What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[Micah Sweet]

There is no temporal causality. Just as if you're watching a movie and the character suddenly pulls a knife from a hidden ankle sheath... the character didn't time travel, the knife was "there all along" but we didn't know about it.

The character doesn't need to know the limitations... the ability represents their tendency to be prepared, or to have odd things at on hand at the right time.

The entire D&D magic system is designed to work this way.

Except you memorize a spell in advance, or you have access to your whole list all the time and decide what to cast in the moment. Not the same thing at all from where I sit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not seeing it.
The main difference here is Well Prepared is essentially quantum-state equipment with the presence (or absence) of an item only being determined at point of need (and only once per day). The D&D magic system isn't really like that given how much effort it goes into making sure prepared/known spells are defined before the need for them occurs. If the D&D magic system were more freeform in its magic like a variable pool in a number of superhero-based RPGs, then I might see the similarity.

If the DM can't have quantum ogres, why is it ok for the player to have quantum gear?

For the record, I don't want either.

 

[billd91]

If the DM can't have quantum ogres, why is it ok for the player to have quantum gear?

For the record, I don't want either.

You may be the weirdo in this situation. The feat is actually fun for low-level PCs. I was playing a halfling druid with a pack mule in a PF game and had this feat. I thought it was a good way to handle being practical and well-equipped for adventuring without having to worry about thinking about everything ahead of time on my equipment list.
But then, I also like variable pools for things like gadgets for Batman/Reed Richards and shapeshifting options for Chameleon Boy in my superhero games too.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I understand that some people don't see it that way... but I generally do, particularly for mechanics that are hard to justify as in-character choices. It's the player choosing when to make something matter more (or at least try to do so) as the game plays out that is pretty much invisible to the PC's point of view. The strength of a mechanic and its narrative impact is more obvious with one that involves auto-success than a reroll (particularly when that reroll was a low success odds one in the first place), but I still think it's the player using mechanics at their disposal to guide the narrative by things other than decisions attributable to the PC's point of view.

I see a difference. Maybe the metagame mechanic is steering your character towards success but it’s not really controlling the narrative. You can reroll in FATE too but I don’t really see that as the best way to gain narrative control.

In FATE I see aspects as the actual narrative mechanic. Actual FATE POINTS are just one of many ways to allow ASPECS affect the narrative.

If a room has an aspect of ‘Deep Shadows’ and a player uses it for a +2 to their stealth, it has some narrative implication as they’ve just succeeded in hiding because of the bonus. I see that as more mechanical than narrative but they’ve made the Deep Shadows important to the story. It has more narrative power if they invoke that aspect to declare there’s an undead Shade hiding amongst the shadows. But even more powerfully, a character may have the ability to create the aspect DEEP SHADOWS on the scene(maybe through a skill check or fate point or magic). The ability - the rules and systems in play- to create these narrative tools is really what I see as a narrative mechanic.

I’m not sure what my point is, LOL. Maybe it’s just that I don’t think every Out Of Character mechanic is necessarily a narrative one. So, I guess we disagree because I think that’s what you are saying? Which is fine, since we don’t need to agree.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

If the DM can't have quantum ogres, why is it ok for the player to have quantum gear?

For the record, I don't want either.

I’m assuming you’re kidding, but to comment, There’s no quantum gear. It’s just that the gear wasn’t established in the fiction until just now.

Like that adventure I was in where we had to bring a Holy Artifact to a sacred place and, when we got there after weeks of travel, the player said, “oh, I forgot to put the Holy Relic on my character sheet”.

The DM could say, you don’t have it then, or he could adjust the fiction retroactively to say that it was there the whole time. Which is what the feat does.

 

[aramis erak]

I imagine a narrative mechanic would be when the rules say "It is now Player B's turn to tell what the NPCs are doing or what happens in the environment".

I would count that, yes. but it's not a normal one for non-rotational-GMing.

This goes back to calling a variable power pool in Hero a "narrative mechanic." Which I don't think it is.

One interesting thing about this ability though: it explicitly requires GM approval. Does that impact how we think of it as a narrative mechanic?

Oh, it most definitely is, at least if you don't buy up the time to change it.

Batman as a typical gamer would write him has 100 points of individual gadgets which have been seen on screen and/or in print.
Batman as a VPP character, always just happens to have the right tool for the job in his belt - without any prior story state justification. He's got them because he's got mechanics that put various things into play without any callbacks to prepping them.

He's dumped in the water? Batshark Repellant. In a lava pool? Thermal dissipation spray... or a grapnel hook. Or jet boots. whatever it is, it didn't need to exist in the story state (in AW terms, in the fiction). And, in most narrativist games, it only lasts while it's needed. Once the issue passes, on to the next tool...

Having the pool isn't a narrative mechanic - but using it most certainly is. And hero is, generally, one of the more narrative focused old school games. (as it predates Cook's D&D Expert Set. Which is often the cutoff date for Old School - summer '82)

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not seeing it.
The main difference here is Well Prepared is essentially quantum-state equipment with the presence (or absence) of an item only being determined at point of need (and only once per day). The D&D magic system isn't really like that given how much effort it goes into making sure prepared/known spells are defined before the need for them occurs. If the D&D magic system were more freeform in its magic like a variable pool in a number of superhero-based RPGs, then I might see the similarity.

