D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[pemerton]

This is like the third definition of narrativism I’ve seen so far. Is it playing to find out what the characters would do when push comes to shove, or is it playing to make the characters feel like protagonists, or is it playing to make a point?

I'm not responsible for what others say. I'm using the term as it is used by the person who coined it, Ron Edwards. Given that this thread seems hostile to citing sources, I'll sblock them:

Spoiler

From here:

Narrativism is expressed by the creation, via role-playing, of a story with a recognizable theme. The characters are formal protagonists in the classic Lit 101 sense . . .[/b]​

And from here:

Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be addressed in the process of role-playing. "Address" means:

• Establishing the issue's Explorative expressions in the game-world, "fixing" them into imaginary place.
• Developing the issue as a source of continued conflict, perhaps changing any number of things about it, such as which side is being taken by a given character, or providing more depth to why the antagonistic side of the issue exists at all.
• Resolving the issue through the decisions of the players of the protagonists, as well as various features and constraints of the circumstances.

Can it really be that easy? Yes, Narrativism is that easy. The Now refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about.

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). Story Now has a great deal in common with Step On Up, particularly in the social expectation to contribute, but in this case the real people's attention is directed toward one another's insights toward the issue, rather than toward strategy and guts.​

It may be worth pointing out, for the sake of clarity, that in this second paragraph story now and narrativism are used as synonyms, and gamism and step on up are used as synonyms.

I don't know what you mean by "making a character feel like a protagonist" and I don't know who you are imagining should experience the feeling.

In other storytelling media, the protagonist isn't just the main character. Their actions drive what occurs. (All forms can be subverted, including storytelling ones. Maybe there is RPGing that sets out to do this. But Edwards defines "narrativism" in a very traditional fashion.) In dramatic storytelling, not only does the action of the protagonist drive what occurs, but their action also reveals "the point" - the theme, the meaning, the author's insights, however exactly you want to think of what is at stake in storytelling. Now, narrativism is an approach to RPGing, and so it takes for granted certain features of the RPG form - that generally speaking one person manages the adversity while another manages the protagonist. It aspires to achieve the same sort of thing as dramatic storytelling does, but within the RPG form.

Thus, the player must be free to express their point via their play of their character - the protagonist. And the GM must be free to elicit that play, to put pressure on it, to riff on it, via their play of the adversity. That is the "conversation" that is at the heart of narrativist RPGing.

Apocalypse World isn't the only RPG that can reliably deliver narrativist RPGing. There are many others; my personal favourite is Burning Wheel. But I think the AW rulebook probably has the clearest description of how the conversation can work. For anyone who is interested, it repays close study.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That may be the original reason the NPCs in question are created. But now they are part of the setting, and they have motivation to enter the battle. So to play the setting with integrity, they must!

This isn't supporting simulationism, though. If it's part of the scenario, which was built using the tools to balance and ensure good challenge, then it's supporting gamism. I'm having a bit of trouble with the defense of a meta introduction of content being zealously defended as playing the setting with integrity -- when did this integrity start?

I didn't change anything. It's just that the connections between decisions and agendas you're trying to make do not hold up to scrutiny. You said high concept simulation demands to belay the reinforcements and save the characters, but this of course is not true, it would completely depend on the concept being simulated.

No, you totally changed the example to a "Red Wedding" story.

Nah. You're overanalysing. People often don't like when their characters die, because they're attached to them. And of course death of a character can make a good story.

Um, I say that it's a story people like more when their characters don't die, and you say, no, that's overanalyzing, people just don't like their characters to die because they like the story that's being told around them. No one said anything prior to this about death being a good story (although, given this scenarios, that death is going to up to the GM and not the player, so....).

I didn't think you were denigrating it. Nor I was advocating for such an approach, it was just an example.

Want to make clear that I'm not suggesting this kind of play is badwrong. It's not. Pointing out what people want to get out of play should be something we can examine in the open without concern that an agenda is going to be mocked or ridiculed. That's not what this is about.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I’ve been providing plenty of examples of them working in concert. See my several posts now about using gameplay structures to give consequence to character decisions.

Yes, and it's been pointed out that you've swapped in a different definition for the GNS agendas than what they mean. If the proof of the pudding is that you get to say it's good because you've defined it in a certain way, then, sure, 100% success. Not terribly convincing otherwise, though.

 

[pemerton]

You’re convincing no one with this.

There is one person on ENWorld who uses OODA Loop with regularity.

One < cue Johnny Dangerously>

And OODA Loop is not Forge “jargon.”

So you outed yourself straightaway. And you didnt @ me. And while you meant it to be personal, it’s cool. I didn’t take it personally. Now a lot of folks did on my behalf and let me know about it (I didn’t even know about the thread until they told me about the shot you took). No big deal as far as I’m concerned.

But you know what you did. Don’t walk it back. You said what you said. Just wear it now.

@Umbran I’ll just self-report this post because it’s definitely getting reported by someone who doesn’t like (the utter reality of) what I’ve just written.

