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

[pemerton]

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.

A similar example you might be familiar with is how skill challenges in 4e required the same sort of mindfulness from players of the larger fictional situation (and not just justifying the use of their best skills all the time).

Your post reminded me of how, in my 4e D&D game, the player of the wizard/invoker would make decisions about what was a ritual and what was not, how magical effects worked, etc, and then declare actions around that, applying his +2 bonus to skill checks involving rituals when it fitted, and not applying it when it didn't. This would be anathema at Gygax's table, I imagine, but in our game it really helped bring magic in the setting to life.

That is something that is hard to do, even with experienced players. It is very hard to not do the thing that the mechanics clearly say is optimal, especially if there are are other areas in the same game where it is sort of expected that you play tactically.

I can't comment on how hard it is, but I see it done fairly often. As @Campbell says, it requires the players to invest in the fiction.

There are definitely things that can make it harder, such as a sense that the stakes of failure are character death and/or losing the game and/or "having to sit out of the game* (in a lot of fairly classic RPG play these overlap). I've often posted, in the past 15 years, that what facilitates "story now" play is the players not being afraid to fail. Which is about how consequences for failure are established, and how there can be setbacks for the character that keep the player invested rather than having lost, or being excluded from play.

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.

@Campbell's answer to this was pretty good. From my own extensive experience in both AD&D and RM, the way consequences are established and unfold are one part of it (eg nothing kills of thematic focus like spending 15 or 30 minutes tracking recovery after a big combat is resolved). Another is that the mechanics themselves make parts of the fiction relevant that have no thematic salience (eg how many feet thick is the castle wall) while not making salient those parts of the fiction that matter thematically.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are definitely things that can make it harder, such as a sense that the stakes of failure are character death and/or losing the game and/or "having to sit out of the game* (in a lot of fairly classic RPG play these overlap). I've often posted, in the past 15 years, that what facilitates "story now" play is the players not being afraid to fail. Which is about how consequences for failure are established, and how there can be setbacks for the character that keep the player invested rather than having lost, or being excluded from play.

And to expand on this D&D (and Trad RPGs in general) only come with a tiny handful of failure states that arise directly from the mechanics.

1. It didn't work. You can try again if you have time.
2. It didn't work. You can't try again.
3. It didn't work and you lose a resource (hp or a spell slot). You can try again if you still have time and resources.
4. You die.

All of these are fundamentally boring. In the first three cases nothing happened and you lose a resource (even if it's only time) and in the fourth nothing is going to happen. There is no upside to failure.

In Apocalypse World (or anything PbtA or FitD) failure is at least interesting as it allows a GM "hard move" and success-with-consequences is always progress. There's a lot less reason to despise failure. Dungeon World improves on this (something I rarely say) and gives you XP for failing your rolls.

And as mentioned even death in AW can make your character a whole lot more interesting; "when life becomes untenable" you get to pick one of four choices (but once each per choice) of which death is only one and literally changing your playbook is one. "I was left for dead and now ..." Is fundamentally interesting.

 

[Campbell]

That is something that is hard to do, even with experienced players. It is very hard to not do the thing that the mechanics clearly say is optimal, especially if there are are other areas in the same game where it is sort of expected that you play tactically.

If one can design a game so that what is fun and what is optimal mostly align, then I think that is definitely a superior way to do it.

I don't know how much experience has to do with it. My own anecdotal experience is that it's much easier to newer players than players who are used to the GM and/or system sort of owning consistency. While I think taking ownership of the fidelity of the fiction is a skill all players should really develop it's instrumental to most of the games both the groups, I am part of play. I personally really like the flexibility afforded by games that put more in players' hands (and how much less of a burden it puts on me as a GM).

For instance, in the last Apocalypse Keys game, I ran I left it entirely in the players' courts to determine what their powers of darkness (which are generally descriptive like colossal strength or emotional manipulation) could do and when they met the qualifications gaining darkness tokens.

One less thing for me to worry about. I just got to enjoy framing scenes, bringing the threat of the apocalypse to life and coming up with compelling clues.

I am interested to see how the larger play culture outside of our bubbles takes these sort of ideas. The most mainstream game that sort of required this sort of approach was Marvel Heroic and its been a number of years since then (and even then did not see the sort of marketing push I expect Daggerheart to see).

 

[hawkeyefan]

So here's what the most recent Daggerheart playtest packet says at the beginning about what type of RPG it is meant to be. This is from the "Introduction", beginning on page 10 of the playtest.

What Kind of Roleplaying Game Is Daggerheart?

Daggerheart is a heroic narrative-focused experience with combat as a prominent aspect of play, facilitating emotionally engaging, player-driven campaigns that are punctuated by exciting battles and harrowing challenges. The game takes a more fiction-first approach in its design, encouraging players and GMs to focus on the story they’re telling rather than the complexity of the mechanics. It asks them to act in good faith with one another to tell the best story they can, and looks to provide structure when it’s unclear how things might resolve within that story. The system has a free-flowing approach to combat to avoid stopping down the game into rounds, and it doesn’t rely on grid-based movement for the maps and minis. This is all purposeful in creating a game that utilizes the kind of terrain and map-building that miniature-based games are known for while making Daggerheart streamlined, approachable, and focused on delivering a great narrative experience at the table.

