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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8521993" data-attributes="member: 71699">I'll explore some examples that are meaningful/less for me. I can't promise they will be for you, because ultimately meaning lives in your conversation. To get the context right, 5e* interprets "narrates" in this way<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">say something meaningful</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the rule is an imperative regulatory rule: a green light or arrow to go from system to fiction</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">it's a guarantee: players can respond to what DM narrates as meaningful</li> </ul>Prior-conversation:Player-characters were haggling with a stone giant, one character got really greedy, and the conversation went south. She's huge, has 126 hit points and a giant-sized club. One character - a fighter - leapt to interpose themselves between the giant and his squishier friends.Example 1:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "You roll 1 on the 1d8."I find this meaningless as it restates information about game state that is available to all. It's not the kind of narrative I'm thinking of.Example 2:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "Monica, your turn next."I don't mind that DM is bookkeeping the process for the group, but again this isn't narrating the result. It might be done as well, but shouldn't be done instead of. Even bookkeeping, DM could have kept the conversation in the fiction by using the name of Monica's character, Demeter. Saying something meaningful about the results implies containing or following from those results. Regulatory rules don't have to be all or nothing (driving through a green light at 10 miles an hour is as much driving through it as at 50), but I feel this does too little to satisfy the rule. There are other cases where "Dem, your turn next" might be meaningful enough. Say where the fighter misses.Example 3:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "Okay, that's 1 plus dueling plus your DEX. Six."I find this meaningless as it restates information about game state that is available to all. It's not the kind of narrative we're thinking of.Example 4:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "Ram's slash barely scratches her. She presses forward unabated. She's huge: you can't hold her back."I find this meaningful in the following ways<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Barely scratched: players learn that she has a lot of hit points remaining, and this may be a tough fight.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Presses forward: it's hopefully clear to players what's coming next.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She's huge: creatures can barge past those two-sizes smaller than themselves, so this reminder telegraphs that the squishier characters might find themselves targeted.</li> </ul>The way in which these elements are meaningful is that they matter to the player-character's fictional positioning: A player's position is the total set of all of the valid gameplay options available to her at this moment of play. Valid means legitimate and effective. Ram (the fighter) can see that they will be ineffective trying to hold the giant back, even though it would be legitimate for him to try and do so. It upholds and returns to our fiction (F > S > F) and I think will carry forward the overall flow of events in combat that together will form our story.Example 5:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "Ram's slash barely scratches her. She laughs 'I didn't realise you were so weak! Why fight small man?' and couches her club."I find this meaningful too, but it goes in another direction. Here DM has decided that she feels her point is made, and is willing to go back to haggling. How does DM know to narrate this instead of example 4? For me, that depends on prior conversation and established fiction. In this DM's world, it seems that stone giants are a more nuanced people.Example 6:Fighter on higher initiative slashed at her with his longsword, hitting. All see that he rolls 1 on the 1d8.DM narrates "Due to the unique page numbering scheme of this book, the electronic pagination of the eBook does not match the pagination of the printed version."I mention this to repeat the question above in another light. How does DM know to avoid this narration? Why isn't the conversation anarchy? It should be clear on reflection that meaning lives in your conversation. This example is one of meaningless narration. When I see an example like this, I am tempted to say it is not narration at all. But if I'm saying that "narration" is my word for only meaningful speech-acts, I should accept the 5e* interpretation and retract my demand for examples of meaningless narration.Example 7: (moving the scene forward)Giant hits Horatio - a squishy - for a third time. Horatio's got like three or four hit points remaining. All see that the giant rolls a crit.DM is silent. Everyone at the table knows that Horatio is down.I find this meaningful even though the DM chose to say nothing. How can silence be narration? DM is conjuring a solemn moment. There's no need to state the obvious, and I assume in a minute DM will say something that moves the conversation forward. Perhaps pointedly not discussing the roll or the damage dealt. Perhaps turning it over to Horatio to narrate their fall. Perhaps the damage roll will take Horatio negative more than their positive hit points, instantly killing them (no death saves). If so, that will need narrating. Horatio's fall matters to their fictional positioning: their list of valid gameplay options is cut short.What is meaningful is normally something that matters to fictional positioning. When a 5e* DM interprets - only roll if there are meaningful consequences - they're probably thinking about consequences on immediate or even deferred or remote fictional positioning. But what about colour?Example 8: After the loss of Horatio (it was instant death) the party return to their beloved villa by the Greenstone Sea.DM narrates "It's summer. Warm sea breezes play over the vines and passion-fruit flowers. On the broad veranda are four chairs."Here DM is intending only colour. They don't have anything in mind for these details, although they are right for their world.Ram responds "Four chairs, gods, one of those was always for Horatio. Do you remember, Dem?"And the conversation follows from there. Perhaps that detail leads to group to find out something about Horatio that takes them to a new adventure? A year later, Ram's player comments "Those chairs again. Imagine if you'd never mentioned them, I wouldn't have... and then Dem wouldn't have..."This colour has the promise of being meaningful, because of the guarantee. 5e* mandates that what DM narrates is meaningful, so when a player responds to a detail, it turns out to matter. I chose this example inspired by one that Baker crafted about retroactive meaning; he saidAnd then as another poster put it, colour can "reinforce the sense of 'reality' or vibrancy of the shared fiction; and to give the players something relatively concrete to support their knowledge of the fiction and to remember who's who." Which are cases of unconditional meaningfulness. Again, colour finds its meaning in mattering to the fictional positioning. How will we know what to say? What follows? All the things said before then. Warm sea breezes might make it feel more legitimate to say - "Ram's going for a swim." Contrast with "Sleet lashes across the veranda, and the chairs there are tipped all ways by the gusts." "Ram's going for a swim" feels very different. I've mentioned validity (legitimacy and effectiveness), but there is something else too. I read the second "going for a swim" as defiance rather than indulgence. There's danger for sure. 5e* DM narrates meaningfully when they say something that has implications or consequences, or is permitted to have.I aimed here to produce examples from a barebones case. More detailed results, that mandate or work to legitimize system or fiction constraints (class features, spells, all kinds of rulings within the scope of skills, predefined and improvised actions), will hand DM meaningful narration on a platter. Even so, any examples are likely to be incomplete or unsatisfying taken out of context, because what will be decisive on "meaningful" are principles that hold true for you, agreements at your table, and the specifics of your prior conversation.</blockquote>

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