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

[AbdulAlhazred]

The funny thing about this? Narrative games are almost always at the light end of the spectrum. RQ is slow, number-bound (how many skills? How many hit locations? How many attacks per fight whiff?) and people spend far longer with noses in books than they do with AW

I know it is blasphemy, but I hated RQ. I find it clunky, goofy, and incredibly slow at the table. The whole meta of Glorantha is kind of cool, but the game itself is, IMHO, a turkey.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A lot of where this topic has gone just reminds me of why I feel the entire hobby is trying way too hard to tell stories and has really lost sight of how best to use games as a story medium.

Id honestly go as far as the no doubt controversial statement that all of this Story Now stuff is on the same level of any given GM railroading his party in terms of how it uses games as a story medium.

Because in both cases, it puts the telling of a specific story at the forefront of the game, with everything else being secondary, at best. Whether its a prewritten story or something created ad hoc, it doesn't really matter, because its all story telling at the end of the day.

Comparatively, games as a medium for stories excel over other forms in a very specific way, in that only they can give the audience the first hand experience of the events in a given narrative. This necessarily means that gameplay, fundamentally, will always consist of a, if not realistic, then at least verisimiliar, amount of things that would never work in any other medium, but can make for an extraordinarily compelling experience in a game.

When Tony Stark builds a suit in a cave, only the rare few would find it interesting to watch the many weeks it must have taken. But if that same idea was instead gamified, and delivered through some compelling gameplay design? Thats a different story, to turn a phrase.

We'll have much of that 'boring' downtime and slow pacing that would never work well in a movie, and would need some very specific narrative riders to work in a book (see the vast descriptions of Tolkien that hinge on the slow pace of travel), but in a game, serve as very necessary breaks in what would be, in this example, highly engaging gameplay.

And what we'd get is the same broad idea, smart guy builds a power suit in a cave with a box of scraps. But what the Audience takes from it is much different. In a movie or comic book, we just see Iron Man as a crafty and resourceful character.

In a game, we are Iron Man, and we built that suit, in a cave, with a box of scraps, and the story we would tell of that experience, is where the really good stuff is. When I tell how I finally left the cave, I'm not thinking about fictional positioning or how best to hit a climax.

I'm thinking about frantically trying to get that damn suit to power up before me and my friend get shot by terrorists. I'm thinking about how my friend had the bright idea to pick up a gun and charge down the terrorists, and how incredibly tragic it was that he died before I could get to him. And I'm also thinking about how much I roasted my friend for doing something that obviously stupid so early in the game.

So in short, my point is games are at their best as vehicles for story when the game is an experience, and the story is what we remember of it. Games ought to be about story making, not just merely telling them. And getting back to what I said earlier, I feel the hobby gets lost when it tries too hard to tell stories, as story telling doesn't allow much room for story making, and thats why I'd say the two ways mentioned aren't all that different, particularly in the context of their respective games.

See, I don't have a problem with your example, I get it, but why do you have to start out by trashing something else that you CLEARLY do not understand, at all???!!!! Just because YOU cannot understand, or don't want to understand, how to produce an engaging kind of game play that, hopefully, produces interesting narrative and provokes intellectual and emotional connections with the characters and situation, DOES NOT MEAN that it is impossible, or even difficult for some of us.

 

[KYRON45]

The conclusion pops up so consistently because when certain folks try so very hard to justify and prove the value of their preferred design, they inevitably drift into arguments that, intentionally or not, point to the tyrant GM.

Its hard not to see that as the root issue when arguments start talking about being "de-protagonized" if the GM isn't sharing any overt amount of narrative control.

I feel it is my duty as the DM to both punish and reward my players. Tyrant? Maybe. Good parenting? Probably not. Fun? They keep coming back and have never threatened to overthrow me. Oh god why won't they overthrow me?!?!

 

[Manbearcat]

This centering of all of TTRPGing around storytelling is a misunderstanding of what is happening in various games. Some games are concerned with storytelling. Others are not.

