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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lockridge" data-source="post: 3629163" data-attributes="member: 43850">Hmm, interesting topic although your requested limitation of other games/editions tends to limit the discussion by limiting communication by comparison.  But anyway:I find 3e does little to encourage a narrative style.  Most players I play with tend to look at new abilities as strategic advantages instead of aspects of their character's life.  Maybe I play with too many powergamers though.  There are players who look at character creation as a story and develop backgrounds to go with that story.I can't say for sure that 3e as written actually promotes narrative style.  I understand Doug's point though -depending on the type of player all of the options are narrative.  Many others view D&D as a table top strategy game where the story gets in the way and slows things down.I just had a thought: maybe we should look at the adventures instead of the rule books.  I find that many adventures are constructed as large dungeons with a small supporting story/plot.In other words the plot is your basic three point plot: 1. get hired by the king.  2. slay the dragon and 3. return for reward.  These three encounters take maybe 5% of game time.  The dragon's dungeon, tower or whatever is composed of literally 100 rooms that require strategic thought - to either dodge a trap or to fight a monster and steal its stuff.  The dungeon is more of a battleground during which there is really very little actual narrative plot - the dungeon then is a strategy game that takes 95% of the time.There are many adventures that are not quite like this but the vast majority are arena battles to some degree.  Maybe the plot is more detailed but the designers have padded it with encounters that don't really mean anything.I'd have to say that most adventures are designed to be strategy tests rather than narrative plots.I'd like to see something that takes out most of the meaningless encounters that are not necessary for plot development and replaces them with plot and plot options (no railroading please).Something like:  1. Plot hook 2. Plot twist 3. Useful encounter 4. Another plot twist 5. More clues from a useful encounter 6. Plot twist 7. Climax 8. ConclusionWith options for player creativity.So no adventure with 100 encounters 95% of which are meaningless but instead 8 to 12 meaningful encounters that build narrative.Then again is this possible:  if I create a plot in an adventure, will it be sold to thousands of people with different character concepts.  A narrative tends to require characters.  If I make the character ideas in advance I am taking away an essential element of role playing games that players enjoy.My answer after all of this is No.  Its up to the players not the game as written.</blockquote>

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