D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maelstrom Storytelling might be the earliest: 1997.

Right. There were definitely earlier games which presaged this sort of thing, even going back to MS's Top Secret and MSHRP, with their meta-currencies and XP rules. I don't know of a game earlier than Maelstrom which actually unequivocally switched from 'action resolution' to 'narrative resolution' process though. I'm guessing that someplace there's some game or games that MIGHT be interpreted that way which are earlier, not sure. That starts to get to the "well, a GM could do it that way with..." territory though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, now, I could show you games, like PACE, which is IIRC about 8 pages long and most of that is explanatory and not really rules, that can do any genre, WITHOUT HACKING AT ALL. Absolutely any situation of any kind, whatsoever, can be handled in PACE. It makes no distinction at all. The process is pure, its fiction first, everything is explicit, a social situation, a combat, etc. They are all the same in essence and mechanics, and they are all just as definitively adjudicated under the rules, one as the other, with equal structure.

Lasers and Feelings can do it on one page. That doesn't meant he result is what everyone is looking for, and the problem with your argument is that it pretty much assumes even a plurality are.

All that is left are genre, tone/texture/milieu, the specific agenda and principles that a given game is aimed at, and adjustments to the process and mechanics which operationalize those things. Conceptually all these games basically do the same thing. While you may SORT OF be able to achieve it on a limited basis in a traditional model RPG, you won't ever get an 8 page game which does that for every possible fiction the game can produce. It will simply never happen IMHO, and the vast catalog of actual RPGs which have been produced since 1974 bears me out on this. There are some games that are 'transitional' or 'on the edge', but they are distinctly non traditional IMHO.

Again, this assumes that the play result you'll get out of an 8 page game is what you want. That's begging the question from the get-go.

 

[clearstream]

Right. There were definitely earlier games which presaged this sort of thing, even going back to MS's Top Secret and MSHRP, with their meta-currencies and XP rules. I don't know of a game earlier than Maelstrom which actually unequivocally switched from 'action resolution' to 'narrative resolution' process though. I'm guessing that someplace there's some game or games that MIGHT be interpreted that way which are earlier, not sure. That starts to get to the "well, a GM could do it that way with..." territory though.

Amber, 1991, especially its advice on combat as storytelling. I had my MOLAD diceless rules several years before that, while a colleague had his 'Immortals' diceless rules just after (and partly based on) mine. And then Everway, 1995.

 

[clearstream]

Well, we have some similar thoughts. I'll put some notes together and maybe it will make a good fodder for another thread. It has been quite a while since I dug into that in a thread here.

It does start to feel we're at a point that a new thread could be fruitful.

As for what is theoretically possible with D&D? Well, 4e says it all! 4e, if you take the various parts where it says 'how to play' seriously, IS a Story Game. I mean, it is a bit broken, it isn't a pure story game. It is close though. It can be played, legally within the stated rules, process, agenda, etc. as such. And it works. I know, I did it for 10 years. @pemerton did it, I'm pretty sure @Manbearcat did it, etc. etc. etc. So, you have to go back and abstract out those elements, clarify them a bit, dig the 'hooks' in a bit better and more explicitly, and then get rid of a few elements (like stand-alone checks) which work against it. I've conveniently written that game (partially and somewhat inexpertly, but it is good enough that I can run it). Even my version really needs a rewrite because I didn't START OUT understanding all of this 5-6 years ago to the degree I do now. I have much refined the agenda of my game, and a lot of things don't fit well anymore, etc. Still, it is clear to me how to write a follow-on game to 4e that would be 'Story D&D'. Frankly I'm not even really concerned with things like pseudo-Vancian casting vs A/E/D/U and whatnot, those are all secondary. What matters is the core 'resolution loop' of the game.

Intuitively, it feels like a direction that could succeed.