Not at all. The difference is one of how zoomed in we are on the minutae. Let's take the same mechanic character in various games.

• In GURPS or Champions we might list all the screwdrivers, the sizes of the sockets in the socket set, the length of the tapemeasure, and more
• In D&D we'd probably list that they had a screwdriver kit and a socket set or possibly a workman's toolkit and the weight
• In Fate we'd give them the aspect "Prepared Mechanic"

It's the same character who's prepared themselves in the same way - but how much we, the players, are actually tracking varies from game to game. An obvious case in actual D&D would be the Spell Component Pouch which if you treat it the way you do (especially in the 3.X days) is in a quantum superposition that potentially contains an infinite number of live spiders. But people use Spell Component Pouches because they find actually tracking the minutae boring so we don't zoom in close enough to track what's in the component pouch just as we don't zoom in close enough to track every bowel movement the characters make.

Likewise something like a "Well Prepared" character. It's not a quantum superstate for the character. The character is well prepared. The players just don't find tracking all the preparations they've made to be part of the fun part of the game and want to focus on what they see as the interesting parts. And the character will always always know more about the setting than the player ever can; they are after all using all five of their senses within the setting for twenty four hours per day.

Being more comfortable with one level of zoom than another is one thing. But that doesn't mean that things are in a quantum superposition any more than characters stop existing in a film setting when the camera isn't on them. We just aren't watching that bit.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Batman as a typical gamer would write him has 100 points of individual gadgets which have been seen on screen and/or in print.
Batman as a VPP character, always just happens to have the right tool for the job in his belt - without any prior story state justification. He's got them because he's got mechanics that put various things into play without any callbacks to prepping them.

He's dumped in the water? Batshark Repellant. In a lava pool? Thermal dissipation spray... or a grapnel hook. Or jet boots. whatever it is, it didn't need to exist in the story state (in AW terms, in the fiction). And, in most narrativist games, it only lasts while it's needed. Once the issue passes, on to the next tool...

Having the pool isn't a narrative mechanic - but using it most certainly is. And hero is, generally, one of the more narrative focused old school games. (as it predates Cook's D&D Expert Set. Which is often the cutoff date for Old School - summer '82)

"I'm the Goddamn Batman" and a track record of having pulled out bat shark repellant, while being seen to have a bulky utility belt is a story state justification; the justification is that Batman is a character who does this and has a cave full of stuff. And is the way the typical author would write him in an average story. He's got them because that's who he is and how he rolls. As for "the average gamer" - that depends what sort of gamer. D&D gamers, no, because D&D doesn't allow for that sort of character.

 

[Cadence]

Not at all. The difference is one of how zoomed in we are on the minutae. Let's take the same mechanic character in various games.

• In GURPS or Champions we might list all the screwdrivers, the sizes of the sockets in the socket set, the length of the tapemeasure, and more
• In D&D we'd probably list that they had a screwdriver kit and a socket set or possibly a workman's toolkit and the weight
• In Fate we'd give them the aspect "Prepared Mechanic"

It's the same character who's prepared themselves in the same way - but how much we, the players, are actually tracking varies from game to game. An obvious case in actual D&D would be the Spell Component Pouch which if you treat it the way you do (especially in the 3.X days) is in a quantum superposition that potentially contains an infinite number of live spiders. But people use Spell Component Pouches because they find actually tracking the minutae boring so we don't zoom in close enough to track what's in the component pouch just as we don't zoom in close enough to track every bowel movement the characters make.

Likewise something like a "Well Prepared" character. It's not a quantum superstate for the character. The character is well prepared. The players just don't find tracking all the preparations they've made to be part of the fun part of the game and want to focus on what they see as the interesting parts. And the character will always always know more about the setting than the player ever can; they are after all using all five of their senses within the setting for twenty four hours per day.

Being more comfortable with one level of zoom than another is one thing. But that doesn't mean that things are in a quantum superposition any more than characters stop existing in a film setting when the camera isn't on them. We just aren't watching that bit.

Everyone having some "____ degree of prepared" feels to me like a nice way to remove bean counting from a table that doesn't want it and allowing characters to be competent about it even if there player isn't.

Everyone else having a list while one is "well prepared" feels to me like Leo's tool belt in Percy Jackson.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Everyone having some "____ degree of prepared" feels to me like a nice way to remove bean counting from a table that doesn't want it and allowing characters to be competent about it even if there player isn't.

Everyone else having a list while one is "well prepared" feels to me like Leo's tool belt in Percy Jackson.

Almost all games have certain degrees of preparedness baked in. Like spell component pouches or not tracking bathroom breaks. And yes, some characters are better prepared than others which gives them a bit more flexibility in some games* - but it's not joked for nothing that the Bat-utility-belt is a superpower. I'm trying to think of games where there is a hard dichotomy that way that's not intentional because it is meant to be an explicit superpower or a quasi-superpower.

* Blades in the Dark gives you a number of wildcard equipment pulls per mission based on how you loaded up. You get fewer if you're dressed lightly and casually and more if you're walking around in a trench coat and with a backpack - and each character has a common list and a few class specific iteems they can pull.