Advice for new "story now" GMs

loverdrive · Jun 20, 2023

Manbearcat said:
These games aren't power fantasy, they aren't consensual storytelling. One player is indexing PC goals and needs/wishes and is absolutely opposing those things within the constraints of system/structure. And then system will have its own say in settling matters.

And almost any Story Now game system that I can recall is hellbent on making the PCs goal if not unattainable, very damn hard to achieve.

What a Blades PC want? To leave the life of crime behind. Never happening, the underworld will suck you back in.
What an Apocalypse PC want? To have something to eat, something to drink and no one shooting at you. Yeah, good luck with that.
What an Undying PC...

prabe · Jun 20, 2023

loverdrive said:
And almost any Story Now game system that I can recall is hellbent on making the PCs goal if not unattainable, very damn hard to achieve.

What a Blades PC want? To leave the life of crime behind. Never happening, the underworld will suck you back in.
What an Apocalypse PC want? To have something to eat, something to drink and no one shooting at you. Yeah, good luck with that.
What an Undying PC...

And if you do attain your goals, you'll kinda wish you hadn't.

Manbearcat · Jun 20, 2023

loverdrive said:
And almost any Story Now game system that I can recall is hellbent on making the PCs goal if not unattainable, very damn hard to achieve.

What a Blades PC want? To leave the life of crime behind. Never happening, the underworld will suck you back in.
What an Apocalypse PC want? To have something to eat, something to drink and no one shooting at you. Yeah, good luck with that.
What an Undying PC...

Just a quoted reply to "yup <head nod>" and post something else (unrelated, though I suspect you'll agree) that I feel needs to be placed into this thread to clarify the nature of continuity and internal consistency in Story Now games.

I was having a conversation that includes @prabe . He stated this:

"I think the games having less focus on continuity and setting-play can make them feel less consistent, and--because they're so firmly fixated on the now, not the past or the future--the narrative is going to feel different than one that emerges from a more-conventional game.

("Feel different" means exactly and only that, here.)"

I agree with prabe. This is actually a very good point to make and something that both prospective Story Now GMs and players need to have fully considered. This is a source of conceptual consternation (I say conceptual, because most folks expressing it haven't had the opportunity to test their hypothesis) and has been involved in far too many conversations on these games without drilling down.

Here is the thing.

While it isn't actually that way, it might "feel" that way. Or you might "conceptualize that it might feel that way." Your cognitive framework might trick you into thinking that continuity and internal consistency should be fubar in these games. Its not, but I get it.

But what is true is that these games' absolute fixation on now (as prabe mentions) might take some cognitive rejiggering of your framework because you're (a) NEVER prescribing a future by referencing a past and (b) that means NEVER. Nonetheless, the past and the present will "fit." They always do. Further, in these games the past is as fundamentally a prelude to the future (and the future is as fundamentally a prelude to the past) as it gets precisely because the content of now is so heavily fixated upon...play can do nothing but just stack and stack and stack fiction and relative gamestate.

So new Story Now GMs...keep the above in mind. You or your players might need a cognitive realignment to fixate on now, stack, and let the dominoes in front of you and behind you line up (and they will insofar as its necessary for them to do so).

From the middle out!

EDIT - Fixed autocorrect (head nod)

niklinna · Jun 20, 2023

AbdulAlhazred said:
Oh! Like ACTUAL DRAMA where the question is hanging in the balance 'what kind of person am I'? Nah, that can't happen in a TTRPG! lol. I just want MOAR POWERZ and BETTER LOOTZ!

You better believe that when I get my +5 Bow of Legolas or whoever (so quick, much arrow, very sharpness) that there will HECK TO PAY.

niklinna · Jun 20, 2023

loverdrive said:
I'd say this observation holds true for most people who are new to TTRPGs.

I've pretty much never encountered newbies who didn't grok AW instantly. Have seen stables of "veterans" who can't wrap their heads around it, though. Been one of them, too.

The main thing I didn't grok about Apocalypse World when I first encounted it (in a one-shot con game), was "How do I just hit something?"

I'd been very much reduced to mechanical action thinking by prior RPG experience. It didn't help that I'd wound up with the Battlebabe playbook, which implied, you know, battle, but really wasn't actually about toe-to-toe fighting. But actual play of the game proved a powerful solvent.

niklinna · Jun 20, 2023

prabe said:
And if you do attain your goals, you'll kinda wish you hadn't.

As my Feldenkrais Method trainer used to say after nearly an our of instructing us to roll around on the floor using very slow and small movements to focus our awareness, "Now come to standing, walk around, and ask yourself, 'Was it worth it?'"

I'll spare you the details of how it generally was not, but in the end, it maybe was.

niklinna · Jun 20, 2023

Manbearcat said:
Just a quoted reply to "yup <head nod>" and post something else (unrelated, though I suspect you'll agree) that I feel needs to be placed into this thread to clarify the nature of continuity and internal consistency in Story Now games.

I was having a conversation that includes @prabe . He stated this:

I agree with prabe. This is actually a very good point to make and something that both prospective Story Now GMs and players need to have fully considered. This is a source of conceptual consternation (I say conceptual, because most folks expressing it haven't had the opportunity to test their hypothesis) and has been involved in far too many conversations on these games without drilling down.

