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

[Emberashh]

The problem I see is that by equating the number of feedback loops with "fun," what constitutes "fun" for most people isn't objective. I suggest describing these things simply as what these systems do, rather than whether they do them "well" or not. I think folks here are just trying to understand what comprises a narrative approach or system. We could say something like "more feedback loops take longer time to resolve during gameplay" and then leave the interpretation out, simply so we can get to an objective profile of each of these games without arguing over whether they are "good" or "bad."

The thing is though that feedback loops are what makes a given game fun. If there's no gameplay, you're not playing a game, and gameplay is built from feedback loops.

As said, preferences are a matter of taste in terms of whether or not one overall loop is better than another. But you cannot deny whats actually there, and that was my point.

We could say something like "more feedback loops take longer time to resolve during gameplay"

This though I'd disagree on. More feedback loops don't necessarily mean more processing time. It just means that theres more things to engage with that trigger off of either another sub-loop or the main one, and those can be extremely simple or a big slog, and anything inbetween.

Plus, to be a stickler, what you suggested is also very much a value judgement. Which is why I don't think its worthwhile to try and distill the conversation because you kind of can't comment on what a game does without talking about how what it does is perceived.

Game feel matters, and thats not something we can really ignore particularly if we're talking game design.

 

[aramis erak]

Which games specifically say they are narrative (not narrativist)?

FFG WFRP3, Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R are collectively referred to as using their NDS (Narrative Dice System) by FFG.
Houses of the Blooded was described by its author as a narrative game - the random within is for control, not success/failure. He's also described it as a storygame.
There are a lot of games identifying by the overlapping and equally vague "storygame."

Which gamers are saying they like narrative (not narrativist) games?

I've a soft spot for FFG's SW & L5R...
And for John Wick's games in general, excepting 7th Sea 2e. (I literally cannot read it.) My most favored is Blood and Honor, which is the same task mechanics as Houses of the Blooded. No rolling to succeed nor fail, but for who gets to decide the basic success/failure, and who gets how much to append and modify the outcome...
Note that these games all distribute authority via various means to the players...

It seems to me narrative is a label being imposed from the outside.

Most labels are externally applied. (rdouble entendé intentional)
Most classifications are retroactively applied; it doesn't make them any less useful.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That I would agree with. There are a lot of modern games that are "informed' by the Forge discussion and a lot of the conversation that it spawned without meeting any sort of pure agenda definition that Forge would have recognized.

One problem that causes though is you have a lot of people looking at these disparate games and categorizing them by "do I like them".

I have a good deal of respect for what both PbtA and FitD are doing and they've both been tremendously successful and influential.

That said, a lot of the claims made about them are not defensible, but just part of the long running pattern going back to the 1980s of people going, "My choice of games proves I'm a better gamer than you." Back in the 1980s it was often "My game is more realistic and makes more sense than your game." Now it's usually, "My game is more narrative than you", which is the old 1980's "role player does not roll player" pretension.

On the topic, "Daggerheart" is clearly informed by modern gaming theory like "fail forward", a single generic resolution mechanic, and the inclusion of meta currency. But it's also clearly informed by classic gaming with things like granular weapon and armor lists. To a large extent, the classification of it into "nar" or "not nar" feels to me pointless. It's an abstraction people are using to discuss it based on whether they like or don't like those things. You can make arguments either way because the designer isn't trying to be pure about it, and really people are just defending that they like or dislike the system (or some other system). For me I see good points in the rolls as a group system and the fact that it does always give the GM an out for its "consequences" roll of just taking metacurrency if it's not obvious what the consequences should be.

For my part I don't like or dislike "nar" or "not nar". They each have their place depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Which is better a socket wrench or calipers? I do greatly dislike the very broad claims about what is possible for a gaming system and the lack of exactness - confusing "player driven" with "character driven" or claiming that non-nar games aren't about stories or don't have PC protagonist or claiming that nar is such a vague concept that you can do it with any game system and such is just... poorly considered.

But as for "Daggerheart" I dislike mostly the barely controlled chaos of the system and the fact that if you had different levels of extraversion in the players in the group I feel like the introverts would be pushed to the back harder than normal. The lack of taking turns gives me as a GM a lot of pauses, because you now have almost nothing to force characters to share the stage. I see why because turn based creates oddities, but I'd put up with the oddities over chaos and people arguing over who should take the next action. I also wonder what the extra granularity of "with hope" or "with fear" would actually do for me as a GM besides make running the game a bit more complicated. I don't think it's the right game for my players, and I'm not excited to run it because I don't see it giving me any stories I can't already tell or any scenes I can't already generate with other systems. As a potential player, it doesn't feel particularly empowering to me because disassociated mechanics and the fiat addition of stakes always favor the GM. I always feel these sorts of mechanics are there to make railroading easier. But you know, I wouldn't not play it either if I have the right GM with a flair for story telling. Whether it's "nar" or "not nar" doesn't really enter into this.

I agree with a fair amount of what you're saying, though we're going to have to part ways on the significance of system character to resulting play. Hard to say about Daggerheart, I would have to run it, but I share your concern about whether fear/hope is really doing significant work.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Why it is ill suited for it? It seems to be almost completely about what criteria the GM uses whilst framing content, and that seems rather system independent.

It might be better to say that Apocalypse World is well suited to it because it is Apocalypse World not D&D that is the outlier here.

In Apocalypse World there is no setting before character creation - and the characters are key elements in the local setting. And the parts of the setting they are integrated with reflects them as characters.

