What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Daggerheart Discussion)

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's just bizarre. None of this has anything to do with being player driven. You're attaching virtues to your preferred style that it does not in truth uniquely posses, and in doing so implying that those same virtues exist in other styles.


Of course it is not.


And you played just modules? Maybe you shouldn't have? Of course anecdotes differ, I have not run a module since I was a kid, nor any of the 5e games people I know are playing are modules.


Yes.


Of course there is conflict. But not any conflict is ""problematic feature of human existence." Unless it is, and this was just Edwards being pretentious again, and any conflict will actually do. But that case that literally happens in every RPG all the time constantly, so certainly isn't a unique feature of any style!


Sure, there is. It just isn't directly tied to protagonism or narrativism.


Of course you are. Here you are using this insulting language again. You're again claiming that only your preferred style possesses the quality, which in truth is found in other styles as well.


I mean you have repeated some of his toxic ideas here.

Yeah, look, I'm sorry, but you really just don't seem to get what I'm talking about. Seriously. You really want to label every single instance of people failing to accept your premise as 'toxic', well, go ahead. I mean, it must be a pretty limited world. Trad play IS de-protagonizing, certainly at least potentially, and large numbers of knowledgeable people accept that. It isn't a statement that it is 'bad', just that it doesn't do certain types of things, well, or often really at all. DW doesn't do classic module play well either, that's not some sort of 'toxic' or 'insulting' statement, it's just a fact of life.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Crimson Longinus, @Micah Sweet - this is exactly what I've been saying. "Meta"-mechanics are a side issue, as far as "narrativist" RPGing is concerned.

Mongoose's OGL Conan has a meta-mechanic, that permits players to introduce elements into the fiction when spent. This doesn't make OGL Conan, as a system, particularly oriented towards narrativist play. And in fact, although I've not tried, based on my reading and on my (limited) 3E D&D experience, I would suggest that it is not a good vehicle for narrativist play at all.

It might not make the game narrativist in the Edwards sense, but it definitely counts as a narrative mechanic in my book. Too many of those and you cross the "narrative event horizon", and to my view you have a narrative game. Extensive use of metacurrency, for example, is a big checkbox in my view.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, look, I'm sorry, but you really just don't seem to get what I'm talking about. Seriously. You really want to label every single instance of people failing to accept your premise as 'toxic', well, go ahead. I mean, it must be a pretty limited world. Trad play IS de-protagonizing, certainly at least potentially, and large numbers of knowledgeable people accept that. It isn't a statement that it is 'bad', just that it doesn't do certain types of things, well, or often really at all. DW doesn't do classic module play well either, that's not some sort of 'toxic' or 'insulting' statement, it's just a fact of life.

The impression you give when you talk about it, however, is that the type of stuff you say trad play (which isn't even the same classification system, but I digress) doesn't do is the best stuff, which puts all non narrativist play on a lower rung of quality. You've got to expect people to push back on that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I mean is the sort of game where whilst the GM is in control of the world, it is the players who decide where to go, who to oppose, who to befriend, what goals to pursue etc. There can and will be events that the players need to react to, but there shouldn't be "main plot" or "existential main threat" that warps everything to be about that, thus robbing the player the freedom to choose what to do.

See, I like this definition pretty well. I could probably nit-pick the first half of it a tiny bit, but lets not. The second part, the 'what it is not' I think is pretty much spot on. So, what would be the thing that does this establishing a 'main plot' and 'warping everything'? That was why I mentioned Phandelver a while back, because it seems very typical of D&D adventures these days. The players DO get to choose where to go, but not much else. There IS a main plot, "you have been tasked with finding an ancient lost mine and getting the information back to your employers."

Narrativist systems work to produce something like the former. Just taking the example of Dungeon World, there is no story because there isn't, initially, any 'myth' to base that story on. There's no core premise baked into the system, beyond the PCs are heroes, which sets up the possibilities for the rest of it. The GM EXCLUSIVELY defines the setting, with effectively no mechanics to let the players do that, so the GM 'owns' the conflicts/obstacles. However, the game explicitly defines its 'ethos' and supporting techniques such that the GM asks questions, uses the answers, etc. Given that the GM has no story agenda and no myth, this ties everything back to the players! This is why we call designs like this 'narrativist'. The GM even gets to define stuff that the players react to, AFTER the PCs have been created, their bonds defined, etc. and the first session played.

