Advice for new "story now" GMs

[hawkeyefan]

You're making the same (wrong) assumption as AbdulAlhazred, that this event is being introduced on a whim. And as I posted before, I agree that doing so on a whim is a bad call.

I’m not. I asked how these events and their timing are determined, and you said this:

The GM when designing the setting before play begins.

With no further elaboration. The GM decides. That it was on a whim a week or a month before play doesn’t change that it was on a whim.

However, I most certainly don't agree that pre-scheduling some events to happen in the setting on particular dates is a bad call, provided such pre-scheduling is done in complete neutrality and without knowledge of how or even if any PCs will be affected.

Here you mention perhaps determining these events ahead of play on some calendar… but still no mention of how they’re determined. I assume it’s just a matter of the GM deciding.

If I’m wrong, please feel free to explain the actual method you use to determine these events.

Now, as others have already pointed out, regardless of your method, what you’re describing isn’t Story Now play. You’re arguing for the GM’s plot to remain paramount over the desires of players. And your only rationalization for it boils down to this: “the GM made some decisions about what would happen before play began and so those are the things that will happen”.

Think about this and what it does to play. What good comes from it? Do you see how what you’re describing is antithetical to Story Now play?

 

[darkbard]

@Lanefan, I seriously question your vigorous participation in a thread seeking to compile good advice for a particular mode of gaming that you've made clear you have no interest in. No one is required to post or not post in any thread, of course, but your contributions amount to "but I don't want to do that" in a thread that's meant for those who do.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Lanefan, I seriously question your vigorous participation in a thread seeking to compile good advice for a particular mode of gaming that you've made clear you have no interest in. No one is required to post or not post in any thread, of course, but your contributions amount to "but I don't want to do that" in a thread that's meant for those who do.

Honestly, I'm not opposed to a reasonable amount of "contrast" which is a reasonable way to point out what does and doesn't work in SN/narrativist play. I mean, its quite clear here how @Lanefan's methodology is fairly different from mine, presumably yours, and definitely @Manbearcat and @pemerton sort of play. I don't want to endlessly debate one style over the other, not in this thread, but I'm OK with where its gone so far.

 

[darkbard]

Honestly, I'm not opposed to a reasonable amount of "contrast" which is a reasonable way to point out what does and doesn't work in SN/narrativist play. I mean, its quite clear here how @Lanefan's methodology is fairly different from mine, presumably yours, and definitely @Manbearcat and @pemerton sort of play. I don't want to endlessly debate one style over the other, not in this thread, but I'm OK with where its gone so far.

I don't mind a reasonable amount of back-and-forth about the given topic either! But, collectively, we've hashed out these contrasts innumerable times in the appropriate places. This thread was laid out specifically as a place to solicit and gather advice for prospective Story Now GMs. I don't see what @Lanefan's posts are contributing to that goal besides hashing out the old, familiar arguments from someone who has made it very clear that he brings a different set of priorities to the gaming table.

 

[Lanefan]

No, he can, as I just suggested up thread, assuming you want to stick to your meta-plot more-or-less (and OK, you do want to do that, nobody is certainly denying that's your desire) recast it as a choice for the PC, the crown or loyalty to your country, or I'm sure you are creative enough to come up with any of 10 other ways to make a dilemma or obstacle out of this. Why should your player not have a chance of success? Why? What purpose is it serving not to give her the chance! All she has to do is marry the disgusting barbarian and she can rule (albeit sharing power). Its like you have the gold coins in your hand, but something stops you from spending them. Give it a try!

So, none of this is a surprise to her, and she KNOWS how to change the future. Man, there are so many ways to hand the keys to the players here and make gold. I mean, D&D won't make that EASY, but you can at least get halfway there. Hey, maybe you'll invent a style of play that makes everyone happy, you can always dream!

Just to clarify: I'm the player of the throne-chaser here, not the GM. And yes, I know what the future might hold because I grew up in it; but knowing that future and implementing it when almost nobody believes a word I say about it are two ve-ery different things.

And if the potential invaders were merely barbarians this would be so much simpler.

 

[Lanefan]

There are a lot of assumptions because there weren’t many details, so I addressed hypotheticals.

One thing that isn’t clear to me, though it’s implied by your last paragraph, is just what steps the PC has taken to realize her ambition. If she’s just expressed it but not acted on it in any way, then it doesn’t seem like she has a credible claim.

Yeah, most of the foundations she had managed to lay were in the future (e.g. 8 years in the Legions building contacts), and have been wiped out by the time shift. The one thing she has done is, throgh adventuring, become a significant mage; and so she's starting the contacts-building process over again.

This is a long-term goal - I expect it to potentially be many in-game years or even decades before reaching a do or die point - and very likely won't be realized during the campaign which for all I know might only run another in-game year or two.

This one probably might come down to scruples. If all you want is the throne and the crown, you don’t have to stop the invasion. You just have to be the one they let wear the crown and sit on the throne of what remains.

Knowing what I do of the (potential) invaders, that's not going to happen, full stop. Think of a steampunk-era society ruled by evil bureaucrats and backed by immensely powerful psionics taking on Rome-with-some-magic. We'll be subjugted, and the best we could hope for is to rise to under-positions of respectability (having seen firsthand how they deal with other subjugated peoples).