And that is my core hypothesis, that the 'traditional resolution loop' in all its variations, cannot do much more than it is doing in 5e. The things where 5e stumbles are not peripheral design issues with 5e subsystems or matters of adding some minor optional rule or whatnot. They are CORE LIMITATIONS of its very game process model and can only be 'fixed' by implementing a new game process model. That has implications throughout a system! Yes, you could stick as close as possible to 5e rules (I would think that would be wise if one were to actually undertake such a project) but every element of the game would need to be revisited and re-imagined to some degree based on serving as part of a fluid narrative resolution process model vs an action resolution process model. Since 4e already did that, I concluded that starting with 5e would be a lot more work and basically crazy, so I took 4e as my point of departure in my own gaming.

I am not sure about that: it is hard to have firm intuitions about what further might be done with the traditional loop. On the other hand, I do agree that it should be revisited... maybe even re-imagined.

3. There would be 3 spaces (this is how HoML covers it). There is the combat process space (action sequences, they might cover stuff that is combat-adjacent too). There is the Skill Challenge process space, which covers ALL other conflicts besides combat and combat-adjacent (maybe like escaping a collapsing building or something). Finally there is what I call 'Interlude'. In this space there are no dice. It is free RP in which the players take on pure characterization and background developing play. It is really just a formal recognition of 'table chit-chat'. I could see some downtime operations falling within 'Interlude' possibly. Certainly 'plot seeds' usually develop during interludes. They would also be the technical process space of something like a cut scene or a flashback (ala 4e DMG2) as long as it is pure narrative and isn't resolving any ongoing conflict. You can always drop from Interlude to Skill Challenge and back very easily.

Where we are in accord is on 2+ spaces

4. I haven't found a strong need to formalize transitions of process model. I mean, frankly, the combat model could be done away with and handled using SC rules, but it would certainly be a big change in terms of mechanics that currently exist in that model. It would also definitively break from being anything like D&D. I'm old, and I actually LIKE D&D in many ways. So, I haven't done that. From a pure game-design perspective it might be better to run things with just 'Challenge' and 'Interlude'. As soon as someone has an urge to roll dice, and can define a goal and an obstacle, Challenge is invoked. Once the challenge resolves, then in principle you go back to Interlude, though in practice another challenge may instantly arise (I would expect that to be fairly common during an adventure). I'd note that you can also 'nest' challenges. 4e hinted at that possibility a couple times. I haven't ever really taken it on directly in a formal way, but I think I mentioned that SCs and skill checks have 'closure', so you can use an SC (or a combat I guess) to resolve a check in a 'higher level' SC. I don't tend to do that too often, but a game could be built entirely around that sort of 'Russian Doll' design. It could even handle things like a lot of the higher level stuff that BitD does with its faction rules and whatnot! My programmer mind likes this idea... lol.

Maybe, although I like the idea of texturing the transactions between process-spaces in order that being in combat doesn't feel like trying to get a good night's sleep (if that flippant analogy makes sense!)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Lasers and Feelings can do it on one page. That doesn't meant he result is what everyone is looking for, and the problem with your argument is that it pretty much assumes even a plurality are.

I'm not implying it is, nobody can say that. I am simply pointing out that in a 'narrative resolution process' game the system can be incredibly compact, and all-encompassing at once. No RPG will do everything the way everyone wants. OTOH I think a lot of what people claim to want is "How I do it now" vs any sort of objective/reasoned evaluation of options. The explanation of why feels very post facto in most of these cases.

Again, this assumes that the play result you'll get out of an 8 page game is what you want. That's begging the question from the get-go.

I don't agree. When you say "this assumes [it] is what you want" I think you are the one begging. I am perfectly happy to have discussions about individual games and various things that people can be asking for, etc. I think some of that discussion has happened here. Such as a point being made that you cannot run a 'high prep' heist scenario type game that focuses on extreme meticulous planning as the central theme using BitD. See, that I can buy. It is a material objection that plainly makes sense. BitD models preparation in a totally different way, as an integral part of its mechanics, such that doing it beforehand would be literally impossible. You have to play some other system to do that.

