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

[Crimson Longinus]

When you say "the GM is in control of the world", that is incomplete information.

I mean, in AW the GM is in control of the world - but the process of PC build, plus the first session, mean that the elements that are found in the world that the GM is in control of are not solely authored by the GM.

Also, in AW the GM - when making a move - has to provide opportunities or announce badness, and these are relative to the concerns the players have established for their PCs, which will have factored into the way the world has been established. So the GM is the one who controls the world, in the sense of deciding what happens when a player says "I open the door - what do I see?" - but the GM has to answer that question with something that speaks to the player's concerns for their PC.

In your RPGing, which way is it going? That will tell you whether or not you are playing narrativist. To be honest, my gut feeling - based on my many ENworld conversations with you - is that you're not. But my gut is far from a precision instrument!

Mechanical resolution itself is pretty standard vaguely simulationist task resolution, but of course there is some wiggle room within that to flavour things to dramatically appropriate direction. But what sort of things are getting framed in the first place is at least sometimes influenced by who the characters are. Strangely things that the players have expressed interest in, things that relate to character backgrounds and things that would feel personally significant to the characters tend to have far greater chances of occurring.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Yes, people do not mean WW style games when they say narrative, narrativism fans have been loud enough that most people know that that is not what it means. It is associated vaguely as some sort of opposite of simulationism, where the mechanics run more on story logic and the player may have control of the fiction by means not causally related the direct action of their character. For example I think most people would think flashbacks and quantum gear from Blades as narrative mechanics, they wouldn't think humanity from Vampire as such.

The example I've seen in this discussion - a thief conjuring up their thieves tools when they need them - is one I've seen in a simulationist game where the referee isn't being strict about player equipment ("if makes sense to have it, you have it"). Is there a better example of something in a narrative/story now game of a character conjuring fiction, that you couldn't (easily) reproduce in a simulationist game?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well many seem to want to assert both that the GM is unrestricted and that the GM is not driving play.

Which is something of a contradiction, I think.

Not me. I know there are all sorts of GM restrictions in the games you favor.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not me. I know there are all sorts of GM restrictions in the games you favor.

Yes, that’s what allows players to drive the game.

Unrestricted GM authority is a quality of more traditional games. @pemerton ’s point was it’s odd to claim unrestricted authority for the GM leads to something other than GM led play.

You MUST restrict the GM’s authority if you want to have player-driven play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, people do not mean WW style games when they say narrative, narrativism fans have been loud enough that most people know that that is not what it means. It is associated vaguely as some sort of opposite of simulationism, where the mechanics run more on story logic and the player may have control of the fiction by means not causally related the direct action of their character. For example I think most people would think flashbacks and quantum gear from Blades as narrative mechanics, they wouldn't think humanity from Vampire as such.

But you missed the boat, flashbacks and 'quantum gear' are not what make BitD a narrativist game, you could chop them clean out of there and it wouldn't impact the 'narrativeness' of BitD at all (it would undoubtedly be a less interesting game, slightly). Vampire's humanity, MIGHT, in a different context be a mechanic that could support narrative play, in some hypothetical game. But V:tM (Storyteller generally) is so utterly NOT a narrativist system that its irrelevant. It is the core allocation of authority and the principles which drive how play is structured, the core play loop, that really matters. Certainly there are mechanics that support that at what VB calls 'layers 2 and 3' which are important, but not definitional.

 

[Celebrim]

But these 2 characters are extremely fragile, and classic D&D doesn't really have mechanics that will allow them to operate well independently, nor much in the way of mechanics that deal with anything outside of combat (which neither of them is equipped to deal with in any way).

This is irrelevant. Brennan is quite correct that you can play in the open spaces of a system.

I mean, you have picked the two classes with the MOST non-combat utility

Let's be quite clear. I picked nothing about the characters. And I don't think being a protagonist has anything to do with how powerful you are.

