AbdulAlhazred
Legend
No 2 people will totally agree. I'm more interested in if I will enjoy X instead of if it is right or perfect, etc.
What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Daggerheart Discussion)
hawkeyefan
Legend
Maybe something like “My concern would be that it all seems very mechanistic… is that the case? How do you avoid that?” Or “Is that the sole focus of your play? Do you allow for x?”
I don’t mean to harp on this… I just tend to think these discussions go better when we ask questions of each other instead of hearing one tidbit that we think supports our biased view of others’ play and then jumping on it like it’s absolute proof we’re right.
I’ve done it plenty myself, so I don’t mean to single you out. But as a player in a game of @Manbearcat ‘s I think your assessment is off.
@clearstream, I agree with @AbdulAlhazred
You say "your friend concedes them authority over the ending of their book". But that just seems to conflate two things.
I mean, as a matter of fact the author is the author, and they are the one who decides what the content of their published (typed, handwritten, whatever) pages are.
But my friend can still imagine that the fiction is different, without any contradiction of any fact of the matter. She's not disputing (for instance) that JRRT has written that Fili and Kili are killed. She just prefers to imagine a story in which they were both injured and are now convalescing in the Iron Hills. And given that JRRT tells us little about Dwarven rules of inheritance, she can still imagine that those rules are such that the title passes to Dain, rather than to Thorin's sister-sons.
As AbdulAlhazred says, RPGing requires a shared imagined space, and so it creates a context in which each participant's imagination acts as some sort of constraint on the others'. This still doesn't give rise to objectivity.
It does suggest, though - and this is something that Vincent Baker has written about - that a process in which fiction is established, and becomes shared, and then generates downstream consequences for boxes and/or new clouds, will make that first bit of fiction seem more "real"/"objective" than one in which boxes go to boxes and the associated fiction is purely epiphenomenal.
For instance, suppose in Burning Wheel or Torchbearer, a player fails a Circles check. The GM decides to activate the "enmity clause" and introduce a new NPC into the scene, who is hostile to that player's PC. The GM asks the PC, "Why is this person angry at you", and the player gives an answer.
At that point, we have boxes (Circles roll) to boxes (GM activates enmity clause) to simultaneous cloud (GM narrates hostile NPC) and boxes (GM asks player to explain the NPC's anger towards their PC) to cloud (player's answer).
That final cloud - the player's explanation as to why the NPC is angry at their PC - is at this point purely epiphenomenal. And so cannot be expected to have a great deal of "objectivity" associated with it. But there are various devices, express and implied in both RPGs, for increasing the sense of externality.
First, both have rules for penalties to influence interactions between the PC and the "enmity clause" NPC. So if the player initiates social conflict, those rules will come into play, And if the GM is following the rules for narrating fiction associated with a social conflict, then during the course of the resolution process the NPC will be referring back to those previous events that underlie their anger at the PC. And so the player's answer takes on "external" force, being the precursor to further clouds associated with the various boxes of the social conflict resolution process. And of course some of those clouds will be ones introduced by the player, as part of their declaring of actions for their PC in response to what the NPC says in the social conflict.
Furthermore (and this is the implicit bit), the GM will be looking for ways to connect the player's explanation of the NPC's anger to other strands of the established fiction. (In AW, this would be the GM "misdirecting".) So already-established clouds get connected to new clouds by shared fictional explanations. This enmeshes the new fiction introduced by the player into a "network" of shared story that is not easily disentagnled.
These are ways in which the shared imagined space becomes enriched by new content, and that content becomes experienced as "external" and "objective". I don't think that narrational authority is especially crucial to this process, as opposed to a system that invites and requires lots of interconnections of fiction to be established. You can look at the rules for a system like BW and AW and see how this works. And conversely, a lot of the time when I see "player narrative control" criticised as ad hoc or producing thin or inconsistent fiction, I'm seeing processes of play that are not oriented towards establishing these sorts of interconnections. (Eg the player gets to declare that a guard at this gate is their friend; but there is no express or implicit process for linking that new cloud to other clouds, or boxes, that will enmesh into a network of fiction that cannot be "unpicked" and hence is experienced by all as a constraining SIS.)
You say "your friend concedes them authority over the ending of their book". But that just seems to conflate two things.