And, you know, I can to a degree understand objections to things like mechanics which cannot be carried out (or it might be general process) without breaking out of character in a strict sense; that is out of 'actor stance'. OK, I find that I react to a lot of that objection as post facto reasoning, but I can certainly accept that it is something people can define that a game does, and then object to.

But if you are rejecting a whole game architecture on a hypothetical basis that you believe it can never please you, just in some 'general principle' sense, I think that argument certainly needs to be made on a much more particular and specific case basis.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Amber, 1991, especially its advice on combat as storytelling. I had my MOLAD diceless rules several years before that, while a colleague had his 'Immortals' diceless rules just after (and partly based on) mine. And then Everway, 1995.

Yeah, I almost mentioned Everway. I never played it. Hardly anyone did, apparently. Its structure has not really been emulated by AFAIK any other RPG before or since. OTOH it certainly was focused on narrative concerns! Amber diceless was an interesting game too, certainly one of the ones that lead in the direction of modern story games. I know there were experiments with eliminating dice going WAY back. Some people I used to game with created a diceless sort of equivalent of Melee back in the late 70's. In fact En Garde! is basically diceless, and was produced in 1975 by GDW. However, it was not at all like modern story games, each 'move' is simply a mechanic and contains within itself all fiction. It is also rather more of a 'wargame' than an RPG proper, though it definitely straddles the line!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It does start to feel we're at a point that a new thread could be fruitful.

Yeah, I should edit my HoML 2 notes and then I can get on it. lol.

Intuitively, it feels like a direction that could succeed.


I am not sure about that: it is hard to have firm intuitions about what further might be done with the traditional loop. On the other hand, I do agree that it should be revisited... maybe even re-imagined.

Well, I certainly spent the 1990's beating my head on the wall of trying to make 2e do that stuff. I mean, just trying to make 2e do what 2e said it could do! I never did make that work. I tried excessively detailed setting and highly scripted metaplot. THAT didn't work! I tried more fine-grained detailed and realistic rules before that, and that wasn't leading anywhere either. I got too wrapped up in non-gaming stuff to pay too much attention to the whole industry for 8-10 years until 4e came out, by which time the indie game movement was flourishing and I found very quickly that the 'narrative resolution' style processes were MUCH better at getting textured story with a variety of less totally gamist outcomes than anything traditional games seemed capable of. I have since revisited most of the trad games I had been familiar with in the past, and not found anything in any of them that changes my opinion. Obviously I'm open to the possibility, but at some point one must draw conclusions and move on...

Where we are in accord is on 2+ spaces


Maybe, although I like the idea of texturing the transactions between process-spaces in order that being in combat doesn't feel like trying to get a good night's sleep (if that flippant analogy makes sense!)

Well, perhaps. I mean, I haven't found that I personally needed a formal transition process beyond "This SC has ended, go back to Interlude and see what happens next." I did toy at one point with a sort of process that you could use to manufacture setting elements in a structured way, which could then trigger challenges or combats. I'm not sure it is really all that needed, though maybe for HoML2 it could be adapted as sort of a "how do you get caught up in the Legends and Myths" sort of thing.

 

[clearstream]

Well, perhaps. I mean, I haven't found that I personally needed a formal transition process beyond "This SC has ended, go back to Interlude and see what happens next." I did toy at one point with a sort of process that you could use to manufacture setting elements in a structured way, which could then trigger challenges or combats. I'm not sure it is really all that needed, though maybe for HoML2 it could be adapted as sort of a "how do you get caught up in the Legends and Myths" sort of thing.

Would you see fronts as a process space?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not implying it is, nobody can say that. I am simply pointing out that in a 'narrative resolution process' game the system can be incredibly compact, and all-encompassing at once. No RPG will do everything the way everyone wants. OTOH I think a lot of what people claim to want is "How I do it now" vs any sort of objective/reasoned evaluation of options. The explanation of why feels very post facto in most of these cases.

I can fit a simple enough non-narrative resolution process in a paragraph, too. It just ends up running heavily into "rulings not rules" and is downright schematic. The fact you can do so with a narrative game too doesn't really say much of anything.

