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

[clearstream]

Negative, ts not. A "dump" in this conception is when the relevant climax, the falling action, and often (though not always) the denouement has already been resolved offscreen (or sometimes onscreen if its a crappy movie and they have to tell us what just happened because they were so poor in the showing of it) and we're just revealing it to the audience. The relevant cake is already baked and we're just putting it on a platter for passive consumption. Anticipation of and curiosity around "what happens when/if (?)" doesn't/can't enter into it...because the relevant if/when has already happened and we're learning about it and the attendant fallout right now during the exposition.

Contrast with the sort of setup you're pointing at (the kind you're seeing me advocate for) where it is about actually generating the ingredients of "what happens when/if (?)", generating the sites of rising action, so we can answer those questions in the course of play; the climax, falling action, and denouement. Its about generating entanglements, prospective sites of conflict/clash, opportune areas to generate downstream dangers, hardships, duress, discoveries during actual play.

Further, its not actual play. Its preplay and totally meta. Therefore, its no more "telling" than selecting a playbook/class, what-have-you, or the process of choosing a game where there is a consequential premise that generates the player and GM meta which one has to opt into to play the game at all. No one is playing a character and no one is framing an onscreen (because right now there is no "screen") situation/obstacle to resolve.

I noticed the same possible glitch as @Crimson Longinus, i.e. that it would seem OOC establishing falls rather on the telling-not-showing side. Yet I felt what you were getting at was a different distinction... which you've done more to spell out here.

One way I think about ludonarrative is as establishing story potential rather than story actuality. So whereas in a story we might have "The hungry caterpillar ate the leaf" in ludonarrative we need the potentials - an ambulatory caterpillar, leaf as food, effects of eating/not-eating food - and let it go from there. Notwithstanding this juicy leaf right here, our caterpillar might go explore elsewhere: the audience as author controls that.

If it's right to count OOC as telling not showing, then the distinction that matters isn't one between showing and telling, but between story told and story in potential. I probably differ from others in this thread in that I see it as an evolution of TTRPG tech with a historical association with one ism, but not locked to it. The tech did not create differences between trad-narrative and ludonarrative, it was formed (and is forming) around identifying and working real differences between them.

EDIT: And it should be noted that the above is referring to actual sites of conflict. I'm also folding in (and perhaps even especially) free, protracted roleplay about mere color like philosophical musings where there is nothing at stake (no consequential gamestate/situation-state clashes are occurring...so the opposite of a Convince or Convince Crowd conflict) or cosplaying weddings or tavern winching or marketplace haggling or hey I'm at a tailor lets cosplay getting a fancy suit/dress etc etc. I can't remember who coined the term off the top of my head, but I'm pointing at "Dollhouse Play" here. I don't want to spend any table time on Dollhouse Play. There are lots of people who do. That is great. I'm glad for them to have that form of play. They just won't be doing it with me as a GM for them. Which is easily enough avoided because I'm just one person out of a massive pile of people to run games!

There is action in marketplace haggling or getting a fancy suit, and there can be conflict. It's Tuovinen you are thinking of

“Dollhouse play” is a joint activity, usually not strongly chairmanned, where the players build something together. There might be a reason for the building, some sort of purpose to which the project of planning and designing is directed.

This can be pure coop, but it can also be fraught with conflict. Such as when there are resource limits or purposes to what is planned and designed.

 

[clearstream]

So maybe a solid start for defining a “narrative” game, or at least whatever Daggerheart is meant to be, is a game that expects (or maybe even requires?) that player choice matters in a fundamental way? That it should not (or maybe even cannot?) be ignored?

Do you intend the implication that no TTRPG's other than those identified as "narrative" can possibly expect player choices to matter in any "fundamental" way?

As that sounds preposterous, work seems to fall on "fundamental". What counts? I see it proposed that "fundamental" means "players contributing significantly to stakes and themes" and that possibly you further define that "significantly" means propulsively, with changes to the nature of the fiction rather than only it's content. That's a particular meaning of "fundamental" worth calling out.

