Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Neonchameleon]

Do you ever run convention games?

Yes - and the trad games (especially D&D) are the most inorganic of the ones I run, with the scenes pre-scripted to a degree.

Meanwhile neither the Daggerheart nor the Crash Pandas or Honey Heist games I've run have needed pre-scripting. Instead the players have more agency than they do in more trad games and they can go in any direction. (Dread is somewhere in the middle).

 

[Reynard]

Yes - and the trad games (especially D&D) are the most inorganic of the ones I run, with the scenes pre-scripted to a degree.

Meanwhile neither the Daggerheart nor the Crash Pandas or Honey Heist games I've run have needed pre-scripting. Instead the players have more agency than they do in more trad games and they can go in any direction. (Dread is somewhere in the middle).

We are clearly using different definitions of organic here.

 

[Neonchameleon]

We are clearly using different definitions of organic here.

Then possibly you'd care to give your definition? As well as your definition of "story mechanics".

Mine considers e.g. most Adventure Paths to be inorganic. Because they involve pre-scripted events rather than are able to respond to the in character actions of the characters in the setting.

 

[pemerton]

Yes - and the trad games (especially D&D) are the most inorganic of the ones I run, with the scenes pre-scripted to a degree.

Meanwhile neither the Daggerheart nor the Crash Pandas or Honey Heist games I've run have needed pre-scripting. Instead the players have more agency than they do in more trad games and they can go in any direction. (Dread is somewhere in the middle).

I only have a very general sense of Daggerheart, know Honey Heist by name and that's it, and have heard of Crash Pandas for the first time in your post.

I am familiar with one type of prepared set-up for play that avoids railroading but is likely to produce a good story-type experience in an hour or three of play: namely, the charged situation that unfolds into a climax. The classic example is the Burning Wheel demo scenario The Sword <Burning Wheel The Sword Demo Adventure PDF>.

Another sort of example is any island for Agon 2e.

But the instances that I have most experience with a Prince Valiant "episodes". When these are designed well - which Greg Stafford's are (he was a genius) and some in the Episode Book are - they have the "tight in, wide out" structure that you mentioned upthread, but also the right mix of elements to produce uncertainty, opportunity, threat and climax.

As I've posted before, one of the cleverest that I've run is Jerry Grayson's The Crimson Bull. It takes full advantage of the fact that movement from place to place, in Prince Valiant, can be fully colour rather than requiring action resolution; and so it uses the PCs travel with the eponymous bull, and some events that occur during that travel, as framing and rising action without needing to railroad in the way that (say) a DL module needs to.

The convention games that I mentioned upthread - railroading for most if it, but with an open climax - are really approximations to the sort of set-up that I've described in this post. Except, because they were generally using some BRP variant (eg Stormbringer, Elric, Pendragon, CoC) it wasn't as easy to establish this sort of structure, and so the preliminary railroading was necessary.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I only have a very general sense of Daggerheart, know Honey Heist by name and that's it, and have heard of Crash Pandas for the first time in your post.

For the record:

• Daggerheart: rules light D&D meets PbtA. No moves, but success-with-consequences as a possibility on the basic roll; Genesys inspired. (IMO it does just about everything Dungeon World or 13th Age do better). Out of combat it reminds me a lot of 4e - but it's theatre of the mind with pretty slick combat
• Honey Heist: Grant Howitt one-pager; you are bears who are also criminals, trying to steal honey
• Crash Pandas: Grant Howitt one-pager. You are a team of street racing racoons in a trench coat

The last two are both ridiculous and silly games. When I run Crash Pandas it normally has two big scenes; a small one taking out one of the intended drivers and a big one using die-cast cars with the raccoons attempting to win their race (normally not ending the race in the car they started in).