* I spent 1984 through 1999 running Moldvay Basic Pawn Stance Dungeon Crawls. Sometimes Expert as well. RC starting 1991 and I was doing Hexcrawls with it. These games were never interested in macro-storytelling. It was 100 % challenge-based play.

* I ran Everway a bit in 1995-96. This game was definitely interested in macro-storytelling, arcs, beats, etc.

* I was in the 3e FR playtest from 1999 and ran an FR-based 3e game from then until 2004. This game was 100 % OC/NeoTrad. People were playing beloved OC characters that they imported into this game from prior games and they had a deep conception of who they were and character arcs they expected to be mapped onto play. They expected metaplot. They expected loads of auxillary content that amounted to Forgotten Realms Setting Tourism for their OC characters. I ran this for 5 years through level 22. This game was deeply preoccupied with character metaplot, setting metaplot, setting tourism, drama, and prefabricated arcs; macro-storytelling.

* In the last 20 years, the majority of my GMing has been Dogs in the Vineyard, Torchbearer, D&D 4e, Shadows of Yesterday, Sorcerer, My Life With Master, Marvel Heroic, Mouse Guard, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Thousand Arrows, The Between, Strike (!), Blades in the Dark, Lazers & Feelings, Lady Blackbird, Agon, Stonetop. These games were structurally and intentionally disinterested in macro-storytelling, arcs, beats. They're all "situation/conflict-play with cascading gamestate/fiction leading wherever" (often with the site of conflict being the scene/encounter, sometimes deeply deeply structured loops) and some of them feature challenge-based play (either integrated or on a toggle).

* I ran Dread and Ten Candles in this same interval and both of those games seem intentfully designed with dramatic arc and macro-storytelling imperatives.

* I intermittently sat in for a flakey 5e GM for a large chunk of sessions over the course of 2016-2019 (spanning 12 levels). That game and that text was/is absolutely undergirded by GM-as-storyteller with Neotrad tools (Inspiration and Background Traits and some modules for metacurrency) that you can opt-into. These players (young boys) mostly just wanted to beat puzzles and kick butt; I indulged them. They would complain about their dad's exposition and metaplot that they didn't care about whatsoever while I was GMing. When I ran the game, it was this weird combo of challenge-based play and adlibbed Neotrad-like scenes when I could wrangle the boys into advocating for the thematic core of their characters. Sometimes that worked. Oftentimes, they just wanted to kick butt and take names. I did, however, have a lot of luck with the Social Interaction, "NPCs as puzzle" minigame. This generated a lot of social conflicts because they enjoyed the minigame.

So, the dad's base 5e game? Totally preoccupied by macro-storytelling imperatives. When I ran it, I made it mostly challenge-based play (combat encounters and NPCs as puzzles) with some auxiliary free form Neotrad scene...though the base game was interested in macro-storytelling, the players weren't and I'm not going to absorb and map onto play your elaborate metaplot that neither I care about nor your players care about...when that GM came back and his Railroad was in tatters, he had to figure out how to lead all the Roads Back to Rome again (not my problem...maybe show up consistently if you want to keep your Railroad totally intact).

 

[Wolfpack48]

I'll tell you a secret. When I'm running Apocalypse World (or for that matter D&D) I don't think about "What would make the best story" either. I think about what would be the most logical or fun thing in the moment. But if you keep the characters strong and consistent, the world coherent, and turn up the pressure stories always happen.

Apocalypse World gives strong characters that are integrated into the world through playbooks, and then encourages really turning up the pressure through hard moves and success with consequences. The story is what happens.

That’s actually a good point, and maybe it’s a misunderstanding on my part. Are there narrative games where players ARE trying to form the “best” story in the moment? Or are they immersing themselves down in the trenches of the adventure and doing whatever makes sense in the moment and looking back at story later?

I had the impression that some narrative games have plot levers that make the game session more like writing a collaborative novel than immersing into game world and experiencing an adventure. The former always seemed very meta to me.