I really have nothing against trad play. I just think it is considerably less 'about' the PCs. The test for me is, could a given setup simply swap in different PCs and go ahead? That really couldn't make sense in DW play, for example. Its built AROUND the players and their characters, whereas D&D, yeah, it may EVENTUALLY get close, but you could definitely plug different characters in at the start and still end up with the gist of the action being almost identical.

 

[Celebrim]

The impression you give when you talk about it, however, is that the type of stuff you say trad play (which isn't even the same classification system, but I digress) doesn't do is the best stuff, which puts all non narrativist play on a lower rung of quality. You've got to expect people to push back on that.

I thought "Trad play IS de-protagonizing" to be a very revealing claim, especially since it seems to require a definition of protagonist that:

a) Doesn't agree with the ordinary use of the term.
b) Doesn't agree with the typical use of the term as when discussing RPGs.
c) Offers a definition of protagonist which most games that people would agree are nar games would fail to meet.
d) Seems solely to be offered up to insult other players in the discussion regarding their gaming preferences or else to support the idea that their gaming preferences are better.

All the justification seems to depend on straw men like "protagonism is more than spotlight" or "protagonism is more than viewpoint". Like, duh; a discussion of how trad players feel about "railroads" regardless of spotlight or viewpoint would be in order.

On top of that, I have people quibbling with whether my characters could be protagonists because they were weak and not effective which I think is a huge tell here.

 

[SteveC]

I wish people would stop accuse one of Champion's greatest advocates, and one of RunQuest's greatest advocates, of "disparaging other styles". It seems that Edwards may not particularly care for D&D. That's not a crime.

As someone who was there at the time, there was a lot of bad stuff said about a lot of games. Ron was a jerk. But you know what? I was too. A lot of the people were jerks about what game they liked to play. I have worked a lot to get better at this. I think Ron has too. When he did the Kickstarter for Champions Now, I liked a lot about what he had to say about the game, so I backed it. The SteveC of earlier years would have been shocked.

I think the #1 thing that we can learn from that nasty business is to not yuck someone else's yum. That's been my New Year's Resolution for the last two years, and I think I'm doing okay with it. I think the growth of Narrative RPGs and how they've taken games in different directions (with Fabula Ultima being a great example) is an exceptionally interesting topic. I just think that the Narrative in these games is different from what was discussed "back in the day."

 

[Celebrim]

Narrativist systems work to produce something like the former. Just taking the example of Dungeon World, there is no story because there isn't, initially, any 'myth' to base that story on. There's no core premise baked into the system, beyond the PCs are heroes, which sets up the possibilities for the rest of it. The GM EXCLUSIVELY defines the setting, with effectively no mechanics to let the players do that, so the GM 'owns' the conflicts/obstacles.

This is fundamentally not a different game then than picking up a module and playing it. Indeed, I think DW is fundamentally seeking to recreate that experience while keeping the rules light enough that a GM is expected to be able to more easily improvise the sort of 5-7 room dungeon that DW is going for in a typical session (leaving blank spaces on the map).

However, the game explicitly defines its 'ethos' and supporting techniques such that the GM asks questions, uses the answers, etc. Given that the GM has no story agenda and no myth, this ties everything back to the players!

You just gave the GM all the myth! This is really no more support for what you want to call "narratives" than I had back in 1991 playing 1e AD&D. We had session zeros back then. We made characters. We gave our characters backstories. We had GMs interweave characters and situations from our backstories into play.

The GM even gets to define stuff that the players react to, AFTER the PCs have been created, their bonds defined, etc. and the first session played.

So what? Do you think it was typical 30 years ago for GMs to have entire 1 to 20 campaigns laid out with all the things that they wanted to do and everything already prepared? They might have an initial kicking off point in mind for what the players would do as 1st level characters, but then after that they would prepare new stuff on the basis of what had happened in the prior sessions. The fact that preparation happens after session zero isn't a really important feature of a game.

Did you start playing in like 2002 or something? Is your primary experience just with published adventure paths?

I really have nothing against trad play. I just think it is considerably less 'about' the PCs.

I mean... not really. How much play is about a particular character mostly depends on how many characters you have at the table. Player driven and character driven play where you engage in low melodrama based on individual characters beliefs and backstory is a feature of small groups, and not so much a feature of aesthetic. And even with big groups, you can have character driven play within the larger party driven or quest driven play, it's just that it's difficult to do that without it becoming dysfunctional spotlight grabbing.

