D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Pedantic]

A Narrativist response is that the contrivance happens anyway but being aware of it allows for better play for gamestate reasons, amongst others. It's a somewhat complex topic.

I mean, this is always the problematic bit. It being inevitable doesn't make it any more desirable, and getting told you should simply get over it to find some other enjoyment comes off rather like telling someone their interests are childish and shallow. I can see the case for trying to get the point across to people who simply don't know there is another option....but I really think it's not a negotiable design goal for a bunch of people. It's why I think so many of these critiques don't land; they read like proofs of a specific failed technique, or an edge case, or a place where more design is useful, instead of a refutation of the concept.

 

[Umbran]

It fits...
Not sure why it is "loaded"

So, for you, is there a difference between politely asking a question or discussing something, and ranting?

Am I ranting now?

 

[bloodtide]

So, for you, is there a difference between politely asking a question or discussing something, and ranting?

Yes.

A question only takes a couple seconds to ask.....

No.

 

[Umbran]

Yes.

A question only takes a couple seconds to ask.....

No.

So, seems loaded to me, because I expect most of us don't experience much, or any, player ranting. We have pretty low key interactions with our players.

To speak of "ranting" as a major concern seems either hyperbole (where the loading would be part of the effect), or you having a highly peculiar situation.

 

[zakael19]

So, seems loaded to me, because I expect most of us don't experience much, or any, player ranting. We have pretty low key interactions with our players.

To speak of "ranting" as a major concern seems either hyperbole (where the loading would be part of the effect), or you having a highly peculiar situation.

I’ve just chalked his posts down as coming from an alternate reality, since pretty much everything shared is like totally opposite or alien to my experiences around play.

 

[thefutilist]

Oh for sure, and maybe you don't think it quite meets Baker's definition for whatever reason that you experience in play or how you think of your games; but like @prabe 's games are pretty much textbook "vanilla narativism" in 5e since his folks do AFAIK everything in those and he then facilitates play within his city & environs sandbox so that they can pursue those goals against opposition and see what happens.

It's actually probably easier to get to narrativism in a game that doesn't support it on the design side through the sort of up-front work whereby the GM doesn't feel the need to like "manipulate play" because there's already enough there that they know they can just refer to notes and go "yeah ok, so here's what happens when you pursue you goals."

I reckon the two easiest ways to get Narrativism are through trad play with story fit characters (as you say) or playing something totally different to trad games, preferably without a GM, something like Showdown or Zombie cinema.


I think the worst way is through PbtA. Not saying they don't support Narrative play but it's going to be a struggle.

 

[zakael19]

I reckon the two easiest ways to get Narrativism are through trad play with story fit characters (as you say) or playing something totally different to trad games, preferably without a GM, something like Showdown or Zombie cinema.


I think the worst way is through PbtA. Not saying they don't support Narrative play but it's going to be a struggle.

????

 

[Campbell]

On contrivance: at some point setting and scenario design needs to happen. Within the constraints of what is possible there will be a range of plausible stuff that could happen, all of it relatively equally contrived. We then have to look at, given a set of plausible stuff what are our aesthetic goals? Often it might include avoiding stuff that might look contrived, like interpersonal drama or running into people the characters have interacted with before. In the context of adventuring that makes perfect sense. In other contexts, like running a criminal gang in a city where no one ever really dies or a game like Exalted with larger-than-life characters with grand mythic destinies these sorts of "contrivances" seem downright realistic. Sometimes avoiding contrivance and personal stakes can itself be contrived.

 

[Maxperson]

Max, I’ve been talking about a GM and how they prepare their game. What they do when they are doing that, the decisions they make, the elements they create. I think that’s very clear.

I don’t care about this semantic nonsense you’re talking about or why you mistakenly insist on bringing system into it. For someone who cries “strawman” all the time, you sure like to build them yourself.

It's not a Strawman to reject your redefinition of game design. It's setting design and playstyle. Your redefinition just sows confusion by using the same term as actual game design.

Or perhaps there are more than two views?

Okay? I didn't say there were only two views.

 

[SableWyvern]

This is why I've made repeated comparisons between Roberts play and my own and have pointed out how those exact preconditions created a moment of Narrativist reward in the play of @SableWyvern

Where the current disconnects happen are along the lines of realism and when/how a situation is created.

What a lot of the sim crowd mean when they say 'real', is that extrapolation happens without regard to the player characters. Otherwise the world feels contrived, well in fact is contrived.

A Narrativist response is that the contrivance happens anyway but being aware of it allows for better play for gamestate reasons, amongst others. It's a somewhat complex topic.

My response to the narrativist response is that I don't generally like the contrivance and a style of play that embraces it is not usually what I'm looking for. It's really just as simple as that.

Now, taking a step back and looking at things objectively, it is always possible that when I run games and think that the contrivance isn't a thing (or has been reduced to an acceptable level), I'm fooling myself and my players. Although I'm skeptical of the ability of people who have never sat at my table to tell me what is really happening there, others are certainly willing to assume what they want about what happens in my games and it's not impossible that they're correct. But, at the end of the day, even if I am fooling myself, doing so results in a game that feels the way I want it to (and, certainly, feels different to one where I adopt a different set of processes and axioms).

Whether it's real or an illusion in this case really doesn't matter. More to the point, even if someone believes that it's illusion and is correct, they're still wrong if they then go on to say, "And therefore, you would be better off accepting the contrivance." They may be better off accepting that contrivance. However, to claim that I, too, would be better off, is certainly a bridge too far.

In summary: even if hardcore narrativists are absolutely correct about what's really going at my table, they are not in position to tell me what would make a better game at my table or what I (or my players) would find more fun. It makes no sense for me to embrace the contrivance if I don't like the contrivance.

I didn't engage with the comment a while ago referencing the "moment of Narrativist reward" because looking at it from that perspective wasn't adding anything of value to my perspective of the game; it seemed to me to completely ignore the possibility of there being any value in the process that resulted in us arriving at that point.

"Hey, if you play the game differently, you can have those moments all the time!"

Ok, great, but playing the game differently will be less fun for me and may in fact devalue those moments for me.

None of which is to suggest that the Narritavist method can't provide a better game for many people. I'm simply rejecting any assertion that it holds some deeper, more honest truth that provides inherently better gameplay in general.

Edit: And, all that said, I'd say you are spot on when you identify this point as one where there is major disconnect between the sides of the discussion.