 

[Emberashh]

See, I don't have a problem with your example, I get it, but why do you have to start out by trashing something else that you CLEARLY do not understand, at all???!!!! Just because YOU cannot understand, or don't want to understand, how to produce an engaging kind of game play that, hopefully, produces interesting narrative and provokes intellectual and emotional connections with the characters and situation, DOES NOT MEAN that it is impossible, or even difficult for some of us.

When your this emotionally attached to something you kind of betray the notion that you're being objective in how you discuss it.

You'll notice that neither I nor anyone else on this general "side" of the discussion has gone out of their way to denounce any criticism of whatever game. You're not seeing me or anybody else bemoaning the trashing of 5e or Runequest or whatever else. I in fact have no notes on your thoughts on Runequest. I have basically the same opinion.

Yet that doesn't seem to extend the other way, and then comes with the additional ad hominem that I don't just don't understand, when the reality is that I simply disagree and have, quite exhaustively, supported that disagreement.

This centering of all of TTRPGing around storytelling is a misunderstanding of what is happening in various games

Not to discount your post, because you're right, but the storytelling angle is more to do with what people are wanting these games to do moreso than the what the games want to do.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Because it depends on the context and is at least to me relatively clear by the fictional situation. And funnily enough l often feel that in the Blades how much progress single roll produces seems somewhat arbitrary. But that’s probably more related to what one is used to.

I think it is fair to say that, with Blades, there's just mostly an understanding that the game runs in a particular cycle, so 'score' will only continue for so long. The PCs will have gotten a good idea of the desired outcome anyway during investigation and planning. With Dungeon World it is perhaps a bit less clear? I mean, notionally the game alternates between 'town' and 'adventure', but the distinction isn't super carefully drawn in DW itself (whereas it is in Stonetop). Still, there are 'units of play', like a danger that needs to be thwarted, or a dungeon level that we want to loot. Or you can think about it more in character motivation terms, my Barbarian has a bond to protect the thief, his brother, and a 'hunger' that drives him to consume. So, there should be a pretty clear path to doing those things that the player can figure out. One of the dynamics of DW though that is fun is how when you roll 6- it can suddenly be like "well, not going to be able to party THIS week!"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When your this emotionally attached to something you kind of betray the notion that you're being objective in how you discuss it.

You'll notice that neither I nor anyone else on this general "side" of the discussion has gone out of their way to denounce any criticism of whatever game. You're not seeing me or anybody else bemoaning the trashing of 5e or Runequest or whatever else. I in fact have no notes on your thoughts on Runequest. I have basically the same opinion.

Oh gosh, yeah, when I point out how you literally condemned all Narrativist play to being 'mother may I' and 'railroaded', complete with a 'choo choo' onomatopoeia I'm just a whining ninny. But, you're right, you didn't name a specific game, you just CONDEMNED AN ENTIRE STYLE WHOLESALE.

Yet that doesn't seem to extend the other way, and then comes with the additional ad hominem that I don't just don't understand, when the reality is that I simply disagree and have, quite exhaustively, supported that disagreement.

Seriously, you really want to try to spin it this way? OK, whatever floats your boat. What would you suggest I say when someone utterly misrepresents something, using language which they must know is insulting? Did I start this? Well, I'm going to drop it because frankly it's silly and nothing productive will come out of it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And your players just went along with a completely different style of game without complaint?

Yeah, absolutely. They’re not nearly as dogmatic about this stuff as many here. They were willing to try it because they trusted me, they knew I wanted something different from play, and they knew if we didn’t collectively like it, nothing would stop us at all from going back to the previous game.

Luckily, everyone has been enjoying these games quite a bit, so we’ve continued with new games!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh gosh, yeah, when I point out how you literally condemned all Narrativist play to being 'mother may I' and 'railroaded', complete with a 'choo choo' onomatopoeia I'm just a whining ninny. But, you're right, you didn't name a specific game, you just CONDEMNED AN ENTIRE STYLE WHOLESALE.

Mate. You're being a tad sensitive here, given you were going "trad gaming is deprotagonising" moments ago. Like yeah, making insulting mischaracterisations of other's playstyle is not nice, but pot, kettle and all that.