I agree, but that has nothing to do with problem I perceive FATE as having or anything that I said. It's always a bad sign when someone decides to strongly disagree with me by starting out with a statement I already agree with.
But, the core difference between FATE and D&D is that D&D is GM curated whereas FATE is not. FATE breaks down if the GM attempts to overly curate the story, and this results in poor outcomes. I get that you're trying to make an argument that mechanical story creation is bad (which I'll address in a moment), but this isn't what FATE does. So, your agreement that you're using to dismiss argument isn't actual agreement -- you've missed my point.
My ocean example is inherently and deliberately exaggerated to make the point clearly without delving into all the complexities that would be brought up in a real example from play. I fully agree real examples from play would be much more vague and debatable, but the same problem would in my opinion underlie them.
That results are incoherent? This only occurs if you make the same error that you do with your ocean example -- that the play doesn't follow the establish fiction and be within the rails of that established fiction and the genre and theme of the game. But, these are actually a must. Frex, in a game of godly powered PCs your ocean example actually works -- it doesn't violate established fiction and it fits within the genre logic and theme of the game. In fact, godly persons establishing the size of an ocean with a leap is pure thematic gold in that kind of structure. No, instead you treat the games like someone that has read the rules but not fully grasped how they're intended to be used.
I don't dislike Narrative games at all. I just think that many of the mechanics that have been niavely adopted to support Narrativist play goals actually run counter to them.
Which game features these mechanics without strong guides for how to develop the fiction and use the fiction to feed the mechanics? You're pulling the mechanical resolution out of the fiction it's embedded into and treating it as a separate piece. I can tell you that the mechanic feature of, say, Blades in the Dark cannot be used without strong fictional positioning. You could do it, I suppose, but you're be playing incorrectly. It's like criticizing D&D because you can make people roll DEX to walk across a room without tripping, or make a climb check for every stair in a stairwell -- it's not exactly breaking the rules, but it's certainly using them in an unintended way.
See, it's up for grabs around that in ANY game. By insisting that this is a particular element of narrativist games, you are already so far off the path there is hardly any hope that our conversation will be productive. Narrativist mechanics do not singularly or especially create the concept of a fiction without predetermined outcomes, and indeed if that really is the point, then the fact that the mechanics in my opinion often work markedly counter to that result is much closer to my point.
This is one of those statements that relies on an infinite series of games so that very unlikely results can be said to belong to a particular set. The kind of play where the PC is talked out of an action by the target of their hatred and then brought around to defending that target absent GM force is vanishing small. I'd submit that play that produces such is borrowing heavily on narrativist techniques to do so and ignoring many of the inherent requirement of D&D. At no point have I ever heard of this kind of story resulting from D&D play without heavy GM force, but I have heard of similar things occurring in narrativist play. And, that's okay. D&D doesn't have to be able to easily recreate all kinds of stories -- it just needs to do a largish set of interesting stories well, and it does. You won't get the kind of drawn-out tactical survival play that was the entirety of my last D&D session in a narrativist game, either. It's okay that not everything fits in all of the envelops.
Oh just stop. I said nothing at all about strong DM curation or any other such nonsense. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be told I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something, and then have you go off on a rant about "strong DM curation"? Unless you actually mean that is strong DM curation to suggest that an ocean is 1000 miles wide and implausible to jump over unless you have superpowers, or unless you mean by "strong DM curation" that a sworn vestal virgin with every reason to fear the wrath of her deity should she break her vows is probably less seduceable that ones loving spouse, then drop the whole "strong DM curation" crap.
D&D involves strong DM curation of story. It's baked into the rules. You don't have to say it, if you refer to D&D it's there. "DM decides" is THE trump mechanism of D&D play, 4e, and to a small degree 3.x, aside. The rules of play say that the DM determines if an action succeeds, fails, or if they want to use the resolution mechanics. This means that the DM is absolutely curating story in play. It's unavoidable. It's also not automatically a bad thing. When I run D&D, there has to be some form of story already built -- the dungeon, the villian's plan, something, because D&D requires extensive prep to play. It's mechanical engine doesn't do very well with off the cuff encounter building, so you have to prep for possibilities at least. So, the DM has to curate the story in some manner to ensure that prep is useful and that play proceeds in useful directions. This is further reinforced by the fact that the mechanics of D&D do not do effective reinforcement of complications -- there's no built in play spiral. If the DM isn't constantly providing new fiction for the players to act against, the game stalls. So, the entire system of D&D is built on the idea that the DM will curate the story of play.
And note that curate means to act as a curator, which means you have the duty to preserve and care for a thing. This is almost the definition of what a D&D DM does. I don't see the vehemence here.
That is absolutely and completely and totally wrong.
It's not. If a D&D player has a mission to assassinate the Emperor, and has won through the enemies, what mechanism does the DM have in the rules to get the player to stop and listen to the target's plea? None, outside of force. Force in this sense just means the DM puts pressure on the story to conform to their desires. Sure, if you go with the infinite set of plays, there's a possible outcome where everyone at the table is in the right mood, the DM is winging it, and the player amenable, and talking happens, but this isn't even in spitting distance of most tables. This kind of outcome isn't emergent in D&D play.
AND THAT'S OKAY. D&D really puts a lots of story weight on overcoming the minions and the climactic fight with the BBEG, not on sudden shifts in fiction that challenge the very basis of character. You won't get the sudden shift in character that occurs in Hero in a D&D game, but you'll get a lot of cool tactical fighting that will be missing in the narrativist games. It's okay that different games have different strengths. D&D doesn't need to be everything.
And further, you still appear to have no clue with what I consider wrong with FATE's ability to generate story.
And yet you've not explicitly said it, still. Very cagey. However, I think I've gleaned that it's your belief that the mechanical engine of FATE is decoupled from fictional positioning and so can create new fiction that is incongruent with the existing ficiton. That this would actually be poor play in a FATE game seems to have escaped your notice. Now, I'll grant that the various rulesets of FATE do a uneven job of being clear about this, unlike, say, Powered by the Apocalypse games or Burning Wheel where such requirements to ground everything in the current fiction are strong and clear, but it's a still bad take on your part.