Can you say more about what you mean by "nature" and how the "content" of fiction doesn't entail its nature? Seeing as sandboxes are expected to be excluded from the definition (right?) one reading I could arrive at is that it just means "what's at stake is the character not the game world, their position in it, or power over it." So if not those facets, then what about the character? It seems to come down to how we pretend they feel and the intentions we feel entitled to form for them.

 

[pemerton]

This can be pure coop, but it can also be fraught with conflict. Such as when there are resource limits or purposes to what is planned and designed.

I think when @Manbearcat refers to conflict he is meaning it a broadly thematic sense - of the sort that would typically be understood to drive a story - rather than the need for efficiencies or trade-offs or other means-end reasoning.

 

[clearstream]

I think when @Manbearcat refers to conflict he is meaning it a broadly thematic sense - of the sort that would typically be understood to drive a story - rather than the need for efficiencies or trade-offs or other means-end reasoning.

Yes, I think so too. That's why I posted Eero's definition of Dollhouse Play. There is plenty of action and even possible conflict in that sort of play, yet I felt that was not necessarily what @Manbearcat intended.

There is "conflict" in the boardgame Risk, by way of another example. That sort of conflict needs ruling in or out, recollecting that @Manbearcat spoke of being "gamist".

 

[pemerton]

Yes, I think so too. That's why I posted Eero's definition of Dollhouse Play. There is plenty of action and even possible conflict in that sort of play, yet I felt that was not necessarily what @Manbearcat intended.

There is "conflict" in the boardgame Risk, by way of another example. That sort of conflict needs ruling in or out, recollecting that @Manbearcat spoke of being "gamist".

Given that it is obvious to everyone in the thread what @Manbearcat means by his use of conflict - namely, conflict of the sort that drives a narrative - and given that we are all posting in a thread about narrative RPGs, what does it add to quibble over other possible uses of "conflict" that are obviously not the ones that @Manbearcat has in mind?

I mean, was anyone confused about whether the sort of boardgame competition involved in Risk would be the sort of thing @Manbearcat was referring to, given that he'd already made a post distinguishing conflict-oriented RPGing from pawn-stance dungeon play?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

When we think of stories and how they’re told, we have to consider the medium of their telling. So if you make a movie, you have to think of your story in scenes and about how to convey the ideas visually. When you’re telling a story as a novel, you can rely on description and narration more heavily. And so on.

When you’re crafting a story with an RPG… let’s just think of it that way for now for the sake of discussion, though there are many people who would fight tooth and nail against that very idea… you have to consider your story in terms of what is satisfying game play. Barring a game that consists of professional entertainers like Critical Role or the Glass Cannon Network, the performance element of a game is likely not up to par to justify that being the focus. You have to use the play of the game to help propel the fiction. So the more you can maintain that momentum… the more the game moves… the better off you’ll be.

I play with people with whom just the basic act or roleplaying characters and NPCs is entertaining. And I think being able to do this is an essential skill for enjoyable roleplay. People need to inhabit and portray their characters, and do it so that it is engaging. And you don't need to be a professional actor to do that (though that probably helps!) Like I have said before, my tabletop RPG circles overlap with LARP circles quite a bit, and LARPs basically cannot function without this.

So anything that characterises in-character roleplay as "mere colour" or "pantomime" etc is a huge red flag for me. It is not some optional spice, it is the main ingredient for me.

Establishing a fact isn’t really the important part of this, I don’t think. If two PCs are established to have an important bond… siblings, childhood friends, significant others, whatever… once established, how do you then show the importance?

If it’s merely in character interaction that displays it but nothing more, is that all that meaningful? What if we compare that to play where that importance is tested in some way? When it’s put on the line? What do the characters do then? How does that play out? What do we learn about these characters?

