theoretical tool claws, how well it pliers and how well it magnets would each be a continuum that we could form a linear combination of - which then would also be a continuum.

I doubt there is such a single thing as "pliering" which admits of degrees of effectiveness in respect of it.

My example was of the degree of utility of a plier for getting a stuck nail out of a bit of timber. And even if you can rank the utility of your plier, your hammer-claw and your magnet it doesn't follow that there are any number of other actual or possible tools whose utility could also be ranked so as to create a continuum.

And even if that were so, we wouldn't have a continuum of tools. We would have a continuum of tools of some utility for removing this nail from this bit of timber. Which is not a very analytically portable continuum.

Applying this to RPGs: what goal do you have in mind, for which you are now ranking the utility of tools? Where are you getting your catalogue of possible tools from? And what possible basis is there for thinking that there is a continuum's worth of such tools?

I mean, let's look at an actual goal - increasing rightward arrows (from clouds to boxes) - and an actual set of tools - the way 5e D&D combat is resolved. What feasible changes might be made to the procedure of D&D combat that would increase the number of rightward arrows?

Before we start pontificating about hypothetical techniques serving hypothetical goals, let's address an actual design question that some RPGers are actually worried about.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So, "narrativism" - as used by Edwards, and hence by me - is a description of an aesthetic goal of RPG play.

So I don't think that the notion of "narrativist elements" makes sense, in my usage. It does make sense to talk about episodes of narrativist play. As Edwards notes with his Clancy-esque hardware analogy, these episodes of play may be punctuated by episodes of play with a different aesthetic goal.

If by "narrativist elements" you mean elements of design - eg a particular mechanic or technique - that are commonly associated with RPGs designed to facilitate narrativist play, then it is obvious - isn't it? - that these can appear in RPGs that are not primarily used for, or designed to facilitate, narrativist play.

I didn't mean mechanics. I meant what you'd probably call goals. The game may fulfil narrativist coals occasionally, without being concerned about doing so all the time.

Apocalypse World and Prince Valiant fully conform to your stated preference here for how certain declared actions (like "I try and remember that . . ." or "I look around for . . .") are resolved.

Can this remembering and looking generate into the myth the things looked for and being remembered like with your mage tower?

I have no trouble grasping this.

Good. So that's what most people are doing. I would go so far than to say that doing so is the norm and hyperfocusing on one agenda is the anomality.

I'm the one who posted the Edwards passage about toggling between narrativism and simulationism. But I do think there is a question of "primacy". For instance, if the players get to author rising conflict across a moral line today, and then the GM tomorrow gets to (say) establish as a cosmological fact that the true moral answer is this other thing, then my prediction is that that will make for unsatisfactory RPGing.

Yes, that would be jarring. The latter also isn't at all what I mean when I say that some situations can be morally clear cut. It is not that there is some external judging that is forced upon the players, it is just that some situations are such that whilst in theory the players could choose another moral path, they're unlikely to do so.

And it can happen in other ways too - eg rather than cosmology, the GM could do this by playing a NPC who (it is established) is a moral exemplar or lodestone for the PC (eg a cleric's god, or Batman to Robin, or whatever). I've seen this sort of thing. It doesn't make for good play in my experience.

But certainly such a characters morals would still be subjective and the character could disagree. In fact this is something that often happens in stories with such mentors. Batman is clearly nuts, and many of the Robins have disagreed with him.

But if you mean that having a seemingly morally unerring NPC that the players could go for answers is generally a bad idea, then I agree. It is bad idea in the same way than having a powerful friendly NPC that could solve the practical problems the characters might have for them.

I don't know, in your games, whether the PCs are "adventurers", and - if they are - how they find themselves on adventures, and who decides what their goals are, and how the pursuit of those goals manifests (if it does) rising action across a moral line. So I don't know what the context is in which these moral choices arise, nor the context in which "bad guys" who need to be stopped turn up.

There is no clear-cut answer to this, as these are mix of internal and external factors, ratio of which fluctuates by the situation.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not characterising you, only describing my perception of your arguments. Those have appeared to me strongly albeit not purely modalistic.

My arguments are fairly simple:

I think Edwards has a helpful classification of three aesthetic goals for, or orientations towards, RPGing. I think he is correct that many different techniques can be used in pursuit of these various goals, but some techniques are better suited for some than for others. I also think he is correct that some resolution procedures - in particular, GM fiat at the moment of "crisis" - are not well-suited to gamist or narrativist play. (NB. "not well-suited" is not synonymous with "cannot be used for".)