I had to log out to look at that post. It's the same one that makes fun of the multitudes of ENworlders who play Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant, right?

 

[Hussar]

This is like the third definition of narrativism I’ve seen so far. Is it playing to find out what the characters would do when push comes to shove, or is it playing to make the characters feel like protagonists, or is it playing to make a point?

All three. Why are any of those in conflict?

Your protagonist is making a point by seeing what he or she would do if push comes to shove and that protagonist’s values come into conflict.

I’m not really sure how much more it can be reduced.

 

[iserith]

You’re convincing no one with this.

There is one person on ENWorld who uses OODA Loop with regularity.

One < cue Johnny Dangerously>

And OODA Loop is not Forge “jargon.”

So you outed yourself straightaway. And you didnt @ me. And while you meant it to be personal, it’s cool. I didn’t take it personally. Now a lot of folks did on my behalf and let me know about it (I didn’t even know about the thread until they told me about the shot you took). No big deal as far as I’m concerned.

But you know what you did. Don’t walk it back. You said what you said. Just wear it now.

@Umbran I’ll just self-report this post because it’s definitely getting reported by someone who doesn’t like (the utter reality of) what I’ve just written.

Certainly not by me, as I ignore rather than report. I honestly don't recall who uses what terms exactly (except as it regards myself, long ago), only that when terms of those kind show up in a discussion, confusion, irritation, and division follow. It's quite predictable. Have you not seen this trend over the years?

 

[niklinna]

I had to log out to look at that post. It's the same one that makes fun of the multitudes of ENworlders who play Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant, right?

Yes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don’t imagine you mean it this way, but this sounds an awful lot like “if you disagree with the model, you must not understand it.” I promise you, I do understand narrativist play.

I'm sorry, but I haven't seen any evidence this is true. I'm happy to be ignorant, here. Do you have some examples of your own narrativist play? Or is this an academic understanding, in which case can you elaborate on the difficulties of supporting narrativist play in 5e D&D -- what needs to change to support this play?

 

[Charlaquin]

Could be! I've said several times I doubt whether that particular claim of the theory is true, and I'm trying to reason that out in this back and forth with you.

Well, let me know if you figure that out, I guess.

There can be a distinction between you as player progressing your character (typically such things as XP, levels, more power), and your character as embedded in the fiction progressing (for example, more wealth, more allied NPCs, upholding values/vows, learning new spells).

Mmm… Upholding values/vows seems to me like the only one of your examples of the character as embedded in the fiction that isn’t also me progressing my character. Maybe wealth too in D&D 5e since it provides such few avenues to exchange wealth for character power. But in most editions of D&D at least, wealth directly translates to character power, as do spells, and NPC allies indirectly translate to it. All of these things can equally be a gamist or narrativist reward (or both at once).

It's this shift in perspective that decides whether the agenda is Gamist or Narrativist. And in this realm, at any rate, I think there's room for them to align. XP could be a proxy for you to measure your character's in-fiction sense of their power and status in the game-world. In early D&D, gold earned (wealth) was explicitly linked to XP. That is, it could go either way from the typical.

Yeah, that could further bring them in line, and I do quite like gold for XP. Even better than gold for XP is getting rid of the abstract metric of XP and just pay gold for character advancement directly - whether through training to gain levels, buying improved equipment, hiring NPC allies, or what have you. This can further break down the barrier between player interests and character interests. Character wants gold, player wants gold; perfect ludonarrative harmony. The Demons/Dark/Elden/Souls/Borne/Ring games pull this off pretty elegantly.

If a dilemma has to be framed in terms of mechanics (XP, loss of character ability, change in stats) related to decisions based on the fiction, and strictly-fictional consequences (a friend turning on your character, your character being branded an outlaw) won't do, GNS doesn't really get into that.

Well, yes, that’s exactly my point. GNS sets out to describe what motivates people to play RPGs, and what motivates me to play them, GNS doesn’t really get into.

The moments fall into one another, not the agendas. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Sorry, that didn’t really clear anything up. At this point, my preferences have been described by various people as “purely” all three of the GNS agendas, and I still don’t think any of them describe what I feel like I want out of a game.

I'm afraid I don't understand. The situation posited is precisely an example of the three agendas in conflict, that is, being incoherent. Your desire to face such situations is outside that (which is why I called it a meta-agenda).

But isn’t incoherence supposed to be an undesirable thing under GNS? If what I desire from the game is incoherent by the model’s definitions, isn’t that the model failing in what it sets out to do?

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, and it's been pointed out that you've swapped in a different definition for the GNS agendas than what they mean. If the proof of the pudding is that you get to say it's good because you've defined it in a certain way, then, sure, 100% success. Not terribly convincing otherwise, though.

It seems like every time I make a counter-argument, the rebuttal is to provide a new, different definition of the agenda I’m discussing. At this point I’m more convinced than ever that there is no consistent definition for any of them; they seem to exist merely to act as mobile goalposts.