The test for me is, could a given setup simply swap in different PCs and go ahead? That really couldn't make sense in DW play, for example.

Seriously? Your little mini-dungeon exploration game somehow crumbles when one particular PC is swapped out? Really? You honestly believe that is true?

Its built AROUND the players and their characters, whereas D&D, yeah, it may EVENTUALLY get close, but you could definitely plug different characters in at the start and still end up with the gist of the action being almost identical.

The gist of the action is such a vague term. You take any D&D scenario less trivial than orc and pie and you put a different group of players and characters in it and you will end up with an entirely different transcript of play. I've run way too many groups to buy this sort of crap. Different character abilities, different player decisions, different morals and ethos of the characters will result in entirely different play. I've heard of people playing B2 and it turning into a complex heist to rob the Keep. Even something as linear as S1 Tomb of Horrors generates all sorts of different stories with different groups.

 

[SteveC]

This is just such vague meaningless pablum. Inherently to random chance, neither the player nor the GM have it at their control. You aren't actually distinguishing anything specific about the game with the above description.

It's interesting that you say that. I just watched the Knights of Last Call's discussion of Dynamic Random Encounters. I found it really interesting since I hate random encounters the way they're typically used as a sort of resource drain or punishment. Derik brought out the 2E DMG and the reaction table. With it, he discussed how even if the group is being pretty hostile, that reaction roll can end up with a monster being friendly to the group. That sort of thing turns an encounter into a radically different direction than what the GM or the players anticipated. The idea is that when you make a die roll, the players and the GM likely have an outcome they want, or at least expect. Sometimes the dice have other plans, and if you run with it, you end up with something that no one was expecting. That's the random effect.

Another example is if you have a random spell effect that can happen when a spell is cast. It's the sort of thing that a Wild Mage or any mage can have happen in some games (thinking of DCC here). When you cast that spell and get a truly outrageous result, you're getting something that no one expected, but now you have to deal with. It's that sort of thing that I'm thinking about, and hopefully, that makes more sense.

A more Narrative game has this sort of thing happen more often and can be baked right into the rules. Maybe this is something that you hate in games. I must admit that I hate the "whimsy" rolls that some DMs used back in the day, but I think that bringing something that no one was expecting to happen into play can make things more interesting if it's done well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I thought "Trad play IS de-protagonizing" to be a very revealing claim, especially since it seems to require a definition of protagonist that:

a) Doesn't agree with the ordinary use of the term.
b) Doesn't agree with the typical use of the term as when discussing RPGs.
c) Offers a definition of protagonist which most games that people would agree are nar games would fail to meet.
d) Seems solely to be offered up to insult other players in the discussion regarding their gaming preferences or else to support the idea that their gaming preferences are better.

All the justification seems to depend on straw men like "protagonism is more than spotlight" or "protagonism is more than viewpoint". Like, duh; a discussion of how trad players feel about "railroads" regardless of spotlight or viewpoint would be in order.

On top of that, I have people quibbling with whether my characters could be protagonists because they were weak and not effective which I think is a huge tell here.

Look, I cut and pasted my definition of 'protagonist' straight from the header of the wikipedia entry, and it fairly well agrees with several dictionary entries that also came up when I did that. So, your a) doesn't fly, I'm using a perfectly well-established definition. b) since it was RE and co who used the term in the context of defining narrativist play (which is topical to this thread) and did so in a way very close to the definition I posted, I again call you on this. c) huh? 'Most Narr games' includes games like DitV/BitD/AW/DW for which my definition of 'protagonist' is perfectly fine! d) I am not 'insulting' anyone. You seem to be absolutely determined to take offense at any suggestion that some games don't have certain features, or are poorly suited for certain things. Sorry, this is a viewpoint that AT LEAST 50% of all posters on EW share with me.

And I didn't quibble about your characters and if they could be protagonists at all. I simply observed that 1e AD&D is not a game that is very good at making it easy to do that effectively.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is fundamentally not a different game then than picking up a module and playing it. Indeed, I think DW is fundamentally seeking to recreate that experience while keeping the rules light enough that a GM is expected to be able to more easily improvise the sort of 5-7 room dungeon that DW is going for in a typical session (leaving blank spaces on the map).

The fact that you cannot see the difference is infinitely telling to me. I mean, I suspect that you simply do not play DW as it is intended if that's what you are ending up with.