Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

[Fenris-77]

How many sessions do you think can done before the systems run out of headroom? Or is that a nonsensical question?

It's a fine question. Just as with any game that has an advancement scheme, it depends on how quickly the PCs progress. The PbtA chassis just has less room for mechanical advancement that a game like 5E. To use a loose and general comparison I think it'll be fine running two or three seasons of a TV show's worth of storylines. Maybe more depending on the speed of character progression.

 

[Lanefan]

It's a fine question. Just as with any game that has an advancement scheme, it depends on how quickly the PCs progress. The PbtA chassis just has less room for mechanical advancement that a game like 5E. To use a loose and general comparison I think it'll be fine running two or three seasons of a TV show's worth of storylines. Maybe more depending on the speed of character progression.

Corollary question: what happens if that character progression is greatly slowed down; equivalent, say, to slowing down D&D level advancement by making each level take 5x what the books say for xp? Or can this even be done?

IME I've found that slowing down character (mechanical) advancement is by far the most important element in preserving a long campaign.

 

[Fenris-77]

Corollary question: what happens if that character progression is greatly slowed down; equivalent, say, to slowing down D&D level advancement by making each level take 5x what the books say for xp? Or can this even be done?

IME I've found that slowing down character (mechanical) advancement is by far the most important element in preserving a long campaign.

Nothing breaks, especially in MotW which (like a lot of PbtA games) has starting characters that are pretty professional and skilled compared to 1st level D&D characters.

 

[thefutilist]

Not to disagree - but the first thought I had, reading your post, is that maybe there is always a degree of risk that what one participant finds compelling, another will find either (in one direction) a bit flat, or (in the other direction) a bit over the top?

The second thing I thought of, because it involves a brother refusing to help, was this from a Burning Wheel game where I was the player:

The backstory that was already established prior to this episode of play included that Rufus, my PC's brother, was still living at the ancestral estate:

Thurgon’s father is deceased, but his mother Xanthippe (now 61 years old) still lives on the estate. So does his older brother Rufus (40 years old)., the 9th Count of Adir (although for the past 66 years that title has counted for little, having been usurped by others).​

It was the GM who put an overlay on this of Rufus being cowed by a "master", as a type of elaboration on the state of things in Auxol. That didn't raise any issues for me - it's probably not the only thing that the GM might have done (and I don't know if he was drawing on some prep here, or just extemporising), but it definitely worked.

As you can read, the upshot of events was that Rufus said no to requests for aid - both large (from Thurgon) and more prosaic (from Aramina). He didn't insist that Thurgon "break up with" Aramina (I use scare quotes because they're companions but not a couple), nor did anyone turn up armed and looking for a fight!

Part of what made it work, I think, is that the refusal of aid from Rufus didn't impede the trajectory of play, including the escalation of stakes between Thurgon and his family. The session went on like this:

And it's apparent, from this outcome, that the episode with Rufus did not just affirm a status quo, even though it ended with Rufus saying "no". It serves to establish that one part of liberating Auxol is going to have to be either liberating Rufus from "the master", or else dealing with him in some other way.

In this way, even though the scene ended with a "no", it contributed fully, and with some complexity, to the rising conflict across a moral line.

How compelling something is, is a different axis to the one I’m talking about. I think. Although to the extent I have a point, it’s that I’d like to see a few more conversations about the subject.

Even with out reference to mechanics we can talk about how Rufus and his attitude and relationships are added to the situation, form a type of implicit conflict that becomes explicit and is then resolved. In other words we can talk about the fiction as fiction. So on the diegetic level we see how the ‘no’ adds to the moral line.

Maybe it all depends on which side of the bed I get out of though. At other times I think the only important thing is discussing scene framing.

 

[pemerton]

How compelling something is, is a different axis to the one I’m talking about. I think.

Can you elaborate a bit more on this?

Even with out reference to mechanics we can talk about how Rufus and his attitude and relationships are added to the situation, form a type of implicit conflict that becomes explicit and is then resolved. In other words we can talk about the fiction as fiction. So on the diegetic level we see how the ‘no’ adds to the moral line.

I think that the "no hard failure" idea sometimes gets mixed up with some other things:

* Not grinding the adventure to a halt - but this notion only has purchase if there is a "the adventure" which has a pre-determined trajectory, and so shouldn't really be apposite in narrative play.