Our only advantage is that they are literally on the other side of the world - think the USA trying to invade Australia - but they could easily get here in numbers if they so desired.

What are her political plans? I’d expect them to include both allies and informants. The latter are particularly important because they’ll allow her to make informed decisions. The former would be able to alert her of trouble while she’s away, e.g., by using sending, which even works across planes (albeit with a slight failure rate). I also think if she’s not looking for opportunities to exploit, she’s going to have limited success with her claim.

Her original plans were to get some of the Legions onside as a threat, and then stage what amounted to a coup. That's kind of gone out the window, so now she's working the Clerical angle (she's allied herself with a very important and influential group of Clerics who would, I think (?), back her claim if she could prove the senate was incompetent). She and her party also just stopped a different invasion, but unfortunately all that action was again off-plane and thus there wasn't any "media coverage" back home.

The problem is, she's also still a field adventurer, and hasn't yet figured out how to be in both places at once.

(sorry for the derail here - I did say it was a long story, didn't I?)

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan, I seriously question your vigorous participation in a thread seeking to compile good advice for a particular mode of gaming that you've made clear you have no interest in. No one is required to post or not post in any thread, of course, but your contributions amount to "but I don't want to do that" in a thread that's meant for those who do.

The thing is, and as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, most of what's in the OP is IMO very good general advice for any GM regardless of style or game type. My questions, and I suppose pushback to a point, revolve around why that advice is only - or only seems to be - intended for or directed at this one specific style, and by extension why that one specific style is seemingly thus being placed above others.

It's kind of like an electric-car advocate saying in a car forum "Advice for new owners of electric vehicles: follow the rules of the road while driving them", where that advice in fact applies to new owners of every type of vehicle thus there's no need to specify electrics.

 

[darkbard]

The thing is, and as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, most of what's in the OP is IMO very good general advice for any GM regardless of style or game type. My questions, and I suppose pushback to a point, revolve around why that advice is only - or only seems to be - intended for or directed at this one specific style, and by extension why that one specific style is seemingly thus being placed above others.

It's kind of like an electric-car advocate saying in a car forum "Advice for new owners of electric vehicles: follow the rules of the road while driving them", where that advice in fact applies to new owners of every type of vehicle thus there's no need to specify electrics.

You'll forgive the inexact comparison (and my apologies if anyone feels this pushes the no politics policy), but this is a bit like exclaiming "all lives matter" at a BLM rally. Sure, some of the things being celebrated/protested/whathaveyou may be expandable beyond the original context, but that diminishes the point of focusing on a specific set of circumstances.

Additionally, and I believe you disagree with this stance, but I believe System Matters. And thus some of what you see as universal advice isn't nearly as generalizable as one might think without the system, principles, and agenda in place.

And who said anything about any specific style being placed "above" any other? This is a thread for addressing a specific style of play, not setting some hierarchy among playstyles.

 

[gban007]

The thing is, and as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, most of what's in the OP is IMO very good general advice for any GM regardless of style or game type. My questions, and I suppose pushback to a point, revolve around why that advice is only - or only seems to be - intended for or directed at this one specific style, and by extension why that one specific style is seemingly thus being placed above others.

It's kind of like an electric-car advocate saying in a car forum "Advice for new owners of electric vehicles: follow the rules of the road while driving them", where that advice in fact applies to new owners of every type of vehicle thus there's no need to specify electrics.

I don't know, my style of games is a lot more like yours / Maxpersons I think, and indeed about to run Shadow of the Dragon Queen, very much an adventure that is going to pull events out of left field for the characters / de-protagonise them, but I can see that the OP seems very good for getting my head around what Story Now entails, and does make me wonder about giving them a go one day.
But your point around pushing back on why the advice is only for Story Now seems somewhat in opposition to the some parts of the thread where you look to be pushing for the GM to be able to do stuff that is in opposition to what Story Now games support, so seems to be more trying to provide advice that applies to other games but not Story Now games. So more like 'advice for new owners of electric vehicles: look for ways to minimise the electricity cost by only charging at night' and coming in with 'but what about when someone wants a good price on petrol? - only going to petrol stations at night isn't going to solve that' to stretch the analogy a bit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You'll forgive the inexact comparison (and my apologies if anyone feels this pushes the no politics policy), but this is a bit like exclaiming "all lives matter" at a BLM rally. Sure, some of the things being celebrated/protested/whathaveyou may be expandable beyond the original context, but that diminishes the point of focusing on a specific set of circumstances.

Additionally, and I believe you disagree with this stance, but I believe System Matters. And thus some of what you see as universal advice isn't nearly as generalizable as one might think without the system, principles, and agenda in place.

And who said anything about any specific style being placed "above" any other? This is a thread for addressing a specific style of play, not setting some hierarchy among playstyles.

Right, while I think you can certainly do something like what @pemerton calls 'generic narrativism' using something like 5e, its not ideal. In fact 5e specifically seems less suitable than AD&D, Role Master, etc. Far far better to use a system that is intended to handle this sort of play. I guess this can be framed as GM advice, which is "Don't be deceived by the 'System Doesn't Matter' folks." Bless them, but they're so wrong... lol.