Here is the thing.

While it isn't actually that way, it might "feel" that way. Or you might "conceptualize that it might feel that way." Your cognitive framework might trick you into thinking that continuity and internal consistency should be fubar in these games. Its not, but I get it.

But what is true is that these games' absolute fixation on now (as prabe mentions) might take some cognitive rejiggering of your framework because you're (a) NEVER prescribing a future by referencing a past and (b) that means NEVER. Nonetheless, the past and the present will "fit." They always do. Further, in these games the past is as fundamentally a prelude to the future (and the future is as fundamentally a prelude to the past) as it gets precisely because the content of now is so heavily fixated upon...play can do nothing but just stack and stack and stack fiction and relative gamestate.

So new Story Now GMs...keep the above in mind. You or your players might need a cognitive realignment to fixate on now, stack, and let the dominoes in front of you and behind you line up (and they will insofar as its necessary for them to do so).

From the middle out!

EDIT - Fixed autocorrect (head nod)

All that said, characters can and do have plans for their futures. But as in real life, you don't know that you're actually gonna get it, you have to take active steps now toward achieving that goal. But neither GM nor players have any predetermined outcomes planned in advance—or if they do in practice, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Lanefan · Jun 20, 2023

chaochou said:
Perhaps, then, you can elaborate on the excitement of painting castles pink - something you've previously highlighted from your own play, which I agree sounds like zero stakes play and - as you now acknowledge - incredibly boring.

Given as painting that castle pink (along with some other similar shenanigans) got my character feebleminded by its owner (later fixed) then exiled from that realm on pain of death if she returns, I'd say the stakes turned out to be considerably higher than zero.

Lanefan · Jun 20, 2023

AbdulAlhazred said:
Oh! Like ACTUAL DRAMA where the question is hanging in the balance 'what kind of person am I'?

That's easy. In character I'm the kind of person who...

AbdulAlhazred said:
just want MOAR POWERZ and BETTER LOOTZ!

...this.

The drama comes during the acquiring of said powerz and lootz.

(kidding, of course)

Lanefan · Jun 20, 2023

AbdulAlhazred said:
What it sounds like you are saying, but you cannot really be saying this, is that a game has to be pretty much trad like D&D or else it isn't really actually playable, and that only a few crazies really want to play a Story Now game...

Not crazies, but I do think that in comaprison to the overall hobby's player base the number of proactive enthused drama-first players is pretty small.

AbdulAlhazred said:
And if you ask me, personally, trad play VERY VERY easily slips into the mode of being low player reward!

Ah, right there is a difference - when I talk of high risk-high reward I'm looking at it from the character's viewpoint. Probably should have made that clear.

Hopefully the excitement provided by the high risk part and, if successful, the in-character high reward part is rewarding enough for the player.

AbdulAlhazred said:
You may not even realize it, the players may not even realize how small the bang is for the buck, but it happens pretty often. I'm not commenting on any particular table or any particular RPG here. I think its something that can easily happen in a lot of games. The GM is busy expostulating about setting stuff and situations that mostly arise out of that, and the players are just sort of there.

I'm not going to disagree. There's times - and they happen in any game or sport even beyond RPGs - when the action lags for a bit; and that's fine. The trick is to not let those "lag" moments become the default for play; and I've seen GMs who are good at preventing this and have also seen GMs who are not. (and I'll freely admit that I may sometimes be in the latter camp; by no means does every session go perfectly)

AbdulAlhazred said:
The easiest formula for excitement at that point is combat and loot and XP. And that's a fine model, Gary and Dave totally turned that into a very fine game.

And IMO it - plus exploration, which was also very much front and centre in the original model - still works very well as the underlying chassis on which to build.

AbdulAlhazred said:
IME you want intense risk and reward cycles, you need to focus on character up front as the driver of the whole thing. In the end, people live in their heads, and that's where the real 'action' is.

So, to get back to the OP, the obvious advice for the Story Now GM is "its never too much, focus on what the characters are, want, and do, and just keep doubling down on putting pressure on it!" When its time to narrate a scene, think of the next thing that can happen that puts some character in a pickle, and DO IT.

To me that sounds more like a recipe for constant intense stress - both on the character and the player - than a recipe for excitement; and for those (many!) of us who play the game to relax and laugh it somehow seems a counterproductive approach.

AbdulAlhazred said:
And just basically read Apocalypse World, 3 times. Its the bible, it really is. There were earlier games, they have great ideas, there's other styles of mechanics that work fine, etc. but AW is Story Now narrativist gaming boiled down to its raw essence. Understand that, everything else will follow.

And Lanefan, NOBODY rejects AW. No player will fail to be engaged by a competent narrativist GM running it clean and well. There's a very good reason the game has been going strong for almost 15 years now and has spawned 100's of children.

Though I get it that those who like it like it a lot, in its absoluteness the bolded seems a somewhat wobbly claim.

Advice for new "story now" GMs

loverdrive

Prophet of the profane (She/Her)

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun

Manbearcat

Legend

niklinna

satisfied?

niklinna

satisfied?

niklinna

satisfied?

niklinna

satisfied?

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Lanefan

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