I mean, as a matter of fact the author is the author, and they are the one who decides what the content of their published (typed, handwritten, whatever) pages are.
But my friend can still imagine that the fiction is different, without any contradiction of any fact of the matter. She's not disputing (for instance) that JRRT has written that Fili and Kili are killed. She just prefers to imagine a story in which they were both injured and are now convalescing in the Iron Hills. And given that JRRT tells us little about Dwarven rules of inheritance, she can still imagine that those rules are such that the title passes to Dain, rather than to Thorin's sister-sons.
As AbdulAlhazred says, RPGing requires a shared imagined space, and so it creates a context in which each participant's imagination acts as some sort of constraint on the others'. This still doesn't give rise to objectivity.
It does suggest, though - and this is something that Vincent Baker has written about - that a process in which fiction is established, and becomes shared, and then generates downstream consequences for boxes and/or new clouds, will make that first bit of fiction seem more "real"/"objective" than one in which boxes go to boxes and the associated fiction is purely epiphenomenal.
For instance, suppose in Burning Wheel or Torchbearer, a player fails a Circles check. The GM decides to activate the "enmity clause" and introduce a new NPC into the scene, who is hostile to that player's PC. The GM asks the PC, "Why is this person angry at you", and the player gives an answer.
At that point, we have boxes (Circles roll) to boxes (GM activates enmity clause) to simultaneous cloud (GM narrates hostile NPC) and boxes (GM asks player to explain the NPC's anger towards their PC) to cloud (player's answer).
That final cloud - the player's explanation as to why the NPC is angry at their PC - is at this point purely epiphenomenal. And so cannot be expected to have a great deal of "objectivity" associated with it. But there are various devices, express and implied in both RPGs, for increasing the sense of externality.
First, both have rules for penalties to influence interactions between the PC and the "enmity clause" NPC. So if the player initiates social conflict, those rules will come into play, And if the GM is following the rules for narrating fiction associated with a social conflict, then during the course of the resolution process the NPC will be referring back to those previous events that underlie their anger at the PC. And so the player's answer takes on "external" force, being the precursor to further clouds associated with the various boxes of the social conflict resolution process. And of course some of those clouds will be ones introduced by the player, as part of their declaring of actions for their PC in response to what the NPC says in the social conflict.
Furthermore (and this is the implicit bit), the GM will be looking for ways to connect the player's explanation of the NPC's anger to other strands of the established fiction. (In AW, this would be the GM "misdirecting".) So already-established clouds get connected to new clouds by shared fictional explanations. This enmeshes the new fiction introduced by the player into a "network" of shared story that is not easily disentagnled.
These are ways in which the shared imagined space becomes enriched by new content, and that content becomes experienced as "external" and "objective". I don't think that narrational authority is especially crucial to this process, as opposed to a system that invites and requires lots of interconnections of fiction to be established. You can look at the rules for a system like BW and AW and see how this works. And conversely, a lot of the time when I see "player narrative control" criticised as ad hoc or producing thin or inconsistent fiction, I'm seeing processes of play that are not oriented towards establishing these sorts of interconnections. (Eg the player gets to declare that a guard at this gate is their friend; but there is no express or implicit process for linking that new cloud to other clouds, or boxes, that will enmesh into a network of fiction that cannot be "unpicked" and hence is experienced by all as a constraining SIS.)
This is just a bizarre response. Everything that @Manbearcat said was about the content of the fiction!
This comparison is also strange.
First, in a film the cinematography does not compete with the script for time. The cinematography is not a "break" in the script for someone to narrate stuff.
And second, and following on: the cinematography is itself a device for conveying meaning and consequence. "Aimless", "rudderless" cinematography doesn't make for a good film.
I mean, someone upthread - or in another active thread? - talked about how great it was to spend N hours debating Trotskyism, as their PC, with another PC. But if you want to have intellectual conversations with your friends about Trotsky, what is the RPG medium bringing?
I'm not saying there's no answer, but I would expect some answer. A film or a book might contain a passage/scene in which two characters debate Trotsky, but this would be to some end, right? It would have the purpose of establishing something about the situation and the characters, that will then pay off in some way.
