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This fits my experience as well. When you genuinely get questions you want to answer and like the system (not the mechanics, the system), play becomes absolutely awesome. There’s nothing like it.

You’re probably better off asking specific people for their takes rather than seeing them as representatives of a theory. As you pointed out, people have genuinely different views. For instance, I do consider Critical Roll as Narrativist play (at a rough estimate about half of all role-players...

My broader point was really about how relationships end up being upstream of mechanics. So no, I don’t think the principles and move list do anything. Fictional positioning can only be as important as the groups choreography allows. Although I think a lot of people/groups have issues with...

Depending on how connected the intent and task are, I’m ok with the Burning Wheel. I mean I have preferences but I was getting at something a bit different, and my latest rant seems like it’s attacking BW but it’s more about how the IIEE theory gets used. Also, ‘the gift’ is so awesome that...

I made a bit of a hash of that last post. I’ll try and explain more thoroughly but it’s a hard subject and to write diplomatically would take too long. So I’m going to have to attack a huge amount of Narrativist play. Hidden backstory is stuff given fictional positioning that the players aren’t...

I don’t think I’d use a resolution system that prioritised intent in that way. The only games I can think of off the top of my head that do it are The Shadow of Yesterday and The Burning Wheel (both debatably). The issue is that the intent tends to drown out the immediate diegetic conflict and...

I mean it might be absurd but it’s how I play and I wouldn’t want to play any other way. Also I don’t get the whole thing about the GM being able to do anything. I wrote down the assassin kills the princess and so I’m not free to change that. Or in the case where the assassin is there...

I’ll walk you though how to get from critical roll to Narrativist play. (or how I would do it at least) Constrain the situation. What I mean by this, is the GM should create a cast of NPC’s and relationships between them and the player characters. Then the GM and the players have got to be...

It depends on the game right. I’m pretty sure in the game I was using for the original example, you’re just allowed to kill off NPC’s if another NPC is motivated to kill them. That doesn’t necessarily get to the point of whether it’s satisfying or not. Which to me is a bit of an open question...

Well to answer you and @zakael19. Let’s say in the previously discussed scenario, I’ve created this assassin and he wants to kill the princess and I’ve decided he’ll do it on Tuesday night, while she sleeps. Are you suggesting I don’t prep or I change the prep in response to what the player is...

I meant ambivalent in the sense that they have mixed feelings. Not that they’re disinterested. I mean your point still kind of stands because I don’t frame scenes in such a way as to speak to the characters thematic stakes and in fact would find doing so anathema. I think about what the NPC’s...

To break it down a bit further. A few things often get conflated. What I want from a system What my character wants What I want for the fiction (as an audience member) Diegetic conflict resolution Rolling for story control I’ve done this kind of reversal before to show my point but I’ll...

I would be really wary of conceptualising it as a continuum. I think me and innerdude are coming from really different places about how rpgs should operate, the creative relationship, how a story is formed, all of that.

It probably isn’t. Although I’m getting a bit stumped here because I feel like to explain further I’d have to just reiterate all the stuff I’ve already said.

Note that everything innerdude stated about stake setting is inimical to what I want from a role-playing game. There is a strand of Narrativist play born from those ideas and it’s usually this strand that people point to when they talk about a writers room approach and so on. I’ll illustrate...

So ultimately I think Narrativist play is more of an attitude and creative relationship between two people rather than a set of techniques, procedures or systems. I think this relationship will tend to gravitate toward selecting certain techniques and systems but not necessarily. This makes it...

To give an example of how this might play out if it was my group. So the guy who is captured refuses to escape because he’s taking some kind of principled stand. A trial happens and that guy speaks in his defence, addressing the subjugated crowd. He’s prepared to die fighting tyranny. Sounds...

I really like how incidental conversation stuff can subtly adjust and give more vibrancy to conflicts and sometimes be cool for it’s own sake. One common problem people have when they start running more Narrativist games is going too fast. In the worst case scenario it’s not really worth doing...

Here’s a simple scenario through which to analyse combat. Dead girl the Sorceress has the Amulet and three skeletons guarding her. She’s in some kind of ruined church. Sir Goodman and Happy Elf want the Amulet. Happy Elf also used to be Dead girls lover. Also if Dead girl dies the skeletons...

It’s not that it’s crunchy or tactical per say, I think if you’re going detailed you really need to add value given how much it ups the handling time. I think my base line for good combat is Sorcerer. It can do everything well and is reasonably light and so what am I actually getting when I add...