One of the playbooks (classes) is the Hardholder - the town boss. And if you are the Hardholder you make some pretty far reaching choices about the town you live in. And at least one entire column of your character sheet is about the town, its size, its resources, its needs, its defences (including the fighters) and the movers and shakers. Being the town boss is what you are about, far more deeply and mechanically than a D&D cleric is about their god. Another playbook is the Maestro d'; the person who runs the local scene. What is it? A club? A restaurant? A coffee shop? A brothel? That's up to you. But a lot of the game is going to take place in the Maestro d's venue with their aesthetic.

And as an aside is the Hardholder more powerful than the Maestro d? They could certainly have the Maestro d's place burned to the ground with little trouble. But the Hardholder is also statted as a combat class and without the help of social classes (like the Maestro d') they are going to lose their holding - while the Maestro d' is much more stable and has a much easier time if anyone threatens their bar because it's the bar the PCs drink at (or whatever) and the staff are armed. Anyone who can't find the feedback loops and balancing factors in AW hasn't understood it.

In addition every character has a history and all have opinions about each other before the campaign starts. You can (and I do) this in D&D - but AW (and for that matter Fate) makes it an explicit part of character creation.

Now it's possible to have an Apocalypse World party of e.g. a Gunlugger (combat monster), a Driver (complete with tank), and a Brainer (creepy psychic) that has roots every bit as shallow as the average D&D party that might as well have been Isikai'd into the tavern where they met. But this is the exception - and even then they have a shared history and one way of gaining XP is helping and hindering each other so they are encouraged to show more of themselves in play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which games specifically say they are narrative (not narrativist)?

Daggerheart

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are a lot of games identifying by the overlapping and equally vague "storygame."

Storygame originally had a definition due to a flame war on The Big Purple. When My Life With Master was first written dome people objected that it couldn't be an RPG because to be an RPG it had to be open ended and capable of being played indefinitely; MLWM tells one story (the players play minions who get abused by the Master until one of them snaps and tries to kill the master - then battle to the death) and burns the setting down in the process. The writer had more important things to do than flame back so shrugged and said he'd call it a story game. So originally they had to be short term or one shot. And in practice all the ones I'maware of run short.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It might be better to say that Apocalypse World is well suited to it because it is Apocalypse World not D&D that is the outlier here.

In Apocalypse World there is no setting before character creation - and the characters are key elements in the local setting. And the parts of the setting they are integrated with reflects them as characters.

One of the playbooks (classes) is the Hardholder - the town boss. And if you are the Hardholder you make some pretty far reaching choices about the town you live in. And at least one entire column of your character sheet is about the town, its size, its resources, its needs, its defences (including the fighters) and the movers and shakers. Being the town boss is what you are about, far more deeply and mechanically than a D&D cleric is about their god. Another playbook is the Maestro d'; the person who runs the local scene. What is it? A club? A restaurant? A coffee shop? A brothel? That's up to you. But a lot of the game is going to take place in the Maestro d's venue with their aesthetic.

And as an aside is the Hardholder more powerful than the Maestro d? They could certainly have the Maestro d's place burned to the ground with little trouble. But the Hardholder is also statted as a combat class and without the help of social classes (like the Maestro d') they are going to lose their holding - while the Maestro d' is much more stable and has a much easier time if anyone threatens their bar because it's the bar the PCs drink at (or whatever) and the staff are armed. Anyone who can't find the feedback loops and balancing factors in AW hasn't understood it.

In addition every character has a history and all have opinions about each other before the campaign starts. You can (and I do) this in D&D - but AW (and for that matter Fate) makes it an explicit part of character creation.

Now it's possible to have an Apocalypse World party of e.g. a Gunlugger (combat monster), a Driver (complete with tank), and a Brainer (creepy psychic) that has roots every bit as shallow as the average D&D party that might as well have been Isikai'd into the tavern where they met. But this is the exception - and even then they have a shared history and one way of gaining XP is helping and hindering each other so they are encouraged to show more of themselves in play.

Right. But almost all of this is about the background of the characters and their place in the world. And like you said, you can do this in pretty much any game if you want, and also there is an option to build AW characters that don't really have this.

So yes, in a vacuum there is way higher chance in AW than in 5e to end up the sort of connected setup as most of the characters as well as other guidance directs towards this, but you can still do it with other systems just fine if you're so inclined. Thus I think it is incorrect to say that these other systems are ill suited for this.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, this is exactly the case. Some results of a move will tell the GM to respond within constraints, but I don't think that's materially different from a hit in D&D obligating the GM to allocate damage to the orc and say it died. DW spout lore has a SLIGHT exception, the player gets to say how they know the lore, that's it for stock moves. Obviously people can make up whatever other moves they want...

Ok, it sounds like we have different definitions. I'll have to do some research. I think I have a pdf of AW on my drive...

 

[Campbell]

Why it is ill suited for it? It seems to be almost completely about what criteria the GM uses whilst framing content, and that seems rather system independent.

Mechanically, any game that is rooted in rationed and strategic use of discrete abilities over a specific time frame is not going to be very well suited to the loose sense of time and space you need to have in any game where the GM is framing situations with an eye towards staying on premise. If you have to consider the downstream mechanical impact of how the next scene you are framing has on the wizard's ability to impact the next scene versus the fighter's same ability then you are going to be dealing with an undue burden on the GM.

There's also just way too many spells and abilities that just do stuff and reframe/recontextualize a scene.

There's just so much task resolution DNA you have to fight, mechanically.

That's before we get into the lack of reward systems to help play keep moving.

 

[pawsplay]

And yet it was explicitly written to be a narrative game and is taken as one by those who like narrative games. As @pemerton pointed out Vincent Baker literally wrote "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards."

It was written to be a narrativist game, which is not the same thing.