What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[TaranTheWanderer]

Everyone tracks gear differently at different tables and make certain assumptions about the fiction. One game assumes you have spell components for your spells and you restock them in town, another one makes everyone track every individual component, which potentially limits the amount of time you can cast a specific spell. They lead to different games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And this is how you end up with a 33 page character sheet. (Not an exaggeration - me playing a Summoner in a game of Pathfinder). You can play in this weird and clunky process-sim manner. But most people in my experience would rather not, which is why each edition makes this sort of equipment tracking more and more vestigial.

And if I wanted to spend everyone's time tracking equipment I'd play a computer game. It does it better than any tabletop game ever could, and tracking gets in the way of the flexibility advantages of tabletop.

Then enjoy your narrative gear rules. I'm not stopping you. Popularity means nothing.

 

[Cadence]

Yup. Magic.

The later, sure. The former doesn't feel incredibly more magic than 5e default encumbrance or falling damage.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

What game were you playing? If said game didn't use narrative rules for equipment, that's a fair ruling.

It doesn’t matter the game because it could happen in any game. In FATE I could not have it on my sheet, be out of FATE points and fail my roll to declare I had it.

IMO, a reasonable DM would have said, “the point of the adventure was to bring the object, you had multiple opportunities over the course of the week to realize it was gone and the fiction supports the fact that your character would have it. Therefore, we will call it a bookkeeping error and assume you have it. Shrug.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

IMO, a reasonable DM would have said, “the point of the adventure was to bring the object, you had multiple opportunities over the course of the week to realize it was gone and the fiction supports the fact that your character would have it. Therefore, we will call it a bookkeeping error and assume you have it. Shrug.

Well, yes, obviously. Which makes it completely different situation than the quantum gear. Everyone knew that the intent was to have the item, not writing it down was merely an insignificant clerical error. The GM clearly was... well, let's just say not the sort of GM I'd like to game with.

 

[billd91]

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.

So do you think hawkeyefan was referring to spell component pouches? Because I was objecting to him describing the "entire D&D magic system" working that way. I can see it with respect to tracking low-cost spell component supplies sure, but I wouldn't describe that as the entire D&D magic system which pushes against that with respect to defined lists of spells known or prepared. I'd consider it an element of what D&D, from a rule structure perspective, considers still being important enough to track - or what it considers its default zoom level. The game, as presented, is prepared to hand wave specific cheap components but not expensive ones or the spells themselves.

The reason I use the description of quantum state equipment is because it only exists in the game for me as a player if I needed it. If I never declared (or made a check) that my PC had it, it never actually exists whether it's a crowbar stowed away in my mule's pack, Bat shark repellent from the utility belt, or a spell for just such an occasion as this... It only exists if I've directly observed it/inserted via a narrative mechanic or some other situation that allows me to declare it so.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Everyone tracks gear differently at different tables and make certain assumptions about the fiction. One game assumes you have spell components for your spells and you restock them in town, another one makes everyone track every individual component, which potentially limits the amount of time you can cast a specific spell. They lead to different games.

This is again just about the level of zoom. Though personally I just don't get what's the big deal with the component pouches. It is basically the same as with tracking arrows. Yes, we could track individual expendables, but as they are so cheap, and the characters visit places where they can purchase them often enough, it in practice it isn't worth the effort. Chalk it up to the life style expenses or something.

But I still wouldn't treat the component pouch as having every component imaginable. Like it just has "reasonable amount" for the spells the caster knows. So let's say that a wizard finds a spell scroll from an abandoned tomb in a middle of the desert and learns the spell there. Then I'd say that, no, their component pouch doesn't have components for that spell until they've visited a place from which they could have reasonably purchased them.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I would say that most of the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules are narrative mechanics. They are all designed with the goal of creating Appendix N style stories.

Rolling D20s whenever you cast a spell reinforces the narrative of unstable magic.

The funnel that grinds up a dozen zero level characters reinforces the letality.

 

[aramis erak]

Another narrative mechanic in many games, including D&D, would be anytime an extended test is required:

Example: You are navigating the forest to find a lost child. Time is of the essence. You must make 2 of 3 rolls to succeed. What skills are you going to use and narrate how those skills will be useful in your goal.

I don't agree - those are still tied to the extant story state.
They're abstraction mechanics; not the same thing. They're not introducing anything new and unprecedented to the fiction.

A character can't don a non-specific disguise. There is no quantum maid/butler/chauffeur costume: the mechanic is modeling the character researching and casing a scenario thus that they don the correct disguise, and the player in the moment chooses which disguise is correct.

That's context dependent. In an 18th century Military game, the maid is non-extant, but a houseboy serves the role, the butler is an officer's aide, the chauffer is a private. The butler may or may not be a private. He may or may not be an actual enlisted member of the regiment, even. But he's likely to be dressed like the privates, and quite likely a sergeant.
Meanwhile, in the Vorkosiverse or on Pern in the McCaffrey Pern/FSP/_ who _ setting (The Catteni and FT&T universes are both separate continuities), the household staff are uniformed alike. To a certain extent, it's said that both Russian and English noble houses in the 15th to 19th C engaged in house uniforms for the buttlers, drivers, grooms, driver, and footmen. I don't know when the Tuxedo became the literary uniform of a Butler... but it's strongly the modern fiction tradition. (I usually put them in jacket and tie, not tux, in moderns or adjacent times. The one butler I've met was Shirt and Tie, but his jacket was available in the closet. The residence was an official residence.)

Household staff is the think of the super rich in the US these days. The handful of millionaires I know/knew didn't have any. Tho one did hire a maid service (rather than direct hire of a maid or even a majordomo).

 

[aramis erak]

I guess it depends on how you assume magic to work in-universe, but how I'd interpret these things, they don't look the same.

To me this retroactive creation of an item is clearly a narrative mechanic. It brings an element into the fiction by breaking temporal causality. It also is very meta as the character cannot knowingly use this ability or know its usage limitations. I don't see anything like that being required by D&Dish magic.

D&D 5e inspiration is meta, but not narrative. It doesn't have a fiction-presence. It is earned, and used, outside the fiction, solely for affecting the mechanical state.