* Not deflating the rising action - I think this is the one that can cause some issues in narrativist play, sometimes perhaps because there aren't enough "elements" in the overall situation to allow the hard "no" from this one?​

Going back to mechanics - BW's PC build mechanics, with so many different elements on which rising action can be hung (multiple Beliefs, multiple Instincts, traits, relationships, reputations, affiliations), really helps with that second issue. The rising action doesn't have to be "one note", and thus at risk of deflation if there is a hard "no"; because the hard "no" can be used to foreground some other source of pressure/conflict.

Maybe it all depends on which side of the bed I get out of though. At other times I think the only important thing is discussing scene framing.

Well they're related, aren't they? One of the issues that people are worried about with the hard "no" is that it doesn't create a pathway to a new scene (or a satisfactory evolution of the current scene).

The hard "no" from Rufus didn't have that effect. What I would think of as a classic poorly-handled hard "no", in a fictional context similar to the one I described in my post, would be a hard "no" from a door warden, in a context where the PCs have no Beliefs etc that pertain to forcing entrance, or sneaking in, or that sort of thing: the hard "no" doesn't leave an obvious pathway to a relevant scene.

I think this can be a real issue when GMing, given the need to make fairly quick decisions about consequences and then framing.

 

[Aldarc]

Not familiar with the first three of those, but while Dread works for a beer-and-pretzels one-off (I've played it that way and it was grand fun) I'd be curious to see whether it could support a long-term ongoing campaign.

Possibly Stonetop, though long-term play would potentially not be done with the same characters but with new villagers across successive generations.

 

[zakael19]

Possibly Stonetop, though long-term play would potentially not be done with the same characters but with new villagers across successive generations.

Looooong term (like hundreds of sessions), yeah. That’s what we’re talking about doing once we complete the current set of threads based on our “ending the game” work. I think about 60-80 sessions is about where a set of surviving Stonetop characters will see their mechanical progression kinda hit the edge of the game.

 

[thefutilist]

Can you elaborate a bit more on this?

So there’s our mutual dramaturgical exegesis. Our understanding of what’s happening in terms of stakes/meaning, how one thing leads into another. So axis one (structure?)

Axis two is how compelling we find stuff on the level of the stakes and themes (content?). We can read the fiction the same way but I simply don’t care about the themes in play. Duty and honour for instance. Or the stakes in the way they’re presented. I want stories about overweight middle aged men arguing at dinner parties, not elves with swords. Type of thing.

 

[thefutilist]

I think that the "no hard failure" idea sometimes gets mixed up with some other things:

* Not grinding the adventure to a halt - but this notion only has purchase if there is a "the adventure" which has a pre-determined trajectory, and so shouldn't really be apposite in narrative play.​

​

* Not deflating the rising action - I think this is the one that can cause some issues in narrativist play, sometimes perhaps because there aren't enough "elements" in the overall situation to allow the hard "no" from this one?​

The hard "no" from Rufus didn't have that effect. What I would think of as a classic poorly-handled hard "no", in a fictional context similar to the one I described in my post, would be a hard "no" from a door warden, in a context where the PCs have no Beliefs etc that pertain to forcing entrance, or sneaking in, or that sort of thing: the hard "no" doesn't leave an obvious pathway to a relevant scene.

I think this can be a real issue when GMing, given the need to make fairly quick decisions about consequences and then framing.

Where I’m currently at, is I see lots of an approach to system that goes.

Game not working > create techniques that deal with the issue.

Rather than looking at how systems intersect with dramatic structure.

Dramatic structure > these techniques provide specific instantiations and pressures on the structure.


I’m not saying they’re mutually exclusive. God knows I still have have issues where stuff just isn’t working.



For instance on the point about failure:

I was talking with @Campbell the other day about deflating the rising action. The easy answer, we both agreed, was that it plays out like it plays out. You thought this was going to be an epic but it’s actually a short story.

Now I’m imaging loads of trad groups telling short stories about how they get to a door, they can’t pick the lock and so they go home.

But yeah, if we look at dramatic structure first, then we probably arrive at one of the fixes you suggest which is to add more situational elements.

And in terms of scene framing we can ask why we're messing around with a locked door in the first place.

 

[Lanefan]

Looooong term (like hundreds of sessions), yeah. That’s what we’re talking about doing once we complete the current set of threads based on our “ending the game” work. I think about 60-80 sessions is about where a set of surviving Stonetop characters will see their mechanical progression kinda hit the edge of the game.

Can that mechanical progression be slowed down without crashing the system?