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

[Crimson Longinus]

Thank you, this is an answer that actually deals with the mechanics.

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.

But if you're framing things based on the capabilities of the chracters, aren't you still framing it around the character? It is just more action adventure way rather than drama way of doing that.

But yes, I totally get that if you're more interested in framing around character drama all of that might seem like unwelcome distraction or a burden.

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

But if the players have the power to do this, wouldn't this make the game more player driven?

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

What is issue with task resolution? I get that most of the narativeish games are more into conflict resolution oriented, but I am not actually quite sure why...

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

What does that mean?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

AWs move mechanics, for example, constantly produce a series of related circumstances that grow directly out of player action declaration and dice. The criteria for the GM to produce subsequent framing is VERY explicit. While GMs certainly could steer things, you can only use a light hand or else things become obviously revolving on some GM intended matters. D&D lacks the entire loop of consequences snowball into new framing. Yes you can hack D&D, but OOTB IME it fights you. At best it's inherently not such a transparent system and lacks the sorts of built-in structures on injecting classic play techniques.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

AWs move mechanics, for example, constantly produce a series of related circumstances that grow directly out of player action declaration and dice. The criteria for the GM to produce subsequent framing is VERY explicit. While GMs certainly could steer things, you can only use a light hand or else things become obviously revolving on some GM intended matters. D&D lacks the entire loop of consequences snowball into new framing. Yes you can hack D&D, but OOTB IME it fights you. At best it's inherently not such a transparent system and lacks the sorts of built-in structures on injecting classic play techniques.

I don't understand how consequence snownball is related to keeping things focused on the characters. In my experience it just makes things unpredictable and chaotic. (Which can be fun, but not what we are talking about.)

 

[Celebrim]

The difference is far more than just providing some variation based on backstory. The essence of a game like AW is that everything in play flows from who the characters are. It's not even possible to write an AW 'module'.

Literally, you can go to the Dungeon World website and they offer you a module and they have links to a whole bunch of adventure modules for sell. And while DW is a bit different game than AW, the same techniques used to make DW adventures could be used to make AW adventures.

This is what I mean when I say that, fundamentally, a game of AW doesn't even exist without the PCs, it's built around them.

But notably, not by them. Not even partially. So that means that PC's are interchangeable to scenarios and what changes when you change the PC's is how they interact with that scenario.

And Celebrim's characterization of playing DW raises huge red flags.

My characterization raises red flags? Like there are literally DW adventure modules from the official DW website. I've looked into the before because as a GM I'm always looking for good scenarios to port into whatever game I'm playing.

 

[Stalker0]

Ah. Mostly my sense is that Daggerheart is a game that expects everyone to be invested in maintaining the integrity of the fiction. So like when taking action you should be mindful of does this make sense in fiction? instead of just thinking about the downstream benefits of taking that action. The same can be said for invoking an experience or providing help to someone else's action. The game leaves it in players' hands to determine what makes sense whereas more traditional games largely leave these sorts of decisions up to the game system and/or GM.

This is where I get stuck. You are correct that the game says you should do that....but mechanically there isn't much where that actually happens.

Players have actions similar to dnd, they have domain cards (very similar to 4e dnd) that gives them specific abilities. Hope can be spent for specific things (its not a freeform currency where the players can spend it to all sorts of things happen). You could argue fear is actually "anti-narrative" is it seeks to limit the dms ability to alter a scene with some costs (whereas other games would say that is simply the GMs right to do or not do as what makes sense for the story). The closest I could come up with was the death system, which gives players some ways to narrate their death (though still through strict mechanical options)

And so this brings me back to my first statement in the OP. Is a key part of being a narrative game simply the presentation of narration? If the game puts in its text "players you should be narrating!!!" is that enough to make it a narrative game? Mechanically I can't find much of anything in DH to say its any more narrative than dnd or a number of other RPGs.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

That's why I'm focusing on Apocalypse World as the outlier, not D&D. It's not that you can't do any of this stuff in D&D, GURPS, Rolemaster, Marvel FASERIP (by the standards of this thread a narrative system due to meta currency) or [insert system here]. It's that Apocalypse World makes it far far easier because it is a system designed for it.

And then there's a huge piece of secret sauce in AW that simply isn't matched in other games - the "change your playbook" triggers of either death or levelling up sufficiently. A Hardholder left for dead can change their playbook (once only) so they might some back as a gunlugger looking for revenge ... or an angel (medic) looking for a new life. Or you can level up as a Gunlugger and take over as Hardholder ... or retire and run a bar as a Maestro d'. This level of "major consequential change" simply isn't matched.

And then there's the pace and the way things twist thanks to the tailored moves (not in BitD and weak and bland in Dungeon World) encouraging specific behaviours and the way every roll has consequences speeds things up massively. It can feel like trying to ride an unbroken horse - either exhilarating or terrifying.

I mean sure, with sufficient out of session work, hpuse ruling, and player buy in including group character creation over Discord you can spend a lot of effort to get a D&D party by the end of the third session to the sort of dynamics of where an average AW group will be at the end of the first (which is also the CharGen session). But the gap will only grow far wider each session at an accelarating rate with AW's faster pace, and D&D's highly restrictive character growth. So why would you if AW is what you want?