I guess what I'm saying is, sure you can run a narrativist game with, probably, any system

I totally disagree. I would have had to change from 1e AD&D to get actual narrativist play. I had plenty of tools for giving players agency or protagonizing players or telling a story in 1e AD&D, but at the time I didn't even have the knowledge to consider alternative approaches to play. There were some games out there that were experimenting in that space, but neither the player nor me as the GM had the slightest clue about that. The way that 1e AD&D shares narrative control is just fundamentally different than what would be necessary for Nar play, and I'd never considered getting away from "fortune in the middle" as a means of play. That you could do fortune closer to the beginning or closer to the end wasn't something I'd even considered. Because of that, the sort of stake setting behavior that we might test in a nar game is dysfunctional in 1e AD&D because we don't have a means of regulating or testing those stakes. We have the means to test propositions not stakes. Shared narrative authority isn't something 1e AD&D really does. It can happen through a call, but the player doesn't any real currency to spend to make it happen (unless you consider spells a sort of narrative currency but that's I think we can agree not what we typically think of here).

like this, but you're pounding a square peg into a round hole. Running it with Dungeon World would be MUCH better!

Nope. I respect that you have a preference and have fun with it but mine isn't for systems that define all actions as moves.

Fundamentally, I'm not even sure you have any idea what narrativist play actually is. What it seems you and others are really saying is "Narrative play isn't dysfunctional play" and also "Games are likely to be less dysfunctional in the games that I consider narrative games."

 

[Celebrim]

You MUST restrict the GM’s authority if you want to have player-driven play.

I kind of want to agree with that, but it's another one of those really broad unqualified assertions that is so broad it doesn't really distinguish one type of play from another.

Pretty much all table contracts restrict GM authority. Trad particularly depends on the GM not metagaming against the players and very much calls that sort of thing as dysfunctional antagonism, and violation of that by fudging things behind the screen would be considered a violation of the table contract and to exceed the GM's necessary authority. There are always somethings the GM is agreeing not to do, even with Rule Zero. The GM is always submitting his will to the roll of the dice. In Trad play, the GM may not want the PC to die, but if the PC low rolls a saving throw, then oh well.

Moreover, you're still stuck on the idea of "player-driven play" as being something unusual and special. Player driven play is as old as RPing. "I want to build a castle" is player driven play. And the idea that a player can just assert "I have a castle" because it's nar play fundamentally misunderstands nar play.

 

[pemerton]

But you missed the boat, flashbacks and 'quantum gear' are not what make BitD a narrativist game, you could chop them clean out of there and it wouldn't impact the 'narrativeness' of BitD at all (it would undoubtedly be a less interesting game, slightly).

<snip>

It is the core allocation of authority and the principles which drive how play is structured, the core play loop, that really matters.

@Crimson Longinus, @Micah Sweet - this is exactly what I've been saying. "Meta"-mechanics are a side issue, as far as "narrativist" RPGing is concerned.

Mongoose's OGL Conan has a meta-mechanic, that permits players to introduce elements into the fiction when spent. This doesn't make OGL Conan, as a system, particularly oriented towards narrativist play. And in fact, although I've not tried, based on my reading and on my (limited) 3E D&D experience, I would suggest that it is not a good vehicle for narrativist play at all.

 

[aramis erak]

Those are my initial thoughts, what do you think?

To me, a Narrative RPG is one where either

• everything is to be set aside for story concerns, plus both
  • The mechanics are minimal
  • there are explicit modifiers for good and bad narrations instead of simulation.
• the mechanics are about who gets to narrate the ongoing action (eg: Fiasco)
• the mechanics are about who decides success or failure and who gets to modify that (eg: Houses of the Blooded)

I don't consider the draft of Daggerheart I looked at very much a narrative game. It has some concessions to narrativism as defined in the original System Matters article, and is very much encouraging a "story now" approach, but "story now" ≠ Narrativist. They're related, of course, but not the same.
If anything, what was in the 1.3 draft looks very NeoTrad, and in play will get a mixture of approaches to it.

 

[Celebrim]

To me, a Narrative RPG is one where either

• everything is to be set aside for story concerns, plus both
  • The mechanics are minimal
  • there are explicit modifiers for good and bad narrations instead of simulation.
• the mechanics are about who gets to narrate the ongoing action (eg: Fiasco)
• the mechanics are about who decides success or failure and who gets to modify that (eg: Houses of the Blooded)

I think we are largely in agreement. I don't know that the mechanics being minimal is necessary a factor but the lack of simulationist concern tends to support rules light because unlike a simulationist approach you aren't considered about all the small in fiction factors that might influence the outcome. If you see lists of +# and -# modifers to the fortune that have to do with fictional position, there is a good chance you aren't a nar game. Heck, if you see any sort of lists like spell lists or equipment lists anywhere, there is a good chance this isn't a nar game. As a practical matter, this lack of lists or need for lists tends to create a comparatively small rule set.