I don't agree. When you say "this assumes [it] is what you want" I think you are the one begging. I am perfectly happy to have discussions about individual games and various things that people can be asking for, etc. I think some of that discussion has happened here. Such as a point being made that you cannot run a 'high prep' heist scenario type game that focuses on extreme meticulous planning as the central theme using BitD. See, that I can buy. It is a material objection that plainly makes sense. BitD models preparation in a totally different way, as an integral part of its mechanics, such that doing it beforehand would be literally impossible. You have to play some other system to do that.

However, when you phrase it as "trad game can't do X", I think you're doing just that. It only makes sense when you're bringing a bunch of unstated expectations to "do X."

And, you know, I can to a degree understand objections to things like mechanics which cannot be carried out (or it might be general process) without breaking out of character in a strict sense; that is out of 'actor stance'. OK, I find that I react to a lot of that objection as post facto reasoning, but I can certainly accept that it is something people can define that a game does, and then object to.

But if you are rejecting a whole game architecture on a hypothetical basis that you believe it can never please you, just in some 'general principle' sense, I think that argument certainly needs to be made on a much more particular and specific case basis.

Well, I'll flat out say that one of the things I get enjoyment out of in RPGs is mechanical engagement in a middling detailed level. In other words, I don't want to just deal with it on a scene level unless its trivial in the first place. But as I said, I think your expectations here are no less specific than mine, they're just being taken as a given.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, I almost mentioned Everway. I never played it. Hardly anyone did, apparently. Its structure has not really been emulated by AFAIK any other RPG before or since. OTOH it certainly was focused on narrative concerns! Amber diceless was an interesting game too, certainly one of the ones that lead in the direction of modern story games. I know there were experiments with eliminating dice going WAY back. Some people I used to game with created a diceless sort of equivalent of Melee back in the late 70's. In fact En Garde! is basically diceless, and was produced in 1975 by GDW. However, it was not at all like modern story games, each 'move' is simply a mechanic and contains within itself all fiction. It is also rather more of a 'wargame' than an RPG proper, though it definitely straddles the line!

We called our games diceless (because they were), but in hindsight that wasn't really their most important feature. I mean, you can have very crunchy diceless resolution systems. Rather they worked almost entirely in narrative resolution. Epitomising to do it, do it. I didn't set out to give up any of my remit as a DM, and yet players told me how their powers worked.

Our RAW covered just a few pages, and helped everyone join in the same suspension of disbelief or shared fiction. We didn't know at the time that there was any need to write down our principles or techniques, partly because we were playing in our local circle and could just get on with doing what we were doing. I can see now - especially following the debate here - that it is crucial to write down principles and techniques if the RPG is to be used effectively by others. That wasn't our focus: we were crafting for our own use. Had I been disseminating MOLAD I would have needed to add a lot of explanation of the hows and whys, and capture far more about the intended world(s). That just wasn't a goal.

Even while diceless, Amber goes further with system, and yet I think there was more narrative resolution going on than your average RPG at the time. Ars Magica would be another example, from 1987 even. Tweet again! You can have lengthy sessions in Ars Magica where everything resolves in narrative. Even DM role rotates. The magic uses a kind of highly structured narrative resolution system, which in some respects is not far from that in Chivalry and Sorcery (if your character ever tried to cast a C&S spell they might think about giving up magic altogether!)

Just to be clear, I am agreeing with you and expanding on your point. Consider the diceless combat of Eve Online. Fully deterministic so far as I know - therefore diceless - and yet clearly constrained rather than sufficiently constrained. En-garde is a similarly good example. Or those Ace of Aces picture books. It's actually interesting to figure out what the difference really is? Like DW they chain together moves, and in fact those moves propel the narrative. So how does one accurately state what DW is doing that they were not? We obviously could write each DW move on a card! Your point about containing the narrative in the card seems important. DW doesn't know exactly what narrative will emerge from a move, and is far looser about what might be validly chained.