Like I said earlier, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with something that’s just about portrayal and nothing more. But does that show the characters’ connection more meaningfully than a scene where that connection is the actual focus? Where it’s tested in some way?

But no one is saying that we would never test these things and there would never be conflict! That would be absurd. All I am saying that developing and portraying personalities and relationships of the characters and NPCs in relatively low-conflict roleplay deepens the pathos and immersion when the thing is eventually tested. Like when your friendship is tested it will feel way more impactful when you have firsts actually roleplayed camaraderie with that character/NPC, compared to just having checkmark on your playsheet "X is my friend."

In what way? I’ve looked through the DH playtest, but I’ve not yet played it, so I can’t really say for sure. I think a lot of the design elements give the players a lot of advocacy for their characters. I think the player principles and the GMing principles provided in the book really support a more narrativistic approach.

I can’t yet say exactly how play feels, but it’s possible something plays differently than it reads. Or that I’ve missed some bits that work against that style… but I don’t know what those may be.

I was not talking about the system as a whole, but the heavy focus on combat, which it shares with D&D, albeit perhaps not quite the equal degree.

 

[clearstream]

Given that it is obvious to everyone in the thread what @Manbearcat means by his use of conflict - namely, conflict of the sort that drives a narrative - and given that we are all posting in a thread about narrative RPGs, what does it add to quibble over other possible uses of "conflict" that are obviously not the ones that @Manbearcat has in mind?

I mean, was anyone confused about whether the sort of boardgame competition involved in Risk would be the sort of thing @Manbearcat was referring to, given that he'd already made a post distinguishing conflict-oriented RPGing from pawn-stance dungeon play?

I find it helpful to tease out these narrowings of the general meanings of words. It's not that some sorts of play lack action or actionability, it's that they lack a particular sort of action or actionability. It's not that they lack conflict, it's that they lack a particular sort of conflict. Putatively.

It's a little hard to discern the import of self-describing as "gamist" as that suggests at least some interest in the sort of action, actionability and conflict found in say wargamer-ish combat systems like 4e.

 

[soviet]

Two people share an interest in birdwatching and post on a birdwatching forum.

Person A says, these walks in the woods are great! The trees, the outdoors, the other people, wow! And if sometimes we see a cool bird, all the better. I love birdwatching.

Person B says, I am just here for the birds. I have studied where each variety nests and what the right times to see them are. I hide behind camouflage with a pair of binoculars for hours hoping to see the rare types, which I can recognise immediately. I love birdwatching.

The birdwatchingness of their birdwatchery is not identical.

 

[pemerton]

I find it helpful to tease out these narrowings of the general meanings of words.

Helpful how?

You've participated in a lot of these threads. Are you confused about the difference between the role of prep in (say) The Isle of Dread compared to (say) Apocalypse World?

 

[thefutilist]

But no one is saying that we would never test these things and there would never be conflict! That would be absurd. All I am saying that developing and portraying personalities and relationships of the characters and NPCs in relatively low-conflict roleplay deepens the pathos and immersion when the thing is eventually tested. Like when your friendship is tested it will feel way more impactful when you have firsts actually roleplayed camaraderie with that character/NPC, compared to just having checkmark on your playsheet "X is my friend."

I really like how incidental conversation stuff can subtly adjust and give more vibrancy to conflicts and sometimes be cool for it’s own sake. One common problem people have when they start running more Narrativist games is going too fast. In the worst case scenario it’s not really worth doing because so much color is lost no one cares.

On the other hand I’ve found that a 1 minute conversation about how old Hedwig caught me (Happy elf) and Dead chick stealing apples when we were younger, to be potentially as affecting as a ten minute conversation about the same thing. And I’ve found some 20 minute long conversations have less charge than 1 minute ones.

Sometimes the game mechanics or other circumstances mean you have to be more economical which means you have to learn to do more with less. I find lengthy IC conversations far harder on discord, for example. Or if I’m playing Showdown it’s going to be over in an hour or two so I have to make the incidental stuff really count. And so on.