I also argue that certain very well-known and widely-used techniques - map-and-key, and the associated but not quite identical method of the GM determining consequences by reference to and extrapolation from hidden fiction that only they know - are not easily reconciled with narrativist play, because they tend to collide with the player-authored rising conflict across a moral line.

I also argue that posters who associate "narrativist" RPGing with particular techniques - such as eg "player narrative control" - are mistaken. The mistake is a general one, of confusing a technique with a goal. It also leads to misleading taxonomies, where a game like Fate gets grouped with a game like Apocalypse World, even though (i) AW has basically no "player narrative control" and (ii) Fate and AW are not well-suited to the same creative/aesthetic goal. (In Edwards' terms, Fate is well-suited for high concept simulationism, whereas AW is self-consciously designed to support narrativism.)

A final argument that I will mention is that - when looked at in the context of ordinary, conventional RPGing with a typical GM-player divide - the most important thing to do to achieve narrativist play is to change the way the GM makes decisions from the sorts of approaches that are set out in "mainstream" RPG books (like, eg, most D&D DMGs). The relevant changes include having regard to player thematic cues, allowing players to set the goals for their PCs (and not asking them to pick from a GM-authored menu), and having regard to those thematic cues in establishing situations (= framing scenes) and establishing consequences. This in turn requires departing from "neutral GMing" as well as "follow the story board" GMing, and is apt to cause friction with some fairly common approaches to action resolution and to the establishing of consequences (eg rules around healing of injuries or recovery/replenishment of gear).

I have no idea what makes this particular bundle of arguments "modalist". It's a series of arguments about the relationships between technique, play procedures, expectations/convention, and various aesthetic goals one might have while RPGing.

 

[clearstream]

As I said, I don't know what you and @clearstream mean by "possible". Do you mean ecologically possible? Biochemically possible? Something else?

Anyway, once you've constructed your dog-to-wolverine continuum, where do thylacines fit on it?

Is there an actual, ecologically and biochemically possible pathway from (say) humans to (say) octopuses, or to (say) bats? My understanding - coming from treatments of evolution and biology in philosophy of science (in which I am educated), not from the study of science itself (in which my education finished with high school) - is that the answer is no, because both in ecology and in biochemical development the actual trajectory taken is relevant.

So while it is presumably true that bats and humans have some common ancestor, and that octopuses and humans have some far more remote common ancestor, I don't think it is true that there is some imaginary intermediate stage between humans and bats that is ecologically or biochemically possible; nor between humans and octopuses.

There is no reason to think that "any theoretical RPG that could exist" is on a continuum. As @AbdulAlhazred said, these games may be more like watches. Or they may be more like animals, with ecological and biochemical explanations for their natures.

In any event, what RPG are you imagining that Vincent Baker or Ron Edwards is confused about?

Okay, well... I'm going to leave this at "agree to disagree" as I feel like it's straying from the topic of the thread.

 

[pemerton]

I mean possible in the absolute broadest sense of the word. If there’s a reason something is not possible then it doesn’t fit here.

Presumably the continuum would be how dog like, how Wolverine like, how thylacine like. In which case this criticism doesn’t apply.

But how are you defining "likeness" here? In surface appearance? Biochemistry? Ecology? Something else?

It’s unclear why this matters. Like it’s interesting but relevancy?

let’s assume you are correct? We know that something like 1 to a handful of initial organisms evolved into the vast array of life forms we see today (and have evidence for even more that are now extinct). Doesn’t really matter if humans don’t have a path to octopuses since we know both did evolve from some common ancestor.

Why?

Because it seems to me the more plausible view is that there is no ecological and biochemical pathway from humans to octopuses. As I've already said my training in biology is pretty weak, but my general understanding of evolutionary pathways is that differentiation - at the cellular and organ level - tends to increase, and that there is a reasonably high degree of path dependency (with ecology playing a significant role in that respect).

For humans to turn into octopuses seems like it would require some sort of "devolution" followed by a re-evolution in a different direction. Does this happen? Is there any known instance, for example, of a lung-based animal evolving into an animal that takes its oxygen directly from water? (Do octopuses have gills? I'm not sure and haven't wikipedia-ed to find out.)

I can imagine taking any rpg and making tiny change after tiny change until it transforms into another.

What is this pathway of tiny transformations from (say) RuneQuest to Apocalpyse World, that has a playable RPG at every point?

I mean, I've actually played RQ and RM, and I can't see the "continuum" pathway from them to Burning Wheel. Nor even from one of them to the other, even though they're both d%-using purist-for-system-oriented engines.