Those who prefer a highly strategic, rules-heavy experience with more of a heritage from wargames may find Daggerheart doesn’t have all of the crunchy bits they’re used to. Those who come from very rules-light gameplay may find some mechanics engage in areas where they’re used to a more free-form approach. That’s okay! You should always play the types of games that make you and your table happy. That said, if you’re looking to tell heroic fantasy stories with a modern approach to mechanics that focus on both the epic battles and the emotional narrative of the characters who fight in them, you’ve come to the right place.

Daggerheart utilizes an asymmetrical design. That means that it plays very differently for the GM than it does for the players. Many TTRPGs have some asymmetry, with players each controlling one PC while the GM plays everyone else. But Daggerheart’s asymmetry goes deeper—players roll the 2d12 Duality Dice for their PCs’ standard actions, including their attacks. At the same time, the GM can make most moves without rolling, but they roll a d20 for adversary moves that require a roll, such as attacks and reaction rolls. Each PC gains Hope when they “roll with Hope,” while the GM gains Fear when any PC “rolls with Fear.” PCs and Adversaries both have a mechanic called Experiences, but they are used in different ways at different times. This asymmetrical design is intended to help all participants more effectively contribute to creating a memorable experience together at the table.
*****

The text then goes on to list the touchstones for the game. It lists different media and then provides a list of RPGs that deserve Special Appreciation, and explains why.

Touchstones

Daggerheart gleans inspiration from a variety of sources. Below is an abridged list of media the design team drew from while crafting this game.

TTRPGs: 13th Age, Apocalypse Keys, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, City of Mist, Cortex Prime, Cypher System, Dishonored, Dungeons & Dragons, Flee Mortals!, For The Queen, Genesys, Lady Blackbird, Masks: A New Generation, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, The Quiet Year, Wildsea, Slugblaster
Books: A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Wizard of Earthsea, Sabriel, The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings series
Movies & Television: The Dragon Prince, The Lord of the Rings, The Witcher, The Legend of Vox Machina
Video Games: Borderlands, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Outriders, The Elder Scrolls series

Special Appreciation:
● The Genesys System was a major inspiration for the two-axis results of the duality dice.
● Cypher System’s GM Intrusions paved the way for spending Fear to interrupt a scene.
● Among many other things, Dungeons & Dragons’ advantage/disadvantage system was particularly inspirational in the dice mechanics of this game.
● 13th Age’s Backgrounds heavily inspired the Experience mechanic.
● Blades in the Dark and Apocalypse World helped shape the narrative game flow, and their playbooks inspired a lot of the character sheet development.
● The Wildsea’s phenomenal Reaches section provided the chassis for the Regions section of this book.
● Enemy types and ways of managing minions are informed by Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition and the monster design of Flee, Mortals!
● The Quiet Year inspired the map-building section of this book’s campaign guidance.
● The sample session zero structure is informed by Apocalypse Keys.
*****

Looking over the use of the word "narrative" in this section, it seems mostly to be a plain langauge use. They simply mean a narrative...a story, or if that word bothers you, an account of connected events.

"Narrative-focused" reads like they're making it clear that they care much more about a satisfying story than they do about following the rules to a tee.

"Emotional narrative" simply references the characters' development across play. How they grow and change (or don't) as play progresses.

"Narrative game flow" is probably the most confusing use, because it is evoked in reference to Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark. I think this is most likely related to the lack of initiative and rounds... relying solely on the fiction to dictate the pace of events, and for consequences to impact play, creating a dynamic play state.

There are more uses of the word "narrative" in the sections that follow. Reading it, I really don't think they mean it in any other way than its plain usage.

Now, having said that, looking at the list of inspirational games, and also seeing other phrases throughout such as "fiction first" and "play to find out"... their "Golden Rule" which is similar to a Rule Zero, though it adds in a meaningful "...with your table's consent', the list of player principles... all these things certainly speak more toward a style of play in line with Narrativism/Story Now. The GM principles listed later in the book (page 141) are very clearly inspired by those in Apocalypse World.

However, there are also clear influences from plenty of other types of games, and plenty of evidence in the text that speaks to a pretty traditional approach to play. I haven't played it yet, but I expect that it'll likely play like a pretty neo-trad game, with some Narrativist/Story Now elements mixed in.

 

[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.

Just to respond to this in a bit more substantive fashion. When I go to this page there are 4 files. Indeed one is an 'adventure'. I guess it kinda deserves the name, it outlines a rationale for the PCs to be where they are, describes the environs, including some NPCs and custom moves, and then describes 2 fronts. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of typical trad modules, though being a free thing it isn't all THAT atypical. In any case, I'm dubious that this type of material is really going to produce the type of game I'm used to.

