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

[Paul Farquhar]

I was doing this in AD&D back in the 80s, never heard of Forge until here. But then I started playing in 1977 and am a thinking human being. Maybe it was a Dragon or Different Worlds article that mentioned something in passing when talking about making statt tests. In any case, I don't need a system to come up with any of these.

As I mentioned in a different thread, back in the early days we simply made up rules as we went along. Something kids are pretty good at.

 

[Wolfpack48]

There are three major differences between these cases and Wolfpack's failure suggestions;

1. They are considered successes not failures; the character does what they were trying to
2. The system presents the options rather than having the GM splice it in to make up for the shortcomings of the system
3. The player, not the GM chooses the type of shortfall meaning that how recklessly you are playing your character and what you value is further emphasised.

And all of these things are valuable and show parts of why GMing advice is not as good as a system designed for the purpose.

"Succeed on a failure" typically happens when the test is either trivial, low difficulty, the PC has a high skill, and/or where the danger in the test was something other than the perceived target of the test.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not sure which game's fifth edition you are talking about here? Because the only power attack options are with the GWM and SS feats - and their cost is accuracy. The closest to a defence penalty is the Reckless Attack barbarian feature.

I'm just drawing attention to the post-roll choices in some games being pre-roll in others.

And how much damage you do isn't a decision - which means that organised players often roll to hit and damage at the same time; there is no decision here.

Yes, no GM decision.

Nope. A 7-9 in DW is a hit. Just not an ideal one.

I am referring to a 6 or less.

Hardly distinctive from other games - but a major oversight.

It's a trade-off, not an oversight.

 

[clearstream]

And that causation is very often worked out by the GM making reference to notes/ideas that were/are hidden from the players.

This is part of @Campbell's reply to you: this sort of approach does not actively support player-driven, thematic and protagonistic RPGing. It encourages play based around discovering, and/or hedging against, and or working out the consequences of, GM's secret info.

The question asked was,
And here we see the answer. The system does tell us what content the GM can introduce, when, and how. And different systems foreground different sorts of stuff. Where in the example of 5e resolution do we see the player's thematic concerns being foregrounded? They're absent, for the good reason that having regard to them is simply not a factor in 5e's approach to resolving declared actions.

My focus was far narrower. Only on comparing the binary and trinary outcome structure across games, and looking at variations in the sequencing of various decisions.

The tech I'm most interested in is the GM move, and how that is used with misses.

 

[pemerton]

Or alternatively it empowers the players to make impactful decisions with real meaning as the fictional reality their characters inhabit is not an amorphous mutable mess.

No one's game fiction is an "amorphous mutable mess" as best I'm aware of. And the players in the games I GM make impactful decisions with real meaning - eg to kill Gerda, to kill Megloss, to seek the help of the Void cult, to reach a deal with Lareth the Beautiful, etc.

You seem to be assuming that there is a more-or-less strict correlation between an absence of resolution by causal extrapolation, and an absence of concrete fiction elements and relationships at stake in a given scene. That assumption is not correct.

And if you're not making that assumption, then there is even less basis for thinking that you have identified a distinct virtue of the causal-adjudication approach to play. It's virtue is not meaning. It's virtue is something in the neighbourhood of puzzle solving - analogously to identifying the hidden pieces on a gameboard.

In Blades you don't need to make concrete plans for your actions, but you also really cannot make concrete plans as there is no concrete reality to begin with.

I can't comment much on planning in BitD, which I've not played - although I do know that there is such a thing as gathering information, which looks to me like a type of planning.

But I don't really see the connection between (say) the sort of planning that Gygax describes in his PHB (equipment and spell load-out, a "plan of attack" for the dungeon level, etc); or the sort of planning that might figure in a Shadowrun or certain sorts of Traveller or even Cthulhu scenarios; and "impactful decisions with real meaning".

I've GMed sessions of Rolemaster where a lot of time has been spent by the players optimising the use of spell power points to prepare for a particular mission their PCs are about to undertake. There's a type of pleasure there, somewhat comparable to the pleasure in solving a sudoku or crossword - but it's not about meaningfulness.

And I've played RPGs - investigative scenarios in various systems - where a good chunk of play is about ascertaining the "true" state of the fictional situation, by unearthing the hidden information without doing anything so flagrant that it upsets the whole applecart (in virtue of the GM's causal extrapolations). Again, there can be a type of pleasure there, but it's not about meaningfulness either.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes, but it often goes with it. Also, it was the specific distinction @pemerton was referring to and which I responded to.

Several PbtA/FitD settings with myth have already been mentioned, such as Stonetop and Blades. What I also find interesting is that I would wager that most of @pemerton’s story now play reviews that I recall involve settings with myth: Middle Earth, Marvel, Dark Sun, etc.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Oh, indeed. I'm not saying that nar games are always best.

This ties in with @pemerton earlier mentioning "fear of failure" and is partly a difference between players, partly one between GMs and the degree they punish or even reward failure. Some players love critical failures in D&D, others hate them (which is why I make them opt-in, offering a reroll at the risk of a crit fail). And the biggest groups of turtles I've ever seen have been old school gamers, for a reason.

I only notice fear of failure after players have been playing Call of Cthulhu for awhile.... Suddenly, they no longer want to bash doors down and storm the room!

In any case, yes, tailoring the crit success/special success (BRP)/failure/crit failure based on the situation is something that makes for a lively game, and my own table doesn't have an issue with them, as long as they produce entertaining/funny results. We don't offer re-rolls (perceived as boring), but make the initial roll as interesting as possible.

 

[pemerton]

It is and you can, but myth vs no myth is a genuine difference, each having its own strengths and weaknesses.

Yes, but it often goes with it. Also, it was the specific distinction @pemerton was referring to and which I responded to.

I made no reference to "no myth".

Here is what I said:

And that causation is very often worked out by the GM making reference to notes/ideas that were/are hidden from the players.

This is part of @Campbell's reply to you: this sort of approach does not actively support player-driven, thematic and protagonistic RPGing. It encourages play based around discovering, and/or hedging against, and or working out the consequences of, GM's secret info.

That is not talking about "no myth". It is talking about a particular method of action resolution - GM decision based on GM extrapolation from GM secret information.

My Torchbearer 2e play is not especially no myth, but it doesn't use that method of action resolution. It uses TB2's action resolution mechanics.

I've played Burning Wheel where the GM and I look over a finely-detailed map of Greyhawk together to work out exactly where Thurgon and Aramina are, and where they are travelling. That's not no myth either. But it doesn't use the method of action resolution I described. It uses BW's action resolution mechanics. (And ditto for Prince Valiant, only the maps are of "Dark Ages" Europe.)

 

[clearstream]

I'm trying to show that even D&D doesn't always have a direct representation between the action and the consequences.

It's all (all TTRPG) heavily analogic and symbolic, and once one breaks the relationship between the symbol and the symbolised, meaning dissipates.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Manbearcat you make perfectly valid points, but I think you overinterpreted what I said. There of course is a structure, and everything isn't completely amorphous. But basically there is malleability in the reality that doesn't exist in some other approaches, and that malleability is what allows a lot of the mechanics of the game to work. Flashbacks are an obvious example, but often the consequences can rely on this too. Like in our last game the location of the guards was dependent on out roll to perceive them. It's a bit quantum, and I don't mind it in that context. In fact our GM is pretty cautious about using the flexibility of the reality and I wish they'd use it more. But it is different than how I'd run this in D&D.