 

[aramis erak]

Nobody is playing Apocalypse World or Masks because Moves are the hot new game mechanic.

The moves mechanic was what got me to try Sentinel Comics, as I'd not encountered it in anything vaguely interesting thematically for me until that point.

It was, in many ways, the hot new mechanic, and it is being used by designers because it's a hot mechanic that many are now familiar with, which means they can focus on the details more than on how to use it. It also is useful in that anything not covered by a move is either out of setting or allowed as automatic. So even in arguably non-AWE/PBTA games, it's had an impact on design. And upon play.

Coming from a Traveller background, I got used to a largely universal mechanic - the DGP Task System for CT, adopted in MT and Traveller 2300/2300 AD... and T2K 2.2, etc. is used for almost everything. It has a rule for damage on mishaps, damage to gear, repair difficulties, etc... intended to be a tool for GM winging tasks on the fly. (In practice, a significant fraction instead compiled a list of tasks previously defined in play.) And, from that point on, the move was towards single mechanic systems.

The move systems generally provide specific outcomes for specific categories, and as shown by Sentinel Comics, can be used as a Task system. And most expect anything not a move is say yes... most, but not all, eg Sentinel Comics, which has it's 7 defined moves (Attack, Defend, Boost, Hinder, Overcome, Heal, Create/Summon)... and all the special powers are built around one or two of those effects. (Note: there are two forms of create/summon; one gives a lieutenant or tool of a die-size by roll, the other gives a number of d6-sized minions. Powers specify which.)

The moves within SC are usable in a more neotrad approach as well as the standard PBTA story-first mode.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Literally, you can go to the Dungeon World website and they offer you a module and they have links to a whole bunch of adventure modules for sell. And while DW is a bit different game than AW, the same techniques used to make DW adventures could be used to make AW adventures.



But notably, not by them. Not even partially. So that means that PC's are interchangeable to scenarios and what changes when you change the PC's is how they interact with that scenario.



My characterization raises red flags? Like there are literally DW adventure modules from the official DW website. I've looked into the before because as a GM I'm always looking for good scenarios to port into whatever game I'm playing.

I don't even grasp how an adventure module would work or how you could structure such a thing if you play the game as intended. I've never seen anything like that in use. I can easily imagine books full of resources, playbooks, monsters, maps, front writeups, etc. but it is never going to be rolled out in the way a D&D module is. The milieu is built around the characters, you cannot just drop them into a pregenerated scenario. I'm quite familiar with supplements which extend and adapt play, like Perilous Wilds.

 

[pemerton]

I do consider that to be a narrative mechanic, yes. Also, are you telling me that no ability in any AW playbook allows a player to have any control over the fiction beyond what their PC is in-universe capable of? If you say yes I'll accept that, but frankly it's hard to believe.

I have been over this it feels like a million times, in threads that I'm sure you must have been posting in .

I've made the list elsewhere. Off the top of my head I can think of two - one Battlebabe move, one Savvyhead move - that are both options for those PC builds:

Visions of death: when you go into battle, roll+weird. On a 10+, name one person who’ll die and one who’ll live. On a 7–9, name one person who’ll die OR one person who’ll live. Don’t name a player’s character; name NPCs only. The MC will make your vision come true, if it’s even remotely possible. On a miss, you foresee your own death, and accordingly take -1 throughout the battle.

Bonefeel: at the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 1+1. On a 7–9, hold 1. At any time, either you or the MC can spend your hold to have you already be there, with the proper tools and knowledge, with or without any clear explanation why. If your hold was 1+1, take +1 forward now. On a miss, the MC holds 1, and can spend it to have you already be there, but somehow pinned, caught or trapped.​

Here is the way that AW allocates authority between players and GM (p 109):

Apocalypse World divvies the conversation up in a strict and pretty traditional way. e players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings. Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does except the players’ characters.​

It's pretty straightforward.

As Baker puts it (p 288), "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards." And as I posted upthread, and as is clear if you read that essay, "narrativism" has nothing to do with "meta" mechanics. It would be like saying that simulationism is all about rolling a d20.

What is key to "narrativism" is that there is no "the story", because play is about the GM framing the PCs (and, thereby, the players) into a situation that calls upon the players to make one or more thematically significant choices in the play of their PCs. This is the core of play - not something the might come up on occasion, but the whole essence of play.

Doing it requires (i) a particular approach to framing, such that the framed situation provoke the right sorts of choices, and (ii) a particular approach to resolution, such that the consequences of action manifest and carry through on thematic significance.

At an abstract level, that's it.

At a technical design level, it turns out that it's trickier than it looks, because of the wargame legacy in RPG design: and wargame rules for framing and resolution do not, typically, foreground matters of thematic significance.

 

[pemerton]

Who's making things up on the spot? The GM or the player?

Primarily, the GM. Perhaps the player - the GM can ask the player "What do you remember about such-and-such?" or, in DW if a Spout Lore roll dictates that the PC knows something, "How do you know that?" The GM is the one who actually narrates the that.