As for other adventures... Searching around on Google produced a site that lists a bunch of misc. DW content. MOST of it is of the form of bits of lore, fronts, a map, that sort of thing. There are a couple people who have written what I assume to be actual adventures, 2 of them look like they're quite long (one claims to be 99 pages). Honestly, I think they're missing the whole point of Dungeon World! If you are just going to shepherd the PCs through a curated series of prewritten situations, you're not really playing DW as I have run and played it at all.

So, no, there is one very brief 'adventure' that might be termed 'official' in that it appears on the official DW site. There ARE some others, but I would not call them 'official adventures'. I really have no idea what Sage and Adam have to say about this topic, but trotting out a canned adventure certainly breaks many of the principles of DW. I mean, the little short thing on the DW site, OK, 'run' it, but even that makes me uncomfortable. For instance the questions the GM is told to ask at the start seem very contrived to construct the scenario the GM is aiming for, those are not the sort of questions I would normally ask, unless the situation had naturally evolved to the point described where the PCs are wanted and desperate to get out of town. I think a principled DW GM would STILL not ask such leading questions that basically only open up one option, getting on the ship. I get why the adventure is written this way, but this is EXACTLY why adventures are not a good idea in DW!

 

[Wolfpack48]

And to expand on this D&D (and Trad RPGs in general) only come with a tiny handful of failure states that arise directly from the mechanics.

1. It didn't work. You can try again if you have time.
2. It didn't work. You can't try again.
3. It didn't work and you lose a resource (hp or a spell slot). You can try again if you still have time and resources.
4. You die.

All of these are fundamentally boring. In the first three cases nothing happened and you lose a resource (even if it's only time) and in the fourth nothing is going to happen. There is no upside to failure.

This is inaccurate. There are many more failure states:

1. You succeeded but it took longer than you wanted.
2. You succeeded but made more noise than you wanted.
3. You succeeded, but injured yourself in the process
4. You succeeded, but angered someone/thing in the process.
5. You succeeded, but placed yourself in a precarious position/situation.
6. You succeeded but broke tools in the process.

I could go on…

 

[Autumnal]

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

raises hand

I don’t dislike everything about narrativism, but I dislike some elements of it as a set of assumptions. I like longer term play, with frequent stretches of emotionally “cool”, low-intensity play focused on slices of life rather than putting something significant at stake; I’m really far from convinced that the Egri-ish approach to premises is as universally productive as its fans think (recognizing that this puts me opposite a bunch of writers whom I readily recognize as great - it’s work in progress); I have roughly equal fondness for creation on the fly and for exploring a setting previously made up.

Hence my fondness for HeroQuest and Fate Accelerated over Apocalypse World and lots of its progeny. But then again, Ironsworn and Starforged have become two of my favorite games ever. Some of it is that playing solo creates some distinctive needs and opportunities. Some of it is that it’s not twenty years ago. Part of it is that style is also part of system and system matters. And part of it, for sure, is that I’m not at all consistent about this stuff, and would rather have more happy gaming than consistency.

 

[Pedantic]

And to expand on this D&D (and Trad RPGs in general) only come with a tiny handful of failure states that arise directly from the mechanics.

1. It didn't work. You can try again if you have time.
2. It didn't work. You can't try again.
3. It didn't work and you lose a resource (hp or a spell slot). You can try again if you still have time and resources.
4. You die.

This is mostly just coming from directly comparing task/conflict resolution. You're expected to declare several actions to achieve a given goal in a task-resolution model. Effectively, intent moves from a thing you announce as part of the action, to a thing revealed by your choice of strategy in the specific actions you put together. If you zoom out the scale of resolution, you can get the bigger picture results you're looking for. Stakes aren't bound into the basic resolution mechanic, and are resolved more "slowly" for lack of a better word.

 

[thefutilist]

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...

This is where I part ways with a lot of other story inclined players. I don’t think the task/conflict split is a good way of understanding resolution. As long as the task is linked to the intent then task resolution is fine.

I use my lock-picking tools to open the safe, I roll and fail, I don’t open the safe.

That’s more or less how I play most games. Even when Playing Apocalypse World, I use this binary, I just add more that gets resolved in a single roll.

You’re trying to open the safe before the guards find you.

10: you open the safe and the guards don’t find you

7-9: It’s taking longer to open the safe than you thought, you can carry on but the guards will find you or you can split now.

6: You fail to open the safe and the guards find you.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is mostly just coming from directly comparing task/conflict resolution. You're expected to declare several actions to achieve a given goal in a task-resolution model. Effectively, intent moves from a thing you announce as part of the action, to a thing revealed by your choice of strategy in the specific actions you put together. If you zoom out the scale of resolution, you can get the bigger picture results you're looking for. Stakes aren't bound into the basic resolution mechanic, and are resolved more "slowly" for lack of a better word.

Then why are so many of these system so wishy-washy about it? NONE of them that I know of really come out and SAY this. Nor do they provide any sort of support for it. Classic is 5e, there's no way of knowing what number of checks will get you what you want. Nor is there any real explanation of the deep need for transparency that would be required in order to make that really work.