In my Torchbearer game, the Dwarven Outcast Golin has a Belief (or Creed?) that Elves must be brought into touch with reality; and the Elven Dreamwalker Fea-bella has a Belief that Dwarves are greedy and not to be trusted, and a Creed that in these dark times all Elves will need help. There is plenty of at-the-table banter between these two characters that reflects these opposed and interlocking convictions - but that's not the point of play. The point of play is to engage with situations that actually put these convictions to the test - like, how will they respond when the Half-Elf Lareth the Beautiful asks him to align with his kult?
I'm not saying there's no answer, but I would expect some answer. A film or a book might contain a passage/scene in which two characters debate Trotsky, but this would be to some end, right? It would have the purpose of establishing something about the situation and the characters, that will then pay off in some way.
In my Torchbearer game, the Dwarven Outcast Golin has a Belief (or Creed?) that Elves must be brought into touch with reality; and the Elven Dreamwalker Fea-bella has a Belief that Dwarves are greedy and not to be trusted, and a Creed that in these dark times all Elves will need help. There is plenty of at-the-table banter between these two characters that reflects these opposed and interlocking convictions - but that's not the point of play. The point of play is to engage with situations that actually put these convictions to the test - like, how will they respond when the Half-Elf Lareth the Beautiful asks him to align with his kult?
Well, like I said in my post, I get @Manbearcat's desire to focus the gametime on consequential to certain degree, there was just too much "and nothing else matters" vibe for me to be comfortable with the approach.
But I have noticed in many of these discussions here, with many different people with very different approaches, that some people just seem to have way more single track-mind about what they want from their gaming than me. Like, I often think, "yeah, I a bit of that certainly is beneficial" and they're "this and only this, everything else is an useless distraction!" And I don't just mean story now folks, some old school simulationists and others are similarly way too dogmatic for me.
I'll give you a comparison from my experience as I start running more "narrative" games, compared to also being a DM for some extremely NeoTrad / OC style sessions (which are absolutely exhausting - that last paragraph in @Manbearcat 's post resonates extremely strongly with me):
- In our first Stonetop session on Sunday that was actual play and not just character/world state building we did a lot of RPing with plenty of in-character moments. However, it was all spurred off something that was leading somewhere. Eg: GM soft moves (lots of asking provocative questions, revealing of unwelcome truths, revealing of simmering tensions) that create a situation that impels the character to respond with concrete actionable items that the DM can then grab and volley back, or pivot to another character. Each moment and interaction either defined the character more completely, enhanced or changed relationships with NPCs, or drove the narrative forward in new ways. No time is wasted on circular conversations, and time is our most precious resource in life.
By the end of our 3 hour session, we'd defined a host of new details about things that interested the players, created new NPCs that will have lasting moments to play, and I left feeling energized because of how much of the cognitive load is shared - all I have to do is ask questions either as the GM or as an NPC and the players have inherent drives and desires to respond with. Players were redefining or refining their character conceptions in the moment as they were challenged on instinct and action, the very soul and essence of roleplaying.
-3 hours of 5e WOTC module play on Monday. I've already done a bunch of sketch work to add content because the WOTC module is fundamentally lacking in hooks. I have to reach out through the computer and try to pull players forward. RP is back and forth talking that could've been resolved in a pair of sentences and a quick roll in a PBTA to drive the action. We don't really define anything interesting about teh world, I drop hooks and wait for the players to express interest or not. The players have little in the way of instincts/backgrounds to lean on for game state connection. I'm left drained, having to constantly adjudicate questions + figure out if the limited desires expressed fit into any of the content and make something up if it doesn't (and I have nothing to lean on if it doesn't, no setting book with clear ideas - no character wants and needs to challenge, no clear moves resultant from a player roll outcome, etc). Nothing really changes in the game state (per module: if the players complete this quest by...failing to find anything, they get an offer from the faction to join! ... in 7 days) , nothing changes in characterizations, nothing feels meaningful.
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Autumnal
Bruce Baugh, Writer of Fortune
@pemerton Which nicely embodies the difference between narrative and narrativist. I’m really tempted to do this thing where as a narrative fan, I believe that being precedes essence and talk about non-premise-focused play and how it’s antecedent to…but nah. It’d be trolling.
The truth can be out with much more simplicity and less Sartre. I do like dramatic tension and the testing of characters, though I do so in a framework with less Egri in it. But I also like emulation of characters and environments in contexts where there is no testing to speak of going in - simply imagining another place and someone to be within it. I think there can be some great storytelling in which conflict is absent or incidental or off-screen in some way. See, for instance, Kishotenketsu - a plot structure without conflict and Adam Nevill’s short story collection Wyrd And Other Derelictions, a set of stories without characters, each about the aftermath where something terrible happened.
For me, the intensity is like a meal I’ve to ration my consumption of because too much of it sets off an allergy or makes metabolic problems or interferes with a medication in too-great concentrations or whatever, as well as just plain liking other types of meals in the same overall menu plan.
@zakael19 Oh, wow, yes yes yes about energized versus drained. I got hooked on the feeling while playtesting Adventure 1st edition and have sought to make it a regular thing ever since. Co-creating is fun in ways that one-way description just isn’t.
The truth can be out with much more simplicity and less Sartre. I do like dramatic tension and the testing of characters, though I do so in a framework with less Egri in it. But I also like emulation of characters and environments in contexts where there is no testing to speak of going in - simply imagining another place and someone to be within it. I think there can be some great storytelling in which conflict is absent or incidental or off-screen in some way. See, for instance, Kishotenketsu - a plot structure without conflict and Adam Nevill’s short story collection Wyrd And Other Derelictions, a set of stories without characters, each about the aftermath where something terrible happened.
For me, the intensity is like a meal I’ve to ration my consumption of because too much of it sets off an allergy or makes metabolic problems or interferes with a medication in too-great concentrations or whatever, as well as just plain liking other types of meals in the same overall menu plan.
@zakael19 Oh, wow, yes yes yes about energized versus drained. I got hooked on the feeling while playtesting Adventure 1st edition and have sought to make it a regular thing ever since. Co-creating is fun in ways that one-way description just isn’t.
Hell, I think a significant amount of players are also immediately engaged by it. I started asking my 5e players to define world state things off a starting situation and it was a massively different reaction and level of engagement quite quickly. 5 minds are far more creative then 1.
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clearstream
(He, Him)
When I say "your friend concedes them authority over the ending of their book" I mean chooses to imagine what the author invites them to imagine. I should have made that clearer as you have both understood that concession as letting the author write what they want, while imagining something else. I'm not sure how you got there, but that wasn't my meaning.
By what means is it shared, if not externalised? That said, I'm locating objectivity at least in part, in there being a process or party able to add description. Based on @Manbearcat's latest, I would clarify that the description I have in mind is not solely aeshetic: it includes that actions may be addressed toward it or incorporate it, and saying how it may respond or be changed.
If I read you correctly, you both want to deny the notion that
Seeing as you likely don't want to deny my testimony to my own experience, you are saying that this doesn't work for you. I'm not sure if will change that, but when I say "decided" I include actionability although I diverge from @Manbearcat in also caring about emotive and aesthetic qualities... whether or not they are actionable.
Do I read your comment correctly as proposing an alternative explanation intended to supplant my proposal, so that "lots of interconnections" is all that counts? I agree that a web of interconnections is significant, albeit I would say that again, the two explanations are not in conflict. Above you say that each participant's imagination acting as some sort of constraint on the others won't give rise to objectivity, but that would seem to be exactly the sort of process that would create a web of interconnections... meaning that if your alternative explanation is correct each party's independent and interdependent capacity to add to the web under some sort of constraints would give rise to objectivity. It's hard to see how constraints are not external factors (the constraint of rules, the constraint of what others have said.)
One example that seems salient here is Ironsworn. I've recommended it many times, and a fascinating way to play is coop or solo. Solo-play provides us with a handy case that rules out the role of other participants in the process. What is noteworthy in Ironsworn - widely commented on - is the role of Oracles in inspiring what you say (to yourself). What I note about that is the work done by the external factor, that makes what you say go on to feel more objectively real to you. I would urge you to play Ironsworn solo and revist the notions we're discussing here.
Rules are an external means for making content more objective. Nowhere am I prioritising one participant's narrative control over another. If a player declares that a guard at this gate is their friend, and I can ask them what her name is and they can say "Jo", then that enhances the feeling for me that the guard is real. I agree with your thoughts about enmeshing, and take them to complement or be part of the reifying of the imagined world.
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